257 Stop Chasing Trends. Build What You Believe In

Eddie van Dongen spent years doing what most musicians dream of. Touring Europe, playing 200-show theater runs, recording, performing. And then COVID hit, and overnight there was nothing. No gigs, no income, no plan.

That moment forced him to ask a question he'd never had to ask before: what would it look like to actually build a business, not just be a freelancer hoping the phone rings?

Eddie is a professional drummer from Rotterdam, endorsed by major brands and featured on Dutch national TV. But what makes his story genuinely interesting is how he got from that COVID wake-up call to running Eddie's Drum Academy, an online platform built around a completely different way of teaching drums. Not fill packs, not lick libraries, but a creative framework that teaches drummers how to think.

In this conversation, Eddie and I got into a lot. His burnout at music college and how studying meditation changed not just his playing but his whole approach to business. Why he believes you have to be okay with being ignored if you're building something real. His Meta ads funnel selling a 37-euro ebook with a 2.5 to 3.5 ROAS. How his order bumps are converting around 40%. And what he's working toward next.

He's honest, thoughtful, and clearly someone who built this from scratch with no marketing background. I think you'll really enjoy this one.

Check out Eddie's work:
🌐 https://eddiesdrumacademy.com/
📸  https://www.instagram.com/eddievandongendrums/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@eddievandongendrums⁩  

Transcript

The Weight Of Being Ignored

SPEAKER_01 0:00

How long can you bear the weight of just being ignored and sharing your mission? Everyone is just doing what everyone's doing. How long can you be ignored in this space and still hold on to those ideas that you have and that you believe in? There is this disbelief in there right now in the world that everyone can sell an online course. Yeah, I don't really think that's true. I see a lot of just like work harder, just sell anything because we've got AI, you can sell anything, you can study online course business today and make 10k a month. It's not about just getting imbalanced points, it's about rebalancing all the time. I'll sell the shit out of everything that I have because I know it's gonna help

Eddie’s Shift From Gigs To Online

SPEAKER_01 0:38

first.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hello and welcome to the art of selling online courses. We're here to share winning strategies. Today's guest is Eddie Van Duncker. Eddie is a professional drummer and a touring musician in Rotterdam. He spent years doing exactly what most musicians dreamed of. He played live shows, he did theatre production, he toured across Europe. Fucked. Like most touring musicians, the income was unpredictable, and the gigs weren't always there. So with no business background, he decided to build something entirely his own. He taught himself how to turn his expertise into an online education business, creating courses, building an audience, developing a teaching system that drummers around the world couldn't find anywhere else. And that became Eddie's Drum Academy, an online platform now reaching students globally. And the whole business is built around one core idea. Most drumming education teaches you what to play, but never how to think. And Eddie's system fills that gap. He gives drummers a creative framework that builds real freedom and confidence at the kit without memorizing endless fills. The thing he's most proud of is building something that's entirely his own and watching it grow. Eddie, welcome to the show, man. Thank you so much for having me, John. Super happy to be here.

Who The Drum Academy Is For

SPEAKER_00 1:48

So talk us through a little bit, like who's your audience? Is it experienced drummers? Is it people starting totally from scratch? Like, is it the whole range? Who are you after?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yeah, it's more based on people that are more experienced. So funny, when people ask me this, I'm I'm always saying like it's intermediate drummers that have been playing for a while. But something I realize, especially over the last few weeks, is that some drummers have the idea that they're already intermediate, but they're actually a beginner. Or some people think they're already.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Everybody overestimates, or not everybody, but a lot of people overestimate their skill level, right? That's very common. If you look at it in language learning, everyone who's a B1 thinks they're a B2, everyone who's a B2 thinks of a C1. It's like it's common. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah. So I'm trying to kind of renavigate and restructure that kind of language because I want to be, you know, a little bit careful with using the worst intermediate and advanced in a beginner. So I usually say it's more experienced drummers that have like the basics down. They can play. They've played with bands, you know, they've played with different styles, they've played on jam sessions, they've played maybe on a few recordings, you know, unprofessionally, probably, you know, just with with some bands, but they have this dedication to this craft of like, I want to become better, but I'm stuck. I every time I sit down and I play some fills, like things just fill up, I play the same stuff. And I, you know, I play a new song. But again, that same idea comes up, and I don't have this like headroom, as I like to call it, of just like sucking another thumb and just play some stuff that comes up speaking the drum language basically fluently. So that's one thing or one crowd that I'm really focused on is that those people that are already playing for a long time and they get stuck and they want more freedom, and they don't need because there's a thing they share like, hey, buy my hundred fails pack, you know, and then you have a hundred fills, and then you I can't remember a hundred fills, you know. I don't know. For you as a bass player, can you remember all those 400 licks that you've no? Of course not. You need to have the building blocks of the language, right? And then you can restructure that and create your own kind of words and stories on the drums. So yeah, it's more experienced drummers that are looking to really expand to that next level and break free from that sort of loop that they're stuck in.

