In this section we’re going to talk about:

• What you do
• Why you do it
• Who you do it for
• Why you’ll be successful doing it

Get out your list of goals and situational analysis because you’re gonna be using them for reference.  Lets start with a brief summary of who you are and what you do.  An example might read:

“John Q Singer has been singing professionally for 5 years as a country music artist, and is currently gigging with various local bands in addition to work as an independent contractor providing services for weddings, funerals, and church functions. He is working toward establishing a career as a solo artist and songwriter.”

Obviously yours will be personal and specific to you, but you’ll want to mention what you’ve done, what you’re doing, and where you’re going.

Now lets start with What you do:

This is where you describe the various aspects of your business and how they fit together.  This needs to be what you’re business is doing NOW, not what you hope it’ll be doing soon(we’ll get to that part in a bit).  For musicians and artists, this is where you want to put down how your business is making money NOW.  Examples for young, beginning singer might be:

Singing for Weddings

Church Musician

Gigs with a local band

Waiter

Private Teacher

Yes, list whatever day jobs you have that don’t relate to your dream, because from a business perspective they’re still a source of revenue and need to be counted in the equation when looking at the whole of your business.  When we get into financials, we’ll take these aspects of the company and get specific on how much revenue each brings in, how much each one costs to operate, and how those figure together financially.

Next, time to write about Why you do it:

This part is less business, but is nonetheless relevant.  While it’s not necessary to tell your life’s story, a few sentences about why you’re pursuing your dream is good to have on paper.  Over time, you’ll refer to your plan and adjust things, and keeping in mind why you’re doing this in the first place is a valuable thing.  If some time passes and you no longer have the same passion for your first dream, perhaps you’ll need to create a new plan to achieve some new goals.  Or perhaps it’ll remind you of your passion when things are tough and not so exciting.  Whatever the case, a little gushing about why you love ______ is perfectly okay here.

Now back to business with WHO you do it for:

This section needs to deal both in broad and narrow terms. Broadly, it’s a question of who your customers are in a general sense.  Art galleries, opera companies, orchestras, recording studios, production companies, etc.  Whatever your art/passion, you need to list where you can sell it in general terms. 

Then move on to more narrowing questions…

Who are your customers?  What is your target market?  You would be surprised how many small businesses fail because they fail to really think about this.  Even though we as artists often think in terms of getting “hired,” the hiring person is really just “buying” our services.  Knowing WHO exactly does the buying/hiring in your field is CRUCIAL to your success.  If you don’t know, this is a good area to do some serious research.

If you’re an actor who wants to do TV, who exactly does the hiring?  Producers? Casting directors?  Production companies? Is it different for commercials?  If you’re not getting your product in front of the people with the power to buy it, then you’re going nowhere fast! 

If you’re a musician… who hires for studio work?  For local gigs? How about agents?

For an artist…. who buys your work?  Where do you sell it?  Is there a middle man?  Who?

These sorts of questions are vital to gaining an understanding of who your customers are. 

Why should you care? Because different customers have different needs, and you need to target how you sell yourself to show how you can meet the specific needs of your customers.  For example, as an actor, an agent is going to be looking for one set of things and someone casting a commercial for something else.  There may be some overlap, but as a business person you need to be aware of the specifics of each.  We’ll deal with this more in market analysis, so for now, just stick to WHO your customers are.

Finally, we’ll conclude this section with Why you’ll be successful:

This can be hard for us to assess honestly, but anyone pursuing a dream must think there’s some reason why he or she will be successful.  Yes, this a time to brag a little bit.  It’s a sad frog who can’t praise his own pond, so hop on your  lily pad and lets get cracking! 

Start by reviewing what you’ve already determined to be the keys to success in your chosen field.  Now look at your strengths and see which keys you already possess. For whatever keys remain, discuss what steps you’re taking or will take to get them.  Look again at your Core Competency and talk about how that makes you uniquely suited for your field and therefore prone to success.  While this section may take some thought, it’s vitally important to get through it.  If you can’t explain why you’re going to successful other than you just want it really badly, then what chance do you have of actually getting it?  Even if you have NONE of the keys to success in your field, then your plan will be primarily focused on acquiring them.  Again, it sound simple, but too many people don’t do it and suffer as a result.

Truthfully, after doing a good situational analysis, this section will practically write itself. 

There you have it!  Your Company Description is done(for now)!  You’ve begun to answer some crucial questions about your business, and perhaps even learned a thing or two about it. Remember, even if your business is in rough shape right now, an honest description and subsequent plan will lay out the path you must take to be successful.  Even though we artists take our passions very personally, we must separate ourselves from it at times and look at things objectively and businesslike.    It takes a lot of work, a lot of planning, and a lot of time, but it will maximize your chances of making your dream a reality. 

