I Can't Strum The Guitar For You

I can come up with a whole strategy and plan to market yourself. Even give you all the advice you need, in order to navigate through the music industry. But what I can’t do is strum the guitar for you. You are the one who needs to execute on the plan, and be able to make it happen. You can do all the research, read all the books (and my blog posts of course ;)) in the world to educate yourself on the business, and even pay all kinds of money for an expert to come up with a personalized plan for you. What good is it if you don’t do anything with it.

We know the business. We find talent and help navigate the artist through the industry. We come up with promotional plans and strategies, but we aren’t the talent. We just know how to market and sell products. We can’t go up on stage and strum the guitar for you. I can set you up for success and do all the work, but all you have to do is put in the other half and execute on the plan.

Think of it as a group project in school. There’s always the one person in the group, who slacks and does little of the work. While the others pick up all the slack, because that one person decided not to do it. Everyone has most likely been through a group project that ended terribly, unless you are the culprit.

I can recruit a top college athlete, but that doesn’t fully mean they are going to be this all star in the pros. It’s like a coach. They are watching from the sidelines, putting together a starting lineup, and setting up plays. The coach sees everything, knows what the players need to do in order to win the game. Sometimes it just doesn’t go in their favor. My point being, a coach for a sports team is similar to the music business. Most of the people (like myself), who are in the business, don’t play whatsoever. What they do know is music. They know when they hear a great song. They know what the artist is doing wrong on the stage, and what that person needs to do, so they can improve on their performance. Just like a coach coming up with a play, if the players don’t execute, the play will not work. I can go all in, come up with the greatest strategy and promotional plan, but the plan could still fall flat. If both me and the artist are not putting the same amount of energy and work ethic, it’s not going to work. When both are invested and believe in each other, that’s when the magic happens.

With Taylor Swift, Big Machine CEO, Scott Borchetta saw her potential. He had this vision and knew what he had to do. Taylor Swift wrote this song, “Tim McGraw.” What was clever on Scott’s part, he knew everybody knew who Tim McGraw was in the country realm. As a new country artist, sending this song out to radio stations would for sure grab their attention, instead of over looking it. This was a smart move by both. She wrote a great song and Scott knew what to do with it. They both went all in. He believed in her, just as much as she believed in him. I think that’s why she has been so successful. If both believe in each other and go “all-in,” anything can happen.

Thank you for reading this weeks blog post. Stay tuned each week for more helpful insight on the music industry!

Xo Brittany