I hope you are staying cozy and warm – the winter bug has hit us and it’s already a nasty winter in my opinion. I’m just not built for this cold weather and kudos to you if you are!

I am fortunate enough to work with a tour every Christmas and it is always so fun to put together. Fun and stressful, yes, because you are trying to keep yourself organized with every presenter that you are talking to. This year, I’m managing a 16-date tour that spans across the nation, and boy am I glad this is the second time around tackling this tour. 

There’s so much to handle, so if you are tackling a tour yourself, you WILL overlook a few things. However, until you get a tour manager or assistant to help you plan the logistics, don’t take the “It’ll take care of itself” attitude. Trust me, hotel reservations, meals and shower facilities just don’t take care of themselves.

We all know about load in, soundcheck and showtime, but here are a few details you may be forgetting when you’re advancing a show that will make all the difference.

Early check in for the driver – Being on the road, playing a show every night, being exhausted, you’re not going to want to wait for that annoying 3pm check in time at a hotel when you arrive at the next stop, and you especially shouldn’t make your driver wait after an overnight haul. Call ahead and push the hotel for early check in. Explain why you need it and they will usually take care of you if you call enough in advance (2-3 weeks out is best!).

Credit Card Authorization forms – Another detail with hotels, if you’re paying ahead for anyone’s hotel room, be sure to request to fill out a Credit Card Authorization form so that when they check in and you’re not there, there are no issues.

Dietary Restrictions – Unless your bandmates  advertise to everyone on Instagram that all they eat is bacon, you’ll want to find out who in your band has any dietary restrictions. You don’t want to ruin a run of shows for someone who is vegetarian with no options to eat.

Merchandise – If you are selling CDs or other merch for an entire month of shows, that’s a lot of merchandise! For example, we’re shipping most of the merchandise to the first venue to hold and then take it away with us on the bus when it arrives. We had to make sure that they had the space to store all the boxes we will send and also if they could help us transfer it to the bus. Don’t forget to plan the logistics of your merchandise. How will each venue get the amount it needs? The earlier you plan this, the better!

Transporting Large Instruments – If you have anyone on in your band with a large instrument (think Bass), are they going to be able to fit it in the van or bus? Can you take it on the train or do you need an extra ticket? Is flying it in your budget and doable? Definitely check in with your bass player on what they are comfortable doing.

This post was inspired by just one phone call with the tour manager of an upcoming tour on what our last few snags were to take care of, so you can see, that even the people doing this for years can leave things out. But with a team and support, you can be ensured that with several eyes on one project, everything will get handled.

Cheers to you, hope you stay warm, and have a wonderful weekend.

How are you doing these days? I missed you last weekend, but for a good and happy reason. One of my clients got happily married and I was honored to be a part of the wedding. Everyone flew into Atlanta for the weekend and since both of the parties came from musical families, the dinner, the wedding, all of it was such a musical and beautiful event. It was truly a fairytale and I’m so happy for them.

These past few weeks a lot of change happened for me, both in business and in my personal life, but it’s all moving towards the direction for me to be the best assistant I can be to my clients. I’m focusing and diving in deeper in the music industry to start working in the booking world, not just the administrative side. I’m really excited for myself and also for you! The stories are only going to get better, I’m sure, working with agents, presenters, venues, students, teachers and more.

All in all, I’m working to get all my ducks in a row so that I can move efficiently and effectively in my work day, along with these added responsibilities. I’m all about organizing and making my work day go smoothly – this means prepping and making sure I have what I need to do my job. It feels really great to take care of that part of my business and also for my clients.

It got me thinking, most of the time, we throw ourselves in our projects and fail to tend to the backend of those projects. For example, you know you need to pitch for a hole in your tour in the northeast area, and you start running off those emails to presenters, but you start forgetting if someone responded or if you even sent that email. And that’s perfectly normal, but it’s overwhelming and takes up precious time when you are trying to remember everything you’ve done. And I’m not here to let you feel overwhelmed. I’m here to help you save time so that you can focus on what makes you happy in your career: your music, your projects, whatever you do that makes you feel connected to your art.

A part of my job as an assistant is to find ways to make recurring tasks go smoothly and also make it easier for them to know the status of projects or inquiries. This was a lot of on the job learning when I first started working for musicians, but I learned quickly. I noticed that certain people, like presenters advancing a show, asked for the same things, or that my client would always ask for me to find and share a link of his latest interview. That’s when I found my biggest pet peeve. I hated having to ask the same questions or asking for the same documents. I learned quickly to build myself folders of important information that I should always have handy. It was when I started working with other team members I learned that these folders have to be sharable and communication in checklists had to be accessed. Simple business process. For musicians!

