Saying “I don’t know” feels great.  So many times we feel that we must know the answer.  Our bands, our employees and our bosses fire questions at us and we often feel the need to know the answer.  A certain fear resides in our mind that makes us feel inferior if we don’t know the answer either because we didn’t do something right, we’re not smart enough or don’t have the experience to know the answer.

Next time someone asks you a question that you don’t know the answer to, rather than posturing or dishing out false information to save face, embrace the moment.  Recognize that you don’t know the answer, embrace it and help the questioning party figure out the path to an answer.  This honesty opens up so many more doors.  Chances are if you dig around in your mind, you’ll think of someone who does know.  You’ll think of someone who has had a similar experience and could help you come up with the answer.

Success isn’t determined by knowing all of the answers, it is determined by knowing how you can utilize your resources to uncover the answers.

I get the sense that many managers and artists think online marketing tools determine the future of the music business.  The idea is that one of these platforms will replace the various channels of marketing we had available in the early ’90s (record stores, radio, MTV).  The sense among many managers is that “I don’t know what’s happening out there in the internets… so we better get our band on all of these platforms in case one of them breaks and our band breaks with it.”

Let’s be clear though, these tools are just that… tools for marketing your business.  They do not define your business.  Marketing tools and methods are constantly changing for all businesses not just the music industry.  Successful businesses don’t look at the changing marketing landscape and throw up their hands in defeat.  They merely recognize the changes and adapt their marketing strategies while keeping their core business in tact.

Your core business is creating music and getting people to care.  So… managers and artists, take a deep breath and relax.  Stay centered in your business – don’t let the internet company hype get the better of you.  Now look around at the various marketing tools available, analyze them and determine which ones will work best for you.  I’d propose that you ask other managers who are using some of these tools, get their opinion on it – ask if it’s working for them.  Or you can wait until a certain marketing tool has significant traction like Facebook.

Once you find your possible tools, start using the ones that you can embrace fully.  There is nothing worse than trying to do too many things, spreading yourself thin and doing each one halfway.  Your fans will notice.  If you want to get the best bang for your marketing efforts, choose your tools deliberately and focus your full energy on making them work for you.

It’s tough to sell 100,000 albums these days.  I’ve worked with artists who have had #1 hits on Triple A radio and still didn’t move 100,000 units.  There is a lot of speculation about the future of recorded music as a commodity.  One thing I know for certain is that people still love recorded music and it is an important part of many people’s lives.  As a touring artist or manager you know that your music is important to your fan community.  You also know that getting a great recording into their hands is important as a revenue stream (especially if you’ve self released) and as a way of spreading your music and culture.  With all of that in mind, here is a great story about how to sell 100,000 copies of your recording.

Randy Reed is a manager at Red Light.  He manages several DJs including Sasha, UNKLE, James Zabiela, James Lavelle and Pretty Lights.  Over breakfast this weekend we got a preview listen to the new James Zabiela (UK based artist) album coming out in April (awesome album by the way).  In conversation Randy told us that generally electronic artists don’t sell many albums – the sales figures are much lower than rock bands of equivalent size.  Another thing you need to know is that electronica artists are paid in guarantees normally, hardly ever in door deals.  Unlike rock shows, generally when these DJs play a venue, the merch sales aren’t significant even if there is a new album out.

Randy and his team decided that they could solve all of these issues by giving an album away to each audience member on their way into the show.  This way, they get to distribute 100,000 copies of the album across the whole tour (way more than they could sell otherwise) directly into the hands of fans (no distribution fees).  Behind the scenes they are making it work to their advantage as well by increasing the guarantee for the show to include the cost of an album (plus a small profit) for each ticket.  In effect they are “selling” a higher volume of albums at a smaller margin compared to potential merch table sales.  Lastly, they benefit by getting recorded music into the hands of hard core fans who will be excited for the free gift and will spread it to more friends.  Everyone wins.

