Have you ever been to a gig where the audience are all taking in the energy from the stage and adding to it in a way that enhances the profile of the musician through good reception?

I believe that could happen in two ways regardless of whether you have good or bad music. It’s either down to fluke or the musician is really working on the audience and stage dynamic pretty well.

Most of the time, your audience likes to be involved, instead of just being receptive. They want to take part with you rather than just sit back and listen. They want to be a part of your community rather than just watching the community from the outside.

Can you train your audience? Does your music have the ‘hook’ that the A&R reps talk about in order to pull in crowds and sales? Does your music involve any audience participation in the form of song, dance or movement? If not, can it accommodate that in some way?

Public speaking courses and schools teach audience and stage dynamics as a way of using the platform to gain maximum rapport. It allows you to work different areas of the audience and give them your maximum attention usually all at the same time.

Funny that - you’re looking for attention from your audience just as they’re looking for your attention when on stage. If that connection is lost between you and the audience, they get distracted and don’t follow through. It’s about trust.

If you think about it, it’s really the same thing that happens with e-mail communication through your newsletters or via your blog. If the connection is lost, and you’re not able to regain it, you’ve lost attention. And as I’ve mentioned many times before, Attention is one of our new currencies for success.

Some people don’t believe all the stuff on stage and audience dynamic. Does it really work and is it worth picking up a book and reading about? Let’s discuss.

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A few weeks ago, I did a quick interview with Lior Shamir, director of We Are Listening (WAL). WAL is a London-based artist development company primarily giving opportunity through songwriting contests and their extensive and experienced list of content judges. Enjoy the interview. 

Kavit: Lior, thanks for doing this short Q&A. Could you share a little about your background and how you came to start up We Are Listening? What inspired you to start WAL?

Lior: I’m a Berklee College of Music graduate with a background in songwriting and post-production. After graduating, I knew I wanted to position myself on the business end of music (as opposed to the creative) because I felt that there were many others more talented than me as musicians, writers, producers etc. and, quite honestly, I felt that I was rather business savvy for a music guy. We Are Listening blossomed out of a kitchen table project along with a number of other new-media related initiatives.

Kavit: As far as I understand, We Are Listening primarily promotes songwriting contests. Can you share why you feel contests are useful and what you feel makes one successful as a songwriter contest winner?

Lior: Mainly because of the high return of a reward from a contest verses the risk of participation (or fee) and the relatively promising odds of winning. But, also, because the very nature of contests puts the participants in front of ‘people in the know’, win or lose, so there is always the value of exposure - which is a valuable commodity in the music space.

Kavit: Can you share a success story or two from your previous contests and what they have gone on to do so we have some idea of what’s possible with these contests?

Lior: We’ve taken unheard of artists and put them on 200 US radio stations. We’ve secured sync licenses for indies with networks such as MTV. We’ve made it possible for fledgling artists to work with big name producers, songwriters and executives. This is what we do and how we justify the entry fees.

Kavit: What do you believe to be the three most important success attributes or traits for music businesses?

Lior: 1. Know your shit. 2. Get online. 3. Make sure it sounds - and looks - fabulous!

Kavit: Where do you see the independent music industry heading and what can musicians do right now to jump on the bandwagon and get ahead in their career before the year is out?

Lior: I think LiveNation, TicketMaster, Radiohead and NIN have the right idea - but is that indie? As an artist/manager, if you’re not already very familiar with the various online tools and services available to you for self promotion (many of which are free), you will lose. Also, most artists think they’re great and, as we all know, most artists suck so try to be objective and focus on your strengths.

Kavit: So Lior, before we end, what can we all look forward to seeing happening in the world of WAL and Lior Shamir in 2008 and onwards?

Lior: Oooh… many wonderful things! We Are Listening is currently undergoing a facelift and we’re working with a number of up-and-coming brands that will make your head spin in terms of ‘getting ahead’.

Some interesting points in the above interview. I have never been a fan of promoting songwriting contests although if there’s a good enough reward at the end of it, I believe it’s worth the effort. It will help you move to the next level quite rapidly but it’s important you sustain yourself at the end by continuing your own promotion. Many of these types of contests offer promotion packages, but they don’t last a lifetime and you’ll need to pick up again and continue your own promotion unless you can afford to pay someone.