And….after you’ve worked like ten dogs for years to achieve your dream, the dreamers who failed at theirs because they never had a plan will look at you and your success and simply say, “She just got lucky.”

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Yeah yeah, cliche, the artist waiting tables. 

Your parents probably used it as a put-down saying “if you keep doing your music then you’re going to end up waiting tables!”  But is it really so bad?  How much can they make? What are the pros and cons?  This is part of a continuing series on ways to make money to fund you dreams, talking in real dollars so you’re armed with real numbers next time you have to fend off concerned family members.

Pros

• Paid daily in cash
• Some flexibility with schedules
• Pays well
• Fun, social working environment
• Potential for networking
• Easy to laterally move to jobs with other companies

Cons

• Hours worked will tend to conflict with gigs
• Health insurance is almost non-existent
• No company-matched 401k at most places
• Requires more self-discipline to budget your money well
• Tips can vary drastically with economic cycles
• Work can be physically exhausting

PAY: How much do waiters make? Did you know that waiters can often make more money serving food than their starting salary in their chosen profession?  I’ll bet your parents didn’t either!  Granted, pay can vary widely between different levels of restaurant and skill level of servers, but there is the potential to make a LOT.  Your pay will also depend heavily on where you’re located; servers in Podunk USA don’t make as much as those in NYC. 

Getting accurate figures for this industry is difficult since tips make up all your take-home pay and aren’t so well reported to the IRS and other agencies.  I’ve asked friend in a number of major US cities what they’re making and assembled my findings here.  Figures you’d find on www.salary.com are much lower, but remember that those median numbers don’t really reflect what people are taking home.

Assuming you’re living in a relatively large metro area since that’s where most artistic opportunities are found, you can expect to take home around $400-$600 /wk at mid-level places working  25-35 hours /wk. Higher-end places in big cities can press upwards of $1000-$2000 /wk if you’re working good shifts (one buddy of mine earns a 6 figure income in NYC waiting tables)! Remember that in this case we’re talking about take-home cash pay; you would need to earn ~800 /wk to have $600 in take-home pay, depending on how many deductions you claim on your taxes.  That’s about like having a job that pays $40,000 /yr!  For the higher-end jobs, you’re looking at equivalent full-time salaries of 70-100k+!!!  I’ll bet your high school guidance counselor never told you THAT!

How to get started: Like any other field, everyone hiring waiters wants ones with EXPERIENCE, so getting that first job will be a bit tricky.  If you’re still in school, consider waiting tables a little on the side so you have legit experience when you get out and need to support yourself.  Some places are easier to find work at than others.  Your corporate chains will typically have training programs and be willing to take newbies if they interview well.  Don’t plan on landing a top-flight job in a big city if you’ve never been a waiter before!

Especially in big cities, food service will be very image conscious.  If you’re overweight or unkempt, you will probably not get hired at any mid- to upper-level establishment.  Personality is also a huge factor.  These are not the kind of jobs you typically land just by dropping off an application and crossing your fingers.  If you don’t make positive, personal contact with the person who does the hiring, you probably won’t get hired.

If you’re having trouble finding a place to take you, look around for new restaurants going up in your area and apply there.  They are often more in need of people and will have to train everyone on whatever systems they use, so your lack of experience may not be as big an issue.  Plus, new openings tend to generate a lot of traffic in their early months, so you’ll probably make good money once you get the hang of it. 

Once you have experience, start keeping your eyes open for better-paying positions.  Moving up to bar-tending in the corporate chains is one step, as is taking a job at a higher-end place where you’ll generate higher sales and possibly have more tables.  If you get a few years of experience while you’re in college, you’ll have great earning power no matter where your artistic dreams take you after graduation! 

If you’re still not getting hired anywhere and don’t have the personality of a houseplant, you might just have to do what thousands of servers have done before you: LIE.  Just don’t get caught! And be prepared to prove yourself once you start working!

Other Thoughts: Food service is a great field for artists since it’s high paying, flexible, and easily transferable, but it does come with drawbacks.  The daily cash payouts challenge the self-control and budgeting of even the most disciplined people.  If you get paid once a month, you better budget effectively or you’ll be living off credit cards come month’s end!  But if you’re getting a few hundred bucks cash in your pocket every other day, it’s harder to force yourself to budget and save effectively.  Too many musicians get into food service and never come out because they get drawn in to the social scene and spend all their time and money in that world while never really making headway toward their artistic goals.  Make sure you’re effectively funding your business first, and party second.

The lack of health insurance and retirement savings is another big con to this industry, although that depends on your personal situation.  If you’re still young enough to be on your parents’ insurance, you’re probably ok, and not many young people think about retirement savings anyhow.  However, if you’re a bit older and pay for your own insurance, it’s definitely something to factor in to your decision.  If a restaurant does offer some kind of plan, it will likely not cover pre-existing conditions and be more like a regular individual plan you could buy on your own.  People with chronic conditions that require treatment may find a lower salary with great insurance actually yields more money when it’s all said and done. 

