Upgrading Your Music Business: How To Get from Here To There

One of the first major breakthroughs our members and clients make is the recognition of their musician business as a Content Business and not just a music business.

You are really just creating and distributing content in many different formats.

As we’ve discussed this requires accepting additional roles and responsibilities, but presents us with tremendous opportunity in return.

Most Artists don’t really need much convincing that they could step their game up on the business end, and they know there are many ways they could be leveraging opportunities and growing their career.

We need to leverage technology and create systems to do the work that we don't have to

What we usually don’t think about, what’s perhaps more counterintuitive, but what most artists lack and could benefit from is to create strong systems that leverage technology in an effective way to support and maximize their growth potential.

I want to change the way you think about growing your career and developing your brand as a Musician in the Modern Music Industry.

One of the least understood and undiagnosed underlying issues I see both as an Artist, and as a coach and mentor to other artists and musicians is that they have no frame or structure to work within which could greater unlock their creativity, productivity, and find that unique balance of awesomeness we call workflow . ​

Just as a negative, unstable, or overall bad environment will hurt your optimal chances for success, so too will having sub-optimal systems and processes.

Career Growth Trap: Bad Environment/Systems

Contrary to the often abstract idea of structure and systems impeding or hindering creativity, i've found just about the exact opposite to be true. I’ve learned through much on the job, ground level experimentation-­and strongly believe structure is the hidden key to upgrading and/or enhancing your productivity, and one of the biggest levers in taking your career to the next level in the modern music biz.

The question though, is how do we do that, and what does that really mean for us on a practical level?

1) It starts with clarifying and targeting your focus, optimizing your environment, defining processes for the way you do things, and leveraging your systems to help you find, align, and maintain maximal workflow doing what you love, on your own terms.

Upgrading your environmental systems and structure ­is how you get more done, by working less, and it’s how you avoid overwhelm or uncertainty about your responsibilities or priorities.

Optimizing your working structure, and finding optimal workflow delivers a renewing and refreshing confidence and inner sense of serenity without fail, every­time.

It’s quite literally an artform in and of itself. But it’s the secret behind high achievers and highly effective people in every aspect of life. It is how you reach the enlightened state of Music Business Liberation most effectively, and grow your career geometrically.

How to upgrade your music business

You need solid structure, systems, and environment

What are some things you might think of when i talk about structure?

You might think about scheduling systems or timers, or deadlines, or cheap foam dividers and filing cabinets...

But you’ll notice that everyone from the cashier that just punched in on her station, to the NFL all­star leading his team to victory, all professionals work within an operational structure that includes both an optimized environment, and a set of systems that allow them to prepare, perform, produce, and ultimately profit from their Core Focus Activities.

In the Academy, this is what we call your Main Moves. What we’re talking about here is the precursor to finding your optimal workflow.

FINDING WORKFLOW!

An optimized working structure helps you bring everything together.

Workflow is an integrated state of Optimal performance across all the tools, functions and systems in your working structure.

You need to completely remove yourself from being in a state of overwhelm, confusion, anxiety, it’s too easy for our workstations to get cluttered and disorderly and tax our optimal workflow.

I encourage you to think about your career as the grand central station for which you are directing, delegating, and delivering tasks, managing projects, and running campaigns.

We call this your Modern Project Studio.

A defined, orderly, and sophisticated set of systems and processes which assemble to form the pieces of your workstation, and the configuration of the workflow structure for your music business operation.

Optimizing your MPS will increase your productivity, and decrease the mental and physical stress that's taxing your ability to work with maximum effectiveness.

Stop the confusion. Let me capture your imagination for a moment... Enter the M​odern Project Studio​.

This is not just a workspace you sit in, it's a rocket ship that can take you anywhere you want to go.

Every time you sit down at your computer you step out into the global conversation and showcase your content.

With a clear direction, better structure and an optimized environment, you can navigate to any outcome, traveling along any route you'd prefer to take.

You are not at a computer, you are on a farm planting seeds you'll harvest later.

You aren't just reading and writing, you are traveling with a toolbox, collecting, applying new tools and techniques you learn along the way, refining processes­ as your ideas and concepts seemlessly develop into timeless content that narrates your authentic stories and illuminates as transient in all the lives around you.

If you aren't completely enthralled with the infinite joy and sheer potential of the deadly combinations we can concoct and create with nothing more than our think­box, a laptop, and a microphone...

THEN STOP.

Take a deep breath, walk around the room or the neighborhood a couple of times to clear your mind, and then come back.

Using an analogy for illustration there are 3 components of my modern project studio. All synchronized and that work together in harmony­allowing me to operate wherever the stars may guide me.

