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Peter Spellman is director of career development
at Berklee College of Music, Boston, and
president of Music Business Solutions (http://www.mbsolutions.com),
a training ground for music entrepreneurs. He
is author of "The Self-Promoting Musician," "The
Musician's Internet" and his latest, "Indie
Power: A Business-Building Guide for Record
Labels, Music Production Houses and Merchant
Musicians," all available from his web site.(originally appeared in the Oct. '98 issue of
MUSICIAN magazine; reprinted with permission)
Scenario 1: A talented band wants a record deal
but their gig schedule is erratic and members'
day jobs keep sucking their energies so there's
not much left for anything else.
Scenario 2: A terrific songwriter keeps churning
out tunes weekly but they just sit in her
notebook while she dreams of someday recording
them. Scenario 3: A singer and producer team up
and record two cuts for release but then realize
all the cash has gone to recording and
manufacturing with none left for promotion and
marketing. Scenario 4: A music school graduate
with great promise sits in his insurance job
cubicle and wonders, " What went wrong?"
Sound familiar?
After fifteen years of working in artist
development I've become painfully aware of a
tremendous amount of musically-gifted talent
being squandered. Some musicians progress in
fits and starts--one step forward, two back; two
steps forward, one back...and so on. Others are
just spinning their wheels, stalled. Still
others are going in circles. A few, perhaps the
most tragic, are spinning their wheels and
going in circles.
What accounts for all this misguided effort? It
could be many things: a lack of talent, drug
abuse, laziness, etc. But, more often than not,
musicians tend to get nowhere because of the
absence of a map. A map is a plan that points to
your destination and lays out the best routes to
get there. Maps give us the "bird's eye view",
the lay of the land so to speak, so that our
journey toward our destination is discernable
and deliberate, rather than haphazard and blind.
Singer-songwriter Kelly Pardekooper of Iowa city
put it this way: "The bottom line for me is that
until I had a plan written down in black and
white, I was just swimming in the dark, I had no
anchor for my boat, no Felix for my Oscar."
Those planning to be doctors and investment
bankers have a fairly clear path to their
respective destinations: four years of college,
followed by several more years of specialized
study, and then onto a"job". The requirements
are clear; the maps come pre-packaged.
Musicians, on the other hand, don't usually have
the luxury of a clearly-defined "job" waiting at
the end of their preparation. The musician's map
will have hundreds of potential paths, and will
be as unique as the life and talent it's
guiding.
A music career plan (map) is never written in
stone. It should not be viewed as a
"constitution-like document" says Michael
Futreal of progressive folk-rock band The
Offramps. "That's useful for some but as an
independent musician whose main hope is to
remain flexible while making enough money to
simply sustain my music production activities,
anything so set-in-stone is sure to fail."
Futreal sees his plan as a provisional guideline
serving as "an external memory for me in my
scattered attempt to balance a day job, a family
and music."
If you're seeking to raise money from banks or
sponsors, you'll most certainly need a written
plan. "A lot of people are surprised to meet a
musician who even HAS a plan at all, let alone a
written, thought-out, researched document," says
Alex Houton, president of New Jersey-based indie
Lurch Records. "Just having a written one scores
points when you're seeking financing." These
more formal business plans follow a general
outline that's not too hard to follow. See the
Resource Box at the end this article for
resources to help you draft your own plan.
A plan shows would-be investors that you're
dreaming with your feet on the ground. "Writing
a business plan forces the would-be entrepreneur
to fully address things like costs, risks,
competition, market size, etc.", notes Tina
Prountzos, an investment banker by day and
manager of the New York band Dark Moon at night.
"Nobody wants to lend or invest money with an
individual or group who hasn't clearly shown
exactly how money will be used and what risks
and benefits associated with their venture are."
So music career plans come in all shapes and
sizes. They can be everything from goals
scribbled on a napkin to forty-page business
plans, but they'll only be effective if there
are three ingredients present: long and
short-range goals, the right information, and a
written form.
MAPPING OUT
YOUR MUSIC DESTINATIONS
"Success"
is often defined as the progressive realization
of a worthwhile goal. I like that. If you are
doing the things that are moving you toward the
attainment of your goal today, then you are
"successful" even if you are not there yet. It's
the goal that starts the whole journey.
An illuminating study on goal setting sponsored
by the Ford Foundation found that,
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23% of the population has no idea what they
want from life and as a result they don't
have much.
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67% of the population has a general idea of
what they want but they don't have any plans
for how to get it.
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Only 10% of the population has specific,
well-defined goals, but even then, 7 out of
the 10 of those people reach their goals
only half the time.
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The top 3%, however, achieved their goals
89% of the time -- an .890 batting average!
