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Artists STILL Don’t Make Money From Record Deals

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Sep 222020
 

ARTISTS STILL DON’T MAKE MONEY FROM RECORD DEALS
By, Wendy Day from Rap Coalition (www.RapCoalition.org and www.rapcointelpro.com)

Who is the incredible bonehead who said rap artists make a lot of money? Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!! Because the fans expect their favorite artists to be very wealthy, and have an interesting, far above average, glamorous lifestyle, this puts an incredible amount of pressure on the artists to appear wealthy. And it’s not just the fans; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been out with rappers along with people in the industry, and the industry opportunists have expected the artists to pick up the dinner check. I’ve even seen people have an attitude if the artist doesn’t pay for everything. This is small minded and ignorant because the artist is ALWAYS the last to get paid.

Everyone gets their cut first:
· the label (78% to 92% after they recoup most expenses),
· the manager (15% to 20% of all of the artist’s entertainment income),
· the lawyer (by the hour or 5%-10% of the deal),
· the accountant (by the hour or 5% of all income), and, of course,
· the IRS (25% to 35% depending on the tax bracket).
Add to this the artists’ own payroll responsibilities: fan club, website, security, office and/or studio, etc, and family members he, or she, is expected to support or help financially.

Once an artist releases a record, the pressure is on to portray a successful image to fans, friends, families, and people around the way. People expect the artists to be well dressed, drive an expensive car, live in a very nice house, etc. Think about it. Don’t you expect artists “to look like artists?” Would you admire Jay-Z as much if he drove a broken down old 1994 Grand Am instead of that beautiful, brand new, top of the line Bentley?

Sadly, when an artist gets signed to a record label, especially a rap artist, he or she receives somewhere between 8 and 13 points. What that means is 8% to 13% of the retail sales price (less inane deductions that whittle that small percentage down another few points), after the record label recoups the money it puts out (the advance, the sample clearances, the producer advances, usually half the cost of any videos, any cash outlays for the artists, half of the radio promotion expenses, most of the street promotion expenses, etc.). The artist has to sell an incredible amount of units to make any money back. Here’s an example of a relatively fair record deal for a new rap group with some clout in the industry and a terrific negotiating attorney:

ROYALTY RATE: 12%

We’re going to assume that there are 3 artists in the group, and that they split everything equally. We’re also going to assume that they produce their own tracks themselves, contributing equally, without sampling.

Suggested retail list price (CDs) $12.98
less 15% packaging deduction (usually 20%) =$11.03
gets paid on 85% of records sold (“free goods”) =$9.38

So the artists’ 12% is equal to about $1.13 per record sold. In most deals, the producer’s 3% comes out of that 12%, but for the sake of brevity, in this example the group produced the whole album, buying no tracks from outside producers, which is rare.

Let’s assume that they are a hit and their record goes Gold (although it is rare that a first record blows up like this). Let’s also assume they were a priority at their record label and that their label understood exactly how to market them (which is also rare). So they went Gold, selling 500,000 units according to SoundScan (and due to the inaccuracies in SoundScan tracking at the rap retail level, 500,000 scanned probably means more like 600,000 actually sold–but they’ll only be accounted to for the 500,000 SoundScan verified units instead of what actually has sold).

GOLD RECORD = 500,000 units sold multiplied by $1.13 = $565,000. Looks like a nice chunk of loot, huh? Watch this: Now the label recoups what they’ve spent: the cost to make the record, independent promotion, 1/2 the video costs, some tour support, all those limo rides, all those out of town trips for the artists and their friends, etc.

$565,000
-$300,000 recoupable stuff (recording costs, etc)
——–
$265,000
-$100,000 advance
——–
$165,000

Still sounds OK? Watch… Now, half of the $265,000 stays “in reserve” (accounting for returned items from retail stores) for 2 to 4 years depending on the length specified in the recording contract. So the $100,000 advance is actually subtracted from $132,500 (the other $132,500 is in reserves for 2 years). Now, there’s also the artist’s manager, who is entitled to 20% of all of the entertainment income, which would be 20% of $265,000, or $53,000. Remember, the artist is the last to get paid, so even the manager gets paid before the artist. The attorney is entitled to 10% of the upfront value of the deal, which in this case was $200,000, so the lawyer made $20,000 the day the contract was signed (which the label paid directly), which the artist pays back now out of royalties.

So the artists are in debt to the label yet their album went Gold, and they are experiencing some pretty good fame and perceived success. Unless they are making money in other areas (shows, mostly) they are completely broke. In two years when the reserves are liquidated, IF they’ve recouped, they will each receive another $44,166. IF they’ve recouped. Guess who keeps track of all of this accounting? The label. Most contracts are “cross-collateralized,” which means when the artist does not recoup on the first album, the money will be paid back out of the second album. Also, if the money is not recouped on the second album, repayment can come out of the “in reserve” funds from the first album, if the funds have not already been liquidated.

Even if all the reserves are paid in our example, each artist only actually made 6 cents per unit. The label made and/or recouped about $8 per unit. This example also doesn’t include any additional production costs for an outside producer to come in and/or do a re-mix, and you know how often that happens.

