Answer Guy Central

A few years ago I was talking with a friend who manages money for big acts. Britney Spears, N*Sync, Janet Jackson . . . you get the idea.

Everybody’s then-favorite boy group had a big stadium concert scheduled for that evening, and over bagels and a schmear my friend revealed something amazing: you know those glow sticks kids buy at concerts for $15 each? He’d paid three cents for the stock that would be sold at the venue that night.

While this could be a story about profit margins and how great life feels on those days when you make a killing like that one, it’s really about business change. Specifically, the way things “are” when you make money at something other than what you and your clients/fans/patients believe to be your business.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about how difficult it is to be in the music business. Nonsense. It’s hard to be the label, but musicians are making more money than ever. Athletes, too, if not the owners of their teams. Actors, if not production companies.

When former hoops star Alonzo Mourning first moved from schoolboy to professional status he had a contract with a sneaker company that paid him even more than the very large salary he was earning to be a basketball player. Asked who he worked for his answer sounded a lot like “Nike. They pay me to play basketball in the NBA and wear their shoes“.

Whose shoes do you wear?  Are you making enough money to justify that choice?

File this under “I told you so”. And have been telling you so.

Sure, it’s a small poll, conducted on people in only one country. And it’s a relatively small country at that. But it turns out that people who download music from sources other than officially sanctioned ones also spend more money on legitimate music downloads than people who don’t pirate music. Presumably, the same theory applies to people who download movies.

Wait, it gets better: You know how DVRs (or TIVOs, for those of you who have adopted the brand name as vernacular) were going to bankrupt TV studios because they’d lose the ability to sell advertising? Turns out that’s wrong, too. DVRs, TIVO, and the such have actually increased the money TV studios get from advertising.

Business Change at its finest. And great examples of how easy it is to miss change coming if you get too wrapped up in “the way things are”. Friends, there is no “the way things are”.

I’ve written about how badly the media business misunderstands new media and business change a few times before: Track back, if you like by reading this, or this, or this. The evidence has been piling up for a few years, and now the matter is starting to really come out: if you don’t keep up with change, you’ll miss it. I guess that explains why studio and label executives have such short careers. They just don’t know their own businesses.

Drop your ego at the door and make sure you know yours. Managing business change is where your success comes from.