Whether your field is rock or rap, the music licensing companies connect you with leading brands in the circle. Since competition is higher in this field, struggle to get the first seat is tedious too.

The music licensing company offers you services allowing you to publicize your potential to the world. They prepare a pathway for budding and struggling artists to reveal their skill in the field of music. In order to gain worldwide recognition the contribution of music licensing companies in promoting singers and music composers simply knows no bounds. Here are some of the major functions of music licensing companies:

Image credit: lambertwm on Flickr

• Safeguarding your creation: Being a music composer, your music is just like your child. After months of dedication and timeless efforts you give birth to music which solely belongs to you. No one has the right to bring about a change in your creation or hamper its quality. Neither anyone has the right to copy it without seeking permission from the creator. Music licensing companies’ help you get your music licensed, so that no third party is able to duplicate your creation or claim it as theirs. They ensure the safety of your composition. Yes, with copyright done with your composition you don’t have to worry about your creation being duplicated or copied by others.

Believe me, if you catch anyone violating the copyright rules and copying your own composition, then you can simply file a lawsuit against the person, group of persons or the organization concerned.

• Promoting your music: Soon after the licensing of the composition is completed, the music licensing company takes a step further to promote your creation. They leave no stone unturned to publicize the composition, so that it reaches to the maximum audience base and has an impact on them. They give in their best efforts to make the opus popular and reach it to the maximum number of audience. This way your product gets launched and finds a way to win the hearts of the millions of people tuned in to your music.
• Assisting producers in finding a unique composition: The market is already saturated with duplicate music and people are more into copying and remodeling them. However, the music loving audience is tired of listening to such fake compositions. They only want authentic and unique numbers. On merging with music licensing companies, producers are able to find desirable and unique music products.
• The music licensing companies give their very best to make the opus popular: Yes, a typical music licensing company has a music library where compositions of popular as well budding artists are stored. The producers then pick a unique composition as per his tastes. This way your creation gets noticed and popularizes in the field of music.

Now you should know why it is important to contact a music licensing company.

Guest post written by Darcy Matthew.

Here are some words of wisdom from those in-the-know:

Do Your Research

“You’ve got to have a very solid plan and go up to brands that are going to reflect your lifestyle.” – Samantha Pickard of Strut Entertainment

Read The Fine Print

“Know the terms of the deal and honour that commitment with the brand.” – Spee Chalkiotis of Neverest

Don’t Take Just Anything

“If you’re going to accept an endorsement, make sure it’s something you actually want to use and a company you stand behind.” – Dan Hay of Amos The Transparent

You Are What You Use

“Do these things with integrity and remember that the people who will see you play or wear certain things will associate these items with who you are as an artist. It’s important to be honest with your public.” – Jeff Stinco of Simple Plan

Make It Happen

Getting endorsed is not like winning the lottery. Artists that have a plan and know how to pitch themselves make for perfect candidates. If you’ve been booking your own shows and handling the publicity for your act, the pitching part should come fairly naturally. If you lack that experience, the best way to gain it is to dive in and learn to talk the talk.

You would speak differently to a music programmer at a radio station than you would a talent booker. The same can be said for gear companies. What needs to sit at the core of any pitch, however, is the mutual benefit attained by both parties involved in a prospective deal.

Image credit: oooh.oooh on Flickr

You need to demonstrate how your supplier is going to increase sales by offering you easier access to whatever it is you’re asking of them. If you’ve never toured, don’t have an album, or you’re playing one show a month at the local watering hole, you may want to reconsider the request. Tell them how many people you usually play to or which well-known artists you’ve shared the stage with. Anything impressive is going to show that opportunities come your way – opportunities that will come their way should their logo be somewhere onstage. Remember: They’re running a business, but so are you.

Every band with a good business plan should be able to demonstrate growth and profile, two key items that will open the gates to discounts and free wares. Drop a few hints about your goals for the next year and how they can involve the company. Be realistic: It’s hard to believe that a band drawing 50 people a week is going to be playing Glastonbury. (Not to say it’s impossible.) Useful items including how long you’ve been together and where you’re at in your discography would help as well. While your website and press releases should be available to them, you still want to make it easy to digest a fractional but punchy slice of what you’re all about so that they are inclined to research you further.

Stress your mandate. What is so special about you? There are some companies who are going to want to jump on the “next big thing” while some might feel safer about working with an artist who is fairly homogenous. Align yourself properly. Do your research and try to get a feel for what they look for and understand if it matches what you do.

Probably the most important aspect of your pitch should be your love for what they provide. Have you actually been using their stuff or are you just excited at the idea of someone helping you out? Here’s a test: What was the next thing you were going to purchase before hitting the road or playing that showcase? What do you need to replace? Is there something you can’t perform without? Find out who makes it – that’s the company you should be targeting. The best position you can put yourself in is to approach someone who could give you a discount on something you were going to buy regardless of the deal. If the deal doesn’t happen, you didn’t lose anything by trying. If they take a pass on you, thank them for their consideration and, if you’re still interested, touch base after you’ve developed your career some more. Building that relationship is more important than any material help.

