Making Contact at Locist.com
Interesting new site currently in Beta testing. It looks like it could be pretty cool and sites like this are helping other professionals already. Check it out: locist.com
Interesting new site currently in Beta testing. It looks like it could be pretty cool and sites like this are helping other professionals already. Check it out: locist.com
In my Don’t Be Cheap post, I talked about how charging higher fees is one way to stand out among the competition. David Maister has posted about another concept to think about, and just like raising fees, I considered doing this when I was a musician, I was just too chicken.
First, he gives an excellent lesson in value.”prices are set by scarcity – the relative supply and demand for the service provided. Water has more inherent benefit than diamonds, but diamonds cost more because of an artificially managed supply and demand imbalance…you get paid a lot when your client believes you deliver a level of value that cannot be (or is not being) delivered by other possible providers.”
He’s dead on! I know it’s a hard pill to swallow, but never forget you are operating in a field FULL of musically talented and special people. The difference between success and failure will be measured by your ability to deliver beyond everyone else in ways outside of music.
Which brings us to David’s pricing idea: “Every bill I send out, without exception, has these precise words: “If you are anything less than completely satisfied, then pay me only what you think the work was worth.””
Though this kind of guarantee is common in business, it’s rare in professional services (which helps David stand out) and unHEARD of in music. Which is why it’s a powerful idea to consider.
Money is NOT the most important thing in life, it is however, the most important thing FOR life. Just try living without it! What if you woke up tomorrow morning with no money and no way to earn any more? Would you hunt your breakfast, eat some berries in the woods, or drink from your local crystal clear creek? I’d be dead in three days, but that’s just me.
Financial literacy is a term describing knowledge and understanding about money and how it works in the real world. I suggest you become a tireless student of financial literacy. Money’s not that difficult to understand (it’s more about human nature) nor is it a math intensive subject. 3rd grade skills in addition, subtraction, the occasional division and, when you know a lot about money, multiplication will be sufficient. Here are a few terms to get you started:
When I made my living in the studio, I once heard Mike, the busiest bass player in Nashville, talk about doubling the fees he charged for playing (called “double scale”). He was recalling the point in his career when he made the jump to double scale so he could slow down an weed out bad clients. But guess what happened: his phone rang off the wall. In fact, Mike quickly became the number one bass player in Nashville (and even in NY and LA).
Was this guy a great bass player? Yes, but so what. There were plenty of guys in Nashville that were great, and plenty of others that could have been great if they had been playing the gigs Mike was playing. As I’ve said here, here and here - and I’ll continue to say again and again and again, talent, and having “enough” talent, have little to do with success in the music business. Not because talent doesn’t matter, but because talent is a given. The world is full of talented musicians. The skills, abilities and knowledge you possess beyond talent are the things that will make or break your career.
After I heard Mike’s story, I debated jumping to double scale myself. Somewhere in my brain I understood that by raising his fees, Mike had changed his image in Nashville. He had created a perception of success which in turn, brought more success. Even though I understood that I could have created the same perception, I had too much self-doubt to believe I could actually be a “double-scale player”, so I didn’t raise my fees. Which left me to compete with other drummers by being cheaper. And as you can imagine now that I’ve pointed it out, this is a losing proposition.
As this post by Seth Godin explains, the problem with cheaper is that it “doesn’t create loyalty, because the other guy can always figure out how to be cheaper still.” He instead suggests “raising prices and using the extra money to create a remarkable experience.”
This is an excellent point, because raising fees is only half the battle. You must then be able to produce above and beyond the competition. By taking full advantage of the opportunity to play all the time, Mike continued to get better and better and he always had the best new equipment too.
It makes me think that if I had raised my prices, I could have had better equipment. I could have used some extra time to hand write thank you notes. I could have brought food and treats to every recording session. I coulda, coulda, coulda.
Sometimes there’s nothing to say except read this. Yes, it’s that good.
Cashflow is a simple idea with simple ramifications – a business with more cash coming in then going out succeeds, one that doesn’t, fails. I’ll admit this is an oversimplification, but in the case of a You, Inc. business like yours, it doesn’t get more complex than this. If you want to continue to eat and pursue your career, you must generate cashflow to pay your bills.
And because I lived this problem and made the wrong decisions, I’m starting a series on cashflow for musicians specifically focused on non-music related income. Why non-music related? Because:
So, from time to time in the coming weeks and months, be on the lookout for posts about creating cashflow. I’ll talk about teaching, non-musical-music realted jobs, mulit-level marketing, and a slew of other ideas for you to consider. In the mean time, keep working on music related cashflow too. Because the best non-music cashflow concept is to not have a need for any at all.
In contrast to my last post, here’s a link to a Squidoo lens suggesting 9 steps to becoming a happy and successful author. Now I know you don’t want to be an author, but you do want to be a successful musician, and like I’ve said again and again and again, the skills and principles needed for success are universal no matter WHAT you’re working towards. Go read the details, but here are the 9 steps “music-fied”:
Excellent words to succeed by
Want to know how to get a musician to complain?
Give him a gig.
Although that sounds like a funny joke, my experience says it’s true. Though there are a LOT worse ways to make money than playing music, I found that most musicians complained continually. But it’s not just musicians, every where I go, I’m amazed at how much the average person grumbles in the average day.
And the key word in that sentence is average. The musicians that grumbled never succeeded and the average people I hear complain every day won’t either. But if complaining is not enough for you, here’s a list of many many other things you can do that are guaranteed to make you fail in life. Here are my favorites:
Go have a laugh.
Quick thought for today:
Don’t ever under estimate the amount of money being made in the music industry. There is PLENTY to go around and you can make a living pursuing your dreams.
In fact, don’t under estimate money period.
There’s a critical misperception in the world that money is finite. That by it’s very nature, money must LEAVE the hands of one person in order to ENTER the hands of another. In other words, you can’t get rich without someone else getting poor.
WRONG!
That’s not how money works. Simple fact of the matter is we (people, not Americans) print more money as it is needed. So, what’s really happening every day, week, month, year, decade in history is that the pie that’s available for consumption is BIGGER.
It’s okay to want, and work for, a piece.
