Making It in the Music Industry with Artist Manager Milan Ackerman
Milan Ackerman is a serial entrepreneur and investor, best known as the artist manager for rap superstar Russ. Milan discovered Russ on SoundCloud in 2014 and helped propel him to multi-platinum status with several Billboard Top 100 singles. Today, Milan is the CEO of M-Pack Entertainment, one of the most successful independent music management companies.
Milan is the definition of persistence. In this conversation, Milan shares how to leverage the internet to build your personal brand, what it means to make it today in music and media, how to reverse engineer your dreams, and a day in the life of the manager of a touring superstar.
See above for video, and below for audio, resources mentioned, and conversation transcript.
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Topics:
(01:42) The role of music
(11:54) Drive and persistence
(13:46) The early days with Russ
(32:38) Keeping the details straight on tour
(35:23) The role of the artist manager
(38:17) Keeping Russ and the team focused on the vision
(53:04) A day in the life
(56:09) Building an online persona
(01:15:43) Advice for taking the leap into a new career
Conversation Transcript:
Note: transcript slightly edited for clarity.
Chris (00:04): Welcome to Forcing Function Hour, a conversation series exploring the boundaries of peak performance. Join me, Chris Sparks, as I interview elite performers to reveal principles, systems, and strategies for achieving a competitive edge in business. If you are an executive or investor ready to take yourself to the next level, download my workbook at experimentwithoutlimits.com. For all episodes and show notes, go to forcingfunctionhour.com.
Today I'm joined by Milan Ackerman. Milan is the CEO of M-Pack Entertainment and the artist manager for the rap superstar, Russ. Now, if you're not a hip-hop fan, that name might not mean a lot to you, but this is a big deal. Russ is a multi-platinum selling artist with over six billion streams. Russ recently landed in Forbes's list of top twenty hip-hop earners.
Our topic for today is the business of music. Milan has been successful as a music promoter, a booking agent, a tour manager, an artist manager, and now he is the CEO of an artist management company. Today Milan will be sharing his strategies for breaking through the noise no matter what industry you are in. Today we are going to be exploring how to leverage the internet so that you can build your personal brand online, what it means to make it today in music and in media, how to reverse-engineer your dreams, and a day in the life of the manager of a touring superstar.
Without further ado, enjoy this conversation with Milan Ackerman.
Milan (01:36): Absolutely, bro. Thanks for having me and thanks for getting this out of me.
Chris (01:42): Let's start by learning a little bit about you, how you got here. What role does music play in your life?
Milan (01:49): Oh, man, music's a huge part of my life. Always has been. Hip-hop has been a huge part of my life. So I—That's kind of how I came up. I was just super interested in getting involved in the music business. I didn't know how. And I think it started—The itch was I saw this Drake show.
So, I grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, which I think is a small city. But you know, if you look back, seven hundred thousand people live there, so it's a pretty decent-sized city. But I saw Drake perform at this small venue before he put out his debut album, and it was like, "Oh." That's what hit me. I was like, "I have to do this." I wanted to do that exact same thing the next summer, so I figured out throughout that whole year how to do it, and by the next summer, I had produced my first show.
So, I really got into doing this by playing every role, and the first role was the only role I could think of by getting into the music industry was, "I gotta bring a rapper to my city." That's what I thought. And so it took me some time. I tried a little bit before, but was unsuccessful. But that summer when I saw Drake's show I was—I had this ambition like I had never had before to make this happen. So that was kinda like the first itch that I had to make things shake. And then by that summer, I had produced my first show, which was absolutely, you know, the most successful show that's happened in that city, and that was so successful I had to do a second show in the same week. So. But that—There's a lot of things leading up to it that got me there, and a lot of failures beforehand that I haven't touched on that made that whole thing happen. So.
But, yeah. Music's been a huge part of my life. My grandparents play music, my whole family has been in the music—Not the music business, but have been musical their whole lives. So it's just been a part of me. You know, I've been playing piano since I've been a kid, spend—My mom's had music in the house. You know, so it's just been a huge part of me.
Chris (03:43): Tell me about producing that first show in Winnipeg. You're guaranteeing tickets, you're putting your reputation, your capital on the line, who knows who's going to show up, how it's going to go. What's going through your mind at this point?
Milan (03:58): Okay. So lemme just take—Add a caveat to that, where my first show was like about a year before that, and it was like, the biggest failure ever. So, I had gotten in touch with this artist that I was obsessed with, and I was able to book him and bring him to my city for a couple grand, and a couple grand at the time was like a million dollars to me. You know, it was like—It was a lot of money to just give to an artist to come here, book the venue. So that failed miserably. I had like fifty people come, all my friends and stuff. But I've never—I've always had an enthusiasm for failing, just 'cause I wasn't the best student in school. I just knew it from a young age. So I was like—I was failing in high school. You know, I didn't like work, marks-wise. So for me, it was kind of like failing wasn't an issue. You know, so I did that, I failed with enthusiasm, I picked back up, and I was like, "I gotta do it again." So when I saw that concert, I had the itch.
And I was never a promoter. I was just like this, I'm a kid with a dream. So my dream was to put on this show. So I had found this venue I wanted to do it at in the city, and I put down a deposit, like five hundred bucks. And I remember my parents cosigned on a line of credit for me. So, I was writing a check from a line of credit. So I didn't even—I had just enough cash to pay the artist a deposit. And so I had basically had the show up on sale with the deposit. It was Mac Miller. So Mac Miller was like at the time, he was the hottest commodity, but I think a lot of people didn't see it coming. Like, I knew it was happening, because I heard a lot of my friends and people in the community talking about it, but I don't think the big-time promoters like Live Nation or AEG—it wasn't really on their radar.
So I got in touch with his agent. I was persistent as shit. Like, really, really persistent, to a point where he called me one day and he was like, "You're the most persistent dude I've ever met in my life." And he's like, "I'm gonna give you this show, and if you mess it up, you're blackballed." So I kinda had that dark energy on my shoulders where I was like, "If I don't do this right for any reason, like, I'll never do this again." So that was—I needed that from him. And he and I ended up working together many, many more times. You know? But that gave me the inspiration to, like, "Hey, I'm gonna go put everything on the line here, and I'm gonna take the risk of my life and do it right."
So, yeah. I wasn't a promoter. I put this up on Facebook. I made a group. You know, like one of those event groups and sent it to all my friends, and within twenty-four hours—I think the show sold out within less than twenty-four hours. And you know, I made—I doubled my money that I was going to invest, and it was so successful that the agent called me and he was like, "Do you want to do a second show?" So I was like, "I don't have the re—" You know, of course, I said, "Of course I will." So I didn't have the resources to do a second show.
So, just to break it down for anyone who doesn't know how this works, you need to have cash. You need to have capital, right, to be able to cover deposits, guarantees, and production. So that was my first time really raising money. I had to go to a friend of mine that was always kind of in my ear like, "Hey, I'm the money guy. I have money." I was the idea guy, so I was lucky to have a friend at the time who was willing to bankroll the second show, and I brought him in as a partner, and it gave me the experience of raising money for the first time. You know, now you have not only your money but you got your friend's money you're responsible for.
And at the time my brother, who's now a partner in my business, worked with me, you know, every day, and he's part of the company. I was nineteen, he was sixteen. Or, fifteen turning sixteen. And he had a little bit of money in like a savings that my parents controlled—were, like, investing. We both had Bar Mitzvahs. So we basically used our Bar Mitzvah money. Like, our parents were like, "This is for school." And when I knew I wasn't going to school, I convinced my mom like, "Mom, I'm being an entrepreneur, so I need my money so I can flip my money." So I convinced—I pitched my mom, convinced my mom to let my brother invest in the show. And so I had my brother invest, my friend invest, and we made it happen, man, and we sold the second show out as soon as it went up on sale.
So that was like the pivotal changing moment of my life, where this was actually a reality. So I'm dealing with agents, dealing with managers of the artist, dealing with the artist directly, and now learning how to, like, how to interact with them. You know, 'cause you're on eggshells, really, the whole time. You—First time doing it, you know, this is the star you look up to, you're just nervous to be around him. So just how to communicate, how to deal with it, what are they looking for. So yeah, that was like my first real trial and error of getting into the music business.
Chris (08:33): What an incredible story of self-belief. And I think this thread of persistence really is a common one for your successes and what you and Russ have been able to pull off together. And someone really needed to take a chance on you, needed to believe that you could do something that you hadn't pulled off before, and you took full advantage of that opportunity and used it to propel yourself into an industry that, you know, at the time maybe you had no business being in, but once you'd done it once—
Milan (09:05): Absolutely.
