Smart Music Business Review 2024, Courses & Podcasts For Musicians

In this article I'm going to review the Smart Music Business website and courses; what is it all about?

Smart Music Business is an online education platform by Christian musician Chris Greenwood. Through various products he coaches you on various aspects of the music business. Focuses include Facebook ads, funnels, Spotify and more.

What Is Smart Music Business?

Smart Music Business is a website dedicated to teaching independent musicians how to build a successful career.

The website isn’t an information hub (the amount of information available is relatively sparse) and should be thought of as more of a sales engine, guiding the user to various courses, books, resources, tools, and other offers.

The site is run by award-winning and Billboard-charting independent Christian artist Chris Greenwood, also known as Manafest. We’ll take a closer look at who he is and what he’s been able to accomplish with his music career a little later.

Our focus in this guide will be on the courses and training programs, but we’ll also look at the books, videos, podcasts, and other offers you can find at Smart Music Business.

We’ll also touch on Fanbase University, which gives users access to all his trainings, rather than just the individual modules that can be purchased at Smart Music Business. But for a more thorough look at Fanbase University, you'll want to check out our detailed Fanbase University review.

Let’s begin by delving into the courses available at Smart Music Business.

What Courses Does Smart Music Business Offer?

Smart Music Business is home to several music business courses aimed at independent musicians who are looking to grow their careers using social media, email marketing, crowdfunding, and streaming sites.

In this section, we’ll look at each course in more detail, covering what they help you accomplish, as well as how much they cost.

Emails Of The Month Club

Greenwood claims to have sold thousands of dollars in music and merch using specific email templates. He often references the power of email marketing in his training programs as well as his podcast.

With the Email Of The Month Club, you get access to the exact email templates Chris uses to interact and engage with his fans to generate more sales.

As the sales page on Smart Music Business indicates, this program gives you access to four emails. They are:

• Flash Sale
• It’s Here
• Battle For Your Life
• Something Cool

If you need to level up your email game in selling your music, merch, and crowdfunding campaigns, The Email Of The Month Club could prove valuable to you.

The Email Of The Month Club gives you access to four new email templates every month.

Price

You can join Email Of The Month Club for $20.

But you can also opt in for the Secret Sale 6 Day Email Launch Formula for an additional $57.

YouTube Accelerator

The YouTube Accelerator is designed to help you achieve four things:

• Get 10,000 views in less than 10 days
• Grow your channel by 1,000 new subscribers
• Marketing and monetization strategies
• Discover the five revenue streams for YouTube

Growing your following and video views on YouTube can give you massive social proof, which this course promises to help you achieve.

As a bonus, Manafest offers a “10K Club” T-shirt to anyone who goes through his training and manages to hit 10,000 subscribers.

Price

You can get access to the YouTube Accelerator for $197 (or two payments of $100).

Instagram Accelerator

Instagram Accelerator helps you get 1,000 new fans in 10 days.

As with most courses Greenwood offers, the focus is on social proof and helping you grow a larger following.

This course also contains modules on:

• Hashtag strategies for more organic traffic
• Monetizing your Instagram account
• How to create attractive images for free
• How to cross-promote with bigger brands
• How to put your social media on autopilot
• Time accelerator (how to get more done in less time)

Price

Instagram Accelerator costs $97.

As a one-time offer, you can also get the Spotify Profits Course for $27.

Music Marketing Black Box Secrets

The basic premise of Music Marketing Black Box Secrets is to help you sell more music for more money. Greenwood himself describes this as the method he uses to sell 50 to 60 CDs per day.

Trainings include:

• Selling your CD for $60
• Sales funnel with easy installation and templates
• Facebook ads
• Retargeting ads
• How to sell concert tickets with Facebook ads

Bonuses include a “done for you” website, email marketing secrets and templates, and the Facebook ad that made Greenwood $17,004.

Price

Music Marketing Black Box Secrets costs $147.

How I Make Over $4,000 A Month Selling Music Online 3.0

Many musicians like the idea of being able to make a living from their passion. For most, $4,000 per month would allow them to do just that.

Manafest’s How I Make Over $4,000 A Month Selling Music Online 3.0 course does not promise to be a get rich quick scheme. But it does deliver the strategies Greenwood himself used to get to where he is today.

