Entrepreneurial tools to manage your time as a musician

“I applied to this program because I really wanted to know more of the behind scenes. I can be a little bit of a control freak so I kind of like to know all the different parts of my work and this program has told me a lot of that already.”
Simone Tang, selected artist for the Slash program, season 1.

Today as a song­writer-pro­du­cer, you have to juggle between sev­er­al activ­it­ies, man­aging your com­mu­nic­a­tion, your digit­al strategy, some­times tour­ing and book­ing as well. This plur­al­ity of activ­it­ies binds you to adopt an entre­pren­eur mind­set. You have to seize every oppor­tun­ity and not be afraid of change.

INFORMATION MONITORING

Being watch­ful of what’s going on in the sec­tor is inter­est­ing for you as a song­writer-pro­du­cer. It will allow you to have up-to-date infos on sev­er­al top­ics such as the innov­at­ive apps and soft­ware that you can use, the legis­la­tion of your coun­try regard­ing author’s rights, the open calls and oth­er types of sup­port you can apply to, etc. 

Here is a list of inter­est­ing people or insti­tu­tions to fol­low on Twit­ter or on their web­site on sev­er­al themes such as music news, music strategy, new busi­ness mod­el, future of music… 

Cher­ie Wu: https://twitter.com/cheriehu42
Web­site: https://www.cheriehu.com

Bas Grasmay­er: https://twitter.com/basgras

MIDiA Research: https://twitter.com/midiaresearch
Web­site: https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog

Mark Mul­ligan: https://twitter.com/Mark_Mulligan

Music X : https://twitter.com/MusicTechFuture

Impala : https://twitter.com/IMPALAMusic

Future of Music Coali­tion : https://twitter.com/future_of_music

Music Biz Asso­ci­ation : https://twitter.com/MusicBizAssoc

Guard­i­an Music : https://twitter.com/guardianmusic

Musi­cian’s Uni­on : https://twitter.com/WeAreTheMU

Keychange: https://twitter.com/KeychangeEU (gender bal­ance in music)

She­saidso: https://twitter.com/shesaid_so (net­work of women & gender minor­it­ies in music)

The Lynk: https://twitter.com/theLynk_ (Yvan Boudillet)

ORGANIZATION

The organ­iz­a­tion is the key to work effi­ciently and to spare more time to work on your artist­ic work. You will find below a sched­ule to help you plan your weeks. Please, feel free to make a copy of it and to adapt the table to your needs.

Open the schedule

Don’t for­get that you can also use the table we shared in our art­icle about Music Pro­mo­tion regard­ing the plan­ning of your posts on social networks.

KEEP YOUR NETWORK GROWING

As an artist, without a pro­fes­sion­al envir­on­ment, cre­at­ing, main­tain­ing and grow­ing one’s net­work is essen­tial to achieve the object­ives that one has set for one­self in the short, medi­um and long term. It’s a long term job, it’s a dis­heart­en­ing job that requires reg­u­lar and daily work in order not to be forgotten.

• Think loc­al first

Work your net­work loc­ally, where you live. The res­ults will be faster and less daunt­ing. Take advant­age of all pub­lic events, pro­fes­sion­al con­ven­tions, show­case fest­ivals. Go and meet the struc­tures that can give you advice. Meet oth­er artists. Once you have con­sol­id­ated your net­work loc­ally, you will move on to the nation­al and then inter­na­tion­al network.

• Net­work on pro­fes­sion­al con­ven­tions & show­case festivals

You need to be reg­u­lar in your attend­ance so that your net­work grows. It’s nev­er easy to talk to people you don’t know. Know that these pro­fes­sion­als are in the same situ­ation. To make your pres­ence at these events effect­ive: pre­pare them in advance!

1. Use the list of delegates
2. Tar­get the pro­fes­sion­als you wish to reach accord­ing to your future objectives.
3. Con­tact them before­hand in order to sched­ule an appoint­ment (take care of your email, a short email, defin­ing the object­ive of this meet­ing accom­pan­ied by a file con­tain­ing your bio, your music and a photo).
4. Prac­tice your ice-break­ing and pitch­ing skills in just a few minutes. We need to know imme­di­ately what you’re doing and what you’re look­ing for.

• Cre­ate a con­tacts file

You need to cre­ate a con­tact file for your­self, either by using an excel file or by using a tool like Streak (google tool) to make a pro­spect. Your file should be as up to date as pos­sible with as many details as pos­sible such as the sub­ject of your last con­ver­sa­tion, this will make it easi­er for you to break the ice.

Upload the present­a­tion of Streak by Thomas Cochini

• Pamper your network

Pamper your pro­fes­sion­al net­work by show­ing that you exist and that you are up to date by send­ing them reg­u­lar news­let­ters. Beware, no har­ass­ment, but reg­u­lar­ity in your speeches.

MONEY MONEY MONEY

Money is the sinews of war. You must be reg­u­lar in the pub­lic­a­tion of your titles, your clips, your pho­tos. If you have the skills and the time, you can do everything by your­self by regis­ter­ing, mak­ing your own video clips with a smart­phone, man­aging your social net­works. This takes time. And not every­one has the abil­ity to do everything by them­selves. You will there­fore have to pay ser­vice pro­viders to do it, and that requires an investment.

• Be con­fid­ent in yourself

“I did­n’t get good at the busi­ness because I love it. I got good at the busi­ness side of my music career because I belive in my art so much that I knew if I did­n’t I would­n’t suc­ceed.” Ari Take — musi­cian & entrepreneur.

You must believe in your­self and invest in your­self to make oth­ers want to sup­port you fin­an­cially. If you don’t invest money your­self at the begin­ning of your career, how can you make oth­ers want to invest for you?

• Use the power of crowdfunding

If you don’t have pro­fes­sion­al struc­tures that invest money in your career, appeal to your com­munity and use crowdfunding.

1. Be real­ist­ic in your fin­an­cial goal
2. A cam­paign last­ing 45 days maximum
3. Be very pre­cise in your request: what will the money be used for? How will you spend it? When will you spend it?
4. A good crowd­fund­ing cam­paign is pre­pared in advance. It is estim­ated that 3 months are necessary.
5. Take advant­age of these 3 months to cre­ate all your pro­mo­tion­al remind­ers (2 per week).
6. Don’t tell your­self that you are going to ask for money. Your com­munity will only pre-pur­chase your single, ep, album, concert…
7. Be con­sist­ent in your com­mu­nic­a­tion and your coun­ter­parts. Everything must be in line with your moodboard.
8. Get inspir­a­tion from oth­er artists and crowd­fund­ing campaigns.

If you want to go fur­ther a crowd­fund­ing cam­paign, have a look on this present­a­tion