The Shortcut You Can Use To Get Success

For some reason, the music industry, or people looking to get into it, seem to be (lack of a better term) short sighted; they learn a new trick and expect their career to take off. When has this ever been true? In what other instance has this ever happened? I think it’s because most people see the result of what seemingly happened overnight for someone, but don’t see the many months or years that went into getting to the point where this could happen for them. This article will discuss the benefits of playing the long game, and the ways you can play it.

The Benefits

The benefits usually depend on what exactly you’re doing; but for the most part, it multiplies your results.

How persuaded are you to like a facebook page a facebook friend (never met in real life) invited you to like? That person is trying to take a shortcut into getting an “audience” but it isn’t very effective for multiple reasons.

First of all, the people who do end up liking the page will be either one of two things: a person who never interacts with his/her content, or two: be the person who is quick to like something, that ends up being quick to unlike something.

In either case it’s not looking too great as a method to find people invested in his/her work.

What should he/she be doing? They should be trying to play the long game. What does that look like? He should be trying to create relationships with people by creating trust and giving value; the way the real world works! Part of what goes into that is creating consistent content, be it anything, to form consistency in what he/she does. It builds trust and reputation.

If it’s good, engaging stuff, people will naturally come! Think about how you came to like the pages/figures you like. Did they message you directly asking if you would like their page? An overwhelming majority of instances is most likely no!

Let’s think about football for a second. What kind of plays give you the best chance of scoring a touchdown? Hail maries or small runs?

At first glance, it may seem like throwing the ball 50 yards will get you the furthest; however the risk is high. The chances of missing the throw, missing the catch, and having it intercepted are a risk you have to weigh. If you simply run it past the first down line, you’ll get more turns with the ball, without the chance of someone intercepting, blocking, etc.

Though it may take more time and downs to get the ball to the other side, running the ball from a handoff is the safer move the majority of the time.

So where can you apply this thinking?

Examples Of The Long Game

A lot of new and/or independent artists seem to make a lot of singles nowadays; which makes sense, the attention span of humans as a whole has gone down with the invention of smartphones and advances in technology and apps. The problem is, they don’t spend time promoting their work.

Spending a month to promote your next project could help tremendously for not only the success of the project, but also building and keeping your audience. Promotion gives you more content to put out, and more chances for people to see your stuff. If done right, you can see your connection with your audience grow as well as your audience itself.

Sometimes, if you have a great idea for a concept, a single may not be the best option for you even though it may be the easiest. If the people want more, give it to them! Recording an album might be more beneficial to you; lots of content, easier to create as opposed to 10-12 different singles, and you can create a whole mood for your audience to enjoy.

Even simply giving an extra thought to what you’re working on could make the world of difference. Instead of rushing through making content, by taking it slow you can catch spelling mistakes or think of better wording that could prevent people from moving on to someone else’s content.

You could avoid digging yourself into a hole by mistakenly saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, choosing the best way to represent your image, or thinking of a clever way to present your content all with an extra second of thought into what you’re doing.

Results

I think by playing the long game, it makes the difference between achieving what you want, and weeding out the people who just want quick success. With anything, it takes time to really achieve truly great things. Otherwise, what’s stopping the other hundreds or thousands of people with the same idea from achieving your dream?

I think the fruits of your hard earned labor makes success taste sweeter too. Overnight successes can feel exhilarating at first, but they’re also quick to fade as well. By taking your time, and building that suspense, overall it can be a more exciting experience than the payoff itself; it’s cliché to say, but find what journey excites you, not the end result, and follow it because that’s where the excitement and real progress happens :)

Catch ya on the next one!

-Michael