What accounts for the dramatic difference
between that top 3% and the others? Are you
ready?: the top 3% wrote down their goals. Are
you laughing yet? It can't be that simple! Or
can it? Dreams and wishes are not goals until
they are written as specific end results on
paper. In some very real sense, writing them
down materializes them. Goals have been
described as "dreams with a deadline". Written,
specific goals provide direction and focus to
our activities. They become a road map to
follow. And the mind tends to follow what's in
front of it.
So what is your dream-goal?
Is it to be the most-in-demand session player on
the East coast? To be the next Goo Goo Dolls? To
get your song cast with a multiplatinum-selling
recording artist? To start a company that
creates soundtracks for video games and
commercials? Or is it to simply earn extra
income playing music while holding down a
succesful non-music day job?
Each one of these requires a specific map.
Are you even aware of your options? Music
careers today are being re-written as
traditionally separate industries converge and
spawn new opportunities for those familiar with
audio in its manifold expressions. For example,
did you know that book publishers are
establishing music divisions as they
"re-purpose" their titles onto CD-ROMs and other
multimedia formats? Think about where music is
used today and an explosion of possible
paths will present themselves.
Knowing your options and establishing clear
goals is your first step. In the
entrepreneurship courses I teach, one of the
early assignments is for students to write their
own obituaries. While on the surface morbid, it
forces people to seriously consider what they
want to be remembered for at the close of their
earthly lives. Try it. All of the achievements
and accomplishments revealed in this exercise
are translatable into specific goals from which
you can work backwards to the present.
And speaking of entrepreneurship, unlike the
doctor and investment banker previously
mentioned, musicians are self-contained business
entities with all the responsibilities and
obligations which are part of all business
activity. Since most musical work falls into a
"do-it-yourself" approach, it's important to
understand that the "it" you will be doing, for
the most part, is business. Whether it's booking
a gig, negotiating a contract or organizing a
promotion plan for your CD, the fact is you are
exercising a variety of skills to grow a
business, You Inc.
The trick is
figuring out what you're good at and then
translating those skills into "profit-centers"
or revenue streams. Most musicians I know wear a
number of different "hats". In any one week they
may wear a performer's hat, an educator's hat,
an agent's hat, an arranger's hat, and a
songwriter's hat. Sometimes all hats are worn in
a single day! Each "hat" is a potential "stream"
and activity center that can be strategically
managed to expand your market audience. And each
stream you choose to develop requires it own
smaller plan within your larger Plan.
Of course the challenges of this loom large.
Many reading this article went into music
because you didn't necessarily want to do
business. Perhaps you watched your parents or
relatives chafe under the constraints of
business jobs, or maybe you cling to an
anti-materialism that scorns and fears the
pursuit of the almighty dollar, and that casts
art and commerce as hopeless opposites. We can
add to this the fact that few of us ever
received real-world strategies for developing
successful careers from our schools and homes.
But whatever the poison, it has had the effect
of keeping many musicians ignorant of how to go
about creating success for themselves in the
world. This is often the reason for all that
erratic progress, those fits and starts, in
musicians' lives. Even when the goals are clear,
the best paths to those goals remain a mystery.
In addition, creating your own personal music
career map sometimes means clearing out previous
experiences that may may be holding you back. I
call this clearing process "emotional
bushwhacking." All of us carry around excess
baggage and psychic trash that burdens our
journey. This stuff has the effect of weighing
us down and blurring our sight. Someone once
said we don't see things as they are, we see
things as we are. The world is mediated to us
through a lens created over the years of our
lives, through our family experience, our
schooling, and the choices (both good and bad)
we've made.
You'll need all the resources and energy you can
gather for your career journey. The key is
understanding yourself enough to become aware of
those things which tend to de-rail your efforts
and short-circuit your progress. Perhaps the
most honest indicator of our emotional fitness
is our relationships. You'd do well to look at
these closely. Why? Because the music business
is one of the most relationship-driven
businesses on the planet. Your ongoing success
will be determined, largely, by the quality and
quantity of the relationships you build over
time. Clearing out the emotional weeds that
choke our actions and attitudes is an extremely
important ingredient of the journey to your
goals.
It takes great courage to look these things
square in the eye and many of us will need help
sorting it all out. Fortunately, there are
people who specialize in helping humans become
emotionally fit. Seek a referral from friends or
from your school for a counselor who specializes
in personal development. Many have "sliding
scales" and will adjust charges based on your
ability to pay.
