#148: Building a Profitable Home Studio: Tips and Strategies with Philip Marsden

Have you ever wondered how to make money with a home studio? Maybe you're seeking answers to the questions: How do I market my home studio? How do I get more clients with my recording studio? How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors? Or maybe even, how do I acquire and keep clients? Then check out EP 148 of the Inside The Mix podcast.

Want to unlock the secrets to building a profitable home studio? Join us as I uncover essential tips with Philip Marsden of Marsden Mastering, from acquiring clients to creating a robust portfolio and working with musicians you admire. Learn how to set your rates, position yourself in the market, and identify your target audience while maintaining strong client relationships. Philip also shares his top revision strategy, guaranteeing client satisfaction and long-term success.

Have you ever wondered how to stand out in a crowded marketplace? Discover how consistency and relationship-building can make you memorable in the creative industry. Philip emphasises the importance of unique service offerings and clear communication. By delivering projects on time, being approachable, and being receptive to feedback, you can foster trust and become a preferred choice in music production and engineering. We'll provide practical tips to help you stand out in a competitive field.

Effective client communication and satisfaction are crucial to your success. Learn to convey the transformation you offer, manage client feedback, and set clear expectations. Philip discusses the value of written communication, tailored proposals, and understanding clients' deeper goals. We also touch on recognising when a service relationship isn't a good fit and the benefits of offering refunds. Finally, get introduced to Philip's podcast, "The Savvy Producer," which offers actionable advice on productivity and efficiency in the music industry. Join us for invaluable insights into creating a profitable home studio and building lasting client relationships.

CLICK HERE to follow Philip: https://marsdenmastering.com/

Chapters

• 0:01 Building a Profitable Home Studio
• 12:41 Differentiate Your Service in a Crowded Marketplace
• 19:54 Enhancing Client Communication and Satisfaction
• 30:14 Creating a Successful Mastering Business

Transcript

Philip Marsden: 0:01

You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews.

Marc Matthews: 0:06

Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you want to know more about your favorite synth music artists, music engineering and production, songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing and mastering music for over 15 years and I want to share what I've learned with you. Hello, folks, and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. If you are a new listener, a huge welcome. Make sure you hit that follow button on your podcast player of choice. And to the returning listeners, as always, a huge, huge welcome back.

Marc Matthews: 0:41

So, before we dive into this episode, I just want to address the T20 Euro statement I made in episode 147, where I said, or I predicted, that England had a better chance of winning the Euros than they did the T20 World Cup, and then, a week later, you can see what's happened if you're following both of those tournaments. England are now flying in the Super 8s, having beat the West Indies in the T20, and England are top of the group in the Euros with four points, and it's still in their own hands in terms of qualifying and topping that particular group. But the performances have been quite woeful to say the least. So hopefully that improves. But yeah, I am going back on my statement already a week, or pretty much a week later with regards to my predictions for both of those tournaments.

Marc Matthews: 1:28

So this episode episode 148, I'm joined by Philip Marsden of Marsden Mastering and we discuss tips for building a profitable home studio. So we start out by discussing tips for client acquisition and how to make that sustainable. When we get busy, we chat about the importance of a portfolio and Phil gives his top tips on pricing and how you should position yourself with your rates. We discuss the importance of identifying your target audience, your ideal client avatar, and, importantly, we discuss building and maintaining relationships and the discipline involved in doing that. Phil gives his top tips on how to stand out and differentiate yourself from other services. We chat about setting client boundaries and the importance of setting expectations at the beginning of a project. Then Phil gives his top tips for nurturing long-term relationships with clients and then Phil provides his top revision strategy. So, without further ado, let's dive into episode 148 with Philip Marsden of Marsden Mastering. Hey, folks, in this episode I am very excited to welcome my guest today, mastering engineer and podcast host, philip Marsden. Hi, phil, how are you today and thank you for joining me.

Philip Marsden: 2:41

I'm very good. How are you doing?

Marc Matthews: 2:44

I'm very well, mate. I'm very good. I think this is the first time in a while that I've spoken to another individual from the UK on the podcast. It's all been in the States, so it's quite nice to have another engineer on the podcast from the UK, which is quite nice.

Philip Marsden: 3:01

So I'm excited for this one.