So each artist in this group has received a total of about $26,000 (pretty much just the initial advance, less the manager’s cut). After legal expenses and costs of new clothing to wear on stage while touring, etc, each artist has made so little before paying taxes (which the artist is responsible for– remember Kool Moe Dee?). Let’s look at the time line now. Let’s assume the artists had no jobs when they started this. They spent 4 months putting their demo tape together and getting the tracks just right. They spent another 6 months to a year getting to know who all of the players are in the rap music industry and building a local buzz while shopping their demo. After signing to a label, it took another 8 months to make an album and to get through all of the label’s bureaucracy. When the first single dropped, the group went into promotion mode and traveled all over promoting the single at radio, retail, concerts, and publications for free–unless they had a radio hit as their single, in which case they began getting some show money for about half or a third of the dates they performed. This was another six months. The record label decided to push three singles off the album so it was another year before they got back into the studio to make album Number Two. This scenario has been a total of 36 months. Each member of the group made $70,000 for a three year investment of time, which averages out to a little over $23,000 per year. In corporate America, that works out to be $11 per hour (before taxes).

OK, so it’s not totally hopeless. Since we’re using the fantasy of a relatively fair deal, let’s look at publishing from a relatively fair perspective. There are mechanical royalties and performance royalties to figure in. Mechanical royalties are the payments that Congress stipulates labels must pay based on copyright ownership and publishing ownership. These payments have nothing to do with recouping, but everything to do with who owns the publishing. Publishing is where the money is in the music business.

Although publishing can be quite cumbersome to understand, the most basic principle is that when an artist puts pen to paper, or makes a beat, the artist owns the publishing. It’s that simple. Whoever creates the words or music owns those words or music. Where it gets confusing is all the different ways to get paid on publishing, all the ways to split publishing with other folks, and all the ways artists get screwed out of their publishing. In the 14 years I’ve been doing this, I have heard so many times, artists say that they don’t care about losing a song or two because they can always make a ton more. That’s stupidity. It’s undervaluing one’s ability. That’s like saying it’s OK to rob me of my cash, because I can go to the ATM machine and get more money. Wrong!! It’s never right to rob someone. The “I can make more” defense immediately goes out the window when the creator sees someone else make hundreds of thousands of dollars off a song. Every time!! So why not protect yourself in the door?

Publishing reminds me of real estate. When you make a song, you are the owner of that property: the landlord. Sometimes you sell off a piece of the land for money (but you NEVER give away your land, right??) and if someone else wants to use your property, or rent it, they have to pay you rent to use it.

A copyright is proof of ownership of a song, both lyrics and music. If there is a sample in the music, you are automatically giving up part of the song, at the whim of the person who owns the rights to the original song (not necessarily the original artist). In order to “clear the sample,” you send your version of the song to the owner of the original composition or whomever owns the publishing (and to the owner of the master, meaning original record label or whomever now owns the master). Then you negotiate two prices with those two owners. Some are set in stone and you get to either agree to their price or to remove the sample. It’s not uncommon to spend close to $100,000 in advances and fees due to the sampling on an album. This usually comes out of upfront monies (advance) and the artist bears the burden of paying for it all, even though the record label owns the record.

Proof of copyright is easy to obtain by registering your song with the copyright office in Washington DC. You can either call them (202.707.9100) and ask for an SR Form (sound recording) or download one from their website (http://www.copyright.gov/forms/formpai.pdf). You fill out the form, listing all of the owners, and mail it back to them with a copy of the song (a cassette is good enough) along with the Copyright fee (around $35 or so). This way, if someone steals your song, or a piece of your song, you can sue them for taking it and recover your legal fees. With the “poor man’s copyright” (mailing your tape to yourself in a sealed envelope with your signature across the sealed flap, and then never opening it when it arrives back to you with a postmark proving the date), you can not sue for damages and it’s more difficult to prove your case. The copyright fee may seem like a lot of money to some, but it’s nothing compared to what a law suit would cost you.

Performance royalties are money that is paid for the performance of your song. The money is paid based on the percentage of ownership of the song. So if you own 100% of the song, you get the whole check. If you own just the music, which is half the song, then you get half the money. If you own the music with a sample in it that claims half the song, then you get a check for 25%. Ya follow? Performance Rights organizations consist of ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC (which is still quite small). They police the radio stations, clubs, concerts, etc (any place music is played or broadcast), all of whom pay a fee to play the music which the performance rights societies collect and split amongst their members based on the amount of times a record is played. Although the formulas change annually based on play, a Top 10 song played on commercial radio can earn a good chunk of change in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range.

There is another kind of royalty artists receive when their records sell: mechanical royalties. These are paid based upon a pre-set limit placed by Congress which increases automatically every two years. In 2000 and 2001, it was .0765 cents per song, and in 2002 and 2003, it was .0815 per song. In 2004 and 2005, it went up to .0865 cents, and in 2006 it became .091 cents where it will stay until Congress raises it again.