Mission Over Trends And AI Hype

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Now, one of the things that you've said about growing a course business is that you've got to be okay with being ignored. Can you talk to us about that?

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Yeah, it's not even specifically about course business. It's I think as an entrepreneur or, you know, becoming better at your craft, whatever that is, you know, probably with you as well. Like you've done hundreds of podcasts. Like the first few episodes, nobody's listening, or five people, you know, and it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but for me as a drummer, I mean, you're an Instagram, you know, you see how much stuff is out there on probably base as well, and there's so much stuff out there. So, how long can you bear the weight of just being ignored and sharing your mission? Like, I have a very clear mission and what I want to achieve in the drum world. How long can you kind of bear being ignored, you know, or or kind of get hate or, you know, people that say, like, you shouldn't do it like that, you shouldn't do it like that, you should do that, you should do that. Like, how long can you be ignored in this space and still hold on to those ideas that you have and that you believe in so that you can actually, you know, share that with the people that want to know, right? So I believe that there is this disbelief in there right now in the world that everyone can sell an online course, but I I I don't really think that's true because if you if you don't know you know what you're actually, you know, believing in, what you do, or you're just trying to sell something random because you feel like, oh, I can just sell this, I don't think it's gonna last. And it yeah, it feels like similar to that people, you know, have this idea of um that it doesn't matter really what you sell and that it really doesn't matter what you do. But I think it's very important to, you know, believe in that, you know, your own mission, your own vision instead of following the trend.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Who says who have you heard say that? Where what kind of circles has that been in? It doesn't matter what you sell, it's just like just sell s I I I don't know if I quite remember the exact words you just said, but like it sounded like you were saying just just sell something that's that's yeah that people want, you know?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

I I watched this Netflix documentary um by Louis Thoreau on uh the Manosphere recently. Have you seen that?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Yeah, uh no, but I know Louis Thoreau and I I've heard people talk about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

And that made me realize, you know, and I also watch a lot of ads. Like I think my whole Instagram is not not drummers, but it's entrepreneurs and it's people trying to sell you stuff. Because I watch a lot of ads just to learn from it, to see like, hey, how do people in other disciplines do it? And I see a lot of just like work harder, just sell anything because we've got AI, you can sell anything, you can start your online course business today and make 10k a month. I'm like, well, I I really so I don't really think that that is a good idea. I think you Because what I see is that a lot of people are following trends constantly. So everyone is just doing what everyone is doing. Right? So when you really truly believe in something, for me, you know, I've only been at this online game for two, three years. And how long can I keep going at it and you know, kind of feel ignored by the masses in the drum world, um, but still holding on to that belief that hey, this is gonna change drum education, I gotta keep going. I can try to make videos that, you know, this is something I see in the drum world a lot, is that you see a video of someone falling off his bike, you know, and then the moment they hit the ground, you see a drummer playing a song, and that gets millions of views. But does it sell? No, of course not. Just gets you 10,000 followers. And then what? That's just people that are looking for funny videos. So from an entrepreneurial site side um perspective, right? I think it's really important that you believe in what you do and stick to that and find ways of you know, sharing that with an audience that's actually interested in learning from you. So that's why I say, like, you know, how long can you bear to be ignored in that space?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah, I feel like in the course space, there's there's two quite distinct segments. There's people who got into it because they wanted to just make some money, and it's that's that's who those guys are talking to, right? It's like the make 10k online, run your business from anywhere, whatever. Get started, you can sell anything. And I don't really interact with that segment. I don't talk to those people, I don't interview those people, that's not our clients. It's like then there's a whole nother group who spent years getting good at something, playing drums, playing guitar, learning how to teach a language, whatever. And then started a lot of people then started making YouTube videos, and then off the back of that sort of course, rather than necessarily think about it as a course business. There's that's not everybody. Some people are like, I want to make a course business, how do I do that? I make a YouTube channel and it's kind of go from there. But but that's like it's it seems very common. Quite a lot of people who are like, they just started making YouTube videos because they were teaching someone in person, and then they were like, Oh, then why don't I just put some of these videos online because it saves me explaining the same thing, and then eventually they built an audience, you know? And I feel like that group is that's the the listeners of this podcast, that's the the the kind of people we're talking to today, because it's almost like you were talking about mission there, you know, like what you're trying to achieve. It's like people have have got something they really care about and they want to get out into the world, and it's like, yes, they do want to make money and they do want to have a nice lifestyle, but it's like, yeah, but they also want to help people, and it's just so such a different angle to come in at it from than, you know, something and make 10k online because the ethics are quite different, the morals are different, the vibe is different, and it's like a that's kind of who I chose as like, yeah, this is gonna be fun, more, much more fun people to work with. I had I don't see all those ads, so I kind of I know that that group's there, but I kind of forget about that a little bit sometimes, and it kind of gives me the ick a little bit.

