Ever wondered what it takes to build a successful music career? In this engaging episode where we unpack the importance of team building in the music industry. We take a deep look at five crucial members you need in your team - the lawyer, manager, booking agent, publicist, and the social media manager. Listen in to learn from our insightful discussion with Sheridan's, a top UK entertainment law firm, and find out how a lawyer can do more than just offer legal advice. They can be your key to unlocking valuable industry connections.
Madd explores the roles of a manager and booking agent in giving wings to your music career. Discover the countless ways a manager, apart from handling administrative tasks, can help you break into the industry. We also discuss how a booking agent can be instrumental in securing live events. Tune in to hear an inspiring story about a band that captured the attention of Billie Eilish's booking agent after being featured on a UK TV show. We wrap up the episode with some real talk on the challenges of radio promotion and suggest alternative strategies such as effective use of social media ads and content creation. Craft the perfect team for your music journey with us.
Ever wondered what it takes to build a successful music career? In this engaging episode where we unpack the importance of team building in the music industry. We take a deep look at five crucial members you need in your team - the lawyer, manager, booking agent, publicist, and the social media manager. Listen in to learn from our insightful discussion with Sheridan's, a top UK entertainment law firm, and find out how a lawyer can do more than just offer legal advice. They can be your key to unlocking valuable industry connections.
Madd explores the roles of a manager and booking agent in giving wings to your music career. Discover the countless ways a manager, apart from handling administrative tasks, can help you break into the industry. We also discuss how a booking agent can be instrumental in securing live events. Tune in to hear an inspiring story about a band that captured the attention of Billie Eilish's booking agent after being featured on a UK TV show. We wrap up the episode with some real talk on the challenges of radio promotion and suggest alternative strategies such as effective use of social media ads and content creation. Craft the perfect team for your music journey with us.
Here are five team members that you want to get on board to really get your career to the next level as an artist. You are amazing at songwriting, producing, playing a certain instrument, so you want to make sure you're putting all of your attention into that. Yes, you need to be able to be available for social media content or for meetings, but really to see growth, you need to get other people on board whose skills lie in other areas, and most people think that you need to be established or making a lot of money to have people on board. However, all of these people I'm going to talk about will potentially get on board when you have absolutely nothing. As long as you can show them you have the potential. People will get on board because they will want to break you and be the person that discovered you, be the person that got you to the next level, because then they'll get all the success as well. The first one, one that most people don't talk about or even know is a significant team member is a lawyer. Having spoken to the guys at Sheridan's, who are the top entertainment law firm here in the UK, they told us how important a lawyer is for an artist's career, and you might think well, of course they're going to tell you that they are the lawyers, but they pointed out some very important things. For example, a lawyer is the middleman. They're the person that sees every single contract from every single major label, from every single major management firm. So they know everyone music supervisors, booking agents, labels, a&rs they know absolutely everyone. So they can be your key person for getting connections. And not only that, they work with artists from the ground up.
Speaker 0:Recently we spoke to Taylor Davies. He's a lawyer at Sheridan's and he outlined some very important things to us, such as the key man clause, which every artist should ensure is in their contract when signing with a label, and how to even work with a lawyer, how to get in contact with them, and all of that information is on a course on our membership, which I'll make sure to link below. But he outlined that he works from artists from the ground up. He just discovers them and reaches out because he wants to be the lawyer that's working with them from the beginning, because then they stay with him when they're signing huge contracts where he's clearly going to make more money. So, as an artist, a lawyer is that person that can connect you with absolutely everyone. It can be the person that you have on board before a manager, before a booking agent, before absolutely anyone, because they'll get you the right contacts and the best contracts. So you're not giving all of your money away and you're not signing any stupid deals. And the best way to find a lawyer that's right for you is look at artists that are inspiring for you, have the same kind of content, have the same kind of music, are at a level that you want to be at, and look who their law firm is. This might be a firm or it might be an individual. See if you can find who their lawyer is and from there you can reach out cold. But keep it personal. So, hi, xyz, I know that you're the lawyer for XYZ. I think I have a very similar style of music. This is what I'm doing. This is why I think we would work well together. Keep it personal, because if you're sending cold emails out to everyone, you're most likely not going to get a reply from anyone.
