Typically when the term “lifestyle business” is used it means a business that is established to afford the founder a particular level of income so they can enjoy a specific lifestyle.  In this definition we are talking about the lifestyle of the business owner. As a lifestyle business owner you might choose to have a business that allows you to work out of your home, or an internet-based business, or as an artist you could choose to tour the country playing your music.  This is part of the lifestyle you desire to live.

There is another definition for “lifestyle business” that implies the business is making products or services for customers that choose to live a certain lifestyle. There are many businesses that appeal to people based on their lifestyle.  Businesses that fit into this category include music, yoga, natural grocery stores, and skate or surf shops among others.  The actual product made or sold by these businesses appeal to customers who appreciate, embody, and live a certain lifestyle.

This second definition is the most important one to understand as you grow your business.  In this post I’d like to point out how I have seen artists successfully capitalize on this understanding.

First, think of who your audience is – visualize them.  What defines these people?  What do they have in common?  Next, recognize that you are a business… period.  This means you must sell products in order to sustain yourself.  Yes, I realize that’s not as sexy as just being a musician but it’s the truth.  You are making products for your customers/fans.  What do they want?  Almost every band sells t-shirts and caps but what else might your customers/fans want?  What else fits in with their lifestyle and the lifestyle you promote?  Thinking this way and creating these products is not selling out – it’s giving your customers/fans another chance to get closer to your brand.  This is good, healthy business.

Some examples:

Jack Johnson – Jack comes from the surfer culture in Hawaii and California.  His songs evoke this feeling.  He makes films that speak to this.  Though this isn’t a revenue stream, he has greening partnerships that embody his message.  He has a record label that signs bands of a similar vibe.  Each year he produces a festival on Hawaii that benefits schools on the island.  Jack clearly sees that he’s in a lifestyle business.

Zac Brown Band – A southern rock band (part country, part roots rock) pushes the southern message in their songs and through a beautiful cookbook.  Zac owned a restaurant so it fits with his message and branding.  He also holds a BBQ before shows which you can buy passes to.  I even read somewhere that he sells a line of BBQ sauces.  Zac has created a solid lifestyle business and each product reinforces his brand.

Unkle – Jame Lavelle and his team clearly decided that they are also in the visual art business, not just the music business.  Their vinyl releases and limited edition releases include posters and full books with gallery style art.  Even the packaging is top notch with unusual layout and design. The presentation elevates the music, the image, and the brand of the artist.  Though it must be time consuming to craft such an involved product, it also sells for a higher price than the standard product and fans appreciate it.  Unkle gets that they are in a lifestyle business.

Jimmy Buffet - Of course, Jimmy Buffet is the king of lifestyle business.  He has frozen food products, margarita mix, restaurants, apparel, books, albums, beer, and more all of which strengthen his image as the ultimate summer time, good time brand.

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It’s most important to focus on building your business where the momentum is.  If that’s touring or albums then by all means focus on that.  But as you start to get some traction and business starts moving, see that you are in business just like any other business owner.  Find products for your fans/customers that they will want and that will bring them closer to you.  Creating other products that fit the lifestyle of your fans can be just as artful as creating music and your fans will appreciate it just as much.

Several months ago, when I was writing Squeezing The Show, I asked Seth Godin if he had any advice on how to go about finding a publisher for the book. I figured the publishing business was very similar to the record business but when he guided me toward two posts he has written on the topic I realized that they are nearly exactly the same business. Seth’s two posts sound so similar to the advice I would give a young musician that I’m just going to send you directly onto his words. As you read his words replace the word:

• “book(s)” with “album(s)”
• “publisher” with “record label”
• “editor” with “producer”
• “author(s)” with “musician(s)”
• “published” with “released”
• “write(ing)” with “record(ing)”

Article 1: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/08/advice_for_auth.html

Article 2: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/07/advise_for_auth.html

Here’s some more information from Billboard to help put things in context. In 2009:

97, 751 albums were released
Of those only 2050 sold more than 5000 units
Of those 12 sold more than 1 million units

I know these numbers seemed stacked against you… yet every year there are hot new artists that come around and establish enduring, successful careers.  It doesn’t take a massive album or radio play to make a sustainable and successful career.  In fact, as Seth Godin says, if you can establish a solid and successful career then you won’t need them and then you will be exactly the type of artist a label will want to work with.  When in doubt on your career path, go back and read Seth’s advice again.  Own your career.  You can do it.

P.S.  If that doesn’t work for you, join my Advisor program and I’ll help you figure it out.

Be advised: professional artists are business owners. This is a key message of our company, this blog, and everything that we seek to do through the educational side of our business. If you are an artist and you desire to or already do make a living from your art then you must recognize you are in business… you are a business owner.

I read dozens of new business books each year. Very few of them speak to the music business owner, yet most of the lessons of how to run a business apply directly to running a music business. You have fans (customers) who buy your products (music and merchandise) and in order to be successful you need to grow your fan (customer) base and keep your current base happy. True, this isn’t the sexy approach to the music business and it wasn’t the reason you got involved in being a musician. Yet it is possibly the most powerful lesson I could share with you.

This is why I am launching a new service called The Farm Team and will be open to only 20 bands/artists who do not currently have managers but are very serious about growing their business.

As many of you know I am a life/business coach – a service I provide for anyone even if they aren’t in the music business. The difference with The Farm Team is that I will be serving partly as a coach and partly as a mentor and the service is specifically for musicians. My interest is to help these 20 select artists grow their business to their definition of success through weekly one-on-one calls with me. If you feel that this would be appropriate for you or your band, you can read more about it and apply for the program here: http://thefarmteam.com

Regardless of whether you choose to apply for this group, I’d like to leave you with the simple message again. As soon as you choose to make a living performing your art, you have assumed the role of business owner. Embrace and appreciate this role – it will serve you well.

