| Author | Message | ||
| captain ron (Captain_ron)
Rating: N/A |
With the Prices of fuel soaring and my fuel mileage on the MCI8 down from the old 4905. only getting 5mpg. I need to make every move one towards another gig. With my busy schedule and the work on my bus I just don't have time to do every thing and do it well. My web site needs reworked, I need to expand my area in which I work. My marketing sucks. I still don't have a cd out. I need to contact the apropriate people for sponsership and negotiate a deal. I was thinking about trying to sell shows on ebay for enroute shows. any takers or leads or advice? | ||
| wayne Newland
Rating: N/A |
Ron Be careful of selling your talents too cheap (e-bay). Your regular paying gigs will find out and it will be hard to get your regular price. yes, an agent can be expensive (if he doesn't do anything), but, if he really has conections, he can make you money and help you with the cd thing. BTDT. Try Jimmy Case in Nashville. | ||
| Matt (Hgtech)
Rating: N/A |
Well Capt. Ron, Sounds like you're in that place most musicians/bands get to that they are doing to much to keep up with it all themselves and not enough to justify a hiring an agent, manager, publicist, etc. Another good marketing idea that will help sell you is to make a list of all past shows you've done on your website. It's alot easier for someone booking shows for a venue to book someone they've never heard of when they can see where they've played before. There are a number of things you can do to help your marketing - including what you already mentioned - reworking your website. Not knowing anything about you - the first thing I tried to do was check out your website, which I was unable to reach. If I was looking to book you - that would have been the end of the deal for me. I've never heard of anyone selling shows on eBay. If you did - I'd make sure to set a good reserve so you didn't end up leaving Florida on your way to Michigan and have to travel through Nevada for $10. Based of my experience in the music industry, if you want more shows - I’d find a good "booking agent." While they do cost money - sometimes as much as 25% of your honorarium - it can be well worth it if you start playing 150 gig's a year. I'm not sure what you charge per gig or anything like that - but here's something else we do. We have a per mile operating expense figured out for our bus. Works out to about $.75 per mile (includes money for tires, drive train, brakes, suspension, engine / tranny work, diesel, genset work, oil, everything). Through our contract, we typically either: a. Don't accept shows that the honorarium doesn't at least cover our operating expense and we try to sell lots of merch to makeup the difference. b. Happens more often - per the contract - bill the promoter for the operating expense as well as the honorarium. Having a CD is also a great marking tool - plus it can help make you more money at shows where the honorarium isn't that great. I'd also recommend you get some merch (hats, T's, glossies, stickers, etc.) if you don't already have some. The upfront cost is there but there is definitely the opportunity to make some good money from merch. Plug: We do website design / hosting at HGTech where I work [http://www.hgtech.net/web] - If you're interested in having an outside company design your website - we'd be glad to talk with you. One other note - if you try to sell yourself too cheap - venues and promoters will think you are desperate to get shows and either won't book you or won't offer you very much. Here's an observation I've made: If venues / promoters don't have the money to offer a decent honorarium - they're probably not going to spend the money to properly advertise a show / event. Which means practically no-one shows up (unless it's a bar or club and they'd be there anyway) and you won't sell hardly any merch. Hope some of this has been a help . . . Matt 1979 Silver Eagle Model 05 | ||
| Kevin Hatch
Rating: N/A |
Capt. Ron, Do you have a MySpace account? Our band does all of our own booking right now as well. MySpace.com is a very valuable tool for networking, booking, and just getting more fans in general. You should go look at our page at www.myspace.com/nevaeh. What kind of music do you play? Kevin | ||
| wayne Newland
Rating: N/A |
Ron All of the RV associations have rallys and need entertainment. FMCA, GoodSam, Monaco, etc. Look up their web pages and check out their calendars. They are willing to pay you something and furnish you parking and hookups, etc. I do a lot of these rallys as a vendor and most have entertainment every night. | ||
| Matt (Hgtech)
Rating: N/A |