Conclusion: If you’ve got the personality and people-skills to be a good waiter, then the benefits make this a great job for a young musician looking for a reliable source of income to fund his dreams. 

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Okay so this post is just for fun…

But SERIOUS fun!

Did you know that high school is the EASIEST time to become a millionaire?  You probably think I’m nuts and about to sell you some “system” that will let you in on the BIG SECRET, but no! No secret here, just good old fashioned sense, basic math, and forethought. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I did NOT actually do this when I was in high school, but I sure wish I did! 

Okay, enough already, here’s how you do it….

Step 1) Get a part-time job.  During the year you can work after school and/or on weekends, and in the summer you need to work as much as possible.  If you struggle with grades, just stick to the summer job thing.  Minimum wage is $5.85 right now, will be $6.55 this summer, and $7.25 next summer, so this is doable no matter what job you get, though obviously more pay is better.  For our math, we’ll use the $7.25 figure, but with a little legwork you can make much more given how computer savvy you probably are.

Step 2) Open a Roth IRA. This is basically a type of savings/investment account where whatever you put in it will never be taxed assuming you follow the rules.  There are legal documents to sign, so you’ll need your parents to sign for you since you’re under 18.  Once you hit 18, you’ll have full control of the account.

Step 3) Work 20 hours a week for 40 weeks of the year. This allows you ample time for family vacations and other obligations, but at $7.25 an hour means an annual income of $5800! 

Step 4) Put $5,000 per year into your IRA. Do this for 2 years.  Yeah, this is the hard part.  If you can find a job paying more per hour, you can have the rest of the money to spend.  Or, save $2500 per year for 4 years(though this would mean working and saving during your first 2 years of college too).  Either way, you’ll want to have $10,000 put in your IRA, and you can only put in up to $5000 a year, so any way you can make that add up will still work.

Step 5) Celebrate! Yes, that’s it! Sure, you’ll have to wait about 40-45 years for the money to grow, but you can rest assured that you will DEFINITELY be a millionaire!  Only a small percentage of people ever make it that far, and you can spend the rest of your working years knowing that you’ll retire in comfort and style no matter what. 

There’s no other time in your life when you can save so little and have it turn into so much.  If you decide to wait 10 years, you’d have to save $33,000 to have the same result later, and saving $33,000 when you’re paying all your own bills is MUCH harder than saving $10,000 when living at home!  Wait 20 years and you’d have to save over $100,000 to have the same result at the same time. 

Conclusion: Saving $1,000,000 in high school is easier than it’ll EVER be again! 

How?  A little thing called compound interest. Never heard of it?  Ask your Math teacher

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“If you’re going to be a performer, have a back-up profession, something secure, like welding”

-Robin Williams

 Ah the advice of well-intentioned family and friends! They just don’t get it! You tell them about your dream, hoping for some excitement or understanding, and all they can think to ask is, “How are you going to make a living doing that?”!  Is that how we define value these days? Can’t we define personal fulfillment in terms besides dollars per hour/year? 

Well…we can, but we can’t quite pay the rent with it.  I would imagine that your landlord would be even less receptive to the “my music is more important than money” thing than your parents. 

Okay, so we need to make money, but do we need a backup plan?  Well, more important than a backup plan is the CONCURRENT PLAN.  You won’t increase your odds of success in music or art or whatever simply by taking extra time to earn credentials for a different field.  You may gain piece of mind, and if so, perhaps that’s a good choice for you, but ALL OF US are going to need to plan ahead a bit to make sure we can make some money WHILE we’re still pursuing our music.

Part of your business planning is going to include a list of basic personal expenses you need to meet each month.  Here’s one place we differ from mainstream financial advice.  People in regular jobs usually take their monthly income and divy it up accordingly.  We’re going to start with listing the basic expenses you need to live and then finding sources of income to meet those needs.  If not, your business will experience a serious cash flow deficit and your dream will be going nowhere.  There will be an entire article devoted to this later which I’ll come back and link here then. 

This series is now going to explore some various jobs and other methods of making money which you can use to help finance your dream. Each article will detail a different job or income source, how well it pays, how flexible it is, and what training or qualifications you need to land it.  We need to compare these various ideas with real dollars so you can make good decisions based on accurate information.  Besides, won’t it be nice when your folks are pushing you to major in something else and do your music on the side to pull out some hard figures and show them how your Concurrent Plan actually pays more than their idea.  Sound far fetched?  Not at all!

So, put the backup plan on hold for awhile and devote your energies toward fulfilling your dreams.  There will always be time to go back to school and get a different degree or get a professional degree like an MBA or JD, and scores of student loan lenders ready to line up and help you finance it.  Far easier to go after your dreams now than later.  You don’t hear about many lawyers giving up law to try and become a rock star do you?  Go for your dreams while you’re young, but be smart.  With a little bit of thinking ahead, you can line up some jobs and other income sources that will pay the bills and allow you the time and flexibility to reach your goals.