Be sure to keep yourself in check and mull over the reasons why you’re looking for an endorsement. You can get caught up in the very idea of it and start to lose sight on the bigger picture. As cool as it could be, the sponsorship should be nothing more than another tool in your business plan. The last thing you want to do is start measuring your success by how many brands are backing you up. You’re an artist, not a stock car.

While it’s easy to talk about instruments when you’re on the topic of endorsements, there is a wealth of products out there you use night after night that could make your life easier. Basically anything that you can pay for has some kind of markup. Fortunately for you, this markup translates into a margin of sponsorship. With ever-evolving trends and fads, clothing is one of the bigger expenses you will face as an artist. You present yourself to people in photos, onstage, and at conferences, so you have to look your best within the parameters of your genre’s norms (unless you want to shatter those standards).

Pop-rockers Neverest – who’ve recently come off a tour with New Kids On The Block and the Backstreet Boys – aligned themselves with PF Flyers and Lucky Brand Jeans in order combat the war with laundry while on the road. “Clothes are definitely at the top of the list, especially when touring,” says lead singer Spee Chalkiotis. “The wear and tear of a tour is unbelievable.” Chalkiotis would like to drum up more lifestyle-oriented sponsorships with beverage companies, car companies, or cell phone providers to further cut down on daily expenses. “Everyone has needs.”

Neverest have been very happy with the relationships built with the brands they love. One thing Chalkiotis has noticed is the room for opportunity an endorsement can open up including subject matter for the red carpet, invites to perform at corporate events, and in-store concerts. “That not only brings business into the store, but we get exposure.” The discounts and free wares are only the beginning. “Don’t be afraid to start small and build on that relationship. Think outside the box.” And while he recognizes the need to promote the products used by Neverest, the singer couldn’t be happier to help. “We’re basically ‘walking billboards,’ but we definitely look forward to that.”

Atypical Clothing

If you’ve got the goods but lack the ability to negotiate a deal with your target sponsor, you may want to enlist the help of someone like Samantha Pickard, VP of PR firm Strut Entertainment. 3 Street Management gave Pickard the responsibility of hooking Neverest up with threads so that their resources could be better spent promoting and booking the act instead of dressing them. “They’re sweating through clothes on a nightly basis,” she says. “It’s very important to be saving that kind of money.” Seeing an opportunity to help the band stay on budget while looking good, she demonstrated to companies like PF Flyers how they could benefit from having a high-traffic, well-received group showcasing their line in the public eye. “Brands with less money to spend are looking at more grass roots partnerships.” She built a win-win situation for the client to digest and the deal was born.

Atypical Clothing, a relatively new apparel maker run by co-owners Logan Traynor and Matt Gardner, has been relying on the help of up-and-coming Canadian bands like The Artist Life and Victory Sweet Victory to spread hype about their designs. Without the ability to launch a multi-million dollar advertising campaign, the boys worked on the niche they were carving out and sent t-shirts to some of the bands they wanted to work with. Traynor thought the collaboration would benefit everyone involved: “It’s really hard to start out as an independent brand. The bands really help us grow.”

Those who accepted were usually so excited to represent the brand that they would immediately do photo shoots and post the pictures online for the fans to see. Atypical Clothing doesn’t feel the need to outline any promotional expectations with their artists because of how important it is to maintain this level of excitement with them. “You can’t get better than people on the Internet wearing your shirt,” observes Gardner. “A lot of bands wear their clothing sponsorships as a badge of honour.”

Once you’ve secured and nurtured one sponsorship, the rest are easier to come by. “Once you’ve built one positive brand relationship, you can leverage that in other categories,” advises Pickard. For those companies who have formal endorsement applications, you’ll often notice they ask for a list of other companies who are working with you already. This will not only demonstrate that people want to endorse you, but it also shows them whether you are picking products that match your lifestyle or if you’re just being whimsical.

Ryan at SABIAN also thinks it’s a good spot to determine if there is a conflict of interest between brands: “There’s kind of an unwritten rule in the industry where you don’t go out trying to steal people from other companies.”

You have to wear a lot of different hats in order to further your career in this industry. Convincing someone to give you things for free or on the cheap can be tough, especially if it’s too early in the game for you, but recognizing when an opportunity presents itself and how to capitalize on it is paramount.

If all else fails, you can always redeem your Air Miles.

Originally posted in the September/October 2011 issue of Canadian Musician magazine. Chris Gallant is a singer-songwriter and touring musician from PEI who likes to write about the things he wished he knew before entering “The Industry.” He can be reached at chris.s.gallant@gmail.com.