Ron, I can't believe I forgot to mention myspace. Excellent point Kevin. One of the groups I work with recently started a myspace accout [http://www.myspace.com/gretchenland]. In just under a week we had almost 1500 friends join us. One of them booked us for one of the largest festivals in the U.S. Definately something worth doing!! Matt 1979 Silver Eagle Model 05 | ||
| Ron Walker (Prevost82)
Rating: N/A |
Wayne ... just a guess here, it looks like you haven't visited Ron's web site. His stuff is a little... well... on the raw side (biker-bar stuff) and could contain course language and nudity (no, not Ron, other nudity). Not your FMC / GoodSam kinda entertainment. LOL Ron | ||
| Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy)
Rating: N/A |
Is his site actually working? I have not been able to get it to open. Richard | ||
| Matt (Hgtech)
Rating: N/A |
It's not working for me here in Tennessee . . . Matt 1979 Silver Eagle Model 05 | ||
| John MC9 Rating: N/A |
Ron - Aside from having the link to your website wrong (you have it as: http://www%22dot%22captainronshow%22dot%22com/ instead of http://www.captainronshow.com), your host's nameserver is either down, or they've removed you. No match for "CAPTAINRONSSHOW.COM". Last update of whois database: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 03:10:58 EST 03/21/06 16:29:24 dns www.captainronsshow.com No data of requested type (Host doesn't exist - try Dig for MX record) 03/21/06 16:29:31 dig www.captainronsshow.com @ http://www.247results.com Dig www.captainronsshow.com@http://www.247results.com (206.207.85.33) ... failed, couldn't connect to nameserver 03/21/06 16:33:26 Browsing http://www.captainronsshow.com/ No such server as www.captainronsshow.com Just another day in paradise... Stay away from Ebay. You don't need more headaches. | ||
| Ron Walker (Prevost82)
Rating: N/A |
Worked for me yesterday Ron | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
Looks like the website has been either dropped from dns or banned for content by some filter somewhere. Shows up on google but is not available in dns tree on current updates. Sounds like somebody don't like you???? | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
Oh.. No... Your registration has expired as of Yesterday.. Domain Name: CAPTAINRONSHOW.COM Registrar: TUCOWS INC. Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net Referral URL: http://domainhelp.tucows.com Name Server: NS1.NETFIRMS.COM Name Server: NS2.NETFIRMS.COM Status: ACTIVE Updated Date: 21-mar-2005 Creation Date: 20-mar-2003 Expiration Date: 20-mar-2006 Now it's gonna cost you big time money to get it back, expired domains are big money like extortion if you let one expire... | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
And your website has been deleted from netfirms server also... That $4.95 a month deal will always bite you in the butt ! | ||
| motorcoach1 Rating: N/A |
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/DemoExchange/ | ||
| Craig (Ceieio)
Rating: N/A |
Well, you can kindof get an idea what his site was like from the internet wayback machine. Here is what was picked up (on the 3/8/05 snapshot): http://web.archive.org/web/20050308134842/http://www.captainronshow.com/ Craig - MC7 Oregon | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
Ron, In order to promote yourself on a website you need one that works.  You also need to not tell people it's under construction either. That is not taken well and people won't keep visiting if the primary content says "under construction", The search engines will see that and sometimes exclude a site if it see's those words. There is a lot that can be done to make a site work as needed. sometimes too simple just makes things worse than too complicated. You need a Pro to get your Image Built Up... Dave... | ||
| Donald Lee Schwanke (Dontx)
Rating: N/A |
I'm not sure about that David. Ron is a real get with it do it yourself sort of guy. Web sites are pretty much childs play these days, and probably Ron knows what he wants to present better than anyone else. I did a couple of them for myself, found it was not only simple but lots of fun. Give it some thought Ron. | ||
| Matt (Hgtech)
Rating: N/A |
I've got to agree with Drdave, you really do need a pro to help with web design. While Dontx is right, it can be simple and fun, designing a website the works properly and displays the same in IE, Mozilla, Netscape, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Maxthon, IE on MAC, and a slew of other browsers can take some serious work. Really simple websites are often not enough to impress potential business because larger musicians/bands pay big $$$$$ to have their impressive, informative, eye candy loaded sites designed. To compete with them you just about have to have a professional do yours (or seriously study web design). Matt 1979 Silver Eagle Model 05 | ||
