Many businesses struggle because of a failure to develop great customer experiences at their touch points and the same is true for musicians. So today, I want to give you a tool I was introduced to by Tabetha Taylor when I was a Product Manager: The Customer Experience Pyramid.

(Bottom Part says: What your customers will experience with you)

What it Means

The pyramid is a reminder your goals are supported by, and will ONLY be supported by a foundation of customers. Two points:

•  are the foundation for your career. Period.
• Therefore, what your customers – fans, supporters, fellow musicians, actual customers, club owners, etc., etc., etc. – experience with you MUST be purposeful if you want to reach your goals.
• Everything else is supported by this foundation.

But even though pyramids work from the bottom up, you’re going to use this tool from the top down using four steps.

Step One

First, you must decide your exact goals in detail. The more defined they are, the easier the rest of the steps are to do.

Step Two

Once you know what you want, ask yourself these two questions:

1. Who do I need to have help me reach these goals (your specific set of “customers”)? Make a list of all these people either by name and/or in groups. For instance, as a drummer, my customers were producers, other players (particularly bass players), singers, and singer/songwriters because those were the people that hired drummers.
2. What specific actions do you want each of them to take? I wanted producers to hire me. I wanted other players to recommend me and hopefully demand I be the drummer when they worked. I wanted singers and singer/songwriters to recommend me and hire me to play live and on their demo recordings.

Step Three

With a clear picture of who they are and what you need them to do, figure out what they all have to believe about you so they’re personally motivated to take those actions. So using me as an example again I’ll give one answer for each group. You will have multiple answers (and “that I’m great” doesn’t count):

• Producers: That I created great sounding and feeling drum tracks fast.
• Players: That I was fun to play with musically and personally.
• Singers and singer/songwriters: That I made THEM sound incredible.

Step Four

The last step is to then figure out what all these people have to experience every time you’re interacting so they believe everything in Step Three.

What are you doing to make sure every touch point creates the purposeful customer experience you need to build your career?

Why Money?

“Many people say that money is not the most important thing in life. That may be true. However, money does affect everything that is important.” – Kim Kiyosaki

Since money buys things like food and shelter (not to mention equipment and clothing) and I therefore recommend you know how to use it, I offer you some basic money terms and insights:

Expenses

Things like food, shelter, equipment and clothing are expenses. Specifically, they are mandatory expenses because you need them to live. Ice cream is also an expense, but it’s not mandatory.

Income

Though this word literally means money coming in, it is NOT the most important money word and here’s why:

Positive Cashflow

There are two drummers:

• The first has $1,280 a month in mandatory expenses. He has $350 in the bank and just got a gig on a cruise ship getting paid $4,000 per month. The gig starts in Mid-February (it’s February 2nd) and he’ll get his first paycheck on April 1st.
• The second has $1,800 a month in mandatory expenses, no money in the bank, and two jobs. She stocks shelves at WalMart three nights a week and plays Wednesday through Saturday at a local club. Since she gets a $500 check from WalMart on the 1st and 15th of each month and $500 each Wednesday from the club, she got $1,000 yesterday. She paid her rent and has money left over to eat until next Wednesday.

Drummer number two is doing fine because she has positive cashflow. She has money coming in when or before she needs it. Even though he has lower expenses and a better paying gig, drummer number one is in serious trouble because he has negative cashflow.

The key to having freedom to pursue your career and life is positive cashflow even if the amount is small.

Give

Giving keeps you grounded in the only thing that truly does matter in life, loving others. Start developing a habit of giving at least 10% of everything you earn early in your career. You will never give 10% of $100,000 if you haven’t been giving 10% of the $125 you made the other night.

Savings

Same thing with saving. Pay yourself 10% to 15% too. Money multiplies at an amazing rate so even if $12.50 isn’t much, “not much” over and over again is WAY MUCH!

Spending

• Mandatory Expenses: The simple but truly helpful advice is to keep these as low as possible for as long as possible. You’ll have better Cashflow, more to give and more to save.
• Other Expenses: You’ll also have some money to spend for fun – something you should ALWAYS do. Take a little amount of purposely set-aside money to have fun with.