Lets get started!

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Before reading, make sure you’ve read and understand:

Credit 101

and

Establishing Credit

People sure do manage to screw themselves with credit and debt, don’t they?  Most mainstream financial gurus decry debt outright and their methods target debt elimination as a primary objective. 

Is having NO debt preferable? YES! But if most of us were asked to chose between being debt-free and not having our dream, or indebted and having a career that is also our passion, most of the readers here will choose the latter.  It’s reasons like this that I started this site to begin with!  However, this is NOT a carte blanche to run up loads of credit card debt; doing that can stop or slow down your dream FAST.  No, we need to learn how to manage our credit and debt effectively and make wise decisions that are the best for our business/dream.

First of all, if you can’t meet your basic living expenses on your current cash flow alone, be VERY careful using credit to make up the difference.  Left to its own devices, this kind of thing sends people unwittingly in bankruptcy every day.  Your dreams will be much better served if you can establish a decent cash flow to at least cover your basic expenses.  For many this comes in the form of a day job, but it can also be something you piece together.  If your dream is to become a country music solo artist, you might be able to generate cash flow as a backup vocalist, wedding singer, church musician, and from various gigs around your local area.  If that’s not enough and you don’t foresee a big break coming soon, consider adding some additional part time work to fill in the gaps. 

Continue reading this post…

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Lots people finish school with $100,000 in student loans….

…They’re called Lawyers.

Sadly they’re also called musicians.  If I had a nickel for every singer or instrumentalist who’s whined to me about paying back their student loans, I could…well…pay back MY student loans. 

We musicians don’t have a monopoly on student debt issues — lots of young people are starting life strapped by debt — but we tend to be hurt by it more deeply than others because our revenue stream follow school is often far below that of other professions.

Why are we artists so susceptible to the student loan trap?  Many reason, obviously, but 3 that stick out in my mind are:

1. We’re so excited to be accept into a good school that we don’t even consider the financial side of things.  Sure, admission to Julliard is wonderful, but when you combine the cost of tuition with the cost of living in NYC, you’re looking at some serious money unless your family is bankrolling the whole thing.  There are situations where going to such a school would be a sound financial and career decision, but it’s one that must be considered in that light and not just because the school is so prestigious.  Remember, paying back 100k in student debt, even consolidated and stretched out over 30 years is going to be about $300 a month for the rest of your working life! 
2. We are so caught up in the battle that we forget to fight the war.  We’re besieged with people telling us, “Go to the best school with the best teacher; you’ll find a way to pay the money back later.”  Sounds like perfectly good advice, but if the great school and teacher also wind up causing severe financial distress, you’re going to find yourself in a major bind just about the time your career is taking off.  People push through it, sure, but it’s tough.  I’ve personally known people who had to turn down major career-launching opportunities because they couldn’t afford it. 
3. The people advising us about school and student loans early on usually have no clue about what we do and how we earn a living.  Many of us are advised to go straight from undergraduate study to grad school and often wind up paying more than if we’d taken a couple years off and developed our product to a point that schools would pay us for our attendance.  Guidance counselors in high school will look at U.S. News and World Report rankings of schools and advise student to apply to the top music schools out there, but so often those schools provide little to their undergrads and use loans for the bulk the financial aid packages. 

So, if so many young people, especially musicians, are straddled with excessive loan debt to the point that it’s compromising their careers, maybe we should….do the opposite?  We need to look at college and graduate study in the context of our business plan and evaluate our options accordingly.  Figuring out exactly what we SHOULD pay for school and how much debt is acceptable is far more art than science and will differ with each situation and set of goals.  Future articles will deal with this more in depth and attempt to divine some guidelines to use when comparing costs and benefits of different opportunities. 

Until then, if you’re a student contemplating going into major debt for music school, chew on this:  If you’re not on a MAJOR scholarship, it’s likely that you’re just “tuition fodder” for the students who ARE on big scholarships.  The people with the scholarships get all the opportunities and the best teachers, while the rest just foot the bill.  I say this not to be harsh, but to make a point.  Schooling is just one small step on a long road, a tool, and it must be used as such.  We should never do it just to do it, and we must not base our final decisions on emotion.  If that means taking some time off to get ourselves to a higher level where we’re competitive for scholarships, then so be it.  Finishing grad school at 24 with 80k in debt versus finishing at 26 with 10k in debt is a HUGE difference. 

Final thought: I’ve been doing this for awhile now, and nobody has ever asked me where I went to school.  Don’t believe the hype! 

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You know where you want to go, but before we can figure out how to get there, you need to take a long, hard look at where you are right now.  This can be especially hard for musicians and artists as we are prone to living in wishes and daydreams, finding our current reality somewhat discomforting if we’re not yet where we want to be. 

