Andrés Solé Newsletter # 2

Here comes my second newsletter of life in Miami and what is going on with my music. I have spent a lot of time reading more about the music busniness. Reading always gets my mind asking questions. The main question I have been persuing the last months is ”What are the ingredients of a classic song?”

Andrés Solé Newsletter # 1

Here’s my first Miami Newsletter about what is going on in my life and musical career. I was asked by many to send the list of ”10 most important things I learned in Sweden” which I read during my last concert…

Make friends, not customers

I have learned that most people don’t think like me. I am clearly and bluntly reminded of it from time to time in the swedish business world. There is an overall lacking sense of customer service, which I think is the number one reason why the swedish economy (within a global community) could wash down the drain in a matter of seconds. I am not making a moral judgement here, I simply believe that because of the small size of the country and their instantaneous economic success after World War 2 has created an economy where competition has not been a factor. So as long as you produce something of decent standard (by the way Swedes have excellent standards when it comes to quality), it will sell. Almost no advertising necessary, no consideration to competitive pricing and certainly no customer service necessary. In my ten years of living here, there are only two examples which come to mind that live up to the standards I know of business excellence in all areas (quality, pricing, CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!), IKEA and Clas Ohlson.

My example today is of absolutely no significance, but it is just its minuteness that I think illustrates the situation so well.

I am building a box to ship the few belongings I have left to the US. It is a very educational experience, as I have no knowledge about how shipping things around the world works, but am curious to learn. As I know it is a multi billion dollar industry and one of the corner stones of western consumer society (which I have very alternative thoughts about). In any case, merchants have standardized certain things and of course come up with very simple and practical solutions. There is a concept most of us are familiar with, the pallet. Basically a wooden base designed in such a way that it can easily be lifted with a fork lift. What I didn’t know is that these pallets can have collars. Which is exactly how I am building my box. A collar is basically four wooden sides held together by metal hinges. The most common standard for a pallet I have learned is 120 cm x 80 cm and each collar is 20 cm high.

So you can stack one collar on top of another, thanks to small holders which overlap on each of the 4 corners, making it all very stable and simple to do.
 

My box is 160 cm high, giving me almost 2 square meters of packing space. But I am taking a keyboard which, when in its case is exactly 160 cm. I’m not sure how dangerous it will be to have it so exact as the lid you put on top of the box seems to go into the packing area 2 cm. Of course I don’t want to damage my keyboard, so maybe I should add another 20 cm and leave some empty room on top. But maybe it is better for the packing to be tight and if nothing terribly heavy will be put on top of my box it would be fine, I don’t know. So I decided to call the company where I bought the box for some friendly advice.
I called and told him my situation and the two options I was considering. He didn’t really have any advice as he is not sure how things are packed or shipped on the boat. So I asked him if I could buy an extra collar (which costs roughly 8 dollars) to take with me to the harbor the day I will be shipping it. If at the harbor they advise me to add some extra room, then great I will use it be a happy camper. If I don’t use it, I was wondering if I could return it, as I will have no use for it. Logical, I thought. This is were we differ.

He was shocked that I could have the nerve to call and suggest such a thing. To quote him exactly, “I’m sorry Mr. but that is not how I do business. What you are requesting would basically mean I am lending you a pallet collar. You can’t call and ask such a thing.” I thought to myself, “I just did call and ask such a thing.”

Yes, to some extent he is right. If I were to go to the docks with the extra collar and it turned out I didn’t need it, he would have just leant it to me. If I did need it, he would have made a happy customer. As of now, he’s lost a customer and all the other people I was going to recommend to him. Isn’t that the idea with test driving a car? I lend it to you, if you like and need it, buy it, no strings attached. I bet you could crash during your test drive and still walk away without buying it (I’m sure the test car is insured for that, though I would definitely ask, before trying it). I’ve heard of music albums which have been recorded entirely on borrowed studio equipment. A band goes to a pro-audio store. buys everything they need, keeps the receipts and packaging and as long as they keep the stuff in new condition and are done within a month, return it all for a full money back refund. Who cares, why not promote culture, and I’m sure if that band ever makes it big, they will be back to buy everything they used and more. That fits my view of modern consumer society. We all collect to much stuff, don’t buy what you don’t need in the long run. Borrowing is a great idea, even in the business world.

I work primarily to survive and feel fulfilled. Not to make cash. My dad once gave me a sign with 5 steps to success in business and one of them was, “Make friends, not customers.” My work place, in my adult life, is probably one of my main sources for socializing. I want to meet people, make friends! Of course I want to do favors, of course I want to lend out something that someone else maybe or maybe doesn’t need. Am I crazy? Somebody pinch me!

My last 5 cents. Never open an account in a Swedish bank unless you absolutely have to. I still don’t understand how they get away with the concept of “I give you my money for safe keeping, so that you can use it to make more money and charge me for that privilege.” Has nobody here heard of “Free banking”? The only bank I do recommend is JAK Member Owned Bank an interest free banking cooperative, which I am happy to be a member of. Very interesting, check it out!