Those are the basics, what did I miss?

You Can’t Succeed Alone

If it’s true that you need other people to succeed in your music career (and it is), then it’s equally true that your career depends on the success of every “touch point” you have with other people.

Customers and You

Touch Points are nothing more than exactly what they sound like: the points of contact between a business, product or service and prospective customers. In the case of you and your music career, this means any and all interactions you have with your fans, supporters, fellow musicians, producers, etc., etc.

Yes I mean any and all interactions.

As a musician, singer, songwriter or artist, it’s critical that you understand that YOU are the product and service and therefore, you are never NOT marketing.

Branding

This means that every Touch Point must fully and clearly represent the brand that is you if you want to (a) build a long term career and (b) build a long term career staying true to who you are and what you want. Here are two suggestions on how to do this well:

1.) Get a sheet of paper, draw a circle in the center and write “You” in the circle. Then draw other circles around You and write the names of people or the names of groups of people (Band Fans for instance) that are in your network. Connect your circle and the other circles with lines (here’s a blank example).

2.) Consider the literal or potential touch points between you and this network.

• Social Media presence – which Networks, bios, photos, etc.
• Web Page – look, feel, usefulness
• Answering machine/cell phone message
• Your appearance – all the time
• Business cards
• Your equipment
• Your work – what kind you do and how it represents you
• Your personality and interactions with people
• Your friends and associates
• Every other touch point you can think of

Be You, just Be You Consistently

It would be easy to misunderstand this entire post as one long suggestion to become a salesperson selling out at every turn. That is NOT what I’m saying at all.

I’m saying that the way to build the music career of your dreams is to make sure that any and all touch points between you and your customers fully and clearly represent you, your talents and the career you want because careers are built one touch point at a time.

Which Touch Points did I forget?

I Wasn’t a Dead Fish

My wife screamed at me, “I’d get more response from a DEAD FISH!”

We had been married about 2 years and were having a discussion (fight) about something. She was walking back and forth telling me everything she was feeling when she paused for a response.

She yelled when she didn’t get one.

What neither one of us knew at the time was that I wasn’t a dead fish, I was a Peaceful Phlegmatic.

The 4 Personalities

Did you know that everyone of us – including you – has one of four distinct personality styles that dictate how we think, act, relate, and communicate?

In our Dead Fish incident, my wife expected an instant response because one of the strongest personality traits is that she thinks out loud. If she thinks it, she says it. Period. When I didn’t respond, she thought I was blowing her off.

My personality is EXACTLY the opposite. I think and think and think and THINK before I speak just to make sure what I say is precisely what I mean. I wasn’t blowing her off, I was thinking.

Your Music Career

Learning about the 4 Personalities has done more to help my career (and marriage) than almost anything else I know and it’ll do the same for you.

• Knowing how people think, act, relate, and communicate will help you better understand, communicate, work and live with the people in your life.
• Knowing YOUR Personality Type will help you take advantage of your strengths and properly manage your weaknesses.

Think, Act, Relate, Etc.

This post is not meant to fully explain everything there is to know about personalities, but here are the basics:

• Powerful Choleric – These people are direct, firm, ambitious, and no nonsense.
• Popular Sanguine – think bubbly, talkative, sociable, charismatic, and FUN (my wife)!
• Peaceful Phlegmatic – These people are thoughtful, calm, relaxed, and peacemakers (me).
• Perfect Melancholy – People with this personality are detail minded, introverted, often artistic, and deep thinkers.

Learn More

I encourage you to learn more about the personalities. Check out this chart I made and get the book, Personality Plus. It literally changed my life and I know it’ll change yours too.

Which personality are you?

A Not So Funny Joke

Question: How do you get a musician to complain?

Answer: Give ‘em a gig.

15 Minute Conversation

I was at the office of a business associate this past Friday when one of his staff members said, “Hey, did you ever talk to that girl interested in the Knoxville job? What did you think?”

