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Tip Three: Stop Skipping Steps. Invest In Your Long-Term Career
Say you’ve finished your album and happen to have a little bit of change, maybe a 401(k) you’ve cashed in to pursue this thing called music. You’re considering spending that change to “work” your single with terrestrial radio so everyone can hear you on their morning drive and you can become Bruno Mars overnight. Everyone is telling you radio will make you an instant star with this record, this one record that will change everything for you, bringing you enough in sales to quit your day job. Chances are it won’t change everything for you, at least not overnight. Radio play and even TV exposure no longer guarantees 
sales. Ruben Studdard recently bore that out on Soundscan with his best album in forever only to debut to sales of only 3500 copies (luckily, his on-the-ground hustle has helped bring him closer to decent sales). The point is that radio is no longer enough. Estelle was on every primetime and several daytime talkshows and she too fell short of expectations. So, even TV appearances don’t guarantee sales anymore. If not worked properly, your star project can be a wasted opportunity. And if you’re lucky enough to have a great product, the last thing you want to do is waste it focusing on low ROIs.
So, you have to make a plan -- an actual written plan -- for how you plan to work this album for the next two years. The plan is not just to sell this record; that’s actually an increasingly small part of what albums are for these days. The project is your calling card to bookers, your foot in the door for promoters, your gift to potential fans; it’s a tool to get to and build your audience -- it is not the end game, but a pawn in the game of what is called your music career. Treat it as such. This is the business of music and while the music still must be the best thing since slice bread if it’s to have a chance, bargain bins are full of amazing, unsung albums by defeated artists. You must strategically and methodically plan to work this project for two years. This is not dropping a lead single, a rush of promo before the release date, celebrating the release with maybe a video or second single and then expecting it to work itself thereafter. That plan is DOA. We’ll forget you and that project within six months. I promise you. I’ll talk more extensively about the new, two-year pre and post “rollout” of an album in a follow-up piece.
In the interim, map out how you can maximize this album for as long as you can to support your touring game. That’s right, your TOURING game, because the opportunities and money to be made in the business today is in your LIVE show. Ask 
Frankie Beverly & Maze or Rachelle Ferrell. Neither has had fresh product in an age and both tour extensively without missing a beat. Why? Because they didn’t skip steps and they worked their tour game very early on, region by region, conquering market by market, so that no matter what they’ve got out or don’t, they can eat. You must do the same, picking five to eight markets that care about your genre and you can afford to go into for free or low cost to open for someone bigger and gig at an established series where the following is devoted to the series regardless of the act. Introduce yourself to this market’s retail, audience, deejays, gatekeepers, promoters, club owners, college radio folk, etc.—which means doing research on who these players are in advance of coming and then scheduling to see them in-person while in town. Kill the show (you must murder it!). Tell everyone how to follow you on social media and collect everyone’s email addresses, including the audience (raffle off CDs or something to get that contact on cards or logs). Let promoters and owners know you’re willing to come back on the cheap again if at a slightly higher take to cover your expenses, book the next gig(s) with them, announce when you’re coming back via e-blast and social media. Promote the hell out of it and tell folks to bring the uninitiated with them. Then come back and slay the audiences again with another kick-ass show, feed your legend and increase your draw. Collect more info, more contacts, more bookings, etc. Be gracious, professional, on-time for everything and likable even when things aren’t entirely as pristine as you’d like at the show (I can’t stress this enough, reputation building is key here—but don’t be a sucka either). Eventually you’ll get your real asking price.
Repeat this formula and add new markets to the ones you’re working, each time asking for more money reflective of your newly proven and growing draw, because the truth is that any promoter worth their salt doesn’t care that you have a song on the radio if you can’t get bodies in the room to buy a ticket to see you. The first question asked is “what is your draw and where have you locally (meaning in the city you’re visiting) gotten that draw before?” Don’t lie. Promoters and owners know and talk to one another and if you say your draw is a room of 200, but you only did 50 under similar circumstances in a different venue in the same city, you’re toast. Do these steps in every market and region that makes sense for you to tackle, first starting at home (if no one is checking for you at home, why should they check for you anywhere else?). Eventually work your way from the club circuit to the larger, more lucrative festival circuit, both here and overseas. The rest will come, slowly. It’s a humbling and hand-to-mouth plan, I know, but it’s partially how Eric Roberson became a room filler in enough markets around the world to make an enviable living as a touring artist without major label support. Some folks, like many Southern Soul acts, are only major draws in their region, but that’s okay; you may not get the world but rivaling a lawyer’s salary while doing something you love, if only regionally, is a helluva career.
Besides, not skipping steps is all about knowing where you are NOW, not where you aspire to be, so that you can plan for the next step to get where you want to go. It requires investment, smart investment, the plan I laid out requires resources to do so, it requires sacrifice, and is far less glamorous than myths suggest. Club touring, voiceovers, session work, singing backup on reality show competitions, supporting vocalist for bigger names, conference gigs, private parties with the right audience, and—if you’re lucky—TV/movie licensing; none of it should be beneath you initially and even mid-career, since you need all of it to keep the lights on and to fund the parts that will get you further in your career but that no one will pay for. Ask the hardest working indie lady, Sy Smith, about that. Multiple revenue streams matters.
There is a time to pay for someone to work your single at radio, but not before you’ve got a ground audience to maximize that opportunity, to increase a draw that began with word of mouth and strong relationships. There are newcomers featured in major magazines whose weak touring game made the fact they were in VIBE, Fader, or even Time and Newsweek, meaningless from a long-term career perspective. That’s because without a draw, an audience, a carefully, painstakingly cultivated following that is eagerly anticipating your every move, who are invested in YOU as much as your music, you’ll never get to be the star you aspire to be, no matter how good you are (and you still have to be VERY good). Today, you must first be a strategic business and marketing professional, or at least your manager and/or team must be, before you can ever be a star or at the very least a full-time working artist for life. And, isn’t that really the dream?
By L. Michael Gipson
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Click Here to read Critical Matters: Being a Star Before You’re a Star, Pt. Two (The Rollout)