I want to continue on last week’s blog about standing out as an artist, producer, etc.  A few people felt that being professional is not the only way to stand out as an artist. Well, guess what? I agree with you 100%, that is why I am continuing this series.

So, continuing on…being professional is under the big umbrella of standing out, and I am going to share with your certain things I think helps an artist to take it to the next level. Today I want to touch on BEING PREPARED!

This is one of those things I cannot stress enough. Let’s throw some scenarios out there.

Scenario #1

Let’s say you are an artist, you are hitting open mics, you are doing some shows, in the studio recording song after song and doing everything else you should be doing to get your name out there. Then one day, you get an email, or better yet, you meet someone at an event who works at a label, radio station, as a club DJ, or anyone else who could possibly help you out and they ask for your contact info. Doh! You don’t have a business card, you don’t have a CD that is packaged and looks presentable (writing with sharpies on a CD in 2011 is not going to cut it), and all you can do is give that person your number and hopes they hit you back. Why aren’t you prepared?!

Scenario #2

Let’s say that you are a producer. You are throwing a lot of beats at artists, you have a few placements with some decent names on the indie level, maybe even a major placement or two, you are winning beat battles, etc. Let’s pretend that an artist comes up to you and wants to buy a beat from you, like right there on that spot, are you organized and prepared enough to deliver? What if that person wanted to buy it then in the heat of the moment, then you hit them up the next day and you never get a response, maybe they weren’t feeling the beat anymore, who knows? Why weren’t you prepared to deliver?!

In both these scenarios, being prepared could have possibly opened some doors. In the case of an artist and producer, business cards, flyers, CDs with a decent front on it, etc are a MUST! At the very least, you should a card and a CD.

What if you don’t want to carry around a bunch of CDs? Not a problem! What I do is when I create a new instrumental that I am going to sell, I upload it to Sound Cloud, I email it to myself and I put it in my Drop Box. This way now matter where I am at I can pull out my phone and email music to whoever is requesting it.

If you do decide to go the CD route, at the verse least hit Wal-Mart and grab some of those CD labels that you can print out with an ink jet printer for like 11 bucks. This way the text on the CD is neat and easy to read. Be sure to include ALL your primary contact info.

Also, there is no excuse to not have a business card when they are only like $15! I personally get all my stuff printed up from clubflyers.com, they do a great job.

One last note on the artist side of things, if you are paying for studio time to record you songs, please…make sure you get YOUR song sessions from the engineer as well as a mix down of the song(s) BEFORE you leave the studio! Nobody wants to hear “well I have this hit song, but it’s at the studio.” If you are paying, it’s YOUR song, take it with you! Be prepared for when the right set of ears comes along and wants to hear it!

That’s it for today, more to come.

-Nobody Famous