The Formula

This month in learning about the business plan development course I was once again put to the test of investment and marketing research is still key. I have had this experience for three times straight in a row.  The past four years have been a repetitive exercise of how to really get to the land of milk and honey by learning how the industry really works.

My goal was to learn how to run the business off of real numbers. This is for the sake of working capitol, revenue streams, and profits. The business world is about how will you do what they need, which is to make money. Most of my readers are the people that know that in everything you invest your money into it must have a (ROI) return on investment.  The plan, the plan, the plan remember this at all times. With every action there will be a reaction so for every dollar that is spent if there is no (ROI) then there is no reason to invest into it. With the studies always showing this more and more the goal was met by this course.

My insight, skill and outcome of this class will help me and my company grow and put together the infrastructure of the business where as making the money is one of the main things to do but loving to do what I love and being paid for it that is another outcome to this course personally and professionally. In every class there is something that I learn that only reaffirms me that my past education no matter how it was administered, my training only gets reshaped by the great minds of educators that I call the best in the business, now I can add to my playbook and take my time but I can take on the world. 

Remember plan, plan, plan, and execute after you have done your research you might be surprised that all that hard work and using real time numbers can get you where you want to be. Remember this always readers. There organizations that will invest if you are welling to put the effort and show that your idea is worth the investment because of fixing a problem. If then and only then, you will have the comfort to know, "Ok". Now I have working capitol to get the work started. This is the formula get to the numbers. 

My Goal

My goal for this month was for me to learn more on the analytic side of the lectures that was given. The interest of knowing how the Search Engine Optimization really works was a mild stone to show me my reason for coming to Full Sail University. The Internet is based to help you push you or your product to get your own demographic and consumer base if used right.

From my first day of class and knowing that my classmates are a lot more advanced then I the course has touched on a lot of bases this first quarter. It took us to the world of photo shop and also logo advertisement with colors. I learned that it is better to have a clear background and a different logo would help me to rebrand my own working site. www.aicidrecords.com.  The way that I pictured the intensity of the class is smoother than I thought but still sometimes I do wish I didn’t allow my marketing questions to learn how to connect so much of the businesses I feel are relevant to my companies success but we all are eager to gain a lot of knowledge once you are taught in a way that it is really easy.
Most of all that I have learned this month I see it being used more for my professional entrepreneurial estate of marketing my businesses that I have to open in my future years of being a businessman. The artist side of me will be able to use all the information that is learned this month to put to good use for the audience of listeners that can be brought to my market of products and business issues.

The month is just warming up and we are just getting the hang of the digital marketing world so I am looking forward to finish another consulting course that can make me a better candidate to offer services on something so needed for this industry as well as others that I have found great pleasure to learn about.

What are you doing for business growth?

In the industry of entertainment especially music, which is so saturated by big companies and smaller ones as well, you have over 90 million record label company names that come up on www.google.com, which makes me want to ask my readers and small business competitors of entertainment business, “what are you doing for business growth?” 

We all are trying to push as much traffic to our websites or music pages but I would like to know how many of us have thought of joining together to cross promote work, affiliate our companies with outsource companies, or even make one website as a hub for other websites to push business back from their websites to the hub site? This concept is no different than branding and cross brand marketing. Do you know any companies that you can deal with? These companies can help show and tell the story for what your brand deals with and has a similar story or objective.

What I have realized is that only team players can deal with other people in their same function if they are truly not worried about their own success. The goal from me to you is to take the time to tell and show you the marketing power that www.aicidrecords.com can have in the entertainment environment with services, products, and internet functions through the act of synergy marketing, cross brand marketing, marketing services, and entertainment consulting. I have found that not knowing your target market will only have you planning to fail. I have been telling artist that they must know their consumer that they are making their music and apparel for and some say, “ I am making my music and apparel for everyone.” This is not possible until you have hit a certain point of mainstream in your career and everyone still may not like you or your music and products. 

We must learn to collaborate and put together more marketing concepts to push the market and if this is done than the word teamwork will come back into play instead of individuality to making it to the top. When you read this blog post please think of this artist and read her story and you tell me if what I am writing to you is fiction or true. Most of us are working From nothing to something and we all want to get to something but theirs a formula can we reach it together than all alone?

