Every artiste ought to have a manager, because a good manager is very essential for the growth and organization of your career. Many artistes may just want to settle for random performance fees, and make a little cash at the craft. That’s fine. But if you consider yourself a serious artistes and have plans to hit the big time, then you need a good manager.
Managers help by giving direction to different aspects of your business and brand. Many artists have a best friend who books their shows and calls this person a manager. Your booking agent cannot fulfill all of the duties of someone guiding your future. The booking agent does not have the know-how to place you in a position of exposure, branding, and commercial success.
What you need is a manager, whom you can place your future in his hands, and he can guide you the right path. Pulse Music gives you great tips for getting a manager.
Build Yourself
1. Before you fly, you have to learn walking first. Artistes should have a few things in place before approaching any manager for representation. The most basic of these things are listed below.
- Professional looking photos of you or your group is a mandatory move. You cannot promote anything without a quality photo shoot to introduce yourself to the world.
- Your own basic website is very manageable and free in many cases. If you want to be extremely creative and unique, hire someone to build and design a website for you. It's worth it versus having nothing to show or update at all.
- Live performance footage helps potential fans see your work for themselves. It's an actual sample of your music and stage presence.
You need someone you trust
2. You don’t need a manager, what you need is a good music manager. Finding that takes trusting the right person. Whenever you have money involved, you will always need to have faith you're in good hands. A hot commodity will always have someone in their group who isn't doing 100%. It's up to you to figure out who it is and get rid of them once you go over your own books.
Your manager should be your number one fan
When shopping around for a manager, you want that person to be your biggest supporter. They are not only your backbone, but they are a fan of your sound as well. To get a paycheck is one thing, but to help you make improvements here and there creates those paychecks. Your manager should be able to hear and listen to things you may not be listening for. Whether in the studio or critiquing a live show, your manager has to be honest about what you're doing and how it's coming across.
Read, read, and do more reading
4. Educate yourself on what real industry music managers are looking for. Buy music books, read, check out the internet, follow trends, plug yourself into the culture and keep updating your brain with new useful information on various aspects of your craft.
Listing of managers
5. Music managers need you just as much as you need them, so don't act before thinking. Create a list of top managers, and be sure to sratch them off the list one by one. The l;ast remaining person should be approached, and if that fails, approach the one before that. Get a good manager, not your brother.