It was not long ago when fans couldn't hear new music prior to buying new music. Fans had to trust that the CD they were about to spend $15 on was worth the money. The last thing any fan wanted was to buy a CD, and then find out after listening to it - that it sucks! So, the entire industry has been built around doing whatever it takes to build pre-purchase trust. Essentially, the music industry is built around persuading consumers that the little shiny disk in the CD package is good enough for you to buy. This effort has caused the industry to focus on things like image, identity, packaging, slick marketing, fancy websites, sexy videos, fan chasing, and celebrity building. At SONGboost, we call this effort "selling steak tips"; if we wanted to use a slang expression, we would have referred to this effort as "packaging meat".

Have you every looked at a menu that features steak tips as an entree? There is a delicious picture, a succulent description, and a twenty-dollar price tag. No effort is spared to convince you that you should spend $20 on the steak tips, even if you can't try them before you buy them. In fact, everything the restaurant does, is done to convince you to spend your money on steak tips instead of french-fries. Everything from the name of the restaurant to the paint on the walls is there to persuade you to spend more instead of less. The last thing any restaurant wants you to do is to buy a $.99 cent candy bar from a vending machine and walk out the door.

Most of the people in this industry are still stuck on selling steak tips. From record labels right down to independent artists, most people are still focused to some extent on image, identity, packaging, slick marketing, fancy websites, sexy videos, fan chasing, and celebrity building. But, guess what? Millions of people are buying $.99 cent candy bars and walking right out the door. Just in case we lost you, steak tips = compact discs or albums, and candy bars = single song downloads.

Two years ago, it was extremely difficult for fans to hear a CD prior to buying it; now they can hear every single song prior to purchasing. This coupled with the fact that a digital single is $.99 cents and an album costs $15.00 necessitates a radical rethinking of what is important to success in the music industry. For example, have you ever considered building a website around a song instead of around your band? What's more important, pictures of you or pictures of your song?

Today, 80% of the people that you talk to from the music industry are still stuck on steak tips. Stay away from business people and business deals that are based upon selling steak tips. Image, identity, packaging, slick marketing, fancy websites, sexy videos, fan chasing, and celebrity building are not as important as some people would have you believe.

The world is becoming a music singles marketplace again. Align your brain with this fact. Steak tips are out and candy bars are in. Throw away everything you thought was important eighteen months ago and hatch a new plan. Your songs are the most important things now.

Don't spend three freaking years of your life building up an identity and a fan base to sell your steak tips when your fans are going to purchase candy bars no matter what you do. Determine as soon as possible, if your best candy bar will sell!

Save your money; borrow or beg if you have to. Sell your van and e-bay your fancy gear (if you have it). Equipment does not matter; your songs are the only things that matter. Find a professional music producer (preferably one that does not try to offer you a steak tips deal) and create the best candy bar you can create. Do not make an album until you are sure you can sell a single song!

When people were selling steak tips, they gave away some candy bars to sell the steak tips. Today, that strategy is ass-backwards. Create the best song you can, put it onto any paid service like iTunes and then see if you can motivate your fans to spend one single dollar on your song. If you can't, you need to make a better song. If you are unwilling to ask your fans to spend a dollar, then you better keep your day job.

Selling candy bars is a lot different than selling steak tips; think about how each is merchandised and marketed. Selling songs requires you to really think about what's important to selling songs. Getting your songs in front of potential fans requires different strategies than putting your band in front of potential fans. The format of your songs is digital, the format of your band is physical. For the amount of effort required to put your band in front of 200 people (including the true cost of lugging you and your band around), you could probably put your song in front of 1,000 people - three times each.