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What a title for an article that’s about video and multimedia. If you read on I feel certain I can answer the question of, “who knows your album cuts?”. To let you know where that thought came from, I need to back up and give you some insight on me. A lot of folks know that I came from a decade of country radio before going to work at Reach Network here in Nashville. It was during my country radio days that I was interviewing a major artist, who at the time had achieved; two different awards for ”Video of the Year” Awards, multiple “Female Vocalist of the Year” Awards, two time recipient of “Favorite Country Album” not to mention countless other honors. During one of our visits I posed the question; If you never have another chart hit what would you do? The answer nearly floored me, it was one that the artists put no thought into and responded immediately.

It was; “sing and make records”…after the deer-in-the-headlight look fell from my face, she began to expound. She said, it’s not who knows your hits that makes your career, it’s the ones who know your “album cuts” that make you successful. She went on to say that true fans can’t be bought by the hype of a number one or can’t be deterred by a negative review. True fans are those who can sing every word of those songs that didn’t hit the radio. She went on to say that true fans are those who spend their hard earned money to buy concert tickets, your recordings, your videos and support your career in creating excitement about you as an artist.

Over the years that conversation has reverberated in my head many times as I began working in Southern Gospel Music. Too many times Southern Gospel groups live only on the “hype” that can be generated from a monthly chart or what new studio they were in to do their recording. I have spent a great deal of “un-popular” time on a soapbox stating that we in Southern Gospel Music need to cultivate a stronger fan base that would sustain careers. By now you’re wondering, how does this pertain to videos or multimedia? It doesn’t!!! You see most in Southern Gospel Music would rather spend the kid’s college fund in chasing the short lived hype of a chart song than to spend a much smaller amount on creating something that would add successful years to a career. To see an example of this you would have to look at the charts throughout the 1980’s and the first part of the 90’s. If you did, you would see countless groups that had a chart hit or two, and by the later part on the 90’s they didn’t even exist. Why??? Because the majority of those hits didn’t sell records or fill concert halls, the two necessary items needed to sustain a business/ministry. Fragments of many of these groups can still be found pounding the highways chatting about the "used-to-be days" when they were with "so-and-so" group and had their chart hits. If those accolades had built true fans, who would have bought records, attended concerts, and help spread the word about the group, most would still be around today.

In closing and prior to getting to highlights of “video production,” ask yourself these questions.

How many successful dates will I work this year?
How many records will I sell this year?
How financially sound will my business/ministry be at the end of 2005?

Remember answer these questions truthfully and put some thought into them. You should by now have a working business plan in place. If not it’s not too late to do so. Business Plan Pro is an outstanding piece of software that can help. It’s made by Palo Alto Software ( http://www.paloalto.com/ps/bp/ ) and take it from me; it’s worth its weight in gold. If you are really interested in building a successful career we need to talk.

Now let me get to the video production point for this month’s article…JUST DO IT!!!

Until next month, you know I'll keep the lights on and the cameras rolling.

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