20 Years Of Business Advice For Producers (Extended Cut)

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Listen to lessons 1-16 in this video:
https://youtu.be/II-L5lJyJEI

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Credits:
Intro music by BRASKO 

Creators & Guests

Host

Aaron Ferrucci

CEO of Dark Label Music

Host

Daniel Grimmett

Founder of Dark Label Music

What is Producer Management?

Imagine if you had a wiretap, and could listen in on real conversations between professional music producers and their teams—the deals, the strategies, the unfiltered advice...

Well, that is exactly what the Producer Management Podcast gives you.

If you're a working producer-songwriter balancing freelance work, growing your personal brand, and breaking into the major label world, this is for you.

We uncover modern strategies and explore both traditional and unconventional ways that professional producers are building careers for the future.

Brought to you by Dark Label Music—the growth team trusted by 700+ producers worldwide, from early-stage freelancers to GRAMMY-winning veterans.

I have a producer right now who is in Ukraine, and when we first started working together, he expressed that, you know, he struggled with productivity. There came a period where he only had three hours of electricity per day. Can you imagine that? And guess what? That was the most productive he's ever been.

Hey everyone, Daniel Grimmett here. You're listening to Producer Management, the podcast that lets you in on real conversations between professional music producers and their teams, the deals, the strategies, and the unfiltered advice. This show is brought to you by my company, Dark Label Music.

When producers want clarity, strategy, and growth, they call us. We're not a course or a coach. We're hired as a strategic partner, part management, part creative and business development, designed for the realities of being a music producer right now.

So whether you're a small studio or a Grammy-winning veteran, reach out to us at darklabelmusic.com to see if we can help. Okay, so I got my first paycheck from music when I was about 14 years old. And fast forward 23 years later, I've had the opportunity to build multiple music companies that have earned anywhere from six figures per year to six figures per month.

So as you might imagine, I've learned a ton of lessons along the way. And today we dropped a new video on the Dark Label YouTube channel called 20 Years of Business Advice for Producers in 17 Minutes. If you haven't watched that yet, I would recommend doing that first.

I'll link to it in the show notes. As I was brainstorming for that video, I was flooded with ideas but could only include about 16 of them in the video. However, I had about a dozen more and I'm going to share those with you now.

So consider this episode an extended cut of our YouTube video. We're going to pick up exactly where the video left off, so let's dive in. This is lesson 17.

This happens at least once a week. Producers often think that when they get bored, it means that they need to switch to something radically different. And this basically causes them to always be starting over every few years or just constantly resetting their progress.

Being bored in general usually just means that you're really good at what you do. You've mastered whatever it is you're doing. It's not necessarily a signal to abandon ship.

It's a signal to evolve. I can definitely relate to this. We all go through this.

The way that I deal with it is looking at what is the newer, exciting version of the same thing that I'm already doing. For example, after seven years of consulting producers, we've transformed and moved into producer management. Similar work, but a bigger challenge and potentially bigger payoff.

Sometimes I'll have producers get burnt out with client work. They'll tell me, hey, I hate client work, all that. And they want to pivot to something completely different.

But I always ask them, well, what is it that you don't like about it? And usually it's like, oh, well, these artists, the clients I'm working with, all that. So I'll tell them, hey, if I could replace all of your clients with these really great artists that are emerging and about to break, you know, would that change your opinion on it? And many of them say yes. Well, technically that is just a newer, exciting version of the business, right? That's not really a call to completely pivot.

They just don't like the current version of what they're doing. If you earnestly try and cannot come up with a newer, exciting version, then OK, maybe it's time to explore a pivot. But don't necessarily throw years of progress away just because the novelty has worn off.

Lesson 17. Don't pivot just because you're bored. Think it through.

Lesson 18. So last year I was speaking with a producer that I advise who has a really big YouTube channel. He sells digital products.

Everything's going really well. He makes a ton of money, but he was feeling lost. He came to me and he was like, hey, I really think I need to scale up my business more.

And when I asked him why, he said, well, I want to make more money. And I pushed further. So why do you want to make more money? And he told me, hey, I really want the freedom to just be able to make the music that I want to make and build my catalog.

After I did some digging, because I knew I was going to have to prove this to him, logically. So I did some digging. I uncovered that he already makes six figures per year and lives in a small town where he can survive on much less.

He was earning like twice what he needed to live comfortably, even with kids and owning property and taxes and all that. I told him, well, I got good news for you. The good news is that you have already made it, my friend.