Chris (09:06): —It's very easy to do it again.
Milan (09:07): Exactly. And you know, the same effects. So like it wasn't just this one agent, 'cause you can't—Just 'because you have a relationship with one agent doesn't mean you've made it, right? So there was this legendary agent, her name is Cara Lewis. She's like the most powerful agent in the world. She was doing Eminem, Kanye West. So that's who I was always trying to get in touch with, 'cause she always had the biggest stars.
So I was trying to figure out for years how to get in touch with her. Fast-forward, I work with her. I've been working with her for seven years now. And she's the agent of Russ, so she's like—You know, I've worked with her throughout his whole career and prior, but that's one of those things where I would hit her up every day and her assistant to a point where I started to figure out, "Whoa, wait a second. She won't answer my emails, but the assistant will, so I gotta make friends with the assistant." So I would do everything from—Man, I sent flowers one time to the assistant. Like, I would do anything just to get a response. So back then nobody would take me seriously. I was pretending I was much bigger than I was, and you kind of have to fake it 'til you make it. But by the time that she took me seriously, it was like I had already done a few shows, you know, and she had a client that was coming through Canada and she let me bid on it.
So it was kind of like one of those things where I planted the seed years before, and by the time that it was—Okay, I had this small little tree that sprouted. She gave me an opportunity and I had the framework in place to actually see it through. And then after that, you know, me and her, I would go to New York and I'd go meet with her and she really gave me an opportunity, and then fast-forward, we've almost been working a decade. And you know, has really been one of the pivotal factors of like, you know, Russ being able to have such a strong touring career is we worked with her from the beginning using our data. We're analytics-driven, so we would tell her, "Hey, this is where the streams are coming from," and she would get us a venue in the market and an offer and we would go play it. So she believed in us super early. But she believed in me early, too, I just had to prove it. You know, kind of like anything.
People knock on my door all day, but you know, unless I've seen them knock a few times I probably won't pay attention, to be honest. And it's not, it has nothing—You know, nothing against them. It's just, sometimes you need to be so persistent where you knock the door down, to a point where it's like—like that agent circled back and said to me, "You're the most persistent dude I've ever met." It's almost annoying them so much that they can't get rid of you. They have to acknowledge you. So that's kind of been my whole career up until when I had the framework to basically base things off of.
But yeah, that's like the initial start to this whole thing.
Chris (11:54): But where do you think this drive, this persistence comes from? I mean, it's certainly not the natural default. What do you think sets you apart?
Milan (12:02): Yeah. Well, I think, honestly, it came from failing. It's getting used to failing, is the best way of explaining it. It's not being concerned about what other people think. I used to maybe—maybe when I was younger I cared a lot what other people were thinking, and then I think there was—I'm trying to think back of like, was it one time that the switch flipped? I think it was honestly failing enough times where I knew failing was kind of like the default setting, so I was almost like—You know, I can imagine with you, you publicly speak a lot. You know, I don't do that as much. So if I have to go speak in front of a hundred people, it would probably take me a second to feel comfortable. You know, like I'd be nervous. And not that I'm nervous right now, but it's like this is the first time I'm doing something like this. But me and you have a friendship. We're friends outside of this. So you and I, it's easy to have a conversation with you. But it's getting comfortable being uncomfortable. So as soon as I was able to be comfortable being uncomfortable, I think that's when everything just started to unravel for me.
And I learned from a young age of like, I am a serial entrepreneur and that comes with kind of like the ADD mentality of I want to do everything. So it's like, I have all these other opportunities that are coming in at that time, and I'm trying to do them too while I'm doing this, and I'm realizing that they're failing because I'm not able to put a hundred percent of my time and energy into it. So as soon as I put a hundred percent of my time and energy into something, that's when I hit the jackpot. And I realized that.
So, same thing with Russ. When I found Russ, I put a hundred percent of my everything into him, and I haven't looked back, you know, seven years later. Six and a half years later.
Chris (13:46): How did the two of you guys connect? Tell me about the early days of your guys' relationship.
Milan (13:49): Sure. Yeah. So, we connected on the internet. You know, the beautiful internet, where a friend of mine had sent me—I think it was his SoundCloud. He had eleven albums, independent albums that he had put out prior to me even knowing about him. So a friend of mine—I was kind of in the hustle game of trying to—I was trying to find Russ, if that makes sense. I was, my goal—I was super inspired by guys like Scooter Braun, who had found a guy like Justin Bieber, you know, he was an absolute nothing, and took him all the way to create him into a legacy act. So, that was always one of my goals. So when I found Russ, I knew right away that he was an anomaly, just 'cause he produced everything himself, he wrote everything himself, he engineered everything himself, he even did the mixing and mastering. And for me that was like—I hadn't seen that since Kanye West. You know, and even Kanye has a lot of people around him, so I was like, "I haven't even seen this ever."
And his beats sounded like Dr. Dre beats, but he's very melodic, so he was able to switch back and forth from rap to R&B, and that's something that I knew right away, I was like, "This is it." So I reached out to Russ and, yeah, the internet. I kinda sent him an email, a cold email, and then received one back, and then there was an opportunity to link up. And I had flown him—I was living in Toronto at the time. I had flown him to Toronto to get him in the studio, just kinda meet with me and hang out with me for a weekend. So that was the first time we met, was probably three, four months after I reached out, and then about seven months after that is where he and I actually really sat down, were like, "Let's do this. Let's take it all the way."
Chris (15:25): Why do you think it was so important that you guys were friends before business partners? The movies would find you, "Hey, you find this great talent and then immediately get him in the boardroom and get some ink on the paper," but with you guys, it was very much getting to know each other before working together. Why was that so important?
Milan (15:43): Well, I think that was super important to him. It was important to me, too. I realized it over time. Like, I didn't want to rush into this, just like anything. Like, I learned from experience. So by that time I had already been kinda—I'd say I'm eleven years into this, in the music business. So I started, my first show was 2010. So, eleven, twelve years. So I was about five years into this, you know, with experience. I had already been on the road with artists, I was managing other artists at the time. So he was a very unique person, where he didn't like titles, he had trust—technically, trust issues at the beginning. But he was just smart. He's like me. He's like—he knew that there were a lot of snakes out in this business, and there's a lot of people trying to leech off future success, and I think it was important with him to build friendship and trust prior. For me, too.
And once I knew that, I was like—you know, that's all I wanted. I wasn't trying to be—I knew I wasn't gonna make money off of this for a while. I was fortunate where I had worked and saved enough money where I knew I had, like, let's say six months of, I didn't need to make money for six months. I had saved, banked up enough money where I was like, "If things don't work out in the next six months, well, I'll go back to the drawing board." You know? So it was nice where I had a bit of a cushion at the time. The cushion back then is way different than I would think of, you know, like looking back, I'm like, "That was still a huge risk." You know?
But yeah, like little things like flying him to certain places, and helping cover hotels, and going—I used my resources to like, we met with different lawyers. We met with business managers. So I wanted him to make sure that his finances were right, you know, all the technicalities behind it were right, and he had his legal team right, prior to even doing business with a label, with a publisher, with an agent, or myself. So the first and foremost was like, "Hey."
The first thing he said to me was, "Why do I need a business manager? I don't have money." You know, like, "I don't even have the money yet." So I was like, "You'd be surprised, because when the money comes in it's just going to flow. It's going to be like light speed. You won't even know it hit you." So he's blessed now that's the case, but at the time it was a struggle even getting him to trust financial, you know, and accountants to even be opening up accounts and starting companies for him. So. But that was like, you know, already about six months into our relationship, but I just think that me and him—We knew how big this was going to become, and we just wanted to make sure that we were the right fit.
And there were times when we would butt heads on a couple things, 'cause he had wanted things at the time that he thought were important that weren't. You know, like—Same for me, like, in my world where it's like you want to be the biggest thing ever, but you're over here. So an example would be he had a thousand followers, right, but he wanted Billboard to do a story on him, right? Or he wanted this blog to talk about this. And it's kind of the reality check of like, "Well, it's gonna come, but that's not what's going to change the outcome of your success or get you fans." You know, and I think over time he realized that he chased a lot of these—He would inquire. He would send emails—And this is before my time with him, but he would hit up all of these different blogs, telling them, "Listen to my music. You know, can you support, post—"
And then you fast forward a few years later when people started to catch onto the music. The music just spoke for itself. He realized that it was never about them, it was always about, you know, the people. And now you look back, it's like they just support organically, but a lot of these guys who didn't support kind of look crazy, because they have emails from him begging them to listen to their music and to support, and they look back, like, "Damn." Like, "I didn't support you." And there was kinda like—You know, there was a sour taste in his mouth for a long time, like, you know, "Well, why didn't you?" And I think he grew and understood that, like, you know, this is what we all go through, man. This is the tsunami of like, they aren't going to really support you until you prove you're worthy of it.
