Business expert Guy Kawasaki has a phrase or acronym in his book The Art of The Start called “Weave A MAT” where MAT stands for Milestones, Assumptions and Tasks.
The idea is to create a system of milestones, assumptions and tasks to keep your music business on course for achieving your target. You want to set milestones for your music promotion, music sales, gigs and financials. You want to set tasks on a daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly and yearly basis so that you move fast towards those milestones.
Watch his talk on weaving a MAT to get an idea of how you can apply this:
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Thanks! I’m still customising my “mat” so tips like this are a help.
The Chinese say, “A trip of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”
Writing a business plan is essential when starting any business. Likewise, it should be the same for your music.
Employing these steps keeps you on target. Unless you know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?
What I liked most about Guy’s talk is that he emphasized how Milestones can be stated in terms of what you intend to do and what is in your control. In the world of music (and in the world in general), there are so many things that are out of our control. Having milestones such as “X many people will have visited my such-and-such site online by X date” can be tricky because what those people out there do is not in your control. So, I think it alright to state those kinds of marketing milestones if you have a good idea of how you can get there (assumptions, tasks). On the other hand, I think “finish album or demo” is an excellent milestone and, although there may be obstacles and things that come up that are out of your control, this is still something over which I feel you have a lot more control than something that is more of a marketing milestone. Getting even more specific, if you’ve got an idea for a ballet or musical or some kind of production, then “finish music score” is a great milestone, too, again mainly involving you and your ability to discipline yourself to sit down and do what needs to be done. Technique milestones can also be great for creativity such as “I will be able to perform X piece by Y date”. However, as an independent artist, stating sales goals as milestones feels tricky unless I know how I will get there. Maybe I can write something like “I will sell one X per week for the next 20 weeks?” Then I can have an action - I will write to five members of my mailing list per week? I’m just thinking of some ideas… That kind of goal setting feels better to me than something like “I want thousands of people to come by my YouTube site within a week’s time” (which I do). I try to keep focused on my actions and worrying less about what factors out there will prevent me from reaching goals. That’s where I’m trying to be so that’s how I want to state my milestones…anyone else’s thoughts on this are welcome.
Good post. I especially liked the clarity of the explanations.
I suppose that in the music business, most milestones would be related either to production (finishing compositions, recordings or artwork) or to promotion - especially with regards to playing live (which, admittedly, has some product, or rather service, qualities). I’m not sure to what extent marketing goals can be considered milestones, but achieving so many sales, or consistently pulling crowds above certain levels or having so many people on your mailing list might well fit the bill - provided you made some valid assumptions and designated the tasks aimed at these goals. I guess it all boils down to the time-frame we’re considering and that’s an assumption, isn’t it?
Anyway, I’ll certainly add this to my stock of useful techniques for strategy-building. Thanks.