Record labels put caps on mechanical royalties at either 10 songs, 11 songs, or 12 songs, no matter how many songs actually appear on the record, and you get what you negotiate for. Also, there’s a slimy little clause that restricts payment of mechanicals (because God knows labels don’t make enough money as it is) to anywhere between 75% and 85%. This evil deed is called “percentage of statutory rate.” Here’s the difference those few pennies make as it pertains to an artist’s royalty check (I refuse to even consider illustrating the worst bullshit deals such as 10x at 75%) provided they own 100% of the song:

I based the above chart on the old 1998-1999 rate of .0715 per song, so I could use Fiend (No Limit Records) as an example. His first album came out in April of 1998 when the stat rate set by Congress was at this rate.

The dollar figure above represents monies due an artist (regardless of recoupment) per album based on ownership of 100% of publishing. So for example, Fiend who was signed to No Limit at the time, (provided he owns 100% of his publishing–I can dream can’t I?), if his deal gives him 11x rate at 85% (which I am sure is higher than he got) then on his first album, There’s One In Every Family, which came out 4/28/98 and sold 565,977 SoundScan units, No Limit would have paid him (hopefully) $378,369.77. If No Limit owns half of Fiend’s publishing, he would receive $189,184.88 provided he wrote all of his own songs (which he did, except the verses by other artists who appeared which lowers the ownership percentage and dollar amount) and provided he made all of his own beats (which he did not; he features outside producers on this album like Beats By The Pound).

So there you have it, the real deal on how much money an artist makes. You can subtract another 25% to 35% of all income, including show money, (depending on the artist’s tax bracket which is determined by how much income was made within any given calendar year) for the IRS who get paid quarterly (hopefully) by the artist’s accountant, who gets paid 5% of the total artist’s entertainment income for this luxury (that’s 5% of the net income, meaning BEFORE taxes). If the average artist releases a record every two years, then this income must last twice as long… I think about this every time I see my favorite artists in their music videos drinking $300 a bottle champagne, or every time I see them drive by in a brand new Benz…

Wendy Day
Rap Coalition
www.rapcoalition.org
www.rapcointelpro.com
www.HelpfulAngel.com

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Benefits from having a Credit Card

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Sep 212020
 

Credit cards, or plastic money, are the most popular mode of payment today. Most of us didn’t probably realize how quickly that small piece of plastic took its place in our world (and our wallet). So what is it that makes credit cards so indispensable for all and sundry? Let’s examine a few factors here:

1. A matter of convenience Yes, this is the most important factor. Imagine stashing cash in all your pockets as against just a small piece of plastic. If you don’t have the convenience of a credit card, you might end up dressing up for shopping in a way so as to maximize the pockets in which you can carry cash. With all that cash stashed everywhere on you, even your body movements get restricted hence causing even more inconvenience.

2. Safety As they say, carrying a lot of cash on you is never safe. This becomes even more important when you are traveling to far off destinations.Cash is not only easily visible from the bulge in your pockets but also the most liquid form of money i.e. stolen cash can be easily used without detection. Contrary to this, credit cards transactions are detectable and traceable. Moreover, each transaction is authenticated for the user who is carrying out the transaction. More so, cash can invite trouble in the form of muggers and more that just the money lead to physical harm as well. So it’s even more prudent to avoid the display of cash and instead use plastic as a substitute.

3. Necessity Yes, though a bit unbelievable, it’s true that the credit cards are a necessity in some cases. Buying air tickets online to get good deals or booking an accommodation or a rental car when traveling are examples wherein you cannot get the service unless you book using your credit card.

4. Planning budgets “Buy now, pay later with no interest”, this is what it is popularly known as. You will find such adverts every where, be it your local stores or online shopping. What this means is that you can buy an item of $5000 today and pay for it in 10 equal installments of $500 each (can be up to 24 equal installments or more). Thus you don’t have to dole out the entire amount at one go and can plan your expenditures more effectively, that too without any interest charges.

5. Rescuer in financially tight situations There are times when you need some extra cash immediately. In such emergency situations, when you don’t have sufficient cash you can go on credit by using your credit card. Most credit cards provide up to 50 days of interest free credit.

6. Build credit rating Credit cards are a good way to establish your credit worthiness in the market. Based on whether you make timely payments or default on them, the credit card companies maintain your history and build your credit rating over a period of time. This can be shared with other financial institutions who want to check your credit worthiness before conducting financial transactions with you. This rating can also become handy when you are applying for loans or mortgages.

7. Saves time No need to worry about whether you have enough cash on hand or not. No need to spend time withdrawing cash from the ATM (or day/night cash machines). Just carry your credit card with you and all is taken care of.

8. Saves Money A lot of service providers give handsome discounts when you subscribe online or buy stuff online. This is because they would save on commission to agents and on costs of employing additional sales representatives, if everyone started shopping in person. These discounts are available from your airlines to your phone service provider or your internet connection provider.

9. Insurance Most credit card companies provide you free travel and accident insurance on your credit cards. Though this is limited and you could prefer to go for personal insurance, this can become handy at some odd times.

10. Fall back option when overseas You can treat your credit card as a supplementary source of money when overseas (i.e. if you don’t want to treat credit card as your primary source in order to avoid paying commission etc on overseas credit card transactions). So, when you run out of cash or traveler’s cheques you can rely on your credit card as a fallback option. Thus, your credit card can act as your savior in such situations. With so many benefits on the rack, credit cards are something that one cannot (rather should not) avoid. In fact credit cards are truly a necessity in today’s world.

