We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Finck. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.

Sarah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

As we have written songs and have gotten them recorded, we have spent a lot of time and money creating and perfecting them. The thing is, all that time and money should not stop at the completion of a song. We have read many books and had many role models tell us that “if you are going to spend a lot on the makings of a song, you should prepare to spend that much or more promoting it.” This was a very scary thing to recognize and put into practice. It is a huge risk to trust and pay a promotion company wads of money to get your song in front of the right audience in order to gain exposure and return in investment. We got our feet wet with promoting our songs a couple years ago. We hired a promotion company to promote our song on music streaming services. That went very well, as we saw good growth with those songs. It costs a lot to promote one song that way, but it costs 2x more to promote on radio. The Music Row charts are what all songwriters want to see their song get onto, and to even grasp a chance, you must get your song to Music Row radio stations to play your song. Finally, this year, we pulled the trigger and began promoting our songs to radio. In doing that, our latest release, “Well Whiskey” has been charting on Music Row Charts for over 6 weeks! This has been our best investment yet.

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 back background and context?

We are a twin sister country music duo. Our names are Kelly & Sarah. We grew up in a small town in Illinois where music was a big part of the culture. Music filled our lives in school and in church. We believe that singing and creating music is the purpose God has for our lives. That is why we have been privately trained in classical voice and contemporary voice and earned Bachelor’s Degrees’ in Music. We want to master our craft to the best of our abilities. We love to travel with our band to other states and perform at fundraisers, festivals, and house concerts. As Recording Artists, our style draws from our small-town upbringing to fashion a flair of our own. If you like rich harmonies and creative lyrics, give a listen to Kelly & Sarah.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Our biggest lesson that we had to unlearn is “Never say no to an opportunity.” This was advice taught to us in college, and unfortunately, it is not good advice. The advice I would give instead is “Say yes to what will benefit your business.” How do you know if an opportunity will support your business? Do the research. Do not say “yes” willy nilly until you are sure. Do not sign a contract without first reading and most importantly understanding what it says. When we first started performing, we said yes to opportunities that we were not ready for. It is good to push yourself and get out of your comfort zone, but do not fool yourself into believing you are better than you are.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

One thing non-creatives may struggle to understand about the music industry is what it means to be signed to a Label. We were not fully aware of the meaning at first either, but we did a lot of research and now we can provide some insight. Most people have the idea that if an artist gets signed to a Label, then they must have finally “made it.” In fact, that is not the case. Getting signed to a Label is indeed a huge achievement that anyone should be proud of, however, that does not mean everything falls into place, and the money will start pouring in. Labels do a lot of work for artists, and they get paid for it. That’s the part people do not see. If an artist is not signed to a Label, they are independent artists. This means the artist pays for everything: producers, band members, promotion, hotels, etc, and in return they make 100% of the profit. When an artist has a Label to pay for everything, the artist then pays the label an astounding 60%-90% of their profit. I feel that the triumphs of an independent artist are more rewarding than a triumph of a signed artist. If the population understood the difference of independent artists and signed artists, I feel that they may revere the independent artist more.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kellysarahmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellysarahmusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kellysarahmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kellysarahmusic
• Other: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/kellyandsarah/well-whiskey-2/

Image Credits

Shelby Nicole Photography
Mattie Lous Photography
Christopher Russell