1. Business
This is the hated part. Most musicians can’t stand it. Makes sense, who wants to talk about funnels and leads? You’re indie though, somebody has to, if you want this professional image to go further and bring some money to sustain you and refuel your art.
Some of the things you have to do is:
Organize business funnel. Whenever someone decides to buy from you, they follow a specific road from decision till the checkout (even later on, in the follow-up part). Afterwards, these individuals will engage with you and eventually will buy more expensive products, becoming part of your business funnel. These procedures need to be organized, automated and supervised by a skilled individual, who could be a member of the band with modern business knowledge.
Sustainable business model. This is how you make money.
“A business model encompasses how a firm creates value, how it delivers that value to customers, and how it captures revenue from those customers.” is what Saul J. Berman’s definition is. Will you choose to rely on digital downloads, apply the freemium model or be an entirely touring band? It’s up to you. There are so many business models, you have to pick the right one for you, one that primarily suits your artistic integrity. The strategist that will make the decision has to be flexible in his mindset, and, preferably, a band member. This strategy will determine a lot how your band moves around.
Schedule planning. Somehow you have to stick around with your goals and responsibilities. That’s where scheduling your actions comes in handy. A detailed, short-term schedule (3-months) can give you things to do and keep you one step ahead. There has to be a long- term plan as well, but it’s wise to keep it flexible. Long future can neither be predicted, nor scheduled or controlled. Keep it flex, but know where you want to go. Think of it like a mountain pick you always have in sight. This has to be something the whole band decides and is comfortable with.
Manage logistics. Boring stuff, but someone has to do it. Logistics is the management of your money, your income, expenses, common pool and so on. A good reason to fight for, so you’d better be clear with this kind of issues from an early stage. If you start now, you won’t have much work to do with logistics (you’ll only have expenses, which is normal, and no-one fights over who’s gonna pay the bills first!), but when you start getting a real business going, then the skills of a trusted individual will be handy. Member of the band or not, the person has to be trusted.
Manage lead collection. People who are interested in your music and take some minor action that allows them to be in your radar (and be marketed too), are called leads. That could be a person who subscribes to your mailing list or becomes a fan in one of your social media profiles. They are visible now, you can market directly to them. Whoever comes up with the business model and takes care of the business funnel, this is the best person to take care of the lead generation (the way and strategy you’ll use to increase these aforementioned numbers).
Growth/metrics. This is a daunting task, in terms of finding the right metric(s) to set as the primary measurement of success. It all depends on the business model. If you choose freemium, you have to focus on capturing emails. The problems start when you focus on the goals and forget the art or the innovation. My suggestion: if you can maintain clarity of mind and can separate your creative and entrepreneurial sides, then take care of this task. If not, a third individual can do the work and report to you, and their information will be less emotionally attached to what you do.
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