Indie labels thrive because they’re a trusted source.<\/p>\n
I just went to Gorsuch to shop skis.\u00c2\u00a0 Billy’s my trusted source.<\/p>\n
There’s too much information in this world.\u00c2\u00a0 We need filters to break it down, separate the wheat from the chaff, present us with options\/choices we can understand.<\/p>\n
Billy buys only a few brands, and only a few models within those brands, and when I go in and tell him my needs, he tells me what to buy.<\/p>\n
But Billy isn’t just anybody.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s been doing this since his teens.\u00c2\u00a0 Now he’s in his forties.\u00c2\u00a0 Talk about a manufacturer and he knows the owner, what’s in the pipeline for the future, what direction the company is taking.\u00c2\u00a0 I trust him.<\/p>\n
Oh, I tried others, I tried to shop on price, but I got nervous, I oftentimes found that I knew more than the purveyors.\u00c2\u00a0 Or that they’d only been in Vail for a season or two.\u00c2\u00a0 When I came back with a problem, they’d be gone.<\/p>\n
Billy doesn’t charge the least, but every once in a while he’ll throw me a deal, sell me a pair of skis at 70% off.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got a relationship.<\/p>\n
Indie label owners are irascible.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re more into music than profits.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re opinionated.\u00c2\u00a0 They cull through the options and then serve up music you’ll be interested in, if they’ve already gained your trust.<\/p>\n
Number one in the field is Richard Russell of XL.<\/p>\n
Richard’s not warm.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not hyping you, he’s not pressing the flesh.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not quite cold, but he’s intense.\u00c2\u00a0 And confident.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn’t need to convince you, because he’s already convinced himself, that he’s got the best product.<\/p>\n
And he doesn’t have a record in every genre.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet every record he has isn’t in the same genre.\u00c2\u00a0 You trust Richard to find the best music, and since this is his passion, you’re gonna check out what he sells, and probably like it.<\/p>\n
What do the White Stripes and Vampire Weekend have in common?<\/p>\n
Richard and XL.\u00c2\u00a0 Their music is pretty damn different.<\/p>\n
Contrast this with the major labels.\u00c2\u00a0 They put out music in every genre and tell you it’s all great.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got to feed the pipeline, they’re in business.\u00c2\u00a0 Money comes first, music comes second.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas with Richard and the other indies, it’s the reverse.<\/p>\n
Since we have no trust in the majors, they hype us, sell us, try to convince us.\u00c2\u00a0 But we ignore them, because we don’t trust them.<\/p>\n
And we don’t trust radio.<\/p>\n
And we certainly don’t trust TV.<\/p>\n
No, let me change that.\u00c2\u00a0 We trust HBO and Showtime.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re about quality.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re interested in every series they put on the air, even though we may not end up liking each one.\u00c2\u00a0 Networks feed the pipeline, throw shit against the wall.\u00c2\u00a0 We wait to hear from a buddy if a new network show is good, we ignore the hype.
And we don’t trust Pitchfork, because there’s no uniformity in the ratings.\u00c2\u00a0 We’d rather have one trusted reviewer covering fewer albums than many covering everything.<\/p>\n
In other words…<\/p>\n
You start off with quality.\u00c2\u00a0 Then you try to build trust.<\/p>\n
Every choice must have trust in mind.\u00c2\u00a0 What does your audience think about you making a deal with this corporation.\u00c2\u00a0 What does your audience think about your ticket prices.\u00c2\u00a0 What does your audience think about each and every move you make. Because believe me, they’re paying attention, that’s what a fan does.<\/p>\n
Look at it this way, you can have the greatest girlfriend in the world, but if she sleeps with another guy, she loses your trust. She can protest that she was inebriated, that it was only one night, but you never feel the same way about her again, you can’t forget the transgression.<\/p>\n
So if you want to be in business today, don’t think quantity, think trust.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the Apple paradigm…\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t make one of everything, but everything we make is the best.\u00c2\u00a0 Naysayers claim Apple’s products are too expensive.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet MacBooks are in the hands of half of new college students.\u00c2\u00a0 But I thought students were broke…\u00c2\u00a0 But they’ll pay for quality!<\/p>\n
And indie labels always give back.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a free MP3.\u00c2\u00a0 Or a vinyl 45 not available at the big box, but only the indie store. These are paybacks to the fan…\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, they’re often in limited editions, only the fans can know.<\/p>\n
The old music infrastructure has lost our trust.\u00c2\u00a0 From Universal Music to Live Nation to Ticketmaster.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an adversarial relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to make money, all they’re interested in is taking money out of our wallets.\u00c2\u00a0 And acts decide how to play the game.\u00c2\u00a0 The aforementioned powers that be try to convince them theirs is the only game in town, they try to impress with power.\u00c2\u00a0 But how much power do the old entities have in the new cacophonous world?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, network TV competes with not only cable, but YouTube and other online exhibitors.<\/p>\n
It all starts with trust.\u00c2\u00a0 And when a bond is made, a customer\/fan will continue to give you money, he’s AFRAID of going anywhere else, he’s afraid of being ripped off.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, occasionally Billy will send me to another store, where the helmet or boot fits better…\u00c2\u00a0 This only makes me trust him MORE!\u00c2\u00a0 Richard Russell doesn’t only rave about his music, but the fact he likes other things just makes you trust him more.\u00c2\u00a0 Because first and foremost he’s about music.\u00c2\u00a0 It hasn’t been about music in the major label\/tour\/radio\/TV world for a very long time.<\/p>\n
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Indie labels thrive because they’re a trusted source. I just went to Gorsuch to shop skis.\u00c2\u00a0 Billy’s my trusted source. There’s too much information in this world.\u00c2\u00a0 We need filters to break it down, separate the wheat from the chaff, present us with options\/choices we can understand. Billy buys only a few brands, and only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Qg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3241,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240\/revisions\/3241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}