What's up everybody? It's Brain Man Sean. And it's Lady J Bookums. And we're back with the third episode of our podcast. We decided we wanted to keep doing this thing for sure. We know y'all like the feedback from the first few episodes. However, we've been asking y'all for a name. We've been looking for help with a name. Right. And guess what? We figured it out. We have a name for y'all and I know some people don't really like to tap it on a desk, but this time it's gonna make sense. So without further ado, music Maverick's podcast. Now, thank you for some of the inspiration that y'all gave us. All our names that y'all gave us. We soaked it in and this is our output. So even if it's not the thing that you recommended, it was inspired through some of those recommendations. And we got some interesting topics for you guys. But before we get into that, I'll say it like this. Like music is obvious with music, but Maverick representing the independent thinking, just independent in general. I think obviously that speaks to so many other things that you guys stand for, independent artists working up doing y'all things and all of us just being independent and thinking cause I always say, hey, let's not just think different, let's move different. So that's what we're all about. Topic number one, Lady J is gonna queue it up cause she always is great with the topics. So what do we have here? Okay, so because it's holiday time, right? I figured that we would talk about, artists coming up for the holiday. How can artists really cap for the holidays? Because, how can you cap? How can you cap? Cause listen, it's a lot going on in the holidays and I feel like independent artists can really take advantage of it. I was literally having a conversation with somebody and they were basically saying like, should I release new music during the holiday time? Because they say that they had somebody told them that for independent artists, it's not really a good time to try to release music because basically it's just saturated with a lot of major artists or any company for that matter, just already running ads and pushing stuff to people. So they think like, that's not the best time for artists. So that's what we're gonna talk about. Is the holidays a good time for you to release a new campaign, new music, new merch, any of that? What do you think? Before I tell you what I think. I'm gonna tell you straight up, it's a great time to me. That's okay, that's what I was gonna say.  You shouldn't let me go first. I think it's hard for me to find a bad time. Maybe specifically for an artist because you might have something going on or you just dropped something and your resources, it might be specific to you, but for me in general, it's hard to have a bad time to release music. And we can get into that a while, but I wanna see why you agree that it should be that you should drop music. First of all, I feel like one thing about the holidays, especially this time of the year when Thanksgiving, Christmas time, people are already ready to buy, right? Everybody is ready, Black Friday sales, Cyber Monday, Christmas, it's like everybody in the world is ready for the sale. Everybody got their cards out, it's time to buy something for the husband, the wife, the mistress, whoever, baby daddy, anybody, right? Everybody's already in the mood to buy stuff or to find something new. Yeah, what? I was like, yeah, walkin' blockin', you got a name, you got a history, you got a history. That's a fact, right? So everybody's already ready to buy stuff. So it's like this is the perfect time to have something for them to buy, you know? But I think the thing is, the main thing is that artists have to understand during the holidays, and this might be a reason why people say it's not a good time for artists, during the holidays, it's best if you have an audience to sell to because it's going to be hard to try to reach a cold audience when you're trying to drop new music, right? It's like people are not going to buy something new that they never heard of on Christmas, like they're looking for the special of something that they already wanted. I disagree. All right, tell me why. I think people will buy plenty of things that they have never heard of on a holiday, especially if it makes sense as a good deal. All right, so here's just one thing that y'all need to hear about. Bose has these sunglasses that have speakers on the side. It's the craziest thing. If you have not seen these things, not used these things, go to Best Buy. I don't know how they're like staying so underground right now, but trust me, you can see me walking up in here. You'd be like, dang, let me get one. So like you hear about something that's cool enough during the time of year when you have more disposable income. Most people, they either have more disposable income because they're getting gifts and stuff at this time of year, or they have more disposable, well, they're more in a buyer mindset because of what's going on this year. So I think hearing something and seeing something that's desirable that you didn't know about will actually make people want to do, like this is a good time to do that. The only thing though, specific to artists, yes, I feel like I agree with you. Right, because I was about to hit you with a rampant. That's not buying though, but that's not buying because that's not even, so right now, holidays, you have disposable music. I mean, you do have disposable money and more disposable time, right?  I don't know, you can go back and forth because what you just said, like disposable time, right? Some people do have that disposable time during the holidays, but at the same time, everybody or every brand, no matter what it is that they love, is like taking over with their advertisement, right?   So when you're scrolling and you might see an ad come down from an artist that you never heard of before, it's very likely that you're gonna keep scrolling. But I put that back on the creative because people don't tend to actually create creative. As an artist, you consider yourself creative, but when it comes to these ads, they're typically not creative. Right, they're very basic. Yeah, so that's the problem where, okay, yeah, you just push a single with the ads, a logo or a song title, you can't expect that. You have to still engulf people into your world and still gain people's attention and earn it. That needs to go for any time of year, but even more so during the holidays, but let's switch to a market standpoint though. Why is good? I had something to say about that, go ahead. Why it's good is to market during this time is this, right? People are making every excuse in the world to market, right? It used to be Black Friday. Oh yeah, now they do Cyber Sunday. And then now they have pre, well like Black Friday start inching into Thanksgiving. Right. And now some of these places might as well not consider themselves closed because they open at 2 p.m. in the day. And then my dad put me on to the fact that people have like pre Black Friday sales that he saw this year, like going two weeks before Black Friday. Markers are always gonna ruin everything. You give them more shots, they always gonna figure out a reason to get in front of you. So you gotta stay up for it. And there's a lot of those reasons and excuses that are just organic at this time of year. So yes, there's a lot more attention being grabbed, a lot more emails and things like that. But because of that, you trying harder and even doing more of that isn't going to bother people as much either. Right. Now I'm not gonna say it's not gonna bother them, but they might pass it by. And the reason why I say like for independent artists, you know, marketing to that cold audience is not the best idea because A, it takes more money, especially we talking about ads. It's gonna take you way more money to market to some, to a new target, right? Or to your cold audience than it is to remarket or retarget people that you've already built up the fan base with, you know, you already kind of got a custom target and you can just, you get yourself. So when it comes to the holiday times, first of all, the price of running ads and all of that, the cost goes up anyway. Always, yeah. So that means you're gonna be paying that price plus a higher price to try to get to somebody new. So that's why I say one thing about marketing during the holidays, what you should be doing on the off holidays is really building up your fan base because when the holiday times come, you can literally market straight to them, which will cut down a lot of the cost of you trying to reach new people. So that's why I say it's like, it's better for you to be promoting to your warm or hot audience during the holidays so you can keep your costs down and then put your content out to people who actually want it. You know what I mean? That is incredibly true, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. However. Lord. All right. Yes, that's the most ideal situation. And we want the ideal situation, but go ahead. We want the most ideal situation, but the reality of this thing, which I feel like most artists really need to get themselves out of this mentality is waiting for perfect conditions. If you want to consider yourself an entrepreneur, you really wanna consider yourself an artist who has to go this indie route. There's gonna be a lot of things that happen and a lot of windows that open where there's perfect conditions for that window and all the other stuff that would have been nice to be prepared for it has to be done with because you can't, there is no time, this window will not come again. Now that's different for the holiday days in general. Of course, plan to do what Lady J says cause we know this is coming next year. If you just five years in a row and you aren't prepared for the holidays, then look at that's on you. However, I'll start to think how can I win in a situation? We know there's not the most ideal conditions but what can I do with the resources I have? What is my goal and how can I go about that? So when I think about ads in general, yes, ads in terms of programmatic ads, Facebook, television, whatever, any type of programmatic act, digital or a terrestrial world, definitely go up during this time because it's just an auction based system. What you'll see less of go up is in platforms and spaces where we're thinking about some influence in marketing that won't go up as much because it's not as contextual and they're not being non-dated as much. And then also when you look at platforms like playlisting for Spotify, that's not built on the exact same market space system because a lot of those playlists aren't thinking that way.  