Congratulations. The goal that you are describing is technically already a reality. It's just that you're too lost in the sauce to realize it.

The real problem was this. He felt guilty spending time on music projects that he really wanted to do if they weren't going to make money like his other businesses, which that's not even true, by the way, but that's what he thought. So he was constantly chasing more without asking why.

He was going after a goal that he already technically had if he just kind of stopped and looked. So the most sustainable careers happen when you define what enough looks like for you and then build a life that matches it, not when you endlessly chase bigger numbers with no finish line. That is a very miserable way to live.

So lesson 18, stop chasing what you already have. Lesson 19, over the past, I'd say about five years, I've seen an uptick in producers consuming marketing and business advice on the internet. I think being interested in that is a step in the right direction.

It's not a bad thing. However, sometimes applying this advice too literally, which I see very often, it just doesn't work in our industry. The music business is sort of a vibe business, meaning it's not exactly 100% logical, right? We're creating money out of thin air based on creativity and cultural value.

Most online business gurus just don't understand that piece of it. I've hired a lot of business mentors and consultants, and it was definitely worth my time. It was great, but none of them had really built music businesses.

So there was always this 50% of what I did that they don't really understand. They couldn't really wrap their heads around it. So just keep that in mind.

Only about 50% of that classic kind of business training will perfectly apply to what you do as a music producer. Take what works, adapt what doesn't, and remember that our industry has some unique dynamics that many traditional business models just simply don't account for. So lesson 19, business advice on the internet doesn't always apply to music.

Lesson 20, most producers aren't fast and efficient because they don't have to be. There's no real deadline, no pressure, just endless time to tweak that hi-hat for three hours in a row. And sometimes you got to do that.

But when I ran my music production company, I had a rule for my producers that they had to be able to produce a song a day, a great song, not like a sketch, like a finished professionally sounding track in a day. Because my company had anywhere from 20 to 50 songs on the docket at any given time. So we didn't really have a choice.

And at first, I thought it was funny. Every single one of them, I had multiple producers that worked for me back then, every single one of them didn't think that was possible. They thought that was crazy.

But at the same time, again, they didn't really have a choice because that's what the job requirement was. So if they wanted the job, they had to figure out ways to do it. And funny enough, when forced to, they did figure out ways to do it.

And I've seen this in many other facets of my work too, just consulting producers, right? I have a producer right now who is in Ukraine. And when we first started working together, he expressed that, you know, he struggled with productivity. But over time, as, you know, unfortunately, the war went on over there, there came a period where he only had three hours of electricity per day.

Can you imagine that? Three hours per day of electricity. That's all you get. And guess what? That was the most productive he's ever been.

Because again, he had to be. Lesson 20 is, constraints create productivity. Sometimes you have to set some on purpose.

Lesson 21. This is more of a heads up, I guess, than it is a lesson. But you're probably going to have to spend at least the same amount of time or more running your business than you are making music.

And this seems like a bummer at first, but it's actually a good thing. Because if you do that for a period of time, then you will earn the right to have somebody take that stuff off your plate. An assistant, a manager, etc.

But I noticed that a lot of producers, they want all the stuff taken off their plate way too early in their career. So they end up wasting a lot of time kind of holding off and trying to find someone else to do it for them instead of just investing that time into getting good at it first, which ultimately would attract better candidates for management or at least create enough excess cash flow so that you could farm out the things that you don't want to do. Making great money and only having to focus solely on music is not a right.

That is earned and it's generally earned over time. A caveat here for beginners listening to this, I wouldn't even worry about any of the business stuff until you're a pretty, you know, killer producer. Lesson 21.

In the early days, you'll probably spend the same amount or more time running your business than making music. All right. Lesson 22.

Again, this is more of a warning than a lesson. I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of veteran producers, ones that have been doing this for decades. They're in their 40s, their 50s, sometimes even in their 60s.

And many of them have accomplished a lot. They may have Grammy nominations or wins, multi-platinum records, working with major label artists, all the stuff that the younger guys look up to. However, almost none of them had been putting money away for retirement.

The lucky few at least have, you know, a large gear collection that's probably worth some money, or they purchased some real estate along the way, or maybe they have a, you know, spouse that is financially responsible. But I don't know. I just found this to be very surprising.

There's no 401k plan in the music business. Lesson 22. There's no retirement plan in music.