This reality check is a crucial step that so many fail to take and often suffer poor decisions as a result.  A young musician will run up 80-100k in student loan debt for graduate study without regard to his current ability and situation, only to find himself graduated a few years later still unemployable in his field AND facing at least $250 a month in loan payments.  This is a common story for many young musicians who are too excited by being accepted somewhere that they don’t think about thinks from a business standpoint.  They win a battle but ultimately lose the war.

WE are NOT going to make that mistake!  For the next few paragraphs, we’re going to walk through the process of doing a situational analysis for our musical/artistic business — the same process taught in business schools and used by big and small companies.  This analysis will feed directly into your business plan under “Company Description” and “Market Analysis,” though your plan will have greater detail.

Lets start with a simple SWOT analysis.  If you want to read the history of SWOT, check out wikipedia’s entry on it.  SWOT stands for:

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

The first 2 represent INTERNAL factors while the second 2 are EXTERNAL factors.  All 4 are important in gaining some basic understanding of your current situation.  Lets tackle these one by one with some examples for artists, actors and musicians.

Strengths

Possible answers for an actor might be:

• Unique, versatile look that can work for a variety of roles
• Better than average physical appearance
• Well-honed craft/technique
• Incredible comic timing and aptitude for comedic roles

For a musician it might be:

• Superior technical facility
• Ability to compose your own music
• Studying with a top teacher in the field
• Unique, powerful voice in an under-served voice category
• Impressive resume with prestigious competition wins
• Great musicality, sensitivity of phrasing that moves people

Regardless of your situation or your current level, you need to be able to identify the things you do well.  Remember, this doesn’t yet take into account other people, so it doesn’t matter if there are other people who are better than you; this part is simply for you to enumerate your own strengths as they now stand.  We’ll get into your competition soon enough.  Once you’ve done your strengths, it’s time for:

Weaknesses

For some reason most people find this part easier.  Remember to keep your observations honest and professional.  Some examples of weaknesses for an actor might be:

• Difficulty learning and memorizing material
• Lack of confidence
• Little or no formal training in classical repertoire
• Too tall/short/fat/skinny for otherwise marketable roles
• Located in an area with few opportunities for TV and commercial work

For a musician, some weaknesses might be:

• Insecure technique
• Spotty intonation
• Reside in an area with few opportunities
• Difficulty learning new music
• Limited access to a quality instrument
• Insufficient experience to be marketable at upper professional levels

You’ll probably think of more, and of course you can come back and add and subtract as things change.  Notice that even with the examples I gave, these are all weaknesses that can be dealt with systematically.  While painful at first, writing down your own personal weaknesses as an artist will usually show that things aren’t as bad as you thought and that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Moving on now to EXTERNAL factors.  This involves identifying hurtful and helpful factors outside your own personal business, starting with:

Opportunities

Examples for an actor might be:

• Signing with an agent who specializes in _______, an area where you have yet to really market yourself
• Joining equity to obtain easier access to high level auditions
• If a stage actor, branching out into TV and commercial work for extra income
• Moving to an area with more performing opportunities
• Leveraging past connections to obtain new work

For a musician:

• Entering some competitions to increase exposure
• Teaching private lessons for supplemental income
• Participation in a young artist/apprenticeship program
• Using connections to beat the bushes for new opportunities
• Organize a regional concert tour for the band
• Record a CD to sell or use in press packet
• Weak dollar reducing competition from European artists

“Opportunities” is where you write down potential ways to expand your business.  This section will be very fluid as opportunities come and go quite frequently in the arts, but being fully aware of your situation, your strengths and weaknesses, and your goals, you’ll have a better sense of what your real opportunities are. Before we finish though, we have to look at:

Threats

These are external factors that are potential harmful to your business. For both musicians and actors they might include:

• A saturated local market for the roles you’re most apt for
• Reduced arts funding leading to fewer performance opportunities
• Dwindling audiences for your art form
• Shifting prevailing aesthetic tastes
• Increased Internet marketing by companies meaning fewer commercial jobs

Again, just a guideline; make yours very specific to your own situation! 

Well, there you go, you’ve done your SWOT analysis.  SWOT does come with a bevy of its own weaknesses, but it’s a good place to start. Next you’ll want to start a detailed market analysis for your business, but we’ll save that part until we get to that part of the business plan since to put it here would be redundant. 

Following that, you’ll also do well to identify the “keys to success” in your respective area, as well as whatever your “core competency” is — that is to say what is it that really sets you apart from everyone else and gives you some measure of competitive advantage.  I’m not making any of this up as these terms are tossed around business school classrooms all around the world, and they’re just as applicable to us as anyone else. 

