© 2015 Vinny Ribas
There are several keys to making contacts that you need to move your career forward:
- Do your homework ans know exactly who you are looking for. You don’t need to have a name, but at least know what role they fill (producer, booking agent etc.) Asking for ‘someone who can help me make more money’ will never get a referral or reply.
- Be prepared. If the person you’ve been searching for invited you to his or her office, or even called you on te phone, would you be ready to speak intelligently about yoour needs and what you have to offer? Be sure to have marketing material ready (or any other documents you might need) in case he or shey asks for them.
- Build relationships. Never dive [private_member] straight into sales mode. No one wants to work with someone who is overtly aggressive and pushy.
- Be sure that you are a match for the person you’re looking for with respect to your talent, experience, musical style, audience demographic, geographic location etc. Don’t try to force a square peg into a round hole. Don’t waste the other person’s time.
- Always be 100% professional. This includes anything you do or say online. Remember that word spreads fast, and it is easy for you to get a reputation as a person who is difficult to deal with.
- Try to get referrals from people you know and who know you. Referrals can get you past gatekeepers whose job it is to keep you out!
- If you’re confident that you have something hones to offer, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and make the call. If you’re professional in your approach, the worst that can happen is that someone says that you’re not a good fit together.
- Don’t take rejection personally. Either find out what you would need to do to meet their criteria, or move on the next contact on your list.
Here are some places where you can find those important connections:
- Indie Connect Meetings
- Indie Connect Community (www.indieconnect.org)
- Indie Connect Virtual Meetings (you HAD to know I would start with these 3!)
- LinkedIn.. Although it’s not considered a music-based network, it has 10s of thousands of music industry professionals, as well as artists, songwriters and more all there because they want to do business! Search for music-related groups and join all of them that fit your needs.
- Do a web search for social networks, forums or discussion boards in other cities, especially if you are looking for contacts specific to those geographic locations. Almost every major city has one. Post your requests, and be very specific about who you’re looking for. Examples: NashvilleMusicPros.com, DenverMusicBoard.com. BandMix.com has tens of thousands of musicians on it, and you can search by state.
- Music Industry social networks such as WorldMusicLink.com. It might cost you a little bit to make full use of these sites, but you can recoup your money with just one contact that you needed and wouldn’t have found elsewhere.
- Volunteer! There are music-based nonprofit organizations in almost every city. There are also non-music-based organizations that are popular with people in the industry. Do your homework and get involved. It’s a great way to start a business relationship!
- Many industry professionals join civic clubs such as Rotary and Kiwanis. Find some members and ask if any of the contacts you’re looking for are members. If so, join the club. If not, join the club anyway! Build relationships. They just might open doors for you that you could never open on your own.
- Facebook, MySpace and other social networks enable you to do limited searches, but you might get lucky and find who you’re looking for.
- If possible, search the Musician’s Union database in the city that you need contacts in. Try calling the union to see if they would be willing to refer you to the person you’re looking for.
