Learn The Fastest Way To Grow A Music Career While Eliminating Competition

“I’ve done what’s in the Music Careers Mentoring Program and made some great advances, and hope to make many many more.”

I’m a full time musician, I have my own music instruction business and I’m a full time musician. I’m part of a band called Firewolfe with one other member from Tom’s Music Careers Mentoring Program. Nick Layton is the other guitar player and we’ve been able to work together. We just put out an album a couple months ago. We just signed a record deal with a Japanese label, Rubicon Music. So we’ll be distributed in Japan. We’ve made many contacts and many steps in the industry where we’re going to continue to move forward in other parts of the world. And hopefully continue this for a long time and continue to grow it. That’s the biggest thing I got from the Music Careers Mentoring Program, to be able to do something on a level where I’ve always wanted to do that, where I’ve thought about that you know, above and beyond just you know trying to be a local guitar hero… trying to get things out to that next level, and continue to go to the next level from there.

The time and money that I’ve invested into the Music Careers Mentoring Program has definitely been worth it. I make my living as a musician, as a full time musician, so anything I’ve invested I’ve gotten back and beyond. It’s made it possible to have a schedule and a life that allows me to do what I want to do. As a musician, one of the greatest obstacles I face is having time to work on your band, to work on your album, to work on the business side of things. And if you have a full time job in some other industry that completely drains you of your energy and your time, maybe you’re working 60 hours a week, you don’t have the time to devote to these other things that you really want to do in your music career. So Tom’s Music Careers Mentoring Program has help me set myself up in a way to where I have the freedom of time, and the freedom of money and those valuable resources so I can put them where I want to put them to be able to do the things that I want to do.

It’s really motivating to be around other members of the Music Careers Mentoring Program…. Nick Layton the other guitar player in Firewolfe is in the Music Careers Mentoring Program. Nick and I would’ve never met had we not come together through Tom. So none of this would’ve been happening on the level that it’s happening.

A lot of things that I learned in Tom’s Music Careers Mentoring Program apply directly to Firewolfe in the way that we promote. The way we’ve learned how to promote the band, that I’ve learned how to promote the band. Organization… structure… how to handle the business side of things and get organized so you can get things done and not just sit there and spin your wheels. I think from what I see talking to other people, and what I see online, you get bands, they’ll get an album done and then they go, then what? So you got a CD done, you’ve invested all this time into writing these songs, getting your production together, getting the duplication done, and now you’ve got these boxes of CD’s and you have no idea what to do with them, they just sit there. So the biggest, one of the biggest benefits I’ve gotten from the Music Careers Mentoring Program is learning you know how to promote and how to lay the ground work, how to build relationships within the industry, finding ways to present yourself so that you have value to those people in the industry that will help them want to work with you, so it’s a mutually beneficial relationship that you can create. You know those principles from Tom’s programs have been really really valuable. Not only for the planning on how we were going to do things, but you know the implementation of that so we didn’t just have a CD full of great music and now no way to get it out there. So it’s been big. It’s been really big for the band.

Paul Kleff, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

"Some time ago before I joined the Music Careers Mentoring Program, I was kind of wandering in the wilderness… that’s the way that I felt. Been a musician for a long time and certainly the musical side of things wasn’t really a problem. I mean, I can play. I can write good songs. That wasn’t a problem. The problem was, I had really no ideas about the business side of things."

I think maybe when people are younger they really, they only think about the music… they don’t realize that, that being a musician or being in a band or whatever it is a business, and you kind of have to treat it like a business. And you have to have the right kind of mindset.

So I went through the Music Careers Mentoring Program. Completed the program and I feel like that it helped me to have a much greater clarity about things and have a better mindset. And really to be a better person and to learn a lot of things that could apply not only to music but to life in general and how I deal and interact with other people. And that’s helped me a lot how I interact with the people in the band that I’m in. Interacting with my students and it’s really been great, there were a lot of great quotes that came from that program, things that I remember. One of them that’s really affected my life is that it’s not about who’s right, it’s about what’s right. And that’s kind of become one of my mantras that I take with me. And I try to keep that in mind when I’m interacting with other people.

I would recommend the Music Careers Mentoring Program to any musicians out there. And I have recommended it to several musicians. Anyone who’s feeling like they're not where they want to be with their career, or they're not achieving their goals as a musician, because it’s really really great.

Being around the other students of Tom Hess is very inspiring, because I can see that they are also success-minded and very motivated people. They're not getting distracted by things that I would consider negative. They're really people that I believe know how to win. And it’s very cool to meet some of these people, people that I went through the Music Careers Mentoring Program with, or people that I’ve interacted with on the forum. Yeah it’s very cool to finally meet these guys and exchange ideas.

The forum is quite helpful when you maybe having some kind of problem, either on the music side of things, for example if you have questions about music theory or on the business side of things if you're not sure how to progress or overcome certain obstacles in your teaching business. Everybody on the forum is there, and is willing to share their experience and to help people with that.

William Edmundson, Chattanooga, Tennessee

"The main reason that I like to be in the Music Careers Mentoring Program is because it gave me direction of what to do how to do it and what I need to do next. It really focused a lot of things that I kind of knew that I needed to do, but it laid out a path for me to follow and it was very focused and concise."

The Music Careers Mentoring Program has elevated my status as a musician where I’ve been able to present myself in a much more professional way as a guitar player, as a musician, as somebody aspiring to be in the music business.

The Music Careers Mentoring Program has had a positive effect on everything related to my career. The imaging part of it, presenting yourself as a professional and therefore being treated as a professional... I’ve gotten an invaluable result from that. Endorsements from manufacturers. the perception of my professionalism. Just even just on a local level. Yeah.

Oh it’s incredibly inspiring. You get to see other people growing with you or either are further along than you and all the things... cool things that they’ve attained... and then you see the other people who are a little behind you in progress in the program and you can see yourself in them and see how much you’ve grown since then.

The forum is a great tool of... it’s interesting because a lot of the times the answers to your questions are right there from your peers... so Tom Hess is accessible, but you can instantly have an answer from just the information that’s already been there on the forum from people who proceeded you or you can have an MCMP person right there on the forum and they might be able to help you out immediately.

Mark Turko, Thomaston, Connecticut, USA