Keys to success are those things that make success in your area possible.  It doesn’t necessarily mean you have them all yet, but it’s good to know what they are.  For a classical musician they might be:

• Impeccable technique
• A unique artistic voice
• Proven track record with competition wins and professional work
• For singers, a vocal technique that allows your sound to carry over an orchestra unmiked
• Mental acuity to adapt to last minute challenges and work well under extreme pressure
• Knowledge of the repertoire you’re most suited for and aggressively marketing in that arena

Depending on your medium, these will all shift to some degree, but it’s important to know what the keys to your success are.  If you don’t know, find out! Ask musicians or actors more successful than you what the key is and work their answers into your analysis.  If you start early, you won’t be caught off-guard in 10 years and wonder what it is you’re missing that’s keeping you from being successful.

Your core competency is something that may not be readily apparent to you at first, but it’s important to know what it is.  It’s also a slightly difficult concept to convey, especially how exactly it differs from your strength.  In the traditional business world, it would be defined as that which your business does best.  Starbucks is best at making coffee.  This isn’t to say they’re better than everyone else, but simply that selling coffee is what they do best as a company.  It was just a few months ago that Starbucks as a company decided to tweak their own business plan and re-focus on their core competency, starting with a nationwide retraining program for all their stores to ensure that all their people were towing the line in that arena. 

So, that said, you must identify your own core competency.  To cite some examples from the entertainment and music world, Jim Carrey’s core competency would be highly physical, comic acting.  Josh Groban’s might be singing pop/classical ballads.  Andrea Boccelli’s might be singing Italian POPera material.  Whatever the artist and whatever the field, you probably have some idea of their core competency because it’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of them. Cashing in on this fast is how they’ve gotten so famous.  Had Josh Groban attempted to get his break as a hip-hop artist, he’d still be “My name is Josh and I’ll be your server tonight.”  Knowing your core competency will help you find your niche and build your own success story.

Understanding your situation is critical, and I hope relatively painless.  With your goals in hand, your situation understood, the keys to success a quantifiable entity, and a sense of your core competency, you can now begin to write your plan.

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Before we jump into writing the actual plan itself, we have to know exactly where we want to go.  It’s time to sit down with pen and paper and do some personal business analysis.  Remember that all of this is subject to future revision and is intended mainly for your own personal use.  You may write down a goal here that you decide you really don’t want anymore in 6 months — great! 

In this pre-planning phase we’re going to cover:

• Personal
• Business Goals
• Artistic Goals

Got the pen and paper? Maybe a fresh Word document?  Either way, you MUST WRITE THIS DOWN.  Every major life coach/guru out there advocates written goals as a key to success, and every major corporation maintains sets of written goals for their business.  I would contend that most successful artists/actors/musicians are also very goal oriented people, but there’s something about putting it in writing that makes it real.  I started doing this for myself a couple years ago and I was amazed at how much it helps me.  Maybe I’ll write a personal post on that later, but for now this is about YOU and YOUR goals.

Writing your personal goals can be a very extensive process, but for the scope of this series we need to focus on those aspects of your personal life that have a direct bearing on what choices you make professionally.  First, we need to distinguish between short and long term goals, so lets make columns for

• Goals to accomplish this year
• Goals in 3 years
• Goals in 5 years
• Goals in 10 years

Start with the outermost goals as those will be the most lofty and also the most vague.  Take some time with this and be honest with yourself.  The questions you ask yourself and the resulting goals will depend heavily on your personal situation.  Someone in the their late 20s with a Masters Degree will probably not have higher education goals, but someone in their late teens may see the bulk of their goals center around acquiring an education. Even for the 10 year goals, try to be very specific and ask yourself questions like:

• What sort of life do I want to have in 10 years?
• How much do I want to be working?
• Do I want to have a family?
• What do I want my financial picture to look like?
• What financial obligations do I need to be ready for?  Money for retirement? Kids going to college?

Once you get started you will probably think of many more.  If anyone thinks of some really good ones, feel free to post them in a comment and I’ll try to add them in the main text later.  Once you’ve got some ideas about where you’d like your life to be in 10 years, it’s time to back up to 5 years and repeat.  Take your questions and answers from the longer term and project where you’d like to be on the road to accomplishing them in 5 years, the halfway point.  If you have any personal life goals you’d like to complete within 5 years, this would be a place to put them.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that we’re just going to keep backing things up until you’re looking at what you want to accomplish this year in your personal life.  Depending on where you are in life, this section may be the most full or the most sparse.  If you’re in the thick of your business/career part of life, that may be the dominant part of your goals, but it’s still a good idea to keep an eye on where you want to end up lest you lose sight of what’s important to you.   Either way, select some goals to accomplish this year that will HELP you achieve one or some of those long term goals.  Even if it’s just a tiny bit, it’s a move in the right direction and far more valuable than doing nothing.

