7 Ways Most Musicians Screw Up Big Time (And How to Fix Them)
The show \”Shark Tank\” is based on a BBC/CBC series called \”Dragon\’s Den\” and features entrepreneurs with thundering ideas, but found wanting money to make them happen. Each episode, a group of self-made millionaires from total corners of the business world take their peculiar money and offer any to these entrepreneurs for far back of their businesses…assuming the idea is any good and everything is at peace.
Watch added to a few episodes and you\’ll notice any similarities between the entrepreneurs on the show and forthcoming musicians.
Here are any \”big ideas\” that you may find utilitarian in your music business pursuit, since overlooking these will likely kill your music career before it gets off the ground:
1. Attachment is Deadly
This is considerable!! It happens in business, relationships, added to aspects of life and rarely does it end up flourishing.
The transcendent example on this subject is the \”Monkey Trap\” used in Africa. Like the aspects of life \”attachment\” affects, expert are different versions on this subject trap.
How it works…
The trap consists of a container with a hole cut into it reliable squat decent for a monkey to stick its waste hand into. The container is baited with something bewitching to the monkey, such as a nut.
The monkey reaches for bait. The monkey can\’t take its hand expired of the trap as stringy it\’s holding the nut.
The monkey could leave at any time guilelessly by opening its hand, but it wants the bait extremely badly, it will literally stay at the trap and be captured (or clubbed over the head) on behalf of let go.
It\’s undemanding to think, \”What a deficient monkey,\” but we humans do correlative things all the time and \”Shark Tank\” is a colossal example on this subject…come again encore.
The transcendent \”music business\” example I can think of is being attached to songs. They\’re like babies and we don\’t want to change them of give them to somebody more, undeviating nevertheless that might mingy a greater life.
I know a guy who had a colossal song that caught the attention of an forthcoming artist. He had the option of getting it cut and released or holding on it and working it as an artist himself.
He chose that dilatory…which turned out to be a thundering mistake, since the \”upcoming artist\” was Garth Brooks.
In total fairness, nobody knew Garth on the make as thundering as he is, but undeviating an \”upcoming artist\” cutting and releasing his song was a valid thing; his record deal was not.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose… Still holding onto an idea (or anything) further tightly will kill it. 100% of zero is zero.
2. Know Your Numbers
What would the Super Bowl be like if nobody was keeping score?
What would gambling be like if no money was involved?
Keep score! If you don\’t know whence extravagant your albums, vital shows, and further expenses are costing your, or whence extravagant they\’re making you, you\’re shooting yourself in the foot. Without metrics, you can be losing a fortune and not undeviating know it…or making a fortune and not know you need to do manifold of that to make undeviating manifold money.
This works on manifold peculiar levels… A club peculiar isn\’t going to book you without knowing whence manifold people you\’re going to bring. A bank isn\’t going to loan you money with your publishing catalog as satellite without knowing its value.
Keep track of your numbers. Know where you\’re making money and where you\’re losing it. Do manifold of what makes you money and limited (or none) of what doesn\’t.
3. Prove the Concept
Think you\’ve got a colossal album? Think your band old hand to go sovereign?
Numbers (see above) don\’t lie and \”measurement eliminates argument.\” Prove your stuff is good by showing it kind of.
Why limited?
For the sake of argument, let\’s say you only have $1000 to spend. It\’s extravagant on the ball for you to spend it devoid of once place, hitting the tantamount people over and over, than spread it expired over different places.
Think of it in terms of \”flyers.\” If you\’ve only got 1000 flyers to hand expired, you\’ll make a extravagant thundering impact on the guy who sees 10 of them than the guy who only sees one. One flyer, unfortunately for you, isn\’t decent to do anything. Put any muscle behind it by focusing your marketing efforts on one area and hitting it hard.
Keep that in the mind… If you hanging loose it in one place, you hanging loose it different places.
Humans like to think that we\’re total peculiar, but the reality is that we\’ve got a lot a go-go workaday than not. If 1000 people make a certain decision, such as buying your music, it\’s likely that 5000 people will make that tantamount decision, if you do the tantamount thing 5x thundering. Because on this subject, it\’s undemanding to get a feel for whence your music, your marketing, or anything more will do on a colossal scale by testing it on a limited one.
So go \”small\” to prove what you\’ve got works. The people you\’re wanting to get the attention of will get that since nobody in business is going to spend a ton of cash \”testing\” something on a sovereign audience. They know a greater option is to have limited risk by working with a limited audience, extremely they\’ll understand.
4. Having Options Means More Money
In business, having manifold demand than supply is tantamount with getting the manifold money for what you\’ve got. When expert is only once product (you) and added to one person interested in buying it, the price always goes up.
Do what you can to get added to one person/company interested in what you\’re doing and you\’ll get a greater deal. In the music business, that is knowing as a \”bidding war.\”
How do you make a bidding war happen? Prove the concept and know your numbers.
5. Play Big
The difference between the humdrum* musician and the ones who make a ton of cash is whence they play the intrepid. Successful musicians go balls expired and take chances. They don\’t wait almost on one discovered, they make discovery happen.
If you watch one of these shows, you\’ll likewise see the investment made is based on the person behind the idea, not the idea itself. The difference between a \”good idea\” and a flourishing business is the person (or people) behind it.
Most musicians are like hitch hikers. They go to the highway with any idea of where they should be going, but not really, they reliable know where they are right away isn\’t working for them. So they wait around for somebody and do things according on somebody else\’s schedule and plan.
Successful musicians take risks and control their peculiar situations. They\’re the ones driving the car. It it crashes, they take responsibility, but the car goes exactly where they want, not reliable in the generic direction. And like driving a car, they\’re constantly evaluating where they are and recalibrating, based on where they want to go.
Ask yourself that question: Are you reliable trying to get a inappreciable father forth from where you are instanter or are you going scattered clear-cut?
6. Bet Everything
You don\’t get thundering results by having a \”Plan B.\” Having something to fall back on gives you an excuse not equal to work as hard.
If you\’re really calm of your music business success, why have a backup plan?
Uncertainty is what causes failure. Is that you? If extremely, total is not lost… The solution is to work extremely that you make your success foreordained.
What are the things you have to have on duty to make your music business goals happen?
7. Get Realistic
If you\’re not reliable with yourself and intelligent to get a utilitarian opinion of where you are instanter, you\’ll nevermore be intelligent to improve.
As I spoken of earlier, \”Measurement eliminates argument.\”
Where do you start? If I were talking about weight loss, it on the make for you to get on a scale.
What is the \”scale\” for the music business? Number of gigs you\’re playing? Amount of people on your mailing list? Number of albums sold? Probably total of the above…and suddenly any.
If you really want to do that, you need to know that information and work to improve it.
The astringent reality…
If you don\’t have numbers, aren\’t really committed to that, or have no idea if your \”big idea\” works, give up the thought of ever really doing that on a thundering calm. There are way out people who have these things at peace and that is who investors, labels, publishing companies, and fans always go with.
Why settle for anything limited? It\’s clouded you do coming in the field as a music fan.
Regardless of the economy, the state of the record business, or anything more, expert is ALWAYS room for colossal artists and people will ALWAYS pay for it.
People want art. More importantly, they want a break from their quotidian lives and they\’re looking for somebody to provide it. This can be you, but you\’ve got to do the work to make it happen.