They don't even want a risk going up cause they might lose themselves. They're just like, ooh, I got a lot of money coming in. And that's it. So now I might invest heavily considering the fact that there's a market that has disposable time on its hands and they're probably gonna be listening to their favorite artist, meaning I need to find some of their favorite artists and get next to them if it makes sense with who I am, put some money in that playlist cause it's gonna be about the same and then because they have more time, if my music isn't trash, they're gonna be even more willing to look at it and then if it's good enough, that first introduction, I'll be more willing to check into the rest of this stuff. Right, so this is the thing. So now we're knowing this is what could go wrong because we know things are pricey and blah, blah, blah. So it might be a risk, but you still take that risk and you can look into other things. So what I wanna shift to is how to start getting prepared for all of this. So knowing what's happening, you can actually plan to get around that. So what I would suggest for artists before the holidays even come, I would say like we're about to get back into the first quarter, right? We're about to hit January. So I would suggest for you guys to start creating a list of all of the holidays throughout the year, right? Like all of the major holidays, New Year's, Valentine's Day, Memorial Day, all the rest of them, right? Make a whole list. How about a holiday person? And then your birthday. Your birthday is a holiday because that's a great time to market your birthday. People gonna buy stuff from you just because you say it's your birthday, you know? But anyway, make a long list of all of the major holidays, right? And then start creating your little campaigns around that because this is the perfect time to be like, okay, well I know Christmas is coming in a couple months. First of all, I can go ahead and create me a little Christmas project, right? You know, create me a little Jingle Bell EP or something and then create my merch to go with it. So to be clear though, please understand that just because it's the holidays and that tradition of Christmas and that type of music, understand that you don't have to create Christmas music. Like Fabulous has always dropped. Matter of fact, it's a summertime series. I forgot the name of the next day, but it's like, the summer is in the name and he drops it every winter during that time and people will expect it and they look for it. And he might have skipped it here every once in a while but he has like- But it's very consistent. I know what you're talking about. It's very consistent and it's not that vibe. We all know, well, everybody might not know this, but there's always like a scary movie that comes up during like the holidays, like Christmas for some reason. And it's not like, oh, it's a Christmas theme, scary movie, just a scary movie. So you can prime people to be ready for whatever. Right, so the idea is just to start getting ready, right? Yes. Write the list and then start building your assets of what you're going to need during that promotional period.  So we know during the holidays, we get like a whole bunch more of emails from these different companies than normal, right? So you're gonna wanna make sure you write out your emails in advance. So when the holiday comes, you just schedule them to blast off. Yeah, like literally type all your emails up. No, you said right. Well, I just wanted to be sure to check out some method. Yeah, yeah, okay, type. But the writing, people say when you write stuff down, you remember it better and then you connect it. No, no, no, no. So you actually wanna have an email service provider. So whether you're using MailChimp, I use, what do I use? drip, Aweber? No. ConvertKit. I'm sorry, ConvertKit, cause y'all my dogs. But I use ConvertKit.  Yes, I do. Hey, okay, put the link. Check it out and we're gonna put it in the description. Right, so yeah, I use ConvertKit. But whatever your email service provider that you wanna use, you wanna basically go and set up a list of like different emails that are gonna blast out to your audience.  You can kick like three to five emails. A lot of people do way more than that. And if you notice like during the holidays, you probably get like three or four emails a day from one company. So it just depends on how much you wanna go.   It's just typical, like move how the companies do. But this is what we call an asset. You wanna get all your emails together and schedule them to just blast out to your audience, right? So you wanna have that. You wanna have all of your imagery together. So if you have any type of flyers, banners, all of this stuff, you wanna make sure that you're creating all of that. And then all of that is, you put that on all of your social media, get all your banners, make sure everything is just looking cohesive or whatever. Co-recent, like he posted something like yesterday that speaks to this. I'm gonna find it before the end of this conversation, but all right, keep this in mind. All right, you're talking about all that stuff. I want you to talk more time because what I've noticed, right? First, I would just be giving advice to artists or trying to, you know, tell them what they should do, the methods and tactics, certain things like that, right? Then as I spent more and more time with artists that are fresher in the game, I was like, oh man, okay, they understand that they're supposed to do this now, but they don't understand that you need to be doing this for six months, right? To even understand, to actually see real results. You're trying these one-off tactics, but you're not trying strategy. You're just giving me a call one time. You need to call me five, 10 times or something like that. But then after that, I realized the next stage, which I need to talk about even more, is they don't realize how much time beforehand it takes to prepare for this stuff. Like you, some of these things, why y'all are getting at a disadvantage is because people are literally preparing like six months in advance, three months in advance, and then they're launching, they have all this stuff built up and you're thinking that, oh, I'm just gonna get something together this weekend and artists say I took advantage of a holiday. I can't tell you how often I see artists say, oh, I'm dropping something on Valentine's Day. I'm dropping something on. A birthday or dropping, and it is literally just a drop. Maybe a few pictures that go along with it. Right, but it's not like a campaign run. Exactly, you have to make a moment out of it and decide where it's focused and continuous so you absorb that traffic. You suffocate the marketplace into your own space and world for a period of time and then you can move past that. But it takes building out emails that like, because you need to do templates and you need to be dripping those campaigns, that takes time to write those up and do them efficiently. Your landing pages, the music itself, the ad copies, and the photos, photos, actual music videos, all that stuff, the lining up the platforms to promote it. All these things take time to curate and even more time if you're working by yourself. So like, please understand that not only are we saying do this, we're saying you need to do this for five to six months sometimes or an extended period of time, longer than just two days. And then not only that, but you need to prepare to do this for probably months for a lot of y'all. Yeah, yeah, so that's why you wanna start out but by just writing down the list of holidays so you can visually see what you have coming up. And then you can pick which holidays you wanna actually campaign for or campaign during that time. And then when it comes to the time to take to prepare that, now one thing it depends on, like do you have a team that's helping you with this? If you're doing it by yourself, you might wanna plan for a holiday four months in advance, at least two, definitely don't do it the month before or the month of because it's just gonna wear you out and you're gonna fall behind. But you definitely wanna give yourself like three to four months in advance to plan for a holiday. And that's why you start with that list and then you start to create your holiday calendar or your campaign calendar, right? So it says during this week, I'm gonna be creating all of my emails and scheduling them. During this week, I'm gonna be creating all of the imagery that I need. So any type of flyers, any type of, does any type of image that you need to go along with you promoting or marketing, right? So you're gonna be doing that. You might need to have some type of promo video. So one thing that I talked about with my group my coaching group is the fact that we don't always have to shoot full videos for your singles. So let's say you have something that you're planning to do for Christmas, but you don't have a full single or a full video for it. You don't have to shoot full videos. You can literally take like 60 seconds of that song and shoot a promo video, right? I would say take the 60 seconds of like the dopest part of the song, shoot a promo video that's actually like acting out certain things that you're saying, right? So it looks like so dope. It's basically like you're telling the stories like B-roll footage, why you rapping at the same time or whatever, but you wanna create those little 60 second promo videos that you can use. You can use those for ads. You can use those just for content to promote. You can put links to stuff in your email list, all of that stuff, right?  You have to get all of that stuff together, you know, way before it's time to even launch. And then you can do stuff like a pre-sale.  And then when it comes time for the holiday, you might be like, okay, here's a 30% off. And here's the- You're hitting on with a lot, right? Man, because it is a lot. You're hitting on with a lot. It's a lot, right? And I want one thing that y'all take away from everything she said is that she said a lot, which means it's gonna take a lot of time on the front end to plan that out. Everything she said was facts. There's some version of that that you should be applying, even when we talk about looking at holidays ahead of time, right? And being able to map that out, it's not just holidays, looking at dates in general, whatever, planning something far enough ahead is a real thing that needs to be utilized more. And the artists that I know, and I'm working with on the back end are just helping out in general that are doing that. I see a difference in the ones that say, hey, yo, Rayman, can I do this? And I'm like, okay, yeah, but when are you gonna drop it? And I'm trying to drop it in two weeks and I got these and these are my resources. It's not prepared versus, you know, I'm dropping this in January, but we've been talking about this since June, where it's almost having me like, yo, bro, it's kinda early, we talking about this, right? But it's relevant and they're on their stuff. And I appreciate it because you have to be the one who's on your stuff and looking at it that way because, you know, one artist, I remember he has some stuff he wanted to start in January. We've been talking about it literally since June, July, probably July, and then he all has a goal of when he starts that what he wants to do on New Year's Day, 2020, technically 2021, whatever, you know what I mean, right? So he's really playing the next year starting six months into the year prior, right? And that's a campaign or a marketing strategy, a marketing plan, like you wanna have