Artists: Try This If You Want Your Label or Manager to Work Harder

TL;DR: You need to work harder than them.

I had a really great 1:1 session with a young artist last week. She has been in the industry for two years and has had some good momentum with radio play, live shows, festival opportunities and steady fan growth. But, with no new music released in the last few months, momentum slowed down. Her manager, focused on another more established artist, wasn’t helping much and she was a bit frustrated about this.

Complaints from artists about labels or managers not doing much is something I hear often from artists. Many put the responsibility of carving out the pathway of their career, or locking in big opportunities, on their management or label. But that’s not how it works.

So I asked this artist a question.

“Have you sat down with your manager and taken them through your plan and ideas for the next 12 months?”

No.

“Have you sold your manager on your big vision as an artist - told them where you want to be in one and three years time, maybe even 10 years time?”

No.

So I had to give her a hard truth: Artists have to take responsibility for pushing their own career forward. They will need to work harder than anyone else during their career if they want to have success. No one can set her vision for her. No one will care more about her career than she does.

Just like someone working in more of a conventional industry, e.g. an accountant, those that work harder, put the hours in, show up first, leave last, network and seek opportunities, will be the ones that have a really prosperous career.

Artists: YOU Are The Founders of Your Own Company (Brand)

There are so many parallels to artists in early stages of their careers and with business startups, so I’ll use an analogy of a new street wear brand to explain this further. Everyone likes trainers.

You (the reader) have decided to import a pair of trainers from Japan into your home country. They are well made, trending heavily across Japanese street style media, local tastemakers are just starting to get their hands on them and you’re extremely confident that you can market and sell them in a variety of ways in your home country. You incorporate a company and are the founder. You have a vision (creating hype and getting these trainers sold in your country), a plan (how you will market and sell these) and you know how to build up your company brand by doing so, as you want to be seen as an early tastemaker of street style footwear.

After some time, some trial and error, you start doing well and gaining some momentum, selling a decent amount of trainers and there’s too much work for one person. So you bring on your first employee (in the artist analogy, this is your manager). You can’t afford to pay them, so they are working for you on a commission basis. This person has another paid job, but has also come in to help you execute, organise and scale. You are the visionary of this company so you are setting the plan, you are delegating to them, you’re setting goals for the company to find more buyers. You are laying down the plan for the next 1-3 years, so they understand the runway and are motivated by a long-term plan that eventually sees them earning money through this company. Ultimately the goal for you as the founder is to make enough money to hire a full team around you - sales, operations, tech, finance, legal.. but you know this will happen with more momentum, sales and strategy.

If you are an artist reading this, do you recognise the parallels here? In the example above, if you are the artist rather than owner of the trainers company, the first hire working on commission is your manager. The team that you want to assemble around you when the time comes - this is your label team, publisher, accountant, lawyer, creative, live team, etc.

Artists: YOU are in charge.

YOU are the founder of your business, except instead of selling trainers you are selling your music (the product). You’re working your absolute butt off until you can bring on your first team member, your manager. Chances are they might have a full time job already, or they might have an established artist that they spend most of their time on. You want to motivate them, excite them, push them to help you execute on this vision that you have. They can act as your sounding board, they can utilise their contacts across the industry to help position you in certain places and they can help you lay out a plan for the next 12 months. In short, managers can help amplify, strategise and unlock doors, but they need direction from the artist.

Artists who act like CEOs - who take control of their vision, narrative, brand - these are the artists who push their management and label teams to work harder. Take Victoria Monét. In 2019, she and her manager developed a 2-EP strategy that rolled out over three years. They stayed ruthlessly focused on the long game, culminating in her Grammy win in 2024.

Or Doechii. She locked herself in the studio for 30 days to create Alligator Bites Never Heal. She trusted her vision and made history as only the third woman to win Best Rap Album in 2025.

Artists: You Working Hard Will Make Others Work Harder

In my previous role as Head of Music at a Label Services company I noticed something interesting about the way I worked. When I had artists on my roster who were quite passive - they checked in now and then but were largely left to their own devices - they didn’t feature as often when I was planning out my weekly priority list. It’s not that I didn’t care about their career, I just wasn’t being pushed to go the extra mile from their team, so I focused that energy on those who did.

The artists and managers who started the week with a status update - pushing me for answers on outstanding items, asking how we can push the release further, what resources can we pull to go bigger - they were the artists who I spent my time and energy on. I knew that by EOD Monday that artist/manager would be expecting updates from me and it made me work harder.

(Don’t get me wrong - there’s a happy medium on pushing someone. You push too often or with requests that are unreasonable, it’s a quick fire way to piss someone off. So you do need to be reasonable about the way you do this.)

Artists: Here’s What To Do

You don’t need to know everything, but you will need to learn to lead. It means setting a vision, planning, setting goals, making decisions and holding your team accountable.

To begin with, come up with a first draft of a plan for what you want to achieve in the next 12 months. This might be defining your mission / vision, setting dates for releasing music, setting targets and goals around these releases, finding a manager (more on that here), pitching yourself for live opportunities, revenue goals, a content strategy and networking. Once you have a plan, you will be able to understand what your own vision is and how to sell this vision to those around you.

If you’d like to do this using ChatGPT, I’ve set-up a prompt to help you. Copy and paste this and work through the exercises given:

Using the framework from Gino Wickman's book Traction, can you help me define a clear vision, mission, and set of goals for my career as a music artist — focusing specifically on the next 12 months and the next 3 years? Please guide me with specific, structured questions and explain why each one matters, so I can think more strategically and stay focused on what will truly move my career forward.

You will need to dedicate some good brainstorming and planning time to this.

Then, if you are lucky enough to have a manager and/or label, take them through this plan. Sit down with them and let them know what your dream in music is, where you want to be in one year, three years and maybe even 10 years time. Ask them what you can be doing to help push your career forward to reach these milestones. Ask them how you can motivate them to meet you half-way - a true partnership in pushing your career forward. Chances are that you will surprise them for being so proactive and thinking so strategically. If you don’t yet have a manager, then that could be the first goal. Again, here’s an article that outlines how you could find a manager.

Artists who win aren’t just talented, and their label or manager isn’t just laying down the stepping stones for their success. They’re focused, driven, and fearless about leading. Be the CEO of your music. Set the vision. Rally the team. Your next milestone in your career starts with you.