Artist Managers guide every aspect of their clients' careers, counseling them on professional decisions and opportunities, overseeing their day-to-day schedules and activities, and representing their interests within larger productions and teams.
One of your most important choices as a musical artist will be selecting your professional manager. This individual will represent you to other people, provide music business counseling and guide your career. He or she probably will be your closest friend in the music business, your most trusted professional partner. Therefore, it is critical that you consider your choice of manager very carefully. The manager’s exact duties usually will depend on the artist’s level of success. Let's focus below on the things a manager would do for a developing artist, like you.
Artist management is the business of enhancing or furthering an artist's career. Your manager will provide many important services for you. First, he or she will create opportunities for you to get new experiences that you otherwise would get only through frustrating years of trial and error. This will be especially important early in your career. In addition, your manager will devise and carry out a plan to promote you to the public. And after your career has advanced to a certain point, he or she will work with your label, booking agent, publicist, etc. This will leave you free to write, perform, and generally do what you do best: be an artist.
Why You Need an Artist Manager
Right from the start, you will benefit from your manager’s knowledge of the best ways to promote and develop you in the immediate community—whether through clubs, college or public radio stations, record stores, print media, or most likely, a combination thereof. Your manager probably will have spent years building knowledge, resources, and relationships. You will get the benefit of those experiences without having to go through them yourself. In this way, a manager can help to speed up your development and allow you to focus on constructive, creative things like improving your musical and performance skills, and writing better songs.
Your manager knows you eventually will need a strong promotional package to send out to independent labels. He or she will help you to create a package that represents your artistic talents most effectively. The manager also knows that labels are looking for artists with
(1) good songs,
(2) an ability to record and
(3) a solid live performance. Your short-term goal is to meet these three criteria. Your manager will help you create and implement a plan to develop your talents so you can accomplish this goal.
Your manager also will handle a lot of administrative things that generally can make you crazy. For example, he or she will
(1) arrange for you to go into the recording studio as often as possible;
(2) encourage you to practice and give you feedback to improve your live performance;
(3) book your shows, or hire a booking agent to find you gigs to help you improve your performance and build a fan base;
(4) arrange to have your photographs made for publicity and promotions; and
(5) encourage the media to review your performances and/or recordings (these reviews will be included in your promotional package).
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