Here are some places you’ll find contests:

1. Jodi Krangle of The Muse’s Muse lists Songwriting Contests.
2. The UK Songwriting Contest
3. World of Music and Lyric Writer Awards from We Are Listening

What are your thoughts on this avenue (songwriting contests) into the music business? Have you had any experience and could you share your stories or tips for others…?

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Don’t be surprised. Your fans talk to each other. Conversations between your fan base happen whether you like it or not. Can you control what kind of conversation develops? Maybe.

Imagine you played a gig. You had a healthy audience of 100 people who at least had five close friends each. That means, potentially, 500 more people could know of you. And of course, their friends would get told too. Based on how your music sits with your fifty audience members, those 500 people will shape their view of you. If the gig went really bad, word spreads. If the gig went really well, the word spreads.

Regardless, the word is going to spread.

And because of that, I believe you can direct the conversation. Everything starts with you, the artist and music business leader.

Good music, good marketing and good communities encourage better conversation amongst your fans. Music in web 2.0 world is all about building interactive communities where you engage with your fans. When you grow a community around you and your music, you keep people’s attention. You stimulate conversation. You engage fans by asking questions. You share your thoughts honestly and allow them to share theirs too. 

Building communities is no longer a one-way thing. It’s two way with a focus on relationship building. How can you do that? Here are some ideas:-

Start microblogging with Twitter. Grow your Facebook fan page. Write a proper blog. Start a local meetup around your type of music and meet people. Do what your fans do and hang out with them.

There are so many ideas in the web 2.0 world for building communities - but don’t do them all. The idea is to pick one or two and start really using them. Do too much and you will dilute your fan base.

For example, I currently prefer to just use Twitter and LinkedIn in addition to this blog. The Facebook page is something that grows on its own and I haven’t really focused on it. Not because it’s not good enough, but there’s just too many ways.

Your fans talk to each other. What do you do to instigate positive buzz? 

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I hear this (or something along the lines of this) quite a lot: “I launched my CD about two months ago and sales have only trickled in, it’s been nothing spectacular. What went wrong, and what can I do to promote it and get more sales?” I respond with this: “What did you do in the six months running up to your CD launch?”

The answers vary, but usually along these lines… “I set up my Myspace page and just put up a few clips”… “I haven’t really done much, we’ve been busy recording”… “I did a few gigs but haven’t really performed any of this new material”… 

I rarely hear of independent musicians who devote hours upon hours to promote and market their new music months ahead of launch and frankly, you’re losing out and leaving a lot of money on the table if you’re not. 

In order to build up a successful launch during launch day and the following week, you’ve got to build up enough buzz to get people talking about it, getting juiced and marking their calendars for your launch ready to download or buy your CD. The ultimate record launch (or re-launch) is one that generates buzz, puts you in the papers, gets your music heard on radios and takes you up the charts. This kind of ultimate record launch can only happen when you plan and then act on that plan.

Nearly every musician is so juiced about releasing a music record that for the majority of the time, they forget about how important the release is and don’t plan it. I agree that I’d love it to be this way and hope that someone else can take care of it, but as independent musicians it’s important to remind ourselves that we’re music business owners and have to also take care of the planning as well.

The question is what should you do to build your buzz. Here are four quick ideas.

1. Start a blog. A blog is a great tool to use in cultivating relationships with your fans - starting new ones on the web and continuing relationships from your gigs. See this post for more: Do I need to blog as a musician?

2. Build your mailing list. Musicians Mastermind members, my audiences and readers know what a mailing list means to me: it’s probably the best way to tell how many fans you have and how many potential sales you’ll make with your launch. For example, if you have 1,000 subscribers, you have the potential to sell 1,000 downloads. I understand that other mediums such as the radio, TV, newspapers, websites and magazines can get you to hundreds of thousands of people - but the real fans are those who’ve subscribed. 

So make the mailing list a core feature of your promotional activities. Capture their details. Ideally their name, email and if possible, their contact number. The reason you’re doing this is so that when it comes to launch time and pre-launch offers, you already have a base of people you can offer this too!

