An Artist Manager Has Only Four Jobs. You're Doing Ten.
This is why managers get fired
“We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.” C.S. Lewis
Most artist managers have the wrong job description, and that’s why they fail.
There are two ways to lose this job;
Not know what your job is. Or;
Disagree with your artist about what it is.
Why It Happens
Our industry has never written a job description for the manager.
So the artist writes one.
And artists, like all of us, confuse what they want with what they need.
They want a friend. A counsellor. A publicist. A travel agent. A contact list with all the heavy hitters in the industry.
What they need is a CEO.
The friend, the deep contact list, the red carpets make them feel better.
The CEO makes them rich.
If you don't define the job, your artist will.
And the job your artist writes is the one that ends with you getting fired. Not because you did it badly. Because you did it beautifully.
Doing the wrong job well is the most expensive mistake in artist management.
Your Only Have 4 Jobs As An Artist Manager
A manager’s real job has four parts. That’s it. Everything else is noise and distraction.
1. Increase Profile
Find the channel or platform driving the most audience growth. Build the growth plan around it. Make it compound every quarter.
2. Increase Revenue
Revenue follows profile. Capture what comes inbound. Negotiate harder on the money someone else brings. Hunt or generate revenue that hasn’t arrived yet.
3. Increase Equity Value
Most managers stop thinking at revenue.
The best ones build real businesses for their artists once their profile is big enough.
Brands outside the core art. Product companies, fashion lines, TV formats, investments in startups, or for music managers, maximising ownership or value of their masters / publishing.
4. Ensure Operational Excellence
The tour runs smoothly. The label actually markets the record. The content machine is humming. The team around the artist pulls one direction.
Four jobs.
Everything else costs you your career.
The Six Traps
Here’s the rest of what artists want their managers to be, and if you don’t push back and own your job description, you’ll eventually be fired.
You think you’re going above and beyond, in reality, you’re setting yourself up to fail.