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My consulting career & Learning how to build it

I know that most of my readers are here to learn about the business that is very saturated and you are looking to be guided to success. This month in my class Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution I learned how to prepare a true blue print of avenues to gain the most out of making money with the Intellectual property that artists and companies make after their copyrights are summited and also published through publishing houses. Wouldn’t you wonder how it works and works the right way so you can save money and also make your path to success a stable one? It is about the numbers and we need to understand that without the numbers to the industry you are just the next person working and hoping to make it to the point that your work pays off.

The cycle that has been showed to artist is making the music copyright the music and join ASCAP, BMI, or SEASAC Publishing houses. This is true but how do you get your music out there? Did someone say get it on the radio air waves, post it on Sound Cloud, burn mix CD’s and give them away or even put the music on ITunes? Well, all these can be done but do you know the mathematics to how doing all this is missing two things in order to make you more money than just being famous? To answer these questions you can stop making more mix tape music that can land you in court and start making more original music that brings me to the point to tell you that no matter where you put your music if no one knows you and no one is moving your project as a solicited work the big entertainment companies are not interested in you or your music. Most companies do not deal with unsolicited music, which means you just are just sending in work for nothing. Joining or finding the right type of agent is needed for the roles you need done. As an artist you need to know that marketing and representation is needed and the way to get paid from more than putting music in the internet base stores or shelves of the brick and mortar stores like mom and pop stores or wholesalers to get your project on the market.

With the next blogs that will becoming out the treatment for any obstacle that you may encounter the company that we can send you to can be found at www.aicidrecords.com and the consulting email address is info@aicidrecords.com for all your questions and answers to how you can get more out of your Intellectual products like licensing for movies, games, and commercials. You can also find consulting for the main companies to deal with for major distribution aggregators and companies that can solicit your music to major labels and all you need to know is the industry standard for music and video work, and percentages that are paid for their services. With this knowledge you can plan and succeed in this business but with no plan you will be eaten alive and the sharks will not have mercy to help you gain if it doesn’t make a gain for them as well.

This blog should of helped you readers to understand that the internet isn’t anything but a tool and if you depend on it instead of gaining the knowledge you need to make it to the level you want to be at then save your time and money and get a career in anything else but music. Build relationships, teams, and a plan with a budget.

Mastery Journal for Negotiation and deal making

My original goal in this class was to gain more knowledge and skill in getting to a yes answer for negotiations that I will be encountering in my business as an entertainment business owner and manager of artists and bands for contracts. This month, I feel that I have met my goal of learning how to research and find the industry standards that will allow me to be educated for questions that most artists don’t even know, or need to know in order to get the services they are looking for so to be well taken care of and not be taken advantage of. I learned the process of how to start a negotiation by how to map out my interests from least to most and keep my negotiation smooth running and well polished for executions. The aim is to get to an agreement that can be mutually beneficial for both sides. All of this knowledge will help me in my professional endeavors.

I also learned the reasons for having a BATNA, which allows me to have a main objective to what I will take from an offer or what the other person’s BATNA can be to an offer that I would make to an artist or other company that I will be doing negotiations with as well. The process of learning, listening and reframing what was said was also an addition to my skills that I am so proud of getting a chance to learn and put into practice. This was one of my main goals that I wanted to achieve in this class. Finding a person’s underlying interest is much more simple to me now since I did had a problem of going into deep conversations to find out what points they were trying to make. This was also my secondary goal and I will keep up the practice so I do not resort back to this habit.

I appreciate the patience and dedication of my instructor this month for the in-depth knowledge and experience she was able to share with me during and after class. It allowed me to become well educated in being a better negotiator than I was when I came into her class.

Preparing for Your Negotiation

I had the opportunity to sit down with Willie Covington, CEO of Inferno Music Group and EGI Records this past week to gain knowledge of what I should know about negotiations as an up and coming owner of an entertainment company. I was able to gain wisdom on how to prepare for a successful negotiation and was given tips on various topics in the music industry.

