“All paths are present, always… and we can but choose among them.” – Jacqueline Carey.

To rephrase this, it means you can go in any direction you want to go, you just have to choose.

But you must choose a path.

unsuccessful people don’t choose. Instead, they meander through life.

If you want to make a living making music, the path is there. Always. But you must choose.

The experience you’ll require for success is on every journey but only after you’ve chosen. Realize that you won’t have all the track laid down before the train leaves the station.

You must have faith. Rely on your intelligence and accept the failures.

Because there will be failures. Lots of them! If you want to double your successes you have to double your failures.

Forget about what other people say. Trust me, when you start learning more than them they’ll hate you for it.

You must transform into a marketer. You need to create your own audience before the industry will stand up and take notice.

The problem for most artists is that they don’t know where to begin with the marketing thing.

On one hand, marketing leaves a sour taste in your mouth; you think used car salesman.

On the other hand, not many of life’s little moments can beat out the feeling when someone responds to your music positively. If you’ve done it once, you can do it twice.

Do it 1,000 times and you’ll have a solid audience with a solid cash flow.

Take social media, for instance. We often feel like we don’t want to begin until we can master all the platforms. Of course, we don’t focus and work on any platforms while we’re thinking about mastering all of them, so we wait.

Then we get distracted on the mission critical marketing piece by telling ourselves that we need to focus elsewhere first. Like the music.

We think, “I’ll wait until I get this CD finished and then I’ll focus on the marketing.”

But that doesn’t ever work.

Not anymore.

That’s a delay tactic you’re using on yourself.

Whether you believe it or not, in today’s music market, the artist comes first, then the music.

Which means you need to be marketing RIGHT NOW.

No excuses! There is literally no good reason whatsoever for you to delay the marketing of YOU.

We’ve begun marketing some of our artists (growing their audience) as much as 18 months before the music was released.

We began marketing one artist and we hadn’t even defined the artistic lane on her project yet!

The most powerful story is the story you tell yourself.

What story do you choose to tell yourself?

You won’t put out 1 killer music video that will go viral and change your life forever.

That will require consistent work on cover songs. You’ll need to put out 1 cover video per week without fail for at least a year. I promise you’ll look back in amazement.

Let me save you the suspense, the first couple videos will take way too long to execute. But if you commit to 8 videos in 8 weeks you’ll find that the last 2 videos will take 10% of the time that the first 2 videos took.

You probably won’t get on a big TV talent show, but even if you do you’ll be barely famous for 15 minutes and then they’ll forget about you because you weren’t prepared to harvest all that heat.

You won’t know who they were.

You’ll need to set up infrastructure to capture contact information. Once you’re on the show massive amounts of people will begin to hashtag the show, judge’s names, and contestant names. All these people just raised their hands to identify themselves as fans of the show and fans of you.

Reach out to them. Oh, it’s super easy to hop on the phone and call every freakin’ radio station in the country to set up an interview when you’re on TV. Just a thought.

You probably won’t get your song on the radio, but if you do it’s not going to change your life. Again, you’ll have no idea who heard it. You won’t know who liked it.

I mean it. I have 3 artists in the top 50 on the Music Row charts at the moment. That means they’re getting spins. Their highest chart position + $2.51 will get them a venti drip at Starbucks.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not hurting their brand, but the return on investment isn’t worth the price this early in the game.

Radio is for later.

You need data right now.

You need measurable results.

You need to see a definite ROI (Return On Investment) for every dollar you spend. I’m not saying you’re going to get your money back this early on, but you need SOMETHING to measure the return; like an email address.

Permission Marketing is the key to growing your audience.

Growing your audience starts with social media and YouTube. They’re free. Oops, I didn’t mean to blow your best excuse for not making it…Money.

Then you must harvest the contact data and know what to do with it after you do. If you own the contact information you’ll always be able to reach them for free.

Every other industry on this planet has radically transformed because of the internet. The makeover has been the same all around; the creators of the product or service get directly in touch with the end user.

Distribution is out.

Eventually.

Think about the travel industry. Once people could book their own flights online, travel agents vanished. The service providers like airlines, rental car companies, and cruises could interact directly with you, the end user. Travel agents instantly became irrelevant for unsophisticated travel.

Think about Dell Computer company. They don’t sell through distribution. They control every aspect of the way you feel about their product and service from the advertising to the purchase, to the tech support.

They control the customer journey.

The music industry will go the same way because EVERYONE ELSE HAS.

Do you see the writing on the wall?

The wounds to the formerly successful pipeline for developing the art, creating the demand, and distributing the product are relatively fresh in the music industry.

Predictably, the industry is going to be slow to adapt.

But the artist who adapts now is the artist who will win.

The artist who chooses to market RIGHT NOW will be victorious.

