In The Music Business...
Living in Nashville, I meet a lot of people who are "in the
music business."
But 99% of them are not really in the music business. It's not
because they're not making a living at it...lots of people have
other ways of paying the bills. In fact, like my friend who owns
a gas station yet doesn't make his living selling gas, many
"full-time musicians" are doing the same thing with t-shirts,
licensing deals, and other income streams rather than music.
Forget those people though... I want to talk about the people,
regardless of how they make their living, who only claim to be
"in the music business." I want to talk about the folks who talk
big and dress the part, but just pretend to be doing this for
real.
As many of you guys know, I'm a big fan of yoga. I've been
practicing for seven years and do it daily for at least an hour.
And not only that, I subscribe to a couple of yoga magazines, I
take workshops, I've got all the props here, I've got a shelf
full of books, and all the other things you'd expect somebody
who is interested in yoga would have.
So I find it amazing that people who are "in the music business"
aren't doing something similar.
Before I locked the doors on my music business consulting
program, the first thing I'd do when a new client would come
though is send them a box via UPS which contained several of my
music business books, hours of recorded conference calls,
seminars on CD, and a lot more information on the business to
really give them a jumpstart on things. All in all, it was
probably $800 worth of stuff.
During this time, I had a moneyback guarantee. If you'd work
with me for six months and what I told you to do didn't help you
to sell more music, get more people to your shows, and make more
money, you'd simply send everything back and I'd give you back
not only everything you'd paid to me, I'd also throw in a check
for an extra $50.00 just to say thanks for giving me the
opportunity to work with you.
While I was doing this, I only had two people (out of hundreds)
return their stuff to me. And both of those packages, contained
the books, the conference calls, the seminars, and whatever else
I'd thrown in...still in the shinkwrap.
Now, I supposed I could have called these people up and said,
"You guys have to actually open my stuff and use it for it to
work." But the truth is, I've seen enough folks like this to
know you can't do anything to help them if they're not going to
help themselves.
Don't move the lazy. It's one of my 14 Qualities of Successful
Musicians, Songwriters, and Music Business Professionals. And
it's why most bands never get the attention they think they want.
If you're "in the music business," wouldn't it make sense that
you'd want to read up on everything that the music business
involves? If you don't, you might want to think about how bad
you really want this.