Speaker 0:The second person that is really important for your music career is a manager. So a manager can play very different roles depending on what kind of manager you get on board. Some managers are kind of just there for the day-to-day admin. So if that's not something that you want to focus on, have a manager on board and they're the ones that are going to do all your emails. Go to any networking events to ensure that they're putting you forward for stuff. They're the person that just kind of sorts out your day-to-day things. Some other managers are really the person that helps break you because they're the ones that also have contacts or they might have other artists that they're managing, that they can put you in communication with you, can do collaborations. It completely depends on the kind of manager you're looking for and what they have to offer you. What's most important when looking for a manager is that they work with artists that are similar to you but also have a reputation and a good one, obviously but someone that can actually get you somewhere, because there is no point having a manager that is kind of just taking 15 to 20% of everything you bring in. Just do the bare minimum. So you want to ensure that they're actually going to get you somewhere. So if that's just doing admin, fine, but that's going to get you further in life because you can focus on your music. But if they're going above and beyond. Then they can put you into the right places. They can put you in meetings with the right people. That's even better because those are the people that are going to help you break and if you're in the early stages of your career, that kind of manager is going to be key.
Speaker 0:When speaking to Joe Kentish, who is the president of Warner Music UK but when we spoke to him, who was the head of ANR there, he was explaining how he signed Dua Lipa. So he actually said the manager was the person that bought her to him. She hadn't even released any music yet, but she walked into the room and he immediately knew she had something, something about her aura. And then when he heard her in the studio, he knew that he had an artist that was just going to be breaking the charts every time they released. So that manager was the person that put her in front of him and then he took that to Warner and you know the story of how Dua Lipa broke. But that's a perfect example of a manager creating a situation so they're totally worth their percentage. Same with managers that it is with lawyers Find artists that you think are where you want to be in life or have done some amazing things, and connect with them.
Speaker 0:Make it personal whether that's a DM on Instagram or just an email, but make that personal. This manager might be with you for life. So it's a really big decision. So make that message. Prove that you're really serious about this.
Speaker 0:The third person that you want to get involved with and have on your team is a booking agent. So this is the person that's going to get your live events booked, whether that's support acts, whether that's a headline tour, whether that's one off shows. These are the people that have all the contacts with the venues, with other artists that they can get you supporting. They are very important for your career. Live is where you can really really break quite quickly. For example, a couple of years ago, griff was supporting Joelypa and now she is dominating the charts. So a booking agent is someone that can really help in that area. The only way you're going to get these people involved is by proving you can play a good set, and that doesn't mean that you need to be headlining the O2 arena to prove this to them. You can literally be playing in local pubs. But film it. Get proof of how good you are live, create a show reel. Have that EPK that shows where you've played and it doesn't matter if it's small venues, but maybe you sold them out. That is very intriguing for a booking agent. If you're selling out every single small show you're doing, then you can take that to a booking agent and they're going to show you real interest.
Speaker 0:Booking agents quite often are sniffing around for new talent. An example of this is we worked with a band probably about five years ago now, and this was when we were working in the sink space. We don't offer this anymore because it's not an area that we specialize in, but we had a lot of contacts with UK TV shows so I'd throw a few of our artists their way. This was an artist that was pretty unheard and I got them played on a UK TV show that is very established. It's Daytime TV. For those that watch Daytime TV, it was ITV. This morning their track was played in the background of a fashion segment. Next thing, you know, they get an email from Billie Eilish's booking agent wanting to sign them. They just love the track. They looked into the more, saw some live footage online and signed them. A couple of weeks later they were supporting Boyzone.
Speaker 0:That's how quickly these things can move because you're getting yourself out there, so getting yourself in positions where people can discover you, whether that's live shows, whether that's supporting someone yourself, whether that's getting press coverage, sink placements, if you're getting yourself in different areas, there are always industry professionals sniffing around. But, like I've said for all of these people so far, cold emailing can work as long as that email is personal and you've got some proof of playing live. Create a show real, create a youtube video that you can link them to have an e p k or one sheet and send it their way. But look at the artist they're working with. So if you look at a huge booking agency, each agent will have their own roster. So there's no point sending them your music or your show real, anything like that, if your music is nothing like any of the other of the artists. They will often work with the style of artists for a reason because they know those venues. They know other artists in that space, so make sure you're making it specific to them.
