Seven Steps Musicians Take In The Wrong Order – Why Many Music Careers Fail
April 20, 2017
Tom Hess in Advice, Career, Seven Steps Musicians Take In The Wrong Order – Why Many Music Careers Fail

To grow a massively successful music career, it’s crucial to know:

*The correct steps to take in order to succeed in your career.

*The best way to take each step to get the results you want.

*Which order you need to take these steps in to quickly grow your music career.

There are many musicians trying to make it who do the right things, but at the wrong time and in the incorrect order. They often do things in their career based off of misinformation, fear or the advice of people who have never succeeded in music.

When you make these mistakes in your music career, it becomes extremely hard to succeed:

Mistake #1: Not Planning To Achieve Musical Goals By Starting From The End Goal

 

You need to plan your music career by thinking from the end and working your way backwards. Think about what your highest goal is and the final step you must take before you achieve it, then work backwards from there. This gives you the precise path you need to take to get there.

Most musicians try to plan out their music careers starting from where they are at and moving forward. This causes them to get stuck and keeps them from achieving the things they want.

An music career mentor helps you design a strategy to reach your musical goals fast.

Get the music career development training necessary for becoming successful.

Mistake #2: Focusing Too Much On Musical Skills, Not Enough On Growing Your Career

It’s a mistake to spend all your free time honing your musical skills while ignoring all other aspects of your music career. This often happens when musicians don’t think they are talented enough to even try to get into the music business.

1. Musical talent is just one aspect of making it in this business. Spending all your time practicing your instrument means you miss out on the time needed to grow in many other areas.

2. There’s no such thing as completely mastering a musical instrument, because you will always find new things to improve.

You have to begin building your music career as soon as your skills are intermediate or above. Then keep improving as your career goes on.

Mistake #3: Contacting Music Companies Too Soon To Try To Get A Record Deal

It’s common for musicians to look for any way they can to get signed to a record deal, but only a few of them constitute what music companies are really looking for. Music companies look at musicians similar to how you might look at a particular stock on the stock market.

You have to give these companies 100% proof that their investment will pay off for many years to come. When you can do this, music companies feel comfortable investing in your career because they believe it will help them earn money. When you contact them too soon, before you can provide proof of your potential to help them succeed, you are simply wasting your time.

That said, you don’t need to have massive accomplishments before you can make contact. However, you do need to ensure that the music company you want to contact can trust in:

*Your ambition to achieve big things

*Your superior work ethic

*Your level of perseverance

*Your savvy business know-how

*Your power to sell your music to your existing fanbase

Mistake #4: Not Training Yourself To Have The Right Mindset At The Start Of Your Music Career

Your mindset is critical for achieving success in the music industry. With a negative/disempowering mindset, major music career success is nearly impossible.

Your mindset is more than just thinking positively. Training yourself to have a success-oriented mindset helps you:

*Overcome big challenges that stand in your way.

*Transform problems into incredible opportunities.

*Do the hard things most musicians avoid in order to get the success most musicians only dream of.

To do these things you have to train your mindset from the very beginning of your career and build a solid foundation from which to expand.

Mistake #5: Not Building Up A Local Following Of Fans

Music companies are way more interested in musicians who have a huge local following than those who have a moderate internet following. It’s harder to grow a loyal fanbase in your local town than to attract thousands of people all over the world to check out your online videos/channel/etc. Plus, it’s very difficult to fake a local following versus having a lot of likes on Facebook (for example).

Mistake #6: Waiting Too Long To Create Freedom Of Time And Money

Bottom line: you have to have money and time to be available for major opportunities in the music industry.

So many musicians don’t work to achieve financial/time freedom until it is much too late. They work full time hours at a normal day job and only build their music career on the side as a hobby.

Most day jobs require you to work 40+ hours a week. This makes it very hard to grow your music career and earn money with it. As a result, many musicians end up stuck at their job and never get out.

Get back control over your time and money as soon as you can (by starting early in your music career).

Mistake #7: Waiting Too Long To Find A Music Career Mentor

Most musicians have never received music career training from a mentor for these two reasons:

1. They aren’t aware that mentoring even exists for people who want to build music careers.

2. They have low levels of ambition.

Working with a mentor is an investment into the growth of your music career. Mentoring helps you earn tons more money than the money you invest into it. Here’s how:

*You no longer have to guess when it comes to how you should grow your career. You save tons of time and money working with an experienced mentor than you would simply guessing about what to do next.

*You find out the best way to promote yourself and your music. This gives you a massive advantage when working with/without a music company.

*You find out how to make your own opportunities in music. This makes your music career more stable and gives you the power to control your success.

Notice: You might already know that I mentor musicians to grow music careers. So you might think everything said above is to sell you on my program. This is only 1/2 right. I certainly want to help musicians. However, regardless of if you work with me or not, getting a mentor gives you massive benefits.

 

About The Author:

Tom Hess is an electric guitar teacher online and a music career mentor. After creating the Music Careers Mentoring Program, he has coached many musicians to achieve great things in the music business. See how you can reach your music career goals by reading these resources for the music industry.

Article originally appeared on Music Think Tank (https://www.musicthinktank.com/).
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