The course promises to help you achieve passive income from your music.

The course comes with trainings on:

• Selling multiple versions of your music
• Doubling your online sales
• Getting online sales from your shows
• YouTube cover strategies
• Building your online store (merchandise)
• Licensing and placement opportunities
• Getting international royalties
• Monetizing your fan base

Price

How I Make Over $4,000 A Month Selling Music Online 3.0 costs $297.

As a one-time offer, you can also add Spotify Profits and YouTube Playbook to your order for $27.

Facebook Accelerator 10K Fans In Under 10 Days

As you can probably guess, Facebook Accelerator is all about building your social proof.

With this course, you get trainings on:

• How to get 10,000 likes in 10 days or less
• Strategy for getting more likes, comments, and shares
• Engaging fans
• Get more organic traffic
• Next steps after you’ve gotten 10,000 fans
• Get 100 super fan emails

Price

Facebook Accelerator costs $37.

You can also purchase this course with the Instagram Accelerator course for $37.

Crowdfunding Secrets

Manafest claims to have raised $17,000 for his first crowdfunding campaign and $45,000 for his fourth campaign. If that’s the case, he probably knows a thing or two about raising funds for his releases.

This course includes trainings on:

• How Greenwood doubled the money raised on Kickstarter
• Setting up your campaign
• How to promote your campaign
• What to do after you campaign’s been funded

As with the How I Make Over $4,000 A Month Selling Music Online 3.0 course, there are no guarantees or easy promises here. Greenwood specifically calls out artists who are willing to work their butts of as being the ideal match for this course.

Price

Crowdfunding Secrets costs $197.

Spotify Profits

Spotify has a powerful presence in music streaming, and artists have come to recognize this fact, too. This makes the proposition of generating income from Spotify a highly attractive one for most artists.

Trainings include:

• Finding your superfans with Spotify Insights
• Promoting your songs and videos to playlists
• Verifying your Spotify account
• Growing your listeners with social media
• Getting on Spotify playlists without paying
• Growing your Spotify following and revenue with paid advertising
• Selling merchandise through Spotify
• Earning money while sleeping
• Email marketing secrets

Price

Spotify Profits costs $197.

Fanbase University

We covered Fanbase University in a recent review, in depth.

But rather than thinking of it as a separate module, it’s best to think of it as membership access to the courses described above (with access to even more trainings).

For those who feel they would benefit more from everything Greenwood has to offer (rather than just the individual modules he’s made available on Smart Music Business), Fanbase University is a good option, and isn’t overly expensive either.

In addition to the course content referenced above, Fanbase University also gives you access to trainings on:

• Members only monthly coaching calls
• Musician makeovers
• Music industry professionals master class
• And more

Price

Fanbase University costs $97 per month.

How Are The Courses Delivered?

Greenwood’s training programs are primarily delivered via the video medium. As with the Smart Music Business website, besides the sales pages, his courses utilize minimal text, though you may find links to additional tools and resources.

So, you shouldn’t expect much by way of text, audio, tests, quizzes, or otherwise, but the video content is good and is more than sufficient in relaying the information.

Once you’ve purchased a course, you get instant access to it. So, the content isn’t drip fed over several weeks or several months as some courses are.

The amount of content you get depends a lot on the course you purchase, but you can’t expect at least 20 to 30 videos, and sometimes more depending on the course.

You can also refer to our review on Fanbase University for more information on each course, as well as some of the lesson titles and what they help you achieve.

The courses are delivered within ClickFunnels, which is more of a sales funnel builder than a course delivery platform, but it does a decent enough job. The user experience isn’t “top notch” by any means, at least not compared to some of the other solutions available, but we find it to be usable overall.

What Else Can I Find At Smart Music Business?

At Smart Music Business, the courses are the focus. That isn’t to say you won’t find other content and resources on the website.

In this section, we’ll take a closer look at what’s available at Smart Music Business besides courses.

Free Guides

These aren’t exactly free. They’re more like the “free plus shipping” offers that have grown in popularity in recent years, especially since the growth of ClickFunnels.

Basically, the provider just asks you to cover the cost of shipping so they can get their product out to you.

