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$500 million and countingIn this episode of WYTPOD, host Laura Faye interviews Carl Bartlett Jr., founder of Serene New You Sax LLC. Carl shares his journey from being a jazz musician to creating a wellness business that uses saxophone music for stress relief and anxiety reduction. He discusses how personal struggles with anxiety inspired him to study sound healing and launch a unique music therapy company. Carl also talks about his business strategies, challenges, and future goals.
Serene New You Sax LLC uses restorative saxophone music to help people relieve stress, overcome anxiety, and promote relaxation.
Hi, I’m Laura Faye. I’m the host of Wytpod. And today I am very excited. We have a special guest with us. We have Carl from Serene New You Sax LLC. Carl, welcome. It’s my pleasure to speak with you today.
Thank you for having me, Laura. Good to be here. Thank you.
Excellent. Excellent. Well, I’m looking forward to hearing all about you. So why don’t we get right into it. And why don’t you tell me a little bit about you and your journey.
Sure, I will. My name is Carl Bartlett Jr. And I am from Queens, New York. I grew up in a very, very, very loving and caring and supportive household. There was always music in the family. Uh, my mom, she, she sang and she played piano and my dad played saxophone and he played piano. And so that kind of really sparked an interest in me, uh, to go forward with music. And I would say I picked up, I think, a trumpet, clarinet. And maybe recorder in grade school, you know, about age five or six play throughout then, um, junior high school is where I really started my journey with the saxophones.
I was about 11 years old when I started my journey with the saxophone. And, uh, then in high school, uh, that’s when really everything changed because I’d always liked music, but in high school, when I, in my Freshman year, when I was 14 years old, I really got into jazz, got into jazz a lot, very heavy. And that’s when I really knew that that’s what I wanted to pursue. And that’s how I wanted to reach people basically for the rest of my life. And so it was really, really important to me. And so that was a big shift that happened in my high school years. And like I said, I was born and raised in Queens, just a lot of great musicians coming from Queens.
My dad and my uncle. They are brothers. They have their own legendary band, uh, called the Bartlett Contemporaries. And so when I was a little boy, I used to go to some of their performances and their concerts. And before I could play really well, they used to have me, uh, you know, just doing what I could with the band. That was a, it was such an eye opening experience playing with professionals. You know, I was a little nervous at the time, but I was about 11 and, and, and 12. And, um, Even younger than that, when I was nine and 10. They made me sing with them a little bit. So, so it was a really nice experience, but you know, music has always been in the household.
It’s the fabric of my family. Everyone is very, very supportive. Uh, my dad and my uncle’s parents, my grand grandmother and grandfather, they got them into music. Uh, so, you know, it’s just, uh, music is all around and, uh, that’s, that’s what we do. We love it.
I can see that the music is in you.
It is.
out of you from, from inside. I could see that. I could see that that’s really a blessing to even know at a young age, exactly what you want to do and what your passion is. That’s, that’s a blessing in itself because many people are still searching for that into their forties and their fifties, um, why don’t you tell me a little bit about your business?
Alright. So Serene New You Sax LLC, how did we get from jazz to restorative relaxation music, quite the journey. So, in, I founded the company in 2020. It was, I say it was about two years in the making, but maybe a lot more. So a little backstory, um, in about 20, I think it was 2013, uh, less than a month after my grandmother had passed, I suffered with severe anxiety, severe, severe anxiety. And you know, that was in 2013. Fast forward to 2018, so about five years later, I saw a report on the news about baby boomers and young adults suffering from anxiety, high levels of stress and panic attacks. and really familiar with those. So, uh, and it just caught really caught my ear because I know what I experienced, um, you know, five years prior when my grandmother passed away.
And it was almost like it hit me like a ton of bricks. I said, We all know that music is very powerful. It can make people feel narrative ways, you know, in their emotions. And I said, I can, I know I can help people, uh, get over and just really overcome stress and anxiety, uh, through this gift that I have in music. Music is very powerful, you know, sound healing, uh, the, that whole genre, if you will call it that. Um, But, uh, so that was in 2018. I heard that report. And from there, I spent about a year and a half to two years just studying the actual genre of relaxation music. And, um, you know, in 2020, I formed Serene New You Sax LLC, which is a very unique company that uses all saxophones.
all saxophones. So not the usual, you know, harp or, or flute pan flute and, you know, gongs that you would hear. But I use all saxophones to create what I’ve called restorative relaxation music that helps people, um, overcome anxiety, relieve stress and, um, help them, uh, through panic attacks. And, um, That was really one of my goals. Music is my language. It’s my love language. And, you know, that’s, uh, that’s basically how it, how it started, you know, 2018 was basically the catalyst. But as I said, uh, it has deeper roots for when I started experiencing anxiety in 2013. I started the company in 2020 and, uh, and here we are.
That’s really, really interesting. And would you say that That’s one way that you differentiate yourself from other people who are trying to do the same thing. Musicians, would it be that your focus is on helping with these kind of things?
Sure. Well, let me just say, because my primary, the music that I really love, I’ve really come to love restorative relaxation music. It is my company, what I do in my company, but jazz was really my first love. And to answer your question, you know, I guess it is different than, What a lot of people do is different in this sense, uh, jazz and this music in general, whatever genre it is, it can really help people. You can help people, you help their emotions, you know, boost their mood.
It can do a lot of things, you know, and so, but I would say for the restorative relaxation music, it’s, it’s a whole, it’s a different type of helping. It’s more, I guess you could say it’s more direct because I’m moving over into the health and wellness space rather than, you know, the jazz or the R&B circuit. I’m taking what I know jazz wise and I’m mixing it with relaxation music, uh, and I’m bringing it into the health and wellness space, really honing in on what. It is what it will take for people to really overcome anxiety, how I can be a vessel through my saxophones and rain stick to help them overcome stress and anxiety.
