 Artist managers, I'm going to let you in on some industry secrets in this video. Some of it might anger you a little bit. Some of it will even relieve you, but either way it goes. I think these insights will be extremely useful for how you continue about your career, because I'm going to provide some answers and clarity at the end as well, but let's start here. Many of you might know that I've been a part of quite a few successful campaigns, have gotten platinum plaques and billboard records, helped artists go from no names to any names that are known, without label work or backing at all, but the industry we are in today is a beautiful place for two things. You can create this beautiful indie path and the information is out there, unlike before. However, that creates a couple of problems. And there's a clear way that we've been solving for it to help artists be successful over and over again. So let's start here. Imagine if you had a friend. You hadn't seen that friend for a couple of years. And when you see that friend, you're like, whoa, man, got a nice car. It looked a little different, different pep in their step. Obviously, they've come across some money. And then you're like, yo, man, I got to ask you, like, tell me. And they're like, what? What have you done, man? How did you get so much money? It's clear. I've seen the IG photos that you're moving on a different level right now. And they're like, oh, man, I can't believe I didn't tell you, I'm sorry things have been moving so fast, but they're building this new town and they've come across some land. And with that came an opportunity to buy some land myself. So I went in, I bought some land, and then I sold some land and they had these deals where if you bought a whole bunch of land, you got some more land for free. So I start using all my profits to buy land in bulk and got way more land and I just kept flipping, flipping, flipping. And that's pretty much how I am. Here's amazing. You should do it yourself, man. I'm telling you. So you're like, that simple sounds crazy, but this is my good friend. Let me listen. You go try to do that. You go and you see the land is a lot more expensive than you would have imagined. But hey, I saw it work for my friend. He wouldn't lie to me. I'm going to go ahead and throw my life savings at this. And you try to sell the land. It's not as easy as you thought to sell the land. But when you finally do sell the land, it's not the profit margin you would have expected. You're like, how did this man like reinvest and flip? The math isn't mapping. So you go back to your friend and say, hey, look man, this doesn't make sense. You break down your scenario, how much the land costs, and how much you made from it. And they're like, whoa, the land wasn't that much when I was buying it. It was way cheaper and it was way easier to sell at that time. I'm not understanding why I was like that. And then it clicks for you. You're like, you don't have to tell me. I get it now myself. This was a new town at the time. You bought land early before it had that much value. Now I'm trying to buy land where it's not as many people trying to come in and buy land. It's a completely different phase strategically where I need to be. So I can't do exactly the same thing you did and make money in the same way. And that's what artists go through again and again. TikTok in 2020 to 2022 was your friend, right? These other people benefiting and you saw the work. But then if you hadn't got in during that phase, the profits don't look the same. The growth doesn't look the same because everybody was buying real estate on TikTok in 2020 to 2021. 2022 was dying down, but some people were still getting in. They were giving away land for free, free real estate, free eyes at a massive rate because the platform was a new town and they were trying to get as many citizens as possible. And it's not just TikTok that I'm referring to. It's many strategies that work like this. By the time you find out about it and you see artists finally willing to tell you about it, the exact same way they did it, it doesn't really add up and work the same, partially why they might be willing to tell you about it. Or in many cases, there's artists being genuinely helpful, but they just don't quite understand the landscape and how it's changed because they didn't quite understand the advantage they had in the moment that they were able to go up and up and up. But that's the reality of what you're dealing with strategy after strategy after strategy and you're trying to figure out which one of these strategies matter now, which one of these strategies am I too late to, which one of these strategies am I early to, and which one of these strategies do I seem to be early to, but it's never going to pan out like I would hope it's never going to become that big thing. That's the process of figuring this stuff out and I know it's frustrating. And that's not to say TikTok doesn't matter. We were some of the primary people who took great advantage of TikTok, first from influencers, then we quickly moved and we were early over a year early on getting artists individually on their page just to post content and go directly into streams because we saw influencers getting to the point where they were going to become way too expensive. And even now, TikTok is extremely useful just as a platform, but the strategy looks different. No, you might not be able to come in and just buy land, flip that land and get rich, but maybe you can come in, buy some land and then build houses and now do the housing development. People like the type of house you built, you can attract a certain customer and make money that way. There's different strategies that apply at different phases during different years and also most importantly for different artists. And this is where we get to the second part of the equation. I was talking with one of my clients and he was cool with another one of my clients. And one of these clients were one of these people who had really good timing. They were able to take advantage of a moment in time and get some amazing results, extreme results, but this artist understood. They were like, well, two things. One, the timing isn't the same as when that artist came in. And two, there's some attributes that don't quite add up when it comes to me versus that other artist. Number one, my audience wouldn't make me as big as that artist's audience couldn't make him. Just understanding that alone, that difference takes a lot of weight off of the artist's shoulder because they know the reality of where they