We recently connected with Jordan Passman and have shared our conversation below.
Jordan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
As a solo founder, I would travel to New York in the summer, for example, sweating profusely as I dashed from meeting to meeting. After a pitch, I would frantically find the nearest Starbucks for free Wi-Fi and a phone charge, run the business for a few minutes, and then rush to the next potential client. I couldn’t keep up. My greatest challenges came with growth. The more that I hustled, the more that I couldn’t handle, and that time of chaos before my ability to afford to hire my first employee was a real challenge. Delegation proved to be an incredible resource to help continued growth and to save my sanity.
What took my business (and life balance) to new heights was reading Traction by Gino Wickman and then embracing EOS. This book outlines a framework to run a business so that it doesn’t run your life. We continue to get so much value out of it today, and it has helped us scale to 20 people, work on more projects efficiently, stay aligned with our vision, hire by our core values, and has offered so many other valuable tools.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I am the Founder & CEO of Score a Score, a Cannes Lion-winning music partner readily available to help navigate the discovery, creation, or clearance of the perfect soundtrack.
In 2020, Score a Score was featured on the Inc. 5000 list for its 5th consecutive year. Since starting the company as a solo entrepreneur in 2010, we’ve paid out millions of dollars to our roster of independent artists, and have worked on thousands of projects for clients across all mediums.
We represent a global roster of 300+ diverse composers and a curated catalog of over 70K original tracks (all customizable and one-stop). Recent work includes ad campaigns for Microsoft, Verizon, Apple, MasterCard, TikTok, McDonald’s, Disney, Meta, Google, Taco Bell, LinkedIn, blockbuster trailers for all of the major film studios, and music supervision for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO and more.
Our expertise includes: Music Licensing, Custom Music, Music Supervision + Clearance, Sound Design, Mixing, and Sonic Branding.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
One day when were brainstorming about how we could solidify, with confidence, that Score a Score is officially the easiest music company to contact in the world. So we dreamt of Presto!
Commissioner Gordon had the Bat phone. Bank tellers have panic buttons. Every security guard in every horror movie ever made has that big red button they hit when the aliens breach the perimeter fence. Now, creatives and producers have their own code red button too: Introducing Presto! by Score a Score.
Presto! is a single-click button that connects you directly to the Score a Score team. Each Presto! is ready to go right out of the box – simply press the button (anytime, anywhere) and the SAS team will be notified within 30 seconds. In an instant, a creative will reach out via phone, text, or email to help with your music needs.
What made this so fun was how absurdly insane it was. We used the latest technologies to manufacture these custom buttons and some of our clients actually started using them regularly. Others thought they were hilarious. And now all of these years later they are being pushed by janitors in empty office buildings. We had some wonderful press around it too. I’d say it was a huge success!
https://scoreascore.com/presto
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Without knowing anyone in the industry as I decided to pursue this entrepreneurial journey, I turned to cold calling and expanding my existing network. My philosophy was that even if someone wasn’t interested in our services, they may be willing to introduce me to anyone else that could be. By turning every meeting into another meeting, I was able to expand my network of potential clients, friends, supporters, and collaborators infinitely.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://scoreascore.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scoreascore
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scoreascoreLA
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/score-a-score