Marc Matthews: 3:03

Yeah, it's good to have you on, mate. It's good to have you on. So I'm going to read a bit from your bio here, just for the audience. So you're an engineer living in Oxford, england, and you run Marsden Mastering and you also host a podcast, the Savvy Producer Podcast, and we'll go into a bit of detail into that towards the end of the episode here. In that podcast, you talk about productivity, efficiency and keeping your clients happy in the world of music production, and we are in a service-based industry, so that is incredibly important.

Marc Matthews: 3:32

So in this episode, folks, we're going to be delving into how to create or set the foundations for, a profitable home studio and, ideally, maintain a work-life balance.

Marc Matthews: 3:41

So we're going to be looking at building a client base, moving on to promotion and communication strategies and hopefully, if we have time, focusing on client satisfaction and retention, the idea being you're going to get a well-rounded understanding of the business, of running a successful music production-based service, like yourself with Marsden Mastering. So I thought it'd be quite cool to start with building the foundation. So we're looking at client acquisition strategies, which sounds very business like yourself with Marsden Mastering. So I thought it'd be quite cool to start with building the foundations. We're looking at client acquisition strategies, which sounds very business orientated, but it is part and parcel of what we do in the service industry, no matter what sort of service industry you're in. So many new home studio owners struggle to find their clients. We've all been there. Can you share some practical strategies that have been successful for you in attracting and uh, gaining, I guess potential clients and building a solid client base, especially in the early stages as well?

Philip Marsden: 4:33

yeah, yeah, of course. So it's. It's the constant struggle really for anyone doing anything in the music industry or any freelancer really. Um, I'd say there are three main things to to look at. When you're first getting started and you're wanting to really sort of get the ball rolling with that client base, um, the first thing you need is a portfolio really. Without that you can't do anything else, so that's kind of like the catalyst to to get it all rolling, um. So it's all about building that and building a portfolio that suits the, the sort of people you want to go after.

Philip Marsden: 5:08

When you're doing that, I think a lot of people make the mistake of working for a really, really low rate at first. What I would do instead of doing that when you're trying to build this portfolio and put this thing together, is just work for free but with people who you, whose music you really admire and you know is really really good and is going to get this thing rolling. When you're working for a low rate, you're just working with sort of price buyers who might not necessarily be making the best music, you might not get the best outcome. But when you, if, when you kind of go at people with a, with an offering for free that they can't say no to, you can start to really build something that is a lot more worthwhile and sort of targeted um. So I would always do that. And then, when it comes time to charge, when you've got you know sort of four or five tracks that you can promote and use as your portfolio, that's when I'd start to charge and instead of going for a really low rate, like a lot of people do, I'd just go for something that is respectable straight away. Um from there, once you've once you've kind of put that together um, and with the rate as well, I should say don't look at what others are charging and go for sort of a I don't know an industry standard rate, because there isn't such a thing really. You need to kind of work out, um, what you personally need to earn from your projects and what you deserve to be paid per hour um. There's no point just going for something blindly without looking at you know what you actually need to earn each month to keep this thing ticking over and all of the actual numbers behind that. So, yeah, put yourself at a decent rate that pays you what you're worth straight away, once you've got that portfolio built. So that's the first thing.

Philip Marsden: 7:00

From there, I'd say you need to just figure out who your client actually is. Normally, that's somebody who appreciates the value you bring. They're willing to pay that rate that you know you need and they're making music that you genuinely enjoy. That's a good sort of match for your skill set and they're somebody you get along with as well.

Philip Marsden: 7:22

A lot of people will, just when they're starting out, will just go for anyone and ignore a lot of these factors and especially, just you know people that you get along with. That's a huge thing and something as personal and creative as music production. Because if you go, you know if you're working with people you don't get along with and you don't like, then first of all, they're not going to be happy, you're not going to be happy and it's not going to be sustainable long term. So, yeah, really, find that, find that audience and take the time to kind of dial it in. And it will change over time as well. You can't be a perfect fit for everyone, but over time you will find who those people are and you'll get to sort of understand them so you can target them effectively in everything you do.

