There’s a lot of ways to earn a living as a musician, but no matter what way you choose, or combinations of ways, you will always be working FOR one of two groups: musicians or consumers. You need to understand the distinctions and know how to communicate your message correctly for each group.
Michael Stelzner describes 7 such distinctions at the Writing White Papers blog. Go read it for additional insight, but here’s the 7 points with my “music-fying” comments (substitute the word musicians for Business and the Bob that’s mentioned is Bob Bly):
- Business want to buy. Consumers want to save.
If you’re looking to work for a musician, it’s likely they are looking for what you do. They are “in the market”, this is not always true of consumers.
- The business reader is more sophisticated. This
means the reader often has more knowledge than the writer. Bob says,
“When you’re writing a promotion to sell artificial joints to
orthopedic surgeons, you could never know a fraction of what they know
about orthopedic surgery.”
Musicians know about music, use the fact that you do too.
- Business readers read more content. Bob explains,
“If your prospect’s job is to purchase maintenance services for a big
factory, and your copy’s all about how to save money on factory
maintenance, he’ll read it.”
Musicians WILL listen to you and/or your playing IF you’ve convinced them it’s worth it. Again, they are looking.
- Business readers must take many steps to make decisions. Consumers often buy on impulse.
There are multiple reasons a musician will hire you, identify as many as you can.
- Multiple audiences must be appeased to make a sale.
Bob explains, “In the corporate world today, most buyers need someone
else to approve larger purchases. And the more expensive your product
is, the more buying influences are involved.”
For musicians this simply means that music is (usually) a group activity. Keep that in mind.
- Business solutions are often more complex. This requires more explanation of features and benefits.
Make sure you have your pitch DOWN – and then back it up by performing.
- The business buyer has dual motivations.
Bob explains, “They buy for their company, but they also buy for
themselves. So if I’m an IT professional, I might buy the software that
I know will help my company run its business more efficiently but I’m
not going to buy that software if it’s going to be a headache and a
nightmare to install on my existing systems. “
This is the big one. A musician is hiring you because you will get them closer to THEIR goals of reaching consumers. But they’re also hiring you because they want the process to be fun and creative too.
