When does an artist or band need a manager?

Lately, I’ve been caught up in an online music indus­try group regard­ing when the best time is for an act to join forces with a man­ager to fur­ther their career oppor­tu­ni­ties. There were a mul­ti­tude of opin­ions about this topic from a vari­ety of indus­try man­agers and mar­ket­ing peo­ple. It’s a great topic, wor­thy of discussion.

Some­thing to think about when you read fur­ther, is the level and type of man­age­ment. Man­age­ment com­pa­nies have exploded onto the scene in the last 10 years, but not all are the same. Just like music artists, there are both indie and major league man­agers. Some man­age every­thing, oth­ers focus on spe­cific career objectives.

The music indus­try con­tin­ues to change rapidly. These changes are begin­ning to usher in a new dynamic involv­ing manager/artist rela­tion­ships and the ser­vices they offer.

So, let’s get started. The two pri­mary schools of thought on the right time for a manager.

1) In the beginning

There were a few who took that stance that an act needs a man­ager imme­di­ately. Their ratio­nale was that a band or vocal­ist just start­ing out typ­i­cally doesn’t have the con­tacts or knowl­edge to impact their advance­ment. They need all the help they can get to stand out. Tough for me to argue with that one. As an advo­cate for musi­cians, I know first hand how tough it is.

This presents an inter­est­ing sce­nario for both the artist and the man­ager – a Catch 22 of sorts. The bud­ding artist could use the valu­able direc­tion and con­tacts from an estab­lished man­ager, how­ever they are not mak­ing enough income for a man­ager to take notice.

A man­ager may very well acknowl­edge the raw tal­ent of a new artist (I know you’re think­ing “well – just wait until they hear me!”) but would be tak­ing a huge invest­ment of time to see any­thing come to fruition within 6 months to a year. Sim­ply put, an artist or act needs to have some­thing hap­pen­ing (a fan base is a given) to be entic­ing for a man­ager to give a nod. They need some­thing to market!

So, to any­one one of you who are start­ing out and seek­ing a man­ager to get to the next level; here is the typ­i­cal sce­nario. A man­ager has lit­tle to no income com­ing in when try­ing to estab­lish a new act. Man­agers work on com­mis­sion. Unless they have major con­tacts and the band has tremen­dous appeal and promise, they will be spend­ing count­less hours try­ing to find and cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties to expand.

For a band, it’s great to find some­one who would advo­cate for their suc­cess, but real­ity sets in, and the man­ager is putting in their hard earned time with no guar­an­tee of get­ting paid – at least over a period of time. His­tor­i­cally, man­agers didn’t touch artists at this level, but that is begin­ning to change.

2) When your focus becomes more about the busi­ness than your craft

When an act is at this stage, it can be a good thing, or a bad thing. Good if you are play­ing 100 dates a year, have a CD released and a rabid fan base who loves your music. Bad if you are in a great band with an under-developed fan base and spin­ning your wheels play­ing in wrong mar­kets and miss­ing out on oppor­tu­ni­ties that could save you a year of headaches. Either way, your focus is not where it really should be – your craft!

The good news is that at this point, man­agers are typ­i­cally more acces­si­ble. They can be a tremen­dous help on the pro­mo­tional front and cre­ate more per­for­mance oppor­tu­ni­ties. They can help you out­line your objec­tives and goals into a doable plan.

The thing here, is that artists at this level need to be able to step back and real­ize that they have to relin­quish some con­trol to move ahead. If you are an artist who is focus­ing far too much on busi­ness and not enough on music, it’s time to let go of the reigns and search for a good man­ager to help you out. It’s essen­tial if you want to get ahead.

My thoughts and recommendations

For those of you just start­ing out: If you are seri­ous, I rec­om­mend artist devel­op­ment. In the begin­ning, artists are forced into DIY because of the Catch 22 sce­nario I spoke of ear­lier. DIY is fine to a point, but most artists start­ing out are mis­in­formed and lack expe­ri­ence to get their careers mov­ing in the right direc­tion. Some artists take 5 years of learn­ing the hard way, when they could have cut that time in half if they had some­one work­ing with them.

Artist devel­op­ment includes a menu of options depend­ing upon the needs of the artist. It could mean help­ing the artist cre­ate a mar­ket­ing plan, find­ing the right songs, advis­ing in recruit­ment of band mem­bers, pro­mo­tional strat­egy, you name it (I’ve often won­dered who coaches some of these Idol con­tes­tants in regard to the songs they per­form. Some of the choices are just ter­ri­ble). Some spe­cial­ize and oth­ers are lim­ited in their scope. I’ve been on both of sides (musi­cian and busi­ness) and that often seems to help.

Artist con­sul­tants such as myself, are typ­i­cally fee-based; mean­ing they require pay­ment for their ser­vices, rather than com­mis­sion. Some peo­ple in artist devel­op­ment (espe­cially pro­duc­ers) may require com­mis­sion on future poten­tial earn­ings related to com­po­si­tions if some­thing hits. It all varies depen­dent upon the ser­vices pro­vided and what is negotiated.

Some­thing I’m start­ing to see are artist man­agers charg­ing a monthly rate to man­age an act start­ing out until they can make some­thing hap­pen, and then get com­mis­sion on the activ­i­ties that pro­duce rev­enue. By charg­ing a small monthly rate, the man­ager can then afford to take on, say a smaller scale act to cover expenses. The music busi­ness is changing!

For those estab­lished acts: Doing it your­self will only take you so far, and ulti­mately, you will suf­fer at this stage if you don’t find a rep­utable man­ager to han­dle your busi­ness. I know of many acts who have done a phe­nom­e­nal job on their own, but could be advanc­ing faster if they focused on a cre­at­ing a team to move to that next level.

Of course, you want to be par­tic­u­lar about who you choose to be your man­ager. And trust me, a rep­utable man­ager will be par­tic­u­lar as well. What bands in your area or region have man­agers? Out of those bands, which bands are really mak­ing head­way with their careers and fan base? Con­nect with these bands (MySpace, Face­book and other social media) and inquire about their man­age­ment and what they have been doing to impact their careers.

The thing I’m get­ting at here is to not just do the “open up the yel­low pages and point” approach. Research who you feel would fit your band the best in terms of man­age­ment and go after them. This will work bet­ter for you than a ran­dom approach. Trust me when I say, that rep­utable man­agers want artists who know how to com­mu­ni­cate their vision and goals concisely.

Please note that man­agers with major league ros­ters (major label record­ing acts) are not usu­ally acces­si­ble through the unso­licited approach. Typ­i­cally, the only way to get on the inside is to know some­one who has rela­tion­ships with those man­agers. Man­agers of this cal­iber usu­ally only man­age “signed” acts but can def­i­nitely be influ­en­tial in get­ting an act signed.

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