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?