So I put together the most common things I do for my clients and how I keep them and myself organized in the process, starting with press inquiries, contest submissions, and booking inquiries.

1. Press Inquiries – I’ve gone through this again and again, it’s so important to have your press items together in one place. Have it available online to send a quick link and also have it in a folder of Google Docs as a back up to share with you assistant if someone needs a quick photo or be resent a bio. Need guidance on what you need in a press kit? Read my blog post here on building your best press kit.

Once you have the tools to give the promo items to inquiries, you’ll want to have a checklist built to follow the process of the inquiry whether it’s an interview, feature, listing or preview. Include in the checklist:
–Media Outlet Name
–Type (blog, newspaper, video, etc.)
–Interviewer Name, Contact
–Date of Interview (add a column to make this confirmed or completed)
–Date of publication (when will it be posted or printed?)
–Link to feature (if it’s not online, have it scanned and hosted on your website.)

2. Contest Submissions / Booking Inquiries – I’ve put these two together because a lot of time, they are looking for the same things. It’s safe to say you can pull what you need from your press kit for most contest submissions and booking agents asking for your info. In addition to those press items, have a document ready with your past performances. Many times they ask when the last time you performed in the area and how it went. You’ll want to have that handy. Same with contests – most conferences that my clients have applied to ask what conferences they’ve done before. Presenters don’t have a second to waste when they are looking for talent so you want to be quick to respond and give them answers quickly.

Once you have your items, keep the inquiries organized in a similar manner as the press inquiries. Build a way to organize the many inquiries or submissions you make.

Include:
–Festival/Conference/Venue Name
–Booking Contact Name, Email, Phone
–Dates (Pending or confirmed)
–Status (Emailed, Followed Up, Second Follow Up, Offer Pending, Confirmed)

You won’t have to think about who you’ve contacted in the past, keep you updated on who the contact is that venue or festival AND will let you know when to follow up.

Yes, this takes a few minutes to set up, but once it’s done, you won’t have to take the time to remember if you’ve responded to someone or if that interview you did was posted yet. And it’s important because being a musician today is hard enough, you don’t want an ounce of overwhelm or frustration to add to your day. That’s definitely the last thing you need.

Is there a common or recurring task you need help keeping organized? Let me know by hitting reply and I can help you build an effective process to make it go smoothly and effortlessly. Some things that come to mind are social media promotions for shows, and traveling, but if you have a special task in mind, let me know and I’ll include it in next week’s newsletter.

I hope this inspires you to organize the backend of your career – once it’s done, you’ll be thankful for it later.

Have a great weekend and see you next Saturday.

Cheers,

Happy [belated] Halloween! Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year; I can never get enough of it. I hope you had a great celebration yesterday (and maybe you even have some more for tonight). I know I’m biased, but I’m pretty sure my pooch had best costume at the party. Check his adorable version of a wizard! 🙂

On to business, shall we?

In my working with musicians, I’ve learned that not only is it difficult to find a great virtual assistant, it’s difficult to find a virtual assistant with experience in the industry. Let’s face it, you can’t just hire ANY virtual assistant to help you – you might need someone in the US, or more specifically, in your time zone. You might want someone who has experience in the music industry, or maybe you want someone who wants to learn so you can train him or her (I’ve seen either work out for someone). Whatever you may be looking for, you may need some help knowing where to look for the right person to add to your team

Well, here are the best online sites from my experience to find the right VA for you.

1) Elance.com – I personally have found clients through this service, and continue to find qualified candidates for teams for my clients through this site. It’s free, it’s simple, and it’s not just for freelancers on temporary projects. I’ve personally seen long term working relationships come out of this site.

2) Send out posting through a university – More specifically, a university that has a music business or strong music program. New York University, Columbia College (Chicago) and Full Sail University are 3 that offer Music Business or Music Management degrees. Offering a virtual assistant job to students who are passionate and interested in the music industry can be very attractive. (Hey, that’s how I found myself here!)

3) Certified VA sites – Skip Indeed.com and Craigslist, you are in for a headache. Save time for the quality applicants and post on VA certifying sites, like VANetworking.com or IVAA.org. Experienced and qualified VA’s are listed there every day. Plus, you can find some there that have experience in the music industry.

These are my highly recommended places to start to find a great VA who will be qualified for what you need done. I hope this will give you a headstart on the search for the right assistant for you!

Have a great rest of your weekend, and try not to eat too much candy!

