What is Your Music Business Plan Iin 2011?

What's my companys plan for the music business!

It's as reliable as catching a cold at Christmas. Since the glow from the festivities fades away, this time around of post-holiday leisure brings on the old inevitable urge… to re-evaluate, re-examine, re-assess and re-formulate what we're doing and just how we're doing the work and where were headed within the upcoming year. It's business strategy season again, where hope springs eternal, everything is possible, and for one shining moment, nothing can go wrong. Because of course, we're not actually doing anything. We're only likely to do stuff, and it all looks good on paper.
I just made it happen myself actually. While I was stranded in an airport with the rest of America, I spent a couple of hours breaking down the whole year into nice manageable chunks, setting goals and techniques for each songwriter on my roster, delegating everything that occupy the time that I have to do those other more important things that we never do, and creating a list of all of the potential opportunities I should be cashing in on before it's past too far. If all goes based on experience, the master plan is going to be falling apart by the time Midem rolls around at the end of January, and forgotten soon after. So what can I say? I try.

I'm not making excuses-I'm well aware much from the problem is me. Like the majority of music business weasels, I'm better at seeing potential than realizing it, and at making promises than delivering.
But the main issue is also the character of the music business. Tied as it is towards the fickle, ever-changing tastes from the public, and dependent as it is on the sudden magic of inspiration to produce hit songs or turn ordinary aspiring artists into superstars, it simply isn't a company that rewards a rigid adherence to strategy. Obviously, you want to know where you're going. But you have to be a type of human GPS, re-calibrating at each missed use get a new path to the destination.
In my book, "Making Music Make Money", I addressed the challenge of formulating your own business plan in an ever-shifting terrain-the equivalent of building a house during an earthquake. The bottom line is to stay flexible. Within the book, rather than a formal business plan, I offered up a little drill called "The Music Business Weasel's Pop Quiz". It's not a plan, but instead a number of inquiries to help you focus the mind on:
….what you're attempting to do
…what your challenges are
….and what resources you've, or have to have, to be able to overcome those challenges.

Because it's not really a specific strategy, it's not something that you toss to the wind the moment something changes. It's also not something you only do once a year. Actually, it's worth doing every 3-4 months, updating and reconsidering your answers as the life and your career progress.
Many of the readers of "Making Music Make Money" have commented that the Pop Quiz was probably the most helpful things within the book-so many actually that I chose to incorporate it into my class, Music Publishing 101 at Berkleemusic.com. I've walked dozens of students through it, helping these phones start analyzing their market, acknowledging their potential network of contacts, and recognizing the opportunities that they have in front of them. Just because we live in the highly unpredictable and volatile realm of show business doesn't mean we can't think intelligently about our business. We just can't do the same kind of long-term planning as people in a steadier type of work.
To ease you into the new year, and to help you save the frustration of the January business plan that's disintegrating by Valentine's Day, here's an abbreviated version of "The Music Business Weasel's Pop Quiz". It might seem simple, but be forewarned-you'll get out of it as being almost as much ast you devote. The greater time spent researching, contemplating and developing detailed solutions to the challenging questions, the much more likely it is that you'll stumble on that certain big indisputable fact that transforms your company.
Whether it seems easy, you're not thinking hard enough-especially nowadays. Nothing within the music business is easy right now-so don't fool yourself with quick, simple answers like "I have to make music that's better than everyone else" or "My market is growing". Everyone thinks they create better music than everybody else, and, at present, no one's marketplace is growing. The process would be to make a plan that addresses that reality.

The background music Business Weasel's Pop Quiz

1. What's most of your market?
2. Who's your competition?
3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the leading companies in your particular market? How can you imitate those strengths?
How can you exploit the weaknesses?
4. What strategies happen to be used successfully in this market previously?
5. Exactly what does your audience seem like?
6. Is your market growing or shrinking?
7. With what city or cities are most of the companies in your market based?
8. What are the advantages and disadvantages or your current location?
9. What segment from the marketplace is probably the most crowded with competition?
10. What is the most under-served part of the market?
11. What reactions have you been dealing with your songs? What the main market is reacting most positively? Which is reacting with the least enthusiasm?
12. What are the musical weaknesses and strengths of the catalog?
13. What exactly are your strength and weaknesses as a business? How can you best utilize your strengths? How can you best compensate for your weaknesses?
14. What information do you need to compete inside your market? How could you have that information?
15. More importantly, what relationships must you have to be able to compete?
16. How could you meet those key people, or people that know the key people?
17. What relationships would you already have?
18. What equipment or supplies do you really need to be able to operate effectively?
19. How much money do you have to invest in your business?
And finally, one multiple choice. That one counts double.
20. At present, what is the biggest obstacle to your success? Is it:

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