Tips, Tricks & Best Practices

edjusten
HubSpot Employee
HubSpot Employee

HubSpot for Musicians - Book the Gig! using Deals in HubSpot CRM

It’s a fact. Musicians spend lots of time creating music, but often go though a haphazard process to book gigs and performances.  The free HubSpot CRM give musicians the tools necessary to view all their bookings in a glance, target gigs that need follow-up, and keep track of Point-of-Contacts (POCs) and other information. (Musicians take note! When was the last time you got something for free?)
 
Let’s start with a pipeline
In order to start the process, we’ll need to create a Pipeline of deal stages (or steps) that a gig booking goes through from initial contact to final booking. For a gig booking, you can summarize the booking pipeline like this:
- A contact connects with you via email, personal connection from a gig, referral from a friend, website form submission
- You exchange messages about the gig (dates, times, venues)
- You agree to a fee
- You forward a contract/MOU
- You confirm the gig 
 
Before you start using the HubSpot CRM, you must enter these steps into a pipeline in the Settings section. Learn how to set up a Pipeline here. Use the following pipeline, or develop your own:
Respond to initial contact
Confirm date and details 
Check players availability
Venue Review
Deposit received
Final Confirmation review
Signed Contract/MOU
Cancelled Not booked 
 
During the Pipeline set up process, you’ll be asked to include a Win Probability percentage. This is a guess of how successful you may be at booking the gig based on where you are in the pipeline stage. For example, how many times has a contact reached out to you for a gig, only to never be heard from again once you've forwarded your performance fee? For Initial contact, set a lower Win Probability (10%). 
 
However, if you are visiting the venue and meeting with the club manager, or potential bride for a wedding, chances are good you are close to booking this gig; a Win Probability for this pipeline stage could be 60% -70%, while a deposit received could indicate a 90% probability  (Pro Tip: The Win Probability is a metric that sales teams use to project monthly revenues.  While it can come in to play here, don’t spend a lot of time or brain power worrying about setting probabilities.). 
 
For the final step of setting up a pipeline, you must designate a stage as Closed/Won (gig booked) and Closed/Lost (gig not booked).
 
With your pipeline in place, it’s time to create a new custom property called Gig Date. Find out how to create a HubSpot  custom property here. 
(More about using the Gig Date property later.)
 
Now that your Pipeline is ready and you’ve created a custom property called Gig Date, you can start entering gig data in the Deals section.
 
Create a Deal/Gig
Click Add Deal from the Deals table or board, a pop-out modal will appear. Fill in as much information as you have at the time; be sure to populate all required fields. (Learn how to customize the Deal Creator pop-out modal here.
 
Be sure to give the Deal/Gig a good recognizable name so you can easily search and find the deal later.  When creating the deal, enter the gig date in both the Closing Date field and the newly created Gig Date field.  
 
Once the Deal/Gig is created, go to Contacts on the main menu and add the point-of-contact’s name and information. After creating the new contact, return to the deal and associate the Contact with the Deal. (These steps are interchangeable. It doesn’t matter if you create the Deal or Contact first.) 
 
Now that you’ve created a new Deal/Gig, click on the deal name from the Dashboard to see a timeline of activities related to the deal, and on the left sidebar, see the details you previously entered about the gig. You can customize  the information in the About card in the Deal record following these instructions...
 
If you are using Gmail or Outlook 365, you can download the HubSpot Sales extension and automatically track and log emails to and from the associated contact, right from the record. If you are using an email service provider other than Gmail or Outlook 365, you can use your portal’s forwarding and BCC addresses to record emails to the timeline.
 
See all Deals/Gigs at a glance
To get an overall picture of your bookings, select the Table view in Deals, then sort it using the column headings as you see fit (see below). Customize the columns seen in the view, and include the Gig Date property we created earlier. I recommend the following columns for the Table view: 
Deal Name
Associated With
Amount
Deal Stage
Close Date
Gig Date
 
deal_stage.png
 
gig_date.png
 
Advance the Deal/Gig through the pipeline 
Across the top of the deal record you will see the various pipeline stages. Simply click on the appropriate pipeline stage to move the booking forward. Upon a refresh of the deal record, you will see the time and date of the advancement on the timeline. 
pipeline_stage.png
 
 
Closing the Deal/Gig
Once the gig status is confirmed, click the Closed/Won or Closed/Lost pipeline stage as appropriate. Upon this action, the Close Date property will update to the current date. Since we added a Gig Date Property earlier, you can still sort by Gig Date to see the date order of your gigs.
 
While the HubSpot CRM is easily adaptable to your booking process, there are a few things it can’t do at this time:
  1. The CRM cannot sync with a calendar, so any calendaring actions need to be done offline
  2. You cannot track gig payments, nor track payments to, or pay, band members.
  3. Repeating gigs - At this time there is not a clone or copy feature. Any duplicate gigs will need to be entered manually( for example, a recurring Sunday brunch gig).
  4. Band member notifications - The CRM is designed for 1:1 communications with Sales (Gig) prospects, so you will not be able to send out notifications to band members about booking/cancellations. 
Other CRM features you can use include: 
  1. Email templates - build up to five templates for initial touch messages/regret notices/confirmation messages
  2. Documents - Upload up to five including contracts/MOUs/riders/stage plots/marketing materials/set lists
  3. Prospects - Find out who has visited your site (tracking code required, find out how to install the HubSpot tracking code here)
  4. Connect your inbox and email directly from the deal timeline.
 
Your CRM includes a HubSpot Marketing Free account with access to the following features:
  1. Lead flows - Create a simple pop-up or slide-in form to collect email addresses and move them to Constant Contact or Mailchimp (or other marketing email provider).
  2. Collected forms - HubSpot will “listen” for any form submissions from your website and add new contacts accordingly.  
 
With a Sales Pro Account attached ($50 per month) you can take advantage of the following:
  1. Unlimited notifications (email opens and clicks)
  2. Up to 1000 Templates
  3. Up to 1000 Documents
  4. Automated sequence emails and tasks
  5. Custom meetings links
  6. Custom messaging for your website
  7. Call and task que 
  8. In-app calling (2,000 minutes per month)
 
Are you using the free CRM to book gigs? Add your tricks and tips below, and be on the lookout for the next HubSpot for Musicians post: Book private lessons with the CRM. 
 
 

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3 Réponses
SLee3
Membre

HubSpot for Musicians - Book the Gig! using Deals in HubSpot CRM

New to HubSpot and manager of a very active and established band.  Looking for an update to this original post especially in the what HubSpot can't do portion in regards to booking musicians and calendars.

0 Votes
rosa4
Contributeur de premier rang

HubSpot for Musicians - Book the Gig! using Deals in HubSpot CRM

This is an AWESOME way for bands - or artists of any kind - to use HubSpot's CRM tools. Thanks for sharing @edjusten!

0 Votes
roisinkirby
Équipe de développement de HubSpot
Équipe de développement de HubSpot

HubSpot for Musicians - Book the Gig! using Deals in HubSpot CRM

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