We recently connected with Josh Ayers and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Josh thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

I feel blessed to be able to play music for people and have worked hard to build a career with it. But the people are what matters to me more than anything. I enjoy making connections with others, seeing them light up when I play their favorite song or a song from their past that they hadn’t heard in a while. But the legacy I hope to leave is that of someone who had a passion for helping others fulfill their dreams. I used to teach guitar, bass, and ukulele and will likely return to that someday, but I just enjoy meeting fellow artists and helping them in any way I can, be it advice (if they ask for it) or helping promote them. I know how much courage it takes to put yourself out there and how scary it can be to take something you love and put it in front of an audience to be scrutinized. I want people like that to know they have someone in their corner, rooting them on when times get difficult because they will. But those difficulties are where we hone our craft and get better at it. I hope my legacy will be that of someone who helped others grow.

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

I can’t say I dreamt of doing what I do now as a young, aspiring musician. I wanted to be Eddie Van Halen in my teenage years, but because no one else wanted to do it in my high school band, I became the lead singer. I was pretty bad at it for a while because I was a bit of an introvert and didn’t have the confidence to belt it out. But we did reasonably well and eventually were booking wedding receptions and other events as high schoolers. We had our fair share of bad gigs of course but I loved it enough to keep returning to it, despite feeling discouraged at times. The more I did it, the more confident I became as a singer and I grew to love doing it. Those early bad gigs taught me a valuable lesson: it’s only failure if you give up. All the mistakes led me to prepare better, work harder, and grow. It’s made me better at what I do, but also more understanding of others when they struggle. I realized that we’re all on our own journeys and growth comes from those struggles. I also learned to recognize that people hiring me to play music have their own goals and that I’m just one part of it. I make it my mission to understand what they are trying to achieve and do my best to uphold my side by being dependable, communicating well, and being professional. I pride myself in being at least one element of their event that they don’t have to worry about.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

That’s a great question. I think it boils down to being friendly and understanding of your client’s needs. It’s easy to get caught up in what you will get out of the situation, but when you show an understanding of what client needs that is potentially hiring you, you can sell your services better. It’s not that different than selling a product – you have to believe in the product you are selling and show them that it can meet their need. But that also means recognizing that what you have to sell, in my case music performances, may not be a good fit for every situation. So some of that is being smart about where you try to get booked. I’ve been asked before what the “secret” for getting booked so much is. There is no secret. You find all the places that are hiring for what you do and reach out to them, being courteous and respectful of their time. If you don’t hear back, wait a while and try again. Don’t hound them and don’t take it personally if they never get back to you. You have to have a thick skin and move on. I’m currently playing in some places that wouldn’t even respond to my messages three years ago. You just have to keep working as much as you can and build your brand and your reputation. Patience is your ally.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Going along with the reputation question, word of mouth is a big part of a growing clientele. You want people telling their friends and other venues that you’d be a good hire. Outside of that, watching social media for new venues opening up and paying attention to where other people who do what you do are playing is probably the biggest source of growing your client base if you’re just starting out. Unfortunately, many places use social media status as a tool to gauge whether they want to hire you or not, so things like “Likes and Follows” on Facebook factor in. So being active online, posting videos and other promotional things help build your brand. A lot of talented musicians miss opportunities because they don’t enjoy this side of it and fail to put much content out for venues to get a feel for what they do. But again, you have to look at it from their perspective. You might know you’re good and maybe even better than people they already hire, but they don’t know that, so you have to give them something to work with. Even knowing this, I am aware I could be doing more than I do in that regard.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://joshayersmusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/josh.ayers.music
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jayersmusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFUG-FvON-QZb6VHahhB3lQ