IAM625- Audio Educator Helps Musicians Make Better Sounding Music

Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I haveBjörgvin Benediktsson of audioissues.com. Björgvin, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Björgvin Benediktsson 0:39

Thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:40

No problem. Super excited to have you on and glad I was able to hopefully pronounce your name correctly. But what I want to do is just read a little bit more about the Björgvin so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Björgvin is an audio engineer, musician, and entrepreneur from Iceland currently living in Tucson, Arizona. He is the best-selling author of Step By Step Mixing: How to Create Great Mixes Using Only 5 Plug-ins. He helps home studio musicians make better sounding music by teaching them how to record and produce themselves at www.audio-issues.com. In addition to being an audio educator, he is an expert in online impact through authority building, thought leadership and email marketing at his website. Björgvin, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

Björgvin Benediktsson 1:17

I am.

Gresham Harkless 1:18

Awesome. Let's do it. So I wanted to kick everything off, I guess with where it started out. I want to hear a little bit more about your CEO story, what led you to get started the business?

Björgvin Benediktsson 1:25

Sure, yeah. So I started audio, which was back in 2009, when I was studying audio engineering at the SA Institute in Madrid. So I lived in Spain for a year and got a diploma in audio engineering. As a way of learning things better, I started writing them down and documenting them as a blog, as you're probably familiar with, the best way to learn something is to learn the ability to be able to teach it to somebody else. So I started writing all that stuff down, helping my fellow students learn better and understand complex audio topics. Audio Engineering is it's not the highest form of engineering, but it's but it definitely has its technical complexities. From there, I basically started the blog started writing and never stopped. After graduation, I moved to the US kept writing kept going to school, went to the University of Arizona here in Tucson, Arizona and got a degree in economics and entrepreneurship. From there kept kept building the business kept experimenting. I think being an entrepreneur is basically all a big social experiment on yourself. You're trying to figure out what works, what doesn't work. When you're just starting out, you're throwing a lot of things on the wall and nothing sticks. You'll slowly learn the formula of stickiness to the point of getting customers and then you once you get that first customer once you have a first product that actually works in sales, you can learn to scale and improved from there. So fast forward to now I've written six books while I count six books I've actually written close to 10 books but I count six books as sort of my EPs and albums if you will, if the previous books were demos and sort of besides and singles then I have six ebook albums out and most notably the Step by Step Mixing book which is both available in physical paperback form and as an ebook and I also have video courses on mixing with five plugins which is basically the 20% of the audio processing that you need to know to get to 80% of the results of a professional mix. So I wanted to teach my students how to not get overwhelmed with all the possibilities of mixing and music production and focus just on the art and the song and most important processes to get that song sounding as professional as possible. That's sort of what I've dedicated myself to doing that and and through that I helped them gain the confidence to finish their mixes and for proudly released the records because I don't think a song exists it's kinda like the if a tree falls in the forest doesn't make a sound if a song sitting on your harddrive is it really a song as to be released in order to be consumed and enjoyed and and shared with the world so that's my that's my mission is to help empower musicians and bedroom producers to do that with their own music.

Gresham Harkless 4:29

Nice I love that and I appreciate you for breaking the kind of like the process down because I think so many times we don't hear that we don't see that we just see like the we see the first I guess you said EP book that you created or the last of the six or whatever you're on. We don't see all the steps that you did to do that and of course it's near and dear to my heart is anybody who starts out by kind of I guess kicking the tires, so to speak with a blog is always near and dear to my heart. So I love that you did that and I love how it's kind of manifests itself and you've been able to continue to continue chop at the tree and hone your craft but as you said, in the very beginning, the true kind of genius, the true kind of sign of mastery is being able to teach others as well, too and you've been able to do that as is absolutely awesome.

Björgvin Benediktsson 5:11

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, no, it's it's definitely I mean, it's always helpful to be one step ahead of, and it's also one step ahead of the students, obviously, because I am basically what's helped me a lot is and help because it helped me understand my students and understand what customers is that I was them at one point I was in their shoes, so and then I just learned and kept studying and kept learning kept mixing, kept working on music, and now I have this expertise to share, and I'm happy to pay it forward in as many ways as possible. It's sort of like the teacher being having the teacher manual and being one chapter ahead of the students. But maybe I'm a book ahead or an AP, right.