Balancing Vision With Audience Demand

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Um talk to me a bit about your mission, because I feel like there's pros and cons to having a mission. One of the pros is it means you're passionate and you keep going and you're determined and you're consistent. And one of the downsides, I think, is you can sometimes be so focused on the mission that if it's not quite it, it's it can make it harder to get product market fit sometimes. If you're like, this is the way, and the audience is like, but we want this, it kind of that's that's a harder thing to to fit together. How have how has it worked for you? What is your mission? Like, what's been your experience with that?

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, interesting question. Because that's also something I think a lot of people mistake or make mistakes in when they start doing this online thing, is that they just think I need to do more, I need to work harder, and I just need to be there. But I also think it's about working smarter and listening to your audience and trying to, you know, have an honest conversation with your following. Um, and that's something I actually started with offering something different. And I realized when I was sharing that, like people wanted to see that, but some questions came up like how do you play better fills? How do you get so free in you know how how you play your stuff? How do I get more skilled in improvising? Um, and that's when I realized, well, I've I've got this other idea, which I've you know developed over the years as well. Maybe it sounds like they want that. And I started to share that, and now it's all about that, right? I still have that other thing which I started with, which I'm now trying to repackage and bring into the similar lane as what I'm offering right now. Um, but people started to really ask, and I really just listened and started to share that and create a whole ebook about it. And right now, the last few months, people have been asking for an online course. So I just released the first online course. Um, so I've been testing it out over the last few weeks with a few drummers that I know and you know, working on that. So I try to really listen to what people want, but there is this balance that you need to strike between what's my mission and what do people want. Some people want certain things where I feel like, hey, if you want that, go to that person because that's not me. I'm not gonna give that to you. Didn't really niche it down to the avatar that I right have right now, right? The the the prospects that I have right now. So I got a lot of beginners, and I was like, this this is actually not for you. So that was a problem from my side. I wasn't communicating that it wasn't for beginners, and now that's much more clear and I attract better better clients. But yeah, it's it's a difficult balance of you know, how far do you go listening to other people, you know, um in what they want? If it really doesn't align with who you are. I mean, yeah, just send them to someone else.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