And so it's like my, "If you build it they'll come." So we just built this massive enterprise, and I think now there's nothing you can't not do to support it. Like, it's just—It's in your face, and you can't do anything about it.
That's like my mentality. Even with the shows, it's like, I wanted to work with these big promoters. The only way to get there was to show them that I could do it myself. You know? So, yeah, then they all started to come and wanted to work with me. And that's when I realized this wasn't for me. This was not the business, the promoting business was not for me.
Chris (20:23): So, yeah. Before we get into management, I mean, promoting is herding cats. Right? You plant a flag, "Hey, this thing is happening," and you gotta fill the room. What did you learn from that experience about how to fill the room?
Milan (20:37): I think a lot comes down to the product. So, who's the product that you're—Like, the artist, right, but like what are you selling? And if you didn't have a following, like myself—Like, I didn't have a big social media following or anything. So it was like, how do I put people on to understand that this is even happening? So I found people who had the following, and I would involve them in my show. So, you know, if you were a local promoter and you had three thousand people that follow your list or follow your text list or your social media, I would bring them on and I'd figure out a way to, you know, make them a partner in the show. If it's like, "I'll give you three hundred tickets," or, "You make money with me." So I had to really do some growth hacks.
You know, and I think a lot of it too was, there was a bunch after where I failed too. Where it's like, I broke even and I didn't make money. But I was strictly going off of like the product itself. I was using Facebook, and I was spending—I was doing Facebook ads and stuff like that. So I was learning that—It was actually cheap to spend on ads back then, versus now today. But I also think it's a lot of—I was doing a lot of digital stuff, and a lot of people weren't. So in 2010, I already had—I was selling tickets from my own website, so I partnered with a local ticket company. 'Cause Ticketmaster takes like these ten, twelve dollar fees. And I wanted a piece of that, too, 'cause I was trying to cover my bottom line, 'cause I knew that my margins weren't so high. So I partnered with a local company, and they basically were like, "We don't do any ticket surcharges, but you can do a surcharge. You know, you can charge three bucks and that goes in your pocket." So I was like, "Oh, damn."
So then I figured out, I partnered with them, I hosted everything from my own website. It was like, mpackentertainment.com. And I sold tickets from there. So I was building my IP from the beginning, and then once I started to see all the clicks come in, I was kinda, like, I was doing everything where I was even selling ads on my website. You know, so I had figured out other ways to hack the system to make some extra money to pay for the things that I didn't necessarily have, you know, like the promotional resources and stuff like that.
But yeah, I knew going into it that I had no clout when it came to doing this. I was kinda like, I'm that new kid and no one really takes me seriously. But you know, another caveat to that is this kid who reached out to me, he was like sixteen at the time, he was in high school, and he's like, "Hey, I could sell three hundred tickets for you." I was like, "Oh, shit." So I gave this kid a shot. And he sold more than three hundred. He sold five hundred tickets, like, from his school, just from social media and all these different things. So I gave him an opp—And he was the only promoter that sold tickets at that show. I just felt it in my gut, I was like, "I wanna give this kid an opportunity, and maybe I can mentor him to also become, you know, get into this business." So that was his passion. He ended up getting into it.
Fast-forward ten years later, he works for my management company, he's on the road with me, and he's coming on tour in three weeks. Or two weeks. On the road. And he's like our executive assistant, and it's just you know, I'm blessed to have him involved and part of the team now, where back in the day he was just this kid who reached out to me, a cold email, just how I was, persistent. So I saw myself in him and gave him an opportunity, and now he works with me full-time. So, crazy.
Chris (23:52): Deliver results, people will find a spot for you. Man, this notion of "what are you selling," I think, applies to a lot. Just thinking about, when you're trying to get someone to buy-in, it's, what exactly is that product? So you're transitioning to management at this point. Tell me a little bit about the early days.
Milan (24:11): Yeah, I'll tell you. So I transitioned from promoting shows to booking shows. So I had met a couple people on the East Coast that were doing the same thing. So I had—Along the way of, I would say, just like mastering the game—It's like Mastermind. So I had my brother, who's also super passionate. So me and him would just bounce these ideas off each other. And I had found, "Okay, these are the clubs in every city that do the shows." Right? So I got to find out, "Who are the talent buyers?" So I found out who the talent buyers were, and I basically reverse-engineered it, where I was like, "Hey, I'm now talking with this agent. I can sell you the show, 'cause I have the show here." So I ended up booking the shows across Canada, instead of just locally. So I built a little booking agency.
Nothing crazy. You know, like I probably did like ten shows a year, which was enough to like—I was making a decent living off of it. And one of the artists that I had booked, I had gone on the road with. Like, I basically, it was my biggest one. And I was like—I rented the car, I was even driving them to a couple cities. I was driving a Sprinter van. I was like the tour manager, they didn't have a tour representative, I was booking the hotels. I just needed to—It was like—You know the movie, Get Him to the Greek? You know, with Jonah Hill? It was literally that. I had to just make sure that I got this guy to the show, every show. So I was like, "I'll do anything. I'll fly with him, whatever." So I took all the money I made off of the commissions of selling the shows, and I reinvested it by putting myself on the road. And that stemmed into the artist basically saying, "Yo, I want you to come on this tour with me." So I ended up going with him to Europe. And then I went to America.
And by that time, I was like, "I gotta move to LA." My aunt lived in LA. She would let me stay with her off and on. And then at that time I was like, "I think I've gotta be in LA. Just 'cause this is kinda where everything's happening." So I went from promoting shows to booking shows to now I'm on the road with artists. You know, and I think the word just spread, so that led to another artist who was like, "Hey, come with me." "Hey, can you help me with this?" And then I think a lot of people started to realize, "Whoa, you are really good at communicating, and you're good at emails and the back end, you know, you know so much about the business behind it." I was like, "Well, I did everything." You know, leading up to this, I kinda learned it all myself. I went to school in my—I gave myself schooling. You know, I was on the internet every day, I was researching, I was just keeping my data and you know, kind of basing everything off of historical work that I had done. And like, that's how I would move forward. I had like—Anything I didn't know, I'd figure it out.
So I had some good mentors in my life that were kind of helping. They were entrepreneurs, and they were helping me. A lot of them were like, "What the hell are you doing?" They didn't understand it. But that really gave me the enthusiasm to be like, "Nah." Like, "I can do this." Anyone who was kinda hating on what I was doing, I knew right away that's like, I was here for a reason.
Chris (27:05): Yeah. It does seem to me that having done all of the aspects is very helpful when you start to build an organization, when you start to manage, because at a certain point you can't handle all these details yourself. So having worked on the promoting side, having worked on the booking side, having gone on tour, you could have the processes in place, first-hand knowledge how things should be done, be able to communicate those to the people who are on the ground floor, execution, and keep yourself out of those executional details so you can focus on maintaining the big picture.
It's interesting, I see this pattern where a lot of these early experiences become very complimentary, where a lot of the opportunity resides at the intersections of having all these different experiences together. Is that something that you found as well?
Milan (28:00): Absolutely. That's actually what makes me a better CEO today for my company and for Russ's company, is everything that led up to this. That for me is what creates the magic. You know, I think no one can fool me. No one can fool us when it comes to the back end of the business, because I've played all the roles, so I think that's a definite "yes." And like on the touring side, it started off with me and him, so just like me and him would go on the road, then we brought a videographer, then we brought security. But having the experience of like, "This is how the show actually gets created." From the ground up. From booking the artist to producing the show to marketing the show to actually like, when the people are in the venue, even keeping them safe. You know, from the security aspect to like—There's just so much to it, to actually settling after and being able to pay the artist. So, like, how does it all work?
So the most important thing to me was to articulate that to Russ when I started working with him, so he understood from the ground up how this all worked. I think he noticed from a really—From even the first show, because I really instilled with him, it's all based on capacity and ticket prices. So you can never—You know, you see artists out here saying they're making all this money, and that's cool and all, 'cause a lot of artists can just go to a club and pick up, you know, a big bag, but what's really important in the touring business is what's the capacity of the show, and how much is the ticket price? Right? So if it's a four-hundred-cap venue, and the ticket price is twenty, it's eight grand that you can gross. Right? So as a promoter, you can't think you're gonna make ten grand if you're just grossing eight grand. Right? You can't afford to pay the artist eight grand if your gross is eight grand. You can probably afford to pay three. You know, twenty-five hundred, or four, 'cause all the expenses that make it up. So we would receive offers, and they would seem low, but if you break it down, this is why they are this.
