4 Pillars of Your Professional Brand as a Musician
Whether you are just starting on the journey of a professional musician or you perhaps are already a bit more established within your community, there is a lot you can to to put yourself out there and demand to be paid fairly for the service you provide. If you are sick and tired of being asked to play for free for the sake of ‘exposure’, it is time to examine the 4 pillars of your brand as a musician in order to set yourself up for success.
The biggest satisfaction I get form my work is hands down being able to daily meet many musicians. I am especially pleased when I meet old HKU alumni playing at an event I am attached to as a producer. Developing and nurturing strong professional connections is truly essential in any line of work. I enjoy using these opportunities to catch up and inquire about their progress. Those lovely young professionals who have learned that even people who are not their teachers are useful to know, frequently feel stuck and unsure what exactly they are doing wrong since they are getting very little paid opportunities.
Once we get the discussion going, what inevitably comes to surface is that they have not mastered any of the 4 pillars of their professional brand. Let us delve into it and dissect what these are and how can you improve and get more professional engagements once you take time to process and implement these tips. I know you just want to play and make music, but in today’s oversaturated market, doing that solely will not get you far.
1 - Reputation
You will find me often writing and speaking about this and that is because I cannot stress enough how much your personal reputation is valuable. Your integrity speaks volumes of and has hands on the most invaluable potential of return on investment. Sadly to say, but this applies to everyone. I know you think you are that special snowflake, but contrary to what you parents feel about you, they are not the ones who will engage you for paid gigs.
These are some basic rules to follow I find to be greatly overlooked.
Always be on time - and by that I mean be at least 15 minutes before a rehearsal or a lesson is scheduled to take place. Seems quite basic right? And yet every time I have an orchestra or chamber music project going on, at least one person will be late. If something beyond your control happens when you are on the road, always let your producer, orchestra manager and section leader know you will be late.
Answer your mails and messages within 48 hours - no one has the time to wait for divas. At the end of the day, everyone is replaceable. If you drag on answering business mails especially if the same person is mailing you several times, be rest assured that at one one moment the calls will stop coming in. By answering I do not mean that you have to accept any and every offer thrown at you. It means you have to acknowledge the recipient and if you are not available, politely decline but say you are open for future engagements.
When cancelling last minute, find a replacement - it will never cease to amaze me how lightly some young musicians cancel their project participation at the last moment. And by ‘last moment’ I mean everything between one week and one minute before a first scheduled rehearsal is supposed to take place. Even if no one says anything to you, this will always be noticed and remembered. Musicmaking is all about joint effort and when you cancel, you are seriously inconveniencing your peers, cost a lot of money to the organizers and bringing the entire project in jeopardy. It is highly unlikely you will be invited again by the same people. Be aware. Be very aware.
Always be dressed according to the occasion - this too I feel should be a no-brainer, but here we are. Yes I know we live in day and age where overall standards of representability is quite lax, but do not be that person who shows up on a concert in sneakers, white socks, naked belly or mini skirt. If nothing else, the audience will continuously be distracted by looking at your appearance instead of focusing on the music. Furthermore, you might end up making your fellow colleagues quite uncomfortable and this may affect the quality of their playing as well.
Always be well-groomed - no one wants to sit for hours on end next to a stinker. There, I said it but I know it is on your mind as well. For every single project I have, I get students coming up to me either politely asking not to be seated next to a specific person or straight out refusing to. Believe me, I perfectly understand and emphatize with them and will do everything in my power to exclude the stinker. Avoid being that person at all costs. No, you do not have to waft in clouds of perfume. A simple shower with soap, shampooing and deodorant will do. And then proceed to dress up in clean clothes. Clean as in not previously worn without being washed in between.
Be consistent when sending your invoices - if you have fallen in the bad habit of invoicing your contact only when suddenly the winds starts blowing south, snap out of it once and for all. Sitting down once per month and sending your invoices for that month will do. And if you get a reminder, do not whine how busy you are and by all means do not ignore it. Do not wait for six months to pass while you keep others waiting. I once even got an invoice after no less than 4 years have passed. Talking about being irresponsible.