I forget the name of it. There's a Japanese word for this of like trying to line up your skills and what you're good at and what you like doing and what the world wants. What's it? Ikachai, ikach ji? I know what you mean. I-K I K I-E-G or something. Something like that. Yeah, I-K-A-G-A-I, something like that, yeah. Yeah. And it's I think about that a lot. Like, I spend a lot of my time being like, okay, am I lined up with this? Am I doing things that are more what I'm interested in, or is it what the business needs? And or am I doing too much of what the business people are asking for, but not enough of what actually I know is going to get results? And it's like, how do I make the whole thing fit? And it's not an easy balance to do, but when you get it right, then you feel fulfilled and you're making good money and you're helping people, and it's like, oh, everything kind of flows. But then you can kind of go, I've moved out of alignment a little bit. You know, like I once went on a had a gliding lesson. And when you're gliding, you've obviously got no engine in the plane, right? So you've just got to follow where the hot air is around the bottom, the base of a cloud. And you can't see it, but you can feel it. And when you get that updraft, then you you're you're you're buoyed, you're lifted. It's like, okay, cool, we're gonna be able to go further and further. And then it follows in like a circular pattern, but you can't see where the circle is, so you have to kind of follow it and just stay in the balance of it. And I feel this is a little bit like that. Now I know that you studied to become a meditation and mindfulness coach. How's that influenced your approach to the way that you think about staying on track and and being in line with your business?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Yeah.

Burnout Leads To Meditation Training

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Well, it's funny that you mentioned that because it what I wanted to say about what you just shared is it's it's not about just getting in balance once, it's about rebalancing all the time. I readjust my mission and vision and and like I readjust all the time, just double checking myself, where am I at? What what happened? Like, how much did I actually get influenced by what people were saying, and how much is still my own mission and vision of what I know will be best? Because a lot of people will give you advice and not like not to say that I'm better than other people, I just have more experience. So somebody might be here while I'm here, and he's thinking, like, you need to do this. I know this will work. And I'm like, dude, I've got like 15 years of more experience. You don't like I know what's in between here, and I know that this is missing. So a lot of like it, a lot of this is is readjusting and that mindfulness and meditation experience. Um, I was I was studying at music college in um almost 10 years ago. I get in the first year, just a little story, because it's it brought me to why that meditation is important to me and how I got there is you know, I got in music college, I did four years of addition. So they only let five people in per year. So the first year they say, Hey, you're not good enough. You know, come back next year. I'm like, cool, I'll go practice. Second year, they're like, Yeah, you miss a bit of a little bit of technique and some some knowledge about different styles. I'm like, cool, I'll be back next year. You know, next year is gonna be my year. And then the next year I come back. They only left five people in. They're like, sorry, man, but we, yeah, you're sixth on the list. We already have five people. And like it broke me for two months. I was like, oh my god, what am I gonna do with my life? And I needed to go to this particular college because there was this drum, one one drum teacher was like, I need to be with that guy. That is the guy that I need to learn from. And then two months later, I pick myself back up. I'm like, it this is what I have to do. So, you know, what what can I do? I'm just gonna practice. So I go back the fourth year, I come, I come in, I finally come in. So you already have like, imagine you have four years of like daily practice, right? Already. Four years. It's insane. That's already four years of study. So I do another four years at music college, but first year, you know, you get in there, I'm like, I gotta make the most out of this. Like I go eight hours a day, practice, practice, practice, eight hours a day, go, go, go, go, go. Second year, I get this job in a theater show. I go online because I was like, I want to play more. Like I need to, I need to be in the room. This has also always been me. You need to be in the room and you know, show your face. So I see this ad online from a theater show that's looking for a band. I didn't have a band at the time, but I was just a music college. We're great musicians. So I pick a bass player, pick a guitar player. I was like, hey guys, we're a band, okay? That's what we are. I'm gonna audition us for this theater show. And they're like, sure, we've we've played together once or twice, you know, just in a group class, but I'm like, we're a band. I call the theater show. I'm like, hey, I've got a band, you know, we've been playing for years. We're great together, we sound amazing. We want to be at the audition. So go to the audition, do the audition, and we get the gig. Like this was a huge theater show, right? A famous rock singer in the Netherlands. We get the gig. We tour like, you know, I don't know, 200 shows through all the big theaters in the Netherlands. Same full-time job. You know, you play six, seven shows a week. And I'm studying like eight hours a day. Like, that's not possible. So I get in a burnout. It's like fully burnout. I'm 24, 24, or something like that. I just completely like I just I was practicing one day and I just collapse. Oh my god. I I don't even know how I got home. I got picked up by the bus for the theater show. I'm like fully like crying, broken. The moment I'm on stage, I'm like fine. I was like, oh, that's oh, I'm fine, you know. I come home again, I feel like drained. I'm like everything hurt, I'm just done. Long story short, I get into this whole burnout situation. I stop everything, or I keep playing the show. I went to talk to a psychologist, and she's like, you know what you gotta do? You gotta start meditation. Because I'm really like ADHD, like very busy in my mind. I'm always like, ah, doing all this stuff. I was just going way too hard. Never listen to my body, never listen to my anything. It's just like I need to go. And that's when I realized, okay, it's it's not just about going crazy and playing a lot. I want to be able to survive this, right? Because it's the competition in the music world is insane. It's really high. So if you're out, you're out, which is sometimes really how it is in all these like little scenes. So anyway, I I go do meditation and I learn a lot about myself, about breathing, about regulating myself, uh, move more and be way more aware. So a few years forward, I do a meditation teacher training and I learned so much about, you know, listening to yourself, grounding yourself, and it changed how I approach my drums because I feel way more relaxed. I have way more control, I feel way more um in the moment. So that's something that I I help students with as well as well. It's not just about, hey, here are some exercises, because everyone can give you some exercises about how what you do with it and how you approach it. So that's why I always mention the thinking process, because we all all drummers play the same stuff. They play the same stuff. There's just two things that are very important single strokes and double strokes. Everyone use it, but they do it in different ways. So I start to implement that in my thinking process, sorry, about um, you know, how you approach things, how you practice things and how you play things. So it comes from inside your body, not just from your brain. So it has heavily influenced how I play and how I approach everything basically in life. You know, I can sometimes still get to this point where I'm like, I feel like, oh my God, did I do my meditation? Ah, there we go. Right, I'm not in the moment. So yeah, it's heavily influenced how I approach, you know, everything in drumming. And I see the difference it makes for students as well. And when I talk about students, it's not like young kids, but it's also like it's a lot of grown-ups that are in that same place. They're constantly in their mind, trying to think, yeah, I can see the notes on the paper. Yeah, but do you really feel them? Are they in your body and can you translate that? So, yeah, long answer, but yes, it has a lot of impact on on how I how I am as a person and in my teaching.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