Of course, I don’t know the future of radio… but when asked today I realized I had a few thoughts to share.

1.  The Internet may rule – I imagine that the internet will eventually find it’s way into all of the places where we currently favor terrestrial radio (namely the car being the last hold out).  Once that happens terrestrial radio will face some significant competition, most likely threatening its survival.

2.  Community advantage – The advantage that terrestrial radio has is that it is community-based.  As you may have picked up from previous blog posts, I’m a big fan of strengthening community simply by reaching out and getting involved with what’s going on around you.  Local radio stations can speak to communities in much the same way that local friends can.  They share your home town, they know the nuances and the secrets for the community, they can talk about news pertinent to your town, and be a real contributor to the local experience by playing music for that place.  Think of local radio like the local farmers.  Think of how much you appreciate the local farmer at the farmer’s market vs. the big factory farm.

I grew up outside of Philadelphia in the 80s/90s and the classic rock stations were my favorite.  Those stations and most specifically, the DJs of those stations, were local heros… and famous to me.  There was John Debella on one station and Pierre Robert on another.  I’m not sure it will be like that again, but in Charlottesville we have several stations that are very active in the community and they matter.

3.  Radio as filter – In the case of a DJ in a local community you trust them to “show” you new music.  By listening to them you are implicitly giving them control to introduce you to new music.  The DJ or station become a filter for you.  This is still an important role.

4.  User control – In some cases though, you will find times when you don’t want someone to show you something new.  You want control over your listening experience.  In that case you’ll choose to plug in your iPod and listen to your music.

5.  Reach or Accessibility – There are some places where terrestrial radio just doesn’t reach, or more importantly if it does reach there the options may be limited.  In small town America this can be the case.  I recall going to a hunting cabin in the back woods of Pennsylvania when I was a kid.  There may have been one radio station.  Last year I was on the big island of Hawaii and radio options were limited.  Guess what?  The house had a WiFi connection.  I pulled up Pandora on my iPod and chose what station I wanted to listen to.  It was a defining moment for me in thinking that radio as we know it may be going away.

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Maybe the future of radio is that we’ll have the best of all worlds – community-based internet radio stations, accessible everywhere through WiFi, and free to program any music they wish, thus acting as a true filter for its listeners.

Thoughts?

I read a book called The Talent Code this weekend and I now recommend it to you.  Many of the ideas are directly applicable to the being a musician or a business owner.  Below I will paraphrase some ideas from the book as they apply to our industry:

1.  Talent is nurtured – it takes time and consistent effort.  According to some of the greatest coaches in sports, it is rare that a genius with innate skills and abilities comes along.  Most stars are people who practice consistently and wisely to get where they are.  The book discusses the science of myelin, which is a tissue that wraps around your neurons each time you practice a skill.  It is this insulation that helps you improve a skill and it takes both time and repetition to grow the myelin.  Additionally, myelin is always breaking down and growing anew so if you don’t practice a skill for a while you “get rusty” because your myelin has broken down a bit.  A mantra often repeated in the book is:  Skill is insulation that wraps neural circuits and grows according to certain signals.

2.  Surround yourself with other driven people who you admire.  Though the book didn’t say this outright, I’m combining with an idea I talk about in coaching and one I’ve read from other successful people: The people you hang out with are a reflection of you.  In many talent hotbeds (like the Seattle grunge era or the rock scene in 1960s San Francisco) the author found that the athletes or musicians were surrounded by other artists honing and producing their craft.  This served as a positive feedback loop in the person’s mind.  One artist sees another doing great work and thus it makes it much more real for that person.

3.  Playing an instrument requires skill, so does running your business. As you know, it wasn’t easy to start playing an instrument.  It took lots of hard work to get to the point where you are now.  Business is a whole new set of skills.  You’ve got to experience what it means to run a business much like when you first picked up an instrument.  This is a reality.  If you want to succeed as an artist business, you must not shy away from the practice required to build your business myelin.  It may be hard when you first start out but it gets easier with time, just like learning your instrument.

4.  Imagine your future. This isn’t just some empty self-help advice, it’s real advice that has been studied.  The book points out a study of new music students that were asked how long they planned to play their instrument.  The students that imagined playing the instrument forever were the most successful group by far… and the ones who imagined this and practiced the most each day were the best of those students.

For every new coaching client I take on I ask them what their big vision is – where they imagine their career going.  Most artists tell me they can’t see that far into the future, but I think most people have just been trained not to shoot for the stars.  Take a moment to list 30 things you’d like to be or do in your life.  What does the future look like?  If you don’t define it, no one else will.  If you do define it and believe it, you’ll step up to the challenge of making it real.

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There were many other great topics discussed in the book like what makes a great coach, the concept of deep practice, how to ignite someone’s drive to learn, and the different types of neural circuits.  Too much to go into unfortunately, but if you’ve got the time, check it out and let me know what you think: ben@theartistfarm.com

Here is a beautiful 4-minute clip of Bobby McFerrin talking about Yo-Yo Ma going to an African village to experience and learn about their music.  I would have trouble describing these ideas any better so please watch the video.  It will be worth it.

Imagine the world where we always feel the music inside – that feeling that we have at festivals or on stage, that feeling of pure beauty coursing through our veins.  Imagine being able to feel the music in the world, everywhere you look – the hum, playfulness and at times darkness of the natural world.  Imagine everyone intertwining these inspirations into their own song and feeling ok with the changing nature of that song – realizing that stability and consistency isn’t the goal.  Imagine finding the song even under what seems ugly at first – the oil spills, war and violence.  Imagine being able to see the lightness beneath it all.  Imagine that world.