From DIY Musician to Music PRO

Once in a while, you have to ask yourself tough but honest questions…

What life do you want to live?

What do you look forward to achieving?

And most important…Who do you want to be?

If your answer to the last question is a musician, then let me ask you one more question:

How serious are you about your music business & career?

Let’s be completely honest here… If you want to be a professional musician, it’s time to make a decision to step up the game and move from the category of a DIY musician to a professional indie artist. It is possible to build a professional music career without business education or background and you’ll learn how to do it practically. But before that, let’s see what’s happening right now…

The DIY culture is taking over… The music world was also affected by it. While this phrase was initially used for “Do It Yourself” and described people who decorate, repair or make things around the house rather than paying someone to do it for them, later on, it became a much broader term. In the music circles, DIY takes the form of a distinct category of musicians who elbowed their path to the music career success all by themselves without any professional help. They were named DIY musicians.

So many of the music icons would start as a DIY musician and move from there to the worldwide music success receiving the admiration of fans and fame. The point I’m trying to make here is that they never stopped at just being DIY musicians. They’ve done their heavy lifting and kept working hard to build their career and music business. For what? So, they can become the best version of themselves identifying themselves as recognized professional Indie artists.

In today’s world, it might look like everyone who has a computer or a smartphone with the right app or software can write a song, thus everyone can be an artist. But it doesn’t mean everyone is able to create a masterpiece like Bohemian Rhapsody that lasts for centuries.

That’s why we have to distinguish music as a hobby and music as a career path and professional business. Yes, you can “do it yourself” and you are going to. But music is not just an art, but also a business, and you have to learn how to do it professionally!

If you are an indie artist who solely manages his or her music business and career — you are also an entrepreneur with a music start-up who has to know the basics of how to produce, promote, sell and distribute your music to your customers — your fans. Start-ups are no doubt exciting with all its innovations, creative freedom, and independence. But I’m not going to lie — it is hard work! Like any other business, it requires structure, strategic action plan and full commitment to make it work. Don’t be fooled by the “Become a Rockstar in one day” kind of stories. In reality, you are to invest in your music business your time, money, effort, skills, talents and go beyond that if needed. It’s a long journey to success, but it’s definitely worth it!

If you are serious about your music career, you have to set your music goals and find the best mix of tools that will work for you to achieve those goals. Any businessman or business coach will tell you that any business venture requires a set of short-term goals and long-term goals along with an action plan or strategy on how to achieve those goals. It will determine the direction your business is going and give you a clear vision of what results to expect. Let’s get practical here and have a look at one business year in the life of a professional indie artist.

As a professional indie artist your primary goals would be:

• record a new single, an album or EP;
• organize a concert, live show, private music event or an intimate show for your fans;
• build a network of true fans and constantly engage them while growing and retaining your fan base;
• find a way to build your music brand by giving something tangible to your audience like designing your branded merchandise or produce a vinyl, etc.

Obviously, you can do much more than that, but let’s stop here for now. Your goals will always have a creative side and a business side to it. What does it mean? Let us give you some examples using the goals listed above: as an artist, you are putting all your creativity into recording an album or EP, but then, you have to sell your product, the music you’ve created. Or maybe you have an idea to organize a live music concert or private music event for your fans… But you have to learn how to promote your concert to your fans so they buy tickets and actually show up. You don’t want to end up playing in an empty room, right? You have to set clear goals for your music business and think about what resources and tools you need to achieve those goals. Remember, in the music business, there are always two sides of a coin.

For those of you who think that you weren’t born with the ability to run a business or you’re not that naturally organized due to your artistic nature — good news for you! Show4me wasn’t created to just tell you how to run your business and leave you clueless how to put that knowledge into practice. Remember two sides of the music business? Show4me music interaction network helps you with the business side of it. It equips you with the set of easy-to-use business tools, which you can use separately or all together to find the right combination that works best for you. With Show4me, you can try tools like zero-loss concert and music crowdfunding, music sales, professional business account Artist Club with 1$ annual subscription for your true fans to keep them engaged in one place, statistics to measure your success and more.

So, how serious are you about your music business & career?

If you are serious and want to take it to the next level and become a recognized music professional, Show4me network is the right place to start.