I have been in the music industry for over twenty years now. I have worked in recording studios, booked bands and artists on tours, done a million or so radio calls, set up distribution, managed some great groups and artists, and do a heck of a lot of music marketing consulting for indie labels and artists and it shouldn’t, but it does still amaze me at the one thing that always works in the industry…..

You have to actually take an active roll in the music industry to succeed.

That is all there is to it. You have to wake up everyday and decide what you are going to complete, and then actually complete the task. It doesn’t have to be earth shattering or record breaking – it just has to be a step towards your ultimate goal. I know, it just sounds too simple to work. But it does. It has. And it will continue to be the #1 best course of action, strategy, or marketing campaign ever created.

If you follow the blog or read my articles over at www.IamMusicNetwork.com you know that I lay out a ton of strategies and try to tie them all together into a campaign plan to move your music from your hands and into your potential fans hands. But if you look at each and every article or word I have written over the years you will see one thing over and over…. you have to take action to make it work.

I think we all make the same mistake. We are always looking for the magic bullet or secret weapon that will get us ahead of the pack. The one thing that will finally get us to the top of the charts, booked in the exclusive venues, or get our name on the lips of waiting fans. But as we search and search for that solution – that magic trick – we need to stop and actually look within our own mind. Is the problem really that you don’t know what to do next, or is the problem that you are not actually taking steps, consistently, that will lead to your success?

What have you done today to get your music in front of fans? Did you call someone to see if they gave you the “hook up” or did you actually take the time to reach out to potential fans in your social networks to build relationships? Did you send out your EPK to blogs and online radio stations hoping someone would email you back or did you actively seek out the owners of those blogs and radio stations and start relationships? How about this…. did you simply ask people to join your email/newsletter opt in list or did you send out an email today?

Setting up a great website, having a ton of videos on youtube, creating a dozen or so profiles across social networking sites, and signing up for a newsletter/email subscription service is only the first step towards getting your music in the hands of fans. We have all heard the sad story of “Build it and they will come.” or “Play it and they will hear it.” Meaning, if you simply build a website or create great music then surely fans will find you and buy your music. But this simply is not true. Just because you have a killer website, social networking profile circle, or a ton of videos does not mean anyone knows about you or your music. You can not “build (or play) it” and expect fans to come to you.

You have to get up every day and ask yourself – “where are my fans today and how am I going to reach them?”

But here is the secret – when you don’t find them today, you still have to wake up tomorrow and ask the same question! Then, you have to work again tomorrow at actually finding and reaching those fans. It’s not easy, I didn’t say the #1 easiest method of winning in the music industry – But this is the #1 secret to the music industry. You can not get discouraged and stop looking for fans. You can not expect your manager to find you fans. You can expect your record label is getting you fans. And by all means, you can not count on anyone but yourself to wake up every day and search for fans but yourself.

Are you going to hit road blocks….. everyday! Is it going to be tough to stay motivated…. everyday! Will you want to give up because you have been trying for six months or a year and are not much further along…. everyday! But you know what…. everyday, if you keep on the grind, you will get more fans, sell more music, and create your space within the music industry. It does work, it does pay off, and you can make your living. Don’t get me wrong, you still need luck, information, and acquired skills to hit “the big” time. But in order to acquire the skills you have to be honing your game, and luck – luck is being in the right place at the right time and having the skills in place to take advantage of the situation – how are you going to have any luck if you are not on your grind daily? How are you going to develop skills if you don’t work at them everyday – and sometimes fall flat on your face?  Information comes from doing it over and over to see what works and what doesn’t and by actually being in the game to network and meet more people that have the information.

There is only one fundamental truth to the music industry: You have to be in it to win it!

Counting on others to do for you is not being in the industry. Waiting on something to happen is not being in the industry. Watching fro the sidelines is not being in the industry. And most important – you don’t have to have money to make it in the industry if you are willing to work harder than anyone around you. We are in the internet age now, you can make a living right from your house, with your music and merchandise, if you actually work the industry – and that will fund the rest of what you need to do.

You know, really, there is no excuse to not making it in the industry except you didn’t try.

This has been a motivational minute by Jai. LOL!!

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”
Buy my new book – The Music Business Bible – and learn EVERYTHING you need to know about the music industry to succeed!

If you live on the East Coast – Or anywhere and feel like a really cool vacation… Don’t miss the 14th Annual Millennium Music Conference in Harrisburg, PA – Feb. 18th – 21st, 2010. This is a really cool conference that has been happening long enough that they got it going on. These folks know how to put together a City wide event that spans four days, 25 hot clubs, 250 original artists, music industry pros sharing their knowledge, tips, tricks, and techniques for succeeding in the music industry , and a whole lot more.