You cannot afford to wait if you’re serious about making a living in the music industry.

You must move now.

The learning curve is stout but it’s not rocket science, therefore, completely achievable.

Hell, there are artists who have MASTERED it.

Pursue excellence in marketing like you hopefully chase the mastery of your craft.

Excellence requires regular work.

The kind of work one can only do once they’ve chosen a path.

In 1519 AD, during the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Hernán Cortés, the Spanish commander, scuttled his ships so that his men would have to conquer or die.

He chose a path and didn’t waiver.

What will you choose?

Stay

In

Tune

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I hear artists say this every day. “I suck at networking”.

It’s true.

You do suck at networking.

But it’s because of these 2 reasons so it’s totally fixable.

1. You think you suck at networking
2. Therefore, you don’t network.

It’s a muscle that you must develop. You’re afraid to develop it because you think you need to be the “life of the party” to make it happen.

False.

What is absolutely required for effective networking is

1. Effort
2. Perspective
3. Humility
4. Authenticity

Effort:

Show up. If you’re not there you can’t network. You can’t win if you don’t play. Oh, and you must KEEP ON showing up.

Are you needing band members? Show up. Go out to all the clubs as much as you can to see the bands and pick your players. If you’re good they’ll consider it. This is how the best musicians from all the local bands gravitate to one another. If they’re not giving you the time of day, it’s because you’re approaching them in an obnoxious way or you need to work on your artistry more.

Presentation matters. These new band mates and business associates are going to need to see something tangible. They are not going to see your potential so plan to put at least one decent recording together to use as a calling card.

I just had a reunion of sorts with a guitar player friend of mine who played with me in a solo project I did for a hot second in LA. I met him at a restaurant bar. The bartender was an artist I was doing a little producing for. We talked and I mentioned I was looking for a guitar player. I left him a CD of some tracks. He called me on my way home and was like, “I’m IN!”

Had I not had that recording demonstrating my songs, professionalism, and attitude, he wouldn’t have called, I guarantee it.

One of my favorite hit songwriters is a guy I met out at Loser’s which is a common industry hang out here in Nashville. We became friends and he was regularly emailing me to say hello and stay in touch. I presented him with an artist for a co-write. He began a long-standing relationship with that artist, resulting in multiple cuts, and they’re now on their second single. It’s charting on the Music Row chart.

I see him out all the time. The other evening I wanted him to meet a writer friend of mine that was in town from Miami. I texted him. He came right over. I introduced him to the songwriter and he introduced me to this incredible new artist he’s been writing with and maybe we’ll do some business. Who knows?

But he was there. Get it?

Perspective:

Every relationship you make may not have any value but just about all of them won’t have immediate value. That’s where most people fall off.

They lose interest if there is no immediate satisfaction. They also get sour about it sometimes. Like if you meet someone you’re attracted to, immediately ask them for sex, and then decide to hate them because they said “NO”.  (that’s called Cognitive Dissonance…but I digress)

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Realize that you’re laying down railroad track as opposed to putting the actual train on the tracks. I have many lifelong relationships that were started in odd ways with no expectations whatsoever.

When my band initially signed with a huge regional booking agency out of Minneapolis, the first thing I needed to know was what the competition looked like.

Who was the best?

I reached out to the receptionist and asked. She told me it was a band called “Mannekin” and they would be in Milwaukee on tour in 2 weeks. I said I wanted to go, but I was only 19 years old. Michelle told me that she would set it all up with their manager Mark O’Toole.

That evening I got my ass KICKED artistically.

That band was freaking amazing. I couldn’t believe I saw them in a club. The bar had just moved up and I needed to know more so I simply asked Mark if I could take him out to eat after the show. He happily agreed. I bought breakfast at 3 am and started asking as many questions as I could get away with.

Here’s the deal. That was the start of a lifelong friendship, literally. We lost Mark a couple years ago, but he always had my back. When we needed a photo shoot for our poster, he offered to “piggyback” us on his photo shoot for Mannekin with Prince’s photographer, Al Beaulieu. That cost us $600 including hair and makeup.  He constantly helped me with negotiating strategies with club owners when we were touring. All because he was a good friend.

My point is I couldn’t have predicted all that, I just wanted to learn and he was willing to teach. I expected nothing more than that first meal, but he liked me. He saw something. I was so lucky.

I think that artists tend to subconsciously avoid networking because they don’t see an immediate return on the time investment of creating the relationship. That’s a mistake because you never know what could happen.

Every semester I am blessed to have a bunch of interns. One of the value-adds I offer the interns is access to certain industry functions (when possible) and the ability to hang with me at certain showcases and artist shows. I’ll introduce them to everyone I speak with. I tell the interns, they’re not required to attend when they get the text invite, but they’re encouraged to attend. The relationships they will make probably won’t amount to much if anything at all, but imagine them interviewing with a record label for job a couple years in the future and sitting across from someone they already met. “Hey Ms. So-And-So, you probably don’t remember me, but we hung out one night with Johnny D from Daredevil Production watching this artist at this club.”  Already, subconsciously, the intern has moved their application to a different mental pile because they’ve already met.

