It's An Actual Record Label Plan!

Use it as a guide to:

Tweak or develop your own business plan or idea 
(Perfect for Do-it-Yourself-ers!)
Gather marketing data and unique ideas
Explore a concept for a business you may never have 
considered! Learn what's important. What's not. 
What to include. How much detail to provide, and in what format.


   
Business Plan Table of Contents

Every section is complete!


I. Executive Summary

II. Company Description
This section typically includes
        A. Legal name & structure of business
        B. Mission/objectives/vision 
        C. Management team 
        D. Location and Geography 
        E. Company development stage 
        F. Trademark, Copyrights, Patent, 
             Domain name & other legal holdings
        G. Products and Services offered
        H. Specialty business information
        I. Financial status of company
        J. Milestones achieved thus far


III. Industry Analysis and Trends
This section typically includes
        A. Size and growth of industry
        B. Maturity of industry
        C. Impact of economic factors 
        D. Seasonal factors
        E. Technological factors
        F. Regulatory factors
        G. Supply and distribution
        H. Financial considerations
        I. Anticipated changes and trends in industry


IV. Target Market
This section typically includes
        A. Demographics/Geographics
        B. Lifestyle and Psychographics
        C. Purchasing patterns
        D. Buying sensitivities
        E. Size and trends of market

V. Competition
This section typically includes
        A. Competitive Position
        B. Market Share
        C. Barriers to entry
        D. Future competitors
        
VI. Strategic Position and Risk Assessment
This section typically includes
        A. Company strengths
        B. Market and Industry Opportunities
        C. Risk Assessment
        D. Definition of Strategic Position
        E The Wow Factor

VII. Marketing Plan and Sales Strategy
This section typically includes
        A. Company's Message
        B. Marketing Vehicles
        C. Strategic Partnerships/Alliances
        D. Other Marketing Tactics
        E. Sales Force and Structure
        F. Sales Assumptions

VIII. Operations
This section typically includes
        A. Plant and Facilities
        B. Manufacturing/Production Plan
        C. Equipment & Technology
        D. Variable Labor Requirements
        E. Inventory Management
        F. Supply and Distribution
        G. Order Fulfillment and Customer Service
        H. Research and Development
        I. Capacity Utilization
        J. Quality Control
        K. Safety, Health & Environment
        L. Shrinkage
        M. Management Information Systems
        N. Other Operational Concerns

IX. Technology Plan
This section typically includes
        A. Technology Goals and Position
        B. Internet Goals and Plans
        C. Hardware Needs
        D. Software needs
        E. Telecommunication Needs
        F. Technical Personell Needs
        
X. Management and Organization
This section typically includes
        A. Principals and Key Employees
        B. Board of Directors
        C. Consultants and Specialists
        D. Management and Personell to be added
        E. Organization Chart
        F. Management Style and Corporate Culture
        
XI. Community Involvement and Social Responsibility
This section typically includes
        A. Social Responsibility Goals
        B. Company Policies
        C. Community Activities
        
XII. Development, Milestones and Exit Plan
This section typically includes
        A. Long Term Company Goals
        B. Growth Strategy
        C. Milestones
        D. Risk Evaluation
        E. Exit Plan

XIII. Financials
This section typically includes
        A. Income Statement
        B. Cash Flow Statement
        C. Balance Sheet
        D. Break-even Analysis
        E. Assumptions of this plan
        F. How the Funds will be Used

XIV. Appendix

     

Why You REALLY Need a Business Plan These Days

If your business idea is one that requires some capital (money) to launch or grow, then any investor or bank will request to see your business plan. The purpose of any good business plan, therefore, is to communicate the capabilities and talents of the principals (that's you and other owner/partners), and the soundness of the strategies you will implement in order to 1. grow the business, 2. achieve profitability, 3. repay any loans, and 4.reward any investors.

However, there's a more important reason for you to write a business plan. Even if you are not seeking investors or a loan, (and for those of you who know my philosophy, know that I maintain that you don't need MONEY to start a business, and that what you need instead is VALUE), the process of thinking through and composing your business plan helps you to declare your intention to yourself and the universe, focus on and commit to a specific outcome, verbalize and write down your goals, harness your innate creativity, activate the power of your subconscious mind, mobilize your Higher Self, and change your vibrational state, and the frequency of your thoughts to one of hope and the possibility of a desired future, thereby bringing to you, by the Law of Attraction, the people, events and circumstances which will work in concert on seen and unseen levels of reality to manifest your dream.

For that reason, even if you are already in business and making money, writing a business plan can help you. In addition, since market conditions are constantly changing, writing a plan (especially the marketing and financials sections) can help you get a firmer handle on what you are and can and should be doing to grow your business, where your money is actually going every month, and how to monitor and reduce expenses and operating costs.

