 I'm lucky enough to be in meetings with artists with top notch teams on some of the biggest labels in the world and one of the things I've learned is everything is planned based on the strengths and weaknesses of the artists. These are considered and a plan is made to play off what an artist needs to do to accentuate these strengths and diminish their weaknesses. In this episode I'm going to teach you the techniques the artists you love use to decide their next moves. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon and this is MuseFormation and today I'm in Millerton, New York at Beartrack Studio and just taking a minute to talk about this. So if you've watched this channel before, you know I have more than a bit of disdain for startup bro culture, but with that said, when you're right, you're right. There's always things to be learned from even the biggest douchebags in the world. In startup land there's this thing called a SWAT analysis. Now we're not trying to hit flies with something and analyze it. That was horrible. You do this analysis in order to get a grasp on who you are and what your to-do list should be as well as figuring out what your next marketing move should be. SWAT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This gives a wide span of knowledge about who you are and what you should do and can really guide your each and every move. I talk to so many artists and often times they feel like they're walking in the dark and just seeing what sticks by throwing it against the wall and really are just guessing out what they're going to do next for their content and going with the first idea that comes to them instead of making calculated and informed decisions that can really help make their music resonate better. This analysis will teach you exactly what you should be doing at all times and guide numerous parts of what you do. Okay, so let's get into this. So the essence SWAT is for strengths. For this list we're going to list everything you do well. This could be that you have a charismatic front woman, great songs, attractive people in the group, whatever your strengths are let's get them down here and feel free to even go down to the minutiae. We want to get everything you have going for you on this list. Then we get to the W which is Weaknesses. Here we want to put everything you need to improve and should be being worked on regularly. This could be that your drummer sucks, you're a bunch of slobs, you have no money or that your music is generic since you still haven't found your voice yet. That's all fine, be honest with yourself. Opportunities is the O in this. This could be that your dad owns an empty warehouse that you can film cool videos in and put sets in. You know someone in licensing and you may get opportunities there if you make more licensible music or your guitarist is so good that you can get on a bunch of guitar or YouTube channels to promote your music. The T stands for threats which are things you need to take care of before something bad happens. This could be everything from unpaid tickets that may get your van towed away, that your drummer's gonna have a kid and not be able to play shows for a while. Yes, I just called a kid a threat. I had a really bad train ride up here with a crying kid behind me so I'm taking a little revenge. Or that you haven't released music in nine months and you're losing monthly listeners. So let's get this filled out for yourself. To give you some inspiration, here's examples of three different artists and how I would fill out their SWAT analysis if I was on their team. Okay, so I have to do these for groups I know really well because in order to do these analysis is you have to know what the intricacies of each group. So of course I chose my favorite group the 1975 first because who would have thunk it? So there's strikes, charismatic front man. He's amazing. They use a lot of their videos to play up how much personality has and have them do all sorts of different things because he's capable of doing a ton and he's an incredible performer. They have a diverse sound so they get introduced to lots of different people on playlists because they get to be on so many different types of playlists regularly since when you make songs in different genres, you can get on those and that's helped to bolster their fan base immensely. They have a diverse fan base in that it appeals to everybody, whether it's normal looking people onto weird queer kids, art kids, even a girl on a hijab in the two time video and they really bring this out and show their fans a lot because they want people to know that they're included here. The singer is also probably the most intelligent pop star in the mainstream when talking about politics and society. So they do tons and tons of interviews which help spread their message and they know this and take advantage of it. Their weaknesses are also the same that many people are repulsed to buy this about him and they think that he's woke trolling and things like that for publicity and they also just turned off. I can remember going home on Christmas after they had played Sarah at Live and my father's friends were repulsed by him. They have a diverse sound that also turns a lot of fans off. I end up deleting from my playlist of the records, the gospel songs and the jazz songs because I don't like when they do that and lots of people don't like that about them. Their opportunities are that they are about to have potentially two album of the year albums and critic circles and that can exponentially propel you when you've had two records that really are this solid. Their