Does that make sense?

Humility:

Without humility, you’re not going to create many relationships.

Especially in the music business.

When I met Mark, I was young and very green and he knew it. I wasn’t trying to pretend I was some big shot and he appreciated that. I was a sponge.

I paid for that dinner at Denny’s because I had so many questions, you know?  He loved that. I was asking the right questions about the business as opposed to “How can you help me get famous?”

Every week I get hit up on email, Twitter, and Instagram with artists who shoot me messages like, “Yo, let’s do business. How do we get started?”.

WTF?

What’s your name? What’s your story? Have we ever met? This is not only a complete turn-off, but it’s a dead giveaway to a rookie with poor communication skills.

Something humbler like, “Hey Johnny, this is so-and-so from this band and I like what you’re doing, can we possibly set up a time to talk about working together?” would be a better way to spin that approach.

Always be humble and kind.

Music industry people are generally really good people and like to help other people as long as they believe that person isn’t a schmuck.  You’d be amazed at what a little humility and an honest, “I need some help” will get you.

I remember when I first came to Nashville in 1995. My friend John Prestia told me that he was good friends with a hit songwriter named Kim Tribble. He told me to go and meet with Kim.

I did.

Kim was the kindest and most gracious soul. We spoke for about an hour in his office. The whole time I was worried I was taking up too much of his time. Kim could sense that. After an hour, I couldn’t help myself, I told Kim, “Hey I know you’re super busy and I’m so thankful for this time, Kim! I’ll see myself out.”

I didn’t want to impose.

To which Kim replied, “It’s cool, man. I like you. I have to run some errands and you’re welcome to join me if you want. Do you have time to hang?”

See how humility worked there?

I had NOTHING else to do. I spent the whole day with Kim. He listened to all my songs and that led me to 2 other writer/producer relationships that I still currently have.

And finally, Authenticity.

This is a biggie. I think most artists feel terribly uncomfortable networking because they feel like they have to be something they’re not. I think they feel like they have to be this huge gregarious personality that everybody loves in order to an effective networker, but that just isn’t the case.

Just be yourself.

Just be real.

THAT is what makes you amazing, and THAT is what people will respond to. When you meet people be your authentic self and they’ll respond authentically.

Personally, I can tell you that I’m not for everybody. I do have a big personality and it’s a turn-off sometimes. That’s ok. When I feel someone responding in a negative manner towards my personality I realize that we’re probably not going to do business together or I’m needing to provide more value in this relationship to make it “worth it” for the other person.

I also realize it’s probably time to shut up, but I digress…

Don’t worry if everyone doesn’t like you or love you. You can’t be all things to all people. You’re going to get this. Don’t take it personally.

The ones who DO respond to your authentic-self are going to create deep relationships with you because they know who you really are.

That kind of relationship is one of the best gifts you’ll ever receive.

Have confidence in yourself in that regard. Just go meet people and get to know them. Ask them about themselves. The more you get them talking (and people LOVE to talk about themselves) the more you’ll learn.

FYI, I can’t tell you how many times I met someone, got them talking, and through listening realized that this is NOT someone I want to do business with. All without opening my mouth after saying hello.

The truth is unless you’re a hermit with zero friends, you’re a great networker. You’re just thinking about it the wrong way. You know how to make friends and influence people, but when you put in the context of being intentional about it, it seems daunting. It’s also scary with strangers.

I get it.

But Networking is a mission critical part of your career, my friend. It’s a muscle you MUST develop.

So, what are you waiting for?

Stay

In

Tune.

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Getting a record deal can be a blessing or a curse

This statement has been true since the first record label was created. I would hope that by this time, most of you would be aware that during the glory days of the record business, 90% of the signed artists lost money.

90% of them failed to make a living doing what they loved to do.

Which means the 10% of the artists made SO MUCH money they covered all the losses from the other 90%.

How was that possible?

How did any business not only survive, but thrive when 90% of the products they paid to develop, manufacture, and distribute were money-losers?

Can you imagine if 9 out of 10 McDonald’s hamburgers were returned?

Can you imagine 9 out of 10 brand new iPhones were broken?

How does a business making these incredibly uneven statistics work and become profitable?

Why was this horrific ratio the reality back then?

The answer to all these questions is radio and distribution.

Radio was such a powerful promotional tool that it literally influenced enough consumer minds to purchase 600 million units from the Beatles, 300 million records from Madonna, 230 million from Rhianna, 100 million from Jay-Z, etc.