You know, so he and I weren't afraid to go do a hundred-cap venue in Glasgow that paid us two hundred bucks, you know, because we knew, "Hey, if we go put a hundred people in this room, next time we'll be able to put three hundred." You know, so we based our entire hard-ticket touring off of that. We started from literally nothing. Like, it was like three hundred tickets in LA. It's moved all the way up to sixteen thousand today. You know, so it went from three hundred to six hundred to twenty-five hundred to five thousand, and then we made a big leap where it was like five thousand to—So we did two five thousand shows, at the time, to Staples Center, thirteen thousand. And now he's playing the Hollywood Bowl for sixteen thousand. But that all—I find that the more shows you do, they domino effect into the next. So a lot of people are afraid to, "Hey, I'm going to go do the show, and it might not—Just, I put five hundred people, maybe next time it's not going to be five hundred, it's going to be three hundred, so let's do the same room."
No. The goal is to—You keep the same ticket price, and you scale up. And you use your historical data to base you know, where you should be touring and how you should be receiving and vetting offers. So a lot of it came from understanding the business behind shows, and understanding, "Okay, this is what you pay for like production sound and lights. Right?" Some venues come with sound and lights. So they call that a House Nut. You gotta pay for things like the rent or the House Nut. Some venues don't. Right? So you're going to have to bring in sound and lights, and this is what it costs. And this is what it costs to make your show look extravagant, right? And it affects your bottom line.
So we were always running tour budgets from the beginning, and that was super significant to me, like knowing, "Okay, what's your net?" Knowing how much everything costs, what actually makes a show on the back end, with expenses and ticket prices and capacities. That's really important, when it comes to touring. It's not like, how much am I going to make, it's really based off of like, "Hey, what's the framework of this?" And then we approach it like that. Unless it's a radio show or a private show where they have a sponsor who just comes in with some money. Then you have to look at it differently, but when it comes down to, you know, us doing a hard ticket show, it's really based on analytics and data.
Chris (32:38): What comes across to me is just you look at a tour and every single show is a project on its own. A separate partnership, separate budget, separate constraints, things you have to work with and deal with and different people to collaborate with, different factors, different constraints. And there's a lot of details that need to be thought about, planned, and a lot of boxes to check. You personally—How do you keep track of all the million things that are happening on a tour, for example? How do you keep the details straight?
Milan (33:05): So, I have a great team. We've scaled. You know, I have a tour manager, I have a production manager. So there's about thirty-eight of us on the road now. So like, it's insane. There's like nine on the production side, there's like seven techs. We bring our own sound, our own lights, our own stage. But it started off where we would just come with me and a laptop. Me, Russ, and a laptop. So, times have changed. But we create tour budgets, but more so—I think tech. Between tech and just having the great, the right resources in place now, everything seems to just be very fluid and not all over the place. So there was a really cool piece of tech that I wish I had started, or invested in, called Master Tour. Genius. And it allows you, the whole tour, to use this app. You go to schedule there, you have all the details of a tour in this one platform, and everyone has access, too. From like load-in, load-outs schedule to, you know, just different things, depending on what your role is. You can basically go in there and it's all accessible for you in that one app.
So, tech helps. But also just having the right team in place. You know, that took years to really develop. But you know, a lot of it is just you have a schedule that you have to follow. Getting used to being really punctual, and kinda embracing that schedule and understanding that that's part of the flow, just like anything. Like, you know, like working out every day, or whatever you plan on doing. You have a show that day, but like there's certain things that we got to. So, sound check. Very important. You know, 'cause you don't wanna just jump out to a crowd of thousands of people and, you know, potentially everything is—It could be any flaw, or anything's messed up. So that's important. The load-in, specific time is very important. The time you leave the venue or the city the night before is really important. Rest, obviously. Eating is very important. So there's a lot of things, but I've scaled it out where I have a great staff now, and it allows me to still manage the business while being on the road.
I'm no longer playing ten different hats on the road. I get to be myself. I mean I, you know, I travel with Russ everywhere, but it just allows me to like, you know, still manage the in-flow of calls and emails and inquiries as we're flowing on the road and doing, you know, a million things at once.
Chris (35:23): We're talking about roles, having some really good specialists now on the team. If you had to define your role as manager in one sentence, how would you do that?
Milan (35:35): CEO. There are a lot of people that make up this, you know, this success. But I would just say I am still as persistent as I've ever been. I'm more ambitious than I've ever been, and I'm living—I just am conscious of the fact that I'm living the dream. My dream. Which is, you know, I'm doing this for real. Like I'm literally in—It's tough to, when you're in it, to kind of press the pause button and look around you and see like, "Whoa, this is what we created." But I have such gratitude for that every day. So I—I start my day off, a hundred percent, with the gratitude of, like, you know, it's less pressure. You know, it's more like being the captain of your own ship is just like—There is a lot of pressure, but it's the most gratitude I've ever had, 'cause that's all I ever wanted, and I'm just blessed that, yeah. That I understand the landscape of everything that we're doing, and now I can basically—As I scale this out with staff, with other team members that we start to bring on, other artists, other—You know, whatever it is, you know, producers that we were talking about earlier, I can apply this same structure to that and their business.
But yeah, it's like, you know, I think CEO. Would say that. Just because sometimes you know, you can't—You have to put out fires, but you can't really—You're not dealing with everything anymore, like super hands-on. Like sometimes it's going through people before it comes to me. So it's really just like making sure you have the right people in place. That's as important as anything, I feel like, 'cause we're all about integrity. My biggest—I don't wanna say "fear," but like the biggest pet peeve is being blindsided with something. So I try to avoid getting blindsided, and I think a lot of that is asking the right questions, right, being conscious of the landscape, of like, "I'm already thinking of all the blindsided things that could happen," that being on the road, that being, you know, during the day.
Like, even before getting on this call or, you know, doing this convo, I had already put out some fires today, but I had done it in a way of like, I knew I had this commitment, so I basically—I've manipulated my schedule today to kind of revolve around this, and to give myself the free time. Obviously, there's calls that come in, and different things, but I have certain people in place that are doing the things right now that I may have had to do. And that just comes from like giving some people some trust without giving them the benefit of the doubt, and then once they've earned it, kind of putting them in place.
So, a lot of it is, yeah, CEO, the situation at all times.
Chris (38:17): Love to expand on that, in terms of the role of the CEO. At Forcing Function, I like to think that the CEO has two things that only the CEO can do, no one else. And the first one is vision, is laying out a really defined, specific, articulate vision of where the organization, where the company is going, what those steps are to get there, and to anticipate what could take us off-track. You mentioned not getting blindsided. "If we were to not achieve this vision, what would that reason be?" The second I'd say is resource allocation, where at any time there's just unlimited opportunities to pursue, but very limited resources, time, attention, personnel with which to pursue those opportunities, so needing to decide what opportunities have the highest potential ROI.
So, I know for you it's no different. There's so many things that you guys could be doing as an artist, as an organization, and needing to be very particular about what you choose to pursue. How do you keep Russ focused? How do you keep your team focused on that vision?
Milan (39:28): I think, yeah, it's a definite aim, I think, is like how we keep everyone focused, is knowing what we're doing this for, realistically, and like the definite aim, how it can be—It could be multiple things, but I think it's like the common goal of like, "This is what we're trying to achieve." And we reverse-engineer everything from there. Like, how do we get there, and what makes up that definite aim.
So, an example would be number one—Like, our definite aim currently is a number one Billboard record. Like a number one single on the Billboard Hot 100. So, wild story, this was a conver—You know, we started the year, we start the year off always with a new definite aim. This year it was that. This is the year that Russ wanted to break into the Hot 100 as an independent artist and get the number one song. So that's a huge feat for us, because I don't think it's been done, to be honest. I have to go look at the historical data for an independent artist. I don't think it's been done. But regardless of if it's been done or not, we're gonna make it happen, and a lot of that comes from—There's two things. It's, okay, what makes up a number one song? Right? So you know, it comes from streams, sales, radio. You know, you gotta have a big record. But a lot of it comes from the energy that goes into manifesting what you're looking to achieve. So that's what we're looking to achieve.
