One of the unique joys of my job is that I speak with dozens of independent artists every month of all ages, backgrounds, genres, and experience-levels.
And since I launched MAD Records as my own independent business in January of 2025, I’ve interviewed over 300 independent artists about their problems, goals, dietary habits, bowel movements, and everything in between.
And despite every single artist starting the interview by saying:
“Welllllll…. my situation is probably a LITTLE different from the other artists you speak with…”
I can safely say that almost every artist is facing the same fundamental problems. So today I’m going to address the main problems that almost every artist I speak to is facing - and how to best address them.
Let us begin.
Full-time jobs, crazy kids running around, a measly paycheck - every artist has a unique set of constraints that feel existentially limiting to their artist career…
… and when things don’t go perfectly to plan, these constraints are the first to receive the blame.
Almost every artist immediately tries to convince me that their constraints are the worst constraints, and that other artists have more time, money, family support, energy, etc, etc, etc.
But I’m here to tell you that I’ve spoken with “the other artists”, and they’re saying the exact same thing.
Now, I get it, it’s easy to fantasize about having unlimited time, perfect health, a clear schedule, or endless financial resources. But, my dear sweet friend, that time isn’t coming… and it’s that very fantasy that tricks a lot of capable, brilliant artists into never taking action.
The Fix: Own your constraints. Instead of telling me you have “no time” or “no money”, tell me what time you DO have, or what your budget ACTUALLY is, and then build a plan around those constraints. Your situation isn’t as unique as you think… it’s just hard.
In the 2+ years of building MAD Records, I’ve dealt with a newborn child, financial instability, a crippling heart condition (that I’ve thankfully recovered from), and countless other constraints that FELT existential, but really just required a creative plan that accounted for those constraints.
Own your constraints. Name them. Accept them. Get to know them. Take them for dinner.
Kiss them on the mouth if you must.
But stop telling yourself that they are the reason for inaction.
Imagine if I said to you:
“Hey Ed Sheeran just released a song that is popping off… so you need to write a song just like his.”.
Any artist worth their salt would likely slap me in the face, right?
After all, the whole point of being an artist is to create something new, not chase something old.
I’m here to tell you that business is exactly the same.
If you want to build a successful (and sustainable) career, you need to innovate and build a strategy that is totally unique to you instead of desperately chasing something that worked for someone else.
Now, there are fundamental principles that you can follow to guide you on the journey. Side note: here’s a 90 minute webinar where I outline those fundamentals:
But it’s impossible to build something sustainable that relies on chasing someone else’s strategy. You will always be one step behind everyone else.
The Fix: Learn the difference between fundamentals and tactics. Fundamentals are core business principles, and tactics are the tools that we use to implement those fundamental principles. Fundamentals never change, and the tactics change constantly. So focus your learning on the fundamentals and don’t take advice from anyone who is teaching tactics, cause by the time you’re teaching tactics, they’re already out of date.
Most artists are what I call “opportunity maximalists”, meaning that they believe that any opportunity is a good opportunity.
And while I appreciate the genuine hustle behind this belief, it often leads to really unfocused plans that ultimately stifle progress.
Opportunities only matter if they fit a specific need for your artist strategy. If not, then we shouldn’t pursue them. Randomly pursuing open mics, playlisting services, podcast interviews, etc, in the hopes that one of these opportunities will be “the one” is not an actual strategy - it’s gambling.
And it’s impossible to build a sustainable career around gambling, just ask my local Blackjack dealer 🤦♂️
The Fix: Analyze each opportunity and ask how it fits into your broader artist strategy. When an opportunity arises, ask yourself:
Is this exposing me to new audiences (AKA building my top-of-funnel)?
Is this an opportunity to collect information on my audience so I can re-engage them later (AKA building my middle-of-funnel)?
Is this a money-making opportunity (AKA part of my bottom-of-funnel)?
A good artist strategy will have opportunities that serve each of these core functions. And if you don’t have a clear artist strategy and fan-funnel then again, I shall steer you to this webinar here:
It’s easy to think that the more people who listen to my music, the better chance of success for my artist career, right?
Well…. not really.
If you’ve read this Substack for a while now, you know that your total reach only matters if you’re able to re-engage that audience over and over again. Which means that exposure is only valuable if it leads to opportunities to re-engage that same audience.
So for example - we have 5,000+ subscribers to this Substack that received this very publication. It may reach some new audiences through sharing, etc, but most folks reading this are people that I’ve already reached in the past.
So why do I put so much effort into audiences that I’ve already reached?
Because they are the key to building a sustainable business.
New audiences aren’t the ones buying your tickets, wearing your merch, or signing up for your paid communities… that happens from fans that you’ve re-engaged multiple times.
So while exposure is necessary to build new audiences, it’s only one step of the process.
The Fix: Anytime an opportunity for “exposure” arises, ask yourself how you plan to re-engage that audience. If there isn’t a clear strategy in place for re-engaging that audience in the future, then the exposure is largely worthless.
As I mentioned earlier, I launched MAD Records with an email list, a pregnant wife, and no backup plan… which means I had no choice but to believe that this was going to work no matter what.
And when you have no choice but believe… you somehow find a way no matter how brutally difficult it gets.
But there’s also some nuance here that is important to note, because belief alone is not enough to build a successful career. You need to balance that belief with flexibility, and be open to the path looking a bit different than what you initially imagined.
If you require success to look exactly how you want it to look, then it’s going to be incredibly hard to find. But if you are flexible and simply pursue the doors that are already open to you, then the path will unfold in front of you over time.
You need to believe that the doors exist, but you need to be flexible enough to walk through them even if they look different than what you imagined.
The Fix: When trying to manifest a goal… detach from how it looks and hold on to how it feels. You are manifesting the feeling, not the image, which means that the journey may look very different from what you’re seeing in your mind’s eye. I started my journey as an independent artist because I wanted a career that involved good music, creativity, and community… and I found all of those things in a completely different way than I ever imagined with MAD Records.
Now I know what you’re thinking:
“Hey wait a second, these are all just mindset problems… not REAL problems!”
To which I’d respond:
UH, YEAH!
You are all incredibly capable, immensely talented, and wildly creative folks - but you’re often your own worst enemy. Sure there are other problems artists are facing (“streaming doesn’t pay”, “I can’t get booked”), but those are (almost always) all secondary problems to the core mindsets that are driving them.
These 5 mindsets are the common thread underlying the surface level problems, and with the proper fix, the surface level problems are then easy to solve.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some more artists to interview.
See you at the “I interviewed 500 independent artists” article!
🫡⚔️🫡⚔️🫡⚔️
Michael from MAD Records
Work directly with our team to build your custom artist strategy and get unlimited access to daily mentorship calls for only $199/month, cancel anytime.
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