To which he replied, “Not good. Basically, nothing was her fault. All I heard was how bad all her former employers were, that they all had bad policies and rules, and that she had been fired by all of them for no reason. I heard more complaints and excuses than I’ve ever heard in a 15 minute conversation.”

She won’t be getting the job.

No One Likes a Complainer

We live in a society of criticizing and complaining – just think Reality TV and Political Campaigns, right? We are a society that feels entitled to complain about everything because we feel entitled to have everything.

But don’t be fooled by this “norm.” While it can indeed make “Must See TV,” all complaining does in real life is make you a “must avoid at all costs.”

You Might be a Complainer, If:

• You’re answer to how ya doin’ is, “I’m tired,” “just trying to make a living,” “alright I guess,” or similarly depressing answers.
• You talk behind the back of players, singers and songwriters telling others how bad they are, how they can’t sing or how bad the songs are while you’re actually working with them at the time (like backstage).
• You honestly believe everyone in your past has done you wrong in one way or another.
• You talk about how you honestly believe everyone in your past has done you wrong in one way or another (and you can’t understand why nobody agrees with you).
• You feel tired and drained all the time.
• You say things like, “I’m doing this for now, but someday I’m going to…”
• When people compliment you, you’re response is, “nah, it was nothing” or, “I screwed up the section…” or something else that sounds humble but actually tells the other person they don’t know what they’re talking about.
• The only good thing you can say about your current gig is, “it sure beats digging ditches” and you actually SAY that out loud.

Attitude Determines Altitude

I’m not suggesting that you have to be bubbly, excited and sickeningly positive all the time. I am suggesting that many, many musicians I know have torpedoed any chances of success because no one wanted to be around their bad attitudes. Make sure that doesn’t happen to you.

What are some tips for staying positive in situations that BEG for complaining?

Just Like Music

If you’ve been a musician for any time at all, you know that the main way to learn music is by stealing.

I don’t mean SOPA and PIPA piracy, I mean watching and hearing other hot musicians and then intently working to mimic them note for note.

Well, I’m here to say this is how music business success happens too.

Power of Association

If you want to move ahead in your music career, you’ve got to get around people who are in life where you want to be. This means you’ve got to figure out exactly what “ahead” means to you and then find people who are doing that successfully.

Once you’ve identified some people who are in life where you want to be, here’s what to do:

Ask

• Ask: Yes, it’s often that simple. People in the music business and the arts LOVE to help other aspiring artists succeed. Most will be flattered that you asked and thrilled to tell you their stories and give advice.
• Be a friend: Some relationships will be very business like, but the best will be real friendships. They will develop over time and they will be beneficial for you AND them.
• Be open: Be open to advice when they give it and be open to their personalities and manner too.
• Listen: First, let them do most of the talking. They are not there for your stories and experience and if you’re talking too much, you’re not really there for theirs either. Second, don’t just hear the words, listen for the meanings behind the stories and experiences. This is how you’ll learn the most.
• Ask more: The best way to be open and listen is to ask lots of questions. Say things like, “can you tell me more about that?” “What was it like to experience that?” “What did you think about at the time?” “What do you think about it now?” Using questions keeps the conversation moving and most importantly, digs into the stories behind the stories.

Start Now

Make a list of 5 to 10 people you’d love to get around if you could. Then think about how you could make that happen through a connection you already have.

Have any of you pursued time with someone like this? How did it benefit you and your career?

