I recently found myself telling a prospective client a story from one of the many times I brought a singer, songwriter, guitar player from the Now Hear This roster to Nashville. This would turn out to be an encounter with the dreaded double-booking.
If you stay in the live entertainment business long enough, sadly, you will find yourself in this scenario at some point.
I'd booked my client to perform four nights in a row in Music City. The fourth night was the one where, oops, you guessed it, someone else had gotten booked to play at the same venue at the same time also.
Never mind that, yes, thanks to my four Ps approach (patient, polite, professional, but persistent), I did manage to get her on stage for her full performance (later than originally scheduled) that night. It was her, “Let’s just head back to the hotel and I’ll do some songwriting” where there’s a potential teaching opportunity.
What would your reaction have been? I hope it’s not, “Go home and sleep,” or “Go out and party.”
A co-write falls apart. What do you do? Answer: You write anyways, by yourself.
Your vocal coach has to cancel the lesson for which you were booked. So then you what? That’s right, you use that same time you'd blocked off for it to still work on vocal technique, except by yourself.
I had planned to go see a past podcast guest perform this coming Saturday but learned yesterday that the event itself has been canceled, unfortunately. Sounds like a terrific opportunity for that performer to do a livestream instead.
Did a photographer come down with that darn virus and now your shoot is going to have to be rescheduled? Not a problem. Now you can stay home and create a video of that cover song you love doing but haven’t been able to make something visual of for YouTube yet.
Were you supposed to be the guest on a show but got a last-minute cryptic “something suddenly came up and we need to re-book you" email? Guess what? The door just opened for you to finally take that new piece of gear out of the box and learn it.
Hanging out with a friend. Binge watching something on Netflix. Going out to lunch because you think you deserve it. There are lots of easy ways to talk yourself out of not doing something that can help your career. This is what you do for a living, though. The choice is yours, and it should come very easily.
What area of your career are you fighting with? Let me help you in that struggle. Take advantage of my well over 15 years doing management, promotion, and booking for indie artists throughout the U.S. Book a private, one-on-one, online video consultation with me and let’s have a confidential discussion to make sure you’re moving forward. And if you have a “lemons to lemonade" success story consistent with this week’s blog, share it on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or just email me to tell me about that win.