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Final Mastery Journal

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Funding your Business

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Mastery Journal: Business Plan Development

Along this journey with Full Sail in the Entertainment Business program, we’ve explored some important elements, resources and networks associated with the entertainment world and many other related industries. It wasn’t until the Business Plan Development course that we brought of all those ingredients together to create the perfect mix for our organizations. This course established an elaborate diagram of a business plan, and the key players that make one effective and really sell your business and strategy. This is where we pulled in factors from other previous courses in order to devise a comprehensive business and marketing plan. I entered the course a little worrisome because the financial aspect of the project really seems to challenge me. But the instructor was kind of enough to give us a sample sheet with formulas that calculated our numbers for us. The instructor really made it easy for the class, and showed the most important fundamental aspects of a business plan that really hit home for investors, bankers and partners. 

While it’s important to invest in your creativity and the overall design of your project, you really have to put that hard energy into your plan as well. You have to translate that powerful idea onto paper, and communicate your goals and long term objectives in order to persuade investors. I’ve learned to develop my own source of capital, that way my loan request isn’t astronomical and in no way makes the bank feel uneasy about giving a loan. Your business plan really does explain your business inside and out, and what it can do for your potential network and the community, so it’s essential to do the research, or get others involved in the process. The instructor was also great at providing some great resources, links and articles that spoke on these sorts of matters. Furthermore, we watched countless interviews of professionals who were not only motivating, but explained the risk-taking strategy, and how industry beginners shouldn’t be afraid to take such leaps. There are opportunities out there, we just have to dig deep, investigate, meet others, expand our horizons, and become better at our craft and knowledge of our chosen industries. 

Overall, this course provided some great material that we can use when starting our business. With these sources, our own capital knowledge gained through out the program, and the networks we have established, our business goals are truly ready to be ignited. 

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Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the core to any entertainment or modern business today. Marketing online cuts sales, reaches a mass audience, and allows users to get more involved-creating a more personal enriching experience for buyers and organizations. This class enriches young entrepreneurs on the various tools and services to drive their business endeavors. From the fundamentals of digital marketing, to managing your own website, to researching your key competitors in the market to get the differential advantage-this course is extremely beneficial for students chasing their dream in the entertainment business.

In order to drive traffic to my website, I really had to learn about the process and study my buyer personas. From there, I was able to use tools like, “Alexa” to identify key terms and keywords used by typical users of similar sites. From there, I was able to learn more about the consumer perspective-and make the consumer my target in mind. Another great thing studied here, was language. It’s important to know who you are marketing to-and the language they use when conducting such searches. Is a consumer more likely to search, “suede shoes with elastic covering” or “cute cheap suede shoes”? From there, it’s also important to note the long tail keywords that you should use to make your site more discoverable and specific. If you type into Google, “great shoe” what are the chances that your site will make the top ten searches? Usually this is where the consumer stops. But if you try something like, “woman’s blue cross running shoes, local stores” your business is much more likely to get a lead on their landing page. 

My original goal in this course was learning how to market a new business, how to attract an audience, and how to really make my website stand out amongst others. Another great task we did in the course, was examining similar sites in our industry, and finding the innovative elements that made each site stand out on social media. It’s important to build that experience online, just as much as you would inside of your brick and mortar location. I will definitely use all of the tools and knowledge acquired in the course to market my business, artists and future projects. Marketing is definitely an art form, and if you manage and design your marketing mix effectively, your results will far surpass your expectations. The great Peter Drucker once said, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

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Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution Course

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Advanced Entertainment Law        Mastery Journal

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Legal Controversy in the Music Business

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Product and Artist Management

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Dancing/Freestyling to Justin Biebers, “What Do You Mean” 

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The image above is the exact opposite of what a negotiation really is. It took a full extended course on negotiation to educate me on the process, practices, strategies and all the other methods an effective negotiation entails. If I’m signing an artist to a label, or trying to acquire a new artist or even run a campaign for a sponsorship or endorsement, I have to prepare and understand so much before scheduling that meeting. Two great ideas I pulled from this course are self awareness and preparation. 

Self awareness expresses the practice of knowing who you are, your likes and interests, and then controlling those elements along with your own emotions and moral philosophy. The goal of a negotiation is to seal a deal with a mutual gain, not to be forceful, demanding, or to see who will walk out with the world heavy weight championship belt. Self awareness is about understanding all of the parties involved, being empathetic and removing the people from the problem. Preparation is the process of research before letting your lips get a workout. In this process, you can estimate your party’s responses, predict outcomes, establish objective criteria, and create a list of the best and worst possible alternatives. 

Recently, I went through a recording contract while taking this course, and boy did it happen at the right time. I went through that contract like it was the Bible, and made more marks than an SAT. During the negotiation, I made sure to ask relevant questions, and asked for some comparative contracts of other artists, to make sure I wasn’t being ripped off. Whatever I didn’t understand, I made sure to ask questions and generated responses from the producers during preparation for the negotiation. I countered many of their responses with follow ups, and even brought in some average costs of similar independent artists. This process all happened around the time of this course, and I’m truly thankful. 

