Posted on November 22, 2019, 12:00 am
One of the most important decisions a music professional can make is hiring the right team. Whether it be a record label hiring the right staff, a management company hiring the right music director, a band hiring the right crew, or a music director hiring the right musicians. The possibilities are endless and hiring the wrong team can be detrimental to any operation or business.
In the music industry, we are faced with constant changing variables. Essentially, these variables include the artists we represent and the teams we hire to support them. The harsh truth is, like any business, everyone is in it for their own career at the end of the day. This is why hiring the right team is so important, especially for your client’s touring team.
Finding the right touring crew may be the most important team you will ever assemble for your client. The hardest part of this process is finding the balance of your needs and what your client’s needs are. Your client may want a completely different team than you do and the only way around this is compromise. We all know what to look for when selecting employees, but selecting musicians and touring crew is a completely different ball game.
So, where do you start? What do you look for? There are many questions you may ask yourself when hiring the right team, but these are a few most music professionals fail to recognize:
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The musician/crew member ends up being booked for another opportunity later down the road. When hiring independent contractors, you cannot expect that any of them will stick around when you are not paying a retainer fee. Always have a backup plan! This is why hiring the “best” may not always be the most fitting situation for you. Best-case scenario, they have a sub on standby that you have previously met. Worst-case scenario, you are scrambling last minute to find someone, which could end being up a horrible situation for your client if you pick a person who is not ideal for the position.
The musician/crew member ends up building too personal of a relationship with your client. When selecting a team, it is always important to make sure that everyone knows their place and acts professionally while on tour. This is crucial when selecting your team and you will cause nothing but problems for yourself if you end up getting too close with your client. Make sure you hire someone that you know will be a team player, but not build themselves into a situation where your client’s choices are altered because of the overly personal relationship they may have formed.
The musician/crew member abuses their position while on tour. As a touring team, one person’s actions can affect the whole team, especially your client’s name/brand. This is why it is important to hire someone who acts professionally at all times- not just on the clock.
The musician/crew member requests an increase in salary when it would be over budget and too late to hire someone else. This happens all of the time in the industry and the only way to avoid it is to always have someone screened and ready to go as a plan b option. This ensures that you are not in a position where you have no choice but to go over budget.
To summarize, it is always important to have a backup plan as security for your client. This is why we pride ourselves in offering the largest and most elite screened database of professional musicians and crew. Musician Casting was created to simplfiy this hiring process and connect you with the perfect fit for your team. Once you receive your submissions, we always suggest that you pick a few to audition/interview just in case any of the above scenarios happen. You will be glad you took precaution by interviewing more than one person, rather than getting someone you and your client have never met and only know about through word of mouth!
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