We recently connected with Greggy Westside and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Greggy, thanks for joining us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I actually have a regular job in addition to running the business. 9-5 I am preventing financial crimes and at night I work with over 250 rappers in the state of Ohio, Very big difference. I did Westside only for about two years, and at the time we did artist management and owned a recording studio, and financially we couldn’t afford to invest money/resources into those ventures and still have me get paid even under a livable wage so I got a full time remote position. This allowed me to be able to have less stress and when I needed to focus on my business I could without distraction and anxiety.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Greggy Westside, I am from Cleveland, Ohio and I am the owner of Westside Productions, which is the largest underground booking agency in Cleveland, and we also work in Columbus and Cincinnati. We host and facilitate concert events for independent artists throughout the state of Ohio and give them the opportunity to get in front of a crowd, as our events average 125 persons, with venues that average 225 capacity.

I originally got into booking shows from booking my own, I used to rap 2016-2022, and I would book my own and my friends shows, in addition to helping with their music career decisions. It led me to want to do artist management which turned out to be the biggest headache in the world, and while facilitating events for that purpose I decided to put full focus into it.

The biggest issue that independent artists face is getting in front of a crowd and building a fan base. We can’t force anyone to like someones music, but we can definitely get that music in a room and played in front of people. Most promoters and booking agents pick and choose who they like and don’t bring a crowd in and don’t put the expectation on artists to be a part of that, our shows essentially have a built in crowd by having 7-12 artists each having to sell a minimum of 10 tickets per event in order to perform, that way there’s a built in crowd.

What I am most proud of is building a community. I play slow pitch softball, and for my team we got jerseys made with “WESTSIDE” across the chest. There’s 12 players on our team, we sold 56 jerseys at $30 per, making no profit from them, to artists and fans. Whenever someone buys a Westside Productions shirt or gets it in a giveaway they wear it to the next event and post pictures in it. Whenever there are certain artists/bands that we have been working with since the start, more people show out, High Tolerance Is a great example they make Nu-Metal Rap music, and fans of trap music come to see them, and in turn they come and support the others.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The best way we have been able to grow our clientele has been individually reaching out via social media or by running ads, then making sure there is a 1v1 personal conversation to make sure they understand how we operate our events. At the event we make sure to talk to each artist and have a 5 minute conversation with most of them. The biggest difference between us and our competitors is that we handle ourselves as professionals and care about our relationships with these artists and put time and effort into them.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

1v1 personal conversations, consistently reaching out to them, giving them free merch or some benefits when they put in a ton of effort. Any of these are good ways to keep your client loyal and create a brand. I can’t fill a show up just because I post a flyer on instagram, I can do it by reaching out to each artist with a text blast with all dates available, texting them individually, and sometimes even calling them. Giving extra effort to create a relationship and actually push for someone to do and have better things in relation to your business goes a long way, but it’s something you can’t fake, it starts with me at the top and is the same for all of my show staff, we all want to see these artists succeed.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.westsideproductions.media
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/westsideproductions/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WestsideProductionsCLE

Image Credits

PortFourLeo | @portfourleo