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Credit cards – Other benefits

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Sep 202020
 

Credit cards are here to stay for the multiple benefits associated with them. We already know that credit cards act as a convenient payment mode for shopping, they are safer to carry as compared to cash, they help build a credit rating which can be used for getting fast approval on loans etc, and they are there to help when you need credit. However, there are other benefits too which one should be aware of as well. Let’s check what these other benefits are:

1. Travel Insurance

A lot of credit cards have travel insurance built into them as an inherent feature. So if you are one of those who travel frequently, this benefit could be a real boon. However, you should always check if this travel insurance is enough for you. Also check the terms and conditions associated with such insurance. Loss of baggage is something which is almost invariably covered with such insurance.

2. Discounts for travelers

A number of credit card companies have tie-ups or association with various hotel chains, car rental agencies and airlines etc. For frequent travelers, this is sometimes one of the main criterion or deciding factor in choosing a credit card. These discounts are sometimes pretty attractive and your credit card may become a cash saver for you. Sometimes an airline might offer a credit card too (a co-branded credit card for example) where-in the benefits would be more travel oriented than other cards. This could include things like earning additional miles for payments made using their credit card or some kind of preferential treatment etc.

3. Discount for shoppers

If you are one of those who likes to shop at some particular shops (retail chains) which are your favorites, then you might like to check if you have some additional benefits available on your credit card. These could be there as a result of partnership or affiliation links with the retail chain. Whenever you pay for your purchases using your credit card, you either get a discount or additional membership rewards points. Some of the retail chains float their own co-branded credit cards too and it could be good to consider them too.

4. Membership Rewards

Most of the credit card suppliers run membership rewards programs too. Some of these are free to join whereas others might have a small fee associated with them. The ones with fee obviously offer more attractive rewards as compared to the free ones. So once you subscribe to a membership program (either explicitly or implicitly) you start earning reward points on whatever payments you make using your credit card. As you accumulate points, you become eligible for rewards which are based on the number of membership reward points you hold on your credit card. You can barter these points for attractive gifts. If you are a heavy user of your credit card, you will accumulate the points faster. Watches, bags, wine and a whole lot of good stuff can be bought using these reward points. So keep track of your reward points.

5. Cash back

Some credit card companies provide you with cash back option too where-in you might get a certain percentage of money back, if you spend more than a certain amount on your credit card. These are really good offers. Nothing can match a thing like cash back.

So, read all the benefits being offered on your credit card. You never know when one could become handy.

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Beware of Web Sites Bearing “Free Gifts”

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Sep 192020
 

One of my best friends, someone that I’ve known since I was a teenager (which seems like a long time ago!), had a great collection of T-Shirts with some of the funniest slogans on them that I’ve ever seen.

One of my favorites was his T-Shirt that read: “If You Can’t Dazzle ’em with Brilliance, Baffle ’em with Bull****” (You can probably fill in the blanks quite easily!)

There are a tremendous number of web sites selling Information on the Internet who are doing just that. Completely lacking in anything even remotely resembling brilliance, they are spending a great deal of effort, and seriously taxing their few active brain cells, in order to Baffle you into buying sub-standard Information Products.

We are in the business of providing Product Sourcing information to Home-based Internet Businesses. We publish The Drop Ship Source Directory, a Directory of brand name Wholesale Supplier who are willing to Drop Ship those products directly to your customer from the warehouse, one at a time, at wholesale. It’s an excellent way to do business without spending a ton of money on stocking an inventory. We also publish The Light Bulk Wholesale Directory; a Directory of genuine Wholesale Suppliers who are willing to sell small bulk quantities of products to Home-based Internet Businesses at larger bulk quantity wholesale prices. We’ve worked very hard for years to provide absolutely honest and complete information.

However, there are other information providers in this business who are either too lazy to do the time-consuming research this business requires, or are just outright scam artists looking to cheat you out of your money.

They have a wide range of methods they use to Baffle you into buying from them, but one of the most obvious is Free Gifts.

Now, we have to be careful here, because there are two kinds of Free Gifts.

1.) Free Gifts given to you before the sale are usually a good thing. We do that ourselves; we offer a very comprehensive Free EBook that gives you a tremendous amount of FREE information on starting your Internet Business. We give you that for free, no questions asked, no personal information required, and you never have to buy anything from us. THAT kind of Free Gift is OK, because it really is Free!

2.) Free Gifts that are promised after the sale are the thing to watch out for. They are designed to make the offer look so attractive to you that you simply cannot turn it down. They are, in fact, given to you because the main informational product itself is so lousy that it’s creators feel that they have to suck you in with after-the-sale freebies, or they’ll never sell anything to you at all. However, in order to get all these Free Gifts, you have to buy something first.

Here’s how these scam artists work:

They pitch their junk Informational Product to you with all kinds of wonderful promises, telling you that you’re going to make incredible amounts of money very quickly.

That in itself is not true! NOBODY makes incredible amounts of money quickly on the Internet. In the real world, it takes time, patience, and work!