Philip Marsden: 8:04

So that's the second thing, third thing I say is um, from there, the actual I guess the sort of practical advice would be that it's all just about building relationships and doing that very, very consistently, consistently with these people. Um, you can't, just, you know, put your portfolio together and wait around and hope people come knocking, because it just doesn't work like that. You need to market yourself and with music, it's such a relationship based industry that you're going to have to, just, you know, reach out to these people and spend a bit of time every day networking essentially, if you want to call it that, and it just it does take a long time. There aren't any sort of sustainable shortcuts or tricks that are going to build your client base overnight. You just need to put in the effort and build and nurture relationships with your ideal audience, and that's what I've built this entire mastering business on for the past five years roughly.

Marc Matthews: 9:03

So fantastic advice. I love those three sort of top tips there and it fits really nicely in the way we sort of deliver tips on the podcast. It's really really good and you're right there. It's sort of about like showing up, isn't it? You've got to show up every day and you've got to put the reps in. I've said that a few times on this podcast, both within, like when you're actually learning, if you're learning to mix, master, if you're just music production, songwriting arrangement, you've got to put the reps in and you've just got to show up every day.

Marc Matthews: 9:31

But I really like the idea you start there with the portfolio and having something there, for it's like a signposting. So someone says, oh, where can I hear your work? You've got that portfolio of work there with you, would you? Because you mentioned that before I go on to the other ones as well. So you mentioned there about building that portfolio. Um, are you an advocate of, say, if you are an artist, maybe using your own music as your portfolio to sort of get that ball rolling, would you? Would you be of an advocate of that approach?

Philip Marsden: 9:57

yeah, I don't see why not. I mean, it's obviously music that you enjoy and presumably you know you've got the kind of, the skills and the knack for that already, so it would make sense to target similar artists if that's what you want to do. So, yeah, definitely 100%.

Marc Matthews: 10:12

I think that's a great way to do it and it's something I did years and years ago now when, admittedly, this was in the metal realm and then I moved over to the synth-based stuff. But finding your target as well target client or client avatar, however, your audience is important. I try and steer away from the word target as much as I can, because it makes you like you've got this bullseye and you've got a bow and arrow and stuff going for it and whatnot, but essentially that's what it is, and then you can build relationships, and I think it's a lot easier to build a relationship with someone and a rapport if you've got a shared interest. And if that shared interest is that like genre of music or that culture surrounding that music, it's so much easier to build relationships, whereas I think if you try and do it in maybe a sort of style or music or a culture or something that you're not really familiar with, I think it can potentially come across as quite inauthentic and I think you may get found out, and I don't know.

Marc Matthews: 11:03

I've done that with music, music in the past, where I've written music and released it just on the feeling, oh, give that a go, and then it wasn't quite what I was into and then you can sort of hear that in the music, I think. So I think that's really important and then building that relationship. So you mentioned there about dedicating time in doing that. So when you do this is a quite important question when proverbial door, how do you make sure you maintain that nurturing and building relationships? How do you do that yourself, because obviously you're busy in what you're doing a lot?

Philip Marsden: 11:35

of discipline. Basically, I well, first of all, it's the awareness that the relationships I'm building then aren't necessarily gonna become sort of paying work, like tomorrow it's gonna be six months time, it could be years, like just uh, two weeks ago actually, I had someone reach out for a master who I first spoke to in 2020 during the lockdown, and they've only just, you know, taken the leap to have something mastered with me. So it really is a long game. So, knowing that if you're, if you suddenly get busy and then you drop the ball, that's not going to affect you tomorrow, it's going to affect you in sort of six months to a year's time. So you, you have to just keep at it and what I do is just have a little bit of time every morning where I'm just spending time in my DMs, emails, instagram, all of that, just making sure I'm nurturing those relationships and never dropping the ball. So, yeah, it's just consistency A lot of discipline, a lot of consistency. I think that'll be a running theme.

Marc Matthews: 12:44

Yeah, 100%, it's. That, isn't it. It's showing up every day. It's the same with running a podcast as well. You've just got to put the reps in, do it week in, week out, and eventually it will pay off. And I know exactly what you mean. I had a um, an artist reach out to me a couple weeks ago and I've been in conversation with this artist and he's been on the podcast and he's great, great producer, great artist, and wanted me to do some mastering for him. And I think I've been chatting with him now for, like, like you say, about a couple of years and it's just that, building that relationship, that back and forth, and eventually, like you say, don't drop the ball and continuously do it. And it's one of those ones.

