Big Kenny is one half of Big & Rich, which has recorded three studio albums for Warner Bros. Records and has charted 10 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. He's sold over 5,000,000 albums and has been BMI Songwriter of the Year.
Some good advice...
Want more?
Check out this special episode of Music Business Radio. In it, Kenny talks about his house and recording studio, spiritual journeys, playing clubs, MuzikMafia, Nashville, mixing different genres of music, getting released from a record contract, getting paid, the power of music, the future of music, creativity, and more.
Jack Daniel's is the best-selling whiskey in the world. Because of this, we all know the "square" bottle, the black/white label, and all about Lynchburg [Pop.361], Tennessee.
Did you know Lynchburg is in "dry" country? Sure you did.
Did you know, since they can't serve whiskey in Lynchburg, you're served lemonade when you tour the distillery? Sure you did.
So why is Jack Daniel's doing "non-whiskey" things like this?
And this?
Because people who like Jack Daniel's whiskey also like meat! And if they're going to get meat anyway, it might as well be from Jack Daniel...
Even if you've got a hot product that sells a lot, it can be a good idea to expand to other things.
So what do fans of your music like and they'd buy from you, if you were to offer it to them? If they're the same type of people who like Jack Daniel's, perhaps your own brand of hot sauce would be a good place to start.
"Hi david hooper thanks alot now iam giving you authority to do everything but asist me with some money(2000$ dollas)so that i produce videoz&send every thing at once,but before you send i request you kindly to tell me theday,where to get the money from,after that i send mo new music thanks, your good man lets go ahead me&you have agood night."
Not sure where this guy is from, but as I was trying to be courteous to different cultures and how they do things, I originally decided not to post the message in the Funny Musician Emails section.
Then I got another email from him.
And another.
And about 10 more after that...
So I changed my mind.
Messages like this...
"Hi david hooper how you today? after one week iam going to give you my acount(in barclays bank and my ID number (removed) phone number (phone number in Uganda) thank you."
And this...
"Hi david hooper i made mistake the phone number is (another phone number in Uganda) but it is not available at this time ID number is correct,acount number i will give it to you next week but it is in(BARCLAYS BANK) more to that i have another adress (another email address) have agood night."
Whether the messages are legitimate or not, I have no idea. For the point of this post, it doesn't matter.
And the point of this post is...
You will have a better response to your "pitch" if, before you approach somebody, you find out how the person communicates, how he does business, and how he's done deals in the past.
It works for everything...
Want a date with a certain woman? Find out what she likes and hand it to her on a silver platter.
Want to sell more Mary Kay cosmetics? Show up wearing a pink suit.
Want to get your song cut by ___________? Listen to previous songs cut by ___________ and pitch something similar, but different.
If you're based in Nashville, have a kick ass idea for a technology-based music business, and want to take things to the next level, Jumpstart Foundry may be for you. Not only wil get you a $15,000 investment, you'll also get access to a team of established businesspeople who can help you grow your company.
This is a reminder that our records indicate your service is ready for renewal at the end of March. If you wish to pay via PayPal, please visit (web site) and go to the bottom of the page and select the $37.50 option. There is a $1.50 fee to cover PayPal's charge in the renewal fee. Checks can be made payable to (company name) and mailed to (company address).
Thank you for being a customer and have a great day!
The Good: There is an "easy" option of paying online.
The Bad: The "easy" option costs more money.
Paying an extra $1.50 is not going to break anybody, but when you approach it like this, many people will feel that way. And when that happens, they'll go for the really easy option of not doing business with you.
Think about this in relation to your music and merch sales. Are you making things complicated with a shipping fee chart based on the total amount ordered or different shipping fees for different types of items? Are you charging extra fees to cover your credit card processing?
Make it easy on people! Offer a flat rate, regardless of how people pay and cover shipping costs from the money you get for the items themselves.
Used to teach a college class on music marketing. Had a student who would come to class in a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase.
One time he asked me, "Do you think I should get a Range Rover?"
I asked, "What do you need a Range Rover for?"
"To carry clients around," he said.
My response... "You need clients before you need anything to carry them around in."
Sounds pretty funny, but a lot of people fall into the same trap. Outward appearance doesn't mean anything if you don't have the "inner game" to back it up.
Don't get me wrong. I love the guys who jump in head first, going balls out with top-shelf recordings, the best photographers, great art direction, and whatever else it takes to give the appearance of success. If you're got the "inner game" in order to back this up, I think it's great.
But before you make a big investment in something, ask yourself, "Is this going to make me money?"
There are times when a nice vehicle, such as a Range Rover, definitely will. For example, if you're meeting an attorney for lunch, do you want to see him pull up in a nice car or something that is falling apart? In cases like this, the outward appearance of success can really help propel what you've got to a new level.