So instead of shooting duds, you know, like before we would just release a ton of songs, and we just kinda let the universe, you know, do its thing. Like, "Here are the songs. And have fun." It's like, you guys, if one goes crazy and blows up, great. If it doesn't, great. We're gonna keep putting out music.
So that's one thing that Russ has never been, you know, afraid to do is just put his best foot forward, and he makes an abundance of music. So he just puts it out, and he lets his fan base consume it, and then they dictate which is the—They elect what's the single.
So we use a lot of the data to base our decisions off of. Right? So if a song is doing really well, that's where the marketing budget will go. So, we kind of did things a little bit differently this time. We, with definite aim, knew we wanted to achieve this number one song, so instead of shooting the duds, we're going to basically figure out, okay, what is the—We're going to release songs that we know are—We're going to take bigger swings. Right? Instead of swinging for first base, we're actually going to swing for the grand slam, and then by swinging for the grand slam, you gotta get someone on first base, second base, and third, right, and then you gotta hit that outta the park. So it's really just lining things up.
And a lot of that is, do you have the right resources in place? Like, do you have the right digital marketing team in place? Do you have the right radio team in place? You know, do you have the right mindset, head space in place? So, we started the year off with that headspace. He decided, "Hey, this is my goal." He's done everything from quit drinking, he's now watching what he eats, so he's changed his diet completely. He's lost twenty pounds. He's measuring his macros, he's basically on a calorie—He's calorie-deficient, so he's basically watching everything he eats, he weighs everything. So we're applying the same elements to like his career. Right? The right decisions when it comes to the press looks for this op or that op, and making sure that when we do—Trying things out, and understanding that like the data drives everything. So you put a song out on TikTok, it started to go crazy, the fans are demanding it, that's when we put the song out. Right? So we put the song out. It's doing extremely well now. Fast forward from the definite aim convo, three months later we got the number one digital sales song of the week like three weeks ago. So it's not the number one Billboard song, but it's number one digital sales on the Billboard.
So that's never happened ever in his career. So just an example of how quickly this energy can get reciprocated is, that was all manifested. Like, that's all like, "This is what we want to do, world." You know. And I don't care what's in our way, we're gonna get there, we're gonna figure it out. And a lot of it is like reverse-engineering. So finding out like, okay, in order to get the biggest, the most sales or the most streams, you need to have X amount of—So it's gotta be going crazy over here. You gotta take it to the radio. Radio accounts for like sixty percent of the Billboard charts. Right? So if you don't have your—If your song's not on radio, how can you think that you're even going to accomplish that? Right?
So when we're doing budgets at the beginning of the year, like allocating X amount for radio, X amount for digital marketing. And, you know, oh, the song's reacting over here. We'll, you know, put some money into it over here versus over here, because we'd be shooting duds over here. You know, so a lot of it is, yeah, I think I may have gone off course a little bit, but it's a definite aim, and not taking your eyes off the prize. And you know, it might take years for it to happen, it might never happen. Right? But that's not how we feel, like, internally. Like, every day we think, "Today's the day." And I think that's how you always have to be. And he's felt that way since before—He would walk into a label meeting and he'd tell these, you know, these labels that, "This is going platinum. I'm gonna have the debut platinum album, I'm gonna have seven platinum songs off the album." And they're looking at him crazy. Like, crazy. "You've never even—You don't even have a song with a million streams yet." You know?
And you know, fast forward a couple years later, debut album platinum, seven songs platinum from the debut album. So he's taught me a lot when it comes to, like, manifestation, because shit's real. Like, I was doing it before I met him, but ever since I tapped in with him, kind of like whenever he says something like that, I'm—Man, I believe in him more than I think he believes in himself sometimes. So it's like, you need that. A partnership management thing. Relationships need to be like that too. You can't just have a manager who's just like, you know, he barely picks up the phone when you call, he's not like invested, he's not—There's nothing enthusiastic about what you're doing to him. You're just another notch on the belt. That's never gonna work. You need to—Me and him one thousand percent believe in anything we're doing all the way, and we wanna be the best at what we're doing. We wanna win the most Grammys, we wanna have the most Billboard Hot 100 records. But, yeah. I think that that's like the starting point of anything, you just need to have a definite aim and you have to have delusion.
Like, I'm still delusional, even though I'm successful. I'm so delusional. Like some of the things that I'm thinking about—Me and you had a conversation, I think in Mexico, and you asked me one of the things I wanted to accomplish. What did I tell you, Chris?
Chris (46:08): You were gonna be a pilot by the end of the year, is the one I remember.
Milan (46:10): Is that what I told you? Yeah.
Chris (46:11): Yeah.
Milan (46:12): So that's like a dream of mine, since I was a kid. So it's like, yeah. Like, you know, fast-forward, now I'm like—I did buy a couple lessons. You know, but like that's just gonna come from me getting over my fear. I also did tell you that I didn't want to—I hated the Cessnas. So I hate flying those little planes, but to become a pilot I'm gonna have to get through it. So that's some shit that I'm planning on doing this year.
Chris (46:35): I love it. Because hey, we could talk about self-belief and where that line is between being delusional and confident, which has often been discussed among artists that've made it, that you need to have—No one's going to believe in yourself unless you do, but I think what's really instructional about that amazing example you've shared of the definite aim for the year is once you have this ambitious goal in mind, that allows you to work backwards from it. So just like, okay. We're celebrating at the end of the year that you are a pilot. Okay. What's, let's work backwards. What are the things that you needed to do in order to become a pilot? You were successful. What did you do? Well, you had to get your flight time in. Right? If you wanna fly a private jet, you need to learn how to fly a Cessna first.
So if you don't wanna fly the Cessna, that's a necessary step to get there. So once you decide that, "Hey, I am doing this thing, I am okay with paying the cost," all of those things associated with them, we call "instrumental." And we, you pointed out some of the things. "Hey, if we wanna make a number one hit, all right, we need to be on the radio. There's no question." We need to be healthy, doing all the things physically, mentally, so that we can sustain the level of pace and effort that it's going to take to have this promotion, to like get this level of collaboration in place, that once you have this vision you can work backwards and say, "All right, now here are the steps that we need to take to get there." That's such a powerful exercise, and certainly knowing that you have done the planning, the work to get there allows you to sustain the self-belief. It's less fragile when the inevitable ups and downs come.
Milan (48:20): Absolutely. Yeah. I'm dealing with the—You know, there's a couple projects that I'm working on right now where I have never done this in my life. And I can share one. You know, as an example, Russ wanted to start a hair care line. For many years, he's wanted to start a haircare line. His fans have asked him for many years, like, "What's your hair care routine?" That's like his biggest sell. He's got this long, curly hair. And he decided about a year and a half ago, "I wanna do this." Right?
So me and him have never done this before. As an entrepreneur I know I can do it. I don't necessarily—I didn't really have all the resources in place. You know, so I went out on a limb, and I started cold calling some, you know, some people that I knew were in the manufacturing business. We had created this definite aim. Within I would say literally two, three months, I'm sitting at a friend's house who kind of brings everyone—He's the type of guy that brings everyone together. Right? So he just has really cool random people at his house. So we're at his house, we're just hanging out, chopping up, and someone there happens to be a private label manufacturer. Does exactly what I'm looking to do. So me and him started talking.
He introduces me, he doesn't even realize that I'm in this business, this is something that I'm looking to do. So just by having that in my head, you know, manifesting that, I'm like, "Hey." I take that as a sign. So me and him, we lock-in. Two, three days later, I have Russ at his factory, telling him, we're talking about the idea. Two, three months after that, we already have a formula. You know, we're creating a signature formula. And you know, two, three months after that we were designing bottles or you know, building a website, and you know, a month after that, I just happened to meet a friend of mine who was working over at Yeezy, now is working at Shopify, and Shopify created the brand new program called the Creator Program. And they are in the market to empower visions like products and visions that artists have. You know, and influencers have.
So that came together just like a started off as an idea, started off manifesting it, putting our best foot forward. It wasn't—I'm not a hundred percent in it, because I can't be, but it's like twenty percent, you know, where it's like twenty percent of my time goes towards this. Fast forward, now Shopify is a partner in this venture that we're talking about, and you know, I'm having conversations with 3PL companies, which is like, you know, third-party, like, they're logistics. Which is like, they're picking up our bottles from our manufacturer which comes from overseas, that the manufacturer fills it. Then they're putting it in their factory, they fulfill everything, everything is integrated with Shopify. So I'm out here, this music business executive, you know, manager, but I'm also a part-time entrepreneur, and I'm out here building, you know, a haircare company, a lifestyle company, and I've never done manufacturing in my life. You know, so this is all within a year's timeframe.