Marc Matthews: 13:17

I think in the service industry, in the creative industry, you do ultimately have to put in the work in areas that you may not necessarily find as fun as being creative. Albeit, I think there isn't a creative element to nurturing relationships, in a way, and promoting your business. So you do have to do the work. The less glamorous work, that's the phrase I was looking for. You've got to put in the work with the less glamorous side of things. But I think this sort of segues nicely onto the next part, which is about sort of standing out from the crowd and sort of effective service promotions. You've spoken there about how you're building these relationships and talking to individuals and nurturing relationships. Um, so I was wondering maybe you could talk a bit about specific ways to promote your service, to make it stand out in what is essentially could be quite a crowded marketplace yeah, it is.

Philip Marsden: 14:07

It's very, very crowded and it's only going to get more crowded, which has ups and downs, but that basically, yeah, that means you need to stand out. So I think the number one thing with that is you need to be able to communicate. What differentiates you from everyone else? I don't know.

Philip Marsden: 14:27

Let's say you want to be a mixing engineer or something, and you're just saying I do mixing services, ok, great, so do 10,000 other people on, you know, on the first few pages of Google. So you need to find out what you know, what differentiates you from everyone else, and double down on everything you kind of communicate about your business. So there are, like there are practical sort of differentiators. Like maybe you're doing some sort of amazing full service production, start to finish thing with an amazing team and it's specifically for, like I don't know, hyper pop artists. There you've got something really, really specific that not a lot of people are going to be doing. So that's a practical sort of differentiator. Another one will just be like your personality. Um, like I said before, this is like such a relationship based industry and we all just work with people that we like and we trust above everything else. So if you're, you just really need to make sure your personality is coming through wherever you're promoting your business. So that's when you're talking to potential clients, when you're on calls, when you're making posts on social media, any of that stuff. Often the things that kind of stand out to that of other people. You might not even be aware of yourself. Like I don't know why certain people click with me and certain people might not, but, um, if I didn't let that personality come through and I was just very, very sort of dry and agreeable all the time, then I'm not separating myself from the crowd, you know. So, um, yeah, it's, it's all about letting that shine through as much as you can. Um, and just focusing on what makes you, makes you different. Another way to stand out, I think, when you're promoting I guess this isn't really to do with promoting your business, but more when you're sort of carrying it out is just to be reliable and quick.

Philip Marsden: 16:25

Um, unfortunately, it's like it's a bit of a common sort of stereotype for engineers and producers and things that we're these sort of cave dwellers who are always just missing deadlines, communicating poorly, being a pain in the ass with revisions and, you know, having that sort of typical engineer attitude. You know the whole. I'm right, you're wrong thing. Your wrong thing and the good thing about that is that it's very, very easy to stand out just by delivering on time or ahead of time and communicating clearly with your artists, and literally just doing that will make you stand out.

Philip Marsden: 17:01

Um, I've had artists that are just like absolutely over the moon because I've just communicated something clearly and delivered on time. Like with every master I do, I basically deliver like um, just I just explain what I did and why and what to listen out for. So nothing technical, but just like general notes on what I heard and what I went for, on why, um, and, and people always say, oh my god, like I can't believe you've taken the time to do that and explained exactly what you did, um and it it really sort of stands out to people and it's like that should be the bare minimum, I think. But that's that's what makes you stand out, cause people are a lot of engineers are just a little bit poor when it comes to that side of things.

Marc Matthews: 17:44

So it's interesting, that isn't it? Um, and I agree with you, and maybe it it's because I come from a different industry before this as well. But about communication, I think the way I see it is I sort of communicate with the way I'd want people to communicate with me, so it's like being prompt with responses within reason. Obviously, we have boundaries, and also how we then deliver that product and that service. So you're hitting deadlines and then you're also receptive and approachable in terms of communication.