Cheers,

Well, how have you been? I hope all is well in your world. The past two weeks I had some unexpected travel come up and get in the way of writing to you, which I think you can understand does sometimes happen with life. Including a few stops in the east coast, I also visited the west coast of Florida. Considering the weather is cooling down here in New York and pea coats are out already, I could not complain about visiting the south where they enjoy warm weather year round. I’m definitely more of a summer than a winter kind of girl!
 
Because of traveling, my weeks were shortened, and to my genuine surprise the workload became selectively overwhelming. I say that it was a surprise because as an assistant responsible for keeping others organized and supporting them, I keep myself very organized with checklists, online tools to keep me on schedule and also take steps to be sure I keep my health in check. But something about the shortened weeks made me feel, and I’m being open and honest here, like I wasn’t able to get what needed to be done. It was not a great feeling.
 
You make goals for yourself to complete and when it doesn’t happen, frustration steps in, making all of it even more stressful.
 
I can imagine you feel this overwhelming feeling sometimes, wearing many different hats when running your own music career. For example, you have a show coming up, but you don’t just have to practice, you have to prepare a set list, get the band together, plan a rehearsal, let your fans know, pay tour band, promote, and that’s not even including the little things.
 
However, I did not let overwhelm shut me down like it sometimes can inevitably do. I took steps to help me get through that feeling and I was able to accomplish what needed to be done.
 
Here are a few tips that I used that you can implement right in the moment of overwhelm to get you out of it and back on track.
 
1) Prioritize your time – When I was feeling overwhelmed, instead of avoiding the work, I wrote down what absolutely needed to be done so that I could see exactly what my tasks were, instead of letting my brain just keep thinking of everything. This helped clear my head. Here’s a second tip: Add an estimate of how much time it will take to complete that task.

For example:
Reserving a hotel – 10 minutes
Putting together a set list – 20 minutes,
Dropping off a box at the post office – 40 minutes.
 
From there, you can see really clearly how to break up your day and get it all done.
 
2) Delegate what you can – I had to take a lesson from myself and delegate some of my tasks to a friend when I couldn’t be in two places at once. Delegating also doesn’t mean an assistant helping you, but also services/softwares to help you. Automatic reminders, pick up or drop off services can start to become worth it when your to-do list is at the max.
 
Next time you feel overloaded, take a look at what needs to be done and if you really need to be doing that, or if someone else could be doing that for you.
 
3) Take a break – Some people see this as avoiding the workload, but if you haven’t stepped away for hours, or haven’t eaten, the effects of not resting can make everything worse. Your brain and body needs a break from time to time in order to function. If you haven’t eaten, take 20 or 30 minutes to step away and eat. Take a walk around the block. If you meditate, take the time to do it to alleviate the stress.
 
I don’t recommend doing chores or personal errands – this still feels too close to work and doesn’t give your brain or body the break it needs.
 
These tips will help you the next time you feel overwhelmed with running your career and the many hats it requires you to wear. Ultimately, it’s important to remember that these overwhelming moments are temporary and eventually will pass. And you can learn and grow even more from those moments.
 
Have you ever felt overwhelmed? What steps do you take to handle the stress? I’d love to hear from you how you balance your sanity and everything that comes with being a musician and entrepreneur. I know it’s not always easy.
 
Have a great rest of your Saturday!

Cheers,

 

This week, my client was traveling every other day to a new state, so there were a lot of logistics to handle and details to take care of. During the week, I would get emails saying, “We need this!” or “Did this get sent to the pianist?” or “Who’s picking us up?” This was definitely him wondering what has been done / what hasn’t been done. I answered his questions, letting him know an itinerary is coming his way with these answers, but it got me thinking – I’d really like to avoid him feeling like he doesn’t know where his day is headed.

This showed to me that he expected his itinerary sooner than I was giving it to him. Maybe now he wants it a week before, whereas before, he was content with having the itinerary a few days before. It was clear that expectations had changed, without the communication.

So, I asked him if he wants me to send itineraries sooner and after a yes, I knew from there that he’d rather see an incomplete itinerary with all the information I had planned so far a week ahead, and then update him as details fall into place – driver’s names, added appearances, etc.

I realized in that moment, that him being his own CEO, him being a musician-entrepreneur, that he is wanting a better way to find his team (including me) accountable for what he assigns us.

Say for example, you hired an assistant (go you!) to help with your logistics or advancing shows or posting on social media. You make the next step and delegate them a task.

A few days later, are you wondering if it was done? A panic can set in and you ask yourself, did they do it? did they event start it? is it complete?

What to understand here is that as a musician running your own career, you have to hold your team accountable for what tasks they need to complete. Every manager does this, and you have to wear that hat!