Of course, that was when people were listening to the radio.

But even in the best days, radio was restrictive.

There are roughly 12 spins per hour resulting in 2016 spins per week.

A song in heavy rotation accounts for around 70 spins per week (10 spins per day or roughly 1 spin every 2 hours). Medium rotation was 40 (ish), and light rotation about 15-25 per week.

This leaves about 3-4 spins per week to “test out” a new song the stations would consider adding to a rotation.

Now let’s say that the label loves the song and puts the promo money behind it. Let’s also say that radio loves it and a station wants to add it to their rotation.

There is something in the law of physics that MUST happen before any new song can be added to a rotation.

Somebody else’s song must be dropped from rotation to make room for the new one.

See how that works?

That’s what I mean by restrictive; it’s mathematically limiting.

Radio was powerful but there wasn’t enough time in the day to spin all the songs from all the artists on all the labels, thus, only 10% were able to grow their audience and thrive.

Today, the stations are failing. They’re losing money and the future of radio is seriously in jeopardy.

But we don’t need radio.

We don’t need radio and for all intents and purposes, radio isn’t going to be around to help you so drop that part of your dream right now.

It just isn’t a reality. Especially when you consider the fact that 2 of the 3 big corporations that own all the major market stations are either out of the radio business or about to be.

We don’t need to ask anyone’s permission to make our art, connect with and create future fans, or distribute our music.

We can do all that from a laptop on our couch.

Wow. How crazy is that?

Yet, so many of you have a dream of getting a record deal.

Why? Why do you have that dream now?

When everything was working, your dream had a 90% failure rate.

Do you have any idea how many KILLER artists I know that paid good money to get out of their deal?

Most artists aspire to be signed because it symbolizes a formerly necessary step to making a living in music. A record deal implied success even though the opposite was true for 90% on the label’s roster. Also, most artists don’t know how to do it without a record label so they feel the label is the only answer.

For the record, I’m not saying a record deal is a bad idea. I’m saying for most artists it is. It’s only a good idea for the savvy artists who know how to position themselves in today’s music business.

There was certainly less expected of an artist back then because the label did just about everything. This also meant the artist had little control over their careers.

The label and radio decided to make you or break you.

Today, there is more expected of you, but you can “stack the deck” in your favor.  You can come into a contractual negotiation with power as opposed to nibbling on whatever crumbs they decide to throw you.

Yuck.

If you follow my articles you’ve read the story about indie country artist Granger Smith. He created a 1.8 million-dollar empire from his laptop. All the labels wanted to sign him but the artist and his team said “NO” for years until they said yes to Broken Bow Records.

They were given their own imprint called Wheelhouse Records (That means their own label under the Broken Bow umbrella with far better splits than a normal deal and the ability to profit off other artists on the imprint). I’m quite sure that Granger negotiated some stipulations that would ensure he had all the money and infrastructure necessary to accomplish his next goal; a #1 single.

He had the power to do that because they wanted his business so badly. He made himself sexy to the labels and it was about his business, not the art.

Don’t let that upset you. It was about the business for them. It was about the art for him.

But too many of you fail to understand it’s always been about the business for them. Not your potential, your business.

My question to you is this: What happened to all the artists with a ton of talent but no audience, that were on Broken Bow, the second that Granger Smith signed his deal?

Did you ever think about that?

When Smith was signed his record deal, he ensured that he got all the capital resources, the human resources, etc. The artists that weren’t making money for Broken Bow at that time, waited. They were put on a shelf for the time being. Or worse, forever.

Is that what you want?

Is that a risk you’re willing to take just so you can brag to your friends about having a record deal?

Having a record deal today is incredibly different than 20 years ago when your heroes got signed.

Needing a record deal to reach your audience has also completely changed in today’s music business.

I promise there are going to be a truckload of artists in the very near future who are just as savvy as Granger Smith. Which is going to make it increasingly difficult for the talented artists with no audience on any given label.

Which artist do you want to be?

Do you want to be the artist like Granger who comes in with all the power to craft your deal into a blessing?

Or do you want to be the artist with these amazing musical gifts whose record deal quickly became a curse?

The difference between the two is the size of your audience.

The size of your audience will determine your future and how the big-wigs are going to play with you.

The super cool part is that you get to choose which artist you want to be. You have control.

By not marketing, not learning to market, or by not entertaining different ways of approaching marketing, you’re choosing the former. You’re choosing to roll the dice and hope all the planets align in your favor.

Choosing to suffer through learning the crap you don’t want to learn about marketing right now means you’ll be more educated tomorrow. It means you won’t be naïve. It means you’ll be driving. It means you’ll be sexy for the right reasons. Oh, and it also means nobody gets to tell you how to make your art.  So, there’s that.

I want you to win.

Choose wisely grasshopper.

Stay

In

Tune.