The tool shed​= my home desktop workstation (with full accessibility to all systems, processes, tools, services, and apps)

The tool box​= my laptop/mobile rig (almost full accessibility of all systems, processes, tools and services)

The tool belt​= my iPhone/tablet and/or guitar (limited yet still powerful functionality)

Again, the tools and the resources are just that, what is important in the modern studio is the processes and systems for improving your efficiency and effectiveness in the 6 stages of every project.

Notes: Creativity and the inspiration for your content and the reason you begin the project anyway, happens ​away​ from the computer.

But your MPS is essentially the content development system for your career. A robust idea and project incubation system that fits into your pocket, syncs across your devices and includes a fully secured backup system ­just in case.

Let me further define some of the specific purposes of the MPS, and then we’ll go into the engine of it, the operating system of your career, made of several sub­systems that work together.

The Modern Project Studio

Modern Artist Breakthrough: From running a home recording studio, to running a Modern Project Studio.

My Modern Project Studio is my development system for the content that fuels and chronicles my career on that canvas of time and space.

It is my ​physical​ grand central station, (the gear and apps) and the command center for my career. It is quite simply the systems, tools, and resources that bring order to your work structure as a content creator in the modern world.

It is the machine independent blueprint for how i can carry everything i need to operate my career in two hands from almost anywhere.

I grow my career in projects and through the development of content.

The Mission of the Modern Project Studio was to create and master a functional set of systems, effectively broken down to their smallest single components, and then progressively optimized so as to create a balanced and fully integrated system that does three specific things...

Lets me do what I love, what I am best at, (my 20%’ers) and leverages my focus, time and energy most effectively.

Lets me create and live the ideal lifestyle i've custom built, that adheres to my value structure and the operating principles of my content business.

Lets me choose and generate the income level I desire because i know how to set, structure, manage, and achieve a goal I set through my use of the specific tools, processes and systems that make up my Modern Project Studio.

The Modern Project Studio is the structure of tools, resources and systems that you use to develop your STARS and create your own version of paradise.

Project Management: ​Maybe the most overlooked skill as artists and creators. It is because we live in a constant state of ​partial​ focus­ that distraction, procrastination, and overwhelm is so rampant. Effective planning, passion, habits, and priorities are the basis of productivity, and modern musicians develop the ability to coordinate, delegate and complete projects.

Effective Project management provides us with the confidence in knowing what things to do, in what order, and how to prioritize on the fly. Strengthening our decision making effectiveness.

My Life Management System

The following is my integrated set of processes, systems and tools that allow me to do that in a digital world. It is what I call my Life Management System.

It is what allows me to spend more time doing precisely the activities that I choose and value and/or need to do, and less time worrying about other stuff.

Input and Organization​(In process system) From tasks, to purchase receipts, to new song lyrics and concepts, articles and blog titles and

assorted snippets from all over..

Project and task Management

From my bigger goals and objectives and the project i’ll use to get their, down to my next mission, across my larger scope of priorities and projects.

Alerts and reminders

From pending action items like a recently filed support ticket, to of course appointments and to­do’s.

Tracking and review

Incoming and outgoing accounts and expenses, victories + successes, lessons learned, as well as checklists for routine weekly and monthly reviews.

Lists and @lists

These are specific questions or reminders next time i run into my developer, or a specific vendor, etc.

File management + Archives

I use several systems for file management and store archives in their respective project folders.

THE MUSIC CAREER OS

Again, the Modern Project Studio is my development system for the content that fuels and chronicles my career on this canvas of time and space.

It is my ​physical​ grand central station, (the gear and apps) and the command center for my career. It is quite simply the systems, tools, and resources that bring order to your work structure as a content creator in the modern world.

It includes and requires more than a recording studio, to manage all phases of a project’s lifecycle.

But as mentioned earlier, let’s get to the core engine of your career. A backend sales and marketing system that keeps all your data integrated and working together, builds loyal relationships, and sells more of your stuff­ in the background, on autopilot.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an operating system for the management and growth of your musical career, the development of your team, and the tracking system for coordinating and measuring everything all in one place?

These are the 6 systems that­with the right mindset driving them, along with the right techniques and strategy­will undoubtedly up­level your GAME and the success you are capable of creating in, with, and for your career as an Artist and/or Creator.

It is the machine independent blueprint for how i can carry everything i need to operate my career in two hands from almost anywhere.

RULE #9: ​Modern Musicians Upgrade their Career OS​ (their Systems and processes) to get more done, while having more fun ­with less effort and less headache.

The integrated combination of systems and processes we call the Career OS = The following 6 systems & functions below