PACKING FOR
THE JOURNEY
Once you've cleared a path, it's then time to
map out your journey. One-time ambassador
Benjamin Disraeli said, "As a general rule, the
most successful people in life are those who
have the best information." When a person sits
down to create a map, myriad amounts of data are
necessary. Every road, river, city, hill, canal
and contour must be accounted for so the map
truly serves those who will use it for
navigation and travel. Besides providing a
"bird's-eye view", a map indicates your
destination (goal), shows the most direct path
to it, and points out attractions (as well as
distractions) along the way. In essence, a map
shows you how to optimize your journey, with as
little time, money and energy loss as possible.
Today, career- and business-planning information
is hyperabundant and readily available, if you
know where to look. The "small office, home
office" (SOHO) trend has hatched an entire
industry focused on entrepreneurs and what they
need. Books, magazines, software, websites cable
tv and radio shows designed for micro-businesses
are popping up everywhere. See the Resource Box
for a choice selection of these resources.
Another great informational resource to help
with your planning is the Small Business
Administration (SBA), a government-funded
service whose main function is to help small
businesses start and grow. The SBA has many
programs nationwide, one of which is the Small
Business Development Center (SBDC). These
centers work out of colleges and universities,
and offer free small business counseling and
training, usually through another program called
SCORE (The Service Corps of Retired Executives).
Though not experts on the music business, per
se, they will provide everything you need to
know about being a business in your particular
state, including licensure, permits, taxes,
insurance, and zoning regulations. Some will
even provide training in computer programs and
bookkeeping, as well as some much-needed
hand-holding through the process of writing a
formal business plan. For those serious about
growing their business, this'll be the best
return on your taxes you'll ever get. And you
can now even get counseling via email. Contact
info for SBDCs and SCORE can be found in the
resource Resource Box.
Planning advice may also come from unusual
places. Boston band Two Ton Shoe realized early
on that they'd move their project along faster
with an organized plan. To help the process,
they posted announcements at the Harvard
Business School saying they were looking for
management consulting for launching their own
record label. This resulted in them teaming up
with a trio of HBS students who succeeded in
getting class credit for developing an
independent study project with the band as the
focus. The students spent their spring semester
working with the act to develop a comprehensive
business plan, including a section on industry
trends and local factors. "Needless to say, this
was a big bonus for us, and free!", says Two Ton
Shoe guitarist Jake Shapiro. He continues, "Two
years down the road we've maintained
relationships with the HBS grads and it's quite
possible that we will form a management team
with one or more of them as our label and band
grow."
As your plan comes into focus you'll start to
get a better idea of the real costs associated
with your goals. "A written plan forces you to
analyze the cost of production, promotion, and
performance," offers Kelly Pardekooper. "Once
you use this method for a while you can start to
see where your money is really working and where
you're throwing it away." Pardekooper has also
found the Internet to be a great resource for
bouncing ideas off other musicians with similar
goals.
As an information resource the Internet is
unsurpassed but it does have a down side. "You
can literally drown in information and
possibilities if you use the Internet as a
resource," says Michael Futreal. "You're always
haunted by the notion that maybe you just
haven't found that one special resource that
would open doors. As such, it's easy to waste
loads of time just attempting to find one more
thing rather than following through on leads you
already have in hand. The trick is, as always,
to balance focus and vision--to see the forest
as a bunch of trees, so to speak."
Keeping a written record of all your ideas and
findings is key. Don't rely solely on your
memory because important items are bound to slip
away. Futreal uses an integrated software
program called The Brain (www.thebrain.com)
which acts as an Internet browser, a bookmark
file, a printer, a folder, and scrap paper.
"I'll write on anything that has spare
space...keeping extensive notes leads to the
distillation of a more concrete plan along the
lines of recurring themes. Eventually, the cream
rises to the top, so to speak, and the ides and
plans that survive make it into an associative
database structure on my computer (a'Brain')."
Though a business plan will often be a fixed
document, Futreal feels it's worthwhile toying
with the idea of a business plan as a
"hyper-document", a continually evolving
blueprint you mold as you grow. "The added
flexibility may add the extra bit of speed and
adaptability your music business needs to
survive in a complex world."
WORKING
YOUR PLAN
Here are some actionable tips to help with the
map-planning process:
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Get a year-at-a-glance wall calendar and
schedule your goals. This will help you
visualize them as you see them every day.
Remember, the mind tends to follow what's in
front of it.
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Schedule uninterrupted time each day to do
your planning. Force yourself to plan!
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Look at your long-range goals. Try to
reflect these goals in some activity
everyday.
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Plan for tomorrow, tonight. Your
subconscious will help you organize while
you sleep.
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Sit quietly and mentally rehearse the steps
in your plan. Use your imagination to
visualize the steps being taken. You will
sense where additional steps need to be
added and will anticipate problems to
prevent. Learn to trust your intuition and
hunches.
