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.
