I had the pleasure of having a one on one with
music industry veteran Rich Nardo to have a discussion about the role
negotiating has in business deals within the music industry and artist
management.
Rich Nardo has been working in the music industry
for 8 years in varying capacities from artist to manager to independent
marketer. In his career he has worked in both self-employed situations
and for larger organizations. He is currently working for
Zero To Sixty
Group, an independent digital music-marketing firm located in New
York City. At Zero To Sixty, Rich is a project manager, where he has
dealt with artists ranging from Dave Matthews Band to Primus to Gotye. With his
extensive background working for Indies, Rich has been able to hone his
negotiating skills on a daily basis for the better part of his career.
Check out my interview with Rich below as we
discuss all types of aspects involving negotiations
In what capacity do you negotiate on a day-to-day
basis as far as dealing with music?
Working for an independent music marketing company,
my day-to-day dealings in terms of negotiation center mostly around client
contracts. We'll deal with labels and management to figure out the
details of what sort of marketing (digital PR, tour support, social media
strategy and maintenance, asset building, etc.) would work best for the
campaign. I also fill the roll of project manager for Zero To Sixty, so
when we're dealing with things like website builds or assets I will deal with
both the label and our programmers to figure out an appropriate price.
Then there is also the aspect of negotiation with music blogs over
premieres/features for our artists.
In what way do you prepare yourself for a
negotiation?
I've found the most important way to prepare for a
negotiation is to really learn the background of your potential client. I
study their online presence to see what is working best for them and where
there is room for improvement. Its important to understand the branding
the act is looking for, and the sort of fans they attract. From there we
can customize the proposal and the overall campaign to work best for each
individual client.
What are some negotiating tactics that you have
used?
Building off of the previous question, preparedness
is really most important in regards to a negotiation. If you're able to
show a true understanding of what the client is looking to accomplish than it
is easier to show them that you can play an important roll on the band's team.
That aside, being able to take a casual demeanor while still showing your
knowledge of the music industry and the current role of marketing in the
digital realm is important. I think a good approach to negotiation in my
case is to focus more on showing how you can sell the artist rather than trying
to sell the client on yourself. Nobody wants to feel like they were
'sold' as they are usually looking for a quality team member as opposed to
someone trying to make money for their own organization
When negotiating with another party what are some
of the challenges that arise?
The biggest challenge at the moment is the overall
lack of funding most labels are able to offer artists. Particularly in regards
to bands on major labels with their own in-house marketing teams it is
sometimes difficult to convince them to hire an independent marketer to help
when they are working on a limited budget. Another major challenge is
getting labels to pay our full fee, as we have previous relationships with a
lot of them and they are often looking for serious discounts. At the end
of the day though, we're putting a lot of hours and commitment to each project
so to be able to do our best for clients we need to be able to charge our full
price in order to not have to take on too heavy of a client roster. There
are exceptions to this obviously, but we choose our pricing strategy based on
giving the fairest price while still being able to thrive as a company.
Going below our asking price has to be an exception not the rule, and
sometimes it’s challenging to convince the label that they should pay our full
price.
Have you ever experienced another party use dirty
tricks while negotiating with you? If so how did you handle them?
I would say the closest to 'dirty tricks' would be
clients trying not to pay us for work that we have agreed upon or changing the
parameters of our agreement after a price has already been established.
Most of the time, you can't really consider the latter situation dirty as
its not done intentionally. However we tend to work on handshake
agreements in a lot of cases and there have definitely been clients that have
taken advantage of this fact.
How do you separate the people from the problem
when negotiating with them?
Its important to realize that the person you're
negotiating with is usually reporting to a higher person within their
organization that is setting the budget. Also digital marketing is such a
rapidly changing field that a lot of times clients might not truly understand
the amount of work that goes into what we do. That being said I've been
fortunate enough to deal with a lot of great people in this business, and it
makes it easier to realize that it’s often not the client trying to take
advantage of you. It usually comes down to a lack of understanding for the
process, which is why they hire us in the first place. You can't really hold a
personal grudge in these scenarios.
Give me an example of you working towards a mutual
benefit with another party during negotiations
Sometimes for clients we love or for artists we
really believe in strongly we'll work out some sort of deal. It usually
involves starting at a reduced rate while the band builds their fan base and
then increasing the rate once they've established themselves more and can get a
bigger budget from the label. We also will sometimes work out deals where
we will work an artists in exchange for the promise the label will give us
other accounts. Finally there are certain labels that we work with on a
retainer basis. With these situations the label will pay us a certain amount of
money every month for us to work a certain number of artists. These
retainers are usually done for greater longevity (typically a year) as opposed
to our standard artist contracts that usually start at 3 months guaranteed with
a month-to-month extension after that period.
Lastly, what advice would you give to a young
professional starting in the entertainment business about negotiating?
The most important advice I could give a young
professional entering the music industry is to build up your professional
network. The majority of our business comes from labels/management
companies that we have worked with in the past, or one of those companies
recommending us to another organization. When you've got a large enough
professional network and a strong reputation, it gives you greater power at the
negotiating table. Also on a case-to-case basis, never lose your head,
never get yourself in a situation that you agree to something that devalues
your worth, and never be afraid to walk away from the table if the deal is
going to put you in a bad working environment. There will be other
opportunities and if you have a contract for a certain price or you are only
able to achieve so much in a situation, that is going to be the reputation you
develop in the industry.
