This article originally appeared on the Internal Affairs blog.
I’ve noticed that a lot of marketing blogs completely forget to teach their readers the basics and jump straight in to the deep end with marketing. The readers look on bewildered, yet gagging for their marketing “quick fixes” - I know, I was (kind of) one of them when I was younger.
Understanding the very basics of marketing will allow even the most inexperienced “musicpreneur” to take the most basic concepts and create a unique, creative and effective marketing campaign from them. Therefore, that’s why my goal at Internal Affairs is to introduce the very basics before anything else.
Now, before we begin talking about the nitty-gritty side of marketing and the music business, you need to understand a few things about being an entrepreneur.
Becoming An Entrepreneur
Everyone claims to want to do what they love for a living. But when they have the opportunity to do it, they put it off because of their fears of failure. These are the more popular excuses I tend to come across:
“Oh, I can’t afford to invest that sort of money or time!”
Or
“Oh, I tried it, but after a month, I gave up because I didn’t make a sale!”
Whenever I see someone mouth those sorts of sentences, I have to stop my right hand from slapping them. People like that are so infuriating.
I like to help people who are trying to follow their dreams. But if that’s their excuse, I sigh. Why?
They are naïve, ignorant, and downright lazy.
If you’re one of those people and you feel you have no capacity to change, feel free to leave this page now. I want to help you but if you’re narrow minded; I can’t. If you believe (or at the very least hope) you can change, let me introduce you to the concept of taking risks.
You’re Taking A Risk Every Second
Everything has risk. When you put a pizza in the oven, there’s a risk you won’t enjoy it. There’s a risk you will let it go too crispy. There’s a risk it catches fire and burns your whole kitchen down.
Why do you expose yourself to such great risks? Are you mad!?
Of course you’re not.
You believe and trust yourself enough that the worst thing that’s going to happen is that you leave it cooking too long and it comes out a bit burnt. Big whoop! You don’t enjoy your pizza very much. Life goes on…
So why do you believe that starting a business doing what you love is such a big risk?
You make music and you want to sell it. What’s stopping you? Nothing and you’ve probably already tried. You released an album on Bandcamp at no cost to you. Maybe you were lucky and you made a sale or two… But it’s nothing you can live off.
You say to yourself excitedly, “I want to make a living from my music… What do I need to do? Expand!”
You look around. You put a few terms in to Google and you find yourself retreating like a dog with its tail in between its legs. It’s going to COST money to MAKE money. F*** CAPITALISM! Right?
But hang on a second…
Appease The Gods & Sacrifice
How much is it going to cost, say to start a website which in turn builds your fan base?
No more than a couple of nights out drinking with your friends. Or maybe, you ration that pizza a little. After all, you need to lose a few pounds. You’ll kill two birds with one stone that way.
(Eh? Get it? Stone? Weight?)
At the end of the day, how much will you lose if you fail? A few nights of your time and a bit of paper…
(Yes, $300 is a bit of paper. It shouldn’t own you.)
As long as you keep the roof over your head and pay your bills, losing that change in your pocket isn’t a big deal. It’s better investing that money in to a career you enjoy than it is being spent on booze.
What do you truly want: A successful business or a hangover?
Point Being
You shouldn’t be afraid of failure. You have to take risks to succeed. We’ve all failed before and it’s not nice. However, you shouldn’t let that stop you from following your dreams to find the path for your success.
You can sacrifice aspects of your life or you can try to balance your current life with your new business venture on top. The amount of risk you take is up to you.
Now I want to ask you a favour.
Thanks for reading,
Jordan
Jordan teaches business concepts and marketing strategies for the music-minded entrepreneur. Furthermore, he tests strategies before sharing them with his readership. He also demonstrates how they are effective to his record label and how they will be effective to other music businesses by integrating the data and information found in academic journals to support real world applications.
If you want to start learning the strategies he applies to both his record label and his blog Internal Affairs, sign up to the Internal Affairs newsletter by clicking here.