Had it not been for this course, I really think my excitement for the art may have limited my capacity to think and be logical. In the future, I will continue to use these strategies to ensure an effective negotiation. Negotiations are more than just the outcomes they create, the process builds trust and relationships. This class really challenged my ability to rationalize and you don’t have to be a lawyer to understand others, and to create an effective agreement. Negotiations aren’t about whose argument is more powerful, but how two parties can work together to create a win-win.   

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Entertainment Business Finance

Starting a record label is not a piece of cake or a simple scratch on the vinyl of profits. There are great financial decisions and numbers that need to be analyzed in order to make this music industry dream spark. The, “Entrepreneurial Finance” text guided me along the course with various formulas, accounting terms and methods used in running all business operations. Investing in your business is just the beginning. You have to know how to finance, borrow loans, how to calculate the depreciation on your instruments, how to use your capital assets in dire situations that threaten your business and how to form a break-even analysis to ensure a profit.

The preceding courses taught me how to envision a business and how to construct it far beyond a blue printed canvas. This course taught how to finance and maintain the business and gave the fundamental keys needed for survival. It’s no surprise that numbers speak, and if you keep record of your finances, develop a meaningful budget, monitor cash flows and investment decisions, and maintain a well crafted balance and income statement, you will ensure the continued growth and expansion of your operation. A company’s financial structure is what will define its persistence in its chosen industry.  

I’ve also learned to strengthen my financial stability in order to achieve greater financial ratios. These ratios act as tools in achieving better investments, loans, partnerships and opportunities for growth and advancement. When it comes to your expenses, know your variable and fixed costs. These costs will guide your financial decisions and key in to specific areas that deserve your attention. According to CNN,”Walmart plans to increase its salary expense to 1 billion dollars to cater to more than 100 million employees across the country.” This decision was made after Walmart carefully examined its fixed costs and considered the employees that truly make the company what it is. This class has really supplied the foundation to affording my dream of owning a recording studio. 

References:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/19/news/companies/walmart-wages/

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Brand Story Telling

After taking the course, “Business Storytelling & Brand Development​“ I gained some powerful insight into how to build and maintain a brand. This course aims to educate entrepreneurs on the key fundamentals of establishing a brand by defining great brands that exist today and highlighting their secret ingredient to success. Prosperous brands weren’t built on an idea, but rather a vision. The products that you see around you were developed with a target market, list of goals and a strategy in mind. One of the great things expressed in this course is the dire need for a marketing plan. 

A marketing plan is essential for all entrepreneurs because it defines your plan for your brands and then addresses the direction in which they plan to go. Designing a budget allows your marketing agenda to run smoothly and these realistic numbers give you an idea of what strategy to employ and to which method would work best. A marketing plan also helps to cap the overall objective of your brand so that you can reach your desired market and spend capital wisely. By putting these elements into place, and by understanding all of the things that are associated with your brands, you can better market and reach consumers by the masses. 

Now that I’ve embraced many of the commercial brands discussed in the course, I will use this content knowledge to build an effective marketing plan and really think about what my brand stands for, not just what my products can do. I’ve learned a lot about the new world of marketing which influences new lifestyles and keeps the consumer in mind rather than their own products. I can now design an effective campaign that will meet all of my goals and now consumer satisfaction is my priority, not profitability. I can create a relationship with the users of my brand and identify what my brand truly means and what message it sends to consumers.  

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Project & Team Management

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Styles of Leadership

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Constructed a song today,”Stuck on You”. Think I’ll push it for the first single. Very indie, pop and experimental. The best work comes when you break out of your comfort zone, dabble into new arenas and explore a song from every instrument, melody and rhythm beyond the beat. Practice does make perfect, and it’s what you invest into something that will really determine the powerful impact and masterpiece that results. 

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Mastery Journal Timeline

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Working with Blaqstarr for my upcoming project,”Rebel” has been such an incredible experience. This has been a first remarkable experience where I’ve got to witness a song transform from a simple instrument to a work of art. As the song progressed, it sprung to life as we changed the instruments and created something fresh that really touched my Baltimore roots. I can’t believe all of the ideas we were able to come up with, and it’s been so cool seeing how experimental I can be as an artist. The song started from a simple R&B seductive tune and now sounds upbeat, danceable and hard hitting. Collaborating with others really brings out your innovative thinker, breaks you out of your comfort zone and really lets you reach new peaks in your world of passions. We’ve got much more work to do in the coming weeks, and I’m currently awaiting a sample of our work, and will post it upon its availability. Blaqstarr has worked with Diplo, MIA, and Common and I’m pleased to have the opportunity to have him apart of my growing network of musical talents.