THEN they tell you that if you order their information, they will include “$750 Worth of Bonus Free Gifts!” with your order, or some such ridiculous statement. They tell you that you will get Marketing Information, Email Generation Software, Important Articles and Reports, Expensive EBooks, Bonus Wholesale Guides, etc., etc., for FREE, after you buy their product.

Freebies that you only get AFTER the sale are there for two reasons:

* They make you think you’re getting much more that you are paying for, when in truth you are not; you can pick up that stuff for free without buying anything. All that Free Stuff is just that; it’s FREE, it’s garbage, and you can find it all over the Internet for nothing, without having to pay a cent for anybody’s products. The scam artists certainly do not pay for it; why should you?

* They are a distraction. The scam artists are counting on the very good probability that you will spend so much time with, and get so caught up in all that extra free stuff that you will forget that the original product you paid for is junk, and you’ll never bother to ask for a refund!

So Beware of Informational Web Sites offering Free Gifts after the sale, folks. There is a reason for it, and it’s not a good one!

Maybe they should also offer a T-Shirt with those “gifts” …I know a guy who can suggest a good one…

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Affiliate Money – How to “Keep” them Coming to you

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Sep 182020
 

Rereading my previous article “Affiliate Money – How to make them coming to you” in which I discuss some of the rudimental options on creating a valid home based business using nothing but Affiliate Programs, I have asked myself a question. A question so simple and yet so important that I knew – answer this one right and I’m set for life! A question, which everyone who is looking for proven income opportunities in Affiliate Programs should ask himself.

I have pounded out some thoughts and some basics that I know will work well as they work for me day after day. Just please remember these are only basics as I’m not a self-proclaimed “guru” but a simple man who managed to learn and implement the techniques discussed bellow.

Making an initial sale is great and exciting and a feeling familiar to anyone involved into Affiliate Programs marketing. But as every successful affiliate knows – it’s a lot easier to sell to a person who already bought from you or based on your advice and marketing efforts necessary for that sale are a lot less. So how do you repeat a sale?

Give away free stuff. Be it an ebook or a report but give it away for free. The key here is to find a material that allows you to rebrand links inside that ebook or report with your own affiliate links. Many programs provide you with such materials and they do the wanders. Even if person didn’t buy from you this time, they WILL download a free ebook and if it answers their questions or provide them with information they were looking for, they will click on YOUR affiliate link. Caching! Do you hear cash register ringing? I do.

Give away more free stuff! But now use a slightly different technique – auto responders. It’s an income maker on autopilot! And all you have to do is give something away and setup auto responder messages. Find an ebook with resale rights that give you an option to give away to members or through subscriptions. A good place to look for these type of materials are a manual click traffic exchanges, such as TrafficSwarm, as people give away a lots of free stuff there for simple newsletter signup. Just get one of the free auto responders. Much better option is to use auto responder that comes with your hosting account. That way you will not have to deal with third party advertisement. Make sure that your emails are precise to the point and something that interest your readers. Never used auto responder or don’t know how to write a winning email? It’s not a problem. There is a wealth of ebooks written on the subject and better once have the sample e-mail where all you have to do is customize them to fit your needs

Using auto responders is a bliss when done right. I do recommend couple things if you decide to utilize them:

Always use a subscription model where users have to confirm their intention to subscribe. Don’t try to force people into your subscription! This will eliminate possibility of invalid e-mail addresses and prevent you from been reported as a spammer – a sure kill to your business.
Double-check your e-mails for possibility of been filtered as spam, explain people to setup white listing options for your e-mails. Use a freely available Internet tools to check your e-mails for spam filtering, before you send them. After all it’s your money making tool, so make an extra effort.

The techniques above are extremely simple and yet overlooked by great many people or not utilized to the full extent. Hard to imagine any good reasons why. Successfully implementing them will not just assist you but put your efforts into overdrive.

And really it’s that important. Residual income and new income from previously sold customers is the ultimate goal of any affiliate marketer and if it’s not your goal yet – make it!

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Profiles of the Powerful: Advertising Exec Steve Grasse

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Sep 172020
 

After ten minutes with Ed Tettemer in the offices of the agency he founded with partner, Steve Red, you begin to understand the agency’s passion for excellence. After an hour with Ed, you begin to understand the intensity of his personal passion. You begin to understand it but I have a feeling that, even after days and days of exposure to him, you probably wouldn’t get the whole picture.

“Passion,” the word, may seem descriptive of a complicated set of feelings and opinions. Oddly, in thinking about Ed Tettemer’s passion for his agency and its clients, it seems rather simple. It’s just that he wants everything to be excellent: excellent clients, excellent co-workers, excellent marketing solutions, excellent creative executions, excellent everything.

“Where’d you go to college, Ed?” (A question most interviewers ask without expecting surprises in the response.) “Never went to college. Dropped out of high school and never looked back. Got my college degree at the Elkman agency and my graduate degree at Earle Palmer Brown.”

Maybe it’s best to start at the beginning. Ed was born and raised and was “scared of the city,” living in a rather parochial environment. His Father was a sheriff in Bucks County and his Mother worked as a secretary in the office of the small township where they lived. Theirs was a simple life, a good life in a small town atmosphere. He and his Dad fished a lot and they ate what they caught. The vegetables on their table came from their garden except for the mushrooms they harvested after heavy rains. It seemed to be an uncomplicated existence far from the pressures and tensions of traditional business, especially the advertising business.

