By Mark Stoddard, author of Marketing Singers, a business and marketing guidebook written specifically for singers.
For a true singer, singing is life and as essential as breathing. That is why singers will sing for their supper – just so long as they can sing. For them the joy of singing is everything.
For those folks only – the pure singers – I urge you to learn the principles of marketing. It will allow you more opportunities to sing and let you eat and have shelter and clothing in the meantime. Too often artists consider anything in marketing beneath them, or at the very least sullying their hands with the dirt of lucre. Cries of “prostituting” or “whoring” talent are frequent.
Get over it and get on with life. If you want someone to pay you for your talent, it is essential that they WANT to pay you. They are the customer. They are NOT obligated to support you. You must give them a reason. As difficult as it is to hear, this is salesmanship.
We were all once terrific marketers. Recall being four years old, or watch a four-year-old at work. He is smaller, shorter, more ignorant and weaker than virtually any adult. He is often ignored and made to feel unimportant. But no one is better at getting what he wants than a precocious four-year-old. He watches, observes and never stops asking for what he wants. Once a parent succumbs, the four-year-old notes what worked and tries it again.
As we age, we become more sophisticated and build up an image of who we are and what others think of us. We lose our marketing instincts needed for survival. They return briefly to men and women when they look for a spouse. Once again we get to know the customer, learn his or her every desire and seek to fulfill it. We strive to make them thrilled, get their attention, arouse the interest and desire, and close in on the action to complete the sale. Most men, once married, promptly forget all sense of this kind of marketing – and both wonder how it was they grew apart. Take you dancing? Why? I already have the prize. Dance was not about foot movement, but marketing. If the sale is complete – why dance? Silly boy … marketing in relationships is never finished.
Universities are set up to train in traditional ways. They cannot give you the latest marketing trends, or the marketing mindset. They can tell you how Claude Hopkins did it, but not how to apply it. Instead, they enhance the image of personal sophistication and the eschewal of anything so crass as making money from singing.
Hence the need for a little “image suicide.” Marketing cannot be beneath us if we desire the underlying thing marketing gives us: selling our wares to customers.
For a singer, this image change, or paradigm shift, is critical. Many forget quickly why they want to sing, which is because they love singing. Instead they fall in love with being loved. They want applause, stardom and adoration. Singing takes a second seat.
Consider this story of a real person. While I was in San Francisco a few years ago, I stepped out of the St. Francis Hotel and looked across Union Square. A decent-sized crowd had gathered. When I arrived, some of the crowd left and others filled in. I wormed my way to the front and found a gentleman dressed in a tuxedo standing by a large set of speakers that were playing the accompaniment to a majestic aria. He was singing his heart out in as good a tenor voice as I have heard in some time. The crowd was visibly moved.
When he finished, they moved toward his black velvet cape artfully placed before him and dropped bills – not change, but bills – onto the cape. He soon began another aria. Spellbound, the crowd hung on his every note, every syllable and every gesture. His drama was intense and real and emotionally genuine (meaning he faked it well – sincerity is the key – fake that well and everything is easy). Again the applause and cash followed. Slowly a few left and others took their places. This went on for a half hour before he took a break. As he rested, he sold CDs by the dozens. I caught him in a quick quiet moment and asked him why he was doing what he was doing. Why, I wanted to know, with such a lustrous voice was he not singing on the “legitimate” stage. As he had heard that question before, he smiled and responded, “I do sing in regular operas. But I need my practice time, and out here I don’t get visitors dropping by or phones ringing. More important, I get to see the eyes of the people, see what they like, what moves them, what keeps them here, and which arias connect with them”
Now here was a fellow who understood the basic principles of marketing. I asked, “How’s the money?” He smiled broadly and whispered, “I make more here in three hours than I make at other singing jobs in a week.” And I continued, “I doubt the IRS has much to say.” He held up his finger to his lips.
This singer confided that he often makes more than $100 an hour doing this. “But I would do it for a whole lot less – maybe for nothing. Just knowing how my music affects people tells me so much. And I get to sing. It’s who I am to the center of my being.”
The first step to advancing your career, then, is to understand you are already in marketing. The only question is: will you market well or poorly? It is within you to market superbly once you believe it is important (and that only you are responsible for your career), and once you’ve armed yourself with a few basic tools.
Don’t get caught up in the notion that it takes a person with encyclopedic knowledge of marketing to do well. Marketing is a human instinct. It’s basic.
Marketing is knowing what you want and finding ways of getting what you want. I would prefer to say “finding ethical ways of getting what you want” but, in fact, people use great marketing principles effectively to reach the most nefarious of goals.
Communism loved to say marketing is immoral; many in the business say it’s moral. In reality, it’s neither, making it amoral. Marketing relies upon your morality, instincts and skills to achieve your goals.
It is up to you and no one else.
Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment or email Mark directly at mark@vmt-tech.com.
Mark Stoddard, author of Marketings Singers, is a business leader, professor, marketer and consultant who has been helping singers get jobs for more than 20 years. On the singing front he staged more than 100 professional shows aboard cruise ships that employed classical singers, pianists and strings. He’s also coached singers on how to sell their CDs and other products, use the social media and how to negotiate contracts. Email Mark at mark@mjstoddard.com.