| motorcoach1 Rating: N/A |
http://www.myspace.com/360band | ||
| mark scaife (Markwb)
Rating: N/A |
good luck captain ron, its always darkest before the dawn, don't let it get ya down man. mark.... | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
Don't cha just love the speedbumps? Ron, Jump on getting your domain turned back on and then worry about the site content. If it had been registered through Network solutions they get about $180 to give it back.. You might get lucky. | ||
| Ross Carlisle (Rrc62)
Rating: N/A |
I'll echo the ebay comments. Things that show up on ebay usually end up with the reputation of being junk, cheap, etc. You don't want to associate yourself with ebay. I'm in the extreme sports business (selling gear). Most of my manufacturers strictly forbid us to list thier products on ebay because it devalues the product. | ||
| captain ron (Captain_ron)
Rating: N/A |
Wow, great response and advice. I knew my site was about to expire. Was not sure if it was hosting or domain though. Every body I have talked to has wanted to host it if they build the site. I have had quotes of up too $1200.00 for construction and then hosting fees on top of that. I have product to sell such as T-shirts, womens spagetti strap and one strap tops, thongs and bumper stickers. The expenses I have with all I'm doing at this time are astranomical. IE. bus, product, equiptment, supplies and just general living expenses. My Ebay thing was also a promotion gimic, I've seen a lot of people get big publicity because of WHAT they put on ebay. I would definately put a reserve and It would only be for filling in a tues. night or some thing of that nature when headed a long way to a gig. It was just a thought. As for my adult content, true that's my fortay but I am very capable of entertaining any body of all ages. I have built my own web site before and it wasn't bad but I don't have time and it realy needs to be of higher quality if I want to advance my career. I'll keep plugging away at this. | ||
| John MC9 Rating: N/A |
Get a copy of "Microsoft Front Page". It's worth what Walmart, or any software shop charges. It's not only a wyswyg, it's a fantastic exploration in HTML programming. I dunno what you've been paying, but check with www.hosting4less.com They have been tops for us! | ||
| captain ron (Captain_ron)
Rating: N/A |
I have an old version about 4 years`old or mabee older and built my first site with it.but I am not interested in doing it again. too many irons`in the fire already. Matt, I play a little ov every thing from country, southern rock and classic rock but I am mainly hired because of my comedy stuff and onstage antics. my games and audiance partisipation and With songs like, 10 reasons why it's better to have a harley than a girlfriend, The Bob song (battery opperated boyfriend), I like titties, show me your tits and I'm the milf man, Make me a favorite at bike rallies and biker bars. After looking at your company site it appears that you guys are more of a faith based or cristian company and would probably not be interested in doing my web site. just an assumption. I have some plans for aproaching sponsers both main sponsers with monetary help and also smaller sponsers with product and support. I don't want to show my hand yet but have some very unique ideas. What would I expect to have to pay for a manager? publicity company and so forth? | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
Ron, Contact me off board. by email please... I hope you have a backup email address. Dave.... | ||
| John MC9 Rating: N/A |
Ron - The host I gave the URL for, provides a "shopping cart" system that's looked fairly easy to format. They can build you a site for $$$, but you may not need more than a simple "shopping cart". Hey..... I@n's retired and looking for something to do.... | ||
| captain ron (Captain_ron)
Rating: N/A |
my domain and hosting is $119 a year and allows me 2 free domains. They also have shopping carts. I will have it up and running again tommorrow. For those who think I'm only about the risque stuff I have written some nice country songs like, one love in a life time, faith tested by fire ( a song about the black churches being burned in the south a few years back), Broken home, street of dreams and my latest Overnight success (a comedic overlook of todays disposable artist that SEEM to just make it over night then dissapear in a month or so) But the serious stuff is not what people on vacation in a tourist tow or at bike rallies want to hear, their here for fun. | ||