This is not just another conference…. this is an event not to be missed. I have been asked to be a speaker and am very excited to be a part of this legendary music conference! I would love to as many of my readers/followers at the event so we can network face to face, swap ideas and experiences, and help each other grow our network of contacts.

Go to my website www.JaiHutcherson.com and click on the link for the Millennium Music Conference to get more information!!!!

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”

My research has shown that more than 75% of independent artists, musicians, and groups feel that other local artists and groups are their #1 competitors for these top five reasons given:

• There are only so many clubs or venues hiring live music for pay…
• There are only so many, genre specific, fans in the area that will actually buy music…
• The local, genre specific, radio station only plays so many songs from local artists…
• The local entertainment magazine only reserves so much space for local artist coverage…
• The local CD Retails only has so much self space reserved for local artist’s music…

Here is the problem with this reasoning….

All these answers are all based on local market acceptance and appeal. You have to ask yourself if you are trying to be a “local hero” or are you trying to gain national or international recognition? If you are only looking to gain local recognition than all these are very valid questions and should be at the forefront of your mind. You should find a way to make sure you are on top of all other artists in the local scene and insure you are getting all the attention. However, if you are like most artists or groups I talk to, you want to gain national attention that leads to international success in the music industry. Thinking local and competing local will not get you there. It won’t even get you 1% closer to your goals. In fact, it will drain your time, money, and energy resources to the point that you don’t have anything left to devote to national exposure.

Don’t get me wrong. I feel that a local following is imperative to gaining momentum needed to achieve national success. But getting your CD in local retailers, getting a spin from time to time on local radio, or concentrating all your efforts into selling your CD to every single potential fan in your local market is not good business. Think of it this way; if you have national exposure, are getting national magazines to review your cd, gaining national spins on radio, and creating a fan base from several outside markets, don’t you think your local market will see that press as well? They will, they do, and it makes them realize that you are not “just another local market artist or group!”

Marketing music works a bit of the opposite as you might think. You can get all the local press and coverage you would ever want, but you still have to put in the exact, if not more, effort to create the national exposure you desire from that local press. On the other hand, if you put your efforts into national press and acceptance, your local market will pick up the story and run it locally because it has the “local musician makes good” angle. Now think about this; how much easier would it be to get booked in your local venue if you have national press coverage or radio spins? Much, much, easier I assure you! And what about self space in retail? It will be a lot easier to walk into your mom and pop CD outlet and get your CD on the “top” placement if you can show them spins, reviews, or stories from national outlets.

Your competition is national artists, not local artists. Local artists should work together to help raise awareness to the market. The more national positive stories, reviews, spins, and buzz your market can establish the better. Why? Because it will make national press, radio, and professionals start to look at your local market to find out why so many artists and groups are getting the coverage. This is the basics of how markets like Atlanta, Indianapolis, Nashville, Houston, and others have grown their markets into power houses in their genre. They learned, quickly, that if they do not consider one another as competition, and actually help one another piggyback on any coverage they may get as individuals, that the local market would be able to get additional national coverage resulting in more direct coverage of their own efforts as individuals within the local market.

I will leave you will one more thing to consider; If you put your efforts into markets outside your local area and only get four or five new fans in each market you put effort into, how fast and large do you think you can grow your fan base? The second biggest mistake I found while researching my new book was that artists and groups that are new to music marketing strategies feel that gaining only a hand full of new fans in a market equals failure. This is absolutely wrong. There are hundreds of markets in the US alone. If you were to gain only five new fans in each market, and to make it easy lets say there are 300 markets available (realize a city is a market so this is a low, low figure), you would gain 1500 new fans. Now, if you are truly marketing your music and takin gthe steps to increase awareness of your project you could show those 1500 fans how to get their friends into your music as well. To make it easy, let’s say each of your 1500 fans have only two friends, 1500 x 3 (your established fans plus their two friends) = 4500 fans. Now, do it again, each of the new 3000 fans brought by your established fans brings in 2 friends = 6000 new fans. You are already up to 10,500 new fans. I think you get the point. A small handful of new fans in a new market, if marketed to and worked correctly, does not equal only a handful of new fans!

Keep an eye out for my new book; “Low or No Budget Music Marketing Strategies” It will be available online at www.IamMusicNetwork.com and on amazon.com. And, to keep with the title of the book, I will offer the book for $9.99 digital download or $14.99 paperback version. It should be ready in the next week or two!

Until next time…
Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”

I tested this man. I asked him if I could look through his palm pilot and randomly pick some names out of the list and question him about them. He gladly agreed and quickly put me in my place. You see, he didn’t just put in a name and phone number when adding a contact. He added who they were, where he met them, what they did for a living, and what it was they were trying to accomplish when he met them. I scrolled through the list and grabbed a name every so often and began my questioning. Not only could he tell me who they were and the information contained on the palm pilot, but he could tell me the last time he talked with the person, where they are today, and if they had reached their goals or were still on the pursuit. I was amazed to say the least! We are talking about a crap load of contacts – over 5000 and growing.