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Anticipate possible problems you could
encounter in your project because of people,
gear, or technical failures. Planning by
re-action squanders energy; planning by
pro-action maximizes it.
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At the start of each day anticipate the
sequence of activities that you will do to
attain the objectives you are after. Then
think about your entire week. How will
important projects be sequenced?
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Do your planning on paper to capture all of
your ideas and ensure none of them gets
lost. We can only work mentally with about
seven pieces of information without losing
something. Write your thoughts down and you
will be able to use everything you think of
during your planning process. Carrying an
"idea" notebook can help.
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If you cannot identify the objectives and
steps to take to a goal, it is probably
"unrealistic" for you right now.
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Career and business planning is not easy so
don't beat yourself up when there're
setbacks because there will be.
And be sure to reward yourself every time
you achieve a step in the plan. Nothing like
a little positive reinforcement to keep the
wheels greased.
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Finally remember, the map is not the
territory. A plan is only a provisional
construct to help guide your steps. When you
get close to the land there will inevitably
be surprises and strange turns along the
way. This is when flexibility and resilience
are called for. Plans are made to be
revised. Learn to dance with the unexpected.
Now more than ever musicians must have a plan to
achieve the success they crave. The new economy
is ripe for micro businesses to spawn and grow.
Set your goals, write them out, obtain the help
and information you need, and then give your
career or business idea the attention it
deserves. Attention means focus. "Staying
focused on what you want in the music business
is not easy, but, it is a way to grow, not only
professionally, but personally," says Trish
Thompson of the Atlanta band, Glass Candle
Grenade. "When you see your plan in action and
the progress you make, it is quite
satisfying...and then it's time to kick back and
have a beer." Ahh, now that's satisfying.
PLAN YOUR
WORK, WORK YOUR PLAN/RESOURCE BOX
Books
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The Courage to Create
by Rollo May
(W.W. Norton & Co., 1994). A classic work
that helps point out the inner and outer
forces that hinder our creativity, and how
to break through to greater creative
expression.
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Staying Sane in the Arts
by Eric Maisel
(Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1992). Explores the
"puzzle" of the artistic personality, what
artists can do to remain balanced, how
artists can better understand the world of
business and develop personal strategies to
succeed, and why artists must complement
their need for isolation with a healthy dose
of community building. He includes a number
of illuminating exercises to help artists
work through these issues as well as a great
list of resources for further exploration.
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The Secrets of Self-Employment
by Paul & Sarah Edwards (Jeremy P. Tarcher,
1996).
The thing I like so much about this book is
its sheer practicality . From self-discovery
exercises to everyday office management,
they consistently deliver well-thought-out
knowledge you can instantly put to use.
Another great feature of this book is its
exploration of the "psychology" of
self-employment, the numerous "mental
mind-shifts" required for making it on your
own.
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Networking in the Music Business by Dan
Kimpel
(Writer's Digest Books, 1993).
As the author says in his introduction, it's
a matter of "what you know, who you know and
who knows you." Once you've got the "what
you know" nailed down, this book will help
you improve your odds with "who you know"
and "who knows you." The chapter on
assessing your goals and skills is alone
worth the price of the book. Empowerment at
its finest!
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Career Opportunities in the Music Industry
by Sally Field,
3rd ed. (Fact on File, 1995).
A "music career" doesn't necessarily mean
you have to be an artist in the the standard
rehearse-record-perform sense of the word.
There are dozens of other avenues music
lovers can pursue in the worlds of music
which offer equally creative challenges.
Shelly Field offers indispensable and
realistic information on more than 80
music-related jobs ranging from A&R
Coordinator to Staff Publicist. In between
you'll find career descriptions for Booking
Agent, Music Publisher, Field Merchandiser,
Orchestra Manager, Instrument Sales
Representative, Session Musician and plenty
more.
Websites
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Berklee College of Music - Careers in Music
A 'directory' of music career options I put
together divided into careers related to
music performance, composition, production,
engineering, technology, education, therapy,
and business.
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Los Angeles Music Network
Subscription-based service that centralizes
job openings in the music business
nationwide.
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Small BizNet An information toolbox with
the answers you need for starting, running,
and growing your small business; a service
of the Edward Lowe Foundation. It'll keep
you busy for months!
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For guidelines on writing a formal
business plan to attract investors, see
"Writing a Music Business Plan that Works"
by Peter Spellman. See also the
business plan template available at "The
Moneyhunter" home page.
Support
Organizations
by Peter Spellman
Director of Career Development at
Berklee College of Music, Boston, and author
of The Self-Promoting Musician:
Do-it-Yourself Strategies for Independent Music
Success (Berklee Press). You can find
him at
Music Business Solutions.
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