Additionally, a good business informs sales personnel, suppliers, and others about your operations and goals and, in-effect serves as an operations manual for your employees.

A business plan is not a one-time-only endeavor. As it serves as guide, as well as gauge, many entrepreneurs tweak their business plans on a monthly, even weekly basis.

While every business plan format can be different, they all must include certain necessary information that banks and investors require, and that you need to master your company, your business and your industry....which brings us to a VERY IMPORTANT reason you need a business plan... to get a handle on, and market effectively in the NEW music industry!

BONUS:

-----------
Article Title: The Record Label of the Future. 
Author: Walt FJ Goodridge
Category: Music Industry, Hip Hop, independent artists
Word Count: 3,600
Keywords: music industry,hip hop,independent record label,
recording artist contract,business plan
Author's Email Address: walt@passionprofit.com 
Article Source: http://www.hiphopbusinessplan.com

-----------
Walt Goodridge offers the following royalty-free article for
you to publish online or in print. Feel free to use this article 
in your newsletter, website, ezine, blog, or forum.

------------------ ARTICLE START ------------------

	

THE RECORD LABEL OF THE FUTURE
& The Rules of the Pie for Surviving a Changing Paradigm

Where is the music industry heading? How will independent labels survive and thrive in the new paradigm? Is the age of the major label coming to a close? Does an artist even need a traditional label, or even an independent label for that matter anymore? If you are involved in the recording, manufacture, distribution and sale of recorded music, the answers to these questions, and your responses are vital to your continued survival in some shape or form.

Luckily, these are exactly some of the questions that I will attempt to answer in this brief article. And while I don't intend to offer any earth shattering revelations that you couldn't arrive at on your own, I do hope that if you are an artist, producer or owner of an independent record label that some of the thoughts herein encourage you to make a few pro-active decisions, and take a few definite actions rather than a wait-and-see approach. The race is still always to he who can endure. Your ability to foresee and prepare for the coming changes, as well as the end result of current changes may make the difference between business success and failure. But how can you know what's ahead? You'll need to predict the future.

HOW TO PREDICT THE FUTURE

It's a basic law of this dynamic, ever-changing universe that there's no such thing as something "staying the same." Things are either expanding or contracting, increasing or decreasing, getting better or getting worse. Even the metal or hard plastic computer or sheet of paper on which you are reading these words, as solid and as stable as they appear are all slowly decaying and deteriorating. Come back in a few dozen years, and you'll see the effects of decay over time. If you know this, then you can look at everything from business phenomena to romantic relationships a little bit differently, and can perform what some might consider fortune-telling simply by asking, "where is this heading?"

Every business, every situation, every relationship is either getting better or getting worse, growing or shrinking, going up or heading downhill. Therefore, as long as you can honestly assess what you observe or experience over a given time frame, you can "predict" where something is heading and take any evasive or remedial actions as necessary. There are even specific formulas(1) you can use to reverse or stabilize a declining trend, improve a flat trend, improve a rising trend, or greatly improve an already stellar trend for any observable statistic like "sales" for instance.

Now having said that, let's examine some observable facts and trends within the music industry that you can use to predict the future, or at least prepare and position yourself for success regardless of what specifically happens.

FACTS, TRENDS AND OBSERVATIONS

FTO #1: Sales of CDs are DOWN

FTO #2: Digital downloads are UP

FTO #3: There's a new generation of children who view music not as a vinyl disc, or a CD, but as words on an MP3 player's LCD/LED screen accessible through headphones and earpieces.

FTO #4. The purchasing experience has changed from browsing the aisles of a retail store to downloading from computers or cell phones.

FTO #5: Technology is making it easier for artists to market, release, market and distribute themselves, and even earn a decent living doing so.

Whether fact, trend or observation, these "demonstrables" indicate a new reality is upon us. What it means for the artist, producer and independent record label of the future is this...

THE MUSIC INDUSTRY HAS ALREADY CHANGED!

Now, if you want the specifics for the broad sweeping FTOs above, here are a few. (The actual numbers are less important than the trends--increasing or decreasing-- that they represent, so note whether the numbers are increasing or decreasing.

I'll throw in a few FTOs that hint at opportunities

"Of 30 thousand CD titles that were released in 2004, only 400 titles sold more than 100 thousand units, and 25 thousand titles sold fewer than 1,000 CDs. The big recording companies lose money 98.7% of the time."(2)

"In a recent Parks Associates study of 4,000 Internet users in the US, 56% of respondents listen to Internet radio on their PCs and 56% download music files."