a release plan. Especially when you don't have many resources, you need to really gather how you want to spend your resources and plan for it. That way things get used in an interconnected way versus I spend it and now every other thing I do is starting from ground zero. You want to make sure these things connect. Sometimes it gets you one step forward, sometimes it gets you five steps forward, but they need to connect. But one thing I feel like when it comes to the holidays, that's important to understand is that it's great for artists to use, like have a reason to do something that because it gives other people a reason to want to tune in to you, right? So it's like I can drop something for the Christmas season and use the fact of just it being Christmas, like I'm doing this because it's Christmas to get people's attention, right? So that's why it's good for you to like really look at certain holiday, not even just holidays, but this can go into like you looking into festivals, like, okay, I want to release my music. Let me see when the music conferences are going on or music festivals because I can just cap off of them. I can say, okay, every year, South by Southwest is happening. I can plan a whole project or a whole single, two singles or whatever to drop during South by Southwest and then go in the tech. All the people who are having shows during South by Southwest, right? And get on and then I can use it. I'm on stage like, boom, this is my new single and I can just use them to help promote me because if you're on somebody's show, they're going to have flyers for you. They're going to be doing recap videos. You know what I mean? And this is what you're going to be able to use like all of that content. You're going to be able to use that for your own benefit. And what you're alluding to now is the fact that one, we have permission marketing and some of y'all are familiar with that, right? Where we get into this vibe where we give to people and people are actually open to hearing it whether we're giving advice and they're open to it or they're just a fan so they're open to you pushing something out to them. They've given you permission to get back in front of their face, right? But then we have this other level where there's these events and when you can justify around the event, then it's permissible. Maybe they're not saying permission, but you're justified. It's like, okay, he's doing it because it is. He created a reason. That's why Margaret's like, oh, is it Black Friday? Oh, it's pre-Black Friday. It's Cyber Monday, right? It's the pre-party, you know, the after-party, right? We create all these things and then it's pretty much another level when we look at concentrated periods like the holidays that our marketers have been, right? Because there's permission spamming. That's really what it is. I haven't heard nobody say that before. I think I just coined something. I even might have. Y'all might, y'all, give me a check. Not scamming. Spamming. Spamming. We already know what you'd be up to on the- I know that. I know that. After the pie, we already know where you're going. I don't know. We need a third shot, but check this out, though. Cory and me back. Shout out to Cory the Saviour, adding content from the podcast from afar because he posted this on the- What did he say? On his story. Nah, he posted this on his story and a guy. So this is Black Wealth Renaissance. I wish I could share it on the screen as I go because I'm not doing post-production on that, but the future will have it. But check this out. This guy, Marco, at St. D. I.C. Ah, whatever, down. What am I doing? I've made millions during the holidays. Most don't realize it's the only time of the year where it's okay for brands to break most of the rules. A few of my favorite tips slash strategies. Facebook ad frequency. Throw it out the window. It doesn't matter during the holidays. If return on ads been a solid, keep the ads running. I've had campaigns smashing at 15, at a frequency of 15, this will happen in campaigns with customers slash site traffic. Let it fly to return on ad spend tanks. He's saying ROS, that's return on ad spend. So let me explain this part to y'all before I go to the next thing he said. So Facebook ad frequency, that's essentially how many times the ad shows to an individual, right? So typically it's advised around two to three. You don't really keep that ad running. You need to kind of adjust it, right? But he's saying it can go up to 15. That means this individual person has seen this thing 15 times and they just keep seeing it, seeing it, seeing it, but you need to keep it running in this particular period. However, I like that he has that caveat if the return on ad spend is there. So that means if it's showing to a lot of people but you're still making money, it doesn't matter. Don't worry about it, which I would almost really not care and break the rules anyway and like do that at any other time of the year now that I think about it. But typically people really look at that frequency and say, nah, that's getting high. I don't want to annoy people. I almost feel like a lot of times if I'm not annoying people, it's not getting the results. Your stuff should be in people's face all the time. But when people are doing this with everybody, it doesn't have the same effect because they're just saying, ah, they don't have one person to single out. You don't really take that bullet and you're drowned out in the crowd. Right, and they won't unsubscribe. They won't necessarily unsubscribe because before they get a chance too, they get hit with another email from somebody else and it's more like duck-duck-goose. They might get somebody, but likely you maybe not, probably not. So I'll keep reading because he has, I love the fact there's a strong perspective and it sounds like it comes from his opinion. We can talk about if there's parts that we disagree with or not, but. Social media posting frequency. Post high quality content five to 10 times per day. Per channel. Everyone is posting at an insane amount of content and you should too. That sounds like some Gary Vee-type stuff. I'm gonna say no. Why would you say no to that person? Now, I'm gonna say like, first of all, I think it depends on like your followers or your following, you know.   I don't even post twice a day, you know?  Which is way easier for me to do, but I'm definitely not about to catch me posting like. Why though? Any cause I just, I don't have the time. Not even that, I don't have the time. I don't feel like it's necessary. Like I have a strong following. You know, I think my followers are used to me posting the way that I do. Like if I go a couple of days without posting, I'll literally get DMs like, yo, are you good? Like everything good? But they know posting once a day, like they know that's what I do.  Listen. Oh, y'all, used to this, all right, it's time to grow. I might need to shake some of y'all out. Y'all are passive followers. That's cool too. Some of y'all are people are with me, but y'all aren't really benefiting to my progress where I need to go in life. Ain't that what y'all say when y'all get into one of those zones? No. I gotta take care of me, self love. First of all, who is y'all? Who's gonna go with me on the journey? Somebody gots to go, right? Like sometimes you gotta like, especially when you have something big that you wanna push to the next level in the same way where most artists have these first level fans, right? Those are the early movers. But you have to realize a part of the early mover mindset, their identity is being your early mover. So some of these people literally, no matter how much you stay the same, if you get accepted commercially, they won't like you the same because you don't belong to them and it doesn't align with their identity of being different and being the first. So thereby nature gonna move on to the first, right? To another person that they can be first on to. So those type of people keep you from even being able to move forward. You can't worry about some fans.  If they're tuned into Lady J, they could tune in to Drake, they could tune in to Jay-Z, you see I put you in the name. Yeah, my dog, my dog, my dog. But they could tune in to all these people, right? But for a period of time, people also take their breaks, right? So just like you watch a TV show, you catch up with every episode, but then you might take a break and it doesn't even mean that you don't dislike the TV show, but while you're taking your break, you as the TV show still need to get your following and your ad dollars so you have to survive without it so you always have to be looking for new fans. But this is the thing which you said about like the ads because I feel like first of all, when it comes to, like he's saying like, you know, post these many times, that means that, you know, posting that many times based on that sale content because one thing I don't like to do is overly sell, right? And I think I've built up a platform where I don't have to keep telling my followers, like go buy this, go purchase this, you know, I can drop the value and then people will just go to my link and click and see like, okay, what does she do? What does she offer? And then you'll see all the things I actually charge for. So I think that's one reason why I love ads because ads allow me to put that message out saying buy this, you know, to everybody, everybody who already follows me, everybody who else that's in the target, you know, it puts that content out on a daily basis. So I don't have to keep saying every day, like, yo, I got this event, I got this event, I got this event every day because people get tired of being like, well, they're like, what else do you got? You know what I mean? Because people can get tired of being. I'm the opposite. Yeah, I don't, I don't. What else do you got? Nothing, it's all I got. No, but, but see, that's why I feel like, like ads help you do that, you know, because, and I just think like, it just depends on your following once again, like I don't necessarily, and then if you, like even when you think about the bigger people, like these Gary V's and all of that, like he's not on his page telling you to buy something from him every day.  Does he have a conference I can pop up at? Like he doesn't have to tell you every day to buy from him. All right, you're talking about buy, okay. I get that from sales content. If your sales content is strictly buy, buy, buy. So I have levels of sales content when it comes to artists or anything in business. Some things are indirect, they're a soft sale, just to create awareness. Some things are, hey, go get this. This is the information you need, you need to get it now. And then some things are just, like it has nothing to do with the sales, right? But then there are certain times where there's certain periods, I'm about to, something that's really important to me and that I'll run people to have, which is this TikTok content that I'm about to be putting out. I'm gonna be extremely honed in and focus on that, like nothing else exists for a period of time, for about probably two months. But this is the thing, you don't, even with doing that, okay, there's a way to do that. So even an artist that's, okay, if he's saying like blast like five posts a day, right? So your posts, those five posts are like, a ray of things. It's not saying, go check out my song. It might be you like in the studio, like a behind the scenes performance video. Like it might be you doing other things that alludes to like, I have this new single, right? 