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.