Outsourcing In Your Music Business
This is a follow up video on outsourcing in the music business as an indie (or even major label) artist. After we shot the video, we received a ton of comments, ideas, concerns and a little resistance from the outsourcing subject (Bruce from Hypebot also posted the video and there were some good comments there as well).
In this video we take a look at:
- What can you outsource other than web work, design, etc?
- What about the economy and sending money overseas when we need to keep jobs in America?
- When is the right time to outsource your music marketing or other activities?
- What services I personally use
- And then I ask for your help. More about that after the jump!
Outsourcing Your Music Business Tasks
Here were the two resources that I use
- oDesk - virtual assistants, marketing, SEO, traffic building, inventory, accounting, etc
- Scriptlance - web development and design
- For more resources check out the previous post on outsourcing
Get Your Music Industry Outsourcing Questions Answered!
As I mentioned in the video, I am going to start compiling a new free musician resource on outsourcing in the music business. I want you to be a part of it! In the comments below, ask a question that you want answered and I will include it in the guide.
We will be reaching out to VA firms, outsourcing pro’s and lifestyle designers with your questions and others to come up with a nice 101-style guide for outsourcing. I am pretty excited for this, as I have been big on the concept for about a year now and am really getting great response for not only my company, but for the musicians and brands that we are working with. It really frees up time for big picture stuff.
So, let us know what you want to know. You will be credited in the resource with a link to your site and also a rock star answer!
-Greg
There are certain things that really need to be outsourced. One person CAN’T know everything about everything. The internet makes do it yourself so “easy”. But with so many services, and so much change finding the way is expensive and quite difficult. And I might say, a fertile environment for sharks just waiting to feed on artists.
So my questions are: besides trial and expensive error how can a new musician in the changing industry find out the best services for him or herself?
1. What exactly is the job of the musician’s agent at this point in the industry?
2. What is the boutique agency that offers PR services, product development, and booking? for a price (to the artist) with no guarantee of results to the artist? What’s in it for the the artist?
Thanks Heidi,
Those are good questions. I have been hearing from a lot of artists about working with agencies with no guarantee of results.
Looking forward to getting your questions answered in the new outsourcing report.
Greg: Just watched your video (actually just got back to my office this morning — was in LA for New Music Seminar). Great ideas. Here is my post in response:
Musicians in the “old days” frequently outsourced many functions routinely, like recording engineers, mastering and booking agents. The concept of the business team — personal manager, lawyer, business manager, agent and, of course, the all important label deal — was what bands used to think of as essential once they achieved a certain level of success, if, that is, they could both interest these people in working with them and could afford them. This was how the music business worked — until the internet.
With the explosion of direct-to-fan capabilities and its power to do-it-yourself, plus the idea that you didn’t need any of these functionaries to get your music and yourselves out there, baby bands all over the world found themselves not needing to “outsource” or find people even interested in them in order to, at least nominally, get done whatever they needed. “Nominally,” because just the fact of having the means to do something yourself doesn’t mean that it will be done well (ever try fixing a serious plumbing problem yourself?).
And Greg puts his finger on another issue with trying to do everything yourself: You are a musician and there only so many hours in a day. Everything you do that is not directly impacting the quality of your songwriting, arranging, rehearsing and giging, can take away from what is your art — which is what it is all about.
Merchandising, where I’ve spent my career, is an area where bands usually have done some outsourcing, for example using a screen printer for their t-shirts. (There are people out there advising learning screen printing, but except for the smallest of the small situations, that is simply not very practical. Are you a musician or a screen printer?) The question for bands today should be how can we make the coolest merch that will make the most money for the least time and effort?
We have created Cut Merch to find the exact point where the band makes the best merch and most money from their merch activities, without taking up too much of their time and energy. We have a philosophy of putting the tools of music merch in the hands of the bands and the goal of becoming their perfect merch partner. We are already known for our quality and service, but in addition to that we will be launching a platform this year which will be the ultimate merch solution for hundreds of bands.
The fact is that fewer and fewer bands will have a “merch deal” as time goes on, for a variety of reasons — the number of bands are far more than the ability of merch companies to handle them well. That means, going in-house. But how to do that most effectively? We here at Cut, in launching our new features later this year, will show bands how to effectively “outsource” some of their merch functions while making it both easier and more profitable. These new features are under construction. Stay tuned!
I would love to outsource the trial and error part of using 3rd party services. Some people with some relative success might use Jango, but there many people who claim Jango is more pay for play. Does Tunecore serve any real purpose? I’m not to the point where I can ask for booking help, because I’m still working on my craft. But I’m gonna look for a pretty big marketing push pretty soon. I have yet to check out your e-book. But I am interested. But it will have to be in a few months.
This is a great blog and something that most musicians don’t think about. Even I didn’t realize oDesk could do some of the tasks you mentioned. I used them at my job when they first started a few years back, but it was strictly programming work. To know they can do admin related stuff is very nice to know. I’m going to look into that.
Like you mentioned - some of the work goes overseas, but as a musician that comes from a business background, I look at it like this - if going overseas saves YOU money, that means YOU are more likely to succeed. YOU are in the United States. The more success you have here, the more you will have an impact here.
In regards to questions about outsourcing, I know the area myself and my band would like help in is marketing/promotion/SEO. That and maybe some web work. I actually came across this blog because I was in the middle of writing a blog of my own about the new music industry…about how everyone tries to do everything themselves. That just isn’t efficient. I know how to do a lot of the things we need to get done, but I’ve found there just aren’t enough hours in the day, and not enough time is getting spent on the most important…THE MUSIC!
My question is how reliable can these outsourcing services be for a musician? Maybe I’m wrong for assuming this, but I’d assume something like oDesk is more setup for businesses and not musicians. I realize on some level it is the same, but it’s different. Maybe I’m wrong - I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on that. Maybe some more examples of things you can outsource.
Looking forward to your feedback.
Do you know of a company, or developer that makes websites for bands, that has all the necesary tools set up for artists, that does not look like crap. Hostbaby and places like that really, really, really look bad, and if the way people perseive an artist is by the way that your pictures, myspace, website look, you HAVE TO HAVE a professional looking website, that includes analytics, a place to buy music, a place for merch even if you have to outsource it to say zazzle or spreadshirt, etc. Who can do that specifically for musicians, and that looks professional, I would outsorce that anyday.