branded music: Derek Sivers

Branded Music - Part 1 of 5 - Derek SiversMonday, 13 September 2010, 0 Comments




Welcome to the MicControl interview series, Branded Music. This 5-part series will spotlight some of the new music industry's most influential thought-leaders, dissecting the success of their own brands in order to share some powerful insights with the emerging music community, both artists and bloggers included.





Today we will be speaking with CD Baby founder and former president Derek Sivers. CD Baby was the largest seller of independent music on the web, with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician clients. After he won the 2003 World Technology Award, Esquire Magazine's annual “Best and Brightest“ cover story said, “Derek Sivers is changing the way music is bought and sold... one of the last music-business folk heroes.” In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby to focus on his new ventures to benefit musicians, including his new company MuckWork where teams of efficient assistants help musicians do their “uncreative dirty work”. His current projects and writings are all at sivers.org:













Did you determine the direction of the CD Baby brand during the planning process of the business (i.e. creating a business plan, developing a marketing strategy, etc.) or was it something that came to fruition afterwards?





Oh I never had a business plan, marketing strategy, planning process, or even a brand direction. I was really just selling my own CD. Then some friends asked if I could sell theirs. Then their friends asked, and their friends, and so on. There was never a plan. I was just saying yes to requests.



The whole 10-year history of the company was really just frantically trying to keep up with all the things people wanted me to do. Not much of a plan at all.



Though in hindsight, that's a good way to be. Growing reluctantly, instead of trying to force something that people aren't clamoring for.



While CD Baby is a very well-known brand, you have also done an excellent job building up your own personal brand as an artist and an entrepreneur. Do you have any tips for artists looking to establish their own personal brand, meanwhile building the brand of their band?





Be selfless. Think only how you can give people what they really need and value. It has to satisfy a need from their point of view, not yours. Then just structure it so that you save a little bit for yourself, to keep you going.



Think of how much you can give. What else can you possibly do for people, that they value? If you want money, you have to do something money-worthy. For example: writing and publishing articles is not money-worthy. Everybody is doing it now. But writing a great book can be money-worthy. Singing your songs with nothing but an acoustic guitar with your eyes closed may not be money-worthy, because it's what everyone else does. But putting together a killer house-rocking party-time band, for example, can be very money-worthy.



Keep doing things, always. Keep sharing. Keep helping. Keep writing.



At what point would you recommend that artists determine the many facets (i.e. image, style, unique positioning, presence, quality, etc.) of their desired brand?





Ideally, from the very beginning. Stop being yourself. Be a colorful character in the stage of life. Take a narrow-niche side of your personality, whether carnival barker, Euro-trash playboy, or Pagan wood elf, and amplify that all the way. Give people an extreme character that represents the self they wish they could be, if they weren't so shy, or didn't have that dumb job. Don't just be another normal Joe.



Make the music that character would make. It can be incredibly creatively inspiring. Look at Tom Waits, Lady Gaga, old Bowie, Eminem, Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and hell, even Beethoven! Could you be a character along-side them? Or would you look like some schmuck who should be running the lights?



Is it important for artists to consider the direction of their brand when deciding upon a specific presentation style of an album? From your experience with CD Baby, did you find any correlation between a properly branded album presentation and sales?





Of course. This colorful character I'm describing can last just one album. That's what Bowie often did. Use the album format to be a character for one album - a set of songs - giving it a theme, and a point of view.



And yes, these albums usually sell better as long as the music is good, because it's easier for friends to tell eachother about it.



Your personal website is quite open - revealing much about who you are as a person, and is not just a hub of links and descriptions about all of the projects you are involved with. How can the idea of transparency be used to strengthen a brand?





What you call a "brand" could also just be thought of as "being what some people want to be." I'm a nomadic minimalist, and I write about that. People who wish they were more nomadic, or more minimalist, are often drawn to the things I write because I'm describing this lifestyle loud and clear. If someone was living the extreme Hollywood rockstar lifestyle, partying with stars and sleeping with groupies, they'd be wise to tell their tales loudly online, to attract people who wish they had that life.



But it goes with any lifestyle! Someone could be writing about raising four kids with Christian values, or living in a log cabin in Montana, or recreating the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, or whatever. Whatever you're into, share it loudly.



In an episode of Ariel Hyatt's Sound Advice, you spoke about the idea of 'the pitch', and how it is necessity for all artists to be able to easily and efficiently describe their music to others. This 'pitch', in essence, is a quick explanation of the artists brand - what makes them unique, what makes them THEM. Why is it so important that artists create an accessible pitch about their own brand? What sort of advice would you give to artists who are looking to establish a pitch about their brand?





When someone says, "What kind of music is it?," they're not asking for a thorough validation of your existence on earth. They're just hoping you'll say a few words that will make them curious to hear more. So have those words prepared in advance.



This is double-important, because if that pitch is short and memorable, (just a few words, like "hillbilly flamenco" or "a fire in a pet store"), then fans will use that same phrase to tell their friends about it, and word spreads faster.



Would you care to 'pitch' your own personal brand? What makes Derek Sivers unique as a person and an entrepreneur?





I help musicians. That's my niche and my pitch, if I'm at a social situation where someone wants to quickly know what I do.



As an entrepreneur, you undoubtedly have experience with registering companies as a legal entity in order to protect both your own brand as well as the brand of the company. Do you recommend that artists legally protect their own brand? If so, should artists protect both themselves and their band separately?





No need to overdo it. Yes if you've got a great band/artist name you're spending a lot of time promoting, and you've Googled it and clearly are the only one using it, then it's probably worth paying the $350 to file a Service Mark at the USPTO.gov website.



And if you've got more than a trickle of income, it's worth setting up a single-member LLC. Do it in your home-state if you're in the US. If you're US-based but not so bound to one state, use Wyoming, Delaware, or Nevada and pay a resident agent there. If you're not in the US, use British Virgin Islands. But before you do that, make sure the bank where you already have a relationship can open a business account for you under that LLC or corporation name. Then make sure you keep everything very very separate from your personal expenses, as if you were just an employee, not the owner. Don't mingle funds.



But seriously don't get too set back by this stuff. Just keep doing what you're doing and worry about the bureaucratic government stuff later once there's some real traction. Don't waste time or money on it before that.