Willie Covington has over thirty years of experience in the music industry. His career has spanned from being an artist and songwriter to a manager and founder of his own music companies and publishing houses. His diverse background allowed us to discuss the negotiation process from various different perspectives. Our conversation led to a discussion on deal making. He shared with me how to set my interest or position for a yes in any negotiation.

Mr. Covington spoke a lot on being well prepared for negotiations. He emphasized knowing what problems you might run into with some negotiations. He said, “knowing the value of your product and knowing what you are worth is really your main point of getting to an negotiation.” In negotiations knowing the analysis process is part of the steps of getting to yes.

The process consist of determining the interest or position that you are there for in the negotiation, preparing an effective way to present them, brainstorming your options, knowing your strengths and weakness of what you are offering and having your BATNA ready and in hand for the negotiation. These are some of the analysis processes for you to get to an answer of yes in a good negotiation.

As we continued our conversation we discussed positional bargaining tactics and how it is important to know them. With this knowledge the negotiation could possibly be a win/win situation. This would consist of the use of objective criteria; which would service both sides of the negotiation table. The criteria for this is to know the precedents and traditions, have expert evaluation of the people you want to do business with, and also know your statistics. With these being most of your objective criteria options knowing these steps can also maintain a good chance of a mutual gain in the negotiation procedure.

Now this bought me to ask about how did he ever work toward a deal that gave you and the person you were negotiating with a mutual benefit? This allowed us to go back to a word that I used earlier that was brought up in the analysis process, which is called your BATNA. His response was easy and simple, “leave your options open and don’t take losses.”

With more conversation, I learned that you must realize that you should think percentages not whole numbers.

You must understand that in negotiations having a BATNA, which means that you must have the best alternative to gain a mutual benefit of the negotiation just in case you do not get exactly what you were asking for from the beginning of the negotiation, this is critical in the process. This will allow you to have confidence in what you are there for. It also gives you options and allows you to deal against a very powerful negotiator. Now the name of the game with this is to have more than one way to get to an agreement without taking a loss and hoping to gain a mutual benefit from the negotiation.

I would like for you my readers to know that as you read this and take notes of how to get the answer you would like to hear from any negotiation. You must take strategic measures to get to the answer you would like to hear and the answer you would love to hear is yes. Thank you to Mr. Covington for his time and knowledge that allowed me to write and gain more understanding to how the music industry works. I appreciate what I have learned about the boardroom demeanor to gain what artist, managers, and other up and coming CEO’s of music builders need to know to get where they would love to be in their careers.

Product and Artist Management

This month I really got closer with my understanding of my position as a manager in two different ways. With the lessons that were taught to me and also recalibrated in my functions of life I realized that stepping over my boundary has been done over the years; therefore I took this month to step back and see what all my people I have been keeping my eyes on have been doing. I felt this had to be done to check myself and all the services I have been providing over the years has not been so successful for me or my team for a long time. We have refocused on what type of music we are making to the new designs for the clothing line. This is not to slow up any production of any or both in our time frame of getting to our goal but to reevaluate our path we have been walking. This has only been able to be done by me giving thanks to my instructor Mrs. Jill Craddock, and my mentor Mr. Xavier Scott. These two people have really taken me to another atmosphere this month from learning, to thinking, to making a new plan for things to come and putting together another event soon after I graduate and hopefully also putting together a major function before I graduate as well.

 I want to make sure that my readers understand me. Research, research, research, this action or may I say this word is your friend in this business. Whether in product branding or building your career the need to know and find avenues to be different, find funding, and even find something or someone to stand in front of the product or indorse the product that you want to hit the market these are ingredients for success.

With me learning the artist management side this month tells me one thing to my entire artist group that are reading this. Find an event, make an event, or even partner with other artist in your area and start thinking homemade tour action from county to county, or state to state. Shows, concerts, open mic parties these are your focuses next month. With these steps and my learning of this month you make your on worth and no one will give you what you want if you don’t step out and just do it. So stop waiting and go do because with or without a manager you really can be the manager and artist you always wanted to be. It is that simple only if you choose the path you really want to be on you must know the functions that go with what you are choosing to do.

 With every job title comes great responsibility know your roles, play them wisely, and be capable of holding your position for what ever slot you are choosing.