100%. You know what I mean? But I just wanna make sure people stay comfortable with selling or get comfortable with selling. Right, right. But you gotta learn how. Someone who isn't going to buy is not going to buy. That's a fact. And if they will buy, they will buy. And that means willing buy. When I say buy, that's interchangeably, interchange with any version of Convert, whether that means watch, listen, you know what I mean? Give them your email, whatever it is, you have to get used to all those nodes, all those people who start to say, look, he send it. I'm seeing him too much. Cause there's artists that you probably felt that way about for you. You're hearing them too much. You're seeing them. And why don't we even like that person? You're gonna get all that. That's a part of the process. And that's one of the things where I like to do my periods where I'm gonna focus in and push myself in front of people about something specific, no matter what it is, whether I'm pushing somebody else or I'm pushing me for a period of time because I always have to remind people, look, I talk about this, but I actually do these things.  If it gets to my goal, cause it's not about working on what's on the front end. It's like, what are the results on the back end? Those people who are gonna feel how they feel are gonna feel that way. And that's just how I feel. And that's what I've seen. Of course, being cognizant and not necessarily taking advantage of it where I'm just gonna say everything is a salesman. I hate that stuff, but making sure you provide value. It's like, okay, bam, they hit me with a listen to this now. Bam, they hit me with a different listen to this now. Cause they just showed me a snippet of the video. So you gotta understand what kind of content, you know? It's a variety. You have to have a variety of content when you're posting a lot like that, you know? So if somebody says like, yo, you need to be posting five times a day, your next question is, okay, so what do I need to post? What kind of content do I need to post? That's extremely valid. I'm glad you took a tip then on that. Which is another reason why you take that time to plan for these ahead of time. So you understand what, like I said, your asset. Let's give a quick example. So people can have a takeaway from that specific content. So like just off the top, what I would think might be Content buckets. So, well, of course we got the buckets. Willa, I'll let you go deep onto the buckets. I'm just gonna say specific types of, all right. Bam, I might be dropping a single that might have the album artwork and that's alluding back to the single. Might drop a 30 second snippet of the music video if I have a music video. And bam, that's another piece of content. I might drop a 30 second of the last 30 seconds. That's another piece of content. A little lyric video? Yeah, might be a lyric video. You seen the same content in different ways even in between that. That's the key. I might just, yeah, it's variety is the key. I always said that variety is the key to spam because you at least have to put in the effort to entertain people. So maybe behind the scenes, maybe in between that, it is something that has nothing to do with the single at all, like one or two of those. Cause now it's like, oh, he keep pushing you with the single, he's pushing with me with the single. And I'm about to push this unfollowing the next scene. Oh, dang, he made me laugh.  But I know you don't, so, okay, when we talk about even creating that much content, right, five pieces of content, that doesn't mean that you have to put five pieces of content on one platform though. Yes. I was thinking about that earlier. Because like, even though I might, if I have a sale going, I might post a little something on Instagram, but like, I have an email list. So my email list is getting pumped too. Like, y'all getting it. If you want my email list, you're getting it right now. You see how she is behind closed doors. She's like, oh, I like to post so much. But see, the difference is your email list, people opted in and said, I'm giving you permission to sell to me. I'm giving you, like, I'm opting in to you and what you do. What's between that and a follow to you? Well, follow, I feel like, people will follow you for multiple reasons. People get on your email list. You have an email list for a specific reason. Like, and then you may have multiple email lists, but people opt into that specific email list for, you know, whatever they first initially saw from you. You know what I mean?  You already know, like that's saying like, I want this type of information. I want to learn more about this. So when it comes time for me to sell to you about this, you're already open for it. You know what I mean?  Like, that's just like the permission to print money. I think one of my mentors said that, that wasn't me. But I think it's Jeff Walker.  So he specifically went into like, why emails are so important because people are basically giving you permission to sell to them, period.  So let me go for it. What's the name of your brand? Sean. Sean. Flags though, but like people are followers.  I think, so what's important, what you said is context and so whenever I say stuff, sometimes I remember Corey said this to me about, I think he said, circle said this to him about cursing knowledge where you know something and you don't know that people don't know it when you say it or you don't mention it or explain it. So there's always context and stuff that I'm talking about. So, and I just might not know or think to say it. When you talked about the email list, right? And that's more about I follow for a specific reason versus the Instagram, they might be following you. They're opting in to you versus opting in to a specific thing about you, right? And I wanna allude back to what this guy said because you, that's a great point. He can post on all these different networks, but he was specifically said five post her channel, which is a lot. I get it. But another thing to consider, not only just posting in other platforms you own, but I'm always thinking about fan-based growth. You have to figure out how to keep growing and Yoshi, you don't want to in non-nature fans and like just keep posting and you don't want to also just keep pushing the same creative to those people. And sometimes you don't have the resource to create more. So what that has to look like is I push to these people, right? On this channel, but I still have all these other channels. I get shout outs on these pages or I take this post and I get it posted on five other channels. So it's still not feeling like it's just coming from me. And there's so many different versions of that leveraging other channels that are borrowed. So you have owned and borrowed. So how many can you borrow? So many artists that are just mysterious. Basically what they do is borrow channels. Most of their marketing comes from getting other people or an illusion of other people or the platforms talking about them versus them talking about themselves because then that will take away their version of the mystery. So like really keep that in mind. I want to see what else, because this guy has definitely had some talking points for us to talk about. All right, fake sell out. Fake sell out of stock then reintroduce it a few days later. Create scarcity. Yeah, that's always. We always talk about creating scarcity whenever you can. And sometimes it's even better when it's real. Sometimes, well not, I wouldn't call it better, but sometimes you have to realize if it actually happens, it's not a bad thing if you can understand how to flip that opportunity and to make the most out of it. So just to be clear, that's basically putting a time limit on whatever your sale is or whatever you're putting out. Tell people like yo, you got two days to get this and that's it. And honor it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Let me see. Now this probably is less relevant without reading just in case some of y'all are on the merch part and things like that. Clearly spell out your Christmas shipping cutoff. Well that's okay, that's the time limit. Post on IG, Facebook and all your other brands homepages. Customers want to be guaranteed that their gift will be there in time for Christmas. So let them know when you're gonna send it out. Post holiday loyalty program. Now this is interesting. Says most people get some money as a holiday gift. So make it easy for them to spend it on your brand. I like how that sounds. But I'm gonna make it easy for you to give me your money. That's pimp talk. That's pimp talk. One of my favorites is to run in January, February, have customers buy old inventory and get a free exclusive gift for a loyalty program. So that might look like I got an old merch, this is that old inventory that you got some, you know, some merch or whatever left over and it ran and now you gotta figure out a way to reinvigorate and get it back out there. So you bring back this old thing and if you buy it I'm gonna offer you something new that also just feels like a bonus, right? It also kind of goes with like having a fan club, a loyalty program fan club, you know, which is another way to definitely boost your income. How do you feel about using the word fan club for artists versus maybe, I don't know, just something, right? That's not specifically that, but it's still kind of cool. Why? Cause it doesn't sound cool. It's a community. Or you can say community. You gotta, you know, it's psychological dynamics, right?  Something like the fans created this word for them sometimes, like the beehive. So it's like now I got my beehive membership club, whatever you want to call it, but whatever it is, it's still a fan club. It's cool when fans create it, right? But sometimes, particularly for your demographic, it might be a little bit weirder where some people, you know, some people's fans.  Some people's fans aren't comfortable identifying themselves as a fan openly cause they're too cool. You know, you know that are just too cool. So you might call it a book club. You might have, you might have something.   