The really cool thing, he wanted to teach me why he did it. He told me the how, where, or that anything else in the process didn’t matter as long as I understood why and that I would figure out the rest along the way from my foundation of WHY….

“Everyone you meet – everyone, everywhere, in any setting or place, in any profession or trade, or from any background has something to offer you – IF you are willing to listen, learn, and give what you have to offer, even if it’s just your ear at the time, respect of listening, and getting to know them better – AND you must be willing to commit your time to finding what you can help them achieve.”

This is a strong statement. It changed everything for me. I know, I know, it sound simple…DUH. But really, it’s not. It is the basis of music marketing and the foundation of how to network with others to reach our goals. I have handed my phone to people to many times to remember to have them add their information in my contact list so we could “re-connect” later. LOL, I assure you these are the 2 or 3 contacts out of 10 that I have no idea who they are, why they are in my phone, or how they even got there in the first place.

Networking in the music industry is the most important part of your business. It is what you will rely on most often to get what you need, find resources, advance your career, and above all – get what you need to advance to the next level. Too many people, myself included until I met this man, do not put enough value on relationships today. The internet is doing to networking what TV and video games did to us as kids. I can remember before cable TV came to my neighborhood all the kids would would meet out by the telephone pole and decide if we were going to go to the creek, play hide-n-seek, or work on our tree house down in the woods. But as soon as cable TV came, BAM! Fewer and fewer kids came around to play together. Then when Atari introduced the 2600… that sealed the deal. Only those of us whos parents wouldn’t spring for the game console ever met at that pole again.

The internet today, it’s is the same thing all over again. No one takes the time to learn who the other is, where they are coming from, what they are trying to achieve, or what their plan is to reach their goals. Sure, you might “add a friend” – and I bet you are proud of your 42,000 friends. But really, how long has it been since you met them out at the telephone pole? Don’t get me wrong, the internet is a huge advantage for networking. But like the TV and video games of my youth, there are many bells and whistles that pull people away from actually interacting with one another for promises of MORE FUN! The worst thing, even when we are offline and meet people we have learned to exchange information – i.e. email addresses with promises of getting to know one another better online and exchanging information there… where se can add it to our contact database. How ofen have you done this? How often did you connect with that person after that brief meeting?

I learned a lot from this man. He became my mentor. Here is what I learned… and once I understood the why, as he promised, the rest was easy!

Meeting one person at a gathering, on the street, on the internet, or anywhere…. and actually getting to know that person – taking the time to exchange information, ideas, goals, etc. is worth more than meeting 100 people and not knowing anything about any of them. He taught me to slow down, take the time to build a relationship with each person I met in life, and record the details. He said I needed to stop my wrong thinking of the more people I meet the better and change it to the more relationships I build the better. Then he gave me the key… I had to actually help that person, in anyway I could, achieve their goals before worrying about my own. In this exchange, every time, the other person would in some way help me when I needed it. Strong!!!

What does all this mean? It means slow down. Talk. Exchange ideas. And most important, when you add someone to your contacts list make sure you actually know them and can call them a contact. Then, and only then, can you truly reach for your phone and call anyone on your list and get what youneed when you need it. It’s called networking. In today’s very fast paced world we all too often forget that networking is about helping one another, not simply exchanging phone numbers. It’s about building strong relationships with everyone you know and committing to really being a friend, not just a name on a list. Most importantly, it means stop worrying about how many people you meet and start concentrating on how well you get know who you meet.

Networking is the backbone of the music industry! Build your list of contacts into friends, find ways to help those friends, and your reward will be a network of roads to your own success.

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”

Phone: 972-510-5244
Email: jai@jaihutcherson.com
Website: www.JaiHutcherson.com

Welcome to the indie music marketing blog that will help you generate buzz, increase awareness, and drive fans to buy your CDs and merchandise. This is your real deal, no BS, resource for building effective music marketing campaigns around tested music industry marketing and promotional strategies that have been proven to work.

I encourage you to comment, ask questions, and expect that I will reply to every person who posts. This is an interactive blog that allows you to ask the questions that will answer your music marketing concerns. No question is a dumb question, no idea is stupid, and you can be assured I will do my best to help anyone who wants to learn more about how to get their music in the hands of more fans.

I want this blog to be your go-to resource – the one place you can count on for real world help on solving your music marketing issues!

Peace,
Jai
“Love the MUSIC in Yourself, Not Yourself in the MUSIC!”