But for a small investment, you can get access to:

Music Marketing & Promotions Guide

Though Greenwood refers to the Music Marketing & Promotion Guide as a “book”, it’s more of a pamphlet with a general overview of social media marketing, creating viral content, how to get press, how to 10x your fan base, and the four phases of hitting the Billboard charts with every album release.

This brochure, however, comes with 12 videos on how to market and sell your music, as well as a video training on 10 ways to make money with your music.

You can get the songs promotion guide or $5.95, and if you’d like to get it with the audiobook, it jumps to $15.95. You are also given the option to purchase the book along with Spotify Profits course and YouTube Playbook for $37.

YouTube Marketing Playbook For Musicians

The YouTube Marketing Playbook for Musicians covers:

• How Manafest gets over 10,000 views from each of his videos
• Five ways you can monetize your YouTube videos
• How to create engaging YouTube thumbnails
• How to create call to actions to sell more music and merch
• How to monetize your videos both on and off your channel
• How to use playlists to get more views on your videos
• How to create a marketing plan for each of your videos

The Playbook comes with the same bonuses as the Music Marketing & Promotion Guide and is available for $5.67.

For an extra $27, you can get the Spotify Profits Course and Song Launch Checklist eBook.

Spotify Profits

The Spotify Profits book comes with an overview of how to 10x your streams, tips on how to get added to Spotify editorial playlists, collaboration strategies, using social media to get more Spotify followers, and how to get on Spotify playlists for free.

This offer comes with several bonuses, including how to increase your Spotify presence with paid advertising, selling merch through Spotify, growing a massive email list, and running a successful pre-save campaign.

The Spotify Profits book is available for $5.97, and you can also get it with the audiobook at $15.97.

If you’d like to add the Instagram Accelerator course to your order, you can get it for $17.

Fighter

Chris Greenwood’s Fighter is an inspirational book that covers his journey and formation of his Fighter brand. The book comes with chapters on courage, perseverance, fighter’s mindset, discipline, willpower, knockout, and dreams, visions, goals.

Much of this stems from Greenwood’s own experience of losing his father at an early age and having to give up on his dreams of becoming a pro skater. Greenwood would go onto become an award-winning, Billboard-charting artist, so the book follows this hero’s journey, and also promises to inspire readers along the way.

You can order the book for the cost of shipping at $8.95 in the US and $18.95 internationally.

Videos

Greenwood offers a sneak peek into his membership site with video samples on the homepage at Smart Music Business.

The video samples include interviews, creating multiple streams of fans, thoughts on being an independent artist versus being a signed artist, and so on.

More content like this is available on the Smart Music Business YouTube channel.

Podcast

The Smart Music Business Podcast doesn’t live on the website, but is available on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and elsewhere.

As of this writing, the podcast has over 300 episodes of content tailored to independent musicians. Topics covered include selling more music, handling depression, building a fan club, getting more Spotify followers, collaborating with other artists, selling merch, using contests to promote your music and more.

The podcast episodes are generally short, and usually feature Greenwood talking while walking. But they do contain some solid tips on how to achieve more with your music.

Resources

The Smart Music Business website also features a resources page, highlighting the main tools Manafest uses to promote and sell his music, including his email service provider, website builder, on demand merch provider, and more.

If you want to follow along with his courses, there’s a good chance you’ll be taking advantage of the same tools, or at least comparable ones.

Who Runs Smart Music Business?

Chris Greenwood, also known as Manafest, runs Smart Music Business along with his wife, who helps with design, branding, videography, and more.

When Greenwood was five, his father took his own life, and this left him timid and shy. In his teens, he was an aspiring pro skater. An accident left him unable to continue pursuing that dream, at which time he started falling in love with music.

Greenwood would go onto produce music independently, signing with BEC Recordings for a decade, ultimately returning to his independent roots.

The Christian rapper and rock artist won multiple awards, including the GMA Canada Covenant Awards, GMA Dove Awards, and several Juno Awards.

Greenwood continues to be active as an artist while he teaches independent artists how to duplicate his success at Fanbase University and Smart Music Business.

The Verdict

Overall, the Smart Music Business website and courses offer a lot of training for musicians who want to learn the business side of the industry.