All that kind of stuff, but it's just some kind of exclusive space to filter out for the people that really care. But I just wanted to say that because yeah, I mean, you have to understand the identity and mindset of your fans. It's just like Tyler the creator and how his fans boo Drake, right? Right? Like he's basically been priming that type of fan base for years. Where I want to be, you know, I don't know, anti so much. So, and especially when it comes to commercial just certain ways of thinking. So as you might evolve, you might out evolve the fan base you started with cause you've grown up and they're still thinking that way. And now it's like, whoa, why are you acting like that? Well, it's the monster you created. Now I'm sure there's some fans that were born for some reason that might have been a little bit more justified, but that's kind of the energy he put out and that's what he represented, right? He attracted people that thought like that and he also gave permission cause he had his own cool factor and influence. He actually gave people permission and influence to start being like that if they weren't like that cause they thought that was what it took to be cool. So it's something you gotta keep in mind for your fan base cause this is one artist. Man, he has the type of stuff he was putting out. I was like, bro, this is dope. Exceptually all that kind of stuff. But man, I would never want to go to your concert. Like you would be attracting creepers, like legit creepers and people that I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to be around, but that's, you always get what you put out. If you say it's going to be a twerk fest, then you bringing people who ready for a twerk fest. If you say it's going to be smooth and adult and grown and sexy, people going to come and ready to be grown and sexy. If you say it's going to be funny and fun, like that's what you have to, you're priming people to bring the energy that you put out. Yeah, but like actually going the step to actually create the club, whatever your club. Yeah, you know what I mean?  So you have, you can create different tiers. So you can have a lower tier, middle tier, a higher tier. So based on what they pay, they get different things. But this is basically like the loyalty program, you know what I'm saying? So it was like you pay something and then you get all of these exclusive things. So like during the holidays, you're going to get my exclusive holiday merch, you know? Or you're going to get the first dibs on the new singles or whatever, you know, your thing, it's a long list of things that you can kind of offer people in the fan club. But if you build that fan club, like these are, this is the thing, like this is going back to having that warm, hot audience, right? Because you're building something where A, you control it, you know? Because people opt in and you can control the platform. But also B, you have all of these people who actually want this stuff. So when it's time to have new releases, new merchandise, showtime, holiday, whatever, you basically sell to these folks first, you know what I mean? And then you can promote to the rest of the world. He has one last one. What do you say? Customer service strategy. Assuming you use a 3PL, I don't know what that is. Get a storage unit for a month and stock your most popular products. Use it to do returns and exchanges as you get closer to Christmas. Pay the extra few bucks to overnight or express. Super easy way to get customers for life. Now, that might not apply directly in how you hear it, but what the takeaway for that is for me, because essentially he's saying, look invest in overnighting to your customers because that'll make them a customer for life. Overdeliver, find pockets and places that you can overdeliver in some way, right? And give them something a pleasant surprise and that'll endear them to you even more. So whatever that might look like, even if it seems to be a bad investment on the front end or just might be a little uncomfortable in the front end because you might not have that extra five dollars or whatever dollars, find ways that you can do things like that and it will once again ingratiate your fan base and hopefully keep them with you longer. Right. And then, I mean, really that gets into like being creative also, which are product, you know? But that also gets into like you understanding your money because doing stuff like that, first of all, having to pay for the inventory upfront and then housing it, if it's holiday time or a specific time of the year, you're gonna be discounting everything. So it cuts into margin. So you kind of have to look at that. And then when you do stuff like that, you have to be specific in your shipping because you don't wanna have this price and then somebody from out of the country purchase it and then you have this price, you have a shipping price that's greater. That's one thing about having e-commerce and selling products. Like you gotta be real careful when it comes down to cutting the profits on your product. You have to look at the shipping because it costs way more to ship it out of the country than it does to ship it in the country. So that's just another thing that you have to take into account when you start doing stuff like this. Definitely just another reason why it makes sense to start ahead of time. Plan it out. It ain't no way around it. It is not, man, I wish, right? But it's always worth it. I'm always, people who've been around me a lot over the last few months, especially who are doing direct work with me, like hear me talk about infrastructure a whole lot.  But once it's laid, you're prepared to scale up. You're prepared to grow. So when stuff happens, sometimes it just goes very easily. It's like, yo, it's just happening. And you don't, I don't know, you don't feel like super pumped up or like paranoid or scary, not running around. But it just happens. But that's cause you did it right. You took the time to do it and it grew. But on the other hand, when stuff starts growing and you're not ready for it, now it's like old snap. Like I gotta figure this out. Man, stress. Things might go completely wrong. This might be my whole career, right? That's what things start to look like. You start losing other people's money. If you got partners or investors in you, right? Messing up relationships, all those things coming to account when you don't make sure you have that stress. I've had that in different facets of business, right? You try to take on too much. And now certain promises that you already made start, yeah, they start to fall shorter than where you would like to get them. So even if the people might be like cool and you're like, I really know what I could have done or should have done or I wanted to do or even if they just paid, they gave me this grace this time. It's like, I should have never had myself in this position. I gotta be cognizant and make sure I go about it smarter. I like to say set it and forget it, right? Hey, you watched that infomercial or something? No, first of all, I've been saying that for a long time. I've been in infomercials from like 95. I was born... Okay, no. Look at that, look at that, look at that. I ain't never seen that. I ain't never seen that. But that's something to always say, set it and forget it.  And the great thing about like building that foundation is that that process is duplicatable. Like you're going to duplicate the same process pretty much every time for a new release, you pretty much do the same things. You know, you might attack it a different way depending on what you're releasing, like who is going to but like that foundation is literally the same every time. So if you take the time to like really get your foundation set for one launch, whatever time you're launching you could just do it again, like rinse and repeat it. You know what I mean? And then that will take the stress down. You already know what you gotta do.  You already know the time that it takes to do all of these things. So you can get it done, set it and then forget it. And if you don't believe her, a good way to look at it is even when you talk about artists like, let's say the Beyonce's or any artist you know. Right? Choucaille, let's just use those names that a lot of people know, right? A lot of times, especially people who are in the industry, industry, you might not pay enough attention of a board but they will, people will say, this person does this. Like I know he might, he must be about to come out with a project because Kanye is back just doing some wild stuff again. Right? Getting in the public eye. Right? So that's a part of his process. It might be things that look different but there's some core things. Yo, he does that every time. Every time. Every time he always says it's not for any reasons just how he feels. But that's how he flips to people to think that he's authentic and he's, but that's all another, I'm not even gonna get into that. Right? But he's great at psychological branding and getting people to follow for the better or worse. But then you look at Beyonce, especially the last five years or something, right? Everybody knows that there's a high level to secrecy pretty much of how she drives. It's some sort, it's a surprise or just unexpected in some form of fashion. There's some core planning, right? That goes around how she does it. But there's still these surface level things that we can see that are common in all these people. Why? They have their own process and it's best to have their own process if you want continued success. It doesn't mean I gotta do exactly how Lady J posts her posts or anything like that. It just means I might see something that Lady J does that I could figure out how to do one time I might wanna do it or I might actually decide I wanna put in my process but I need a process, 100%. Right, that's a fact, that's a fact. So I mean, I think we covered it. You think we covered it? Okay, so look, this is the end pretty much. I gotta throw this thing in here because I forgot to mention it, the Brain Man Beat Battle. Oh yeah, we got a couple announcements. Check the link in the description. That's basically a contest that goes a little bit like this. One, watch the video that Kory dropped because he explains the whole thing. I'll put that in the link in the description too but we're looking for producers beats. We're gonna do an artist song competition and we're looking for beats to be in that competition. First we're like, we're just gonna run it for the artist but then we decided, you know what? Well, why don't we find some producers and do run a competition so they can actually be the beat that gets promoted right throughout the whole artist competition.  Check out everything in the link in the description. There's over $4,000 worth of prizes so that's cool as well but overall if you just want your music out there we will be getting your music out there if you have dope beats. Sign up, register all you got beats. I mean, I got a song. That's on the artist side. No, see. So only producers get the money? The producers, there's two competitions. First, we're doing a competition to get beats. Okay. And once we get these beats in, we find the winners, there's two versions. Fan vote, which means yes. Fans do that whole process but then there's also submissions for judges vote which means it's selected outside of how many followers or how many people you get to like it. I encourage you to do both but we're doing that and once we find the top two, three beats out of that those people will be the beats that the artist in the song competition have to create beats to. Yeah, yeah. So you can be on that side. That's what I'm saying. I thought you were talking about the first part. No, no, I want to be on the songwriter side, you know and I want to win. Okay. So wink, wink. Not getting my drift here. But check it out, okay. Yeah, yeah, so check that out. That's coming up and I also have something else coming up. January the fourth, which is a Saturday.  