Shortcut in Music Business

I am subscribed to Seth Godin’s wonderful blog and get almost a daily post from him. His stuff is on a bad day pure gold! Anyway, today he posted a blog post on shortcuts. You can read the post HERE
It got me thinking as in the past year I have changed lots of things in the way I work my business side of the music. And this has been with great results as well 🙂 Now when I look back, I can see what I was doing wrong for years and these are mistake most musicians are guilty of. We look for that shortcut. We look for that magic tool, person, manager, record label that is going to lift us to the “next level”. In fact we spend so much time concentrating finding the shortcut, that if we put the same effort into actually doing the work, we might be half way there already…

I have said this before and I will say it again until it sinks in, build your fan base one fan at the time and don’t go for the shortcut! If someone likes your music page on Facebook or on twitter, don’t go straight away forcing a sale down their throat. If I like you on twitter, why would your first attempt be trying to get me to like you on Facebook? Someone told me today on Twitter to like them on Facebook so “we could have a conversation in full sentence”… This made me feel like the Twitter account is there only to try to get more Facebook likes… People are not stupid! They see through desperate and pathetic attempts. How about try to be genuine, try to be you. Try to talk to people, like you would in real life. I mean do you go to bars and start a conversation by asking strangers to listen to your music? If you start a business, do you base your business plan on looking for a shortcut?

A great and proven thing is to offer something free, but still don’t force it down peoples throats. If you offer it nicely, it is their choice if they want it or not. And if they don’t, respect that choice. You know those charity workers on the streets who try to get us to stop and “just talk to them for a few minutes”? Is that how you want to market your music? Kindness and honesty combined with quality builds trust. Without trust you can’t build any business. This is important in the music business, more today than ever.

So go forth my friend, one follower at the time.

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get two of his free songs go HERE and click Download