We are all human an we all inevitably have exhibited some of the above mentioned behavior. One of my firm beliefs is that everyone deserves a second chance and I do mean it earnestly. There is nothing I enjoy more than seeing young musicians maturing into true professionals. However, if these behaviors are a pattern, it is less likely you will get a third chance. And after fourth, you will not exist anymore.
Feeling overwhelmed with all the admin stuff you must do for your music business? This article will help you: How to streamline your admin stuff so that you have more time to play
2 - Branding
Branding has nothing to do with your playing so you may relax a bit. You do not have to chase some five star ratings in order to feel valued as a ‘top talent’. The mere fact that you have devoted your life to making music has intrinsic value. Are you tattooed all over but have a passion about Gregorian chants? Have you been a Wall Street banker but find the biggest joy when playing in jazz café’s? Did you win a prize for playing violin but you love to play benjo as well? Are you a classical pianist but enjoy playing organ at your local church on Sunday’s? Have you overcome some physical or mental disability and still managed to thrive as a musician?
You get where I am going with this. The fact you play cello is all grand and swell but you need to find a way to connect this with what makes you unique and what sets you apart form other thousands of young and promising cellists.
3 - Market Positioning
This is the one that you might find challenging to accept but I see this so often that it must be addressed since apparently, many musicians have fallen victims to the wrong market positioning. So you play solo piano, but you are also member of three more chamber music ensembles, one duo and you occasionally accompany singers and give piano lessons where ‘all levels and ages are welcome’.
If you market yourself as a bit of everything, that has the tendency to translate to others that you would play anything for money, i.e. you are desperate and probably not much good in any of the endeavors since true mastery requires us to devote our time to becoming proficient in something. No one wants to hire a desperate generalist.
Now here me out here, there is nothing wrong if you enjoy all of the above, but at a certain point you need to make a conscious decision on what to focus on and start actively searching for opportunities to get more visibility and become known for a specific skill. You can always give lessons to your neighbor’s little kid, but do not make this an equal priority when you are growing your business.
4 - Offer
The fourth pillar tightly follows the previous one. Be very consistent and clear about what is your offer. You can always get a side job working at Zara, but if you accept every offer to play any music, it will crush your soul and chances are you will not even be able to perform well. It is just not worth it.
Let us take one example I personally see often. You graduated with major in classical violin and minor in historical.* During your studies, you played, practiced and performed countless of hours of compositions that span over a 400 years period. However, the chances are you did not particularly like or enjoy or was equally good in all of them. Bottom line is that we all have a certain set of preferences. You should play this in your advantage. When you are building your website, delivering flyers or posting on your FB page, be very specific about what it is that you do the best. If you play two instruments, this might look something like this:
Jane is classically trained violinist passionate about contemporary atonal music. Next to that, Jane is equally in demand as a specialist for the works of great Italian masters of the late baroque era such as Scarlatti, Vivaldi and Tartini.
If you are combining active playing with your teaching practice, your offer might sound like this:
For the past five seasons Jo has been an active member of the Jo’s Sinfonietta orchestra in Beijing where he occupies the place of the first horn. Jo’s Sinfonietta’s particular focus lies in bringing the works of Tchaikovsky closer to the audiences in China. When not on tour, Jo is devoting his time teaching young students aged 10 til 14 the basics of French horn mastery.
As you can see, your offer is not something that should be complicated. Do not fall into a trap of believing you will appear more proficient if you list everything you do or have done. There are other ways to weave in your past experiences into perfecting your offer, but do not make them a part of it. Don’t believe me yet? How about this website as an example.
Ksenija is a classical music producer helping young musicians to jumpstart their careers and navigate the business of music efficiently and professionally.
The offer is clear and concise and I did not mention neither that I have a degree in archaeology, bachelor and master degrees in classical signing, that I worked as a academic supervisor for talented youth, that I sang professionally as a freelancer, that I speak several languages, work in an international environment or that I am a published author and have been blogging for 15 years.
All of this stuff simply does not matter as you are not here to hear my life story, but to get value form the content I provide. What I did before all shows through the way I deliver content and convey information and that is what counts.
This will be the case for you too. All of your experiences do count, but you must first be clear on your offer. The way you carry through will be unique and help you distinguish from others, but that is what comes later.
* I am purposefully using this term here for the lack of a better one. However clumsy it might be, it is still a better term than baroque violin as there are multiple different historical instruments within the violin family.