Growing up, I was a nice, Jewish boy. Hebrew School three days per week, youth group activities on the weekend, and a Bar Mitzvah that pulled out every stop. I had, no exaggeration, memorized the Erev Shabbat service and could recite the prayers and passages verbatim — in Hebrew and English. In fact, I even knew the page numbers for each section of the service. Some might call me a geek, but we’ll let that pass for now.
Anyway, at the conclusion of the main part of the service, there was a responsive section. The rabbi would say a line, and the congregation responded. The following line always stood out to me — alongside it’s italicized congregational response:
Let us learn in order to teach!
Let us learn in order to do!
It was instilled in me then that learning and education was the essential conduit to useful, vital activity in life. I’ve always been a fairly active person. Boredom and complacency never really satisfied me. And it explains why I get frantic when I don’t have a bunch of things going on.
I came across a statistic today, and it floored me. I’m still wrapping my mind around it, but it seems to justify most of what marketing is all about. It also takes the Jewish sentiment (above) and turns it on its ear. On the music side, it validates everything that we humble marketers do to maintain our own relevance. If you’re a musician, and you’re reading this, see where you (and your management/professional team) fall on the scale. Perhaps you’re not taking advantage of everything you could or should.
Sorry if it’s a tad blurry, but can you see the point? In the graph, students ability to solve problems is at its highest when they’re actually doing something. In order, effectiveness builds from reading, to seeing, to hearing, to seeing and hearing, up to collaboration and then finally to doing. So perhaps the Rabbis had it backwards: let us DO in order to LEARN!
This may seem obvious — the more involved a person is, the better their eventual outcome. In a word (or not even a word): duh. But, if you’re a musician, and you apply this same graph to your career (and your revenue stream), are you really doing all you can to be effective?
If you’re an artist who relies primarily on touring, you’re capturing (at most) 30-50% of your potential artists.That’s include the “seeing,” “hearing” and “seeing and hearing” portion of the graph. But where’s the collaboration piece, and what about the smaller percentage of reading, and yikes, how do you factor “doing” into the equation?
Yet again, the answer lies in your social media opportunities. Converse with your fans on Facebook, engage with them on Twitter, actively message your fans with newsletters. Most of these steps are low cost (if not free!) and require only modest effort.
Artists who don’t take proactive steps regarding their careers have no one but themselves to blame when things go south. It’s not the economy, it’s not over saturation, and it’s not (just) your music. We’re in a new era, and your choices are simple: get on board, or get forgotten.
The choice is yours…