Gresham Harkless 5:55

Though, that makes so much sense. I think I'm glad you kind of touched on that, because I don't know if I was having a conversation with somebody a couple of weeks or so ago. But we're just talking about how sometimes we have the we forget what we've learned, we forget how far we've come. Sometimes we take that for granted and being able to kind of reach back into help others to create books and, and to create knowledge for people to learn from because we sometimes forget, because we're so driven on where we want to go, that we don't see how far we've come and how we can sometimes create and help people to get farther along than they are.

Björgvin Benediktsson 6:27

Yeah, exactly the sort of the customer journey as it is, you have always have to keep the customer journey in mind and where they are in their journey. As entrepreneurs and experts in our field thought leaders what caught what what you call it, whatever you call it, you sort of have to really be aware of the curse of knowledge, and not not overly complicate things if people aren't ready for that. As business owners, we can throw out jargon terms all day long. But if you're starting out in business, you don't know what CTAs, CPAs CPCs and all of the CRMs, all of those terms are, that's automation and all that stuff. But so you have to be sort of cognizant of understanding your customer to the point where you know exactly where they are, and what steps they need to take to get a little bit further and a little bit further. A friend of mine really refer a friend of mine, you should absolutely interview next, isn't it? Mr. Graham Cochran, he puts it into these phases of an online business you may be you're in the spark stage, which is you're making $1,000 a month, and then you're in the freedom stage, which is $10,000 a month or whatnot. So you have to figure out where people are cut where your customers are in their journey, and meet them there. You don't, you can't really pull them up to your level, you kind of have to go share your knowledge at the point in which they are.

Gresham Harkless 7:52

Yeah, absolutely and what I love that you've been able to do, and in many different ways is communicate. I think that's kind of I don't want to say a lost art. But I think sometimes, as you said, throwing out different acronyms and saying, CPA, and DVDs and all those things that people may or may not understand. I think that we lose the ability, or what communication is about is really speaking to the person and being able to have that back and forth. As you said, if somebody doesn't understand that, I think it becomes the person with the knowledge, responsibility to be able to communicate so that persons understand. So that's why I love everything that you kind of been able to do and to create and build. So I know you touched on it, are there anything additional, anything additional that you do to kind of serve your clients? I know you have the books and all of that information is there and I know you have your site as well, too. Is there anything else you wanted to kind of touch on?

Björgvin Benediktsson 8:40

Well, so I mean, the free thing is just all the articles that I have on the website. So I have I've written about 1000 articles on audio production overall in various form in the last 10 years. Then I have the ebooks that are some of our which which are available on Amazon and then I have courses and ebooks that are bundled with complementary courses, because music production is sort of a topic that you need to not only talk about in written form, where you kind of also have to show how it's done because you have to be able to hear it. Then I have a membership site where people pay for monthly feedback calls and coaching calls and Q&A calls and there's also courses inside that membership and a community that I use there so I have that and then at the higher level I do one on one coaching and sort of mix coaching helping them get finished their mixes and then I'm asked her there makes it so they sound like professional records. Then I do consulting on customer interviewing and customer discovery on the side as well. I was speaking up at Phoenix startup week a couple of weeks ago and talking about I developed this thing called the customer canvas which is a customer centric view or approach to view your business through the lens of the customer. You know what problem you're trying to solve? What are their hopes and dreams and pains and fears are and like really figure about the psychology of who you're trying to serve, and what results you're trying to give them. So a little bit of consulting on the side, because in the last 10 years of being an audio engineer and entrepreneur on the online, I've learned so much about online marketing that now I feel like I can also pay a little bit of that for it.

Gresham Harkless 10:18

Yeah, absolutely. I love that and I love the the constant progression of everything that you're doing, as you talked about having that book being a book ahead. I think that's the beauty of is that you continue to kind of work at your craft, and you continue to the top of the tree, as I sometimes say, just because if you stop doing that, then a lot of times you aren't that book ahead, you're just maybe sentence headed that you want to be able to not only arm yourself and arm your business, but also arm the students of the people and clients that you're helping out you're working with. I think that if you once you look at that is not just like a task, but it's something that's a duty, something that drives you, I think that's when it goes to an entire different level. Awesome. So you might have already touched on this, but I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and it's for yourself or your business. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart?