3. Play regular gigs. Book a period of lots of gigs. Grow some momentum and grow your crowds. If you also play covers, use the gigs to also throw in some originals with some promotion of upcoming gigs, free downloads and launch information. That way you can also see what people think of your new stuff too. Get a friend to come along with a camera and video your entire show. Don’t worry too much about the quality, just get it all on video.

4. Upload all your recorded gig videos to YouTube and share them. Upload songs individually. Share them at your blog, share them with people who sign up. Offer them new videos on a regular basis to keep them coming back and checking out your music. The more they hear it, the more they’ll want to hear it and then download/buy it.

These are just four ways. There are lots more, of course. What have you done in the run up to any of your launches - what worked and what didn’t work? I’m interested in hearing how this has worked for you. 

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Blogging is great - but sometimes you run out of stuff to say or you may not want to post every single day. I made the choice recently to post at least once every five or six days and I aim to make them informative and useful. That way you don’t get bombarded reading lots of stuff and lose focus on running your own music businesses.

Instead, I microblog. And so do hundreds of other musicians too. Microblogging is a great way to share with others what you’re up to in any moment. It’s a great way to note down something you’ve found quite interesting wherever you are. 

I use Twitter to microblog. Twitter is a microblogging tool that allows you to post “tweets” or updates that are a maximum of 140 characters in length. You can follow others on twitter. And others can follow you too. People can respond to your tweets and you can start a dialogue. You can update your twitter from your computer, from your mobile phone via SMS or via Instant Messaging.

If you’re not yet using a blog (and even if you are), Twitter is one of my top 3 social media methods to grow your network along with Facebook and LinkedIn. If you’re not yet using it, go ahead and sign up. Follow me on Twitter too. You can also link up your Twitters on Facebook so you’re managing just one network. It’s that great even Barack Obama’s twittering.

Right now, as you’re reading this, I’m spending the week in Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. It’s famous for the Red Sea, and I’m diving and snorkeling every day, reading by the pool, spending the time with my lovely partner and I’m also juiced in wonderful music conversations. I’m sharing my learnings with you at Twitter. It’s so cool. You don’t miss a thing.

As for you as a musician, Twitter is a great way to keep your fans updated on what you’re doing, where you’re at and what you are thinking. It’s a great way to share your ideas, your upcoming gigs, your latest news and spark conversation.

Share your song of the day. Share links to your videos, free clips and just have good discussion. Remember, being normal isn’t fun. Being abnormal, being insane, being creative and being different opens the door to more conversations and more attraction.

Join Twitter and start microblogging. It’ll help your music grow a following.

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I’ve presented this workshop many times before in and around London. It’s back again for a new and fresh audience. The title of the event says it all really.

It’s only three hours long, one of my shorter events, so it’s going to be fast-paced, intimate and interactive. Participants have left with pages and pages filled with notes - it’ll probably be the same as well for you. No two events are the same so if you’ve been to this one before, you may want to come again.

Amongst other things, we’ll cover some of the following topics:

• - Having a definition of success
• - How to become a social musician (and why)
• - Two crucial steps for successful music promotion
• - Principles of musopreneurship (music business entrepreneurship) 
• - How to start locally and then build nationally
• - My thoughts on the death of the music industry

Here’s what John Gerighty said. He attended in January this year.

“I found Kavit’s workshop to be most inspiring. He had lots of practical ideas, but also I found that having been there, my motivation had increased immensely. Within six weeks I had more than doubled my previous year’s gigs total for the year. Fantastic!”

Details of the event:

• Date: Saturday 14th June 2008
• Time: 2.00 PM - 5.00 PM
• Location: central London (I’ll tell you where when you sign up)

Find out more and sign up here.

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I’m running Kavit’s Hot Seat event the following day on Sunday 15th June from 9.30 AM to 5.00 PM. It’s for eight people maximum. I don’t give a seminar. Each person gets at least 30 minutes on the hot seat with me in front of the room and we tackle your most pressing challenge. It’s really fun, you’ll get a lot out of it. Only six places left. Sign up here. 

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If you’re not in London, I understand you may not be able to make it. I have two sets of ‘Magnetic Marketing for Musicians’ left. It’s a 4-DVD set with 100+ manual and you’ll find it useful to help you promote your music on the internet and get more sales for your CDs. Check it out here free for 30 days.

