Verbal Agreements

Many people don’t understand that verbal agreements are just as concrete as written contracts.  Written agreements are more legally binding than verbal.  Most artists that deal with legal disagreements probably didn’t have a contract involved.  Which is one of the worst mistakes in business.  Entertainment business comprised music royalties, publication, distribution, management commission, etc.  Many artists and musicians base their decision on an emotional drive.  Allowing their emotions to lead their decisions instead of their intelligence.

Recently, I had the opportunity to be involved with a video production where I was the spoken word artist. The pre-production process was smooth.  We got along pretty well.  We had a verbal agreement. Everything was going well.  Although there were minor changes at the end, we were still able to work out our differences and move forward.  I believe we were able to complete the production because of our maturity level.  However, a written agreement (or contract) wasn’t involved during this process. What if we had a disagreement?

While successful partnership may have been the result for me, you never know what will happen in production when you choose not to protect the material.  It’s important to not only protect yourself but also the product being advertised.  Protection is the key element of maintaining power and dominance.  Once protection is lost, security is minimized and decreased.

Even if you feel that you are already taking the necessary precautions, take the time to understand different copyright procedures and sort through your options to ensure a great form of protection.  Because the last thing you want to experience is the loss of personal music or art material because of the lack of protection.  Learn to use your emotions to think and not to think with your emotions (Kiyosaki, 1997).  This means never allow your excitement to overrule practical principles. 

Here’s the spoken word video.  Enjoy!

When Investors & Concerts Goes Wrong

I’ve recently had the opportunity to be a stage manager for a concert held in Orlando, Florida with a well-known artist (in which his name should will be unknown for protection purposes).  The pre- production process was successful.  I had constant communication with the visionary, constructed meetings with the technician director to ensure backline material are in place, organized and scheduled sound check for the artist and band, etc.

You would think from my proper planning that the concert would be a success.  The excruciating disappointment in finding out that the concert was cancelled, raises the question of, what went wrong? What people don’t know is that an investor funded the concert. To gain the trust of an investor you must provide systemic budget plan that realistic and measurable.  This is essential to ensure the funds of the project or business is being spent wisely. 

Investors don’t care about what you’ve done in the past.  They want to know how you’re going to benefit them and ensure a great level of ROI (Return On Investment).  This is why you MUST organize a strategic and functional plan to ensure that funds are being spent correctly.  It’s the responsibility of the manager or visionary to convert the functional plan into an overall budget and comment to that budget (Adelman, 2009). 

In the entertainment business, things are bound to go wrong.  However, being able to make quick decisions is essential in providing great quality service and entertainment for the client and consumer.  With the example of the concert, maybe the investor didn’t agree on how the funds were being spent and decided to resign.  Investors are considered as partial owners of the business and have all rights to change and manage the project.  The lesson from this concert is to make sure you properly plan and provide documentation to tangibly maintain the progress of the project.  Because if the investor is not happy, he/she will show it through action. 

This is an example of a budget sheet from a concert proposal.