A Managers biggest mistake

I had a meeting with a new manager the other day. This Manager is really hard working and a great person, but was upset that he didn’t get the opportunities for his bands. He was seeking advice how to do it.

The problem is that the bands he has is really not that good. Its average bands that there is thousands of. And the band is really not doing any progress most of the things is the manager who was hard working.

I recognize myself in it when I started my second record label and took in bands that I really liked myself and was busting my ass off to get out there. It never went anywhere and if it was today I don’t think I would have picked them up. This is thing that you learn by mistakes. Today I have much easier to evaluate an artist, some of it has to do with new tools that has gone out the past couple of years. Most is though experience. You just feel when it’s right and when it’s wrong. Sure you did that back then, but you wanted so much to get things right that you just put that aside.

So what to tell the poor dude. I really can’t get to him that the problem is that his darlings is really crap. At the same time I have seen so many good managers leave the industry thinking that is too hard for them, when it actually was wrong with the product, not their work. Which is a shame.

Another sad part is that these bands really don’t appreciate the work that the manager does. I meet one of the members on a Christmas party. And he was more complaining that they were not playing on the biggest festival in Sweden. They only got the second biggest on a small stage.

The truth is that to get this crap band on to a stage at all on top of that on the second biggest festival is more work than putting a man on the moon. They should celebrate their manager as a hero. Instead they were checking out if I could take them to “the next level” instead of the manager.

Most manager mistakes is actually to have crappy bands.