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Succeeding as an independent musician can be done through a number of routes - there is no one correct model. One that appeals to some of the musicians I speak to is the idea of starting to “dominate” your local region with your music before gaining traction and broadening your appeal through a progressive and carefully planned route.

The idea is straightforward and works great for those who really prefer the offline, personal touch than using the internet. Make and promote your music locally. Work with local venues often. Make and build strong relationships with the local newspapers, magazines and radio initially with press releases every few weeks and then as you get going, by e-mail. After a while, you’ll probably have their number on speed dial.

Be a social musician offline. Get out there and hang out where your fans would hang. Go to your local music stores and see if you can get your music there with posters, flyers and regular gig information. Do whatever it takes to get your local neighbourhood to listen to music. (Nothing illegal, please.)

This is what I believe to be the process to having success in the music business:

HEAR - LIKE - BUY - SHARE

That’s what people do. That’s the process they go through to get from first hearing your music to finally doing what fans do best - sharing your music with their friends. The process can repeat itself for every track, single or album you release.

Do it locally. Get enough people to like your music offline and go through this process. I believe it’s more easy to get lots of people locally to buy and share your music (because you’re THEIR local talent). Naturally, that will give you press, radio coverage and news will start to spread.

You can then move to the next region slowly whilst retaining your local base but with your focus now stretching between two areas, rather than just the one. As you continue to grow your fan base in different areas, the number of times you appear to perform in one area will reduce and your fans will want to make sure they don’t miss each event. It increases the attraction factor and uses the “scarcity” marketing tactic. They will change their diaries, get babysitters in and make sure they don’t miss your gig as you won’t have another gig locally soon. It’s possible to get to this point as an independent musician.

This strategy of starting locally before growing globally is also great for you as the music business leader who is assembling a team so that you don’t have to wear all the hats and can focus on doing what you love best - making music. You will build a good network offline and you’ll also be able to find people who can join your team so you can have them all in one place.

Start local, grow global. What are your thoughts? 

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Being an independent musician means you’re steering your own ship. The direction you go, how far you go, the people who join you on the trip and the amount of fun you have is all down to you.

Independent musicians do much more than just make and perform music. They promote it, they deal with the legal stuff, they come up with strategies, they build teams, they get PR, they do interviews, they get and play gigs. If they don’t do it, they get others to do it, but they’re in charge of it all. Independent music is a business - and usually, all independent musicians are the leaders of their own businesses.

However, most independent musicians don’t think like this. Many are still living in the fantasy of achieving major record label success and although it could be possible, it isn’t possible if you don’t start thinking like the leader of your ship.

You’re the visionary. You’re the leader. You’re going to decide what happens and how far you go. Let’s explore what that means. 

Music business success isn’t easy - but it’s not complex. Most musicians make it so complex that they can’t comprehend and get it all done. Music business comprises music, marketing, sales, service and leadership.

In it’s simplest form, to get your business of the ground, you’ve got to have good music and good leadership. The good music helps with good marketing that comes from good strategy and good vision from good leadership. Sales and service falls into it when you get exposure. If you can get ahead in these five areas, your independent music business will be in the top 2% in your arena.

Here are seven things you need to do as the leader of your music business:

1. Be motivated by an exciting vision. What is the purpose of your business and how are you going to realize its objectives in today’s world? What is the vision and character of your music business? Be the champion of your music business vision. Live it, breathe it and share it every single day in the way you live and lead your life.

2. Be passionate. If you believe you have got good music that people will want to hear, you need to be passionate to have any level of success. Lack of passion comes as a result of a lack of compelling vision and drive to achieve your goals.

3. Define your strategy and align your tactics. Strategy without tactics is a waste of time and tactics without strategy is pointless.

4. Start to build a team. Find people who are passionate about your music, pay people and do whatever it takes to get some help. You can do well doing everything on your own but to get massive success, you’re going to have to leverage your tasks. Build a team, manage your team and stick to doing what you do best.

5. Be a great listener. Listen to your fans, listen to your team. They’re all telling you stuff to help you grow and be more entertaining and successful.