can go based on the choice that he made. He knew that he wasn't going to be able to be as big as that particular artist, particularly 100% indie. Doesn't mean he couldn't be successful indie. He's already successful indie, the guy I'm talking about, but he knew he couldn't be that other artist. That level of success, indie, because they have different audiences. It just is what it is. And that's something you should think about for your audience. He also understood his marketability. When you look at him versus that other artist and the type of people that that artist would touch and appeal to is just not the same. Again, it is what it is. These are things that you have to think about and be aware of for yourself because this determines the strategy that you decide to take on. Now, before I go further in this video and speak on how you think through the strategies that you take on, I must say, this is the second video in my Saturday series that I'm starting back up. And the only way that I know that this Saturday series is helpful, useful is that you subscribe. So if you could please subscribe to this channel, if you appreciate this type of talk, just straightforward, no fancy editing, then I'll know that it's worth doing because I can always do the fancy editing and those style YouTube videos that trigger the algorithm and speak to a certain set of audience. But I know there's some people out there who really just want the real, they don't necessarily want to just be entertained education wise. So I can shoot these and put these up easily as long as I know that there's people on the other side that want to hear it. Please subscribe. Now, that being said, when it comes to understanding the strategies that you can choose, it truly does come down to building a bridge between you and the audience that you're trying to connect with. And it has to work on both sides. There has to be this balance because if the audience connects with it, it works. But you don't like it. At some point, you're going to burn out. You're going to feel this disconnect with who you are, the brand that you would like to communicate, the expression that you have as an artist, and you're just going to stop. And this is what you see a lot of times where you think, oh man, that artist was moving and they just fell off. A lot of times, I tell you so many times, most times actually, artists falling off is not because people stopped caring about them. People end up not caring about certain people because they stopped short or their business isn't right in a way that causes them to stop short and not execute. That is way more common than people just actually not caring about somebody after they got on. So making sure that there's this balance where the fans care and it connects with them, but also it meets a certain level of criteria with you that you can do it and you can do it sustainably because you aren't at odds internally. It's an important part, especially for an artist, someone who's trying to communicate something that's coming from them. But beyond that, then we have to get into some other realities. What are your strengths? Legitimately, what are your strengths? So if I just go back to thinking about the two artists that I was, the artists who had this greater pop appeal, if you will, that guy has some talents. He could do all different types of quirky things. It might as well be like a circus act if he wants to. He has that type of talent. But he can't sing like this other guy can. This other guy, he can sing his butt off. No music, he doesn't need a thing and grabs your attention just like that. Understanding that, that means I can lean into this ability that that guy can't lean into and it has nothing to do with competition versus somebody else. It's just about understanding your strengths and who you are and if you understand that, pay attention to yourself in that way. Inevitably, you will stand out and beat out other people who don't quite understand themselves to the same level or just can't provide what you can provide. So y'all both have a place. He can't be him and he can't be him. So what are your strengths legitimately? There's some people who can, they can record themselves, they can mix and master, they can do all these things. And when you can do that, it's a lot easier to drop a massive volume of music because you're in control of the entire operation versus somebody who has to spend a lot of money and doesn't have that money to create a high quality mix and master. You hear what I'm saying? All right. So a strategy that might require those things is a strength for one person, but it's pretty difficult for another person. But hey, if you get by to a point where I now have enough money and I have a trustworthy mix and mastering engineer and I could just pay them, oh, now all of a sudden that strategy opens up to you. So every strategy, all right, doesn't have to be a limitation forever. Some things unlock at new levels, depending on what you're achieving, depending on what skills you gain through time. And now you can do something that you couldn't do before. Resources, all these things, leverage, leverage, leverage, everything that you gain from a skill to a group of friends, a community, a fan base, everything is leverage and they unlock new strategies from you for you, all right? But before I get there, I want to go a little bit deeper into those strengths. So again, if somebody freestyles, oh, they can just hop on a bunch of covers and things like that, right? That's a real skill. That is a real gift that they can now just freestyle all the time and build their audience. They might be struggling a little bit more and creating great music. Or you have somebody like Juice Row who could literally freestyle for like an hour plus. You have some people who can look at a word randomly and they can make a song. Like I've seen women write songs just like that and sing them like freestyle songs that feels like a song, right? Just because they saw a word pop up, I've seen rappers rap versus. And it's one thing to rap, like I can come up with some bars that kind of string together and rhyme and sound kind of good. But if I just see a random word, I can do that. It's not anything special. Somebody who can do it and people are like, yo, that's dope though. It strikes a chord. That's a certain level. And that's a strength when you can freestyle and people like, yo, that actually made sense. That wasn't just a bunch of random words that kind of sound good together. That was a bar, right? So understand these strips. Your looks could be a