An Alternative To Firing

As the leader, if I expect my team member to do A and instead they do B…where B= not really doing a whole lot of work…there’s a breakdown happening and I should probably let the team member go because my clearly stated expectations and what’s actually being done are not lining up.

In order to not have to let this team member go, the expectations have to line up. 

The most natural lining up of expectations that comes to mind is to lead and inspire a change where I expect A and they perform A.

Duh.

But the other thing you could do is this…they’re only doing B and I change MY expectations to only ask for B.

It may sound strange but consider this…

The PR rep is expected to get your new album featured on ten major blogs the first week of release.  They’re a really nice person, easy to work with, but they only get the album featured on two blogs the first week.

This sort of thing keeps happening.  If the expectation is ten per week and only two come through, you either need to fire them or adjust you’re expectations of them down to two blogs a week. Either choice is beneficial to both of you.

Else you will go freaking crazy and be complaining about them all the time, when you are the one keeping them around.

Being on the same page, together, in unity, is ever important…even more important than which page it actually is.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Building The Kingdom

Being in a band (or being the artist) is like home ownership…in the long run it’s much more lucrative.

In the short term, it’s waaaay more expensive.

You’re the one on the hook 24hrs a day. Anything that goes wrong, anything that has to be rebuilt or renovated, you’re the one.

Welcome to ownership.

It kinda sucks, but over time it’s the only way to build a kingdom.

 p.s. It’s ok if you don’t want to be an owner.  But if you do…you’re probably the kind of person reading something like this.


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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Always A Backup Plan

Parents, teachers, pessimists and worriers tell you to make sure you have a backup plan.  A just-in-case plan.  A safety net of protection.

But for you…rather than focusing on a backup plan, give an intense amount of focus to your actual plan.

If you have a detailed plan, follow it and it doesn’t work out, you simply end up at a different place than you intended, not at the threshold of reverting to some sort of backup plan.

It’s about the windshield more than the rear-view mirror.

Let one plan lead to the next, not to the backup.

p.s. Click on my Facebook to see the business card that reminded of this.



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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

A $20,000 Radio Campaign

One of two things will happen if you spend $20,000 on a radio campaign,

1.  Nothing much will happen.  The promoter will send you a few reports of some stations in Montana and Connecticut that played your single in their daily rotation.  But you pretty much piddled away $20k.  

It was the wrong single and/or the wrong radio promoter and/or bad timing and/or…

2.  Things, in fact, start happening.  6 weeks in, the single is gaining some traction in key markets.  The skies are looking sunny.  Let’s start really revving the engines…Oh by the way, the radio promoter is going to need another $60,000 to keep going and really pushing the single up the charts.

To keep it going you have to keep funding.

The single’s doing well! We can’t pull the plug now, this is obviously THE song and its connecting! But all we had was $20,000, we ain’t got no mo money…this totally sucks.  I guess we gotta pull the plug.

$20,000 not wasted, but kinda wasted.

—

$20,000 is a lousy amount of money to spend on a radio campaign when that’s all you have to spend on a radio campaign.  If it goes poorly, you’re broke and depressed.  If it goes well, you’re frantic, broke and playing the coulda woulda shoulda game.

It’s important to spend your money wisely.

It’s important to put yourself around people (your team) who know how to spend your money wisely.

So here’s a word from the wise: Spend nothing on radio, or be financially prepared to spend a lot if it goes well, and financially sturdy enough to be ok if it doesn’t go well.

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The 200 Songs Thing

“We wrote 200 or 300 or a million songs for this record”

Who cares.

It gets said under the notion that if you wrote THAT MANY!!! then certainly there MUST be some smashes that everyone will love, and your career will take off like the rocket ship that you’ve always believed it to be.

But it doesn’t work like that does it?

I wish every time I heard an artist ranting about the number of songs they’d written, that the album had even one or two undeniable ones.  But most of the time…nope.

Sure, give yourself a much deserved pat on the back for putting that much effort into your album, but we don’t care about your effort, we care about finding a song we love.

Writing lots of songs does make you better at writing songs.  It raises the floor at which the quality won’t be beneath.

But the muse doesn’t pay attention to numbers.

It could show up once every ten or fifty or a hundred or five hundred songs.  No one really knows.

Don’t set out to write 200 songs for your record.  

Set out to write a great song every time you write, and then another and another.

Then you’ll have a smash single and a great record.

Impressive.

And will skip the desire to impress people with the number of songs you’d written for this record.

p. s. “We wrote 200 and picked the best 12”.  Of course you chose the best 12! Why would you do anything else?!  And that’s just it, that’s the sad part.  Because now you’ve told everyone that of these 200 songs, these 12 are the gems, but the gems look more like concrete blocks than rubies and diamonds. 

p.p.s. I suppose stating how many songs you’ve written could have its place in your marketing strategy, but there ain’t a hit popping out the other end, thats about all its good for.



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A Successful Tour

Do you want to go on a successful tour?

Talk to someone who’s had one.

Now, depending on the stage of your career, the term “successful tour” means many different things.

But you want to go on a successful one.

And it doesn’t have to be such a mysterious desire and endeavor.

Talk to someone who’s been on the type of successful tour that you want to be on.

Ask how they did it and then copy them.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com