We're going to be going over three key things that a lot of artists need to know and apply. I'm not going to tell you what it is but it's three major keys that an artist need to know and apply before you launch your music. We're also going to have some great industry experts like Rayman and Sean will be there but we're going to have some great industry experts that are going to be or you're going to be able to talk to them about things related to like branding, marketing, music publishing, music licensing, all of that good stuff there. So that's going to be January fourth in Atlanta. It's called the power your launch workshop. And then January fifth is our second day of turn up. We're going to work hard and then we're going to play hard on January fifth and that's going to be my birthday party. Okay. And I'm actually, and that's going to be in Atlanta too but I'm actually going to run in the contest right now to pick artists. I'm going to have about six artists performing. So birthday. Yeah. We got to talk about this more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I have actually, I have like four slots open. So I have two slots taken but I have four slots available. We run in a contest. I'm letting artists submit the music and whatnot. So we're going to be picking like a few artists to perform for my birthday party. You know, you can submit music but we'll have all of those details in the description box below. All right. It'll be down there. And other than that, this is the music Mavericks podcast. We got to name you. We got to say it like. We got to say it. We got to say it together. Like one, two, three. The music Mavericks podcast. Podcast. I'm a harmony I didn't want to be on but we'll work on it. We'll work on it. Have a good one. See you all soon.


Over the weekend, Ansar Allah, popularly known as the Houthis, attacked two ships. What does this mean for the Israeli war on Gaza? The Maori community in New Zealand took to the streets, against proposals by the new government of the country. What is leading to this anger? This is the daily debrief. These are our stories for the day. And before you go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. Yemen's Ansar Allah, popularly known as the Houthis, attacked two ships over the weekend, claiming that these attacks were part of the movement's solidarity with the Palestinian people. The spokesperson for the Yemeni armed forces said the ships had rejected warnings which led them to attack them. The US, on the other hand, claimed that three ships had been attacked and also said that one of its own vessels had shot down three drones. The US has also, of course, blamed Iran for these attacks. To understand the implications for the region, we go to Abdul. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. So it looks like the Yemeni armed forces under Ansar Allah, popularly known as the Houthis, have sort of escalated their attacks. This has already seen some attacks on this front. So it's a very interesting move at this point of time. But Fuli, could you first maybe take us through what is happening right now with regard to that? Well, on Sunday, there were reports about three ships basically attacked in Red Sea. And though the Houthis claim that they have attacked only two ships, the third ship, there was uncertainty about it whether they have attacked it or not. But the US claimed that all three of them were attacked by the Houthis. And in fact, they blamed that as has been their pattern ever since that the Iranians are behind it. Of course, Iran later denied any role in all those attacks. And the two ships, as I said before, it was basically the Houthis who claimed that they attacked it. Both the ships were Israeli-owned and they were basically crucial for the Israeli supply of food grains and other essential products, which Israel imports from different parts of the world. And therefore, it is a part of the larger war which Houthis have declared against Israelis for what they are doing against Palestinians in Gaza for the last more than almost two months now. And therefore, though it was not clear whether the US has taken any retaliatory attacks or not, though the US claimed it, but the Houthis have denied that the Yemen has been targeted by any attacks from the US. So this has been by a larger situation. Of course, this comes in addition to what had been the cases of attacks prior to Sunday. Of course, one Israeli ship is still under the control of Houthis which they took earlier last month. And therefore, this is the overall situation at the moment when it comes to the Red Sea. Of course, repeated Houthi attacks on the Israeli ships has also led to some of the Israeli companies deciding to basically change their sea route and taking the longer route all across the Atlantic and the southern African coast. Right, Abul Kuri, also sort of elaborate on the strategic importance of that whole area because it's the Babel-Mandab region, the Houthis in fact, although it's a very narrow area, nonetheless quite significant for Israel and for the larger region as well. What we generally call Babel-Mandab is a narrow route which basically links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden which is part of the Arabian Sea. And this ultimately goes to the Swiss Canal which basically is crucial for the international trade, particularly the trade to Europe or from Europe to the rest of the world in Africa or in Asia and in other parts of the world. So a large amount of world trade including energy products are traded through this reason and therefore it is very crucial not only for the US and the European countries but also for Israel because Israel primarily depends on the supplies through the Red Sea, particularly the food grains and other essential products. So that is one. So if there is a block created by the Houthis on Babel-Mandab, that may lead to complete crippling of the trade through the Swiss Canal and ultimately the countries will have to take an alternative route which basically is a very long route. Basically Swiss Canal was created to basically shorten the route which was originally what is called Cape of Good Hope all across the Mediterranean then going through the Atlantic and then coming all the way to south of the Africa and then entering the Arabian Sea going to India or to the East Asia, East Asian region. So this basically increases the overall cost of trade if there is a war going on in the Red Sea. It increases the cost of the trade manifold and most of the countries will not be willing to take that extra cost and therefore this may create a pressure on most of the countries to take some effort to basically kind of pressurize Israel to take... So basically pressurize Israel to agree for humanitarian ceasefire or ceasefire in Gaza. Of course that was the logic with which Houthis have basically started this particular set of attacks and so far it has not resulted in the desired... has not brought the desired results but of course there is an increasing pressure as I said before some of the Israeli companies have been forced to take the longer route and this is not sustainable for them in the long term and they will have to look for some alternative measures which of course includes the political... considering the larger political issues related to the war in Gaza. I will not mention the rising insurance costs also I think for many of these ships but in this context also important to sort of see like you said the US immediately quick to blame Iran for these attacks and US has always claimed that the Houthis are just a proxy for Iran but do you also see Israel and the United States thinking of escalating this war at this point beyond to Yemen for instance there is already Lebanon and Hezbollah which is also a challenge for them? Well it's very unlikely that the US will basically attempt to... US or Israel will try to escalate a physical war against the Houthis in Yemen given the fact that it is of course around 2000 kilometers away from the Israeli coast it is also difficult basically given the larger implication it can have on the overall regional calculations but there are attempts made indirectly to pressurize Houthis as you rightly pointed out the portrayal of Houthis as a kind of allies to Iran and not only allies sorry proxies to Iran is basically an attempt to basically delegitimize the overall agency and the independence of the Houthis when it comes to taking crucial decisions so that may have a political implication which US is trying to create apart from that if you see world food program of course it may be completely unrelated but there is a development which basically hints towards pressure coming from other corners basically world food program suspended its food distribution program in the Houthi controlled area in Yemen and it said that lack of funds is a reason but it is going to continue the food distribution program in the other reasons which are controlled by within Yemen which are controlled by the Saudi backed forces so this kind of given the fact that Yemen is not particularly the northern Yemen where Houthis are stronger Houthis have some influence they are not in a position to take care of millions of Yemenis who are food insecure who have suffered for almost 6-7 years 8 years of war this may create a pressure on them to kind of reconsider their position on the war in Gaza so of course there is no attempt at this moment to take a direct physical war start a direct physical war with Houthis by the US or the Israelis but though it is not confirmed there are pressures created from other corners which can with the idea that this may force Houthis to kind of reconsider so this kind of indirect just like what happened what was attempted with the Hezbollah in Lebanon so similar things are being attempted against Houthis also so a political propaganda portraying Houthis as proxies of Iran and kind of other kind of pressures basically are the tools used by the US and Israel at this moment not direct confrontation because that may prove much more costly than these measures which will have lesser cost Thank you so much for that analysis we will get back to you in the coming days as well Thousands of Maori protesters took to the streets in New Zealand on Tuesday against what leaders say are plans to reverse affirmative action and dial back the use of their language in the country When you're right wing government has taken power in New Zealand some of its constituents have been using the rhetoric of equality to target the rights of the indigenous Maori We go to Anish to understand more Anish thank you so much for joining us very important protest in New Zealand which has had a new government and indigenous Maori protesters I think making some very strong points which of course have a lot to do with the fact that New Zealand is a settler colonial nation ultimately and so what are the