Maximize your ComposerPreneur Business with an income strategy
In order to make money as a creative music entrepreneur, you need a well-constructed income strategy.
An income strategy consists of different ways you earn income from your art and craft, increasing the chance of you being independent from each of these.
Back in 2003 I started out as an employee at a music production house in LA. I had no clue how I would make enough money to live a good life or raising a family.
Now, 19 years later, I have all that I wished for and more simply by implementing an intentionally designed income strategy.
I want to share mine with the hope it helps you.
A Great Income Strategy Begins With Freelancing
To build a successful Composerpreneur Business you need to start somewhere. Most of the people I talk to, composer friends and colleagues started with freelancing. And so did I.
The transition from your 9-5 job into a full time composer career needs you to work on replacing your salary as an employee with income from freelancing.
In 2019, the United States was ranked as the largest freelance market in the world, with a 78% year-on-year revenue growth.
To become successful as a freelance composer it’s essential to find a way to stand out in the marketplace. And a great way to do that is to find a niche in the market.
One way you could go about it is to ask yourself these questions:
“What do I specialize in?”
“What do I thrive in?”
“What feels good to me?”
AND
Research potential clients
Calculate the profitability of the area you want to go into.
Why a niche?
Creating within a niche resonates with your ideal buyer.
It's critical to focus on a very specific person to help with a very specific problem.
As an example: Producing music for small business. Too broad.
You’re better off helping: TV commercial production companies in the car vertical under $10M in revenue.
Niched down -Check! Other parts of freelancing involve:
Finding clients
Creating showreels
Pitching for projects
Proposing quotes
Invoicing your clients
Freelancing is the most hands-on and time-consuming part of my Income Strategy.
But it is a great starting point and learning experience.
Adding compounding assets to the equation is critical
Now that we have a working freelance career, we can move on to build something that is actually bigger than ourselves.
Adding a compounding asset component to your business is critical because at some point you might want to try new things in business, want to take vacations, or simply want to spend more time with family and friends.
To go from one-off projects to building a compounding catalog of tracks we need to understand a couple of things.
There is only one obstacle: building a catalog takes time.
This is why we do this only in step 2 of the income strategy process. First, we build some immediate cash flow with clients or custom work. Now we can venture into Production Music.
This takes some time to give you a return. But the fantastic thing is, that the music now works for you - the definition of an asset.
To get started as a Production Music Composer you need to:
Reach out to publishers
Create valuable tracks
Stick to it for at least 2 years
I wrote an entire article about this topic here:
https://thecomposerclass.com/articles/3-lessons-from-100k-in-production-music-royalties
In this podcast episode I break it down a bit more:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4uRDAkp79yNRDNK4wjffY5?si=d6f6075137834b43
Delegating takes both income streams to the next level
Now we are at Ninja Level. Congratulations!
Your freelancing business is cash-flowing nicely. Your music catalog is compounding and producing a nice royalty check. That’s where delegation or outsourcing comes in.
Delegation means you can have some tasks outsourced to either a Virtual Assistant or another freelancer in your space. Tasks you do daily, some you don’t like as much or simply have a lot of admin to do are perfect candidates for outsourcing.
They can include:
Invoicing
Pitching publishers + follow up
Stem production
Mastering
Taking care of your Inbox
Finding new clients
To free up the time to work on your business, you need to:
Identify and evaluate tasks to delegate
Create SOPs around these tasks
Find an assistant or an app that can execute these tasks for you
Evaluate the results
Adjust accordingly
Did you hear me say Ninja Level?
Even though this seems like a lot and some of you might not see the immediate value from all that upfront work, this is what’s needed to make your business scalable.
Once implemented, you now can get creative and add additional sources to your income strategy.
See you again next week!
Whenever you're ready I can help you grow your creative business.
Book a time with me here!⬇️⬇️⬇️