What You Need to Build a Long-Term Career in Music

1. More than talent: My wake up call to you: talent is a given and everyone’s great in the music business. Long-term success is a “Talent +” equation. You must learn more than simply being great at your craft and how to put that additional knowledge to work for you.
2. Work Ethic: You are not going to stumble into success. You must be willing and able (see number 7) to work your butt off to find, make and take advantage of opportunities.
3. Right Equipment: I’m not saying wait until you have the latest and best of everything, but if you want to be a pro, have pro equipment and know how to use it.
4. Appearance: Remember, you are never NOT marketing, so make sure everything you do/are communicates what you want. As I heard TV host Jeannie Mai say, “people judge, give them something to judge correctly.”
5. Personality: On a related note, you must also BE a great person. Do jerks work? Yes, but either (a) not for long or (b) they are NOT jerks to their team, band, crew, etc.
6. People Skills: A personality is who you are, people skills are the how, why and when of interacting with OTHER people. Successful people do this very well. All the time, and with all people. If there’s one bigger “must have,” it’s this one.
7. Cashflow: Having a consistent supply of money for food, shelter, basics and equipment means you are in control of your life and career. The opposite is being desperate and that NEVER turns out well.
8. USP: You must fully understand your Unique Selling Proposition: the customer (fan, producer, fellow musician, etc.) focused benefit(s) that is unique to you.
9. Target Market: You also must fully understand who your target customers are in as much detail as possible. You will find success when you clearly communicate your USP to a specific group of people who you’ve identified as needing/wanting what you offer.
10. A Big Why: If you don’t have a bigger reason to succeed in music than hearing applause and being a star, you will never be a success. Your ability to persist will be directly tied to what you want out of life and a sense of purpose that matters for other people.

I find that most players, singers, songwriters and artists struggle most with numbers 7, 8 and 9. They are not difficult, but they can be tricky. Where are you with this list? How can I help?

Get Noticed, Heard and Hired LIVE

Join me and four Music Industry Pros this Saturday at Indie Connect’s Super Singer-Songwriter Seminar.

I’ll by sharing the concepts from my Free E-book, Get Noticed, Heard and Hired. Both the E-book and the workshop explain the basics of marketing applied directly to music careers:

The Super Singer-Songwriter Seminar Event

The Super Singer Songwriter Seminar, is an all-day event designed to help singers and/or songwriters stand out from the thousands of singer-songwriters. In addition to myself, it features 4 amazing speakers covering the vital parts of music careers:

• Saturday, January 14,  9:00 AM – 5:30 PM
• Indie Connect 2720 Old Lebanon Rd. Ste. 108, Nashville TN 37214
• 615-568-4736 or click HERE to email Indie Connect for more info
• Contact me for a special 50+% off admission offer – yes, OVER 50% OFF ADMISSION

The 2 Myths

There are two hypnotizing myths about music careers believed by many players, singers, songwriters and aspiring artists. Two interrelated ideas that often kill their hopes of building successful careers. They are:

• The myth of talent
• The myth of Super Stardom

Common and Understandable

The myths of talent and Super Stardom are both common and understandable because musicians have heard they are spectacularly talented and that they should be STARS their whole lives!

Myths

Whether understandable or not though, these are both myths.

• Talent alone does not ensure success in the music business. Am I saying talent, or being GREAT at what you do doesn’t matter? No. What I’m saying is that success in music – success in anything – takes a combination of technical skill AND a number of other skills: marketing, communication, people, finances, etc.
• Sorry to tell you this, but only a select few will ever reach Super Stardom in music.

Though these myths are understandable, my concern is that they are also powerfully hypnotizing and therefore paralyzing.

Hypnotizing

The myth of talent can be paralyzing because it keeps you from being aware that there’s more you need to learn.

I should know, I was told how great I was and that I should be a pro too. Everything I did supported my belief that if I kept doing what I was doing, I’d keep finding more gigs. And it worked, until I got as far as my talent alone could take me and I had nothing else to give to my career.

The myth of Super Stardom can be just as paralyzing, though it is far less obvious. It is less obvious because even though most musicians know they’ll never be a “Super Star,” they secretly hope they will be or secretly believe anything less is somehow not good enough.

Wake Up!

So:

1. Wake up to the fact that you must become a student on what it takes to succeed in life – career, business, life, relationships, etc.
2. Wake up to the fact that your talent + those skills ensures you will be one of the millions of people who can and should have long-term careers in the music business. Yes, YOU!

What are you working towards doing long-term in the music business?