1 Step Strategy for Success: Be Awesome

Bob Lefsetz once again has worked himself into a righteous lather on the topic of the state of the music and the music business.  (By the way, Bob in a righteous lather is pretty darn entertaining and thought provoking.)

And while I’d like to quote a key tidbit that conveys the idea of the article, it’s proving hard to pick one.  His piece was, to be kind, somewhat diffuse.  So I must resort to paraphrasing, which of course means you’re getting my interpretation of what he said, so maybe it’s best if you also go read his piece too.

But his point is this, as far as I can tell: the concert business (or as he has suddenly started to say the “live touring business”) is in deep, long-term trouble because the new music isn’t good enough and the old music is, well, old and overpriced.

His remedy is better music.  On some level, I agree, because like Bob, I’m a bit of a True Believer.  I was listening to Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door” on my iPod last night with my 9 year old daughter, and if you listen to that song, there’s so much beautiful, but by today’s standards, completely unnecessary, musical stuff going on: the slight echo on the voice in the chorus; the little bit of off-beat syncopation in the drums, the jangly acoustic guitar that you don’t hear unless you listen closely, and  probably other stuff that a more expert ear than I could hear and explain.

And then the lyrics.  They’re not poetry, but they sound like something that an adult would actually think and experience.  Somehow, it sounds important.

And, hey, you may hate that song or Pete Townshend or whatever, but when Bob says the music needs to be better, he’s right, and I really feel it when I listen to something like that song.

Having said that, a lot of the pop music during whatever Golden Age you want to define was complete garbage.  We just don’t think about that.  We think about Thriller, not Kaja-freakin’-googoo, which really and truly sucked.

So yes, better music would help.

But I can’t stop from thinking about the ‘better mousetrap’ fallacy that so many technology businesses fall into.  The assumption here is that if a company builds a better product, they will win in the marketplace.  (And ultimately, what Bob is talking about is winning in the marketplace by some standard or definition.  If a band can’t win in the marketplace, no one ever knows or cares about their music, and how does anyone benefit from that?)

So, many technology companies strive to improve their products, and believe me, they do.  They add features, they improve performance, they do surveys and find out what people don’t like about their current options, and they build to what they think people want.

But it doesn’t always help.  There’s a famous B-school story (that I heard in B-school obviously) that goes like this:  the CEO of Steelcase (who used to make primarily those heavy metal filing cabinets) was complaining about the erosion of their sales from companies making cheap plastic cabinets.  This to him was an outrage because their commitment to craftsmanship and quality was so low and yet the marketplace was rewarding this slapdashery.

He is reputed to have said, “It doesn’t make any sense.  You could throw one of our filing cabinets out a third story window and they’d still work.”

To which a subordinate replied, “Yeah, but nobody does that.”

This story has the scent of a semi-legend, but take it for what it’s worth: it means that quality as defined by you could be very different from quality as defined by your potential audience.

And maybe Bob’s right: just make better music.  Just don’t suck.  Just be great.  Which is easy, if, you know, you’re great.  Hey, Beatles, just make great music!

“Righty-o, old chap.  How many number ones did you want us to whip up?”

Easy for you to say, Beatles.

At its worst, this line of thinking does two really bad things: it suggests that maybe the old days weren’t so bad, when wisened gate-keepers protected us from all the crummy music out there.

That is just crazy.  Like I said, those gate-keepers didn’t stop Kajagoogoo or Night Ranger.

And the second thing is that it suggests (but doesn’t quite say) that if you’re not already great, maybe you should just give up.

I think Bob would retort that what he’s saying is that a person should put in his 10,000 hours first, and well, I’d agree with that.

That’s a minimum ticket of entry for long-term success, but it sure isn’t a guarantee, especially in a fashion-driven business like music.  You could be John Mayer and look like Chris Dodd, and your chances of succeeding in the music business, now or in the vaunted 60s and 70s, would be greatly reduced.

By the logic of “just make great music” Microsoft wouldn’t be a success.  Much better software existed and exists.  Even the iPod is very arguably a product with superior competitors on the “just be awesome” scale.

Why do people buy so many more Prius cars than Insights, which are also compact hybrids?  They are very similar, feature for feature.  I don’t know why, but something about the overall marketing formula made the Prius win.

Sure, the Beatles made outstanding, special music, but it didn’t help that they were lovable and funny, easy to watch, and even looked a bit like friendly cartoon characters.  People weren’t JUST buying the music; they were buying the whole thing.

Audiophiles and true believers JUST buy the music; everyone else buys the whole thing.

It’s like that guy that sits at the baseball stadium with a transistor radio in one hand (to listen to the play by play) and a scorecard in the other and who still steams up when he thinks about the fact that they put lights in Wrigley Field or about the Chernobyl-like disaster that is the Designated Hitter Rule.

For him, it’s just the baseball.  For everyone else, it’s the whole thing: the game, the team, the personalities of the players, the promotions at the stadium, the hot dogs, the beer, seeing the silly strobe lights go off when there’s a home run.

It’s the whole thing.

And sure, it helps sell the whole thing if you’re Alex Rodriguez, but you can’t build an industry on needing Alex Rodriguez.

So on the one hand, you’ve got the people running the music industry, cynically firing off bottle rocket after bottle rocket, knowing that their acts will fly high for a little while, explode and then disappear, and on the other hand, you’ve got somebody like Bob, who just wishes they’d all stop sucking so much and be great.

But I’ve got a modest proposal to make, based on the idea that not everyone (and in fact very, very few even within an entire generation) can be great and that is really is the whole package that sells.

How about less cynical marketing?  How about a focus on building long term value in a band’s following AND getting the music right?

It doesn’t have to be “great” in the Beatles-esque sense, because you’re marketing to a niche that will define greatness to include you, but it does have to be really good, and that’s a marker a lot more people can reach.

And the marketing has to have at its heart a concern about the buyers and supporters of the artists, their interests and wants and the cultivation of a long-term, personal relationship.

That’s a formula for success that can actually be replicated across an industry, whereas “just be great” is the last desperate plea of a purist.