An oft-applied method of relieving some financial hardship in this industry is to acquire an endorsement deal. In a nutshell, you get easier access to your favorite products and services in exchange for some form of advertising to the supplier.

Everybody knows that celebrities help sell stuff. Television commercials are nearly plagued with appearances from actors and athletes confessing their love for some kind of a sports car or cold medicine, and the viewers aren’t ignorant to the rewards paid out for these cameos.

Musicians, however, often enter the world of sponsorships from a different angle. In the time leading up to their chart-topping success they can be found spending their last penny on that piece of gear, signature outfit, or stage prop that allows them to charge on and break new ground in this industry. Though they effectively mean the same thing, the music industry tends to prefer the word “endorsement” to “sponsorship,” something that hints to a feeling of support and passion rather than charity or corporate image. Musicians are quite vocal about the brands they trust, whether they partner with them or not; you won’t usually find an actor tweeting about their favorite toothpaste or eye cream without some hidden motivator.

What It’s All About

It’s pretty clear how an artist benefits from an endorsement, but there are more lenses to use from the manufacturer’s standpoint. “The feedback that we get from players using our pedals helps us refine what we do and improve our products,” says Aimish Wallace, Director of Operations at Diamond Pedals. Fans of bands become fans of the brands they use and this Nova Scotia based company has attributed a lot of its sales to its association with Buddy Miller (Band of Joy/Emmylou Harris). “He’s known as a real ‘tone guy’ and I think the people that are aware of that look pretty closely at the stuff he’s using to achieve his sounds.”

When you’re looking to get free gear you’ll probably think you have to be famous. SABIAN Cymbals’ Sales and Artist Relations Manager, Terry Ryan, describes it as visibility. Drummers like Daniel Adair of Nickelback and Neil Sanderson of Three Days Grace are keeping brand recognition alive when they beat their splashes and crashes in front of thousands of fans every night.

Image credit: steviep187 on Flickr

That being said, Ryan also thinks it’s very important to foster the relationship at an early stage when you find the right act. “Artists tend to need you more when they have no money,” he says, outlining the importance of fostering loyalty in order to keep your advertising economical. “You hope they elevate their career.” Assuming they do, a band that becomes an international success will prove a worthy investment for any endorser. “If you’re in Spain and Rush performs, our logo is the same… It gets us a wider visibility at a minimum cost.”

Ask Fred DiSanto of Godin Guitars what matters most and he’ll say: “Heart! All of our artists have played a Godin even before we were aware of it.” The company’s artist program is a vital part of its success as a manufacturer and goes hand-in-hand with media coverage and a great dealer network.

Rarely do reps like Wallace, Ryan, or DiSanto find themselves scouting for new artists when they get so many sponsorship requests from bands all over the country, but it can happen. When it does, the terms of the relationship are quite varied. Dan Hay, guitarist of Amost The Transparent, cites how his deals with Empress Pedals and Wicked Guitars came together: “When [we] started touring more and playing some bigger shows, they asked me if I’d like to use some of their gear on stage.” While working with these suppliers, Hay can happily play whatever piece of equipment he likes on stage. “They’re pretty easy going about my obligations. Unlike other companies, Wicked doesn’t require me to only use their guitars… same with Empress.” Amost The Transparent’s latest album features many tones shaped by his Empress pedals, including one that sounds like “a backwards spaceship.”

Advertising requirements are usually a big concern for somebody considering an endorsement deal – everything comes at a price, right? Simple Plan guitarist Jeff Stinco says it’s circumstantial but it can happen: When they weren’t busy recording, touring, and releasing their latest album, Get Your Heart On!, they were doing ads for manufacturers like Sennheiser, DiMarzio, T-Rex, Mesa Boogie, and Fender. “It’s a case-by-case thing and we always make sure that the company understands our desire to expose a product that we love in a very organic way. We don’t wish to become sales people; we are here to help spread the word.”

Image credit: katrinalopez. on Flickr

Being on the roster for a gear company comes with other perks than discounts and promotional outlets. Occasionally you’ll be privy to new products or services. Stinco explains: “We have access to some special tweaks that are not necessarily useful or available to the general public but help us out on the road.”

The other issue you might face with an endorsement is your ability to continue using the other brands you enjoy. Vans – well known in the music industry for their annual Warped Tour – expect a certain degree of exclusivity from their athletes but like to keep things more organic with their artist roster. Chris Overholser, Senior Marketing Manager for the company, says: “One of our main tenants is to support creativity. By being heavily involved in music we get to be front and centre.”

Holding a global perspective has allowed Vans to give back to those in need. An effort between the shoe company and Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament will see the proceeds from a signature sneaker help build a skate park on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota – a community with a tragic past and high rates of poverty. Overholser says that working with musicians has opened doors to these types of opportunities and is a very important bi-product of endorsement. “We want people to wear Vans because they care about what we’re doing.”

