While coaching over 1000 singers, musicians and bands, I have seen a large percentage of them spend all of their time, money and effort on their creative endeavors. That means that they spend very little if any learning and taking care of business. They believe thayt once they are ‘discovered’, either by the industry higher-ups or on social media, thir talent will carry then through. And much more often, it never happens. Or worse yet, they fall for a predatory scam because they don’t know how to tell what and who is and isn’t legitimate.
On the flip side, there are many musicians who are OK at their craft, but are masters at the businesss side of their careers. As a result, they may be financially successful with their music, but they never really get the attention and accolades that driven creatives crave. And sometimes that’s just fins with them.
Many entrepreneurs are no different. They have given birth to their idea, aka their baby. And they nurture it and protect it from anyone and everyone for fear it will be stolen from them. They never put the legal and business protections in place that could let them move forward confidently. So they too often fall victim to predators who prey on their insecurities and make the promises they’ve been praying somone would make.
An again, flippoing the coin, there are very business-savvy entrepreneurs who are not overtly creative. Often they don’t invent anything new. They just take something that has been proven to work and they duplicate it. Sometimes they put their own spin on it so they can stand out. Think of all of the fast food hamburger chains that followed McDonald’s proven model.
I am not trying to put down creativity and entrepreneurship. The point I am making is that if you are a creative and don’t know or want to study business, you are best served by partering or hiring with someone reputable who does know business. You take a huge risk if you move forward without having a mentor or business coach guiding you into making smart decisions, and protecting you from all of the unscrupulous people and companies out to steal your money and/or your creations. It’s certainly better to share the profits you can make than to lose everything!