arguments what really is the issue of contention Well the central issues are basically the fact that the government wants to review or maybe even do away with the affirmative action policies that exist in New Zealand to phase out the use of Maori language when it comes to naming buildings in government documents or even in government any kind of orders and stuff like that and very most importantly it also wants to phrase out or spell out the foundational treaty of the New Zealand as a nation which is the Treaty of Baitangi which pretty much recognized Maori as being the original inhabitants giving them some level of very basic autonomy and rights as subjects and as citizens of New Zealand and this foundational document has often had its own contentious history obviously but definitely it has always been the platform for Maori especially during the civil rights movement that also happened in New Zealand in the 50s and 60s they used this as a platform for them to gain more rights more recognition and which the governments have responded over the years and they want to actually put out a manner in which it is phrased maybe even alter the basic principles of the document that is what the Maori generally fear so what we are looking at is a very right-wing document which is trying to use a very same set of very right-wing settler and equal but Maori's are asserting their existence not just as the original inhabitants but as also the original inheritors of the land that the settler can only have white population are pretty much ruling over right now and this is not something new we have seen mobilizations even under the Jacinda Arden government during various issues that actually did crop up especially over traditional Maori land and development projects on that but this sort of militancy is coming back that has been absent for quite a while it has to do with how the Maori leadership had made compromises in the past but definitely right now it is coming back in a big manner and that is what this national day was pretty much about right now Anish how has the government responded has it acknowledged in some senses the kind of protest because by New Zealand standards it was quite a substantial protest and in multiple cities that too so what is the government's likely path ahead it is quite likely that the government is going to try to ignore them as much as possible they have actually called the protest as unfair whatever that might mean and they have already spelled out that they will be trying to spell out policies that will treat everybody equally or will give everybody equal rights which is pretty much a very couched language when it comes to taking away some very fundamental recognitions that Maori and indigenous people who are also who may not be Maori have received over the years through very hard struggle and you know and the fact that their land has been colonized their lands were taken away they were put through generations of poverty homelessness and it is right now reached a point where there is some kind of reconciliation however basic that be but that is being threatened at this point in time that possibility of reconciliation or even you know confronting the colonial past and that is being threatened right now by this very I mean all the reports keep trying to emphasize the center to right government but this is pretty much a very outrightly right the most right wing government that New Zealand has seen which has very clearly had you know has members who have had very problematic statements especially against the indigenous people and also migrants and asylum seekers and so on and so this pretty much this entire moment we have to wait and see how far they're going to go in making sure that the government does not get away with whatever it is planning to do because we also do not know what is going to happen is exactly they have just given us some policy pointers but how they're going to implement that is going to be significant and how these protests and we might see more to come in the coming days how is that going to affect the government stand that has to that remains to be seen but definitely we're looking at as I said a new phase of militancy assertion by the Maori and that is something quite significant for New Zealand not just New Zealand but also the region as a whole because we have very recently seen a very similar issue of recognizing indigenous rights in Australia and neighbouring Australia and that itself has had its own sort of politics but definitely Maori politics have always influenced indigenous assertion in this region and so we have to this is something quite significant for the region as well.


Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. Thank you. Thank you very much. Secretary Bell and ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to be here today to join you in honoring some of the finest secondary schools in America. And I want to extend a special greeting to the students in the audience. May I also extend a warm welcome to the principals who are here today, including Mrs. Vera White, who was kind enough to show me through Jefferson Junior High School this morning. You know, the jobs of principal and president are somewhat alike. Both of us have to keep a lot of people happy. You have the PTA. I have the voters. And you have unruly children. And I have, well, I'd better not name names, but let me put it this way. When a Congress leaves town, it's no accident we call it a recess. But I am pleased to help honor the 262 middle, junior, and senior high schools that are receiving awards today for outstanding educational performance. Today, we honor you for doing a superb job of educating students and for setting an example that all our schools can follow. We must remember, though, that American schools have not always performed as well as those represented here today. From the early 60s to 1980, combined SAT scores declined steadily, dropping by 90 points. Science achievement scores of 17-year-olds showed a steady drop, and most shocking, our National Commission on Excellence in Education reported that in 1980, more than one-tenth of America's 17-year-olds could be considered functionally illiterate. The dropout rate increased so much that by 1982, 27 percent of our students failed to complete high school, and dropout rates among minority students were higher than 40 percent. Now, this erosion in academic achievement took place during the very period overall, when spending was up by over 600 percent. The crisis in our schools was symptomatic of a much larger crisis in our country. We were living under a tired philosophy of government knows best. It was out of touch with the reality of a changing world, and while spending was going up, that tired philosophy was dragging America down. Big taxing and spending had led to soaring interest rates and inflation and all over the world. Our once proud nation was no longer known for strength and resolve, but for vacillation and self-doubt. The future seemed clouded, and since the whole aim of our schools is to prepare our children for the future, it was only natural that when leaders lost faith in our future, many of our principals, teachers and students felt robbed of their sense of purpose and self-esteem. Well, the American people decided to put a stop to that long decline, and in the past few years our country has seen a rebirth of vitality and freedom, a great national renewal. Knocked inflation down and all across our land, a powerful economic expansion is providing new products and new work for millions. Once again, the United States is respected throughout the world as a force for peace and freedom. This is a springtime of hope for America. When we came to Washington, we knew that the problems in education hadn't developed overnight and couldn't be cured overnight. We knew the key to educational improvement was not proposing still more federal involvement and control, but helping to chart a new course that challenges state and local governments, teachers, administrators, students and parents, to meet the goals of an agenda for excellence. That's why one of our first actions was to appoint a National Commission on Excellence in Education. And today, from Maine to California, parents, teachers, school administrators and principals have begun the crucial work to carry out the Commission's recommendations by improving fundamentals of basic teaching and learning. Since the Commission's report, we've been witnessing a great reawakening of learning, reflecting a culmination of concern over the quality of American education at all levels. On the state level, progress has been significant. When our administration took office, only a handful of states had task forces on education. Today, they all do. And many have begun to work on pay incentives for teachers. They know that to promote good teaching, we must reward good teachers. On the local level, parents, teachers and administrators are making dramatic strides. The PTA reported last year that after a 20-year decline in its membership, 100,000 new members joined the organization. As with so many challenges throughout our history, the American people are showing again that it can be done. Although we're doing much to make our schools more like the temples of learning we all want them to be, I don't believe there's an educator in this room or in America who wouldn't agree that we've barely begun. Our challenge is to sustain and build on the progress that we're now making as we strive to move forward. Let's remember one essential precondition for success. We cannot reach for the future without a firm grasp of basic educational tools and the importance of traditional values. Learning cannot take place without discipline. Today in schools across our land, many teachers can't teach because they lack the authority to make students take tests and turn in homework. School disorder destroys the learning atmosphere, drives good teachers out of teaching, and hurts minority and low-income students who are concentrated in urban schools where the problem is most severe. To keep learning in our schools, we must get crime, drugs and violence out. We cannot expect to raise a new generation of responsible leaders in a lawless environment. We cannot expect young Americans to master the complexities of computers if the high on drugs and alcohol. We must teach our sons and daughters a proper respect for academic standards, for codes of civilized behavior, and for knowledge itself. As the National Commission forcefully argued, we must also get our students back to the proper study of basic subjects. Today, too many students are allowed to abandon vocational and college prep courses so when they graduate, they're prepared for neither education, higher education nor work, nor the training they may later need to keep up with technological advances. In 1980, 35 states required only one year of math for a high school diploma. 