"The 37-year-old artist recently moved from Los Angeles to North Carolina, where he plans to raise his family on the "decent living" Internet sales generate. Since August, he's sold about 5,000 records over CD Baby. He earned $10 for each album, generating the same amount of money he earned from his first record contract." [Sources: itfacts.biz, IFPI, Nielsen, InStat, RIAA, Parks Associates, CDbaby Talkback...]

As I said, there are thousands of statistics you can find. And the exact figures are less important than the trends they indicate. Our goal, here, is to focus on trends. And what we can deduce from these and other facts, trends and observations, is that today in 2007, the Music Industry is not what it used to be, and as trends continue, will never be the same again, and in fact, will be different tomorrow.

We as forward-thinking entrepreneurs hoping to capitalize on the value of music must change with the flow. Therefore, the questions we ask must inherently be different.

The key question that pro-active thinkers ask is not "what's going to happen?" but "what am I going to do given in light this trend, and in response to this continuing?" There are always responses you can make to any situation despite what prevailing wisdom says, and regardless of what others do.

What is it that we are responding to? What is it that we are actually witnessing? I propose to you that it is nothing less than....(drum roll, please)..the deconstruction of the major label system!

THE DECONSTRUCTION OF THE MAJOR LABEL SYSTEM

and to repeat in terms of traditional label/retailer functions

HOW INDEPENDENT LABELS WILL BE AFFECTED BY THIS NEW PARADIGM

First of all, the number of independent "labels" will continue to increase. However, it's important to note that in this new paradigm, the word "label" doesn't quite mean the same thing anymore.

Indeed, thanks to services like Discmakers, and CDBaby, and the relative ease with which an artist can start selling her music, the artist herself is essentially already her own label from the day she records her first track in a professional recording studio or basement.

The artist in this new age has the potential to be a label whether or not he realizes it, accepts it or acts on it. With a computer, a cd-burner, and access to the internet, every artist has the beginnings of a viable indie label. (and in fact, to be accurate, because of ease of web access via cafes and libraries, you don't even need your own computer, or your own cd-burner). So the number of self-released, self-distributing artist/labels will rise. Consequently, there will be less of a need for traditional independent labels.

If that weren't bad enough, independent labels will be affected in another significant way. As digital downloads, and ostensibly, illegal downloads increase, the share of the pie that indies are sharing will seem to be decrease.

LABELS THEN AND NOW

In the past, the artist needed a major record label for the deep pockets and contacts necessary to

Indies were seen as a place that artists could start their careers all the while positioning themselves to garner the attention of a major label scout who would rescue them for indie-label obscurity and buy out their contract or in a win-win for everyone, sign a distribution or marketing deal with the indie label.

It's still the dream of many struggling artists, even though statistically the percentage of artists who actually live that dream and get signed to the million-dollar major label contract is woefully small.

If everyone on the lower end is playing on the same level field (i.e. a basement band with a CDBaby "deal" now being roughly equivalent to and able to achieve the same success as if it were signed to an indie label "deal"), it would appear that the gap between "majors with money" and "indies/artists with heart" is widening.

Some would argue that this seeming disparity will make it harder for indie labels to compete with majors. I believe otherwise.

But before I share with you the basis of my belief, and a philosophy for dealing with the situation, I'll say that whatever strategy you ultimately implement must be executed on two fronts simultaneously: the consumer front, and the artist front.

In other words, as an independent label, not only must you make the music you sell accessible to the consumer in new and innovative ways, you must also make your label attractive to the independent artist.

As an independent label, you will of course be using all your creativity and skills to provide what's expected of a any label whether large or small

And while you as a label will provide these basics, I believe that profitability in the new era requires additional strategies, and a few radical new ideas.

WHAT THE ARTIST REALLY WANTS

1. Purpose
I'll quote you from a new book entitled The Spirit's Business Plan:

[begin quote] "There are only two important questions that everyone asks every day of their lives:
1. Why am I here?
2. How will I survive? These are not mutually exclusive questions. They are actually one in the same. The challenge of the business plan of the spirit is to tie one's spiritual esoteric search for life's meaning and purpose to the practical economic viability, survival and prosperity that life on this plane necessitates. The earth is moving into a new reality. Those who are here on the planet at this time have responsibilities that no generation prior had to be quite as concerned with. In addition, this generation has opportunities which no previous generation had access to. It must encourage those on the earth at this time to live by a new set of values." [end quote]

Perhaps there is a truth here that people are more ready for than we are being led to believe. Perhaps the record label of the future must position itself to be a catalyst for the development of these new value in order to ease the earth's transition into this new paradigm.