What I realized as I sat with this idea for a few days is that recorded music doesn’t need to be viewed as a stand alone business, especially to the artist.  If you open your mind to it, it could be that giving an album or a download card is part of the live show experience, part of the price of the ticket.  In this way, the expense of the albums is just part of doing business on the road (like gas or hotels).  The main difference of course is that it’s actually an investment, not an expense, because it keeps giving back through the fan/artist relationship.  Think about it and let me know if you give it a try.

First let’s look at the difference between a partnership and a service provider as these are the two most common business to business relationships that I’ve seen.  The definitions of each:

Partnership- A cooperative relationship between people or groups who agree to share responsibility for achieving some specific goal

Service- Work done by one person or group that benefits another.

In the artist business you can look at all of the professional relationships you have in these two ways.  When you hire someone like a graphic designer, generally you are in a service relationship.  Normally you are contracting this person for a specific project.

When making a deal with a service partner, the limiting factor to the relationship is usually just money.  In other words, for the relationship to make sense you just need to be able to afford it.  If you have enough money you can hire the best service providers in any category including: graphic design, label services, radio promoters and publicists.

Now let’s look at a partnership.  In a partnership people are joining forces for a united goal; Think of a record label, booking agent or management.  The limiting factor here isn’t money for service, it is a shared vision or goal.  So the next logical question is: What makes people unite on a goal or vision?

From what I’ve seen people evaluate a career vision or goal based on a combination of leverage and faith.  For example, for a baby band with no live experience (zero leverage, lots of faith in themselves) trying to partner with a major booking agency or label wouldn’t make sense (lots of leverage, zero faith in them).

However, that same artist could find someone in a powerful record label or agency who is a big believer in their sound (lots of leverage, lots of faith) then that person’s faith in the project could override the artist’s lack of leverage.  These types of relationships are inherently imbalanced.  In these scenarios, the side with all of the leverage is clearly in control and as soon as anything happens to diminish their faith the relationship dies.  As an example, think of all the terrible record label stories you’ve heard where “the band got screwed” by the label.  Fact is, the artist had little leverage (lots of faith in themselves) and came into a situation where the partner (label) had much more leverage and only enough faith to try it out for an album or two.  The label is no more at fault than the artist since it was a poorly balanced relationship from the beginning.

Without a doubt, the best partnerships are the balanced ones – the ones where the leverage and faith of each partner is approximately equal.  When you are both in the same ball park then you can play the same game – you are both excited to be working on the project, energy is flying between you and the career grows out of this unified vision.

If you want to create an amazing partnership, start by looking in the places where you’ll find people of similar leverage and faith.

Music is an ancient and powerful form of communication that dates back at least to 7000 BC (reference).  It is even speculated that musical phrases were the earliest form of communication (reference).  In many ways music is more powerful than spoken word because it is not inhibited by definitions of words.  Music is sound that communicates directly to an individual’s soul in a certain way.  The person then feels a certain way when the music hits them.  The communication is based on feeling rather than rigid definitions.  In this way, I believe that the music is communicating directly to the subconscious – to your soul.  The right music can soothe your soul when you are feeling down, transport you to other worlds when you hear exotic instruments and rhythms and move you to dance when the right beat comes into you.    Music is deeper and more real to the human experience than business, money or any man made creation.

I believe that “business” (the process of interacting with others to conduct commerce) can communicate a message as well (think of Google or Zappos).  What message your business conveys is up to you; But I challenge you to recognize and honor what music means to humans, what it means to you on a deep level and to allow that deep meaning to inform everything that you do.