| Donald Lee Schwanke (Dontx)
Rating: N/A |
Ross, you said: "By Ross Carlisle (Rrc62) (69.165.88.194) on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 11:25 pm: Edit Post I'll echo the ebay comments. Things that show up on ebay usually end up with the reputation of being junk, cheap, etc. You don't want to associate yourself with ebay. I'm in the extreme sports business (selling gear). Most of my manufacturers strictly forbid us to list thier products on ebay because it devalues the product." I find your comments interesting, certainly a bit different attitude than most, but most of all the restriction of a manufacturer from selling on EBay. Is it really legal in this land of freedom for a manufacturer to dictate how a product can be sold? I can understand the desire to limit sales to high overhead high markup dealers, but this sounds more like price fixing or gouging. I wonder if that has ever been tested in a court of law. | ||
| Ross Carlisle (Rrc62)
Rating: N/A |
No idea if it's legal, but they are not shy about telling us that we will lose our dealership if we sell their products on eBay. Most of the time I agree with them. When products show up on eBay it drives the price down and starts a price war amongst dealers. This makes it difficult for a legitimate business to maintain enough profit margin to cover overhead. It's not price fixing or price gouging. That would imply that dealers and manufacturers are banding together to maintain an artifially high price, and that's not the case. Maunufacturers are simply doing what they can to maintain an even playing field so thier dealers can all make a fair margin and stay in business. Most of them also have a MAP policy which states that we can not advertise a price lower than MSRP. We can sell for what ever we want, but we can't advertise. A lot of manufacturers do this, which is why you see websites now and then listing prices as "price to low to advertise". You have to understand the nature of these products. These are not high volume items. In some cases there are only a few dealers in the US and none of us are getting rich. We do it for the love of the sport, not for the money. You must admit, after seeing hundreds of "widgets" on eBay for a fraction of MSRP, it's awfully hard go to a legitimate business and buy that same widget for average street price. That's a perfect example of devaluing a product. | ||
| John MC9 Rating: N/A |
What's "price fixing" by any other name? | ||
| Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
Rating: N/A |
But hmmmm, if all these widgets are being sold on ebay for such low prices, does that make the sellers of them "illegitimate"? And for that matter, what makes a business "legitimate"? They (ebay sellers) aren't stealing the goods and reselling them you know.. they are just selling them at more realsitic prices and profits instead of milking the consumer for every penney he's worth with multiple markups. Believe me this hits a sore point as a guy who spent the better part of his life in the electronics induwtry working his ars off, designing kick-butt products, going through all the pains to manufacture, test, build reliability into, and finally sell them... to a wholesaler who sold them to a distributor who sold them to the market for ten times the profit that I made. It angered me for 35 years. It still does with my music... I work my butt off to write, perform, produce, and deliver a 50 minute CD, I have to give my copyrights away to the record company who proceeds to sell them (and quite a few of them) to the end customer for $14-$16 each... and I get a buck each. And I do better with it than most musicians. It sucks... And further stuff like working for an entertainment company who got a job with a major computer manufacturer back in the mid 80s, who spent TEN MILLION DOLLARS to take it's 100 top SALESMEN to HAWAII and give them a week on a remote island all by themselves, dropping roses out of helicopters on them at the giant luau, etc etc... when they didn't spend a frikking penny on the engineers and slaves on the manufacturing floor who made it possible for those salesmen to even exist.... oooh did you hit a sore point on my button box.... all the profits seem to go to the wrong places... I think instead it's the times-they-are-a changin, and it's quite possible that the new ways of advertising effectively and inexpensively to a very big marketplace, like ebay, is just the beginnings of what the internet is all about. Same thing will happen to "legitimate" businesses that happened to million dollar video studios when the Video Toaster came out... finally lend the power of editing and special FX to the layman and their businesses vaporized faster than you could say "healthy competition"... Personally, I LOVE ebay, both as a seller and a buyer. It levels the playing field very nicely... and I'm not surprised that your suppliers are scared of it... they should be ulp...end of rant.... | ||