Originally posted in the September/October 2011 issue of Canadian Musician magazine. Chris Gallant is a singer-songwriter and touring musician from PEI who likes to write about the things he wished he knew before entering “The Industry.” He can be reached at chris.s.gallant@gmail.com.

Avoiding The Sell Out Label

This is one of those things that it’s never particularly easy to say, but it is devastatingly simple to explain. There is one, and only one, sure fire way to avoid being called a sell-out, and that’s to never make a penny. That’s all there is to it. The moment you sell as much as a single CD, somebody is likely to be calling you a sell-out. This piece is about fighting off the inevitable accusations, and the ultimate answer to everything you’ll ever be accused of in the music world.

Wikipedia defines selling out as:

“Selling out” is the compromising of (or the perception of compromising) integrity, morality, or principles in exchange for money or “success” (however defined). It is commonly associated with attempts to tailor material to a mainstream audience. Any artist who expands their creative path to encompass a wider audience, as opposed to continuing in the genre and venues of their initial success, may be disdainfully labeled by disapproving fans as a sellout. Sometimes a sellout is seen as a person that is disloyal to one’s group that he or she belongs (usually ethnic group) in order to gain money or become “successful”. Selling out is often seen as gaining success at the cost of credibility.

From this, we can pick out several key words that will help us discover our route through the minefield. Integrity, morality and principles immediately jump out, obviously. Tailor and mainstream audience are another pair that help define what we’re looking at here. Disloyal is the last big one, implying that you, as an artist, have to have as much loyalty to your fans as they have to you. Therein lies the crux of the matter.

Your fans expect the same from you as they give. They will stand in the rain for a big name, hoping beyond hope for a chance at getting an autograph. Your job is just to perform, but fans can also bite you in the arse, largely unfairly. Standing your ground doesn’t always result in a good point made; it can actually make more of an enemy of yourself.

Image credit: clubluxury on Tumblr

The main reason people are called sell-outs is because of a large change in the output. This, however, is just creativity. Bands are often accused of making songs that are all the same, but they are just as often accused of being sell-outs simply for going in the other direction.

So how do you combat this? How do you argue with people who believe that firmly that they are right? Well, here comes the trick. Stop caring.

People will say whatever the hell they want about you. They will hate you for being successful, and hate you for being creative, and hate you for being inventive. So f–king what? Let them say whatever they want, it won’t affect you at all. Getting into an argument will never stand you in good stead – you’ll just be embarrassing yourself, so don’t bother.

Anybody who calls you names and insults you is not a fan, but spending time on them is wasting time you could be offering to your actual fans. Ignore them, walk away from them and just get on with it.

The next piece is the final conclusion of these articles, since I’ve now covered all the areas I wanted to cover. I hope to see you there.

Tom Colohue is a writer from Blackpool, England. Though he specialises in Fiction, he also writes music theory articles, and new media articles based primarily on the internet. On occasion, these also intermingle. He is well recognised by numerous critics and analysts for his integrative descriptive work and his cynical textual mannerisms. For more information, Tom Colohue keeps a Facebook Fan Page, which contains updates from new articles and his personal blog, Mental Streaming. This page can be found via this link.

"We Create Music" panel at 2011 ASCAP EXPO (l-r): ASCAP's Erik Philbrook, Claudia Brant, Mike Elizondo, Fergie, Trevor Rabin, Kevin Rudolf. Photo by PictureGroup.

Alex Gilbert: Etan, to a lot of people, ASCAP comes off as the corporate bad guy like a Wal-Mart or a Guitar Center would. People really forget if they want to get paid for their music when it’s played in public, they’ve got to go to a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) like ASCAP. Care to explain to these people why ASCAP is really the good guy here to help?

Etan Rosenbloom: Sure! ASCAP is a membership association of songwriters, composers and music publishers. Our core role is to license the public performance of our members’ musical works so that they can earn royalties when their songs are played on the radio, on TV, on the internet, etc. Here’s some general info about ASCAP.

ASCAP is most definitely not a “corporate bad guy” – in fact, we are a not-for-profit company! Every dollar that comes into ASCAP goes right back to our members, minus a percentage that we use for our operating cost (it’s among the lowest operating costs of any PRO in the world).

ASCAP’s Board of Directors is entirely composed of ASCAP members, all of which are elected by ASCAP members. So every decision we make is about getting fair compensation to the creators of the music that all of us benefit from on a daily basis. Our members rely on their ASCAP royalties as a valuable source of income. The many thousands of businesses that purchase ASCAP blanket licenses know that they’re doing the right thing, by paying for the music that helps their business. Here’s a list of our Board members.

I guess you could call us “the good guy,” but really we’re just looking out for the interests of songwriters.

When you drive a car, you need a drivers’ license. When you want to perform your music publicly, you need an ASCAP license. One in the same you could say. Legally, please describe the importance of this.