I was part of a panel today at James Madison University (JMU) in Harrisonburg, Va.  The class was part of the Music Industry program which can lead to a potential degree in Music Business.  Our role as panelists was to discuss our background, how we got into the industry, what jobs we’ve had and what we do now.  I had prepared a list of 5 pieces of advice that I would have wanted to hear when I was graduating.  Because time was limited I didn’t have the chance to share all five.  It seems like a perfect blog post, so here you go:

1. Be true to yourself. Listen or feel what is going on deep inside you.  Think about what you want to do and set that goal as your ‘north star’ that guides you along the path.  If you take a detour along the way, see how it will help you in your ultimate goal but always reference that north star for direction and inspiration.  Reflect on what you like and don’t like and internalize it then use that knowledge to guide your quest.
2. Associate with people you admire. Read books and articles by or about people who you admire.  Mentor under people who are doing what you want and learn from them.  (Watch this Jack Canfield video for the idea).  Offer to help them for free – this is different than an internship, read more here.  You can also try setting up a mastermind group with other like people.
3. Be fearless. Here are some examples of how you can be fearless: Approach people who are doing what you want to do; Offer your thoughts or opinions if you think they could help; Volunteer for organizations or events to meet other people.  In short, embrace rejection and new experiences.  These are the best ways to learn and grow.
4. Be awesome. Once you get a foot in the door – blow them away with your competence and enthusiasm.  We have had several interns across the years and most of them under perform or get bored rather than taking the initiative to make their job exactly what they want it to be.  None have ever asked me to coffee to explain more about the business or asked questions during the day.  Read this story about a rock drummer who went from mail room assistant to an executive producer in 1 year.  Be inspired and be awesome and you will have people singing your praises and offering recommendations for you.
5. Build relationships. Be appreciative of everyone who helps you along the way and be true about it.  Stay in touch with these people even just to update them on your progress through the world.  People love to be included and everyone likes to be appreciated.  You never know which seeds you sow today will reap benefits in the future so water them all.

Now with all of that said, get out there and do.  Nothing can replace action.

I wrote this thought on February 29, 2008, but it’s a timeless observation.

Today at lunch I was considering why the internet is so revolutionary.
I was going through it with Michael and I came up with the following:

The Internet is a public forum (1) with a lower entrance hurdle (2) that is accessible to the entire  world (3), made searchable by Google (4) and validated (with an archive of the validation) by other people (5).

Footnotes:

(1) A public forum is a place where people can broadcast and/or exchange ideas like talking on a soap box on the street corner, having a TV show, a local radio program, or a town hall meeting.

(2) The lower entrance hurdle means that the cost to make a website is minimal.  It is less than making a TV show and setting one up is more easily done than most other public forums.

(3) Your forum is accessible to the entire world with the internet.  Prior to the internet, putting your message into a public forum was usually local or regional or national at best.  Rarely was the message so easily accessed by the whole world.

(4) In the past, even if you kept a record of your message, the information archive was not “centralized” and searchable.

(5) The sites are validated by hits.  Information (wikipedia, etc) or products are validated by ratings and rankings (like eBay, Amazon, etc) by users.  These individual ratings remain forever so the aggregate data serves as a reinforced “word of mouth.”  In the old days we only had real ‘word of mouth’ validation and for that we had to depend on those
close to us (not the aggregate of 1000s of people) and it wasn’t archived so that we could interpret that “word of mouth” at the moment we searched for the product/information.

After years of observing and working with artists at the baby band stage (roughly making less than $100k per year, defined here), we have noticed that generally these bands are best served to go through this phase of development without outside management.  I own a management company – why would I say this?  Isn’t this area where all the gold is found – where a relatively unknown artist can be discovered and ‘blown up’ through the industry tools?

Stepping into the music business is not just about the music – it is about the business as well – and it is important for an artist to be aware of both.  Good ideas and good music are everywhere but the ability to act on those expressions and build a business around them is what matters in the marketplace.  We have found that there is a wealth of important experience that the artist/business owner (see point #2) gains from this period of time.  Given that artists are business owners as well, no outside manager could ever replace that experience and the valuable lessons it will teach.  In this stage artists learn how to:

• Communicate with the audience
• Communicate (marketing, branding and “selling”) their vision
• Find and build an audience
• Create merchandise products that their audience desires
• Be self-reliable on the road and as overall business owners 

In short this period provides the artist/business owner with the opportunity to test their product in the market place, to define their role in the market, to get people to care (grow a fan base) and to work toward financial self-sustainability.  The artist is gaining traction – defined as developing a core customer base that cares. 

