NHT Blog

If I was speaking to you via video, I might be advised to have text at the bottom of the screen with a disclaimer saying, “Results not typical,” or words to that affect.

The day after tomorrow we start a new chapter with our weekly show, “Now Hear This Entertainment,” which last week released its milestone 100th episode.

It’s an old cliché but it really is true – time is money.  Minimum wage here in Florida is now, for 2016, up to $8.22 an hour.  Many professionals you encounter will tell you what their rate is, charging by the hour.  Employees want double time if they have to work above and beyond their eight-hour day.

Each week a blog is posted to provide insights that will help performers take one more step in advancing their career.  The hope is to contribute to that vision you have of where you’re headed in both the near and distant future.

I’m still amazed at some of the emails that I receive.  Artists or managers write with what are intended to be pitches to get looked at as a potential new client or to be booked on the weekly show.

Unfortunately, I am amazed at them in a bad way, not an impressed way.

I always say that I’m not a fan of people who generalize.  In fact, I remember in my Logic class in college learning about statements that you can prove to be fallacies by (among other criteria) an appeal to large numbers.

Many (many) years ago my brother made a joke.  “What talks but can’t sing and dance and doesn’t walk?”  He was referring to money in the context of the lyrics to “Forever in Blue Jeans” by Neil Diamond.

Last week I wrote a blog about handing out postcards or brochures or flyers when in a networking environment instead of business cards.  In there was a ‘note to self’ about writing at some point about people who tell you they don’t have a business card.

Well, “at some point” is now, because I just witnessed it again over the weekend.

This past Friday I went to a major business symposium.  One portion of it featured a massive speed networking that guaranteed that each participant would meet at least 20 people.

This is where you not only hear everyone’s elevator pitch, but, obviously, get their business card.

It’s a boring topic and, as a result, not one that musicians – or people from most other professions for that matter – want to spend lots of time thinking or talking about.  But, ignored, it could become a real problem.