It’s not quite accurate to say that you need an ASCAP license to perform your music – you certainly don’t have to pay ASCAP for the right to perform your own material! Legally, any entity that performs music in public – and that includes music venues, bars, radio stations, TV stations, satellite radio, internet sites with streaming music, theme parks, etc. – is obligated under copyright law to obtain permission from the writers and publishers of that music to use it publicly. The simplest way of doing that is through a PRO like ASCAP. We offer blanket licenses to music users, so that they don’t have to individually reach out to the writers/publishers of every single song they play. More on how we license.

Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora at the 2008 ASCAP "I Create Music" EXPO

There’s plenty of benefits becoming an ASCAP member. What are some common routes of musicians, and what are some unique ways some use to advance their career(s)?

Oh man, there are so many different ways that ASCAP members use their ASCAP membership!

Some members rely on their ASCAP checks for their livelihoods. If you write music but you’re not an artist, you don’t have any artist royalties coming in, so your performance royalties are ever more important.

Other members use ASCAP as a resource and source of advice. Every day I get members calling to ask about publishing deals, managers, how to reach out to music supervisors – everything. We’re really at the nexus of the industry, since we deal with so many different facets of the industry.

ASCAP has tons of different educational and career-development opportunities, ranging from our weekly office hours, to month-long songwriting workshops, to our ASCAP “I Create Music” EXPO, a massive three-day conference dedicated to the art and business of songwriting that occurs every April in Los Angeles. The positive feedback we get on the EXPO is pretty staggering. You can find out more here.

We also run showcases for ASCAP acts at major industry events throughout the country. We run stages at SXSW, CMJ and Sundance, and we sponsor and support plenty of others, from folk festivals to the Warped Tour.

I should add that we’ve got the American PRO world’s only comprehensive Member Benefits program. Our members can get discounts on web tools, software, travel, online education and even health insurance. More details here.

One unique program that ASCAP offers is the annual ASCAP Plus Awards. Any writer member that makes under $25,000 per year with us can apply and tell us about the activity they’ve had in areas outside our normal broadcast media surveys (e.g. live venues). An independent panel of distinguished music experts then evaluates all the applications, and awards applicants with a non-recoupable cash award. As in, ASCAP Plus Awards winners don’t have to pay the money back. The deadline is June 1st every year. More here.

Metallica at the 2004 ASCAP Pop Music Awards. They were honored with the inaugural Creative Voice Award. Photo courtesy of Wireimage.

What advice would you give some of the youngens out there looking to get into the world of copyrights, licenses, royalties, etc.?

It’s the wild, wild west out there in terms of how music is used and distributed. You don’t necessarily need a label or a publishing deal to be successful. But that’s all the more reason to educate yourself as much as possible! Stay abreast of all the changes afoot on the industry side; one good way is by subscribing to The Daily Brief, a daily digest of music industry news and commentary, curated by ASCAP Board member Dean Kay. Subscribe here.

You should be aware of all your rights as a music creator, and also understand all the different royalty streams available to you. Of course become an ASCAP member if you aren’t already, but also get to know what organizations like Harry Fox and SoundExchange can do for you.

Any ASCAP advancements you’d like to share with us that you’ve got in the pipeline?

We introduced Member Access in late ’09, which allows our members to see all their royalty statements, see their entire catalog, look at any cue sheets they have on file and make up-to-the-minute updates to their accounts. And as of last year, you can access all of the above via your iPhone by using our ASCAP Mobile app.

This is the first year that we’ve offered online video access to all the footage from this year’s EXPO – about 60 hours’ worth of content. More info here.

I can’t share all the other cool advancements we’ve got lined up, but I’ll put it this way: ASCAP’s continuing its mission to help its members and ensure that they’re compensated fairly. This happens on a variety of fronts, some technological, some legal, some legislative. We were the first PRO to issue an internet license, and we’re constantly licensing new internet sites that use music. All in the name of protecting the livelihoods of our members, no matter how the music industry landscape changes.

However, those with a following can now connect anonymously with their fans via a ubiquitous device with which everyone is familiar – the phone. Thanks to cloud based VoIP technology, a new form of phone chat now is possible that allows those involved in the entertainment industry to easily create their own pay-per-minute ‘hotline’.

Whilst the internet has eroded the music industry’s historic business model, it has also facilitated new ones – this being one of them. After all, phone-ins are a live-event – and the revenue they produce will be music to the ears of both CFO’s and individuals within the industry.

This new form of pay-per-minute billing differentiates itself from traditional premium rate in a number of ways.

Photo credit: kristapalmu on Flickr

First off, the caller does not dial a premium rate number: rather, he or she enters their phone number into the phonesite and, funds permitting, the system will then call back the caller and connect to the host.

Secondly, the caller does not pay their phone company. Instead, they use their credit or debit card to pre-pay minutes. This means that the musician offering the service will not have to wait the typical 45 days or more associated with the old-style numbers for their money.