threats are the singer is a former heroin addict and that can go sideways at any time and they have insanely high expectations for the next record and it's very hard when you've made a record that everybody called the album of the year to follow it up. Next we have My Fave, 100 Gecks. Their strengths are unique and shocking sound. When you listen to that record, I often tell people if they listen to it, you can't just listen to one song, you have to listen to seven of them at least to understand how insane this record is because it's just so all over the place. They have a unique look and personality that don't look like any other group out right now which always makes for people wanting to do photo shoots with you. Other musicians love them and they're highly influential in the mainstream right now. Every pop star is talking about how that's the record that's influencing them. Their weaknesses are many people find them too silly since they're pretty silly and their diversity of sound, yet again turns fans off, their sound goes all over the map. Their opportunities are their poise to be a huge act with the next record is seemingly it will be handed to them as long as they make a good record. Lots of keys to lots of opportunities. Dylan Brady, one of the producers in the group produces many huge pop acts like Charlie XCX so they have a very good opportunity to widen their appeal with that. Their threats are they only have a dozen songs so it's hard for people to get addicted to a band that only has one real release and they also have insanely high expectations for their next record. Next I'm gonna talk about one of my new favorite artists, Poppy. Poppy's strengths are she has unique innovative production on her songs. Her songs truly just jaw drop on this latest record. I disagree that you can't believe how they got some of these sounds and how interesting the song structures are. She has a unique look and personality. She's been making some of the most interesting videos that people were talking about long before she found her voice, they would just talk about how crazy her videos are and the look of them. And you know, she's a very attractive person and that helps no matter who you are. Weaknesses. Metal fans hate diversity and sound. They don't like when you bring other genres in, they're a closed minded bunch so it makes a lot of people turned off by her. She also used to make pop music so stupid metal fans are skeptical of her. Her opportunities are though that musicians appreciate her very much. I see a lot of people talking about how influenced they are by this record. And she has a creative level worthy of mass attention and what I mean by that is like we're seeing so many acts with creative directors now and we're gonna talk a lot more about that in a few videos from now. And she really, really has a creative level of like whatever's happening in our team to make the stuff that she makes. It's like Madonna at her peak level, good content. Like I am shocked by every video that she comes out with. Her threats are it could be considered novelty if songs go in the wrong direction. You know, this music borders on not being serious and that is such a hard line to walk. And the way she comments on music, her personality is hard to age and I don't wanna do that in a females can't grow up because that's repulsive to me. What I mean by that is when you're commenting on youth culture, eventually you get too old like Blink Money 2 and that's a lot of what she's doing is she's talking about the youth and making a mockery of like culture and stuff like that. So now that you filled this out, how do you use it? For your to-do list, I like to focus on the opportunities and threats first since opportunities should guide what you're working towards and since threats can potentially take down what you do, you have to make sure you act on them fast. It also helps to consider for your to-do list how planning up to your strengths can increase your chances to get these opportunities. You should also consider your weaknesses and take time to consider allocating time to fix them. Oftentimes just staring at this list can get you to a more considered place on your to-do list where you can be more effective and your progress will dramatically improve just from this practice. As the saying goes, work smarter, not harder. Secondly, this list should guide your image and the marketing decisions you make. Whether it's videos, photo shoots, or art, think about your strengths and weaknesses and how you play them up and make them more effective. Playing up your strengths and doing things that conceal your weaknesses is crucial and makes everything you do better and more effective. Take the time to make a good list for this analysis and update it regularly. I keep one above my desk for my own personal work at home so I can always consider what I should be improving and what I should be focusing on. That's it, am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I wanna answer them. So leave them in the comments. I hope you liked this video and if you did, please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos since I'm gonna be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything, playlist or con artist, only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you wanna learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do, head to jessecanon.com or at jessecanon.com on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing, if you liked this video, there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise, you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.