Start investing now. This one throws a lot of producers off guard because they're not used to hearing this perspective. Lesson 23.

One of the biggest things producers tell me they struggle with is consistency. And I get it. Consistency is important, but I'm going to teach you a lesson here that will probably put you more at ease with this and give you a different way to think about it.

If you look at my YouTube channel, you'll see that our uploads are not that consistent on first look. I think maybe we did six videos scattered throughout last year, and that's it. Most YouTubers are doing a video per week.

However, our YouTube channel generates more income and gets us bigger opportunities and better deal flow than probably 90% of other channels in the music space. And I know a lot of these other YouTubers. That's how I can say that with confidence.

But how? How does it do that? How are we getting those results when we are technically not that consistent? Well, it's not that we aren't consistent. It's just that you're only looking at things in a small window of time. If you stretch out over seven years, we've actually done dozens and dozens of videos that have gotten better and more effective over time.

And we've shown up year after year, even if the pace isn't weekly. So this isn't a call to be lazy, obviously. But if you plan on spending the next few decades building this career and truly building something that is generational, then you don't have to harshly judge yourself based on what you did or didn't get done this week.

You just kind of got to do your best. If you zoom out and look at your consistency over months and years, things will be a lot smoother versus if you're micromanaging it by days and weeks. Lesson 23, consistency is easier when you expand the time horizon.

Lesson 24, the number one skill to a successful music production career, if I could only pick one, would probably be your ability to create demand for yourself. Demand pretty much solves every business problem that producers face. You need more work? Demand solves that.

You want to charge more? Demand solves that too. Wish you could attract better opportunities? Demand does that too. Want to be able to say no to things? You need to be in demand.

There are two ingredients. Ingredient one is being able to bring things to the table that the majority of other people can't do. I mean, if we look at it objectively, a lot of producers, for the most part, kind of doing the same things as each other.

But you can't only have that one ingredient. So ingredient two is making sure that enough people in the market know that about you. You should have an ever-growing amount of evidence and witnesses demonstrating that you bring more to the table than the next guy.

Lesson 24, when in doubt, just focus on things that increase your demand. All right, let's throw one in here for the beginners. Lesson 25, I noticed this trauma-like fear about getting screwed over in the music business.

And I'll tell you now that this will probably happen at least once in your career. I'd be surprised if it didn't. But the idea that everyone is out to get you is most of the time blown out of proportion.

You probably could be more worried about someone potentially doing a bad job or dropping the ball. That's more realistic. But either way, this is just a reality that we all face at some point, getting screwed over.

And there's a big difference, though, between getting screwed over and getting straight up scammed. People throw the scammer word around all the time on the internet, right? I've definitely been screwed over. I can't say that I've necessarily been scammed.

However, I've met people that have. And most of the time, scammers are not actually the public-facing figures that have a big online presence. Most of the time, that stuff is kind of happening more in the shadows, at least in the music business.

I'm not sure about other industries. Usually, if it's a public figure, they're called out for that. But just the fear of getting screwed can sometimes paralyze you from taking action.

And I get it. But just take reasonable precautions, get things in writing when appropriate, and understand that occasional disappointments are just a part of this career path. Lesson 25, there's really only one way to avoid getting screwed in the music industry, and that's to not participate.

Lesson 26, this one is for everybody. So after having conversations with thousands upon thousands of artists, producers, and other music industry people over the past couple of decades, I've noticed something. Many of them have a completely different lens they view this industry through.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think they were all talking about completely different businesses. Some leaned more optimistic, some pessimistic, some realistic, and others a combination of all of those. But the big thing to know here is that this is kind of a choice.

Someone who gets all their information from, let's say, music journalists and research companies who study innovation, data, and growth in the music business, they're going to have a very different opinion of what's going on versus someone who gets their information from Instagram and the comments section of YouTube videos. So those who hang around washed up people or people that have never achieved their goals, they see things differently from those who are around people that are killing it. And I know that sounds obvious, but again, the point here is that I think this is a choice.

Funny enough, I had a YouTube comment the other day under one of my videos. This guy like wrote this huge long thing about, well, I always recommend to people, you know, don't bother investing into this. You're going to end up wasting a bunch of money, all that kind of stuff.

And I'm, you know, sort of thing. I didn't say this, but sort of thinking in my head, it's like, all right, buddy, well, then let me give the advice, right? How about that? Your lens shapes your reality. It affects your decisions, your mood, your results ultimately.

