Getting a manager is not an easy task and we often hold ourselves as if we depended on them to succeed in the music industry. However, most of the time, we often forget why they would want to manage us in the first place…
3 THOUGHTS FROM ME
1. It’s not a manager that will turn your career upside down, it’s you! If you don’t have quality content or if you don’t have material that is worth sharing, even the best manager won’t do much for you (unless you spend A LOOOOT of money). Before working on ‘finding a manager’, work on getting your sound to the best you can, and this will ‘attract a manager’, and there’s a BIG difference between finding and attracting one.
2. Managers will want to manage you because they see an opportunity for making money out of your art, so you must be making something that generates money. Either you have a really strong community of loyal fans that buy a lot of your merch and show tickets from you, or you have tracks that have blown up online (Spotify/Labels/TikTok). Therefore, if you want to find a manager, these are the best ways to ‘attract’ them.
3. In addition to taking care of the business-related things of your career, a good manager will also get you spots on labels, press, and promote you to get gigs (which could be done by a booker as well). However, this comes at a price and it’s not something that only they can do. Become more self-sufficient and build relationships with labels, press and promote yourself without the use of a manager. Start by emailing Spotify playlist owners, blog writers who write about your kind of music, or getting the emails from the A&R at your dream labels (you can learn how to do this in this post). If your career is more self-sufficient, your need for ‘having a manager’ will be reduced and, consequently, the price you’ll pay when you do get one.
If you want to read more about of what a manager looks for in an artist, read these posts by an ex-artist manager:
1 QUESTION FOR YOU
Why are you valuable to a prospective manager? Here are a couple of points that could make you more valuable and attractive to them:
a. You constantly play gigs and fill them in your local club;
b. Your gig agenda is booked up for a long time;
c. You have multiple songs, or one hit song, that have exploded on Spotify;
d. You are signing your tracks to the top labels of your industry;
Always remember, you’ll only attract a manager if he sees potential in you to make money out of your art.
