Are You Building Structures for Your Future Music Career Success?

First times can be kind of weird and awkward, right? Sometimes even scary. Whether it’s your first kiss, first mango, first time skydiving…

You’re going to have a lot of firsts as an artist. And if you’re reading this, you’ve probably gone through a few already.

First time at the studio. First release. First gig. First interview. And so on.

And it’s easy to put a lot of pressure on those situations. Like you must get it right even though you’ve never done it before.

But what works is Kaizen, which is a Japanese term meaning “taking something that didn’t work, improving on it, and making it better.”

See, even if you’ve done all your research and homework, you’re still going to make mistakes. Or take on too much. Or underestimate how much work it’s going to be.

There were mistakes with my first album, Shipwrecked… My Sentiments, such as the fact that the website address printed in the liner notes was the wrong one (because we’d assumed we’d be able to get that domain name even though we hadn’t checked!).

Now, if you go to the Shipwrecked… page on my website, you’re going to see a example of a template. I call it the “music super page.” It contains everything to do with the release, including track list, description, liner notes, lyrics, videos, reviews, and even influences. It’s a template, and it might not be perfect, but we can keep improving on it.

A lot of people just fly by the seat of their pants and make things up as they go. And unless all the stars align, that approach just doesn’t work. Not to mention, it negatively affects your productivity trying to reinvent the wheel every single time.

You should think of your “firsts” as an experiment. No judgment, no criticism. You’re doing something new and different, and you’re not sure what the results are going to be. So, no need to be down on yourself when things don’t go down how you think they will. You’re blazing a trail.

From there, you can start building your templates and swipe files.

I have templates for all my books. It just makes it so much easier to get started on my next book or update an older book when I can jump into a pre-built template, add my content, and change or improve elements as need be. Kaizen.

You could also call these systems, though it’s a boring term comparatively.

As with previous insights, this has a lot to do with accurate thinking, identifying what works, and repeating what works. So, don’t start from scratch. That’s a rule. Once you’ve done your firsts, take them and improve upon them. That will help you create more momentum in your work.

For a proven, step-by-step framework in cracking the code to independent music career success, and additional in-depth insights into making your passion sustainable and profitable, be sure to pick up my best-selling guide, The Music Entrepreneur Code.