6. Take calculated risks. Work out where you can take risks and if it’s worth it, go for it. Calculated risk is safe. Playing just safe is risky.

7.  Retain people’s attention. I’ve mentioned attention many times. Gerd Leonhard talks about attention too. It’s the new currency. The longer you retain people’s attention, the more trust you’ll build. Communicate often and communicate consistently.

Each of the above warrants its own post. I’ll probably to do that at some point as I think it is very important. But for now, I thought I’d just throw it all out. What are you doing to lead your music business/career in the direction you want it to go?

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In my last post, I discussed being clear on what your music means and then overdelivering to your customers so they’ll come back and buy more music, attend more gigs and recommend more people. The key to that is building trust with your fans through developing the community around you, the artist.

As the internet changes in it’s principles of connectedness, the effect it’s having is rubbing off on the independent music industry and if you don’t take notice and adapt with it, you’re going to fall behind. As independent musicians we’ve got to be open and keep up with the rest of the internet world, because whether we like it or not, the fast changes are affecting how we work as independent music business owners.

We’re challenged by the new way of positioning ourselves as artists. Rather than stepping out as the iconic figure that some signed artists make out to be, we need to become more connected with our fans on a very personal basis. Our openness requires a lot more discipline and skills as we’re taking on more responsibility than just musicians. We’re music business owners, or what I call, musopreneurs.

Instead of having control in our music industry, we’re having to build trust. Trust is one of the multiple new currencies to succeed in the music industry. Trust with your fans and trust with your business partners. The world is networked, and especially on the internet your reputation can make or break and spread like wildfire within just a few hours. Building trust requires dedication and discipline.

When we’re transparent with our audiences, when we allow ourselves to show them who we truly are and when we connect with them on a personal level, we immediately allow ourselves to have that inherent connection with them and develop a sense of trust that makes them feel that what they’re buying into, not your music, but you the artist, will be worth it.

And with the millions of musicians trying to build a good community they’ll feel that spending their money on you is better than the next person because they’ve developed a sense of closeness to you. 

But that’s not all… when you gain someone’s trust, in their eyes you develop into an authority figure - someone who they’ll believe in and someone who you can influence. They’ll listen to your every word, they’ll listen to your every song and they’ll get hooked on you as the artist. They become the true fan.

So how do you build trust?

Building trust comes from sparking a two-way conversation. In the “old model” of the music industries, conversations used to be just one-way. The artist says something at their website, on the radio or in their newsletter and the fans just listen.

The “newer model” requires a discussion. It requires interactivity between you and your fans. They want to know you’re here to listen to them. They want to know you’re real and you’ll be transparent in your communication. When you do this, you build trust. Your ratings go up. Information about you spreads by word of mouth. As the Media Futurist Gerd Leonard says, the key to your music’s future is not protection, it’s permission.

You’re not just working to get sales for your music, you’re working to get attention. The more you keep people hooked on your work, the more you’ll develop trust towards you.

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If you’ve been following my work for any amount of time, you’ll know that I believe today’s independent music scene must focus more on building a community of interaction and deeper relationships with fans than building an iconic figure that is distant and “out of touch”.

Define what your music is about. What do you want it to do for your fans? What meaning do you want your fans to take away, if any? What’s the promise you’re giving them from your music and what are you going to deliver to your fans when they spend their hard-earned money on you?

Once you know the answers to these questions and you’re building a relationship with your fans through your blog, your newsletter list and anything else, remember to overdeliver to your fans - especially those who purchase from you. The best musicians treat their customers like royalty and this results in repeat music sales on MP3’s, CDs and gigs.

Seth Godin defines overdelivering as “means doing more than you said you would, which is the secret to word of mouth.”

And word of mouth is crucial as independent musicians. Your fans will tell their friends and bring them to your gigs. The same will happen to their friends. And so on. 

When someone downloads your MP3, send them an e-mail and thank them. (You could automate this with a system like Aweber). You could do the same for anyone who buys your CD or merchandise. How about offering a free download for customers who purchase your merchandise about 30-days after… it shows them you remember them, shows them you care and invites them back to your website if they’ve forgotten about it. Make your fans feel they count.

What else would you do as a musician to overdeliver? Please share.

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