What do you do when you don’t know what to do?

So, there you are sitting in front of the TV watching old reruns of The Young And The Restless, (80’s version. Oh yeah!) not because you want to, but because you don’t have anything to do today. You read in blogs and articles all the time about staying active in your career, moving forward and doing the little things that add up to big things in the future. In the music business you are always operating six months out. It takes six months (or close to it) to book a solid tour and have your marketing prepared. When your working on a new album, very rarely do you write, line up a producer and finish the recording in less than six months. Even ASCAP pays out every four months. (So if you have your hit guess what.  You’re going to be waiting for that check!) 




The fact is what you do today directly effects your success in just a few months!

Here are some quick ideas.

• Write a song– If you don’t have good songs you don’t have anything! Co-writing is a huge music career help. It helps create and facilitate relationships and after all each song is a lottery ticket and you never know you might just score big.
• Practice your instrument– Private accomplishments turn into public victories
• Get on the phone– Call up those clubs, identify a specific location (50 mile radius) and call every venue that you can. Even if they say no as long as you were friendly and informative about your band the odds of a possible future gig at that location just went up.
• Work on your merch– Do your designs need work? Do you need to research a photographer? Do you need to reorder/restock? How about brainstorming new merch items?
• Go through your phone and email– Who do you know that is a possible musical contact?  How about just sending them a hello text or email? A lot of times when people hear from you they think “Oh yeah I forgot about so and so. I could use them for my upcoming event.”
• Ask your contact for other contacts– Be careful as you need to know the person your asking pretty well before you can ask them for other names. Club owners know other owners. Pastors know other Pastors etc. This is an awesome way to book more shows.
• Buy some thank you cards– Send out Thank you cards to people who have recently booked you or even fans that keep coming out to your shows. You do this and you will create fans for life!
• Update your Facebook, Twitter etc– Make sure the bio, pictures and tour schedule are all updated.
• Do you Blog?-Write about your experiences. Even if no one reads it, just by writing down your thoughts you will help yourself think through your situation.  Personally I find writing brings a ton of ideas. 
• Go hang out where musicians hang out– If you hang out and make friends its amazing what opportunities you can get by just being friendly with people.