Business Never Personal…Or Is It?

I think it’s safe to say we’ve all felt the sting of bad business,
some large some small, but bad business none the less. In the music
biz sometimes bad biz feels almost…personal. Let me give you an
example. You shoot out an email to an exec just to find out what
project he is currently working on and he simply reads your email and
ignores you. You wonder to yourself, what s that about? Is the person
that busy that they can’t reply at least which artist he is working
with? (It’s usually no more then 6 letters, if even. How long does
that take?). What’s dude problem? He that Hollywood and feels he too
big to reply??  Some actually reply but don’t want to give you any
info on how you should go about submitting music to the project. How
about you send some music to someone, and you follow up with a did you
get to check out the music? Instead of them simply saying yeah, I
pass on it…they don’t even answer, leaving you to wonder if they
actually got a chance to check it out or did they pass on it…you don’t
know. Some say well, if they don’t respond that means they pass…ummmm
not all the time. I’ve actually been in numerous situations where I
would follow up a week later and an artist would say oh yeaaah..I
recorded that track…that joint came out hooooot! leaving you saying to
yourself…ok…why didn’t you let me know? I just gave that same beat to
another artist. Now what if artist # 2 already locked it in
financially, artist #1 would obviously be upset. Now that I think about it,
I’ve been in that situation too…sorry homie…that record was sold A
YEAR AGO…you never returned any of my follow up call or emails! (yeah
it was really a year old too…and yeah they were mad...SMH)
Unfortunately you just may never know these things until it happens,
that’s why its always a good idea to consistently follow up and not
allow yourself to fall in the cracks of the day to day shuffle.You see
this game is filled with a lack of consideration and courtesy…my
partner Jug would simply just say it’s a lack of of respect . Call it
what you want but it seems that an exec would rather you hound them
all day making you hang on to hope and fill their egos then rather
simply set your mind at ease and tell you in one simple word…”pass”.
Maybe it makes them feel important or something, I don’t know what it
is, I never got on that when I did A&R.I would at least tell you I
passed on it. Now if you want a full detailed reason why I passed on
it, now you maybe be asking for much. But I will tell you that it can
be very discouraging and frustrating for the person trying to navigate
and make moves thru it all.
But in all fairness, sometimes there are certain things going on
behind the scenes that we are unaware of. Maybe this exec is having a
bad day, in the middle of a meeting, on phone call, or just forgot to
reply with the hundreds of emails he may have received after yours.
It’s often difficult to nail the reason and one shouldn’t
automatically take things personally. The best thing is to assess your
material to make sure it’s where it needs to be quality wise and go
around the individual, or simply move on the next. There is always
another road to reach your destination, and there will always be
others that appreciate your material and hard work. It maybe longer
and it maybe harder but your road doesn’t have to end with that person
and situation. Bottom line…get ya grind on and don’t let peoples own
personal issues in this already shark infested business stop you from
reaching your goals. For all you know….that exec your trying to get at
is about to lose his job.

Good luck out there
Mike Trauma D