Marc Matthews: 18:14

With regards to revisions and I think correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you do this as well but like things like providing a feedback video and all it does, it takes I do this and it takes me all of like five minutes and I find it so much easier to provide a video and get my thoughts out rather than type, and the response to those videos has been like like it's the newest thing you know and they're like this is amazing, like I didn't realize people did this, and I'm like I find it easier to provide feedback in terms of video format and it's little things like that. You are 100% right. That will differentiate you from others. And also what you mentioned there about like the, the sort of like narrowing your focus in terms of what you're delivering and who you're delivering to, which I think is incredibly important but on the flip side of that, to play devil's advocate, what would you just say to someone who has FOMO, because there's that classic fear of missing out? If I don't offer everything, then I'm going to miss out on all these other little opportunities little might be the wrong word these other opportunities?

Marc Matthews: 19:09

What would you say to someone who sort of like responds with that?

Philip Marsden: 19:34

yeah, I mean, do what you want, but um the good side of niching it down and narrowing it down is that people can see you're very, very clearly like a specialist in that thing and that's all you do and you do that every day, so you've become very, very good at it.

Philip Marsden: 19:54

But equally, um, what I will say is, if you want to do something where you're producing, recording, mixing, mastering, doing the whole lot, you do have a very good offer there.

Philip Marsden: 20:06

If you can communicate it in the right way, um, because you can, you can start to communicate the transformation and really talk to that end goal, rather than just saying I do this and this and this and this and this, um, and overwhelming people with all those different services that you offer. If you can just focus on I take artists, you know, demo from their phone to this fully finished master you sit back, I do everything, and I guess it just depends how you communicate it. At the end of the day, yeah, you don't have to niche down into certain things, and that can almost be a niche in a way, as long as you're delivering it sort of thoughtfully and not just, you know, taking on any old project and that's. I think that's the trap a lot of people are falling into when they are trying to do. That is the FOMO thing where they just want to take anything that pays the bills.

Marc Matthews: 21:06

I love your response there. Do what you want. That was great. Ultimately, I think that's it, isn't it? Like you can lead a horse to water but you can't necessarily make it drink. I was like I can. I could tell you from my experience what works. It's up to you whether or not you sort of like give it a try. But yeah, you're right, I I totally agree with you on that one. But this kind of segues on nicely to the next, the next question, which is about, uh, expectations and clear communications, because I could think the you can fall foul of this. I think if you leave yourself open. This also falls into communication as well. I think you need to set boundaries in terms of communication lines, of when you're available and when you will respond, but also, like, what advice would you give to sort of home studio owners on setting clear expectations with clients up front throughout the mastery let's say the mastering process, and ensuring smooth communication and understanding?

Philip Marsden: 21:54

yeah. So this I think this is the main reason sort of engineers, producers have that sort of reputation I was speaking about before and I think it's expectations not being set is always the reason for an unhappy client, basically every time. Um. So you just need to make sure you're being completely and utterly transparent up front in everything you do, make sure every single expectation is set and communicated. So what's your turnaround going to be? When do you expect to be paid?

Philip Marsden: 22:28

Um, what's included in the service, what's not included in the service? Literally, get on a call with everyone and guide your client like through that process and paint a picture of what it's like to work with you and then what I would say this is the probably the sort of key to it. Always send all of that through in writing afterwards and that can be like a nicely presented sort of proposal thing or a web page. Um, the reason I like proposals is because you can just tailor it to the project. If you're doing um with mastering, I don't really have to because it's always the same, but with something like mixing or production, you can literally tailor that down to the project after you've discussed what's going to be included and what's not on the phone, um, and, yeah, just make sure that it's all very, very abundantly clear up front so that they know what to expect and what's you know out of out of reach, out of scope.

Philip Marsden: 23:19

Um, on top of that, you know you're kind of you need to get their expectations as well. So they're coming to you obviously for a physical service that you know I need a mix done, okay, but it's deeper than that as well. They might want, you know, their their song to sound like this record, because they loved it when they were growing up as a kid and they need their music to feel nostalgic to them. Um, they might have a goal to reach a certain amount of streams on this release. So they're hiring you to get the best possible sound and you know a chance of of getting there and they see you as a ticket to get into that. So you need to communicate with them that you're kind of there to support them on that journey and you want this record to hit that goal as well. Um, so, yeah, you need to kind of get their their expectations up front and just make sure all this stuff is really really clear in writing.

