Ignore Your Competition

I have owned businesses and I have helped in the running of family businesses and one thing became clear early on. You have to be aware of your market and its competitors but if you worry about your competitors too much it can do more harm than good. Let’s take CGAgency, we are in the DJ talent agent space primarily. There are other talent agencies that handle talent like ours that sure could be our competition but I just can’t bring myself to think of those other agencies like that. Once the mind does that then you have the mindset that you want to beat them or outperform them by putting a target on them and day in and day out your study what they do and go tick for tack on what they do. Who wins here? No one. In the 20+ years I have run CGAgency I have pretty much minded my own business and just tried to do the best I could with what I got. Did other agencies take talent away from us, yep more times than I am comfortable with. This didn’t bother me because I know I have time in front of me. There is new talent, there are more opportunities that are going to come my way. How did I know this? I didn’t, but this is how things happen. I was just very proactive in keeping the people I worked with happy and bringing on people that my clients wanted to bring on to their events. I still do this today. I just have more help now. My attitude all these years allowed me to go up to all of my so-called competitors and asked them how their business is doing and hoping them the best, and if opportunities come up for collaborations then to let me know. I feel if I was the person who would try to beat out the next guy I would poach artists and do shady things in order to get more out of people. Then I definitely know these possible opportunities where many of them did end up happening wouldn’t have happened because this world is smaller than you think. You can be marked the shady character and flush years of hard work right down the drain by acting the fool as some of these owners/operators act in this and many other businesses.

The new family business I am helping with now is a Mental Health facility down in South Carolina, and in this business, other mental health facilities will call on each other to refer clients to each other as there seem to be enough people that need support to go around. I had always thought that there are kickbacks for referrals in the medical world but I have to imagine that it would be deeply frowned upon in such a highly regulated space so yea it’s the way to be. You have to do what is best for your clients, both internal and external. To bring it back to the agency, there are a lot of artists that get in touch with us for representation, and sure I could take them on the agency and run them but if you are a rock band or a country singer your not going to do very well on my DJ agency. Sure we could get lucky but it’s just not a good fit. So I would tell them this and maybe give them some suggestions on where to go or who to call and wish them luck. Then there are the acts that do swim in our pond but they just aren’t popular enough, again sure I could bring them on the agency and maybe get them a few shows but who am I really helping with that? What they need is support to grow and become an artist that can be in an agency by themselves. This is why CGA Consult is a thing, so we can assist those who need to get some action items on where they are at a present time in their career and how to get to the next step. A lot of acts are going around in circles because there really isn’t an instruction guide on how to be a touring musician. It is just a lot of hard work, a bunch of strategic moves, mixed with some luck being in the right place at the right time befriending the right people and at the same time having great skill at music and hopefully having a great attitude and personality to go along with it all. So we can help a lot with the first part of all of that and maybe provide some cheat codes to get further along a little faster than those not looking for help.

The main topic here is also big with musicians as well right, a lot of acts might see other DJs as a threat versus a fellow companion in this small niche market. So instead of looking to collaborate, they will try to outdo. DJ A puts out 2 tracks in a month, then DJ B will release 4. If DJ A gets on a festival lineup and is playing on stage 3, DJ B gets on the same festival lineup but kicks and screams with his management that he needs to be on stage 2 or else, or worse yet, finds a way to buy-on the festival onto stage 2 so he comes off as the better act meaning he won that battle. As time goes on though the winner will always be the one that worked hard, that was consistent, and did it all because they liked to do it. Cause when you are good you are good. Sure a few paid-for ads or some buy-on things might be necessary to push past some plateaus but it is only due to the fact you believe in yourself and you are treating yourself or better said investing in yourself because you know and your supporters know it is worth it.

So be aware of your competitors, know who they are, see if and how you both can help each other out, and feel that out. You’ll know quickly if this is possible. If not, then do keep your guard on as they might look at you and be defensive but if there is no collaboration ignore them, and never be on the offensive. Don’t even talk about them with other people. In my past I would have many people letting me know what the other agencies were doing, who they were “screwing over” etc. I could have taken the bait and trash-talked these people, but it was just information is all and I went ahead with the rest of my day. After being in this business for as long as I have been you just learn to sit down, shut up, and keep it moving. Allow the talkers to talk, and allow the bad businesses to put themselves out of business. The only person taking care of myself and my team is my output. No good is going to come out of me having even an opinion about others. There is too much work to be done to worry about others, just the best version of yourself, it might be the only thing you can truly control.

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