Speaker 0:The fourth person that you want to have involved is a creative. I know this is quite vague, but it completely depends on you as an artist. For example, the gorillas are gonna be as focused on a photographer, videographer when they are more focused on animator. Maybe you as an artist are a little bit more mysterious and you want to have someone that works in animation and visuals rather than a photographer or videographer. However, you need someone that's the creative and, again, you don't need to be at the highest level or even making good money yet from your music to have someone like this on board.
Speaker 0:Often, creatives are looking for ways to build their portfolio or find an artist they can connect with. Imagine the gorillas gave someone an opportunity and they took it, and then now they're head animator. If someone sees potential in you, they'll definitely get involved. So with creatives, you have photographers, videographers, graphic designers and then other things like animators. You need to find your creatives. This might be one individual or it might be a group of people. They need to understand your message, your brand, how you want to be portrayed, because, at the end of the day, most artists don't have skills in those areas, which is completely fine, but it means that you're relying on other people, and relying on other people is incredibly difficult if there isn't a relationship built there. So having one of those creators within your team is going to be extremely helpful, especially with the Instagram side of things.
Speaker 0:So we've spoken about Instagram a lot on this channel, but I don't think we've really spoken about it that recently and spoken about the changes to the feed. So if you look at the feed now, it's a lot more aesthetically pleasing and less so raw content, and that's because people use reels and stories for more of that raw content. So your feed is kind of used as a portfolio. You want that to be appealing to industry professionals as well as new fans. They go to it. They know exactly what they're getting. They know that your style of music, they know the brand just from those visuals. So having a photographer on board can be really, really useful because they will understand your brand. They can snap loads of pictures and then you have your whole feed sorted for the next couple of months.
Speaker 0:As well as that, industry professionals are heavily looking at the feed, for example, spotify editors. When we had Mike Lopez speak to our members, he mentioned the fact that Instagram is quite a big tool for them. They'll look at the feed. It needs to be aesthetically pleasing. It kind of sums up their genre and if you go to an editorial right now and go through all the artists on it and click on their Instagrams. They all have a pretty similar style because they all have the same style of music. So definitely something to keep in mind.
Speaker 0:The final person and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Marketer myself, but you do need a Marketer this isn't one that you necessarily need immediately because you can do the basics yourself, especially if you watch our channel, especially if you have any sort of understanding of social media, digital marketing. However, long term, it's not really sustainable, because how much time do you want to take running ads, creating content? You want to work with people that can help you with this side of things, and that doesn't necessarily mean hiring an agency like ourselves. There are tons of people out there that may want to build their portfolio, create some case studies, and, if they see potential in you, they'll either do a very cheap campaign, charging monthly, or do it for free because they see the potential in you. However, there are companies like ourselves that will work with artists long term, build them from A to B, then B to Z, so we have the understanding of how to grow artists and can teach them along the way.
Speaker 0:So the marketer is the person that's going to be focusing on getting you out there, whether that's your online presence, whether that's radio play, with that's digital marketing, with that's social media, and this isn't really fitting to. The video is just a general tip. Make sure you've got the right marketer for the right thing and for the right time in your career. For example, we get a lot of artists at the moment. They're like oh, I want to do a radio campaign. Okay, cool, you have one release, you have no social media presence and you want radio play.
Speaker 0:Radio play is incredibly difficult to get, hence why radio plug is so expensive. They've spent years getting their contacts and they can only send a select few to producers and presenters. So wanting a radio campaign from day one is quite a big ask and isn't necessarily the best use of your money, because quite often a radio company will say, yeah, yeah, we'll do that and just get you on a ton of community radios where the listeners aren't huge. The listeners on social media are huge, they're unlimited. So it's a better use of your money to spend on ads, on content creation, because you can reach the masses and you own all the data afterwards, which is a huge bonus. So those are my five, five team members that every single artist should have. I'm pretty sure I've got all of them, the ones that are really necessary, but let me know, make sure to give it a like. Subscribe, if you haven't already, and I will see you in the next one.