Don't plan to much!

Right now I get bombarded with people that want meetings to plan stuff. One of the big jokes we do between record labels is the urge to plan all things. Sure, don't get me wrong, you need plan stuff but I just wonder how many meetings I'm mainly sitting there and plan stuff that is out of our control.

One band, I remember in particular was masterminds on that. They always wanted meetings to plan the future. The first one was okay we made up some lose strategies. Yes lose everything in this business is changing very fast so whatever you plan around a release usually change pretty fast since it goes in different plans you couldn't expect. On the second meeting a week after really not much had happened, they still were in recording mode. On the meeting a two weeks after it was still there, same things just that the recording was done. After a while, I realize all these meetings was merely just to keep the dreams alive. They wanted to paint up the picture of what was coming with this single they were recording, and it was in the best way of meetings with the record label, manager or publisher. The meetings really didn't lead anywhere or any good decisions were made.

In the end, I just got tired of just wasting my an hour of my time so I started to create stuff to make things happen. Then it all came to a halt. Suddenly there were things to do not just talk. Then it became an issue. Things need to be done that was not fun, the fun was talking about it.

Then you have the meetings where people want to have meetings just to ask you what is going on. These are the meetings that we usually joke about. Mainly it's when the artist has released something and comes in the meeting thinking that we should focus more on radio for example. The thing is that of course we already sent to radio and no they were not that interested. That we would focus on it won't help a shit all the people that need to know already know. What happens is that you then throw into the artist what are your planning, what gigs or things are you ongoing so we can update the radio with that information? In 95% of the cases, they don't have anything. What happens then is that the artist thinks we don't do our jobs but in reality, we mainly see them as idiots complaining not understanding what is expected. The case is that the artist or their representatives think that they know what job we are doing and have easy solutions to really complex problems. These meetings are really pointless.

The meetings are really when something is happening. The artist get booked to a big festival and PR is needed to update the media, that calls for a meeting. Or the artist has sent new songs and pictures and want our opinion, that could be a good meeting and we can update how we should proceed.