36 required only one year of science. This too must stop. We must insist that all our students master math, science, history, reading and writing the fundamentals of our civilization. Earlier this month, I signed into law the Education for Economic Security Act. It authorizes more scholarships for science and math teachers to help raise the level of instruction in those crucial basics. But it isn't just basic subjects that need to be taught. It's also basic values. If we fail to instruct our children in justice, religion and liberty, we will be condemning them to a world without virtue, a life in the twilight of a civilization where the great truths have been forgotten. In many schools, students are being taught the dangers of nuclear weapons and the burdens of national defense. Well, let's make certain they understand not only the price of defending America, but the price of failing to. The students from St. George's University School of Medicine learned in Grenada that freedom is worth sticking up for. And while it makes sense that our children learn of our nation's problems, I hope they're also learning that Americans are good and decent people who face up to those problems with courage and conviction. Yes, we're human. We have our faults. But by any objective measure, we live in the freest, most prosperous nation in the history of the world. And our children need to know that. Gene Kirkpatrick, Ambassador to the United Nations said, We must learn to bear the truth about our society no matter how pleasant it may be. So we've identified long neglected problems. We're beginning to turn them around. We're remembering the all-important foundation of basic educational tools, values and discipline. All good and important steps of progress, but still not good enough. If the world of learning is to meet the needs of America's future, then we must clearly see where America is headed. You know, during my own lifetime, I've seen this country change so much. When I was a boy, dirt roads were still the rule. Cars had been invented, but very few people had one. In the winter, people got around by horse and sleigh. A huge number of Americans were farmers, and the one-room schoolhouse was common. Those dirt roads gave way to sleek interstate highways. The commercial development of the airplane, then the creation of the jet engine, revolutionized our transportation. In agriculture, innovations in farm equipment and techniques made it possible for more and more workers to leave the fields to pursue other jobs. As they did so, our great industries grew, became the mainstay of our economy. Today, we're well into a new revolution driven by technologies that offer virtually unlimited opportunities for satisfying jobs and personal fulfillment. This revolution is based in large part on an American breakthrough, development of the microchip. A current author has noted that through a vast burst of creativity in the use of microchips, the human race has projected its computational technology beyond all time and size into new galaxies of inner space where distances are measured in billions of a meter. Time is measured in trillions of a second, and costs drop to thousands of a penny. I've just a few years ago received a great shock when I was told about a satellite of ours and a communication thing in which the entire encyclopedia Britannica could be transmitted in a matter of something like three or four seconds. Today, our children learn to tell time on digital watches. They mix traditional games like baseball with the latest video craze, and they grow up with constant exposure to the mass media, watching televisions on 25 hours a week. Today's children can expect to live longer, have more leisure, enjoy better health, change jobs more often, and move to more new locations than ever before. We've heard it said that our nation's most important recess is the mind of a child, and that's truer than ever. Long ago, we were asking how America could bring the world of learning into better harmony with the world of work. Well, those worlds must not only come together, but also strengthen and enrich each other. Our vision of education must be as forward-looking as our vision of the rest of American life. This will mean a school system that teaches our children how to enrich their lives by using telecommunications as educational tools that shows them how to educate themselves so they'll be able to keep their skills current in an ever-changing job market and that gives them an appreciation of the arts and humanities so that they may broaden their vision and deepen their understanding of the values that give life meaning. One way of helping American schools better serve and shape our future is to keep bringing technology into more classrooms. Now, when I was a boy, an apple was something you brought the teacher. Today, you learn on an apple or a Macintosh or an IBM. Already, our schools and universities have begun to make extensive use of the technological revolution. Young children can use computers to teach themselves colors and basic concepts like up and down or fast and slow. Other older students can use computers to sharpen their grasp of virtually any subject from math to history. Computers can tie in with vast libraries and in effect put those libraries in every classroom. One dramatic advantage of the new technology is that as we put it to use in our schools, it can ease the burden on our teachers. In any given classroom, some students are able to work quietly with computers while their teacher spends time with others, perhaps with students who require more personal attention. At the same time, technology can produce new opportunities for learning in the workplace and the home. Audiovisual courses can teach workers how to use new techniques and equipment and computers can help them prepare for new fields. In the home, personal computers can put all the world's great art, literature and drama at a family's fingertips. Two-way cable television stations can bring classroom instruction into the living room and new techniques of viewer participation can enable people in the home to take tests and practice skills. If we apply technology to education with thoughtful skill, good education will be available to all. Education and technology will enable all to participate fully in the wonders and benefits of American life. One area where those wonders and benefits is most apparent is space. It's long been a goal of our space shuttle. The program to someday carry citizen passengers into space. Until now, we hadn't decided who the first citizen passenger would be. But today I'm directing NASA to begin a search in all of our elementary and secondary schools and to choose as the first citizen passenger in the history of our space program, one of America's finest, a teacher. I promise you there will be a little bit of volunteerism in that also. But when that shuttle lifts off, all of America will be reminded of the crucial role that teachers and education play in the life of our nation. I can't think of a better lesson for our children and our country. So now we know that there's reason for hope. We can see an exciting future, but we also know what the current problems are. We've defined them, studied them, quantified them. We've made some progress in combating them, but not enough. Now is the time to set ourselves some additional challenges. We've slowed the downward trend in SAT scores the past few years. We may even have ended that trend, but that isn't enough. We have to do better. We have to challenge ourselves further, and we must challenge ourselves as individuals. The state can't do it for us. This town and the federal government can't do it for us. We have to challenge ourselves to get moving again. I propose that, like an Olympic athlete, we set ourselves some goals, four specific challenges, and go for it. Before this decade is out, scholastic aptitude test scores should regain at least half the losses of the last 20 years. A big challenge, and we know what hurdles lie ahead. But it's doable if we try. Another challenge before this decade is out, states should reduce their high school dropout rates to less than 10%. A big task, you bet, but from the teachers and principals and administrators that I've met over the past three and a half years, believe me, they've, or should I say, you are up to the challenge. Challenge number three, violence in the schools is in some ways the toughest of our problems. But again, I know we're up to it. Already, school and community concern has begun to pay off. A Gallup poll now shows that the number of parents with children in public schools should have adopted clear discipline codes, and the percentage of parents who cite school safety as a major concern should be half of what it is now. You know, our country is perfectly poised to meet these challenges and reach these heights. So many things have begun writing themselves the past few years, or I should say, you have helped write them. It's a time of good feeling about the future. It's a time of progress. And we're showing ourselves again that effort and dedication and tenacity really make a difference. As a young fellow said recently, America's on top again, and we can reach the top in education again if only we try. And that brings me to a fourth and last challenge. We can judge our success in turning the schools around by measuring public confidence in the schools. In 1980, only 35% of Americans gave the schools an A or even a B when they were asked to grade them in a poll. Well, the latest Gallup poll shows 42% now give the schools an A or a B. That's a solid increase, but it's not enough. We have to do better. We've got to challenge ourselves further. And so, before the decade is out, this general level of confidence in our schools should grow at least another 20% so that a solid majority of our people give our schools an A or a B. Make that an A-plus or a B-plus. Less than two years ago, one of our great Olympic heroes, Jeff Blattening, was lying in an operating room being operated on for cancer. He vowed he'd come back, reach his potential, and meet his destiny. And a few weeks ago, we saw him drop to his knees in joy and thanks when he won an Olympic gold medal in wrestling. My friends, there's nothing we can't do if we set our minds to it. There's nothing we can't achieve. And like those shining young men and women that we sent to the Olympics, we'll stick to these goals, we'll meet them, and this will change our country. We will continue to be what we've already started to be, America reemergent on the scene, full of dynamism and vision, America renewed in a golden age of learning. I thank you for inviting me here today. It's an honor to meet these scholastic heroes, our Olympians of the classroom, and as school doors open this week, and you and 45 million of your fellow students return to your classrooms. I wish you success in your studies, success in helping America meet these great challenges for excellence in education in the 1980s and beyond. Thank you. God bless you all. Ladies and gentlemen, if you please remain seated until the President has left. Thank you again, Mr. President, for an excellent address, for those outstanding, challenging goals for all of us to measure up to, and thank you for honoring these schools that we're honoring here. Thanks again for all you do for American education.