Hire your team, not the other way around.
Jumping off from where my last article ended… I just want to expand a little bit on the shift in the mindset of the modern musician. Or, at least, the shift I think should exist.
It’s very true, you need to treat your band like a business. Keep track of costs and expenses, manage inventory, market, promote, sell, spend time and effort doing research and development (music lessons and rehearsals!) etc. But there’s another aspect to running a business that should also apply to being in a band… and that is the hiring of people. Now, I’m not talking about the members of your band… those people hopefully have already been hired, and are now permanent members of the board of directors. I’m talking about your business team.
Before you go out “trying to get a record deal,” “trying to get an agent,” “trying to get a manager,” etc… let’s pause for a minute and consider something… With each of these people/companies, you will be negotiating an agreement between you and them, that will involve you paying them a certain amount of money (99% of the time it’s a percentage of the amount of money you stand to earn), and in exchange for said money, these people agree to provide you with specific services and aid. That sounds to me like you’re hiring them… they’re not “giving you” anything, they’re working for you!
That’s so important I’ll say it again… THEY are working for YOU.
They earn money when you do, they succeed when you do, and they fail when you do. They are business partners, not to be put up on a pedestal for any reason, with the possible exception of their past successes. (But really, that’s the same as any employee… the more previous success a prospective employee has on their resume, chances are, the more money they are going to be able to negotiate for.)
The key thing to remember is that without musicians, the support staff don’t have any work to do. They need you as much as you need them. What everyone is really trying to do is simply find the best business partners to work with. Keep that in mind if you ever get approached by “promise-tellers” or “star-makers.” They are really potential business partners, or potential employees… you should be mentally “interviewing” them as such while you’re talking to them, and always remember that they should not be the stars, you should be.
I read a very good book called This Business of Concert Promotion and Touring and there was a great deal of focus placed on artists hiring their teams and the sort of considerations to be made when doing so. You’ve probably read this book, as well. It’s seems like a very good resource for developing artists.