Who Gives You Music Career Advice?

Ever since I can remember, I have been a basketball fan and I have observed similarities between professional basketball and professional music

. It was a Wednesday night and they were supposed to air "The Decision" by Lebron James on TV. Naturally, I tuned in to watch it with great anticipation. I was particularly interested in learning on how Lebron James channeled his career choice in basketball to such a success. Not only that, I wanted to see if I could implement any of his principles to my musical career.

This was meant to be a very special night for Lebron. People and media had been speculating for over two years until this night as to which team Lebron would sign with eventually. There had been endless speculations, anticipations, several thousands of articles written about who influenced Lebron. People exchanged tweets about what they thought; his followers had only one question in mind: Who influences Lebron? To our surprise, the answer to this question is somewhat shocking. Lebron, without a doubt, is perhaps one of the most powerful men in the world, yet he has advisors, a selected group of people who help him make the important decisions as far as career choices are concerned. As shocking as it might sound, having a group of dedicated high profile advisors seems practical since there is no room for making mediocre decisions. Decisions made by Lebron have to be "great" decisions.

That being said, the goals I have set in my life have never been on a mediocre level, either, to say the least. I was very conscious of the fact that I needed sound advice and that I would not settle for mediocre advice or mediocre results that most musicians tend to get. In my musical career, I have had the opportunity to work with quite a few musical advisors. A couple of them who have had considerable influence on me are Bruce Katz (from Greg Allman's Band) and Jim Trompeter (from Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine). Both of them are world-class performers, hence making this choice was fairly easy for me. I was immensely influenced by their passion for music, the level they had reached and I wanted to achieve what they had achieved. And I can say with confidence that I can tribute my accomplishments to them, their influence and advice have helped me get to where I am today in my musical career.

As far as music business is concerned, I have been doubly careful about taking advice from the right people. Over the period of years, many people have given me advice and I realize that a lot of them were well intentioned but they were often the same old advices that were passed on to others as well, nothing that would stand out. It requires more than a cookie cutter approach to gel great music and great music marketing effectively. In the music world, to be a cut above the rest requires solid marketing strategies and that is what I aimed for.

When I was relatively new to the music world, I was curious to learn how I could possibly share my music with people and make a good living out of it. In fact, to be precise, I wanted more than a good living; I aspired for a fantastic living. I am lucky to have a friend in Joe Lilly who runs a $50 million dollar marketing company and happens to be a fabulous guitar player as well. His expertise in marketing is something that I have taken influence from since I am confident of his record of accomplishment. I take pride in the fact that I let Joe influence me since he has a very high-level understanding of marketing. If I were to rate his skill in marketing, I would say they are at a top 1% level, that is how good he is at it.

So my question to all musicians out there is: Do you have sound advisors who can have good influence on you and guide you in the right direction in your musical career? If you do, do they share similar goals like you? Do they have a thorough understanding of what it takes to be successful musician?

by: Margaret James

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