Now that you’ve got some personal goals down, it’s time to move on to business and artistic ones.  We’ll use the same rubric of 10, 5, 3, and 1 year goals, though feel free to omit the 3 if it seems too redundant, or add more if you want to get more specific. 

Now it’s time to start writing down the stuff of your daydreams. 

• Where you do want your business to be in 10/5/3 years?
• What sort of gigs do you want your band to be playing?
• Do you want to be signed by a major label and have a recording contract?
• Do you want to be making your living solely from your art or music?
• What level of houses and orchestras do you want to be singing with?

Since you know yourself better than I do, you will probably have much better questions and great answers.  Check your long term personal goals against your business/artistic ones and make sure they mesh, or at least have the potential to mesh.  Nothing in life is certain, but if your business and artistic goals are completely contrary to your other life goals, you’re in for some trouble down the line. 

Once you’ve got some long term and medium term goals written down, it’s time to move on to short term goals for this year. These need to be VERY specific and in most cases point toward a longer term goal. 

Example: If your long term goal is to be a college professor teaching acting, your medium term goals would involve acquiring the requisite education to be hireable in that field.  Your short term goals might be:

- Apply and be accepted to ________ School of Theatre

Again, these are just generic examples and yours will be much more specific, but it’s CRUCIAL that these be written down and printed out in a form that you can look at frequently.  This is where the power of written goals comes into play — their ability to help you stay focused over the long haul and reconcile your daily choices with achieving what you value in the long term.  The key to anything in business, art, or life is consistency, and keeping an eye on your goals will help you as we move in to………..

Your business plan!  Yes, it’s quite difficult to plan for something unless you know what that thing is.  Saying you want to be a painter is one thing.  Saying you want to be a painter with X recognitions and Y honors and paintings hanging in A, B, and C galleries and making $ZZZ per year from your art is something you can plan and work toward. 

Since this kind of deep work provokes so much thought and reflection, put your list away for a day and come back to it tomorrow where we’ll work on a current situational analysis for your business/art.  This will help discern exactly how things stand right now versus how you want them to be, and your your plan will show how you intend to deal with the disparity. The difference between your goals and your life right now is your plan. Put mathematically that means:

Goals - Current Situation = Your Business Plan

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Bad credit sucks.  Bigtime.  Bad credit makes you pay more for stuff, or maybe not even get that stuff at all!  If you’re one of the millions of people who’ve run their credit into the ground, now is the time to take stock of your situation and find a way out.  It’s not easy and will take some time, but with a little work you can be well on your way to getting your good name back.

First, make sure you check out past postings on Establishing Credit and Credit 101. Some of the info may be stuff you already know, but it’s best we begin on the same page.

Next, you have to acknowledge that unless you’ve had some major events happen that contributed to your credit problem, you probably have some issues with managing your money and planning for the future.  I’ll deal with this more in future articles, but understand that you must get the financial part of your business plan in order before you can make any long term progress with your credit.  As Dr. Phil is so fond of saying, “You don’t fix money problems with more money.”  You must make a change of habit.

Assuming you’ve got your cash flow more under control and are meeting your operating/living expenses, you can start to look at rebuilding your credit.  First you need to hit up www.annualcreditreport.com if you haven’t already and get a copy of your credit report so we can see what you need to fix.  If you’ve recently done this and aren’t eligible for another free one for awhile, you may be entitled to a second free report.  If someone runs your credit and refuses you credit, you are entitled to a copy of the report that generated the refusal as well as an explanation of the denial. 

Take a look at all the trade-lines and identify the problems.  Any revolving accounts that don’t say “Paid as agreed” are probably causing you issues.  Check the dates on these accounts.  Check the numbers.  Make sure they’re actually yours!  Credit bureaus aren’t known for their accuracy or attention to detail. 

Start by bring past due accounts up to date and start making at least your minimum payment on time.  If you can’t afford your minimum payments, then there are other options that I’ll deal with in a future article.  But, assuming you can pay them, start doing it.  Credit reports only keep 2 years of payment data, and your score affected more by recent data than older. 

For example, lets assume that 90 days of missed payments dings your score by 50 pts(this number is completely made up).  If you bring your account up to date and start paying on time, those 3 months of missed payments will stay visible for 2 years; however, while they may ding your score by 50 pts right now, it may only be 40 pts in a few months, 20 pts in one year and less after that until it hits zero. 

If you have student loans in default, you need to kick yourself in the head for being an idiot.  Student loans are the most flexible forms of credit you’ll ever have and lenders are always willing to work something out if you’re having trouble paying.  The only dumb thing you can do is just ignore the problem, because student loans are also the toughest creditors you’ll ever have.  They will find you and they WILL get their money.  If Osama bin Laden had defaulted on his student loans, Sallie Mae would have found him by now and been calling his cave weekly. 