Dad was pretty much occupied with his job and the politics of the community. Mom was more influential on the lives of Ed and his older brother. Neither parent made strong suggestions about what Ed and his brother did to prepare them for a career. They were good people and Mom, especially, influenced the way Ed has turned out. She was passionate about music and books. Ed is, too. She preached, “Keep your eyes and ears open.” Ed tries to do that. All she wanted for her children was for them to be happy and she didn’t try to control their every move. Today, Ed appreciates that.

His childhood was a happy one. He liked to fish. He played a lot of baseball. He was a fairly typical American kid. Then, when he was in high school, there was a dramatic change. It was called the Viet Nam War. Consistent with how many people felt at the time, his older brother took off for Canada to resist the war. That had severe, negative impact on life in peaceful Bucks County. Overnight, the Tettemer family became pariahs. Friends deserted them. The community changed its view of them. Church changed. Bad stuff!

Clearly, that situation had a powerful influence on Ed’s psyche. He dropped out of high school and spent over three years hitch hiking all over the country. He found ways to make enough money to do a lot of both savory and unsavory things. He was a confused young man wandering the country during confusing times.

But he never lost touch with his Mother and Dad so, ultimately, he went home to Bucks County and found a job working as a glorified gopher for the Doylestown Intelligencer. He ran ads back and forth from the paper to its small, retail advertisers. He says, “I guess I was a junior account executive and didn’t know it.” He delivered ad proofs, started helping small stores with their ad copy and quickly learned how those small retailers did their newspaper advertising.

During the year at the paper, he got to know and got to be friendly with many of his customers. He realized that most of them didn’t have a lot of confidence in the help they were getting from the paper. He believed that he could help them do better advertising, advertising that actually worked and could be tracked. He doesn’t know why he believed that but he believed it.

He remembered Pete’s Place in a rather nostalgic way. Pete’s Place was a restaurant in Ottsville just north of Doylestown. Their ad always ran on the same page with other restaurants. All of the ads were the same size, were laid out in a conventional rectangle and had many of the same messages: good food, low prices, family atmosphere, etc.
Pete’s Place was pretty much the same as a lot of places in that part of the country.
Except for one thing. Their logo and sign was a big wagon wheel.

After Ed convinced them to try to look different, their next ad was designed to be round. It stood out nicely on the page with all the rectangles. Someone once said that good advertising should zig when the competition’s zags. While Ed didn’t refer to that specific quote during our interview, much of what he said about Pete’s Place and about Red Tettemer’s work seems to support that “Zig if they Zag”idea. Ed reflects, “I think I made six bucks on the work I did for Pete’s.”


The result? He worked with mostly small retailers for four years and developed a keen understanding of how the retailer thinks and of what it takes to motivate consumers to respond to advertising and promotion. In his own words, “I guess I didn’t really know what I was doing but I liked my clients, worked hard and made a decent living.”


Marriage followed as did a move into Center City where he, wife Lyn and daughter Jessie still live. His first job in the city was with the old Elkman Agency where he claims to have started “Knowing nothing.” His boss, Creative Director Jim Block, promised to make him into a copy writer and further promised that he would like doing it. Jim did what he promised and Ed did like it. He had five productive years there but was always the junior writer. He needed more.


Off to Becker/Kanter (now Panzano & Partners,) he soon learned the logic of focusing on vertical businesses. He was a senior creative director there working almost exclusively on shopping center advertising and promotion. The “vertical” idea had great influence on him in the early days of Red Tettemer when they spent most of their effort with cable TV and entertainment accounts.


He was recruited to Earle Palmer Brown where three factors influenced his thinking and his behavior. First, Brian Meridith, then the head of creative at EPB, showed him how important it was to have a good idea at the beginning of creative execution. “What’s the idea? What’s the idea?” was hammered into his consciousness. Second, he formed a new perspective about “vertical.” While it’s valuable and, at times, necessary, to focus on specific industries, it’s also valuable and stimulating to have a broader base. Today’s Red Tettemer is definitely broad based and probably always will be.


The third factor was, perhaps, the most important. In early 1992, Ed just didn’t know what to do with his career and his growing, positive reputation. “I was disillusioned.
I just didn’t believe in the people I worked for.”


Fortunately, he was allowed to do some free lance work and frequently collaborated with Steve Red with whom he had a marvelous working relationship. He got a call from Steve about working with him on several large assignments. His copy, Steve’s design skills and their ability to work together so effectively brought out his assertion, “I had the time of my life working with Steve.”


It took Ed three years to convince Steve to join with him to form Red Tettemer in 1996.
They live by their mission statement, “Energize our clients and their businesses.” Ed is proud when he reports that they try hard to make their clients’ competitors envious. They’ve followed those convictions while moving from “vertical” client groups into more general accounts. Some of their recent acquisitions are SEPTA, University of Pennsylvania Health System and Hatfield Meats.