Marc Matthews: 24:14

Yeah, wise words, Expectations, I think, are key in getting those aligned up front. And I think what you mentioned there about like you sort of want to understand deeper into the project itself and I'm a big advocate of like jumping on Google Meet. I was using Zoom, but I found it a pain in the ass, so I moved over to Google Meet. I was using Zoom, but I found it a pain in the ass, so I moved over to Google Meet and just jumping on and just answering questions and learning that way, because I think that's so, so important, Because you're kind of like not necessarily working for them, but I like to say it's like you're working with them. It's a project, it's back and forth, it's a collaboration and you're only really going to get that deeper understanding and through that communication as well.

Marc Matthews: 24:50

So really really good sound advice and the idea of a proposal is really really good as well, I think. And what you mentioned there about in mastering, you can have that one proposal and you can tailor, make it to the individual as well is really key. So this sort of segues on nicely it kind of does To the next question. It's sort of like the final piece of this puzzle before we dive into what it is that you do yourself, phil, um keeping clients happy, so managing communication and feedback. We've already touched on communication, so we finished the project. What strategies would you recommend to sort of address client feedback and ensuring long-term sort of client satisfaction as well?

Philip Marsden: 25:31

I'd say just assuming this is talking about sort of the revisions process yeah, yeah, yeah um, I just say, keep that as open as you can.

Philip Marsden: 25:41

A lot of people see revisions as this really sort of negative thing, because you know you, we're creatives too and we kind of get very, very invested in our production or our mix. But ultimately, when we're doing this, we're providing a service and it's about what the artist wants. Um, but it's very easy to see revisions as a negative thing. But what you need to do is kind of reframe that, because to me, that's the stage where you actually start to collaborate with people and you get to bounce ideas back and forth and everything really sort of comes together and this is why they've come to you in the first place. So this part is almost more important than everything that came before it. Um, you need to kind of see it as them giving you. What I like to say is they're giving you the cheat codes to get the project done. Um, so you need to come at that with this problem-solving mindset and not like a defensive argument over your little creative bit. So it's all about just trying to avoid restricting your clients at that stage and just enable them to actually be creative and feel comfortable communicating with you and trying out different ideas.

Philip Marsden: 26:54

Um, the one thing that hasn't worked for me is saying something like when we get to revision stage, saying, right, you get two rounds of two rounds of revisions and then it's an extra charge. Um, I understand it because obviously you are taking a payment up front. Then you don't want to be working more hours and just putting your hourly pay, you know, down the pan. But to me that doesn't allow proper sort of creativity, it doesn't allow that back and forth. But also it kind of causes a bit of like overwhelm and overthinking on their side, because often with that you'll get these big long lists of changes because they're coming out with this sort of scarcity mindset thing, because you've created scarcity, and they're kind of thinking, right, I've got to get all these changes out within two rounds or I'm going to be paying more. So they they're really like overthinking it.

Philip Marsden: 27:47

Um, so instead I'd say just go unlimited and since I've done that, I get less revisions, just because people were more trusting from the get-go. The only limit I put on it is a. It's like a time-based restriction. So I just say, you know, 30 days after getting that first master is your unlimited revisions period, and that's plenty of time to really dial things in, um, but it just stops projects dragging on too long or falling off of their radar and they forget about them. Um, but yeah, it's plenty of time to get things right.

Marc Matthews: 28:20

So, yeah, I'd just say the big thing is just enabling them to be creative with you and collaborate it's very interesting there what you mentioned about revisions, because I was gonna, when you mentioned there about, uh, how you have unlimited revisions, I was my question go around in my head was at what point do you sort of stop? And you mentioned about 30 days, which I thought was quite interesting.

Marc Matthews: 28:40

um, have you ever encountered a situation whereby you because you can over I suppose you've already answered this question, really, when you said that you're getting less revisions now because you haven't got that scarcity mindset of them thinking, well, I need to get all this done now have you ever had it whereby you've had too much back and forth, or what would you do in that situation whereby you just kept having that back and forth and you weren't really coming to an agreement?