So be intentional about the information you consume and the people that you surround yourself with because they are 100% programming your view of what's possible. Lesson 26, the lens at which you choose to look at the music business matters a lot. So choose wisely.

Lesson 27 is one of the best things that could ever happen to your music career while also being one of the hardest things to gain. And that is having a really great business partner. I think it's easy for us to let pride take over and want to feel like we did everything ourselves.

And there are some times where that's needed and that's all fine. But the biggest, and I mean, biggest advantage I've had my entire career was having great partnerships, understanding my strengths and my weaknesses, and then supplementing that with partnerships has truly been my power skill and my biggest competitive edge. Even when I was a teenager, I wasn't a prodigy musician by any standard, but I was able to get the prodigy musicians to be in my band.

That was my skill. In business, I've had three great partnerships and I've been very lucky. Even the two from the past that aren't partnerships anymore, all ended well and we're still all friends.

The problem though, is this, the unfortunate truth is 90% of partnerships fail and they don't work out. That's why it's even hard to recommend this one to people. But man, that 10% of the time when it works, it's freaking magical.

So a few pieces of advice I could give you on this are be open to it, become worth partnering with first, you know, personality wise and business wise. That's a huge piece of this. Always start with the trial period.

Don't just dive into it. Pick someone who compliments your strengths and weaknesses, not necessarily just a carbon copy of yourself. That can just be more of a friend that you collaborate with.

But for a business partner, you need somebody that is actually different from you generally. And think of it just like any other relationship, right? There will be ups, there will be downs. So don't just jump ship when you hit your first big hurdle.

There will probably be a time where you're like, crap, how are both of us going to get paid this month? But you only really need to jump ship if you realize that your business partner cannot sail through the storm with you. That's maybe when I would start considering the split. Lesson 27, partnerships when they work are magical.

So I've got two more left here for you. Lesson 28. An interesting trend that I notice when I talk to producers is that they are often convinced that they aren't hitting their goals because of just one thing, right? Oh, it's my portfolio or I just got to make more content or it's my website, my branding is not dialed in yet.

I'm still working on my site or I'm not charging enough. Things like that. I think this happens because marketers are really good at marketing to you and making you believe that it's just this one thing that you're missing and they have the solution that will help.

So let me take this opportunity to tell you that it is never, ever, ever, ever just one thing. Although I do think it's a good idea to focus on improving one thing at a time. Each individual thing is most likely not going to be some massive game changer.

The game changer is when all of the parts come together to form a well-oiled machine. It's the structure of all of the different skills you have put together in the right order. But if you just put one part of this up on a pedestal and it doesn't work, then you tend to just set it aside and jump to the next quote unquote part instead of seeing it through and then connecting that part to the next part in order to build your engine.

Success in this business isn't about finding that one magical solution. It's about building a complete system where all the parts work together and it takes some time to do that. Lesson 28.

Producers tend to overestimate individual parts and underestimate the entire machine. Lesson 29. It takes years and sometimes decades to actually figure this one out.

I'm still working on it myself. I'm slowly becoming more and more convinced that this is probably just something I'll have to work on forever until the end of time. We touched on this a little bit in the last episode about the full-time producer's identity crisis.

I recommend listening to that afterwards if you haven't heard that episode yet. But the people in the music business that I look up to the most are the people who have somehow figured out a way to detach their ego from all this. And the only thing that I've seen work in order to do that is doing some thorough and intentional spiritual growth.

Not that I've been perfect at this, but looking back, I was very fortunate to find the rooms of recovery when I was about 18 years old. For those that don't know my backstory, I had a pretty gnarly drug addiction when I was a teenager. Anyway, some people find this through whatever, religion or stoicism or just having kids.

And I'm not telling you what to do or what to believe in. I don't think anyone should. That's a you thing.

But I'm just telling you that the ninja level 10 business strategy is finding a way to slowly detach your ego from the music business and care less as you continue to grow and dominate in your career. On the surface, those things almost seem like they would contradict each other, right? But that's kind of what makes spiritual growth so interesting. It's a bit of a mystery until you see it working.

Lesson 29, the best music career is one your ego isn't attached to. If you go to producermanagement.com, you'll find links to jump on our newsletter, which I highly recommend because it's the perfect companion to the show. And if you enjoy what we're doing here, please leave us a five-star review or share it with a friend.

Thanks for listening. That's the episode.