And I think a lot of it starts with the definite aim of, "Hey, this is what we're trying to do, this is what we're trying to accomplish." And using everything that I've done leading up 'til now to reverse-engineer what I want to do. So, like, learning from experience. You know, like, even on this journey that I'm telling you about, there's already been failures. You know, there's already been things where I'm like, "Damn, could've saved money there, could've done this differently. Next time I'll do it differently." And a lot of it just comes down to, again, I have to play CEO, 'cause there's like four or five different parts, and you kind of have to integrate them together here.
And we're finally getting to the finish line where we're going to launch it this summer, two years later. But yeah, I've never done manufacturing before, I've never created products from the ground up. So this is just an example of a definite aim and just using your mind and your, you know, your resources to just pull everything together.
Chris (51:58): One of my favorite beliefs is that the universe is conspiring in our favor. That if we know what we're looking for, we'll recognize the opportunity when it's right in front of us. These opportunities are already there, we just don't recognize them. So that's just, you just know what to look for.
Milan (52:14): I truly believe that. Yeah. I feel like sometimes we're just fogged. We have this haze around us, and we don't realize it's—Sometimes it's right in front of us. And I think that's where the gratitude, this having gratitude every day comes in. And it could just, you know, I meditate, but not as much, and I think I have other forms of meditation. Like for me, meditating can just be out in an old school car, so it could be like taking ten minutes, just driving in it solo, don't have my phone on me, just, you know. And that's where I can think best. But understanding that sometimes these things are right in front of you and you're just not paying attention. And so I try to tap into that energy every day. That's like my biggest thing every day, it's like, I feel you are the same way. But it's like, if I can learn something new every day, man, that's all I'm really looking to accomplish. You know?
Chris (53:04): So much of the game is just the attitude of getting yourself in the state of mind, having the presence necessary to, you know, be your best self. And yeah, I really believe that our best ideas rarely come to us at the desk. That just by living our lives, doing what we love, being with people we love, that things will present themselves in due time.
I have to get a little bit of the day in the life. So you know, you just came back from the UK, you were over there for two days.
Milan (53:33): Yeah.
Chris (53:34): You were about to go on this global tour, sixty-five cities, twenty-eight—
Milan (53:38): Oh, yeah. So that, as the world—So like, this year's crazy for me, 'cause it starts off, I have six weeks coming up, and then we have a summer off, and then another three months on the road. Yeah. So a day in the life would be like, this morning, just an example. I got up pretty early. 9:00 AM's early for me. I'm usually a 10:00 AM riser. Maybe like 11:00, just 'cause I'm usually up 'til like 3:00 AM the night before. I like to get my emails and work done when everyone's a little bit quiet, silent. It allows me to just—I just flow a lot better that way. But I wear multiple different hats. So you know, this morning I'm on the phone, radio, I'm on the phone with an agent, I'm on the phone with my production team. I'm on the phone with—I had a PR call this morning. So a lot of it is just, you know, a day in the life is I'm working virtually, so I get to—I'm home right now, I'm in Atlanta in my office, but these things can be done when I'm at a coffee shop, you know, or when I'm in a car on the way to the coffee shop.
So a lot of it is—It's just being on 24/7, and not—just not being afraid to just run through everything, 'cause sometimes it's stressful, I'm not gonna lie, where three, four people want to talk to me at the same time. You know, so I've learned to say "no" a lot more recently. That's like the biggest—One of the biggest hurdles for me was to actually put my foot down and be like, "no," you know, or like to compartmentalize things. Because I wanna do everything at once, and I'll burn out if I do. So yeah, a day in the life could just be like me traveling the world, like going to the UK. We shot a video in the UK randomly, did some press, to getting back home, to going right back into the game of, you know, a million things going on, so like now we're on tour, and you've gotta make sure your client is at this place at this time, and he's got this at this time, and then you're also balancing the in-flow of business and calls. You know, like, excited—Like, as we're on the call, look at my phone and there's like this sync opportunity just came in, very exciting, like his new song is getting synced for like the NBA, you know, the playoffs are happening. So I'm really excited about it.
It's like, something like that, boom, as soon as you get off the phone, I'm gonna call my client and just run him through the specifics of the deal. And, you know, that's exciting. You know, it's exciting stuff. But so it's, I'm always kind of at the edge of my seat. And that's what keeps me going. It kinda feels like you just did ten pushups or twenty push-ups, and you already have that flow. So I kind of, like, my day is usually ups and downs of that.
Chris (56:09): So, you mentioned before you'd gone from, you know, a thousand followers to something crazy like three million. You've been really early to all these different social media platforms, it's been a real way that Russ has authentically connected with fans. You've talked about how analytics-driven you guys are. What comes to mind in terms of building an online base brand, particularly a brand that's based around a person? You know, what do you think works in today's environment?
Milan (56:40): You need to understand, like, who you are, and like, what's your identity, right? And then authenticity wins every time. You can tell when someone's trying and when someone's not. You know, just being themselves. And not being afraid to experiment. So, TikTok is a good example. TikTok was, I think for a lot of people, it's one of those platforms that it seems complicated. If you just got TikTok you've no idea how it works. It's a very unique algorithm that is in favor of if you 'like' a piece of content, like if I go onto someone's profile and I, it's like this person's a musician, right, an acoustic—plays guitar. And I scroll through their profile. I will start receiving more of those types of content on my feed. So like, my feed will be consumed with up-and-coming artists if I go down the up-and-coming artist rabbit hole. So that's on the back end of learning how the platform works. Right? So if you understand that, now you can understand how people find your profile, you know, or you.
So a lot of it is like trial and error. So I think when Russ got onto TikTok, he was very like—His good friend Gary V was telling him for many years, like, "You should get on here, you should get on here." And he just didn't understand, "What content should I make on here?" You know, should I just post what I'm posting on Instagram? And then over time experimenting, he got a little bit—He got more comfortable with how the platform works, itself, and what works for him. It's not really like what works for everyone else, it's what works for you, right? And that doesn't necessarily mean going viral. It just means, like, what am I—What's my identity on this platform? And it just—really, it's just my authentic self.
And then we learned that that's how you break music. You know, TikTok's a great platform for breaking music. Instagram is great for showcasing your art. Right? TikTok is where you can really be yourself, you can really show the raw, uncut authenticity behind what makes the music, what makes this. You know, answering questions. You can be vulnerable. So I think as a consumer, I really wanna see the true self of the artist or the influencer, and I get turned off personally when it's fake, when it's like they're trying to be something that they aren't. You know, it's like you don't need to put on all the chains and the look just to be on the platform. You're okay just being you.
So, yeah, he started from nothing. I think what happened was as the music grew everything grew. So it started from SoundCloud. SoundCloud is a platform where you can just upload your music instantly and you can share with the world. So that gave him the stepping stone to do so, like, "Hey, I've made a song, now it's out." And then over time, Spotify and Apple Music, you know, they were at their early stages around the time he had started putting out music, so they started to grow, and then that would go back and forth. So, you know, Shazam's directly correlates to Apple Music, and TikTok directly correlates to Apple Music. They have an integration partnership with Apple. So if you're getting streamed on TikTok, or views on TikTok, that's gonna correlate to your music streams on Apple.
So just understanding the dynamics of like, hey, Instagram might be the platform to showcase what I'm doing and my artistry and, you know, that's where I can stunt, and kind of like where you can be fake. TikTok is more authentic—And just understanding, like, Twitter, where I just vocalize my thoughts. "This is how I feel." You know? And understanding how each works. But I think over time he realized, "I need to market everything I'm doing." So we're on the road, we do a show, the next day we have a recap video of the show to show the people, "Hey, we're actually on tour." I could never understand why people would go on tour and they wouldn't market the content of them going on tour.
Like, you'll literally go to artist profiles, and they'll be on a world tour, and you'll have no clue. It's—the link in their bio is not even like the website, right, with the tour dates. So maybe they're blessed and all the shows are sold out, or maybe they just don't understand that in order to continue to grow your business, you gotta put the content out there, and that's gonna drive more and more sales and excitement around you know what—your activity.