Philip Marsden: 29:08

So I'd say, part of our job is to be someone who can provide sort of peace of mind and clarity when an artist gets to that stage, when they're starting to overthink um, and this is this comes back to why it's important to work with people who you have that sort of rapport with and trust with, who you've built a relationship with over time, because when they come to hire you, they're not doubting your judgment, um, but when, when it starts to get to that point, often you can sort of say, look, I think maybe you're going around in circles a little bit here. Maybe we need to think about wrapping this up, um, and you know there'll there'll be different sort of nuanced situations with that. Maybe they do need to think about wrapping this up, um, and you know there'll there'll be different sort of nuanced situations with that. Maybe they do need to just try things out, um, and often artists will be thankful for for you kind of doing that and trying to eliminate that overwhelming their head, because that's often what it is. It's just them overwhelmed and scared to kind of call it done, um, and that's that's the biggest part of our job really.

Philip Marsden: 30:14

On the other hand, if you have someone who really isn't happy after that many revisions, it probably never was a good fit to begin with, which is absolutely fine, and I think the best thing to do there is just say look, I don't think this has worked, has worked out, that's absolutely fine. I'm just willing to refund you, um, because the last thing you want is to have them walk away unhappy, and if they you know, if they've paid and not got what they want, that's the worst possible scenario for any of us um, if they've not got what they needed from you, but you know, you've refunded them and there's nothing lost and you've been an adult about it.

Marc Matthews: 30:54

Essentially, um, they can't walk away unhappy and you've not burnt a bridge, so I think the key there is is to, if it does happen and hopefully it wouldn't happen is to know when. To hold your hands up in the air, I guess, and just say, for one, we're better putting into sight, this isn't the correct fit, I don't think this is right, and then being amicable, like you say, being an adult about it, and then um, and then parting ways on a positive note, um, but no, interesting stuff. Interesting stuff, phil. So I think it's now a good opportunity for you to maybe uh talk a bit. First, talk about first, maybe, uh, marston mastering, and then also second about the podcast as well yeah, sure, um.

Philip Marsden: 31:33

So Marsden Mastering um has been running a few years now. It's basically it's a mastering service, um, but I like to where I like to. Here we go. Differentiation, um, where I like to be a bit different from the typical sort of big name mastering houses is just by keeping it really open, really collaborative, and you know, breaking that typical sort of big name mastering houses is just by keeping it really open, really collaborative, and, you know, breaking that typical sort of cave dweller mastering engineer stereotype, um, by actually communicating with people as much as I can yeah, be personable, yeah exactly so yeah it's just a simple collaborative mastering service for for producers, mixers, artists you name

Philip Marsden: 32:11

it, um, yeah, and then the podcast. Um, the podcast I launched about a year and a half ago now. Um, I was actually I had a business coach at the time who kind of gave me that nudge to do it. It was something I knew I needed to do with some form of um sort of content, and I was terrified, but I took the plunge and I basically had to do it. Um, in a way that was very me, um, I couldn't. I knew I couldn't do like a long form thing, because I well, I rambled a bit here, but I tend to be pretty concise and to the point with when I want to say things. Um, so it's just short form episodes, all about keeping clients happy, um, and then productivity and efficiency stuff in the studio. Really, um, yeah, and it's been.

Marc Matthews: 33:01

It's been really good fun fantastic and I think folks listening, audience listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, I highly encourage you to go check out phil's podcast, because you'll get loads of other amazing nuggets of information with regards to productivity and efficiency and whatnot in the music industry. So do go check that out and obviously go check out Phil's mastering service as well. Where can they find it online?

Philip Marsden: 33:22

Yeah, so it's just wwwmarsdenmasteringcom. And then I'm also on instagram, master mastering same thing. Uh, same on tiktok as well, although I don't really use that properly.

Marc Matthews: 33:33

So yeah, I will put links to uh, to all that in the episode notes. And yeah, I'm with you on tiktok man. I don't think I've posted on that for a while, I just I post it, I post on it and delete it, yeah yeah, and then re-download it for the next one and delete it again yeah, it's one of those, my fiance.

Marc Matthews: 33:55

She's routinely, my fiance is routinely on TikTok and. I'm just like I'm totally out of touch anyway, it's been great spending time with you chatting today about productivity and starting, hopefully, putting the foundations in there for the audience who want to start their own service in whatever format it may be, and I know they're going to get loads out of this today and audience listening. Please do go check out the podcast as well the Savvy Producer, phil. It's been an absolute pleasure and I will catch up with you soon.