Good Business

Business. Keep Right

 

Good business.

 

We all aspire to do good business.

Business Everyone has good ideas

We all dream of exactly how we are going to treat our employees, business relationships, and charities once we’re on top and the cash starts rolling in.

The trick is getting the cash to start rolling in.Business Cash Flow King

Getting the cash flow requires business savvy.

 

The entertainment industry is no different than selling any other widget. It’s all about creating relationships, creating good product, and selling that product.

Don’t be naïve, just because that product means something to you, moves you emotionally, or is your reason for living doesn’t discount the fact that it is a product, although certainly means it’s an important product.

To you anyway.

Business Savvy

 

The rest of the world won’t know unless they experience it.

If you’re making art for the sake of art, God bless, you need not read any further.

 

 

 

If you’re aspire to make a living at making art, then you not only need to be an artist, but you also need to be a good businessperson.

This important product, for some of you it’s your life’s work, needs targeted exposure to infiltrate the marketplace.

Business Communicate Stick Figure

You got to turn people on to something cool, man.

 

You got to serve it up so consumers are willing to receive your information

You’ve got to communicate with them.

 

The old wives tale that states “great music will find its audience” (or some such nonsense) is perpetuated by legacy artists who had their record deals in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s and chose not to think about marketing or any other business aspect of their careers.

You have to understand that while they are definitely doing you a disservice by making such a statement, these misguided artists aren’t intentionally lying to you.

You always have to consider the source.

Business Always Consider the sourceThey made music and it found an audience. While this was their experience, I can tell you that the “Great music” statement completely negates the amazing marketing efforts of their label.

Yeah, their great music “found” an audience alright, that’s because some marketing team went out, targeted the audience, and put something wonderful in front of them to consume.

 

Consume they did.

 

How the hell can anyone respond to something they haven’t experienced yet? Sheesh!

 

Listen, there are TONS of people who live and die for music out there; maybe even your music.

 

FACT: 99.99999% of these people will not take the time to discover the music on their own. They need to be shown something good and then they’re a Superfan for life.

 

Here’s the good business dichotomy I see every day with most artists.

Business Dichotomy Break

 

Y’all are MORE than willing to spend your money, your life savings sometimes (or someone else’s), on a killer recording project, be it a single, EP, or full CD.

This is good business.

You’re (hopefully) dead set on creating an amazing piece of work, AKA product.

 

Business Good business is good business

 

 

 

 

 

Most of y’all’s plan to market this product is to “put it out there” on iTunes, CD Baby, Spotify, etc. and see if anyone likes it.

Business Bad Business Practice Band Aid

This is bad business.

 

This is the reason your music doesn’t sell at all.

 

 

This is the reason you’re broke either financially, spiritually (working your crappy job), or both.

IMG_0261

 

So you’re willing to take the financial leap artistically speaking with regards to making the product.

Why is marketing the product never worked into the budget?

 

 

 

Why is there some disconnect on the value of marketing?Business You're Broke Pocket

That’s like writing songs with beautiful lyrics and melodies only to record them with no singer.

What’s the point exactly?

Business What's the Point GoatWhy is marketing, at best, an afterthought amongst indie artists?

 

This is a mission critical oversight.

Some of you want so bad to be on a label that will do this for you but you ignore doing it for yourself.

 

 

 

This is adolescent thinking because you need to learn to market yourself to get the record deal.

Then you’ll need to know how to market yourself to keep it.

DSCF4881 (1)

 

You have to wake up, your careers are burning.

 

The contradiction lies in the fact that you gladly paid good money to get your project recorded or you did it yourself (which requires thousands of hours of experience for there to be excellence).

You got the sound you wanted for your release.

Now, for some reason you choose not to put the same financial attitude/approach or work ethic into the marketing of your epic release.

I’ve said it a thousand times, once you get that record deal you are so desperately seeking, the label will allocate a staggeringly low percentage of the overall budget to recording.

The lion’s share will go to marketing for the sole purposes of doing good business.

 

 

DSC03800-BLabels understand what you don’t.

You are going to have to pay for customers initially.

 

 

You are going to be a startup business in the beginning.

 

It’s going to cost money to expose this masterpiece of yours to the marketplace.

If your music is as good as you think it is, those customers will become fans.Business Mission Critical

Fans = repeat customers.

 

Repeat customers are far more profitable than preliminary customers.

 

Profitable repeat customers are non-existent without preliminary customers.

 

Get it?

 

If you keep in step with a normal record budget in terms of the financial allocation, at least 75% of the overall funds would go to marketing; the remainder is for the actual recording.

What did your last recording budget look like in comparison to this equation?

Why is marketing so often overlooked when it is the biggest piece of the professional artist pie?

 

 

cmw3_d40_dsc_446_cropped-300 (1)A MISSION CRITICAL piece of the pie you desire so badly.

Think about that statement for a second. If good art was mission critical we’d have no bad songs or horrible artists.

Yep, good marketing is mission critical for an incredible project, it turns crap into commerce too.

 

 

So many of you are spending low or zero attention & money on marketing efforts and consequently getting low or zero dollars in revenue.

Zero marketing = zero revenue.

Makes sense doesn’t it?

 

Here is the way I see it.

You have choices.Business Learn From yourself

  1. You can choose to learn this yourself – in the lifetime you have left after work, family, writing, recording, etc.
    • Yes, this will work just fine (provided you commit to a consistent effort which will require passion for marketing) but you have a huge learning curve.
    • I dare you to work half as hard on learning the marketing as you did learning to play your instrument. Can you imagine?
    • Where exactly will you get the knowledge in this extra life time to learn?
    • How long will it take to tackle that learning curve and begin to see results?
    • How certain are you that this isn’t just an excuse not to start?
  2. You can choose to pay for knowledge – and get a jump start on the strategies while you learn to customize these strategies to your particular situation.
    • This method will cut your time to the coast for sure.
    • It also means you are truly taking action instead of making excuses.
    • Some of you paid for music lessons right? Isn’t this logical as a next step?Business Knowledge Empowers You
    • You still have to put in the sweat equity but at least you are addressing the fact that you need to market your music and you need to learn how to do it well.
  3. You can choose to pay someone to set it up for you
    • Watching someone is the fastest method for learning.
    • Of course, it’s the most expensive of these three options.
    • You will witness the process of developing customized marketing strategies for your particular brand.
    • If you have a brain this would be considered an education because it will get your creative marketing juices FLOWING while it teaches you “how to fish”.

 

I have some thoughts.

 

You probably paid for some kind of musical lessons somewhere along your journey.

Business Music Lessons

You probably paid for studio time somewhere along your journey.

Some of you have paid to play somewhere along your journey.

\

Some of you have paid for a music education or recording education somewhere along your journey.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

 

If you can agree that marketing your product is crucial, then you will need to pay for some marketing education somewhere along your journey.

 

 

 

 

Paying a company you trust to work YOUR project is far more effective than any marketing class you’ll ever take. Kill 2 birds for the price of 1.

That’s just good business.

 

Stay

In

Tune.

Business Steve Jobs

 

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