So that's how we ended up doing so well on our ticket side, marketing each show. So like, Russ would go on tour, and he'd, you know, the LA show, he'd put the LA show out as he's driving to the San Francisco show. Then you do San Francisco, you put up the San Francisco show. So we knew really coming up that we need to have a great videographer that can turn around and have it within twenty-four hours. And that guy's gone on to do massive things. You know, big director, big producer now, doing movies. So we just, we've replicated that model, and now the videographer who's on the road with us is actually a fan. We found him on Twitter, and he's coming for his first time on the road, I think it's his first time ever being on the road, but we get to give it, you know, some new blood and opportunity here.
And he's going to use the same model that we've been using. He's known about it, 'cause he's been watching over the years, so now when he comes and it's his time to like be in that role, which is you know, three weeks away, he's gonna basically shoot it and edit in exactly the same format as like we've been doing, 'cause he can look back and be like, "Oh, I can use those two hundred other videos as a reference." You know? There's not a lot of training to be done, other than, "This is where I want you to be, and this is kinda like how fast we need to run." The rest, you know, kind of follow the protocol.
Chris (01:02:10): You guys are implementing a sort of the Forcing Function systems-thinking playbook without even knowing it. Bottleneck, recognizing, "Here's the thing that's most holding us back. All right. Let's create some feedback around just like experimenting, putting lots of stuff out there, seeing what resonates with them, seeing what resonates with us, okay, this is working, let's do more of that, this isn't working, let's iterate on that. Okay, let's leverage. We're already doing these things, how do we get more out of them? We're already doing the show, let's film it, putting it up. We're already recording, okay, what else can we do with this?" With these principles of thinking of everything as a system, it really, really ties in with everything, and it creates infinite opportunities to continue to do more with less. To be doing the right things to be making sure that you're getting maximum output for minimum input.
Milan (01:03:05): Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly how I see it. Any time that I can do that, it's a win. And I think that's how we approach every situation, too. And that comes from experience, though. You know, I think that that comes from just like all the years of chipping away at this and just learning what works and what doesn't work. You create that system for yourself just by default. It's almost like the new default setting. You know, how you approach everything. So, yeah. There's a lot of opportunities that come through my desk that need to be vetted, and they're great opportunities, but if it doesn't align with your core principles, or the brand's integrity, then you don't ever do it. You know, it's like money has never been the reason why we did something, or I've done something, or Russ has done something. That's always, I feel, like, last. That's the last thing.
And a lot of it comes from he's created this really great passive income for himself by putting out such an abundance of music and owning it. Because there's a lot of money in music when you own it. You know, so like we did a partnership with a label for three albums, and we had gone through it, and we had, you know, come out the other side, which is rare for a lot of artists. That was our vision going into it. We knew, "Hey, this is what—We're gonna retain our catalog, we're going to go do this deal, and on the other side we're gonna be bigger, you know, from it."
So we did that, and we kinda picked the pieces from there that worked, like radio, and we hired them ourselves. But when you have the control, like when you control your own army and your own finances, realistically, you can really accomplish anything. You know, like knowing that, okay, I have this out there that yields this every month. Well, you know, for cash-flow purposes you can pay for your overhead, but you can also now understand, like, "Hey, well I can do this. I can go and reinvest it." I think a lot of the time artists aren't reinvesting their money back into themselves, because they just don't have it, or they just—They're not comfortable doing so. Money just means spending or saving, and not reinvesting back in your business.
But myself and Russ, we both know that that's what yields more success, is like investing it—We're never afraid to put it back into the business. So we're constantly doing that even at this level, and it's a requirement, you know, in order to succeed.
Chris (01:05:32): You mentioned earlier that Russ is an independent artist. And I know that this is a true rarity, especially when you get to the Billboard Top 100. Obviously these days, especially, he would have no challenges being signed by a major label. What's the thought process behind remaining independent?
Milan (01:05:51): Knowing that there's more money in it and more—We have all the control. So we just don't want anyone to have control over what we're doing. You know, we want to put something out, we put something out. We wanna do something, we do something. But that came from leverage. So knowing, going into the label system we had a hundred fifty songs already that were in the catalog that were generating money every month. And the bigger you get, the bigger the new songs get and the old songs become more successful. So there's a lot of money in music, when you think about it. There's—On average, a million streams pays four grand. Right? So if you know, you do a billion streams, that's four million dollars. You know, that's from one platform. So there's a lot of money in music if you own it, and the independent model just came from doing it, but also knowing that we had all the leverage, and I guess moving forward into this like, into the new world of how things are moving, is understanding the game.
And we understand that a label is literally just like an investor, in a sense, but they're more so just a corporation who's coming in with money, and they're using their money—they are like the government. You don't have the choice where the money goes. Sometimes you do. Like, we as the people could vote, but like we all pay tax that we can't really decipher exactly where our money's going. Specifically. So it's a very similar thing, where you're giving away the power and the leverage to these corporations. They run the accounting. So all the money goes into them. They pay you out, and they only pay out twice a year. We get paid every week. Every Friday, as an independent artist, depending on which digital aggregator you use to distribute your music, the money is received every Friday. Now, it's delayed by like two months. So if you put out a song today, you won't get paid off that for like two and a half months, but that first Friday after the two and a half months, because it takes some time to collect it from the DSPs, they call it. Like Apple and Spotify.
But that's a hundred percent of your money. So it's like, you get to see what it's like to collect all the money from around the world instead of just—Labels do American deals, and then they do international deals. So like you might get a better deal in America, but like your international deal might be upside down, because you know, you might not have all the leverage. Like, you don't get that many streams in France or the UK. But when you put your song out through like, independently, every stream, every sale is yours. You know, so you get to see all together in one, and you get to control the in-flow and out-flow. So it's like, hey, you gotta pay a producer to produce that beat. Right? Well, you gotta pay them directly. Right? Get to like do the paperwork, do the agreement, and as the money comes in, you can reimburse yourself in real time instead of waiting six months, hoping that you've recouped your advance.
You know, and a lot of people don't ever get out of that. It's like a trap. But yeah, you've all the leverage as an independent artist, and that's the other thing I wanted to talk with you about, it's like we all have the same access. There are independent platforms where you can pay to play. Right? So you can pay ten, twelve bucks to release your song everywhere. And it has nothing—They have nothing to do with your success. The sole reason you're successful is the person behind it. You know, you create magic. You either have millions of followers, right, or you had a viral moment on TikTok or whatever it is. But you're the source, when it comes to like, "Hey guys, here's my music. Please listen." The distributor has no, nothing. They have no resources or power. They might, you know, say that they do sometimes, but they don't. All they are is just literally like, they distribute to all the stores. So I like to compare Shopify, as in everyone—Shopify has millions of stores, that is, shops that like to use Shopify. Right? And some are massively successful. Some do a hundred mil a year, some do one mil a year, some do ten grand, some do a thousand a month. A thousand a year. A hundred a year. You know?
We all pay 69.99 for that monthly, you know, we all give three percent of our sales to Shopify. Right? So the future of music, it is currently out there, it exists, and we use the platform that's basically the Shopify of music, where we're all artists, we're all our own labels, right, we all have the same access, so we can all just pay to play. I can pay someone sixty-nine dollars a year, and they let me release unlimited music, right? Throughout all the stores, or everywhere. Now it's up to me to have the relationship with Spotify or with Apple, just like in business I can have a shop, I can sell clothing, but it's up to me to have the relationship with this person to be able to get the distribution, or for me to be able to go—I need to have the influence with an influencer to be able to go market my product. Right?
So it's very much like we're in the game, where we all have access, and everyone is pretending that they don't. Everyone's giving away a hundred percent, eighty percent, ninety percent of their business for nothing. You know, so we noticed that very early on, and that was one of the things that we wanted to really just like— That's our most prized possession, is that, the consciousness of knowing the leverage that we have. We create the music, we create the art, we have the fan base. Right? So all we need to do is find some sort of platform that allows us to get to the fans without, you know, losing an arm and a leg. So we found a few that we've worked with along the way. We invested in one that we thought was like the best, and they're tech-based, so they're like, "We provide you with the tools, we'll give you the pipeline, and you can build your own interface on top of our platform."
So that's what we've done. And Russ just launched his own label, and he's using them, like their tech, as the back end. And so now we're giving our own artists, you know, a dash forward, a platform. They can go to DIEMON records. They can log in, they can see everything in real-time, their analytics, they can upload and release their songs themselves—So like, we wanna be able to give the next generation of artists the same tools and apply the same consciousness that we currently have to like their business. You know? Like, we wanna do artist-friendly deals, and that's one of our, like, future roles. I know I went off on a little tangent, but my point is that—
Chris (01:12:09): That was good.
Milan (01:12:10): We all have the same access, and we're pretending that we don't. You know?
