datamusicata

I am on tour in the Midwest this week and it has been an interesting experience. I played Shank Hall (www.shankhall.com) in Milwaukee, the Outpost in Egg Harbor, and Café Carpe in Ft Atkinson (www.cafecarpe.com). In all the houses the crowds were modest, tho discerning and appreciative. In terms of CD sales I did my usual fifty percent of the house.

One of the things that accounts for that is the fact that by going to many different shows and watching many different performers, I learned that constant harping about your CD’s alienates the audience. Consequently, I only do one pitch for the CD’s before the last song of each set. The pitch is a self effacing and humorous pander that amuses and engages the audience, at least enough to get them to come over and look at the CD’s.

Another thing that accounts for my remarkable sales percentage is the fact that I try to do all or at least most of the songs from the same CD. That way when the engaged audient does come up and ask which CD contains a certain song, I simply say that all of the songs I sang came from a certain CD.

That eliminates any rumination and indecision immediately. It makes it as easy as it possibly can for them to buy that CD. If you give people too many choices, then they often end up purchasing nothing, coupled with the promise that they are going to go on line and buy the CD once they’ve made up their minds.

Buying a CD at your concert is impulse buying based upon how your songs reached them and how well you performed them. In my experience, not one person who has said that they would go on my site later and buy a CD did so. I know this is so because I check to see if anyone from a certain area bought the CD at my sites. I know this because I know which towns I’ve been to and I would recognize the city if not the name.

Which reminds me of another thing that helps enormously in my impact on the audience and my CD sales. I remember peoples names. I cannot emphasize how very important it is to remember people’s names.

The other night I did a concert in San Luis Obispo. It was an intimate show with about 38 people in attendance. At the end of the show, I said goodnight to each and every one of them all by name. They actually applauded after I did that. They thought that it was a magic trick.

And it is not actually difficult to do. Here is how I remember their names. On the break, between the sets, I go out into the audience and I ask people their names as I shake their hands, then I look in their eyes still holding their hands as I say their name back to them. Somehow that seems to be enough for me to remember their name, if not in the long term, at least in the short term.

The reason that I first became interested in learning people’s names came from an experience I had as a teenager. I may have told you this, but, when I was sixteen I was working with a fake ID in a club in Virginia Beach called The Shadows. A band came to town called The Gateway Trio. The bass player, one Milt Chapman (previously of the Hi-Lo type group called The Axidentals), was very kind to me during their run at the club. He made me feel like a peer and a friend and not just a sixteen year old kid.

The next year when the group returned to the club, I was again working their and was standing at the top of the long set of stairs at the entrance of the club when they came in. I casually came down the stairs and tried to act nonchalant, even though I was beside myself with excitement. My heart was pounding like crazy just at the thought of being around them again and hearing them perform. I didn’t think that anyone would remember me, so I tried to maintain a low profile.

Suddenly, Milt called out, “Young Jim!” and came up to me. I was so very thrilled I thought my spine was going to shoot out through the top of my head. And I remember thinking that when I was famous, I was going to to that, too. I was going to remember people’s names. And it makes people feel great about themselves and about you.

It isn’t hard to be kind and it isn’t hard to make people feel good and that goes a long way towards encouraging them to give your music a chance. It is truly a win win situation. Care about your audience as people and they will care about you.

I am not talking about faking sincerity here. I am talking about genuinely caring about your audience, displaying your gratitude for their patronage and the incredible gift of their time that they are offering you. It is humbling.