Comments on: Musician Outsourcing

By: Corey

Corey — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:32:09 +0000

Awesome. I’ve been outsourcing everything from accounting to track mixing and mastering. Most experiences have been good, and it nearly always saves time.

The great side effect is it’s made me really prioritize, by putting a price on everything. Is this task worth spending $100 on? Then why am I doing it?

By: Using Threadless To Source Band Merch Ideas | Music Marketing - Gen-Y Rock Stars

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:12:21 +0000

[...] 20 tags: band merch, Music Marketing, threadless by gregrollett Last week we talked about Musician Outsourcing and how you can use freelancers and virtual assistants to delegate tasks. One of the big ones for [...]

By: gregrollett

gregrollett — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:52:33 +0000

@Alexa – Bandcamp does not take a percentage. Paypal does. But any merchant account or system that takes credit cards and payments will.

By: Alexa Weber Morales

Alexa Weber Morales — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:49:51 +0000

Awesome! Thanks! Although, correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t Bandcamp taking a percentage too?

By: gregrollett

gregrollett — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:13:05 +0000

Hey Alexa,

That’s almost exactly what I am saying. When you outsource or have people working for you, you keep a higher percentage of the income, because you are paying a flat fee for service rather than paying on scale.

The real goal is to systematize your music business. If you are booking your own gigs and making money, for example. Can you put the booking process into a system and outsource it RATHER than going after a booking agency?

In the iTunes example – maybe you create a process or a system to generate more fans via social media, internet marketing, press or whatever. Take iTunes out of the equation and insert something like Bandcamp. Can you take that process and outsource it to someone for a flat per hour fee and generate more income that way? Or find tools and automate the process? As your revenue increases from sales, your costs stay the same, thus you generate a higher income.

Every business is going to be a little different. Your goal as the business person in your music business is to decide where your revenue is coming from, what you can personally do to increase that revenue and outsource the rest for as little as possible.

I think another more in depth post it to come on this subject. Thanks for jumping in.

By: Alexa Weber Morales

Alexa Weber Morales — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:53:46 +0000

I’m not sure I understand your response above. Are you saying to outsource INSTEAD of going the percentage of income route? I have gotten a bit tired of giving percentages of all my income out left and right, via online services and my distribution deal with a large company and record label. It’s appealing at first, but then you realize that if they’re not working on your behalf, you’re the one who’s giving away potential income, while all they have to do is have a large portfolio of indie artists and live off the residuals. The long tail works for the aggregators, not the individuals. So in closing, are you saying do less of the automatic percentage route and more of the proactive outsourcing route?

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:32:34 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by g_ro: Musician Outsourcing – new post – already some interesting comments – http://su.pr/377Nmi – join in and let me know what you think…

By: gregrollett

gregrollett — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:29:50 +0000

Hey Alex – thanks for chiming in. Here is where I think we disagree. You are still thinking of outsourcing as a cost instead of an investment. You are in the music business and as such there are business costs that go along with it.

Here is something to think about – A booking agent will likely receive 15% of your gross. Say you take take a small guarantee of $200 playing a local gig. The booking agent takes $30 off the top. Now imagine if you were paying someone $5 an hour to book the same show as a virtual assistant. It takes them 2 hours. That’s $10. You made an extra $20. Now scale that. The virtual assistant’s job never gets harder, and the time allotted never grows, but your guarantee does and so does your payout.

It’s the mindset that makes the difference.

All musicians want to work off percentages. I say you need to bring something bigger to the table. Especially as an indie band starting out. Even if you sell 1,000 downloads on iTunes (which is huge) – your take home is about $600. Even with a 50/50 split (which most musicians think is ridiculous) that is only $300 for the marketer/promoter.

From that perspective, you need to bring more to the table than a %.

Hope that makes sense, even if it means I’m the jerk in this situation.

By: Alex Zandretta

Alex Zandretta — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:15:38 +0000

Definitely outsource your stuff but,here’s the thing though,and this is something I know that nobody really touches on.
Its a great Idea to outsource,but unless your pulling more than a hundred bones or so a month,its tough…..

what Id like to see a company do is outsource selling your itunes stuff,and work off a percentage of the income generated,at a non ridiculous price….by working off a percentage of whats coming through the itunes pipline,you’d get constant residual income……

create the business….if their isn’t ones,and you get a truckload of people on board with it.

and everybody would make money…..