Week 4 · Friday
Convert the most booking-ready viewers into DM conversations by handing them a short readiness checklist and a keyword to start intake, feeding the 90-day target of 18 paid projects sourced from short-form.
Posting window: Friday, 7:30 PM PT
Posting times shown in Pacific Time (PT) — adjust to your audience's timezone in your scheduler.
Hook options
Pick the one you’ll use — the script opener updates to match
Six years of opening other people's sessions. Three checks every time.
Stop sending stems the day you finish tracking.
Three checks your track has to pass before it's ready for a mix.
Is your track actually ready to send, or just finished tracking?
Nobody tells you a track can be done and still not ready.
Script
Opener (0:00 – 0:10)
Six years of opening other people's sessions, and I run the same three checks on every single file that lands. If your track clears them, you're ready to send.
Body
One. Your rough translates. Play it on your phone speaker, in your car, in cheap earbuds. If the vocal disappears in two of the three, the arrangement isn't ready yet — a mix won't save that. Two. Your stems are labeled and consolidated from bar one, every file the same length. If I'm guessing which take is the keeper, we're already in revision one before I touch a fader. Three. You can name two reference tracks you actually love and point to what you love about them. Not the genre. The specific thing — the weight of the kick, the room on the vocal.
Close / CTA
If you've got all three, DM the word READY and we'll start the intake.
≈ 147 words · about 59 s at single-take pace
On-screen graphics
Planned from the script at your reading pace. Times are approximate: drop each graphic over the line it belongs to.
| About | They say | Graphic | On screen |
|---|---|---|---|
| About0:00–0:03 | They sayYour hook, as you open | GraphicTitle | On screenSix years of opening other people's sessions. Three checks every time.Picture: a laptop opening a session file, the waveform about to load |
| About0:12–0:15 | They say“One. Your rough translates” | GraphicList | On screen1. Rough translates |
| About0:15–0:18 | They say“phone speaker, in your car” | GraphicKeyword | On screenphone / car / earbudsPicture: a phone, a car dashboard and a pair of earbuds lined up |
| About0:26–0:29 | They say“Two. Your stems are labeled” | GraphicList | On screen2. Labeled + consolidated from bar one |
| About0:39–0:42 | They say“Three. You can name two reference tracks” | GraphicList | On screen3. Two references you love |
| About0:50–0:53 | They say“weight of the kick” | GraphicKeyword | On screenthe specific thing |
| About0:55–0:59 | They say“DM the word READY” | GraphicCard | On screenDM: READY |
Paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or another AI tool to build these graphics as clips.
Production paths
- 1.Set your phone vertical on a stand at eye level, about three feet away. Frame yourself chest-up with headphones around your neck — the uniform of the job sells the credential before you talk.
- 2.Shoot in a corner of your room where the back wall shows some acoustic treatment or a monitor — anything that reads 'engineer at work' without being a staged studio shot.
- 3.Natural window light on your face if you can; otherwise one lamp slightly off to the side. Avoid overhead ceiling light — it flattens everything.
- 4.Record one single continuous take straight to camera. No cuts in the body. If you flub, restart from the top so the delivery stays one piece.
- 5.Do three full takes back to back. Pick the one where the three checks land cleanly and your energy on 'READY' at the end feels like a real invitation, not a plea.
- 6.Import to CapCut. Trim the dead air at head and tail. Leave the body uncut.
- 7.Add the on-screen graphics from the cue sheet, one per cue, over the line it belongs to. Keep the type bold, high-contrast, bottom third or dead-center — never covering your face.
- 8.Add light captions for the whole script (CapCut auto-captions, then clean up the three check numbers so they read as 1, 2, 3).
- 9.Export at 1080x1920, 9:16. No music bed — your voice carries this one.
Platform captions
Three checks before you send a track to a mix engineer. If all three clear, DM me READY and we'll start intake.
Hashtags
Six years of opening other people's sessions and I'm running the same three checks every time. If your track clears them, it's ready to send. If one fails, you're paying for revisions you didn't need. DM the word READY and we'll start the intake conversation.
Hashtags
Title
3 checks before you send a track to mix #mixing #homestudio
Caption
The readiness checklist I run on every file that lands in my inbox. Clear all three and DM me the word READY on Instagram or TikTok (@aftertouch) to start the intake.
Thumbnail brief
Build this in Canva — it's a design brief, not a prompt to paste.
Save a still of your face from the recording (Record → Save a frame) and open it in Canva — the brief builds everything around the face. Which frame: the frame right after you say 'three checks' — eyes locked to lens, mouth closed, slight nod
- Crop
- 9:16 vertical, you from mid-chest up slightly left of center, headphones around your neck, enough headroom above you for the overlay
- Words
- BEFORE YOU / SEND IT
- Placement
- overlay stacked in the upper third over the headroom; a small numbered badge '3 CHECKS' bottom-right
- Colors
- your brand palette; overlay in high-contrast white with one accent color on the word SEND
- Element
- a single waveform line running horizontally behind the overlay text
Scheduling
Tool: Later
- 1.Open Later and upload the exported 9:16 video to the media library.
- 2.Create three posts from the same file — one for TikTok, one for Instagram Reels, one for YouTube Shorts.
- 3.Paste the matching caption from the pack into each post. For the YouTube Short, paste the title above into the title field — that's the Shorts title.
- 4.Set the thumbnail on the Instagram Reels post using the designed thumbnail. For TikTok, pick the same still as the cover in the TikTok app at post time.
- 5.Schedule all three for Friday 7:30 PM PT.
- 6.Set a reminder on your phone for 7:35 PM PT Friday to pin the top comment: 'DM me READY to start intake 👇' — the pin pushes DMs instead of comment threads.
Lead capture
Where this should drive
The DM thread itself is the destination. Viewers message the word READY on Instagram or TikTok, which opens a one-on-one conversation where you run the twenty-minute intake you already use — two references, the problem they can't name, scope and quote. Track every inquiry against the 90-day goal by asking which video or platform brought them in during that first reply.
Set up with Instagram DMs + TikTok DMs (native, no third-party tool)
- 1.In Instagram, go to Settings → Business tools → Saved replies. Create a reply with the shortcut 'ready' that reads: 'Appreciate you reaching out. Quick intake before I quote — (1) what's the song, send a rough or private link, (2) two reference tracks you love and the specific thing you love about each, (3) where did you find Aftertouch? Once I've got those we'll set up a 20-minute call.'
- 2.Save a second shortcut 'quote' with your standard pricing lines pulled from the site, so you can send numbers inside the thread without retyping.
- 3.In TikTok, open your inbox settings and make sure DMs are open to Everyone or Followers — not Mutual Only — so new viewers can actually reach you.
- 4.Create a simple note on your phone titled 'READY tracker' with columns for date, handle, platform, song, and status (intake sent / call booked / booked / declined). Log every READY DM the moment it lands so you can report against the 18-project goal.
- 5.At the end of each week, count how many READY DMs came in from this post versus other pieces so you know what's actually driving booking conversations.