At some point outside partners begin to make sense.  This should occur when you:

1. Understand how a certain partner can help your business grow AND you can define the expectations
2. Know that you can not do it alone any longer

If there is ever a thought that a manager will magically take you to the “next level” without understanding what you expect of them, then you will certainly set yourself up for disappointment.  The key for successful partnerships is in each side understanding their business and being able to define their expectations for the partnership.  Poor partnerships are defined by not understanding your business and not knowing what you expect of a potential partner.

Artists, take ownership of your ideas and your vision.  Look inside for inspiration and guidance first then when the time is ripe, look outside for those who align with your vision.  This is your business and your brand.  The best thing you can do for yourself is to focus on running it like a business no matter how much that thought scares you.  If you are in this for the long haul then it’s a realization you need to make.

The purpose of an artist manager is to increase an artist’s fan base and income transparently so that the artistic expression remains in tact (see point #10).  Through this blog we hope to explore many methods for developing an artist keeping this idea in mind.  Before diving into these ideas it seems right to first define the stages of development within the marketplace.  When I look across the music landscape I see (tens, maybe hundreds of) thousands of artist businesses that fit into 3 categories of income: baby bands, middle class and upper echelon.

Imagine a graph with the vertical axis being ‘annual gross income’ and the horizontal axis being ‘number of bands.’  On this graph let’s place all of the artist businesses in the US market.  On the left you would see a small number of bands that make most of the money generated within the market and on the far right you would see a long tail of artists that make a decreasingly small amount of annual income.  As you probably know, this is a classic business concept called the Pareto principle.  Essentially, this principle states that 20% of your [artists] generate 80% of the income of all [artists] within the market.  Image of the graph here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Long_tail.svg

Baby Bands

Looking toward the far right end of the graph we see the baby bands.  On the graph image above, the line would continue far off to the right with thousands of bands making just a few hundred dollars per year.  These artists are just starting out.  They do not yet have a significant fan base or income and have probably not toured beyond the immediate region.  There are more bands at this level than any other since it just takes an idea and income of $.01 to step onto the graph.  Based on our observations of the marketplace, we see that artists making less than $100k annually to fall into this category.

Note: Obviously if it is a solo artist making this amount then that person is in a much better position than a 6-piece band making that amount.  The financial cut off points serve to provide a general definition.

Middle Class

Sliding left along the scale we see an enormous piece of our artist marketplace.  These are the artists that are grossing between $100k – $1m dollars annually.  I have often heard these artists referred to as “Developing Acts” but I don’t feel that this term does the whole segment justice.  In the current landscape I have met many artists who are happily in this category, grossing $500-600k per year with no concerns about breaking into a higher level.  In other words, an artist could be in this category and not necessarily “developing” per se but rather sustaining themselves.  Somewhere in this category most solo or group artists are able to become professional – meaning that they can support themselves with their art form.

Upper Echelon

I’d say artists grossing $1 million+ annually are in this category.  At this point the artist business is making great money and each individual member of the group is making a good, comfortable income.  Obviously there are countless ways to grow an artist past this level.  I also think there could be defined categories of development beyond $1m but generally speaking this is a safe definition of success in the business.

Considering these general definitions, a number of questions arise for either a manager or an artist/business owner.

From the perspective of management:

1. At what income level does good management come into an artist’s life?
2. How do you want to position your management company in this landscape?  Do you manage artists in all three income categories or do you just focus on one area?
3. If I am interested in working with bands at the smallest levels, how do I generate enough income from it to make it worth my while?
4. How do I effectively grow an artist from one category to the next?

From the artist/business owner perspective:

1. At what point do I want to bring a manager on board?  How important is it for me to learn about running my own business before hiring someone to help me with it?

Take the time to consider these questions as you think about your business and how to grow it.

For this site, we use the term “artist” to refer to any solo artist or group of musicians that make up a band.  It is simplest for us to use one term across the site.  I think lawyers write it this way as well, but I’m not a lawyer.