Music Business Leadership
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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Hi Kavit,
I hope you are well, thanks for all these tips you have sent me, I do really appreciate them, I think you are doing a great job.
However, I don’t know how to use them proporly, because sometimes they are too much.
I think if you are more specific would be better.
I look forward to hearing from soon.
AJahsie
7. Retain people’s attention.
Ah yes! However, there is a very fine line between being innovative and being annoying and unfortunately, too many people in business are unable to differentiate between the two. I
n an effort to be ‘different’ and ‘unique’ and ‘pushing the envelope’ they fail to realize they are perceived as ‘different’ in a negative fashion and ‘aggravating’ rather than ‘unique.’
What’s worse is that these sorts of business people aren’t seen as ‘pushing the envelope’ but rather as ‘abusing potential clients in their market niche.’
The phrase “bigger in order to serve you better” is a fallacy of logic. While I am not advocating that one go smaller in order to succeed, I am strongly underscoring the fact that in order to serve one’s customer base better, bigger isn’t always the way to go if bigger detracts from the quality of the product or service being offered.
Yes, it’s important to communicate often and communicate consistently but what’s more important is communicating value and respect in my opinion. When one communicates value and respect, consistency and connection follow.
What better way to point to an example of this concept than to point to the services and products Kavit is providing to independent recording and performing artists? The communications I receive from Kavit hold great value and I feel that my email address is being respected as well as my intelligence when I receive a notification from Kavit about a new product or a blog entry. What’s more, this is done consistently ergo I look forward to seeing that I have received yet another email from Kavit when one arrives in my inbox.
Elyse Bruce
I am using your advise and time frame for my clients and personally
Yes, I completely agree. I was counseling a young musician a few days ago who came to me and said “I can’t do my music because I’m not signed, so I just send demos out.”
I quickly let him know that he’s thinking from the wrong decade and that he needs to think like he’s the executive of his OWN record label that he signed himself to.
Also, on top of the above blog the musicians that make it these days are the ones that actually produce good music that communicates. So, it’s important to tell up and coming musicians to be the kind of their own castle but never stop making good music ( or giving themselves the time to make great music).
Great post. Independent musicians usually need to do more marketing. They need to collect and build an email list. They also need to sell things to this list - don’t be shy!
Get a website and track your traffic, find out which sites bring you traffic and focus more on those ones. Create and update your own website - use wordpress which is free.
There are many great tools that are free or fairly cheap and allow the musicians full control of their brand and community.