The title of this post is a quote from Shawshank Redemption, a great movie based on a short story by Stephen King. Allen Webber recently wrote a short article centered around this quote and focusing on challenges people meet in the work place and the job market. What this quote is really about, is perspective and attitude. Traditionally, the music industry has had a bad attitude towards their customers and technology-driven change, and an historically proven slanted perspective. We should all realize we’re either here to change the status quo, or to defend it. In other words, to get busy living, or to get busy dying. Whenever you’re contemplating a business strategy or a marketing initiative, ask yourself the question which side of the spectrum this places you on. Lets end on another quote, this time from a great song, “Friend or foe yo, state your biz”.
Examples of “Get Busy Dying”: Suing customers for millions for illegal downloading, only allowing full album downloads on iTunes, selling albums for $17.99, focusing on a 3-year album cycle,
Examples of “Get Busy Living”: Selling T-shirts that come with a digital download of your album (like we will with Casey Shea and Lacrymosa), performing livestreams over the internet between tours (like Wakey!Wakey! does on Facebook to over 25K viewers weekly), creating an army of volunteers across the country to help promote a tour (like Pearl and the Beard, more on this strategy soon).