One of the things that I've noticed over the years is that it almost doesn't matter how much I know that meditation helps, I still find it difficult to actually get around to doing it. And I think part of the problem is the time when it's hardest to do it is the time when you need it the most.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

100%.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Because you've got the br the brain, when the brain is the most frantic, then it's the most unpleasant to sit still with it and notice it and try and slow it down. But and also your brain is just like, oh no, no, no, no, let's go do something else. And the the screaming to go do something else, think about something else, move around, whatever, is so loud that it's really hard to to actually then meditate.

Two Minute Practice That Compounds

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Whereas the time when it's the easiest to meditate is when you're in a great, you've really got yourself after you've done loads of meditation, it's easy to do more. It's like, well, that's I don't need it as much now. I need it when I'm like in a in a state.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

I think the most is really also that you need to sit down, right? People see you think you need to sit down like this in a safe space, in a chill space, but I you know, I used to meditate in the middle of the city center right here. I just sit down in the middle of the city center and just sit. I look at people. I put on a timer, sometimes not even. I'd sit there for an hour. Just looking at people, being in the moment. It's not about clearing your mind. It's not about trying to not think. It's about, am I here? What am I eating tonight? Hey, I'm thinking about something else. It's catching that, right? So it's not about being in the moment, it's or, you know, kind of trying to empty your mind. It's about noticing when you actually drift off. And that's exactly what I do in my teachings as well is we try to drift off, you know, as drummers because we get. Playing the same stuff. And every time you catch yourself, you readjust. And it's not about, you know, you can do your meditation when you drink your coffee. You could do it. Like turn on the coffee machine. Like we we create our own coffee, we grind it ourselves, and then we turn on the machine. That's where you can do your meditation. That's where you can do your drum practice. You don't need to sit down behind your drum kit and practice for half an hour or an hour or two hours. Like that's what I get all the time. That's why how to practice is tied in with everything that I do and the meditation practice, because you can do it in two minutes. It's not about sitting down every day for an hour, it's about showing up. And sometimes that's two minutes, sometimes that's an hour. But it's about showing up, right? It's the same with your meditation practice. You can start meditating for one minute. Yeah, but that doesn't do anything. It does if you do it every day. It makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah, thing that I've noticed is a thing I started doing, I don't know, I got this term from somebody. I'm trying to remember his name now. He calls it a spot drill. And it's like three minutes, and it's not like it's yeah, it's not a full meditation. You're probably not going to get your mind all the way to calm. But if you just do that regularly throughout the day, then you kind of just reset a little bit. So it's like, okay, mind has gone from a three franticness to a six. Let me see if I can get it back down to a five, or maybe even a four, and then I go again with the next task, and it kind of just just kind of keep the lid on it a little bit. Um, and I I vibe coded myself an app for this the other day. I was like, I I track all my workouts, I track everything that I eat, but I'm not tracking anything from my brain. And I so I vibe coded myself a uh like a mental performance thing. It's like, how well did I sleep, what kind of state am I in, and then throughout the day, how many meditations did I do, how many times did I do a breathing practice? And then at the end of the day, how well did I do? How well did I do? And my hypothesis is that when I look back at the data, the days when I did the meditation and the and the breathing and whatever, I'll have had not only a good better day that day, but probably the next day and the day after that kind of thing as well. Um so I've now I'm now kind of building the habit of actually using that, doing that every day.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Amazing.

