How to Overcome Obstacles on Your Path to Music Business Success

We have all heard about how artists have become a music business success story through hard work and persistence. Recently on a VH1 “Behind The Music” special I learned the story of Hiphop’s “Pitbull in a skirt”, EVE. The documentary was great as you learn of her many trials and triumphs in the music business.

EVE has gone from being a teenage stripper, to being signed and dropped from Dr. Dre’s record label, Aftermath Records, to being an international entertainment success. None of this happened overnight. Yes, she was in the right place at the right time but there were so many times when she thought about quitting the music business altogether.

Even after she reached the success that most of us dream of achieving she still had all sorts of personal problems ranging from excessive drug and alcohol use to private sex tapes being leaked on the Internet and being blackmailed with photos of her past life as a stripper. Throughout all of these obstacles, she managed to win a Grammy Award and star in her own TV sitcom.

It was a great motivator for anyone who may feel like they want to quit the music business.

So how can you overcome your own obstacles to music business success?

Before we get into detail, let us define what an obstacle is. To put it simple and in my opinion, an obstacle is something you see when you take your mind off your goal. I think that needs to be repeated.

An obstacle is something you see when you take your mind off your goal.

In other words, what are you focusing on? Are you focused on your goal or the thing that is stopping you from reaching your goal? There is a BIG difference.

You can use this 3-step formula to overcome your obstacles to music business success.

1. Identify the obstacles

In order to move past obstacles you must be able to identify what they are. Unless you know what it is that is holding you back, how will you ever be able to overcome it? Once you have identified the obstacle you should change your mind to think of it as a challenge. A challenge gives your mind something to look forward to but stating an obstacle as a problem actually shuts your mind down making it harder to find a solution.

2. Decide you want to overcome the obstacle

Once you have identified the obstacle, you need to decide if it is worth your time to spend time and energy to go ahead and accept the challenge. If is not worth your time, then leave the obstacle alone and think of something else to do.

3. Act on your decision to overcome the obstacle

This final and most crucial step is where most aspiring artists fail because they simply give up before trying. You must act on your decision. Nothing replaces action. Deciding to do something is an event that only happens in your mind. DOING something require movement. Once you get starting acting on an obstacle or challenge, you may find it is not as severe as you originally thought.

Using these steps you can conquer almost any obstacle to your music business success. If you run into an obstacle you do not know how to handle, find a mentor or someone who has been through what you are going through. Once you have successfully dealt with the obstacle, if the same type comes up again, then you will be prepared to handle the challenge with flying colors. Good luck!

Let's Make It Happen!!!

Mello Melanin, The Hot Instrumentalist
www.RapBeatCreator.com
www.Beats4ADub.com
www.MusicMarketingPromotions.com

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How to Win In the Music Business with Persistence

As children, most people learned the story of the tortoise and the hare. The hare was quicker than the tortoise but in the end, the tortoise won the race because of his persistence. Getting anything you really want in life is the same as this story.

This theory can also be applied to the music business as well.

There are no overnight successes. There may be artists who seem to have this type of success but what the public does not see are the long hard hours which have been sacrificed to get them where they are today. To prove a point and put this theory in perspective, let us compare two types of artists. We will call the first artist, Big Mack and the second artist, Small Fry.

Both Big Mack and Small Fry have talent but they have very different mentalities. Big Mack sees the music industry as a “get rich quick” scheme and does not care about learning the business of music. All he wants to do is get the fame and fortune by any means necessary. He gets a record deal and has a hit song on the radio.

He spends his money on cars, clothes, women, jewelry, etc. Big Mack’s career seems great in the beginning but he fails to make another hit. His second album is a flop and he owes his record label $500,000 because they did not recoup their investment in him.

Big Mack never even took the time to find out what recoup meant.

Now he lives with his mom in her basement. He still has at least one of the fancy cars but the engine is going bad and it needs a brake job. The clothes went out of style, all the women left, and he had to pawn the jewelry. He now works in a warehouse making $8 an hour and complaining how the music industry was unfair to him.

Small Fry on the other hand never had a big budget. He learned as much as he could about the music business through books, attending music conferences, and finding mentors who he could model. He started his own record label, Hot Fries Records and a publishing company, Supersize Fries Music.

He learned how to market and promote his music using guerilla marketing techniques because he did not have much money. Small Fry became a regional success and secured an independent distribution deal with an international distributor.

Small Fry invested his money back into his businesses and bought a nice piece of real estate to build a recording studio so he could continue to create music for himself and others. He became a music mogul and will probably never be able to spend all the money he has earned in his lifetime.

How can you apply this to your music career?

You must have a vision of where you want to be. People hear this stuff all the time but most never act toward making their dreams reality. You should also have some written down goals for you music career.

Then you must act. Nothing replaces action. This is where things can get tricky because even though you do take action, you may not like the results you get. You can make one of two choices: quit or persist.

If you quit, you may never know the realm of possibilities you may have achieved. You will never know if you were the next “big thing” because you gave up.

If you persist and continue on even though you have setback after setback, you will be successful. Your music career may not end up exactly like you planned in the beginning but most of the time, you will end up better off in life and much happier.

Are you at the verge of quitting the music business? How will you truly know if you don’t at least try again? If you fail at something, pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, and keep going. You didn’t really fail. You just found one way that would not work.

Let's Make It Happen!!!

Mello Melanin, The Hot Instrumentalist

www.RapBeatCreator.com

www.Beats4ADub.com

www.MusicMarketingPromotions.com

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