Chris (01:12:14): Understanding the leverage points, as you said, and where you bring the value. Man, I mean, so good. And I just wanna acknowledge your openness and generosity by sharing that. It was really, really cool to witness. I don't want you to keep the NBA hanging, so I'm gonna—I have two more quick questions for you, and then I'm gonna let you go. So, you've been working with Russ for a number of years now, you've toured with him, you've been together for long periods of time. What's one big lesson that comes to mind that you've learned from seeing the way that he works, seeing the way that he lives?
Milan (01:12:48): Interesting. So like I would say transparency. For me and him, it's like loyalty is everything, and integrity is everything, and we're super—I learned from him, right? He's super principle-based. So knowing that, everything has to be an open book. He's very hands-on with his business, and I—When I train younger managers and I give people advice, like if I'm mentoring an artist or a manager, I'm always letting them know, like, first and foremost that this is—You've gotta be an open book. So when you receive information, it can't be a game of telephone where someone tells you one thing and you regurgitate it out how you see, either through your lens—My success as a manager really comes from creating this safe space of like, "Hey." I've even done it with Russ where we share an email. You know, so all the inquiries that come in, we kind of—He sees as they get vetted out. You know?
So like, you asking me strategy-wise, of how do you do all, manage these different things, well a lot of it is I have an open book with my clients. So he knows all the things that are going on, and it's not like anything's hidden. So that takes the anxiety away from him, like, "Oh shit," you know, like, "Maybe I've gotta call him and ask him all these different questions," or, "Maybe he's only looking out for himself." No. It's like, that shit was dead at, from the beginning. You know, like, it's strictly about his interests and not mine. My interests are secondary. My interests are when I'm home with my family, you know, or like how I invest my money, or what I do outside of this. When it comes to him, it's always in his best interests, and it's a complete open book, and that's what has created such a healthy relationship. And I think for other managers and other businessmen or CEOs—Like this is how I would recommend it.
It's like the info comes in, I then receive it, I can vet it, right, but I articulate it back. It's just a flow. And sometimes you have to play the bad guy too, you know? It's good cop/bad cop. Because if your client wants something reciprocated, and maybe that's not who I am. Like maybe, you know, I was saying to you, it's like one of my biggest—My lessons learned is saying "no." And it's just like compartmentalizing things. So if your client wants something done, right, they might be angry about it, whatever, you can do it in your own way, right, but you've gotta take that information and you've gotta—It can't be a game of telephone. You've gotta send it right back. It can be in your own way, but a lot of the time it's both ways. So it's like receiving information from both ends, having to kinda go way back out, and sometimes you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable, you know. It might be uncomfortable to say "no" to someone. It could be millions of dollars on the line, it could be a relationship on the line.
But I serve my client, and clients, and it's just like that's where I draw the line. It's always, like, that's it. You know, loyalty and principle-based, and I'm always fighting for his best interests. So I think that answers that.
Chris (01:15:43): Love it. Last question for you. So you broke into the music industry, no experience, no business being there, now you're doing manufacturing, obviously no manufacturing experience. What advice would you have for someone who's in a similar position, they're looking to break into a new career, a new industry, but they don't feel like they have that relevant experience. What advice would you give them before they take the leap?
Milan (01:16:08): Start dreaming. Start dreaming, and dream big, and understand that you have all the power. Like, it all starts from within you, so I'm super confident in the fact that all the information exists out there, and that could be like—You might not be speaking to the right people, you might not be googling the right information that you're trying to obtain, but it exists. So a lot of it is just being comfortable being uncomfortable, understanding that you need to dream big, and you're not going to get anywhere unless you have persistence. Like, it can be anything, man. It's like, even as an investor I find myself, like—You have to be persistent in this. You know, just because you think something is gonna take off doesn't mean it's gonna take off. Like, you might have to go through the storm. So just be comfortable being uncomfortable, and understanding that it's like, you know, you might fail, you might get knocked down, but if you get back up, anything is possible. So really, really harness that, tap into that, that's like—I came from nothing personally. You know, I really had no resources around me, but it really stemmed from my drive to accomplish my dream.
And my dreams change all the time, but it started off like, "Hey, I'm in my mom's basement right now and it's dark and no one in my family's an entrepreneur, but I know one guy who is." You know what I mean? It starts from just like—It could be like, I look up to an artist, you know, it's like my favorite producer at the time was this guy, Scott Storch. Why I loved him, he was like, he's the science behind Dr. Dre's "Chronic 2001," which is like my favorite album ever. He played the piano on "Still DRE," all these different things. Fast-forward, no joke, this is a friend of mine now, right, I've worked with him for many years, I know him really well, but that would never have happened if I didn't, like—I wasn't like masterminding it to happen. I was delusional, where I was like, "I'm gonna be friends with him." You know, "I'm gonna be in the studio with him." And no joke, that's the reality, it came to life. It took some time, but I'm not surprised if it happened, because that's always what I wanted to happen.
I even told him, too, you know, when I was with him. And I think Russ did as well, 'cause he's his favorite producer, but it's like, it's surreal where like the things you have dreamed of become a reality, and I'm the testament for anyone else to like, "That's possible." You know? It's like, and I have so many more that I want to accomplish that I'm like dreaming of right now, and I got "Living the Dream" tatted on me just so I can wake up every day and see, like, have gratitude, understanding that this is where I'm at currently in my life. Blessed, but like there's so much more to accomplish, and knowing that looking back, like, I would never have thought that I'd be here. Like, I did in my mind, but like, in reality, god, I gotta pinch myself, man. It's crazy.
Yeah, so. I use that. That gives me confidence every day in how I move, and my visions. Like, my dreams. Like, I had some crazy-ass dreams. You know, like I told you, I think I told you at dinner, this was another thing, is that I wanted to make a movie. Yeah. So like ever since that time that we talked in December—I mean, this is you, right? So it's like, you bring that out of me, because I wasn't thinking like that. Like, I wasn't thinking, like, "This is what I want to accomplish this year." And even if I don't, it's given me this, like, I'm always referencing back to our conversation, and I'm always like, "I'm making the right steps in order to accomplish what I said I would accomplish." You know?
So ever since that dinner, like, all these crazy things have happened to me. Like, manifested that happened. Like, I got with a production company who does this, you know what I mean? Like, they go get the financing for the movies. They have the screenwriters who will take your idea and develop it for you. Now it really comes down to like, I need to secure my idea. So I met with the people I had to secure the idea with, you know, make sure I can do that before taking the next steps. I did that already.
So it's like, I've never made a movie in my life. You know, my goal is to be a producer on this film that I was telling you about, and it might take me years to accomplish, but I already see myself sitting at the Oscars. No joke, I see myself with my mom. I just—I know it's gonna happen. So now I just have to reverse-engineer it.
Chris (01:20:25): Man, I feel that so much. And thank you for sharing, it's really inspiring. And yeah, if you're listening to this, you're an artist, you're building a brand, you're trying to do something ambitious, there's a lot to learn here in terms of knowing what you want, working backwards, and taking those steps to get there, that you really can achieve anything.
Milan, thank you so much. Again, truly an honor, and you know, feel very grateful to be able to get you on the stage. I know it was uncomfortable, but really glad you were here with us, and for everything you shared.
Milan (01:21:00): Yeah, thank you for having me, 'cause like, you know, this was—Not that necessarily uncomfortable, but it's like you got this out of me. I'm so—I wouldn't have done this with anyone else, so I was like I'm glad my first one was with you. And yeah, I just love the conversation, and let's continue it. Let's do this another time.
Chris (01:21:15): Well, absolutely. I mean, guys, check out Russ on the Journey Is Everything tour, coming to a city near you. I know I'm personally really pumped to be in the audience for the Hollywood Bowl tour, so—
Milan (01:21:24): You're seeing him in Austin.
Chris (01:21:25): Yeah. Coming to Austin as well, on the 15th?
Milan (01:21:28): Beautiful.
Chris (01:21:29): Let's do it.
Milan (01:21:30): Yes.
Chris (01:21:31): All right, guys, this has been another episode of Forcing Function Hour. Thank you so much for joining us once again, and talk to you again soon.
Tasha (01:21:39): Thank you for listening to Forcing Function Hour. At Forcing Function, we teach performance architecture. We work with a select group of twelve executives and investors to teach them how to multiply their output, perform at their peak, and design a life of freedom and purpose. Make sure to subscribe to Forcing Function Hour for more great episodes, or go to forcingfunctionhour.com to sign up for our newsletter so you can join us live.