We recently connected with Will Jackson and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Will , thanks for joining us today. One of the toughest things about progressing in your creative career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?

One of the biggest problems I’ve encountered as a freelancer and business owner is managing my time.

I used to find that certain tasks would consume me. I would often obsess over certain details that often were not worth the time investment.

One of the primary reasons that I’d allow my self to delve into this was because (I think mainly subconsciously), I assumed I had more time in my day to day than I did. I would often think ‘ahh that other task can wait, I’ll probably tackle it tomorrow”.

The result of this was that my productivity and output were really poor. This had a knock on affect on how I and my wife viewed my general work progress. I had multiple projects in the pipeline that I’d regularly talk about, however it seemed to both of us that they were dragging on forever, completion dates still to come into sight – and they were!

Something had to change. It was my wife Lauren’s idea that sparked it. She’d read recently about a top business executive, CEO to a large firm, who claimed his key to productivity and thus continued success was due to segmenting his day down to the minute.

I liked the sound of this so decided to give it a go. I searched for a productivity, schedule planning app on the App Store and came across a wonderful app called structured. After using this for little over 2 weeks, I can honestly say that it changed my life.

My work output/task completion shot up. I began to feel I was on top of everything. My procrastination that would occur from time to time disintegrated, and I began to feel really good about myself and how much I was achieving!

I’ve been working this way for quite some time now, and would never go back to the way things were before. It’s a practice I’d highly recommend to anyone.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a music producer with experience in a wide rage of genres, working with a vast variety of artists. I offer two main services – full song production, and then mixing. Mastering is an optional add on I offer for free, but I encourage clients to use one of my trusted peers for this as getting a second pair of ears on a song at this stage is a good idea.

I got into this business and learnt my trade by first studying music production at University, but then by producing the music of the bands I was in following that. I was producing these bands for free as I was still in a massive learning phase and didn’t consider myself a pro at that point. That experience set me up to turn professional and charge for my services.

I then went about working out how to navigate the world of marketing (still am!) over the next few years. My aim was to work out how to bring in a consistent flow of clients. There was a lot of trial and error, and I feel I’ve only really cracked it in the past year tbh. Before this, I was supplementing my income by teaching music production privately to pupils.

The number one thing that revolutionised my client acquisition efforts, was building a great offer that reversed risk and built trust. A main part of this is a 2 week guarantee period where the client gets a full refund of the small deposit paid upfront if they’re not happy with the music created to that point. Strangely enough, I couldn’t find any other producers offering a guarantee, so I guess in a way, this was kind of my USP!

My favourite job to date was mixing the 20 track album for the the video game Sea Of Solitude, released by EA Games, and the soundtrack released by SONY Music. It was a mountain of a project, but so much fun to do!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part of what I do is being able to shape someone else’s art and vision into a fully realised entity. This brings great benefit and joy to the artist and makes me feel great that I could facilitate that!

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Well in my sphere, put some laws or mandates in place around streaming services that ensure that artists are paid fairly for the streams they get on their music. It’s ridiculous how little they get currently.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://willjacksonmusic.co.uk
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willjacksonmusicuk/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/willjacksonmusicuk