Truth is, being clear on expectations and managing your team to hold them accountability saves you loads of time and most of all, your energy and stress.

For example, your publicist sends a weekly report on Friday afternoons, and does it EVERY Friday afternoon. You now know that if there are any new leads for press or if there is a new feature, they will be sure to let you know then. And if you want it sooner, you know to ask if it’s not Friday.

Expectations are clear, what’s in the report is clear, you don’t even have to think about all the questions that might come into your brain of “Will they send this?” “Did they send this?” “did they talk to the New York Times?” OR waste time following up or asking them these questions.

So to save YOU time and energy, here are some quick tools that I use myself to hold a team accountable.

1) Set your expectations and make them clear – Give deadlines and be detailed as much as possible. Otherwise, how can you expect results when you want them and how you want them?

For example, instead of saying, “Please proofread my blog post.”, instruct with “Please proofread by blog post by tomorrow morning if possible and email me when you’ve done it.”

This way, your assistant knows when you’d like it done and how they should let you know it’s done. This saves a lot of headache in the future.

2) Ask them to send a report – If you’ve set them on a task to do research or you simply want to know what they did that week, let them know you’d like a report on the results and set how many a week and when that works for both of you. Every Thursday afternoon, every morning, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Doesn’t matter, this is up to you.

3) For small tasks, ask them to send you a quick reply when it’s done – For tasks they can handle in the day, like checking voicemails or emailing someone back for you, ask them to send you a quick “done” or “complete” when they’ve done it. Ask them to do it the first time and for all future tasks like that and you’ll never ask again.

4) Ask them to build a checklist – This is really helpful for things like advancing a show or coordinating travel. Ask them to build a checklist that can be shared with you (Google Docs!) and to keep it updated with what has been done as far as advancing a show or booking your travel. You can go in and see what has been done and not have to waste a) time following up and b) energy/stress on wondering if it was done. See my post a couple of weeks ago about checklists!

Do you have other ways you hold your team accountable? I’d love to learn from you, too – just hit reply to share.  If you are just starting to build your own team, or have had a team and want to make them even better, keep these tips in mind when holding them accountable. Everyone will be happier in the end.

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Cheers,

I hope you are having a wonderful Saturday morning. In exactly one week I’ll be in Europe to visit my grandfather and do some sight seeing. My entire family (minus my parents, sister and nephew) all live in Europe – can you believe it? So it’s always such a treat when I’m able to go see them. I’m going to have to convince some of my cousins to visit New York! So, you won’t be hearing from me for a couple of weeks. However, I will return with many photos and lots and lots of chocolate. 🙂

This week, I worked on building an electronic press kit (EPK) for my client. She is planning a trip to Los Angeles for a writing workshop and is reaching out to many industry heads, publishers, agents, etc. to make some connections. Once she started to reach out more and more, more people were asking for her EPK, and she didn’t have one!

Lesson learned: have an EPK updated and ready to send out.

I started my research and put together everything we needed to build one. So, what exactly do you need in your EPK? Let’s go down the list together:

–Photos – choose 2-3 downloadable great photos (I try to pick one landscape, one portrait so there are options.) *Pro tip – include the photographers name in the caption.
–Bio – both short (50-word) and long bio. Make these downloadable as well.
–Music – choose 2-3 of your top songs for visitors to stream AND download.
–Videos – feature 1-2 videos to share.
–Press Quotes – feature your BEST 5-6 quotes.
–Press Release – Include your latest press releases if you have any.

Where we were going to host this was the next question. You have a couple of options if you are not currently working with a public relations company that can host your EPK on their site. You can:

1) Use an online service to build your EPK: If you have an updated account with Reverbnation or Sonicbids, they offer for a low monthly fee to create your own EPK and URL to share. This is the quick and easy fix, but lacks your own branding and personality. I recommend using this service until you can build an EPK on your website. Which brings me to…

2) Make a comprehensive page on your site dedicated to your press kit.Have your assistant create a page with the url www.yourbandname.com/presskit and build a site with your press kit items, nicely laid out. Make sure you include links to download photos and bio. You could even include a link to a zip file that downloads everything, but definitely keep it an option. Sometimes people just need one photo and not your whole career story.

In a matter of days, together as a team, we were able to pull together a brand new spankin’ EPK that looks great so she could start sharing with her contacts gracefully and easily.

I hope that this gives you a clearer idea of what you need set up and how you can have your own EPK ready to share with the world. If you have any questions on this or on which service to use for your EPK, just hit reply and I’d be happy to help!

Have a wonderful rest of your weekend, and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks!

Auf Wiedersehen!