Neither Ed nor Steve has much tolerance for the traditional approach used by many agencies. So, they’ve successfully created a fun environment. Their office space is designed in creative ways. The décor is imaginative but comfortable. There are surprises everywhere: a conference room with no conference table, eclectic art work all over the walls, small nooks and crannies with interesting appointments and two balconies which allow for panoramic views of the City. The physical experience of the offices is sure to be pleasant and entertaining for every age group: traditionalists as well as employees, whose average age is under thirty.


What’s the smartest business decision you ever made, Ed? Instantly, the response is,
“Being in partnership with Steve Red. In fact, that may be my best life decision.”
How about your worst decision? “I waited too long to expand from our “vertical” focus.
also, I think I’ve been too reclusive.” (Maybe this article will help, Ed.)


Fun for Ed? Trying to understand client needs and finding solutions. Cooking. Reading. Joining the fire company near his beach home. Remarking that he thinks he made his Mother and Father proud. Red Tettemer’s annual retreat. Family. Many things.


One more question, Ed. “What would you do with a couple of wishes?”


Thoughtfully, he responds in a way that further demonstrates his passion. He says that he’d like to keep in closer touch with all of his employees, that he wishes he could reenergize the agency more frequently and that he’d like to take time to celebrate their good fortune more frequently.


If life is dull, if you need a shot of passion in your life, if you’d enjoy being stimulated by the innards of an ad agency, if you respond to another person’s motivation and, yes, passion, visit Red Tettemer. While you’re there, try to spend a few minutes with Ed. As his Mother taught him, “Keep your eyes and ears open.” You’ll enjoy the visit.

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7 Poor reasons to get involved in MLM

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Sep 162020
 

Network marketing, or “MLM” can be a great way to earn everything from a small additional income to a generous full time living.


However, many people join mlm type opportunities without really knowing what they are getting themselves in to. This is probably one of the biggest reasons for the fact that some people have very low thoughts about this type of business.


Mlm works if you do it right. Period. That said, here are seven really poor reasons for enrolling in a network marketing opportunity:


1) Earning “easy money”


I know – the mlm-companies are very good a promoting their business as a simple 1-2-3 process that anyone can do and become an instant millionaire. Especially online it has almost become a standard to use super long and totally over hyped sales letters.


This is the equivalent of claiming that anyone who can open a can of beans can be a master chef.


Don’t get me wrong, I do think most people can make it in mlm if they put their minds to it. But you must be prepared to learn many new things and you WILL have to work for it. Make no mistake about that!


2) Expecting that “spill over” will do all the work


Many mlm opportunities are built on what’s called a “forced matrix”. For example, in a 3×9 matrix, when you have sponsored your three first new members, the fourth will be placed under the first person you sponsored. This person has thus gained one person in his downline, without any effort on his part.


Now, some companies would have you believe that their top recruiters are so effective that the spill over from their marketing will automatically make you, who are joining at the very bottom right now, an instant success.


This is simply a pipe dream – it will never happen. Yes, you probably will get a few people spilled over into your downline, but nowhere near enough to guarantee your success. The sheer width of the matrix on your level, means that there is an enormous amount of representatives that will have to shear any amount of spill over.


And who says the top recruiters are as active as they once where anyway? Worst case scenario, they are now working on something else entirely, because their income in this particular opportunity is already secured.


3) Thinking that a product is so great it will sell itself


This is a classic mistake, because most mlm systems simply aren’t really about the product. This fact is difficult to swallow, I know.


As a greenhorn I remember joining this lottery syndicate-mlm, thinking that “everybody” would want better chances at winning the lottery – right? The disappointment was huge when I discovered the truth – some people even made fun of any attempt to mention this great new thing I had discovered.


Likewise, in mlm, it will not matter if you are selling a breakthrough product that contains every mineral and vitamin under the sun – if you do not understand what network marketing is really all about.


4) Doing an old friend a favour


We have all been there – an old friend you haven’t met for years who suddenly calls you and want to set up a meeting about something he will tell you more about when you meet…


I’m not saying that this couldn’t be a potentially good business. But calling all your friends is a very ineffective way to do mlm, and you should never join any opportunity only to do someone else a favour. Because in the end this is about you, your money and your career.


5) Earning a lot of money in a short period of time


Most mlm testimonials always seem to go something like this:


– In my first month I made $800 and now, in my third month, I have been able to quit my job and…etc.


While not outright lies, testimonials like these are usually collected from individuals who, through luck or skill, managed to join this particular opportunity from the very beginning. They are simply at the top of the pyramid and they often know exactly what they are doing – the’re the mlm experts.


Like most offerings, mlm opportunities have a life cycle that grows rapidly in the beginning. During this phase of explosive growth it can be very easy to sponsor dozens of new people per day, with relatively little effort. After all, this is something entirely new and one well placed ad can do wonders.


However, if you join after this initial explosion, it is much more difficult to see quick results and it requires more effort to attract new people into the business. Patience, knowledge and the right strategy is required to succeed here.


6) Big name X endorses this program


This is somewhat related to the previous point. Mr. Big Hitter have made thousands of dollars with this opportunity already and he is not shy about telling anyone how easy it was. And he’s probably not lying either. It was easy – for him.


