Simply put, many roles and jobs go into the success of popular musicians—a fact we touched on in our previous blog post “Your Music Team: Supporting Your Career,” where we examined the makeup of the music team often found behind a successful author (songwriter, composer and arranger), and a successful performer.

Notably the referenced teams presented by David Stopps, author of How to Make a Living from Music—a book presented by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)—were for authors or performers who had already achieved a significant level of success.

But where do those of us who are still charting [or only beginning to chart] our way to success begin? What are the main roles we’ll need filled to maximize our careers and net worth; and how do we actually go about identifying and picking those individuals? We’ll turn to Donald S. Passman, author of “All You Need to Know About the Music Business,” for guidance.

Of course, before assembling a music team you’ll want to ensure you’ve got content—recorded music which is ready for “the big time,” as Passman puts it. How to tell if your music is ready? “Ask your tummy,” says Passman, offering that intuition and gut are great indicators as to whether your music has already matured to a point where you are ready for a professional career. So if your tummy says yes, Passman says you’re ready.

Besides recording great music, Passman says it’s also important to build a fan-base before putting your music team together. Playing as many local gigs as possible, building an email database by getting fans to sign up to your mailing list, and keeping in touch with your fans on a regular basis are a few tips offered by Passman to help build your fan-base.

Now onto your core music team. According to Passman the four key roles in any music team are:

• personal manager,
• attorney,
• business manager
• agent

He describes the personal manager as the “single most important person” in a musician’s professional life and offers the personal manager’s key roles and functions as follows:  

• Assisting with major business decisions such as signing record deals
• Assisting with the creative process (for example, deciding which songs to record, selecting a producer, selecting a photographer and hiring a band)
• Promotion your career
• Assembling and heading your professional team
• Coordinating concert tours with your agent
• Liaising with your record company (if applicable) to maximize your marketing and advertising campaigns
• Serving as a go-between between you and the outside world.

---(Passman, 2014)

Lawyers in the music business do more than just look over contracts and advice clients about the law, says Passman, but rather are very involved in structuring deals and shaping artists’ business lives. On the other hand, your business manager will be responsible for handling your money—collecting it, keeping track of it, paying bills, investing it—notes Passman.

Lastly, Passman offers that in the music industry, agents are almost exclusively involved in booking live personal appearances (concerts) and sometimes deal with commercials, tour sponsorship, and television specials.

Considering the important roles these individuals will play in your professional success, Passman cautions that you should personally pay extreme attention when assembling your team.

After all, “if you pick the wrong people and set it on automatic pilot, you’ll smash into a mountain before you know what happened,” says Passman.

Therefore to protect yourself and to aid in putting together an efficient, trustworthy and effective team; as an overview, Passman recommends the following:

• Obtain references from potential team members and check them out carefully.
• Be sure that the professional’s expertise are in music. [We think it’s important to add that in the evident the individual initially has no music industry expertise, ensure he or she is keen on learning about music industry and is actively doing so.]
• If you already have a team, consult with them about the new potential team member before hiring.
• Do your best to see and look beyond the individuals’ initial sales pitch
• Openly discuss with the potential team member their fee/payment expectations upfront.
• Adopt an initial probation period which will allow you to initial review the individual’s work and progress to determine if he or she a right fit.

---(Passman, 2014)

For more in depth insight from Passman regarding how you can effectively build your music team, as well as specifications you should look out for when hiring respective team members, purchase your copy of “All You Need to Know about the Music Business.” It’s currently available on in hardcopy and electronically via Amazon.com

Reference

Passman, D. (2014). All You Need to Know about the Music Business

Pictured sourced from:

http://www.kvibe.com/2015/05/19/how-to-use-video-production-to-build-and-strengthen-your-team/