But don't be an idiot about it.
It's a fine line that you'll have to figure out for yourself. Some people have a higher tolerance for risk than others. To them, a big ass car payment isn't anything. For others though, that same payment could put them under so much pressure that they start to make decisions out of desperation...and that is not a good place to be making decisions.
Here's a video to help give you some perspective. NOTE: This video uses language which may offend some and is NSFW.
Questions for you...
How detailed is your plan?
How do you decide where to spend your money?
Do you have any financial decisions that you regret? If so, what were they?
What are the good financial decisions that you've made?
My company turned 15 years old this month. A few years ago, I posted a quick and dirty history, for those that are interested in the timeline of things.
According to a study by the U.S. Small Business Association, only 2/3 of all small business
startups survive the first two years and less than half make it to four
years. So what's the secret for making it beyond this time?
I started my company when I was in college at the University of Memphis, studying commercial music. The degree was a BM, because I was serious about playing guitar at the time. But it was commercial music, so there was a lot of business stuff in the curriculum as well as the standard music stuff.
Had a teacher tell me, "The way to make money in music is via publishing." So I started a publishing company almost immediately, since I was writing songs for my band and knew a bunch of other people writing songs as well.
The problem was the you only make money in publishing when something is happening with the songs that you publish... And nothing was happening to the songs I owned copyright on.
I had a background in direct marketing via mail, having gotten involved in that while still in high school. Started putting out compilation CDs of my stuff, in hope that something would take off, and sending them to radio, press, and other media. As a college student, I didn't have a ton of money to spend, so I sold the extra space to indie bands wanting the same for their music.
Long story short... I had some music business knowledge, but as some people would say, "just enough to mess things up." Had some direct mail knowledge, but certainly wasn't an expert. More or less, I was making everything up as I went along. If it worked, I did it again. If it didn't work, I analyzed it, tried to figure out why, and changed things up.
You rarely hear about how successful people screw up. I think this is because successful people, at least the ones whom I've met, don't view mistakes as a bad thing and certainly don't dwell on them.
Or maybe people make so many mistakes they can't count them all... I certainly have. One, as illustrated above, was making a tray card look like a phone sex ad. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it pissed a lot of people off, too. And while you can't please everybody, and not everybody will react well to everything, there are some things you can do to better your odds of success and making a tray card look like a phone sex ad isn't one of them...unless you're in a sexually-charged genre of music, which this CD wasn't.
Almost all the artwork on the first group of CDs I released was stolen, by the way. That was another mistake. "Borrowing" things like images and code was pretty standard on the early Internet, so I carried that over to the offline world. Ironic for a publishing company trying to make money off of copyrights, I know...
I made a ton of mistakes. That didn't stop me from moving forward though. And knowing that I was making mistakes didn't stop me from making more mistakes. My first book got horrible reviews for sloppy editing, for example. Had I worried about that kind of thing though, I never would have released it in the first place.
If you do enough things, you're going to make mistakes.
If you're not making mistakes, you're not doing enough things.
As I said earlier, when something doesn't work, fix it and try again.
Book editing sucks? Call in an editor and re-release it. Not a big deal.
Printed a CD with a messed up track listing? That happened to me also. The solution? Get stickers with the correct listing, slap them on the CD case, and keep going...
More thoughts on the subject from Derek Sivers...
Bottom line, don't wait for anything to be perfect, but nothing is ever perfect!
Have a stories about moving beyond your mistakes? Post them below!
NOTE: Below is an article written by Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz. It wasn't written specifically for the music business, but as many musicians are working jobs outside of music, I feel it's something that belongs here.
Once upon a time, I wrote a post about the monetary benefits of
having a financial
cushion. And I agree with myself. From a purely money standpoint,
you’re an idiot if you don’t have at least something tucked
away for when all your clients die of smallpox.
But that’s the money part of it. What about business wise? As in,
business growth-wise? From that angle, I don’t know if it’s the best
idea. Here’s why.
1. Not having a cushion lights a fire under your ass.
From E-myth to StomperNet and everyone in between advises against
analysis paralysis — what’s the absolute BEST typeface to use on the
logo? Should we go with blue or green? Does this job contribute to my
future business goals?
When you have no cushion, there’s no time for that shit. That
freelance gig you’re dilly-dallying about bidding on? That’s tomorrow
night’s dinner.
2. You’re forced to get creative.
If you want to
market yourself — and since you don’t have a cushion, marketing yourself
would be a very good idea indeed — you have to actually think. Any
idiot can buy a bunch of ads to get people to buy their service or check
out their blog or order their book. But that’s not where the good stuff
comes from.
When you have no money, you have to hustle. Your sole source of
advertising might be the shirts you just had printed for fifty bucks.
