My name is Loren Weisman. I’m a brand messaging strategist, but I came from a completely different background to bring me here. This whole journey for me has been very organic and very, you could almost say matter of chance at the same time of many matters of trust. I started in the music industry at 13 and all, I wanted to be was a drummer. That’s where it all began. I practiced, I played, I listened to other musicians. I applied to Berklee College of music in the United States of America in Massachusetts.
And, my view was if I wasn’t good enough to get into Berklee, I would work as a pizza delivery driver, which I was and get my chops up and my technique up. So, I could get in there. I did get into Berklee. I studied there for a little while.
There’s a joke at Berklee college of music, where it goes… that if you drop out, you become a professional musician. If you stay in, you become a music teacher. Being a music teacher wasn’t anything I wanted to do. And there were some opportunities that presented themselves at Berklee.
So, I did drop out.
Inside of this and this all still ties to how I do what I do today in brand messaging and the strategy. I began to work with a lot of musicians, people needed drummers.
A lot of people wanted to be singers.
A lot of people wanted to be guitar players.
A lot of people wanted to be out front. I didn’t mind being out back. I got to play with people, but during this playing and getting to experience all sorts of different types of music, I got to experience all sorts of different types of personalities that still affects me today. I’m sure an individual that asked me to play on something, but I couldn’t use my name.
It was my first ghost drumming session.
This is the kind of thing. And this is more to the past these days where they wanted the band to look like it was the band, but they brought in studio players to clean things up at times the presence and the presentation was so important.
We would sign away on confidentiality agreements or non-disclosure agreements, our name, and we would get paid a little bit more. You have a good reputation in the circles that we did, but it allowed me to do things that while I couldn’t necessarily speak about them or get credit for them, I was working in the right circle. As this built up, I got a lot more of this kind of work. I did sessions. I played with a few bands. I went on the road some, but it was this behind the scenes means thing. And in that it allowed me to do even more things.
I met more people, tried more styles of music and really learned about what was going on inside of entertainment.
In this mixture of humility… from having to keep your mouth shut all the way to the array of opportunities, I was asked to help with some production and television work.
Then I was advising with certain things that I didn’t even realize was messaging at the time, with certain reality shows with infomercials.
From there, I continued to speak on music. I became a music producer which brought me to the other side of the glass in the recording studio. I was brought over to the board to begin to do production for albums.
That again, not realizing it at the time, but it tied into the messaging of what I do today. It was understanding that every person is different, that every opinion is different. There many things that we try to place into an objective state of fact could be just opinion or the issues where you have some of the ego where people are taking opinions, placing them into facts.
It was almost like a psychological angle and it was something that was fun.
It was how do I discuss to get the best out of this person, but also learn what the best is for them and not for anyone else. I wrote a few books on the music industry. My first book was nothing short of a dumpster fire. It did move. It did sell but it was not what I imagined when I thought of putting out a book. The second one is the one that I’m most proud of The Artists Guide to Success in the Music Business.
It went to 78 countries. It was an audiobook. It was an ebook. It was a paperback. I had a lot of fun with that. That also was the catalyst for what I do now. People as they bought it for musicians and then parents, as they bought it for musicians, enjoyed elements about what I was creating and how I was creating it for musicians, but how it could play in other areas.
This was when I started getting calls, asking to look at different businesses that had nothing to do with music or entertainment. It was fun to me, it felt like Tom Selleck and maybe some of you recall Magnum PI in the early eighties. It was a detective that ran around and Hawaiian shirts and solve crimes on the, in Hawaii.
They did a remake of it. I believe it’s out right now in that I began to extend the concepts that I learned in music and television. Very organically, not study-wise again, dropped out of university three semesters in, but in the experiences of all the albums that I did, of all the people that I came across of writing the book of touring the book.
Because when you speak to an audience, you can, you can be as much one that’s learning from them. And when you’re speaking to them, what are you speaking about? Or what are you writing about? It’s kind of getting off track there and coming back around, I wrote one more book on the music business. Why we in sons, they write the for dummies series, asked me to write Music Business For Dummies. I wrote that as my exodus of sorts to the music business, I took everything to date. I put it in there, added that, put that out. And that was the, that was the beginning of the shift into becoming the brand messaging strategist and not really tied much to music. I still touch with still have touch points with music, but mostly it’s other bits.
And now what I do, is a combination of education and experience that melded together.
It’s about learning how to do this or learning how to do that.
Because right now in messaging and not marketing the messaging, the foundation of what we share about our story, he really can’t learn that in a class. You can learn that from people.
You can see examples, but there’s no one way.
