There are many skills needed to have a successful music business, but today we are going to talk about the top 5 skills that will help you thrive.
#1 Learning how to create the mental bandwidth by removing the non-essential
As musicians, we can oftentimes become overwhelmed by doing multiple things at once. It’s sometimes difficult for us to determine what tasks are essential and what tasks don’t truly need our full attention.
You may have to make an effort to stay focused and not get distracted with things that may seem interesting and important at the time, but there are ways that can help you do this! A great way is to have a dedicated place where you write down any tasks that come into your head and then later determine what you’re going to do with these tasks. This helps you visualize what you need to do, rather than keeping it all in your head. Be sure that you’re always protecting your mental bandwidth because oftentimes it’s not the lack of time that gets to us and makes us feel overwhelmed, it’s the lack of focus.
#2 Be a fast action taker
You’re going to need to learn to implement things fast and not overthink things. Oftentimes when we start planning and strategizing, although important, we get caught up in over-thinking to the point of paralyzing our productivity. Your ability to strategize quickly, but then rapidly shift into taking action is going to be essential for you to be able to create a successful music business. It’s also going to be essential in making sure that you’re being productive in a way that flows with your natural rhythm.
#3 Creating a strategic communication platform
Building a way to communicate your vision and perspective is necessary. It’s important to remember the reason people are going to come. They’re going to be drawn to the businesses that you’re bringing in whether it’s a service, a program, or a product, because of YOU. You are the main person that is building this business therefore your number one job is to be a clear and effective communicator. You need to make a commitment to being visible and to communicating your vision so that people know what you stand for. You want them to be drawn to you and your business.
You have to be your greatest advocate.
#4 Have the ability to switch back and forth between working on your craft and working on your business effectively.
Making sure that you feel as if you’re able to switch back and forth is so important so that you don’t feel as if you’re sacrificing one for the other. Instead, you need to be able to give each one it’s mental space and its own due diligence. When you’re practicing and working on your craft, you’re doing that on the creative side. Once you’re done with the time you have set aside for that, you have to be able to put just as much focus as you can put on your music, when you switch to working on your business. It has to be approached with that same level of discipline, focus, and attention.
As a musician, it’s easy to get too caught up on only working on your craft. Once this happens and you let go of working on your business, you’re going to get out of balance. This applies the other way around as well, if you only work on your business and you stop practicing, you’re going to get out of alignment. It’s all about preserving that internal alignment and being active as an artist, as well as being active as an entrepreneur and business creative. You have to be able to respect those two worlds equally; you can’t have one without the other so it’s preserving that balance.
#5 Flexibility
As musicians, we’re used to being perfectionists. We’re used to trying to always get better and better and doing things over and over.
Well, when it’s about working on our business, we can fall into that perfectionist mode as well and want to do things in many different ways before releasing them to the world. Now, although that may be what you’re used to, you want to embrace flexibility. Being forgiving to your own nature of wanting to do things right and just being okay with going back and tweaking things as you go, is so, so important.
As always, I hope this gives you some things to think about as you continue working on your business! Until next time.
P.S. If you liked this recap, make sure you tune into our weekly live sessions! Be sure to tune in for my Weekly Live Show show this Thursday at 1pm CST, I look forward to seeing you all there!
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