Many are under the impression that they can understand a book without reading it in full. But even with books that have rather obvious titles, sometimes if you don’t dig a little deeper, you don’t come away with the gold.
In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares what readers may have missed about The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship.
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Highlights:
00:17 – The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship: A marketing misstep
01:02 – Standing out from the crowd
01:35 – But it’s not just about standing out – there’s got to be strategy
03:26 – Finding resonance with an audience
05:52 – The value is in the process
06:24 – Becoming known for something is crucial to creating your celebrity effect
08:23 – Without work, your “Triangle” doesn’t work
Transcript:
A few years ago, I came out with the book, The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship, and I can admit it… I think it’s not the best example of marketing.
The subtitle was Making and Selling Your Neon Yellow Tiger. I don't have the I think people got this right away, at least those who are familiar with Seth Godin, it's kind of like Purple Cow. I felt that comparison could end up helping the book but I’m not sure it did.
And I also feel like people missed some important things in that book. It's not just a book about being unusual and standing out.
Although that is huge today. Look at what music is right now. Every song has the same damn drumbeat. Every song has the same damn singing style. And it's awful.
And if you were to go out there and release something that's different from any of that but it still had pop appeal, it would stand out like crazy.
But as a book, it's not just about “Hey, let's try to be different and unique.” Those types of opportunities are rare. I hear people talking about micro niches and whatnot. I’m not a micro niche king, so maybe I don’t know. I just don't think it's a sound strategy for a lot of people.
Like, “Let me decide today that I'm going to be a jungle beat techno DJ guitarist Japanese oriental pop music fusion band.” Maybe it hasn't been done, but what's the appeal?
A few people are going to come around and listen and watch just because it sounds ridiculous, but trying to build a fan base… That I'm not so sure.
You must be sure about the impact you want to make. What's the difference you want to make? Who are you appealing to? Who is your dream customer?
I have a friend who decided to start a college party band. So, they oriented their music and their look and their merchandise and their slogans and their website and everything around college parties.
And guess what? They did very well in the college scene. Weird how that works.
So, many artists don't have that level of intention. It's like, “I want people to notice how amazing my music is. I want people to notice how amazing that little guitar solo was. I want people to notice how amazing my vocal style was.”
Well, maybe true and maybe not. And competing on those things, it's tough trying to find something that’s unique that has not been done before. Competing at that level, it's not going to be easy.
But competing on brand, look, most artists don't have one. They don't become known for something.
Most artists don't have a brand, which means the bar is quite low when it comes to winning the branding game.Click To Tweet
So, here’s what’s being missed – it's The Music Entrepreneur Triangle. I've talked about it many times before. At the foundation of the triangle is work. And then the other two sides of the triangle are celebrity and diversification. But everything is built on a foundation of work. You may need to try many things to find what resonates with an audience.
And you will know.
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