YouTube Shorts Versus Long Form Conversion

SPEAKER_00 24:07

One of the things I wanted to talk to you about was uh kind of get more into the details of your your business and the funnel. Talk to me about you've told me that you've got like 10,000-ish subscribers, but 200,000 plus views a month. How's that do? Are you doing a lot of shorts? Like that's a massive discrepancy between subscribers and and views. What's working for you there?

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Shorts is definitely working. So a friend of mine put me onto that last year when I was in LA. He's like, dude, you gotta you gotta put up shorts because it's like working and keep it so short. He he he analyzed everything. I'm not really about the numbers that much. Um, but he's like, you you gotta keep it like between like 10 to 12 seconds and literally short. Yeah, every trim off every little second that you don't need, and it repeats itself. Yeah, yeah, right? Especially on Instagram, but then YouTube, it's yeah, like people are just like, wait a minute, what happened? Let me scroll back, let me go back, let me go back. What he's doing, let me go back one more time. And then you have like, you know, a maybe uh sort of average of five to ten views from one watcher. But anyway, yeah, shorts work really well. I try to post one every day on uh on uh on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. Um, and YouTube, it's been fluctuating a lot, man. I haven't been super consistent, honestly, and I've been trying to get better with the long form videos, but shorts every day have been working really well.

unknown 25:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

How are you finding that tends to do in terms of converting into email subscribers? Because my experience has been that it's like a much, much lower percentage than long form views.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah, 100%. I I usually push people to a long form video from all those shorts. So you can add like uh another video in YouTube shorts, right? And then they click. So I make sure that that's a title where people are like, whoa, I can learn that myself, bang, and then they go to yo. So I'm really trying to, you know, restructure and trying to re figure out the the numbers with YouTube, also because I'm starting with you guys, which I'm super excited about, to be a little bit more about the data to figure out what like where are people coming from exactly, and how much you know are people actually clicking from there? Um, but yeah, YouTube shorts are definitely my my go-to. It's also easy because the system I work with as a drummer allows me to literally come up with endless ideas. So I record like 50 to 100 videos one day and then just like post it for a month, you know? That makes it really easy. Easy in a way with posting. I mean, recording drum videos, this is way easier than to record or just talking in your video, like making selfie videos, it's way easier than to record your whole drum set. I said edit the video, edit the audio, and then put the audio and the video together and then export it. Like that takes some time. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

You've also got an ads funnel, right? How talk us through

A Simple Ads Funnel With Upsells

SPEAKER_00 27:00

about that? How much are you spending on that? What's your kind of row us with it? What are you what are you promoting?

