HOW TO LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR A SUCCESSFUL CAREER WITH LITTLE OR NO MONEY

The number one problem of aspiring artistes is money or rather the lack thereof. I already wrote about How to start your career with little or no money in a previous post, you can read it here to help you have a better understanding of today's topic. I'm going to share with you the basic things you can do with little or no cash to lay your foundation. Amazingly, laying the right foundation for your career doesn't really require money but for some reason most aspiring artistes usually want to skip this phase and jump to the part where they need to spend money they don't have. Well, calm down, start small and do the needful. Everything I've written about how to start your career with little or no money and how to build relationships starting out as an aspiring musician will be achieved during this foundation phase. So, how do you lay the foundations for a successful career with little or no money?

CAREER STARTER PACK

1. Your talent. I can't stress on this enough. You must be sure you truly have the talent to do this.
2. Focus: You're going to need it badly. It has to be as sharp as focus can get.
3. A musical instrument. Save up and buy a musical instrument of your choice or look for someone to gift you one. I'll suggest you just get a guitar for starts. I say guitar because not only is it cheap, it is one of the easiest instruments to learn and you can even teach yourself how to play the guitar.
4. A smartphone and mobile data. You should get a smartphone, it doesn't have to be super expensive. As long as it can access the internet and make/receive phone calls then you're good to go. Even if the picture quality isn't as fantastic as you want you can always use a friend's phone to take better pictures of yourself or simply manage what you have.

DEVELOP YOURSELF

 During this initial phase of your career you're going to have a lot of time on your hands, what you do with it is very crucial to your success. You're going to put the starter pack to great use. You should spend most of your time practicing your instrument and training your voice. Use your smartphone to get materials online. There are loads of free materials online that you can use to learn the basics of singing and playing an instrument. As you build more relationships you can ask musicians for little tips here and there. I'll advise you score a lot of songs and read a lot of success, business and music related materials. Keep reading our blog and you'll keep getting useful tips on how to build your career for free.


WRITE. WRITE. WRITE.

Like I stated earlier, you're going to have a lot of free time on your hands and this is the time you get to experiment with your song writing and music composition. It is essential you write as many songs as possible. Play with different sounds, listen to lots of songs in different genres and observe different song writing skills. Write as much as you can. Some of the songs you write now may be improved and released in the future, some may become obsolete by the time you have financing for your career but keep writing anyway. A time will come when you may not have the time to write songs and you'll have to pay professional songwriters to write for you but some of the songs you write now may become handy. So, write, write, write, write, writ....


GROW YOUR FAN BASE

Your default fans are most likely going to be your family and friends unless, of course, you have a terrible family and envious friends who can't stand your awesomeness and choose not to support you, but nevertheless you're going to need fans. One of the easiest ways you can get your first set of fans is by being active on social media. Post little videos of you doing any popular song cover and you'll get more followers. Sometimes just being your charming self can help you gain followers who automatically become your fans.
You can also grow your fan base by performing at open mic events which I'm going to discuss extensively in the next point.


TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OPEN MIC SHOWS

You really do not expect to get paid for performances at this initial stage, do you? Of course not. Matter of fact, you should pay to be given opportunities to be given platforms to showcase your talent. There are a couple of open mic shows in Lagos and across the country. I'm sure there's one around your locality, if there's none please change location. If you're a Christian music artiste it's even easier for you because the church always creates platforms for young talents. So, it's left to you to get your behind out of your house and try to perform on as many platforms as possible. Like I stated before in a previous post, it is advisable you're active in a choir and/or praise team. As you keep taking solos and performing, it's only a matter of time before people start asking you when you're going to release your own songs. You see?
You're also going to get opportunities to build relationships with the right people as you go about performing for free. If you're lucky you may be given stipends. This is where you get to learn, develop and master your stage craft. This is where you get to make all the possible mistakes you can make in front of a small crowd. The fans you get at this phase are going to be more supportive and committed to your growth. Did I also mention that talent scouts usually attend shows like this to scout talents for record labels? So, always give your best, you never know who's watching.


So, basically, you lay a solid foundation by developing your talent and growing your fan base. You really don't need that much funds to do those if you're determined. Like I always state, it's not going to be easy which is why you really need to focus. But overall, you can start from scratch. Most of the successful artistes out there started from scratch. You too can make it.



Photo credit: Google.com


Best wishes
Jesam.