In keeping with the freemium economy, those interested in operating their own phonesite need not part with any money. Thanks to VoIP, set-up fees and monthly number rentals can now also be consigned to the history books.

Furthermore, phonesite owners can also charge what they like per minute and are not constrained by the fixed rate tariffs that were previously available.

But perhaps the biggest advantage of all afforded by this new form of pay-per-minute phone platform is that users can reach out to a global audience and not just a national one. Thus UK artistes can make money ‘made in USA’. And vice versa.

In an era of increasing information overload, it is reassuring to know that celebrities within the music space can adopt a back-to-basics approach by connecting with their fans away from all that web clutter via a device that we all have. A genuine value-added experience which, correctly priced, eager callers will only be too happy to pay for.

Finally, by tweeting the time and date of their availability, musicians can easily promote the event to their receptive followers.

This way, musicians can benefit from a device dating back to the pre-web era, whilst capitalising on the technology and free advertising opportunities afforded by social networks today.

Courtesy of IdeaMarketers, you can find more information regarding free pay-per-minute phone websites at Myphonesite.co.uk.

Marc Jarrett has been working as a consultant in the pay-per-call industry since 1994, and was first-to-market with cellphone ringtones in 2000.

Since you are now classified as a salesperson, let’s look at five of the most basic principles of Sales 101 and apply them to your music career.

1. Know What You Are Selling!

Most of the time, the product you are selling is not what makes a prospect buy from you. You can spend hours explaining the fancy features of your product, and still, not one person will buy from you. It’s the benefit they get as a result of buying the product that makes them pull out their credit cards. Sales trainers say ‘find a want, need or desire,’ and then give it to them.

So how does this apply to you? Let’s start with booking your act. Calling an entertainment buyer and rambling on about how great you are will turn most buyers off in the first few seconds. However, knowing what the buyer really wants to receive as a result of hiring your act, and then touting those benefits will get his or her attention immediately. Just listen to the comments that you get from the managers of other venues you’ve performed in. What they like most about you is probably what other buyers will like most about you as well. If you know what you are selling, then you can look for people who want or need what you have to offer.

Image credit: Weheartit.com

2. Know Your Target Market

Now that you know what exactly it is that you are selling, you can pinpoint your most likely customers. Not knowing your target market results in wasted time, effort, and money as well as a whole lot of frustration. The more specific you can be (age, gender, income status, geographic region etc.), the more you can focus your efforts and increase your sales percentages dramatically.

As an artist, knowing the makeup of your fan base (customers) enables you to tailor your marketing directly to them. If you’re just collecting email addresses and nothing more, you have no idea where you have a large concentration of fans so you can book gigs there. You don’t know whether the majority of your fans are young, old or in between so you can’t pinpoint the best topics for you to write songs about. If you don’t know why they like you, you have nothing to build on or offer more of.

3. Know Your Competition and Your Competitive Advantage

Competition is everywhere. Customers have more choices these days than ever before! It is your job to convince them that they should choose you over everyone else. You might want to market yourself everywhere that they are. The only way to do this is to know exactly what your competition has to offer and how they offer it. From there you can strategize on ways to capitalize on their weaknesses, downplay their strengths, beat their prices, and find better, more effective ways to reach the same potential customers.

As an artist, it is important to know about all of the other acts that are competing for the same fans. What venues do they play? Where do they market themselves? Can you tap into their customer base somehow? Where DON’T they market themselves that you can? What can you do to get people to pay attention to you (and your music) instead of your competition? What can you do better, bigger, brighter etc?

4. Mine the Gold from Your Existing Client Database

It is 5 times easier to sell something to a previous customer than it is to find a new one. This is because you have already earned their trust. They know what they are getting, virtually erasing the trepidation that most people have buying a product brand they are not familiar with. That is the purpose of loyalty cards from your favorite stores! They want to be able to market to you again!

As an artist, your email list is your ‘previous customer’ base, and your newsletters are your marketing mediums. So are the venues you’ve performed in before, the people who have bought your CDs or downloaded your music. Go back to them to sell (or even pre-sell) your next CD and to fill your performance calendar. Develop long-term relationships with them to build brand loyalty.

5. Track Progress and Results

It is important to know how each one of your marketing efforts is paying off. That is why it is important to determine how much return you are getting on your money, your time and your efforts. Without tracking your sales processes and results, you will never know what works and what doesn’t.

As an artist, you may be investing money in posters or banner ads, spending hours on social network sites or spending your time making phone calls. If you don’t know which methods are cost effective for you, you can spend precious time spinning your wheels. It’s all about measuring the return on your investment.

Read the entire post at the original Indie Connect Magazine article by Vinny Ribas at this location.

This particular piece will be about dealing with the bigger companies such as large scale venues, international promoters and record label managers.

I’ll try to keep this mostly simple by making a bit of a checklist of the basics.