Once you start making timely payments again, you need to consider your debt-credit ratio.  If you are using over 50% of your available credit, your score is likely taking a hit because of it.  If you’re using 70% or more, it’s taking a serious hit.  Obviously paying off your balances is the simplest way to do this, but you can also do so by opening up more available credit. 

Once you’re paying on time, your credit will start to improve.  After 6 months of on time payments, you might be able to get a new credit card or two, which will change your debt-credit ratio.  Don’t be stupid and run up charges on these suckers! This is just a nice way to game the system and increase your score quickly.

If you have more serious blights on your record, such as collections, charge-offs, bankruptcies, etc., rebuilding your credit gets more difficult, but not impossible.  These marks stay on your report for 7 years(10 for bankruptcy), but like the payment history, affect your score less and less the further you get from the date of default. 

These more severe issues deserve more extensive treatment in their own articles, but briefly, collections and charge-offs can be dealt with a number of ways.  The best is to write a letter explaining your situation and asking if you can work out an arrangement where if you pay in full or some amount you both agree upon, will they agree to remove the negative mark from your credit report.  They CAN do this, but whether or not they WILL is entirely arbitrary.  Collectors, while bottom-feeders, will often be more amenable to this sort of thing since they operate either by buying bad debt from lenders for pennies on the dollar, or by getting a percentage of what they can collect.  Either way, if you don’t pay, they make zilch.  As such, they’ll probably be willing to deal, but GET IT IN WRITING.  If it isn’t in writing, IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.  Don’t be one of the millions who whine about a collection agency that lied to them on the phone.  If the people who work for collectors were honest, good, intelligent people, they’d have gotten a better job!

Well, thus concludes part ONE of dealing with bad credit.  Not very artistic or poetic, but nobody ever wrote a sonnet to crappy credit.  Oh how I love thee; Let me count the pays!

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If you were to start a brick-and-mortar business and needed to acquire funding, every potential lender or investor would want to see your written business plan.  These conform to a pretty similar structure, though some vary with differing types of business.  As artists, ours will vary considerably while adhering to the same concepts. 

Your typical business plan will have the following sections:

• Executive Summary
• Company Description
• Product Description
• Market Analysis
• Marketing/Sales Strategies
• Management Team
• Financials

 If you were submitting this plan to obtain funding, you would also have a section dealing with that request and how you can repay whatever you’re attempting to borrow. 

While I intend to devote an article to each of these, here’s a brief summary of what you put in each section:

Executive Summary: Essentially, this is just a summary of everything to follow.  Shorter is better in this part since you’ll be going into detail later.  Since most of the info here is derived from the rest of your plan, we’ll deal with this part last.  Hey, nobody said you had to do this in order!

Company Description: This is where you tell your story.  Write down your history and what led you to this endeavor.  Describe exactly what that business is, or at least what you think it is. Tell why you’re in this business and what factors you feel will make you successful. Remember, this is all more art than science and much of this will change over time as you learn your business more.

Product Description: What are you selling?  If you’re trying to make money in the arts, you’re selling something, so what is it?  Be very specific here.  Think of yourself or your art as a commodity.  What are its features? Its benefits to your customers/audience?  If your product is unfinished, you will also discuss where it is on the path to completion and what steps you have planned to bring it to a marketable level.

Market Analysis: Arguably one of those most extensive sections of your plan and one that will grow dramatically as you grow and learn.  Here you will analyze your target market, including not just your audience but also your competition.  You’ll also discuss how your market operates, how and when you get paid, etc.  MUCH more detail to follow in the article!

Marketing/Sales Strategies: How are you going to get yourself out there?  How will you penetrate what is likely a very competitive and crowded market?  Will you be seeking representation by an artist manager? 

Management Team: This is part where where we’ll differ greatly from more traditional businesses, but I feel it’s a good place to list your support structure.  In the beginning it could be teachers and mentors, and you would discuss their qualifications and track record of success and how they’re contributing to your success, what you expect of them, etc.  As you evolve, this will become a place to list your agent, publicist, business manager, accountant, attorney, etc. 

Financials: THE most important and detailed section of your plan.  Also the most evolving.  From our personal business finance perspective, this will be where your personal and artistic budget are reconciled with an eye toward growing your business.  Deals with profit-loss, cash flow, projected income, capital expenditures, etc.  For all categories, it should cover historical, current, and future  financial information.  As real numbers come in, you adjust your projections until you reach profitability. 

Well, that’s about it.  Were you a traditional business looking for funding, there would also be a funding request section where you’d say what kind of money you were looking for, why you need it, how you’ll spend it, and most importantly, how you’ll pay it back.  Since most of our endeavors will have a hard time getting commercial credit or selling equities(stocks & bonds), we’ll ignore it for now. 

See? Not so painful after all!  Even before we get into the nitty gritty, I hope this overview will help you understand more of how thinking of yourself in business terms will help you achieve your artistic goals in the long run. 

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