datamusicata

I received a post from a musician inquiring about the need for a manager, the manager's role and the business of acquiring one and I thought that these were a good questions to address today. In my career, I have been blessed with both some good managers and some bad ones through the years, but I think we first have to all be on the same page to address these questions. Let’s start with the basics.

What is a manager? That would be someone who has business savvy, connections, drive, a very thick skin and remarkable organizational skills; someone who understands the day to day workings of building a career and the perspicacity to recognize opportunities and mistakes before they happen. Sounds a little like some kind of superhero, doesn’t it? These are actually the qualities that you want to look for in a manager.

But it is the rare artist that acquires a wonderful manager from the get go. When that happens you have a remarkable synergy, real talent and real business acumen melding into a wonderful career. Dan Fogelberg comes to mind. The only manager he ever had, so far as I know, was the legendary Irving Azoff (Azoff Music Management Group, no site as far as I can tell). They met in college when Dan was a folk singer and Irving was booking local bands like REO Speedwagon. Irving had a remarkable business sense and a vision of what he could do. But I have to tell you, that finding someone like that and then enrolling them in your career is very difficult.

Now if I knew exactly what it took to enroll a fantastic manager, I would obviously have one, so I am going to suggest what I think that they are looking for in an artist. (And later on this month, I will see if I can get a manager or two to weigh in here and give us some of their hard earned wisdom).

Presumably you are already doing this part time or full time and are deriving some kind of income from your efforts. What a manager wants to see from the get go is a person with focus, drive, and talent; not just talent. There are millions of us with talent. It seems to take something more, and one of those things is enrolling someone else in your vision, dream, career; whatever you are calling it.

So they want the talent obviously. But they need to see a commitment to your art from you. And with rare exceptions managers do not start the fires that turn into blazing careers. They are more inclined to be searching the horizon for smoke and then checking it out. So initially, you’ve got to start the buzz on what you do. The primary way to do that is by being really good at what you do. Secondly you have to know how to or learn how to market yourself and build a following for yourself. This following demonstrates to managers that people other than you are interested in what you do.

Thirdly, you do all those things that make people aware of you…myspace, cdbaby, facebook, pulse, reverbnation, stations, podcasts, etc on the web. And what I did for years was to maintain a mailing list, but that’s when post cards were ten cents a piece to mail; ten for a dollar. Now that it’s twenty five cents a post card, sending out a thousand postcards can get pretty expensive…and that is after you’ve created them. But when announcing a new CD, I find that the post card is much more effective than the email.

For one thing, the email disappears as soon as they have read it, where as the post card may sit on their refridgerator door for six months before they finally order the cd. But the point is that they stick around. So I still do that for new releases. And in order for you to to that, you need to acquire a mailing list. I create little cards that I leave on all the tables and folks fill them out and give them back to me. I also keep a list that folks can get on and I ask them for everything, not just the email address.

Get to know the local radio people in your area that might play what you record. And you’ll have to make at least one CD that you can use to get gigs, airplay and sell to the converted. I have stressed this before but it becomes more obvious the worst the economic climate gets. Pick an area and work that to death. For instance, if you don’t have a machine set up to handle your CD sales and distribution, use CD Baby (www.cdbaby.com) and tell them I sent you. And only have your CD’s there. That way, all the sales are in one place, your profile rises there (and the more it rises, the more inclined everyone there is to help you make it rise even more) and all the mail order is handled in a professional and expedient way. They even help you get on all the download sites and take a very small share for doing it. I recommend them to all musicians.

Go to www.cafepress.com and make T shirts and other saleable media. It’s easy, doesn’t cost a dime and everything is product on demand, so you don’t need an inventory. Now price it at a dime more than it costs you. It’s okay to not make money on this initially. You want to get the word out there and a sweatshirt with your name and album on it that only costs fifteen bucks has more chance of being sold than a forty dollar one…unless you are already a household name, in which case, people want to have your name on their chests. And buy yourself a couple of them and wear them when traveling, at the sound check, at the cd table at the meet and greet; everyplace you can that will raise your profile. Unless someone knows you, they won’t realize that you’re wearing clothing with your name on it. You can check out what I’ve done at or www.cafepress.com/beachwood or http://www.cafepress.com/buy/james+lee+stanley/

What you want to do is demonstrate that there is potential for a larger audience there. That’s the first step. More on Friday.