When I made my living in the studio, I once heard Mike, the busiest bass player in Nashville, talk about doubling the fees he charged for playing (called “double scale”). He was recalling the point in his career when he made the jump to double scale so he could slow down an weed out bad clients. But guess what happened: his phone rang off the wall. In fact, Mike quickly became the number one bass player in Nashville (and even in NY and LA).
Was this guy a great bass player? Yes, but so what. There were plenty of guys in Nashville that were great, and plenty of others that could have been great if they had been playing the gigs Mike was playing. As I’ve said here, here and here – and I’ll continue to say again and again and again, talent, and having “enough” talent, have little to do with success in the music business. Not because talent doesn’t matter, but because talent is a given. The world is full of talented musicians. The skills, abilities and knowledge you possess beyond talent are the things that will make or break your career.
After I heard Mike’s story, I debated jumping to double scale myself. Somewhere in my brain I understood that by raising his fees, Mike had changed his image in Nashville. He had created a perception of success which in turn, brought more success. Even though I understood that I could have created the same perception, I had too much self-doubt to believe I could actually be a “double-scale player”, so I didn’t raise my fees. Which left me to compete with other drummers by being cheaper. And as you can imagine now that I’ve pointed it out, this is a losing proposition.
As this post by Seth Godin explains, the problem with cheaper is that it “doesn’t create loyalty, because the other guy can always figure out how to be cheaper still.” He instead suggests “raising prices and using the extra money to create a remarkable experience.”
This is an excellent point, because raising fees is only half the battle. You must then be able to produce above and beyond the competition. By taking full advantage of the opportunity to play all the time, Mike continued to get better and better and he always had the best new equipment too.
It makes me think that if I had raised my prices, I could have had better equipment. I could have used some extra time to hand write thank you notes. I could have brought food and treats to every recording session. I coulda, coulda, coulda.