| Sean Mormelo (Sventvkg)
Rating: N/A |
Ron...go to hostbaby.net , sign up for webhosting at $20 a month and you'll be a happy man. they are the owners of CD baby and have a Wizard that builds NICE websites out of templates you can customize. Go to my site, www.seanmormelo.com and see one of the templates..I built that in about 10 minutes because I didn't have the time I needed to devote to building my own..Go there, re register your domain name, get a template on the Wizard, create a nice site, get everything up that you need and be done with it. You can also log in anytime and change the template to a completely different site or alter it any way you want, update it and publish it and have it appear changed that instant!!.. On to the Bus..well I have an MC5C that is now sitting in storge in Nashville, TN because I couldn't justify the expense of driving it to Alaska for the Summer and back..Gas would have been like close to $4K!!...As for touring in it, It might work out if I were staying in the bus for free at truck stops or the like if you add the cost of fuel and a hotel in my Blazer..but I say MIGHT work out but it also may not..It may just cost more all around to tour in a bus..As for touring you're going to need more paying gigs closer in radius to each other and that involved better tour planning. I recommend getting an agent after you set up a nice website with hostbaby. Get your press kit, artist profile together..You better have a decent recording preferably CD, decent video or DVD, songlists, nice pics, bio etc etc...If you get it all happening I'm sure you'll start doing much better. | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
Ron, You need to talk to my partner in the talent and web business, He has a lot of contacts and very sucessful ideas. Take a look at http://www.webicity.com and the hosting at http://www.cyberchute.com, all the same guy. One on one service and no silly salesmen. He also has connections for promotions and possible gigs. This is why I asked you to email me. It might help you. Dave.... | ||
| captain ron (Captain_ron)
Rating: N/A |
Dave, I can't Email you yet. I tried the other yesterday. you can call me at 239-292-1750 or I'll try his # on the cyberchute web site Thanks Ron. | ||
| Ross Carlisle (Rrc62)
Rating: N/A |
And for that matter, what makes a business "legitimate"? A legitimate business doesn't list items for $1.00 then milk you for $20 in shipping. A legitimate business is someone you can get some customer service from...And yes, I know the days of personalized customer service are over. You can't provide that level of service on the miniscule margins you have to sell for on eBay to compete. Buy from eBay, but don't complain when you can no longer go just run downtown and buy a simple item. You see it as price gouging, but there are still people who don't mind paying a little more for some decent customer service. I know there are honest eBayers, but there are also crooks and you just can't tell who you're dealing with. eBay won't do anything to stop a dishonest seller and the crooks know it. It also has a lot to do with what you are selling. It's easier to sell your product at a 5% margin on eBay when you're selling thousands per year. When you sell 10 or 15 per year, you can't afford to do that. As a consumer you naturally want to buy as cheap as possible, but as a local retailer you need to make enough to keep the doors open, something you don't have to worry about working eBay from your kitchen table. In the end it means that the local shop can't survive paying rent, utilities, insurance, etc. The sports we deal with are dangerous and the manufacturers want the customer to talk to a real person and get some training before they buy. They know that once thier products appear on eBay and thier value, which is purely public perception, hits rock bottom, it will be the end of thier legitimate dealers...and by legitimate I mean someone who is not just processing orders and drop shipping product from thier kitchen table. That's why they don't want to see thier products on eBay. Case in point. This fall a customer came into the shop and picked my brain on traction kites and prices. I quotes a price 15% off MSRP...and my margin is 30%, so I'm barely making enough to justify the sale. He ends up buying a used kite on eBay and that's the last I heard of him. Last weekend I found out he has been in the hospital with a broken back in two places all winter. He bought a kite that was too big and went out with no training and tried to save money by teaching himself. eBay eliminates the personal attention that newbies need in order to get into these sports safely. So as you can see, this is sort of a hot button for me too. | ||
| Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
Rating: N/A |
Well Ross, we could probably both go on an on and on, and though I mostly disagree with your "bigger picture", I'll rest my case and agree that you have some valid points as well. As far as busses go, which takes us back to the BNO theme, I couldn't have done my bus without ebay. The bus, and virtually everything I put in it from the 10 hour old Onan Marquis to the video system, from the water pump & plumbing to the toilet, from the dash instruments to the Jake brakes, came from ebay. As did most of the otherwise unaffordable tools to put it together with. It was a great experience, great deals, great products, and great to be able to find all that stuff without having to spend miles of driving and hours of time going to junkyards. ...and great to be able to afford to build the bus into a very nice unit, without ebay I wouldn't have had that opportunity... There's no doubt that you have to use your brains when working with ebay, but if you're careful and don't let yourself be driven by greed, you'll probably do just fine. If you don't, you can get hurt, and it happens-- as did it in your example too; Darwin often prevails regardless how hard you might try... and finally, back to the thread, Cap'n Ron, if you do decide to advertise yourself on ebay and you do it "just right" it could net you a landslide of popularity. It could also just stay under the radar and do absolutely nothing. But I doubt it could hurt your reputation or your business. It's just advertising...may the best ads win!!!! | ||
| John MC9 Rating: N/A |
Hmmmm.... "A legitimate business doesn't list items for $1.00 then milk you for $20 in shipping. " Unlike the credit card companies that give you a "free" item, for the cost of shipping and handling? "A legitimate business is someone you can get some customer service from." Like a Mall shoe store, a computer store, or the car dealers, that sell a lemon and refuse to deal take it back? I dislike Ebay, and avoid it for buying and/or selling... But it has it's place.. It's great for selling off junk you have no serious vested interest into.. Or items you'd like to toss out, but won't refuse cash for.. For buying? It's chancy at best. Some guys have great luck, and find exactly what they're looking for at great price.. But I've heard horror stories as well.. With a dealer, you can offer less. At an auction, you have to offer more. Why fight to pay the most, when you can negotiate to pay less? | ||
| Donald Lee Schwanke (Dontx)
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"eBay won't do anything to stop a dishonest seller and the crooks know it." Gotta challenge you there Ross, I have personally gotten at least a dozen sellers removed from EBay by EBay, by just reporting them. Two of them were big time automobile dealers, bidding their own stuff back. Just as a crook can open a business in any mall in America, so they also can do it on ebay. (Watch it John, sounds like you might be next!) :-) | ||
| Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
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...and what "A legitimate business doesn't list items for $1.00 then milk you for $20 in shipping." is all about is, ebay itself has gotten greedy and trys to ding sellers another penny at every turn they make. But they don't get a percentage of the shipping. So sellers have figured out that they can sell their $15 item for a dollar, charge $20 in shipping, and make ends meet while at the same time limiting the take Ebay nails them for. It's nothing about milking the buyer. It's about speaking out against and circumventing, to a degree, wealthy corporate greed, within the rules that said wealthy corporation provides. I'm actually surprised ebay hasn't figured out a way to stop it, but so far nothing.... | ||
| Ross Carlisle (Rrc62)
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Your right Gary, we could go on and on. ) The only problems I've had on eBay are from career eBayers. purchases from private individuals have all been great. Items condition and delivery as advertised. Seems like the more eBay savy these "power sellers" get, the more they learn how to work the system and the consumer...Or maybe I've just been unlucky. |