I recently published an article where I highlighted (with facts) that the hugely successful artist Russ got to where he is because he didn’t do it alone and most certainly is not ‘DIY’.

In the article I outlined (with references) some of the top level team members Russ has in place.

These are not just pros, they are elite level operators who know how to help artists like Russ get the kind of results he has achieved in his career so far.

None of this is said with the intention of taking away from the amazing work that Russ has done - he’s worked incredibly hard, and had to do enough by himself in the early stages of his career to catch the attention of his manager Milan Ackerman.

Ackerman, amongst many others was instrumental in guiding Russ in the early stages towards creating the momentum that has got him to where he is today - currently sitting in the top 500 artists on earth in the most listened to artists on Spotify.

Along his journey Russ has built a substantial following who are not just music consumers, but also artists themselves.

The majority of these artists are following him because he preaches a blueprint whereby you attempt to do everything yourself.

Everything yourself being writing, recording, producing, mixing and mastering the music itself, through to creating content, marketing the content and everything else an artist needs to happen in order to have a chance of being successful.

The truth is that this is just too much for one person to possibly do, let alone do it well.

Further, if you do attempt to do this on your own, the only possibility of getting any level of success is ‘hoping’ that you’re going to go viral, which today happens much less than it did in the past, and even then the chances of going viral at a level that helps you breakthrough is basically 1 in a million (or more).

If you’re an artist and you’re pursing a pathway where the word ‘hoping’ is part of the strategy, then unfortunately you’re setting yourself up for a lot of suffering… AKA a lot of pain.

Anyone can be a busy fool…

On a basic level, as a human being, there is a finite amount of time on a daily basis for us to be able to take action.

Therefore, taking action on the things only we can do is playing the smart game.

For example, as an artist, it might seem like a good idea to try to learn how to produce your own music, however, there is a cost of doing this that most people fail to take into consideration.

That is to say, that to become a music producer requires an entire skillset in itself, a skillset many amazing people have already mastered.

The question to ask yourself is this: do I want to be an artist, or do I want to be a music producer?

If your answer is that you want to be an artist, then this is what you should be focusing your energy on.

Without any doubt, by taking this decision, you’re setting yourself up to be able to accelerate your progression towards getting a record finished much faster, to a higher standard and therefore you can make progress… much faster!

To make make this point easier to understand, let me put forward the following scenarios:

• Artist A decides that they want to learn to be a producer, as well as be an artist.

• Artist B decides they want to focus on being an artist exclusively, and instead enlists the support of a producer who already has the skillset in place to be able to produce a great sounding record to a high level of commercial standard.

Before I get into this, lets presume that in order to become a reasonably good music producer, you need to dedicate at least 2 years of focused energy on the craft of being a music producer, before you can make a record that is commercially viable.

And to get reasonably good, you have to dedicate a minimum of 40 hours per week to learning to being a producer.

Artist A goes all in on learning to be a music producer and in this time, is not able to produce music to a good enough standard to release, at the same time, because they are dedicating themselves to the craft of being a music producer, they’re not working with other producers to create master recordings.

Furthermore, because they’re dedicated to being a music producer, they’re not able to generate much in the way of additional income.

Artist B focuses on being an artist, enlisting the support of a music producer who has a track record in producing high quality commercially viable music, with 100s of millions of streams from music they’ve produced.

They dedicate 20 hours per week to being an artist and 20 hours per week to generating income to initially fund paying the music producer, and later to fund additional team members to help them promote and market their music.

Within 6 months of starting, Artist B already has 3 songs finished and ready to release, while Artist A has none.

Projecting forward by two years, Artist B was able to not only create an entire album, they were also able to release it, hiring videographers, photographers and a marketing team member to help promote the music.

The momentum they were able to create, led to them generating 20 million streams across all DSPs, meaning they were able to recoup all of their investment in making the record and generate a return.

In the meantime Artist B is only just now at a level where the music they are producing is of a standard that is ready to release…

…and now in their mindset of ‘doing it themselves’ they’re attempting to learn how to produce, edit and market videos, on top of continuing to be a music producer and artist.

Artist A is on the edge of burnout, while Artist B is getting set to keep the momentum rolling to get to the next level.

If you’re an artist and you want to get ahead, be like Artist B, play the intelligent game and get yourself a team…