So it’s, it’s just a lot more direct, I would say in, um, in getting to the, the health aspect of it, you know, rather than just, uh, feel good music, you know, it’s really, it’s really targeted to the health aspect and helping people to, to lower higher than normal blood pressure and overcome anxiety.
Yeah, that’s really, really interesting. Now, how would somebody find you? In other words, you have something that is so helpful to people in many, many ways, in addition to being enjoyable, right, even if you don’t suffer with these anxieties. It’s still something that people would want to listen to because music is relaxing, very peaceful, right?
Yeah, really, really peaceful.
So what would you say has been your most effective marketing strategy?
Sure. So I’ve tried a few, some, you know, work to varying degrees, you know, better than others, but I would say email is so powerful. Email, email, email. A lot of people, you know, because with the advent, of course, years ago, social media, and of course I’m on social media as well with the company, but email is so powerful because it’s, it’s, it’s direct to a person’s inbox. You know, they get, they get a little more value. You know, in those, in those email newsletters than they would on social media. So I would say email is very, very, very important to my marketing strategy, uh, as well as, uh, social media, Facebook, Instagram, or X as it’s called and LinkedIn, uh, because the company is on all four of, uh, of those platforms.
And, uh, something else that I would say, something that’s very, I would call it uplifting is when you talk about marketing. It’s partnerships and joint ventures, joint venture launches, uh, with, uh, or JV launches as, as they called with other companies or other influencers, you know, and so for example, how I play music, you know, my company is about music, relaxation, music, and, and healing people, you know, helping them overcome stress and anxiety.
So I would partner with, let’s say a spa, you know, or an, an influencer. People who are in the health and wellness field feel it’s not direct conflict because they’re not doing music, but the overall goal is wellness and to help people, you know, to not just meditate, but really to, to, to calm the anxious response, you know, and I just say it’s so that type of marketing is, is very powerful. It’s very uplifting because what it is is they introduce me. To their audience. So now their audience knows me and we do a launch of my products together and we just share on the back end. The, um, you know, the fruits of the labour and that’s basically what it is. And it’s very, it’s very uplifting. You meet so many new people and it’s really a creative form. It’s been around for a long time. Of course, joint venture launches, but I just don’t think it’s a really creative and uplifting way of marketing.
Yeah, no, I, I agree with you. Uh, person to person that, that connecting and that helping each other. And I can completely relate to that. So every business has challenges, every single one. What have you found to be your biggest challenge and how did you overcome that?
Sure. I would just say, and this I imagine is the case for a lot of businesses is getting new people or new clients, new customers into the fold because you want to always have new people coming in. And so, one of the ways I go about it is like I said what I just mentioned that kind of, it kind of goes into this point the joint venture launches.
Such a powerful way of getting new people to know about your business and, you know, partnering with someone else and using their lists, you know, because you know, you can be of great value to their following and that also gets a lot more people into your fold. So I would say for sure, the joint venture, uh, marketing transfers over into this as well, but also getting new people in what I do is I just all ways try to create. How should you say different offers, right? So the company was first about, uh, music, right? Of course, Serene New You Sax LLC. It’s about music, all saxophones for, you know, for, uh, to help people relieve stress, but then what I did, because there’s a whole, you know, whole, um, group of people who like photography.
So what I did was I added, that’s why the company is really unique. I added a line called Serene Photos. And Serene Photos are different pictures that I take of nature, and I couple it with the music. So now we have a music section of the website, and we have a Serene Photos section of the website, and I also started an audio visual. And that, it just gets more people in. You would think, uh, maybe almost all people like music, but some people like photography more, you know? So, You know, so I’ve, I’ve done that. So I’ve, I’ve married the two, I’ve wed the two music and photography. And, uh, also I’ve added an audio visual component to attract even more people where it’s almost like cinema, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re hearing the music and you’re seeing the pictures on screen, you know, uh, everything is Simultaneous So
all the senses are being activated, right? Right.
Right. Human sensory organs.
Yeah. Everything works together. If I had a crystal ball and you could look into it. Where do you see your business? What are your goals?
Sure. Well, I touched on this a few seconds ago. I really, I see the business helping. It’s helped a lot of people. It’s helped a lot of people. And that always makes you feel good. But I see it helping far more people than it already has. And I really see what I alluded to a few minutes ago is Continuing with the music, um, continue with the music aspect and even the, the, the photos aspect, but I want to make it more like a, like a movie type thing, like a whole experience for people so they can, uh, so they can sit down with their families and just, you know, enjoy something on their screen.
So I want to continue to really do that audio visual component. I think I’m going to do a lot more of that, um, because our flagship, my flagship product was, um, was strictly a music recording. Strictly music recording wasn’t, you know, audio visual. And then I moved to strictly photos, you know, so we have those, you can choose anything you’d like on the website, but I really think that I’m going to get a lot more into the audio visual aspect of it, because I think that’s just so special where you can have movie night, your family, you know, and, uh, relaxation, movie night, and you can meditate to it. You can watch, uh, you know, maybe a one or two hour, uh, deep relaxation cinema and, uh, and really enjoy it. And also, uh, improve health at the same time, lower stress.
I like that. Carl, it was so interesting to speak with you and learn where you came from, how you got to where you are and all of your goals. And I want to wish you so much continued success. And I know that you’re going to continue to help people. Along the path of life and I thank you so much for sharing all of this with us today.
Sure. My pleasure, Laura. Thank you for having me.
You’re welcome.
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