To succeed in the music industry, you must learn:
*The correct steps to take in order to achieve success as a pro musician.
*The easiest way to take these steps to get the exact results you want.
*The best order to take these steps in to grow your career fast.
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: Getting In Touch With Music Companies Too Soon
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.
Unless they know for sure that a musician will pay off over time, it is too risky for them to invest their time and money into that person’s career. When you contact a music company too soon (before you can offer them proof that you are a wise choice), you will be ignored and end up 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
*How well you sell your music to fans
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. Musical mastery is a goal that continues to change. No matter where you are at now in your skills, you will always be able to improve in one way or another.
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: Not Finding A Mentor Soon Enough
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 don’t have to wonder if the things you are doing are moving your career forward. You save yourself a lot of money training with a mentor than you would on your own working through trial-and-error.
*You learn how to effectively promote yourself and your music career. This helps you make more money with or without a record company to back you up.
*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.
Mistake #4: Not Actively Training Yourself To Think With The Right Mindset
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 all of this, you need to train your mindset from the very beginning. This builds a solid foundation and helps you succeed much faster and stay successful for longer.
Mistake #5: Not Working To Build A Strong Local Fanbase
Record companies want to do business with musicians who have already put together a local following of loyal fans. It’s well-known that having a strong local following is harder to do than to get strangers from around the world to like/follow you on social media or check out your YouTube video. Music companies understand this, and when they see you have a big local fanbase, they value you much more.
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.
Gain control over your money and time as soon as possible by starting early in your music career.
Mistake #7: Not Planning To Achieve Musical Goals By Starting From The End Goal
It is much more effective to plan your music career by starting from your end goal and working backwards than starting from where you are at now and trying to decide which steps to take. Doing this gives you a much better idea of the path you must take to achieve whatever you want in the music industry.
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 industry training needed to become successful.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is a music career mentor, touring musician and guitarist. He teaches online guitar lessons to musicians all over the world and mentors musicians on how to build a successful music career. Visit his website for music instruction to get many free musician resources to help you start a career in music and learn about the music industry.