A little while ago we wrote about not harassing people into working with you. Today, let’s talk about the opposite problem. Once you’ve established that you’re an artist and are out there grindin (‘till you own it), chances are, some people who work in the industry will notice. Great, right?! Well, usually, yes, but at this point in your career, you need to be extra careful and selective with who you choose to work with.

Each week I get multiple emails from musicians (or managers) asking me for something. Some want management, some want to open a show, some want a label deal, some want advice. My response often varies, but it’s incredibly rare for me to not respond at all. However, sometimes it just slips through the cracks and it gets moved from my inbox and is lost in email purgatory. It’s 100% fine and encouraged to do a follow up... but when does following up turn into straight up harassment? That’s what I’m here to talk about!  

Picture it, 1995. ER is the most popular show on television, everybody smells of CK One, ladies flock to their stylists requesting the “Rachel” cut, the president is a saxophone wielding democrat, and the average price of a CD is $16.98. Let that sink in for a moment.

I have a friend who’s worked in the entertainment business for a long time (he used to be my lawyer) and he’d often say to me: “you’re being penny smart and dollar stupid.”  He was always telling me that I needed to avoid being short sighted; life’s about playing the long game. Perspective is hard to come by, especially early in your career, before you’ve had the opportunity to make a heaping pile of your own mistakes.

In the last post, I went on a bit of a rant about social media. I warned you… and then I did it. Unfortunately, it’s a necessary part of growing your brand & maintaining interest from your audience. To recap briefly - you need to be discoverable on all social media platforms and keep them updated. There are lots of handy scheduling apps if you just want to maintain a basic level of posting to keep people informed. In today’s post, I’m going to take it one teeny step farther & tell you to follow your fans.

Well, it happened. We got off schedule! We said we were going to post once a week and what do you know, we freaking mess up & missed last week. I guess it was just a matter of time. To be fair, last week was a release week (ahem, have you heard “Bad For Your Health” yet?) and we had to come up to New York for 1.5 million meetings, but STILL. Excuses! However, I’m not too worried about it.

WAIT. What? People hate emails, right? Well, yes, technically they do, but in general, we've found that if you don't spam your fans and only email when there are legitimate reasons to email, then they kinda don't hate you so much. They actually even spring into action. While we try our best to stay ahead of the curve in terms of social media and streaming platforms, we also know that at any moment any of those sites could explode. Then where are your fans?

One of the points that I try to drive home to new artists & bands is this: go out and make some friends that are doing the same thing as you. They don’t have to be making the same type of music (though that does help), but it’s great if they are in the same stage of their career or have recently been there.