• They are not your friend

Even if they keep buying you things, offering you gorgeous potential partners and getting you drunk, their primary focus is to earn money from you. That isn’t because they’re bad people, it’s simply because that’s what they’re employed to do. Your happiness is a security measure in order to ensure that, but it’s still secondary.

The people who really care about your wellbeing will be those that don’t have to make you happy, but do so anyway. The best way to find out who are friends and who are just doing their job is to tell them how your day has gone so far. Did they listen? Oh, that means they care. Did they offer no facial expression, laugh at the wrong parts and refuse to share anything real from their own life? Nah, they’re just doing their job.

• Always read contracts

Image found on Flickr

This sounds so very simple, but people across the world still haven’t gotten it. If a contract is put in front of you, and in the next second you are given a pen and told to sign it, something is being hidden from you in that document. If you’re pressured to sign, the last thing you should ever do is sign the damned thing. Never let anybody tell you what’s in a contract without having them show you the details themselves. Contracts can prove increasingly complex, and experts are often needed, but they can show you the parts that back up their claims.

Nobody who views you as a person instead of a meal ticket will ever begrudge you the time that you need to read the contract, sign it, and bring it back. If anybody tries to stop you from reading it, just walk away.

• Shrewd negotiations

There will come a time, if you work hard enough, when you will be earning more than a couple of pounds per performance. When you reach this stage, you reach the point of being able to negotiate your fee. At this point, a lot of power is in your hands, and a lot of things can go wrong. Firstly, never accept the first offer unless there’s a chance you’re going to lose the gig/job. Being too happy with low sums equates to people thinking that that is what you are worth.

On the other side of the coin, negotiating too harshly and taking too much money, leaves the other party less than pleased with the result, even if you’re fantastic. Negotiate to a level where everybody is happy, even if it means slightly less money. There are, after all, more important things in life.

• Accept the fact that people hate you now

Yeah, you’ve made it. Now people hate you. Why? Easy. They haven’t made it. They’re jealous.

There’s nothing else to this point, that’s it.

• Show a professional face

As has been mentioned earlier in these articles, bending the truth to appeal more professional and stable when it comes to the people in power is a good move. If that means leaving all of your own stresses, strains and pains at the door then that’s what you have to do, and you have to make sure everybody with you does it as well. Artists will always say that it’s only the music that matters, but that is far from the truth. In modern culture, your behaviour is far more important.

As long as you’re approachable, everybody is going to love you, except for those people mentioned above that hate you.

Tom Colohue is a writer from Blackpool, England. Though he specialises in Fiction, he also writes music theory articles, and new media articles based primarily on the internet. On occasion, these also intermingle. He is well recognised by numerous critics and analysts for his integrative descriptive work and his cynical textual mannerisms. For more information, Tom Colohue keeps a Facebook Fan Page, which contains updates from new articles and his personal blog, Mental Streaming. This page can be found via this link.

I want to clarify that I haven’t been paid by Starbucks to write this article, but rather the coffee company was brought to my attention when Freelance Whales’s frontman, Judah Dadone had suggested and went as far as to offer a testimonial for why musicians should seek employment at the coffee chain.

Image credit: bearableyou on Tumblr

“My friend Mackenzie told me a long time ago in high school when she was 17 year old girl, she was working for them and she got dental insurance. That’s so rare. I just learned that they spend $300,000 a year on health insurance and dental insurance for all their employees and that’s more than they spend on coffee beans.” – Judah Dadone, Freelance Whales

Seeing that I’ve studied the Starbucks case study in the past I can vouch for his suggestion.

We can safely assume that musicians tend to hold various “odd” jobs (and I use that term openly when referring to jobs unrelated to music) to make ends meet, whether it’s working as a truck driver, holding a 9-5 desk job or even attending med school. But even today, a desk job can’t guarantee a benefit as coveted as health insurance. If you’re desperate for health insurance and interested in additional perks like stock options and a retirement savings plan, the allure of applying for Starbucks will become more and more of a necessity.

The following are benefits that are offered by Starbucks known as “Your Special Blend.” If you work over 20 hours a week (full or part-time) you and your partner are eligible for the universal-benefits program, which encompasses the following:

• Progressive Compensation Package
• Healthcare Benefits (Medical, Prescription Drugs, Dental and Vision)
• Retirement Savings Plan (401K)
• Stock Options and Discount Stock Purchase Plan
• Income Protection Plan (Life and Disability Coverage)
• Management Bonus Plan
• Adoption Assistance Plan
• Domestic Partner Benefits
• Referral programs and support resources for child and eldercare
• Discounted Starbucks Merchandise
• Annual leave
• One pound of coffee per week

If you’re jobless by day and musician by night, employment under Starbucks is a quick fix and their coffee should keep you awake for the midnight to early morning jam sessions. Of course, this shouldn’t be a long term solution. You should always keep a backup plan, whether it’s learning to master tracks or attending day classes at your local college.