There’s no direct angle to get you to that place. So, as I found my way into this and the way that clients come to me and the parent company that I work under, I approached them not saying here’s my degree and here’s this, but much more so of the interview process, if you will. And the way that clients even interview me is by sharing my experience, my views, and I state my views very clearly. I believe messaging is before marketing.
I believe the message lays a foundation of solid soil of solid ground to work up from that all too often, people start into a marketing too soon and then, or they put it their intention in their marketing without understanding the perception of other people, what they’re hearing, how they’re hearing it, how it’s affecting them in the strategy and adding strategists there.
It’s not just going, Oh, we’ve got a great bio. We’ve got a great tagline. We’ve got a great story. Here’s, here’s an editorial calendar. Oftentimes that becomes too linear incestuous. When we say, okay, we have an idea. Now let’s look at it. Protectively. Let’s look at it, comparatively competitively, even from an SEO standpoint, but also from a reputation standpoint, are you naming your business? Something that’s just so true to heart, to you, but ties to a name that is so false and bad for others.
These are all the things that you can think about.
So, when it comes to the changes in the industry, this is an area of brand messaging and strategy is picking up. It’s not just branding, it’s not building a logo. I don’t do that. And people that are interested in, in this, on a CV, it’s not just putting, trying to hype something.
It’s coming back to the messaging on your CV, being authentic. Maybe you’re 19 years old, you have 19 years of a certain experience with a certain life that allow you to understand certain things in a different light to see things in a different way.
So to amplify elements about who you are at 19 is a lot better than trying to listen to some 30 year old life coach tell you, use this word, and here’s a keyword, and here’s a buzzword because a lot of these people that reading resumes are reading right through that. Then in the sense of the lessons that I’ve learned, I’ve learned that we do get lost in the subjective to the objective. There are many times we’re placing opinions as facts, and we’re not humble enough or grounded enough to be able to say I feel, and here’s why we move and shift and morph opinions into facts.
And it becomes a very dangerous element for us moving forward.
In my closing some advice looking for a job, whether it be for becoming a brand messaging strategist like myself or any job, it does come back to your messaging. It comes back to the authenticity that’s you.
And to hire someone to coach you through an interview style… how is that really going to work in the end?
If they’re coaching you to be someone that you’re not, to tell a story that’s got yours, regardless of if you want to be an engineer, regardless of if you want to be a strategist, regardless of any field from law, health, finance and beyond…
Move in the authenticity and the authority that is you, and in that, you will attract the best place and position for you, because there are many people that send out the CV’s and go to interviews that prep themselves up so perfectly to get a job at they’ll end up being miserable in.
On the other hand, when you’re able to be you, of course, following the guidelines, learn things, studying and so on… go out there and learn the things as well that have nothing to do with what you do. And that’s a lot of my background.
It was listening to music, drumming on music, producing music. I didn’t like, but I learned about it when we open the doors. When we have this array, this Renaissance understanding, regardless of our age, regardless of our education, regardless of where we live, we bring a wider array of opportunity to any job. And we’re able to paint ideas with more colors off of a pallet of understanding that many others don’t have in the end.
As you go for a job interview, as you update your CV, as you’re getting out there and searching for that right job, or figuring out what you want to study to get the job that’s right for you, please consider making it part of your story and writing into your story and not just having a story written for you where you’re trying to fit the mold of something that you’re not because in the end it might make you just completely miserable.
I wish you all the best of luck on your journey, regardless of what you’re studying to become, what you’re going after and whatever job is most inspiring to you.
Good luck, stay true to you.
About Myself
Loren Weisman is a brand messaging strategist with a focus on the authenticity, authority, optics, psychology and perceptions of a brand, persona or product for FSG Messaging and Optics. He also the host of the brand messaging podcast; Wait What Really OK.Weisman has stayed up to date with the constant changes inside and outside of the entertainment industries over the past three decades as well as keeping up with the pulse and optics of content creation, marketing, promotion, and social media trends, allowing for the most effective, and up to date consideration when applying the individualized and personalized methods, approaches and plans.
Starting his career in music and behind the scenes as a drummer and then music producer, Weisman got to see the ins, outs, ups and downs of music. He wrote both “The Artists Guide to Success in the Music Business” (Greenleaf Book Group) and “Music Business for Dummies” (Wiley & Sons).
Shifting to TV production as well as authoring a few books on the music business, Loren gravitated toward the strategic production elements as much as he did the psychological ones. From speaking and counseling on brand messaging to brand discovery, analyzing the two sides of artistic vision while igniting the investor confidence, as well as brand protection and amplifications approaches for marketing, sales and retention, Weisman helps across the array of the story and the messaging experience.
Loren’s speaking and talks focus on the brand messaging strategies, marketing perceptions, audience optics and authentic engagement methods.
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