2. Payment Related to want #1, there is the more earthly desire for attention and money. Beyond the search for purpose, the artist wants to focus on making music, become known for their creativity, while being afforded a comfortable lifestyle based on the financial reward for their creations. They want to get paid. There is a basic human need, (or perhaps a little more pronounced than most) for attention, recognition, exposure, acclaim and approval.

3. Protection Few artists may admit it, but it's my experience that the creative soul that inhabits the artist personality shuns the responsibility and structure of self guidance in favor of the bliss and freedom of creative pursuits. In some ways, artists like to be shepherded, guided and protected by those offering the structure that they realize is necessary in this world, but for which they have no inclination to set up for themselves. As artists, they naturally wired to see the world differently than non-artists. That's what makes them artists. (It's also why many artists end up being taken advantage of in this game).

Given these 3 basic needs for Purpose, Payment and Protection the question is what can YOU, as the independent label of the future, offer the artist that she cannot get by doing things herself or with a major label? What and how can you offer something that speaks to these needs in a way that labels cannot match. The game will always go to the more creative.

Sorry, I'm not giving you specific answers here. But the things YOU can come up with given YOUR unique purpose, passion and talents are ten times more creative and effective than any I could come up with on your behalf. Besides, I'd much rather pique your interest, spark your creativity, and be a catalyst for the brainstorming session you will conduct in search of solutions than give you any of my answers as "the answer." The truth is, the answer does not yet exist. The landscape is still too fresh.

THE RECORD LABEL OF THE FUTURE

As independent record labels adapt themselves based, perhaps on these questions and many others, the nature of what differentiates a true "indie label of the future" from a self-released, self-distributed artist venture and the gap between them, will have to change and widen. In other words, if you want to really offer something of value to the indie artist, you have to offer something that majors and money cannot buy. The key, I believe, lies in offering a uniquely different experience based on a value system and lifestyle that the industry as a whole is too far removed from to see growing at the roots level.

As trends continue, CD sales decline, digital media expands, the record label of the future must adapt. To help you philosophically with how you need to think in order to weather these changes, and with the underlying assumption that we want to keep everyone living in the manner to which they've grown accustomed, I offer you....

RULES OF THE PIE

Rule of the Pie #1:
"As your slice of the pie decreases, bake a bigger pie."
This applies to going global in marketing efforts. If the trend locally is limiting the amount of money you can make, then expand nationally and internationally. Bake a bigger pie.

But of course, it isn't always possible to bake a bigger pie, which brings us to

The Rule of the Pie #2
"If the pie is getting irreversibly smaller, bake more pies." This applies to facilitating success for more artists. If you have to sell digital downloads for $1 to make them attractive to consumers, then do what itunes does, and sell the products of more artists so you can profit on volume.

The Rule of the Pie #3
"If the pie is no longer tasty, bake a different pie."
If the music industry as a stand-alone source of revenue is declining, then expand to gaming for example. Sell what people are buying and where they are buying. Incorporate music into the products that people are purchasing in huge numbers and generate your income there.

Other solutions:
The rules of the pie are by no means the only way that creative entrepreneurs can adapt to the changing pie scene. In fact, I predict that a whole new set of rules will be developed. Who knows, some creative label owner may come with
rule of the pie #4: "screw the pie, feed them cake," or
rule of the pie #5: "make money teaching them how to bake pies & sell them baking tins"
rule of the pie #6: "change the game: add a different desert to the menu"

MY TOP SECRET PREDICTION:

SUMMARY IN REAL TERMS

So here's where we are. The music industry is changing. While there will always be a segment of the population (albeit a shrinking one) which will want high quality music on CDs with jewel cases, pretty packaging, liner notes, created by artists who themselves desire the status of an association with a major label, the growing majority of consumers and artists will be adapting to the new paradigm of digital downloads and self-distribution.

You're mission, therefore, as a record label of the future, if you've read between the lines of this short article, is to

Now, what this will all look like when all is said and done, no one can perhaps predict with any degree of specificity. But one thing is clear. Change is upon us. It is inevitable.

You must be the enablers not the enemies of the new era; facilitators not foes of the future. It is only in this way that you will survive the shake-up and shake-out that will occur as the change--inevitable as it is--comes upon the music industry.

You and your record label of the future, if it is to live, must live and exist in the now.

[For more detailed strategies for becoming a record label of the future, check out the Hip Hop Record Label Business Plan available at www.hiphopbusinessplan.com]

Walt Goodridge is the author of 12 books including Change the Game: How to Launch, Grow and Really Make Money with Your Independent Hip Hop Record Label. He is also founder of over 2 dozen business sites including hiphopentrepreneur.com

*notes: (1) Visit http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=3&newsID=64304 for my article on how to respond to steady or declining sales, visit

(2)from information in The Future of music by D. Kusak