How To Become A Music Business Entrepreneur
We have to face the facts: not everyone is a born businessperson.
Anyone can learn the skills necessary to become a music business entrepreneur, but it helps if you already have some natural inclinations towards business. You will make much faster progress towards your dreams if you do.
But whether you're naturally gifted or not, if you want to make your ambitions of becoming a music business owner a reality, here's what you need to know.
But first, if it's your aim to do music professionally, you'll want to check out our free ebook while it's still available:
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Understand The Difference Between The Employee & Music Entrepreneur Mindset
Without a basic understanding of how an employee thinks and how an entrepreneur thinks, you'll have a hard time making things happen in your business.
The essence of the two mindsets can be captured in the following questions.
An employee asks: how do I work for money and other people?
An entrepreneur asks: how do I get money and other people to work for me?
If you aren't naturally gifted in business, realize that you're going to have to surround yourself with those who are smarter and more talented than you are. Your job as a business owner is to lead, not to micromanage and oversee every detail.
This is a hard thing for music industry people to accept, because it's a creative business. People are used to doing everything themselves, and because they are natural perfectionists, they tend to think that no one else could do their job.
But when it comes to the mundane, time-eating tasks like accounting, invoicing, customer support and so on, it's usually a good idea to delegate. That way, you can focus on the high-level creative work that's going to bring in more business, instead of the things that you don't enjoy or aren't good at.
Understand That Your Attitude Is The Most Important Thing For A Music Business Entrepreneur
One of the most important elements that you need to understand and develop as a music business entrepreneur is mindset.
Charles R. Swindoll said:
I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.
In business, attitude is the most important thing. When your attitude is right, everything else tends to fall into place.
In today's world, there's a strong focus on how to do things. There isn't anything wrong with that, but a successful businessperson doesn't ask “how?” Instead, they go and make things happen. When you continually ask “how?”, you get stuck analyzing and you end up paralyzed.
Even now, you may be asking, “how will I get the money to start my business?”, or “how will I convince my life partner that this is a good idea?”
Act first, and ask questions later. You shouldn't go out of your way to fail, but failure and rejection is always a stepping stone to greater success, assuming you don't give up. So don't fear failure!
The details tend to take care of themselves when you have a strong enough motivation. If you're going to ask yourself anything, ask yourself why you want to build a business. Become intimately familiar with your personal mission and purpose.
Music Industry Entrepreneurs Understand The Importance Of Systems
As a music business entrepreneur, if your desire is to have an efficient business that delivers consistent results to its clients, then you have to be thinking about systems. This is particularly true if you plan on scaling your business up when demand starts to grow.
You may not need systems if you want to be a one-man operation, or if you want to stay small, but otherwise you do need to create checklists, step-by-step instructions, manuals, and other documents that allow your employees to do their job to the best of their ability.
Some business owners tend to think that hiring more people is the answer to handling growth. This usually just creates more work, because you have to interview and train new hires.
With systems, you can make your work consistent and repeatable. This will also make you more efficient, and when you're more efficient, you can handle more clients with a smaller team.
When you have systems for training and bringing on new team members, you can also get them up to speed a lot quicker.
When your work is not predictable, and you're all over the place, you'll reach your upper limit pretty quickly. The key to sustainability is consistent work, and there's no way you can do that without systems.
Generate New Ideas Every Day
What do business owners need a steady supply of? Ideas. You need business ideas, marketing ideas, design ideas, and more.
Ideas are not that hard to come by when you're in the habit of coming up with new ones every single day. You can set your own goals, but I tend to aim for 10 new ideas on a daily basis.
You'll never get around to using all of your ideas, and that's not really the point. Odds are good that the majority of your ideas aren't that great anyway.
However, as you continue to generate new ideas on a regular basis, you'll start coming up with ones that really excite you. You'll start putting the pieces of the puzzle together, and sometimes you'll find that two bad ideas come together to create one really great idea.
Just keep in mind that ideas alone don't have any value. You have to do something with them. You have to take action.
Final Thoughts
If you're still not sure how you can become a music business entrepreneur after reading this, then let me remind you that you're probably still thinking about how, when you should really be thinking about why.
Entrepreneurship isn't taught so much as it is caught. If you're having trouble getting started, then start hanging around people that have their own businesses. I assure you that their enthusiasm and passion will begin to rub off on you, and you'll also begin to learn from how they think, and why they think the way they do.
Work first at developing yourself, because your business will eventually rise to the level of your personal growth.
P.S. Remember though, none of what you've learned will matter if you don't know how to get your music out there and earn from it. Want to learn how to do that? Then get our free ‘5 Steps To Profitable Youtube Music Career' ebook emailed directly to you!