We all know a great artist manager is one who can hustle, negotiate contracts, meet lots of people and have incredible networking abilities. They require these core strengths as a career imperative. However, there is one intangible skill most artist managers do not possess, and one as an artist needs to be addressed before signing any management contract. The ability to research. Research is a skill we were taught in high school, we were given an assignment, and let loose in the library with our card catalogs, and microfiche. Now we are put in front of a computer with the World Wide Web in front of us with unlimited information at our fingertips. Does this make the information easier to obtain? Well yes and no. We only need to open our favorite search engine and type in what we think we need hoping subconsciously that an algorithm will read between our lines and magically show us the hidden gem of knowledge. This occasionally happens and when it does it can lead us very far down the proverbial rabbit hole of information and content. However, most search engines only give us what we ask for, not what we truly need.
This is why research proficiency is a critical management skill. The ability to ask the proper questions, and the ability to take the information we receive and spin in to ask more questions.
A simple Google search shows Research is “the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.” If we use just a small amount of these skills we would also find that Research states “that in an experiment, a variable must be manipulated.”[1] In this case, the variable is the client’s career, and the manipulation is the manager placing the client in new and wonderful scenarios in which to gain exposure and drive revenues.
As a quality engineer, we are trained to ask the question “Why” 5 times. This 5Y approach takes our original statement and asks why this is happening. Coming up with that answer we ask why again, and again, and again. Only by asking the question “Why” 5 times are we left with a true statement of what is the content we are looking for. This is how we can develop our new conclusions into our current situation and lead us down the proper trail instead of chasing the norm.
So how does this apply to the artist manager? Let’s start with an easy task. “I want to get a label interested in my artist. How do I do that?” Why? “I want my artist signed to a record label”. Why? “Exposure for my client in ways I cannot accomplish”. Why? “I do not have the resources a label has”. Why? “These resources are not available to me”. Why? “I have not found a way to acquire these resources”. Now we are at the heart of the matter.
Instead of searching “Labels looking for artist submission”, perhaps we need to start outlining the resources the labels have that the manager does not. By asking a whole new question, “Do I even need a label to represent my client?” The answers here may prove to be startling, as the resources a label uses are also those available to anybody. We can make a list of the all the resources we feel record labels possess and again ask the questions, “How do I acquire these resources?” You, along with many managers today are finding, getting signed by a label is not the be all end all it used to be, instead this industry is being rethought up every day, by managers who know how to find the information which most benefits themselves and their clients.
In this ever-changing industry, an artist manager requires the ability to research above all else. Finding those hidden niches, and marketing holes separate the ordinary from the extreme. By utilizing simple quality problem-solving tools, like the 5Y approach, a manager will begin to learn how to ask the right questions, as the answers for the right questions are just as easy to obtain as the wrong ones.
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[1] https://explorable.com/definition-of-research
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