Step One: Setting Goals and Targets

This post was originally going to be about why you need a business plan for your band but I figured that anybody who'd found their way into my little corner of the web would already have that figured out, and if not, there's plenty of places out there which will tell you why.

In a nutshell though, a business plan will help you to achieve your musical ambitions and give you the tools you need to ensure that you're on track to reach it.

So with that covered it's straight onto:


Step One: Setting Goals and Targets

Your goals and targets are the heart of your music business plan. They set out what it is that you want to achieve and provide you with the means to ensure that your musical career is on track.

First I'll clarify what I mean when I say goals and targets.

Goals

Goals are what it is you want to achieve e.g. build a fanbase, monetise your fans, or even something as simple as play more shows outside your hometown. All of these goals are things that most bands starting out will want to achieve and for good reason; they are what a new band needs to survive and prosper.

Targets

If goals are what you want to achieve, then targets are how you measure if you've achieved them. These can be anything so long as it is quantifiable and sensible.

Specific and Achievable

The key thing when setting goals and targets is that they are specific and achievable.

It would be pointless for a brand new band to set a goal of selling out Wembley Stadium, it's just not going to happen. Likewise, even a sensible goal can be rendered useless by an unachievable target, for instance if my goal was to play more shows outside of my home town (sensible) it would be pointless to set a target of playing in every single city in Europe; it's just not possible.

The example that I will use is what I actually intend to have as my goal for my hypothetical band's first year: build a fanbase and create a strong mailing list. This is in response to one of my many musical mistakes, and one which I'll cover in my next post. Establishing a fanbase is essential for any band starting out, you can't expect to get by with your friends and family being your only audience and a mailing list is a very good idea for keeping in contact with people you meet at shows and converting them into fans.

This goal then, is sensible. But what about the targets? The target that I am deciding to use to measure my success here is the mailing list, specifically how many people are on. There are plenty of ways you might be able to gauge how big your fanbase is; number of 'likes' on Facebook, number of people turning up to shows, hits on your website, etc. But I have decided to use my mailing list because then I can use one target to measure the success of two goals.

The next question is how many names on my mailing list do I need for it to be considered successful? This is where sensible and achievable comes into play. 500 names would be great but would require 10 names a week for it work; not likely, especially as for the first year I can expect to be playing gigs mostly in my local area. 300 names would still be difficult, but it should be achievable.

So, my goal for the first year of my (hypothetical) band's gigging life will be to create a fanbase and get 300 names on a mailing list.

Mistakes I've Made #1

So, first post on my first blog and what do I choose to talk about? My musical failures.

Or more specifically, why my music failed; the mistakes that I made with my last band and how having a solid business plan could have helped.

Mistake Number 1: Not choosing the right people

OK, so in my 2nd year of university I decided to form a band; I'd started exploring my guitar playing in ways that I hadn't before, I'd discovered new bands and new styles that I wanted to emulate and I wanted to experience gigging and a music scene. So I met up with a friend of a friend who I got on well with, we had a couple of jams in my bedroom and we decided to put a band together.

Over the next couple of weeks we managed to find a bassist, a drummer and a singer, we all met in the Student's Union, had a pint and decided to 'give it a go'. That was the first mistake: I wanted to play thrash metal, as did the drummer, the singer was a fan of My Chemical Romance and other pop-alt bands, the bassist wanted to play punk and my friend the other guitarist wanted to play wierd experimental stuff. We all thought that that led to a recipe for new and interesting music, a fusion of genres that would drive the audience crazy. How wrong we were.

Obviously it sounded awful and within a few months they had all left, leaving just me and the drummer to start afresh.

The lesson here is to develop a vision for your band before you even put it together. I probably wasted 3 months working with musicians who wanted different things from me, that's something like £120 in rehearsal fees, not to mention that it just wasn't fun. If I'd have known what I wanted to do besides, 'start a band', I would have been better placed in recruiting band members and it would have worked out better for everyone.

The current project that I am working on, some 5 years later, is the polar opposite of that situation. What I have now is a concept, but no band. But that's because I'm waiting for the right people to help my dream band come to life. I know now that instead of simply signing somewhat up because they play the right instrument I need to find the musicians who I like, share my musical tastes and writing style, and are prepared to work towards the aims that I plan to lay out here: my music business plan.