Because, like noted above, he probably got involved in this opportunity long before it was launched to the general public, because he already knows all the right people.


He (or she), also know their stuff, and have the resources (large email lists, advanced Internet marketing tools etc.) to quickly and efficiently let the word out to a large number of people.


If you are relatively new to this game, it is a very bad idea indeed to assume that you instantly could pull off feats worthy of a network marketing guru. Would you compare your golfing abilities to those of Tiger Woods?


I didn’t think so.


7) Thinking this will be a free business to run


I’m not talking about the membership fee of your mlm opportunity here, because that is a given. But many people falsely believe that they can market entirely for free using the Internet.


While it’s true that there are some effective low cost Internet marketing techniques you can use, you should never fool yourself into believing that Internet marketing will be a no cost affair. Moreover, the online competition is usually quite fierce.


To summarize; Mlm can offer an exciting new way to earn money. But your motivation for joining a mlm business shouldn’t be based on one of the misconceptions mentioned above.


Treat your business like a business, and you will be okey.

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Student Loans? Don’t Bother Me. I’m Eccentric.

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Sep 152020
 

Do you really see yourself as eccentric? asked my boss incredulously. Yes. I replied – Eccentric means away from the centre, which means that I don’t follow all the other sheep.


How it Began
Probably it all began when I was in my teens and found a book that showed me the easy way to write essays. Always think what everyone else will write and make your essay as outrageously different as you can. You can get a free eBook now on the subject from studying-techniques.com


It was such fun being outrageous that it spread to my everyday life. Often the outrageous ideas I thought of made more sense than the conventional thinking.


Soon people started to accept me as an eccentric.


Immediate advantages of being a known eccentric


    You don’t offend people. Everyone shrugs and says It’s just Ian!
    You can say no whenever you like.
    You no longer have to keep up with the Joneses. You set your own targets.


How being eccentric saves on student loans
I had a pushbike instead of a car like all the other students. I didn’t need student loans. I set my own standards. The Joneses didn’t drive me to student loans.


When I needed textbooks I bought them second-hand, but decided for myself if the book was really necessary. After all, if I read the book in the library I wouldn’t have to pay for it, and student loans would be kept at bay.


I’m eccentric – remember? So I don’t have to follow your expensive pastimes. I chose free pastimes. No need for student loans if I keep to free. What’s that? Didn’t I get bored with nothing to do? Far from it! Four times in my life I’ve had so many pastimes that I’ve had to prune the list drastically.


Each Saturday I joined other young folk cycling round the countryside. I usually repaired their punctures, because I had the tools and it cost me next to nothing. I toured England, Scotland and Wales during my holidays with no fuel costs at all for my pushbike, so no student loans were needed.


Sports: Of course I needed some eccentric sports to keep fit, so I took up croquet, fives, table-tennis, 7-mile cross-country running, hill-walking. No need for student loans because it was all free, and so were the games that I played such as chess.


Each evening I had to make time to go out with my date, so had to push through my one-hour harmonium rehearsal, and one-hour violin rehearsal, and do my homework, and play some table-tennis, and read library books, and eat . . .


Fortunately none of that needed a student loan – even my date. Remember, I am eccentric, so my date had to go along with me, or find someone else.


I didn’t need student loans for my furniture. My boss said later that I’d furnished my entire house for less that he paid for his bed. Auction prices were so low that the main cost was in carting the stuff home.


Student union? No I’m eccentric. Horse-racing pool? No I’m eccentric. Join a student protest rally? No I’m eccentric.


Each time students were browbeaten into something expensive because everyone else is doing it they didn’t even bother to ask me because I was eccentric. Far from needing student loans, I saved money from my government scholarship. Then I took holiday jobs for extra money.


One day the unemployment officer showed me a job which nobody will want. I grabbed it immediately because it sounded different. I was working alone on a farm, 6 miles from my boss and was snowed-up most of the winter so that my boss couldn’t get through to me. It was there that I learned to trap rabbits, skin them, cure them, train dogs, cook, hand-milk cows, make cheese – well what else is there to do when you’re snowed up?


I bumped into the employment officer a couple of months later and he said You’re not still on that terrible job are you? I hastened to reassure him that it was great. He must have thought that I was eccentric or something.


Why does being eccentric avoid student loans?


    I don’t mind buying seconds or second-hand from the op-shop or Salvation Army.
    Anything free is great.
    I’m not proud. People give me lifts in cars because I’m too eccentric to have one of my own. I used to hitch-hike before it got dangerous. People give me cast-off clothing – well only an eccentric would wear it!
    Naturally I hunted for a scholarship until I found one. Everyone else may have student loans, but I’m eccentric.
    Everyone else has one so out comes the credit card. Not me. I’m eccentric. Credit cards can charge more than one fifth of your loan per year, making them the most expensive of student loans.
    Giving gifts needs more student loans. I’m eccentric. Something for 50cents from the Salvation army can make a great gift. Keep buying through the year then wrap up your treasure trove at Christmas and hand deliver to avoid paying postage. Yes – they’ll all know what you’re doing, but it’s just Ian and you’re eccentric, remember?

There are countless other ways to avoid student loans if you get out of your rut and become eccentric.

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