5 Things You Can Do Now to Advance Your Music Career (in the New Year)

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It’s already February this year and before we know it, the year will be almost over. That’s just how fast time flies by. With each passing year we get a little older and a little wiser. But somehow our goals tend to remain the same. Why is that? We have the greatest of intentions at the beginning, but as the year starts to set in, we grow complacent and our goals fall by the wayside. But this year can be different. Write your intentions down and post them on your wall to look at throughout the entire year.  Identify practical things you can do and reward yourself when you get it done. Your career depends on it.  I’ve got 5 simple ways you can advance in your music career below.  Incorporate these ideas or use them as a springboard to come up with your own.

1.  Boost Your Income

Be proactive about the performance opportunities you get. Identify how much money you need to get and go after it. Use this Income Boosting spreadsheet to plan a solid booking strategy that will get you the shows you need in order to make the money you want.

2.  Beef Up Your Networking Strategy

Do you have a networking strategy for your music? Networking is important! A good networking strategy allows you to consistently increase the amount of people who know you.  In the music business, the more people that know you, the more opportunities you can get. If no one knows you, how will they know to call on you for their neighbors’ annual backyard party? Or, how will they know to pass your name on to their friend who works at a record label? That’s why your networking strategy is a very important part of your career.

Networking – How To Step 1

Be yourself and be outgoing. The people you meet while you’re doing everyday things are the ones who will contact you if you play your cards right. I received a call recently from a woman I had met three years ago at a print shop. We exchanged business cards, I gave her a flyer and it turns out that she now owns an art gallery and is looking for musicians to entertain her patrons. If I hadn’t been friendly that day, it would have been a missed opportunity. You never know what can happen in the future. The people you meet are one of your greatest assets. Join your local Chamber of Commerce, or join a few meet-up groups and start going to events. Volunteer for charity events and bring along your business cards. Join niche entrepreneur groups, interest groups, and go to parties you get invited to. Be intentional about going out and just start meeting and getting to know people.

Networking – How To Step 2

The most important step to a networking strategy is following up.  After your initial contact, reach back out to them after a day or so and say how you enjoyed chatting about polar bears or whatever you spoke about. Also, try to offer something that you can do to help them if they discussed a problem. Secondly, you need to keep the conversation going.  Use free services like Insightly to create a database of all the people you meet and be diligent about following up with them every three to four months. Just ask questions like, ‘Are you still in the surfing club? I haven’t seen you in a while.’ Then say one update about what you have been up to and that’s it.

Spend about 20 minutes everyday doing follow-up, then sit back and watch how your network will grow.

Already networking? Identify ways you can do just a little bit more. Can you add another social event to your schedule? Can you expand your networking efforts to a neighboring city? How can you do more?

Another thought related to networking I want to share is that you should always have a way that someone can listen to your music.  Whether it is a card, or a sampler CD, or a flash drive with some audio tracks on it you should always have always a tangible way to share your music with the people you meet. It’s not enough to just say ‘Go to my website.’ They will forget you and your website in less than an hour. Make it easy for them to remember you.

3.  Boost Your Lead Generation Methods for Gigs

For independent artists, we thrive on touring and private gigs.  When we’re not touring, private gigs help to fill in the gap replacing the income you would be generating if you were on the road.  Plus, most private gigs are local or semi-local so the need for spending money on overnight lodging is obsolete saving you time and money. Additionally, private gigs pay well. To top it all off; you typically don’t have to do any promotions work to make it a success. Needless to say, the more private gigs you book, the more money you can make. The key to having consistent private gigs booked, is the amount of leads you have coming in. It’s your job to generate those leads. They don’t just happen on their own. You need to attract them to you. Spend more time each day working on lead generating tasks and you’ll soon start to see more gig opportunities. Start by creating a free profile on Gigsalad. You can also promote your entertainment services to your fans and also ask if they know anyone who does parties or is looking for entertainment. Another thing you can do is create a postcard promoting your entertainment services for private functions and pass them out at all of your shows. Try sending some postcards out to affluent neighborhoods in your area. You can generate a mailing list for free by doing this method. Reach out to all public relations and event managers in your area letting them know about your services. Also reach out to all event venues and ask if you can be added to their list of vendors. You can also reach out to affluent apartment communities in your area and let them know you offer live entertainment for their resident events.

4.  Pick One Social Network and Kill It

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Is there a social media network you haven’t tapped into yet? If so, you could be missing out on thousands of new fans. Maybe you could enhance your Facebook presence with live or native videos? Maybe you haven’t tackled Instagram or Periscope yet? For me it’s YouTube. My YouTube strategy has been horrifying! I’m hoping to get 1000 subscribers this year so I can do Superchats. I found out the other night that you can earn money by just going live on YouTube. Depending on how loyal your fans are, you can earn money just sitting and talking or performing! Try to find a few articles or webinars that give good tips on how to excel at your chosen network and make that your mission.

5.  Get Yourself Some (or More) Team Players

As you start growing, you will need help. You can’t do it all on your own. See if you can find more people to join your street team and have them help you share your content across their networks online and offline. See if you can get someone to help you do booking. You can also hire a virtual assistant on Fiverr for as low as $5 to help with small tasks. Here are some tasks you can outsource to a virtual assistant.

Your career is in your hands. You don’t have to depend on anyone to get you to the level where you want to be. It’s yours for the taking. The key to achieving success is meeting small benchmarks along the way. Make your goals achievable by taking bitesized chunks and pursue things one at a time until you make it. See my article on goal setting for a refresher on how to set achievable goals.

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