As a self-employed musician, looking at your bank account isn’t the only indicator of how well your career is doing. It’s important to see yourself as a complete business. I learned about the importance of reflecting on your business each week from Dan Kennedy, in his book,
No BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs (affiliate link). Thank you in advance for all your support should you decide to purchase through my affiliate link.Transparency is important to me, so I’ve decided to be as candid with you as I possibly can about my business, without compromising the privacy of any client, vendor, partner, sponsor, or organization that I have a relationship with. I invite you to give me your feedback below so that I can learn more about how to serve people better. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this.
First of all, let me apologize for not keeping the commitment of writing about lessons that I learned. I hate when I don’t keep commitments. If you can’t trust me to write an article when I say that I’m going to write one, what can you trust me with. That being said, my reflections below might provide some insight into why I missed this commitment.
What I Know This Week That I Didn’t Know About:
My Business
My business & career are growing really fast. I have been having trouble keeping up with all the new opportunities coming my way. As exciting as this might seem, it has been really overwhelming. Balancing new opportunities with current appointments, rehearsals, email, memorizing songs, and drum practice isn’t easy.
In February, I set the goal of asking for 65 sales appointments for my drumming workshops. To one extent, my goal was a failure because I only asked for 43. To another extent, it was success. From asking for those 43 appointments, I booked a bunch of workshops, plus performances and speaking engagements for myself.
I learned that my focus needs to be on getting opportunities and closing sales. From now on you will see me talk about those more in my lessons learned.
I also learned that it’s necessary to have a meeting with myself on Monday morning to check in regarding goals, cash flow, problems, opportunities, new clients, frustrations, etc.
My Industry as a Whole
The music industry has so many components to it. Each of those components weave in and out of other industries. The opportunities for success are endless.
My Competition
One of my fellow artists (from one of my sponsors) really showed her support for everything I do. She is an example of who I want to become as an artist and I am so grateful to be friends with her.
My Clients as a Group:
My clients are growing…….FAST!
My Top 10 Clients:
I wish that I could deliver a perfect performance 100% of the time. At the same time, I know that I am human. One of my clients pointed out that he wasn’t happy with my attire for a particular performance and expressed a slight frustration with some of the musical aspects of my playing. He has been very clear with his standards and vision from the beginning and he pays me very well. I took it to heart.
I have to get nicer clothing for my gigs. I am certain that I will feel better about myself and connect with more people through wearing nicer clothes. I put this in the budget for next month. In addition, I will be more aware of & improve my tendency to slow down the tempo in songs when playing live.
I love this client because he has standards. He’s helped me grow so much as both a person and a musician.
I invite you to give me your feedback below and be sure to check out the book,
No BS Time Management for Entrepreneurs (affiliate link).
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Wow, I don't know many drummers who would write on the web that a client complained about attire or that they have a tendency to slow down a song. This shows real commitment for improvement and quite a bit of courage. Great article.
Thanks Haukur!I appreciate your support. It's important to me that I share my challenges with people. Sometimes people think that because you are a “professional” musician that you play “anything” your instrument “perfectly”.I want people to know that I struggle with the same challenges that everyone else has…and it's okay. How's drumming?
I love that you wrote this and that you are following your commitments down whatever rabbit trails they take you. As to the content; I'm glad to see you taking constructive criticism as an opportunity to improve your entire package. When you work on strengthening your weaknesses, beware the trap of letting your strengths weaken through neglect; schedule (in ink) time to work on your strongest point(s) every week so your focus widens instead of just shifting sideways. I'm encouraged by your ability to put more on your plate without letting the overwhelming nature of business take away your joy of music and performing!
Thank you so much Marla! I love your feedback, especially the part about working on things so my focus widens instead of shifting sideways. That's going to help me a lot because I constantly feel like I am shifting sideways.
One of the most important (I think) skills is knowing what to delegate and how to choose reliable / trustworthy resources; you truly cannot do it ALL but if you know what needs to be done you can better evaluate what parts you need to do yourself and what you can have other professionals do for you while still knowing when your hired / bartered help is doing a great job and when they are not.
Delegation has been one of the skills that I am slowly learning to master. It has been teaching me about trust.