First Monday of the month, new Hum Love playlist on Spotify and Apple
If you’re doing it right, you won’t hear from a lot (maybe most) of the people who love your stuff.
They’re quietly loving what you do. No commenting, no big display, no emails, maybe not even liking, following or subscribing. But they love it.
That’s still the way most people enjoy most things.
They key is to simply keep making things worth loving.
Boy bands and girl groups…they often get put together by managers and labels.
Why? Because starting something from scratch is a really good way to point the thing in a certain direction. And managers and labels know that pointing an act in one certain direction is of utmost importance.
On the other hand, when an act comes together organically it’s driven much more by emotion…so everyone wants to just keep the good vibes going rather than asking strategic questions.
Either way can work and has worked.
But for those groups who get put together by smart people, there are some questions that get answered from the outset that turn out to be incredibly helpful in speeding up the process…
Who are we making music for?
What are we going to wear?
What are we going to sing of?
How many people should be in the band?
Who owns the band, recordings, copyrights, etc?
What if someone quits?
Who is going to talk in interviews?
How do we want people to feel when they hear our music?
Which PR opportunities are the right ones?
Who are strong candidates to produce the album?
Do we want to build touring business?
Going shopping is fun.
Ordering online is convenient.
Somewhere along the way the pull of convenience got stronger than the pull of fun.
We order lots of stuff. Some of us order all of our stuff.
So if you’re trying to get someone to get off their couch to come check out your stuff in person, you not only have other competitors…but you’re competing with convenience itself.
Can your thing outweigh the convenience of other alternatives that might not be as good as yours but are more convenient?
If you get all caught up on…
the tv show
the news
emails
the grocery shopping
your budget
marvel movies
the dishes
christmas shopping
reacting to comments on social media
…what do you get in return?
Some things are worth catching up on and some aren’t.
If the prize for getting all caught up isn’t something you actually want, it probably isn’t worth prioritizing all that effort towards it to begin with.
We confuse ready with expectations.
We use the phrase, ‘I’m not ready’ when the next thing that comes our way seems too far out of the realm of expectation…what we really mean is, ’This is not what I expected’.
Part of the actual definition of ready is ‘fully prepared’. But in a practical sense I would argue that you only need the minimum amount of preparedness while being fully willing to engage with the next thing.
The outcome will be a little different than you originally thought.
But it will be real and not imagined.
A successful outcome takes compromise.
But imagined outcomes are fun because you’re the sole writer and it doesn’t have to be real.
Whatever the outcome, if it allows you to keep going, that’s a successful outcome.