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Um, so I'm promoting my ebook series, which is uh three sort of packaged main ebooks of my fill system, so that allows people to create more fills by themselves. That's what I offer directly through my ads. So the ad literally just, you know, a bunch of ads that show, like, hey, this is what you can do if you want to become more free around the drunkid. You can get started today for just like blah, blah, blah. Click on the link below and they they go to the landing page right away, uh, which is a product of 37 euros. I spent probably around, we've been readjusting over the last month, but before that, it was doing really well. I was spending probably two, three thousand a month and had a row of two and a half to three and a half, which was nice, really good with direct like sales, which was really cool. But yeah, you probably know that as well with with Meta changed their whole structure with the ads. Uh that like you have to redo your ads like every two weeks because of the the whole AI stuff. A lot of people are we're running AI ads. Um, I try to stay on top of that research, but it's been working really well, you know, offering a low ticket um having a good robots seems to work really well, and then I have two upsells usually. And man, I think 35 to 40 percent gets those upsells. So that's good.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

It's been really strong. That's really strong. Yeah. What's your do you have order bumps as well?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah, that is the order bumps. Sorry, I've the order bumps. I have order bumps, yeah. I actually just restarted doing uh like an upsell after that because I didn't have enough offers basically. Yeah. Because it was doing so well, the books were doing so well, I was like, wow, okay, this is working. So I got a little bit lazy, man. Because you see, something is working, and I also struggled to figure out what should I do first? This online course, this online course, or this or that. People have been asking for things. So now I just added something and another uh online course in the upsell, but that's just like last week. So I have no idea how that's doing yet. But the upsells were or the order bumps were all like 45% insane.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Great. Just do really well. So you you mentioned that you're working uh with Yosip and um on an audit at the moment.

Getting Help With Data And Growth

SPEAKER_00 29:17

So what's what were you why did you sign up for that? What were you looking to get help with?

SPEAKER_01 29:20

So I know I can definitely improve all the things that I offer. I'm not a marketing guy. I learned everything myself. I worked with a bunch of business coaches, and you know, I come from a generation that kind of, you know, YouTube came up in what was it, 2006, you know, you start to kind of learn about it, but we as musicians, we would go to sessions and get the gig. Like it wasn't really about social media, and I wasn't really I started posting two years ago, man. Like I I didn't really use it before that. I just wasn't interested because I felt like, what's that gonna do? Um So I, you know, I know I can learn so much more about being an entrepreneur and taking care of myself because when I when COVID hit, that spit there is like everything was gone. There was no shows, there was nothing. And I was fully dependent on the artist that I play with, and it made like it was a slap in the face, like, holy shit, what what am I gonna do now? There's no shows, I can even pay my rent. What am I gonna do? So that's actually the moment when I realized, okay, maybe maybe I should learn about what it means to actually run a business instead of being a freelancer working for other people. I thought I was being a business, but I wasn't. I had no idea. So I started to work with all these different business coaches and learning about this stuff. And I like it, it's interesting to learn about, but I know there's like a limit to what I can do by myself. And um what actually spoke to me, first of all, was just listening to the podcast. I love how you you know do the things and have all these people over from all these different disciplines. That's so amazing. And, you know, I I look at Gary V, I look at Hormosy, like I look at all the gurus, but sometimes they're like just like like real hard. And I like how you guys are, you know, about the data and about I don't know. It just felt so warm and and inviting to listen to you and to to talk to Joseph. And we just talked and talked and talked, and he explained a few things about how you were working. I was like, well, like I don't want to do this alone because I just get tired of all the numbers and I actually don't get half of it, you know. Um, and I know if things are already working without me actually knowing what I'm doing, how is it gonna work if someone you know takes a look at it and actually helps me to improve it? I mean, yeah, of course that you know that so that that was just great. Just having that one conversation with Joseph, I was like, well, let's go, man, because I know I can improve and I want to improve because I want to have like I want to have uh a house where I can receive people, do Drem camps because the online stuff is amazing. But receiving people in person and doing that stuff, like that's next level. But I live in a little like condo loft idea in the middle of the city. Like you're not gonna do that here. But and you we gotta be honest, we live in a time where everything's getting more expensive. So if you don't make 10, 20k a month, I I can never be able to buy a house, even, you know. So yeah, that's definitely something I want to work towards. And I have the feeling that, you know, working with you guys, that's definitely gonna help me.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's basically our job. Is is you were mentioning earlier about how your audience is quite, it's not the beginners, it's the people who've been doing it for a long time, but they got stuck with something, and it's like that's kind of similar for us. It's like our people who we can help the most are the ones who have already figured out product market fit, they've already built the audience, they've built an email list, but they know that they're not doing everything that they can. You know, it's like, okay, I'm already succeeding, despite the fact that I don't kind of know what I'm doing with the sales part of this. And it's like, and I don't like numbers, and it's like, okay, cool, great. This is why I started the business. This is this is the exact group of people. Um we've been doing work recently, because we want to, you know, always find new people too, great guests for the podcast, of building out a list of like who matches those criteria, you know, and I've been I've been using AI to kind of help me build that out. And it's like it's not small, but it's not a massive number either, you know? It's like it's it's maybe tens of thousands in the world. It's it I don't think it's a hundred thousand. So it's like it's enough that we can we've we've got lots of people who we we do reach out to, and uh a lot of the guests on the podcast recently have been people who we'd reached out to to invite on because we thought they looked like the perfect fit. But it's like we have to search, you know? We've gotta we've gotta look to try and find these people. So um it's uh I I I quite like that um similarity.

