Instant Gratification

Instant Gratification

Remember how contracts in the music business, actually in the entire business world used to be? You would discuss the details of the contract either in person or via the telephone and then you would run down to the mailbox and send two copies (at least) out. The other person would sign them both and then return one copy back to you via the United States mail. Depending on the time of the week and where they were located, that could mean a fully executed contract could be done in somewhere between about two and four weeks.

Yes, I know, those of you reading this that don’t remember those days and wonder how in the world anyone could EVER get business done with things being that darned slow. Back then it was status quo and no one thought about it because that was how it was done and everyone knew that.

That is one of the really cool and amazing things about technology today. You can set up the terms via phone or online, get the contract completed and converted into a PDF with a signature on it and email the cover letter, the contract, the riders and the promo posters all out and get a fully executed copy back in your email box within moments of the actual discussion.

This is one area where technology really shines. No more waiting for the mail to come back to make sure that the gig was done and accepted and that the contract was signed. You can literally know things are groovy in less time than it takes the average person to consume an adult beverage.

Things like this have revolutionized the way that things get done these days. It is no longer necessary to wait weeks to find out that you made a typo on the contract and that you have to re-submit it in order for it to be good and binding. In fact, in the world of electronics, you can even have the deposit electronically deposited into the account so that you know that even should something unforeseen happen like a double booking or the club burning down, you have gotten your fee.

Now when we get to the point that we can actually do a virtual concert to go along with those electronic contracts and E-Payments so we can actually do the show from out rehearsal hall and get paid for it, we’ll be happy. Maybe.

Provided by MMC

Locating Music Business Professionals

Locating Music Business Professionals

If you are a professional in your field, and I assume you are or you would not be here, the hardest part of your job might be locating and hooking up with other music business professionals in your particular field. If you are looking for work or if you are looking to hire someone, you need a good place to go and make that happen with a minimum of effort and time exerted.

Yellow pages have been the favorite of people for many years. I can recall stories of people that I knew who told me that whenever they went to Nashville or Los Angeles or New York or some other music business capitol, they would abscond with a recent copy of the local yellow pages so that they could then review it at their leisure when they got home.

Thank goodness for the advent of the Internet and social networking and business networking sites. Now instead of deciding if you could leave half of your clothes at the motel so that you could get that big multi-volume New York City phone book into your luggage and onto the plane you can just hit a Google search and leave the phone book in the hotel.

Places like myMusicCircle have also come about to help fill the need that many of us music business professionals have. This is the need to quickly and easily locate people that we need to hire or that need to hire us. This is one are of the technology revolution that has really been helpful to those of us that try to make our living in this crazy world and still manage to compete with the big dogs in the industry.

In order to compete in today’s market place you need to be ready, willing and able to move when the opportunity knocks. Those of you that are not ready to jump will find yourselves at the back of the line with no work.

So the best thing for anyone out there to do is to make sure that you are prepared to do your business electronically. The world is going electronic and things move a lot faster now than they did even just a few years ago. Today you will find people who find a need, post a job on a website and hire a professional to fill that job and complete that need. The amazing thing is that in today’s market, all of this can take only minutes to do.

How is that for instant gratification?

Provided by MMC

The Digital Coma

The Digital Coma

One very huge downside of technology is what I call the digital coma. Let’s be realistic here. No one likes to do things before they actually have to be done. In life it is called procrastination. In business it is called suicide. And yet as human beings we all tend to do it. Yes, we have the best of intentions on getting it done well in advance of the deadline. And yet when that deadline arrives we are still often not done with it.

Part of this is because we know how much can be done with technology so we tent to think that we can get it done faster than we actually can so we budget our time elsewhere at the onset until it is too late and we are in a crunch.

This is a great example of how freelance or virtual assistance can come in handy. If we are smart we will take the job the minute the guidelines are known and we will outsource the different parts of it to different freelancers so that the various components arrive in our email boxes well in advance of the due date and we can leisurely assemble them into the project we have to do.

In reality what happens is that we put the project on the back burner to take care of moiré pressing things and when our Handheld device tells us the project is due in a week we freak and try to put everything together from scratch and we do a sub par job because we try and do it all ourselves and quickly.

This is another point where the freelance community can come to our aid. If you are at the wire and have more to get done than you actually can get done. Put a feeler out on the virtual job boards like myMusicCircle and get the best talent in the world piecing together the various parts of the puzzle. This will likely get things done on time and with a quality far above what you can do by yourself, That’s because you are looking at the whole picture and know you can’t complete it all on time where the freelancer is looking at one slice of the puzzle and knows he can do it.

Eight people working on eight tasks can do it faster and netter than one. So remember that next time you forget about that project.

Provided by MMC