strength, right? Your understanding of community. You might have a marketing mind. Some artists legitimately have marketing self promotional minds. There's so many things. There's artists that I know that also had a background in like film. We've got some homies who have some film backgrounds or they did weddings and things like that. And now you're competing against this guy doing content all the time, not realizing, oh, he's moving off the foundation of a skill set, right? So there's so much when it comes to strengths that you really need to think through. And then of course, the opposite of that is weaknesses, right? The last thing that I want to get to, and I touched on this already, and that is your resources. Your resources, the money you have, the time you have, this person might not have a wife and kids or a real job or any of that stuff. So they might have more time to put in, right? The skills you have, all these things matter, right? And this is something that we do consistently that have allowed us to help artists blow up in so many different ways from influencer campaigns to just organic content and doing millions and even hundreds of millions of streams legitimately at all these things and different strategies and tying them together because we sit down with artists, we talk to the artists and we have seen so many different things, not just one route of success that we might have done with one artist that we were attached to, right? So we can help them see it for themselves. That's something that you need to do. If you want help doing that, we actually have a program going right now for a dollar. We have a 30-day challenge just for one dollar where you can chop it up with us, see multiple strategies that are available and how you should think through picking a strategy for yourself that right direction and see exactly what it requires to prepare to get 1,000 fans in 30 days, which is what many people who have done this challenge have achieved, right? Only for a dollar at www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash 30 days. Again, that's www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash 30 days. I'll put a link below this video as well. This is one of the most important things you can do because wasting time going the wrong direction fast is not as valuable as finding the right direction and doing it consistently, no matter how slow it is. As long as you know you're going down the right path, the lack of anxiety that comes with that certainty, the lack of overwhelm that you feel is refreshing and allows you to just create, just focus on the thing, right? Which is creating something as dope as possible, right? Connecting with people, but you're doing it with the right people and just getting better at your craft as a whole, including the business side of things. That's cool and it's easy to think about everything when you know it's all for the right reason, the right purpose because it's in the right direction. So that's the trap that we fall in today because of this information age where there's so much available, there's infinite options. The door to your success might be a trap door for me. So please think about your strengths, truly taking consideration your resources before you follow a strategy of an artist that you see that's just doing things, right? And look at when they benefited, how they benefited. Look at the entire climate, right? Did they go from zero to this household name during a period where there was super virality on a platform that they were moving on? If so, that has to be taken into consideration. It doesn't mean that what they're doing doesn't work at all or they don't have any knowledge at all. It just means that that path wouldn't have done the same thing if they did the exact same thing today. So you can't follow their advice as if, oh, I'm going to do the exact same thing and that's going to work today. It's like if you posted one song a week on SoundCloud today, like Russ did, the thing that blew him up, you will be wild for thinking that posting a song a week on SoundCloud and doing nothing else would get you the results that Russ got in 2024, 25, 26 and beyond. And then the biggest thing to consider is when is it worth doing something that isn't you? Because there are moments that exist that it can be kind of worth it. Let me give an example. I'll go back to TikTok because that's just a popular topic people understand when I talk about TikTok in particular. If it's 2020, 2021 and you're like, I don't want to post content five times a day. I just don't want to do it. Please don't make me post content five times a day. Well, it's kind of worth it. The sacrifices that you would have to make, the level that you would grow in that time, if you were doing it right, would be ridiculous and you wouldn't be able to see similar results outside of that window. You would be up here, right? But doing that same strategy today, exactly like that, you're here. Let's pretend you're starting lower than that. So there is a level of success, but now that it only gets you here, there's other strategies that could get you there. So it's worth looking around and seeing which suits you best. It's not as worth just blindly trying to figure out that strategy, right? Because it's on this level. But when that strategy could get you off the charts, right? With just doing that, it was worth thinking about. Does that make sense? You know, I'm just trying to give devices and frameworks to think through the biggest problem that most artists have, which is not lack of money, which is not connections or lack thereof. It's actually understanding what to do with what they have so they can make progress from where they are and then have new leverage from the new place to unlock other strategies that creates another set of decisions that they have to make to make more progress and more progress. Your career should just be a series of making progress over and over again. That's all it is. But you got to figure out how to make that progress. The best way to go about it in a sustainable way. So again, hopefully you find these Saturday videos helpful. Would love to know your thoughts in the comment section below. And as I mentioned, for only one dollar, if you would like to talk with me, hop in the challenge space. I'm in there every day chopping it up with artists, hoping them to think through where they are. It's only a dollar www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash 30 days to find out how to get in while it's still available. Now check out the next video if you're still here.