Björgvin Benediktsson 10:58

Well, I think a lot of it is the personal touch that I do. I I am one of the very few people that emails their subscribers back, there aren't any no reply emails at audio issues.com and it's just caring more and constantly being able to crank out the content. Now I'm also really good at explaining complicated terms. Because just from writing so much in the last few years, I'm really good at creating analogies that make you understand because using an analogy, making something super complex, be like something that you're already familiar with, that sort of creates a paradigm shift where you go, Oh, I get it now. I feel like I'm pretty good at that and it's on a different level than this, maybe some other people.

Gresham Harkless 11:47

It makes perfect sense. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or a habit that you have, or something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Björgvin Benediktsson 11:57

I think meditation and exercise, unfortunately, it's not and you probably there's probably shared by a lot of CEOs in general, but I find that meditation is the aspect of trying to think about nothing. Then or calm your thoughts or whatever you want to call it. But then I'm a runner and when you run, you actually kind of it's meditative, but in an exact opposite way. It's where you let your thoughts just go around the circles as you're running. That helps you come up with ideas and helps you. Your subconscious is working as you're running around the park or whatever. Sometimes I have to stop because like, Oh, I got it, let me write this down. If I have a particular problem, or I have a particular thing that's bothering me, a lot of these quote-unquote, eureka moments come during runs. I find that if I don't exercise for a long time I get moody, I'm not as productive. I'm not as clear minded and the same thing with meditation. Exaggerate that.

Gresham Harkless 13:03

I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business.

Björgvin Benediktsson 13:12

I would tell my younger business staff to focus on your customers as much as possible. Research and survey and engage with them, talk to them, really dial into the emotions that they feel about the problem that you're trying to solve. Because using emotional language understanding, then figuring out the psychology behind what makes your stuff effective for them is super, super important.

Gresham Harkless 13:41

Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for my absolute favourite question, which is a definition of what it means to be a CEO and we're all gonna have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Björgvin, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Björgvin Benediktsson 13:51

I think being a CEO means having the freedom to worry about everything all at once.

Gresham Harkless 13:56

Björgvin, I truly appreciate that and appreciate all the awesome things you're doing. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and listeners know. Then of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you working on.

Björgvin Benediktsson 14:08

Well, one final thing I guess it's just, well, I can't stress this enough is you can't have a business without a customer. You can't have a solution without a customer that has a problem. So if you're creating solutions that don't have problems, you're not an entrepreneur, you're an engineer. So focus on the human people behind the customer don't think of them as consumers or customer customers, obviously the word that we use, but these people are all human with hopes and dreams and desires and problems and all that. So think of think of their lives. Think of what they are trying to figure out, what they're trying to solve if you're in a b2c business. You're obviously trying to solve different problems than if you're in a b2b business but even in a b2b business, who is the person that's gonna say, Who's the decision maker? That's gonna say yes or no to your proposal or whatnot? What are they trying to get out of it? Because sometimes they're just thinking, will this decision making me look good? Or is it just going to make me lose my job if it goes south? So think of those things, think of them as human beings, with just as fragile of egos as the rest of us. Yeah. So Audio Issues is or Audio dash Issues, or audio-issues.com is my main website. But I also do I have the customer, Canvas, customer canvas.net, which is a sort of a free well, it's what I it's basically my methodology of thinking about the customer, you can download that there. Then I have my site at BBenediktsson.com, which is just sort of my blog about entrepreneurship and online marketing.

Gresham Harkless 15:53

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Again, I truly appreciate you and we will have those links and information in the show notes. But I definitely appreciate you for reminding us as well, too. Because I think so many times in business, we think about numbers, we think about marketing plans and strategies and all these things, we kind of forget that human aspect, and to really drill down and get that emotional connection and express ourselves and connect is really what a lot of us are hoping and wishing for. We want those brands and businesses to do that as well too with us. So definitely appreciate that Northstar reminder and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.