If you have any further companies that musicians could benefit from working at let us know in the comments below.

Francis Bea is a New Yorker turned Chicago co-founder of Musefy.com (in development) and writes Musefy’s blog Musebox.

• Fans – Fan funding has become a very popular way to raise money for recording projects. There are online sites such as Kickstarter.com or Rockethub that facilitate this. Basically, you’re asking your fans to purchase your recording up front (or something else of value, such as a house concert, depending on how much they are willing to spend.
• Personal Loan – This is a loan that you receive with full expectation that it will be paid back with interest. It most often comes from someone you know who believes in you. Personal loans can be secured using a simple promissory note, and may or may not involve putting up collateral. Please check with your attorney before signing anything to make sure you’re not getting locked into something that is not to your advantage.
• Personal Bank Loan – Obviously this is a simple loan that you get from a bank and make payments on. Your ability to get this kind of loan is usually based on your personal credit scores, your income and your credit history.
• Business Loan / Small Business Loan – This is a bank loan that you take out in the name of your business. In many cases it will still be contingent on your personal credit history unless the business has been established for quite a while and has its own credit history.


Image credit: BillRhodesPhoto on Flickr

• Barter – You can barter your skills, expertise, services etc for many of the things you might normally pay for, such as studio time, musicians, graphic design etc. Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to be trading music-related services. For example, maybe you could do some bookkeeping or painting for a studio in exchange for your sessions.
• Pre-Sales – You can pre-sell your CD at your live shows. This works best if you offer a ‘bonus’ for fans who pre-order, such as a t-shirt or extra free downloads. Be sure to keep great records of who orders.
• Grants – Depending on the nature of your act, you may be eligible to receive grants from any number of sources. There are foundations that fund artists whose work is of cultural significance. Your local and state arts commissions may offer grants to perform in schools. The possibilities are endless. Do your homework!
• Profit Share – If you know you are going to sell a decent amount of your CD, you may find someone to front you the money and then take a few dollars off of each CD sold. This arrangement can end when the lender has been paid back with a specific amount of interest, or can go on indefinitely as a long-term investment.
• Joint Venture – You may choose to form a company with one or more financial partners. You may want to secure the right to buy out your partners at some point down the road, assuming your career goes as planned. Always use an attorney when entering into financial contracts or setting up any kind of corporate entity.
• Working Partner – You may find a partner who brings both money and a skill set to the table. For example, the owner of the studio may give you the studio time for free in exchange for partial ownership in the project. Another form of working partner would be someone who brings both money and distribution capabilities.
• Sponsorships/Endorsements – If you are popular enough, you may get sponsors to pay for some of your career expenses. Examples would be having a company pay for your tour bus in exchange for promotion and sponsorship recognition. Musical instrument companies often sponsor artists by supplying them with products. You can get endorsements from non-music companies as well, such as beverages, clothing, jewelry, makeup etc.
• Sell Nonprofit Sponsorships – Some organizations, such as Compassion International and World Vision, pay you to recruit sponsors from your fanbase. Both of these organizations help children in underprivileged countries. You are asked to do a presentation at your shows to get people to sponsor a child for a year. You get paid per sponsorship enrollment. There are other organizations that do this as well for other causes.
• Corporate Gigs – You may find a company that holds conferences or other special events and is willing to fly you to perform at each of them. They might even pay for you to record a CD specifically to sell at their events. This happens most often when you write and perform songs directly related to their company or industry.
• Take Donations Using A ‘Fiscal Agent’ – A fiscal agent can be any nonprofit organization that is willing to accept donations on your behalf. They should set up a separate bank account so you have access to the funds. Often they will ask for a percentage of the funds as an administrative fee. This is acceptable if the fee is reasonable, but some organizations go overboard. Do your due diligence.
• Affinity Group – You may be able to align yourself with an affinity group (e.g. Harley riders) that would either fund your project or book you on an ongoing basis.
• Live-Stream Concerts – Of course, much of your income will come from playing shows. But building your fanbase to the point where you can attract enough people to not only come to your concerts but also pay to see your concert online will put you in a different income bracket.
• Sell bite-sized pieces – You can sell individual tracks as you record them, using the money from the first ones to pay for the next recording. The same concept applies toward selling an EP to raise funds to complete a CD.
• Pre-licensing – You may be able to get a music supervisor or ad agency to license your masters for use in a film, TV or commercial before the entire project is done.

This is a partial list of ways to fund your recordings or your career (read more, e.g. on getting a Investment Capital, in the original Indie Connect article at this location). The truth is that there are no limits to how creative you can be as long as it is fair, equitable and legal. It is very important to know that there are laws regarding many financial transactions, even between individuals. In addition, if you are not familiar with and OK with all of the terms, conditions and language presented to you in any financial agreement, consult an attorney!

© 2010 Vinny Ribas. Find more at Indie Connect Magazine.