You might have to wear your cousin’s bunny suit and stand outside the
radio station holding a sign that pleads “Ask me what I do!” Hell, you
might even have to get off your ass and talk to some real, live people
and ask them for business.
3. You’re going to learn to focus.
When you have a
cushy start-up loan or a quadzillion months of savings in the bank, it’s
awful easy to get distracted. I mean, look at all there is to do out
there! Flickr alone could kill a week.
But when you need work or exposure or sales, you focus like a laser.
(Yes, Mom. A laser. In air quotes. From Austin Powers.)
When you need a check in the mail sooner rather than later, checking a
blog to see if anybody responded to your witty and insightful comment
doesn’t exactly seem like the most efficient use of your time.
4. You don’t lose the fire. When you’re first
starting out, you’re burning to succeed. All you want is to get your
hands in there and do it. You want to print those goddamn t-shirts by
hand if you have to. Hanging around in your cubicle for 19 months until
you feel you have enough start-up capital is soul-sucking. Your fire
goes.
If your fire goes, soon enough those hand printed t-shirts don’t seem
like such a good idea anymore and you’re signing the line for your
fifth one percent cost-of-living raise in a row.
5. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll succeed.
There’s
a great saying I love:
“The best time to plant a tree was forty years ago. The second best
time is today.”
These are comforting words today because you don’t have a tree. Don’t
cry over lost tree planting opportunities, I always say. (OK, no, I
don’t.) But do you think it would have been good advice forty years ago?
Would you have said, “Well, maybe now’s not the perfect time. I’ll do
it when I retire”? Not if you wanted the tree, you wouldn’t have.
I have no doubt there are countless thriving businesses run by
entrepreneurs who waited till the time is right, and I applaud them. I
don’t know much about them, though. I don’t know much about them because
they’re not making the front page of Fast Company. They don’t tend to
launch on Tech Crunch.
The ones I know about, the ones with buzz and energy and excitement
and soul, they’re the ones who took the plunge and sold their stereo to
pay for a bunny suit.
The only thing this drummer is missing is big hair...
What are the lessons here?
Not everybody is a match for every band.
Not every gig is a match for every band.
If something (or somebody) isn't a match, it's better to say "no" than force something.
It's a good idea to review videos of yourself to see how you look to others.
The guy is obviously a talented drummer and the stage presence would be impressive in some situations, but this isn't the place for it. Way too aggressive and heavy for the song being played...
This video is wrong on so many levels...
Please answer the following questions:
- Do you think these guys know what was happening behind them? If so, what were they thinking?
I'm in NYC right now, in the middle of a 10-day trip that also includes a few days in Toronto. One of the things I've been trying to do this year is downsize everything and use only what I need, so I decided to take this opportunity to carry on my baggage rather than check it.
My goal of downsizing everything also included my briefcase. I have use for one, but not something that's too big. The last thing you want when you walk on a plane is for people to roll their eyes at the "carry on champion" coming through...
Found some really nice stuff, but more or less, everything was the same as what I already have-- big ass bags designed for laptops. Not what I was looking for.
So what's the solution? The "man purse."
A MAN PURSE?! Hell yes. Makes sense, but won't it make me gay or something? Those are the rumors, you know. At the very least, you're a target for one of the many "I Hate Hipsters" websites that have popped up over the last few months.
This is the problem bag manufacturers have had... A "man purse" makes sense, and with all the gadgets men are carrying around these days, it makes more sense every day. But it's something new...and this can be a hard sell, especially when the only thing similar is traditionally a "women-only" product.
Avoiding a problem like this is one of the reasons why I suggest that you copy other musicians. No reason to work any harder than you have to, right?
Sort of...
The truth is, while it may be a "low-hanging fruit" to sell what is already a proven product or service, and you can make plenty of money doing this, if you can introduce something brand new to the market successfully, you'll make 100x the money. This is because you'll own the market.
What you do doesn't even have to be brand new; the best things are derivative works developed from something that already exists. Like a "man purse." This is just a bag made for women, that everybody knows about and sees the advantage of owning, but with a skull or something on it, so men won't question their sexuality when wearing one.
Apple didn't invent the mobile phone, they just made it better. They didn't invent the laptop, they just made it better. They're introducing something "similar but different" and it's paying off big...and fast.
The first iPhone model took 73 days to cross the million mark. The iPad did the same thing in just 28 days.
Why? The iPad is "similar but different" to the iPhone. People didn't have to be sold on the applications and uses this time. And it's "similar but different" to a laptop, too, so that's bringing more people in.
Want a music business example? CD Baby is one. Derek Sivers wasn't the first guy to sell music online; he was the first guy to do it "similar but different" though.
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