Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of value - creating it, giving it out without expectations, and reciprocating it with others sharing it.

The concept is applicable in all areas of life and the entertainment/music industry is no different.

This newsletter highlights:

• How to create value at different stages of your journey in music

Let’s dive in ⬇️ 

Before discussing how to give value, I think it’s important to establish a fundamental idea many people don’t realize…

You don’t always need to ask for permission to give value! (Within reason)

I came across someone discussing this idea recently and thought it was super relevant - the idea is when you want to provide value to someone, sometimes it’s helpful to simply just take action and do what you think they’ll benefit from, as opposed to asking them how you can help.

Asking puts the onus on the other person (or people) to think about it - if they’re busy, it becomes another thing they have to think about and then get back to you on. Instead, try evaluating what they may find beneficial based on who they are, their situation, etc and take the action to provide them with that thing. If you’re off the mark, they’ll let you know and they can use your action to give feedback.

I’ll go into more in-depth examples below of where and how it applies:

Intern

If you’re an intern looking to create value for the company you’re interning at, while you do need instructions on what your team needs help with, you can also be proactive on your own.

For example - if you’re interning at a record label, you can look at their roster (by going to their artist social media) to see what each artist has going on and are up to, and proactively come up with ideas for how to benefit those endeavors.

You see an artist is going on tour? Come up with ways to promote or sell tickets.

An artist just dropped a new song? See if you can provide 5 ways to promote it without needing to be asked.

Become knowledgable (or share that knowledge) in areas you know your team will appreciate and need - for example, sharing the latest social media trends, interesting things that other artists are doing, and new apps or platforms they should be mindful, of.

Many interns wait around for work to be assigned to them, however being proactive and resourceful on your own can make you incredibly valuable.

Those looking for new jobs or paid opportunities

The same examples for interns apply here as well. Using social media or LinkedIn, you can reach out to people working at companies you admire and share value on something they’re working on.

For example, let’s say you want to get a job at a booking agency - you can research some of their artists who are on tour, come up with a marketing plan for how to promote that tour or sell tickets, and share it with them via social media or LinkedIn (caveat - they won’t always respond but you sharing something of value when doing outreach increases the likelihood they do).

Or…let’s say you want to work at a company that sells products. You could do direct outreach on LinkedIn to someone in the marketing department sharing marketing ideas for how to launch that product or things you would do differently about past recent launches.

What do you think that potential employer is missing? Identify what you think they’re missing show them.

Artists

Guidance and mentorship is one way of providing value to other artists and building organic relationships. You may have experience that someone else doesn’t and sharing your story can help that person immensely. There’s very little blueprint to a successful career in music or entertainment - we’re all learning as we go and off experience.

Most people can use guidance and sometimes don’t even know they need it or want to ask for it. Sharing insights or lessons from your journey that might help others is a great way to provide value.

Executives

As an executive with some experience (manager, marketing executive, publicist, etc) a great way to provide value is by expanding other people’s network.

The entertainment industry is a relationship business and helping others build relationships and connect with people who can potentially help them is providing immense value. This can be in the form of inviting different folks in your network to dinner to cross-network and meet each other, making introductions online, and more.

Another way to provide value as someone with experience is sharing your knowledge with others in the form of content, panels, conferences, mentorship programs, and more.

It can also be as simple as reaching out to a peer doing similar work and showing them something that might be of value to what they’re doing.

Caveat

It’s important to provide value organically and authentically that doesn’t feel forced. Do it because you genuinely want to, not because there’s secretly a scheme to try and get something out of the other person.

It’s also important to be mindful of two-way relationships - if someone is providing immense value to you, it’s important to be mindful of reciprocity and not being the person who always takes and doesn’t provide anything in return.

Thanks for reading, until next time.