From Rent Stress To Million Goals

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Um what's the goal for you? Where do you want to be at? You mentioned like 10 to 10 to 20,000 a month, having the the house where you can have invite people around for bad practice. Is that like is that the vision? Is there is it is it even grander? Because that sounds pretty dark. Sure, right? Already.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Like, is there more though? Yeah, man. I mean, of course there's more. Like I'd like what I'm already doing is I'm traveling the world to go to all these drum festivals and and talk to people and just be in the room. Like I already get sponsored by a lot of great brands. Um the hardest thing for me is uh I'm from Holland. It's a small country, and w between me and the big brands, there is a weird situation when I'm not which I'm not gonna get into, but it makes it very hard for me to get out there and to get because I'm from a small country. Um so being able to sit down on those drum festivals on the main stages and inspire drummers from all over the world, that's definitely a mission if we talk about just sharing my method. You know, we're talking about you know, revenue. Like I'd love to go up to a million a year. But a few years back, I was like, I'm happy if I can pay rent and get some food. You know, I didn't know. I was just like, okay, well, this is world. I already had this sort of agreement with myself, like I will never be able to buy a house because I'm a musician. And then you start to go into this online world and business, you learn about business, and you're like, wait a minute, I can make money doing what I love without feeling like, you know, I'm this bad business guy or trying to trick people into buying stuff. Like, as soon as you let go of that and you see, like, hey, I'm actually on a mission to help drummers to become way better and to follow their dreams, like that's amazing. I'll sell the shit out of everything that I have. I know it's gonna help trimmers. And that's my mission, man. And yeah, honestly, if if you can get into that belief set of, you know, I can do this and I want to make a million a year, it feels possible. And it's not about making the money, it's about structuring an offer that it helps people, you know, that they can become better at what they want to do. Um, and that helps me to actually reach more people and come, you know, help people to come to me and find me, which allows me to live the life that I want and you know, share the inspiration that I have in me. If there's one thing that I love to do is give that to people. So yeah, if I could go up to like, you know, at this year really is trying to get to the 20K and get that dream off the ground of, you know, being being able to get a house where we can do the stuff that I want to do, receive people in person. Yeah, going up to 100k a month, it feels possible, and that's definitely one of the bigger things that I have. The end goal would be to have that place and have people from all over the world come study with me and me traveling around the world, coming to them, you know, offering those those workshops and and and master classes and for the people that can travel, um, cannot travel throughout the world, but still bringing that passion of me to them.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Dude, that sounds dope. Yeah, I love that. Well, that's a great

Music Episodes To Hear Next

SPEAKER_00 36:43

place to finish on. I think it's really inspirational. Yeah, man. Um Eddie, thanks so much for coming on, man. This has been absolutely awesome. Um if uh anyone listening that wants to listen to any more music-based episodes, we've got a whole load out there. Scott Devine, uh Ashley Young, um, we had on Melanie. I think I had Melanie and Max on already. I'm not sure. I'll have to just go double check. Um, teaching pianos. There's a load more out there, so go check those out as well. As always, thank you so much for listening. Really, really appreciate you guys. And Eddie, thanks again for coming on, man. This was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Thanks for having me, man. It was an absolute pleasure.