Oh and finally, free advertising and a recommendation to an excellent business partner during this learning experience of mine. The guy who I am sending the box through is a wonderful, caring, effective and knowledgeable man in the shipping industry, whom I highly recommend if you ever need to ship anything anywhere from Gothenburg, Lorenzo Urquiaga. I’m not surprised to see the first thing you see on his website is his motto: 35 years of service excellence. So I guess I was wrong, there were 3, IKEA, Clas Ohlson and Lorenzo Shipping.

Have any experiences you’d like to share, I would love to hear them (write a comment!). Are there any other examples of business excellence in Sweden I should know about? Hopefully they will catch on soon. Otherwise it is a great place to live and work and I’ve gladly paid a lot of taxes to help sustain a society that cares for the less fortunate. I am very blessed.

32 hour work week

Outsourcing is a concept that I have thought about a lot, before realizing it’s full potential but today as I read Tim Ferriss blog called Outsourcing Life. It made me laugh and laughter is healthy, so if nothing else I am healthier for it. But in actuality it has really opened my eyes to an idea that has been brewing inside of me for years and that I actually put in motion last year as I produced my first EP with Solé.

I’ll tell you the story about the EP first. My full budget for 1000 copies of our EP (7 songs in a full 4 color 6 side digipack, recorded, mixed and mastered professionally) was 6000 USD. It was recorded in house, which kept that costs at a minimum. Then I wanted to shoot for the best mixing and mastering that I could afford, because I know how important that step is and is something I knew very little about, so I wanted to put it into expert hands. So I let myself dream and asked, “If I could choose anyone to mix my songs who would that be?” I pulled down my favorite albums and artists and looked at who had done their mixes and came up with three names. So I contacted all three of them and sent them a rough mix of one song and asked if they had time, interest and what the cost would be. One wasn’t available until a month later, but the other two responded very positively. So I spent half my budget on mixing, which I am very glad I did, they did a fantastic job! Thank you Eric Shilling and Kevin Killen. For the mastering I got OK’s and prices from both Vlado Meller (Universal Mastering) and Chris Gehringer (from Sterling Sound). But I was recommended Bob Ohlsson by one of my mixers and I decided to go with him, because I fully trust Eric’s advise (and also was totally satisfied).

So with that I didn’t have so much left for the production of the CD and digipack. I looked into all kinds of different options. Having it produced in Sweden where I live, in the US, in eastern Europe (because of price and proximity) but what finally turned out being the best option was having it produced in China. Not only was it half the price of what it would cost me to have it done in Sweden (including shipping), but the service was excellent, very efficient and I got all the extras I wanted thrown in for practically nothing (deboss on the cover and each EP individually shrink wrapped). How did I go about finding the contacts in China, like I did everyone else, through the net. I contacted two companies and both were very professional and very competitive in pricing and speed. In cause your in the same boat, check them out. I am sure there are plenty more, but these are the two I had extended contact with: Alice Yu at www.discturnkey.com and Alan Lz at www.disc-cn.com. So one can say that I outsourced the majority of the work for the production of my EP, from Sweden to New York, Miami, Nashville, China and back.

I know that my time limitations are great and I need all the help I can get in order to make my musical career succeed. But four hours a week seems a bit too little for my taste. Fortunately I am doing what I love, so I gladly work 60 hours a week on my music, except that I know that is not healthy for me or my music. At times of course it is necessary. But I believe in working 32 hours a week of effective work time. These last couple months I have been going to bed early in order to get up at 5 am. So from 5 to 12 I put in a good 6 plus hours of effective work time into my music and then I can enjoy the rest of the day in a more leisurely fashion. This habit has proven very effective for me. When I get to the US one of the first things I am going to do is buy the book, “The 4 Hour Work Week” and really learn about how to outsource more of what I don’t want to be doing, so that I have more time for that which I love and do best. Also because I know that there are people who can do much of what I do much better than I can. I’ll stick to writing and singing my songs.

My favorite album covers

If I had to choose my 10 favorite albums but exclusively from a visual point of view, based on the album cover, 9 of them would be by the artist Storm Thorgeson. The remaining one would be “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” designed by Peter Blake. Storm Thorgeson is a man who has dedicated his career to creating a visual language based on the concept “Album Cover”, which has left a huge impact on rock history. He has created icons that will forever be imprinted in the minds of millions of rock music lovers. Just to name a few: Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Hear… and many more), Led Zeppelin (House of the Holy, In Through The Back Door… and many more), Peter Gabriel (Peter Gabriel 1 and 3), The Cranberries (Bury The Hatchet), Alan Parsons (Try Anything Once), Nice (Elegy), The Mars Volta (Frances The Mute), Muse, Black Sabbath… and the list goes on and on. The entire list can be seen on Wikipedia.

Here is a short description of one of his most important works in his own words. “The refracting glass prism referred to Floyd light shows – consummate use of light in the concert setting. Its outline is triangular and triangles are symbols of ambition, and are redolent of pyramids, both cosmic and mad in equal measure, all these ideas touching on themes in the lyrics. The joining of the spectrum extending round the back cover and across the gatefold inside was seamless like the seguing tracks on the album, whilst the opening heartbeat was represented by a repeating blip in one of the colours.”

Wonderful Mixer

I just wanted to post a link to a wonderful mixer, if anyone is looking for one. His credit list would make anyone in the latin world jealous as he’s worked with Gloria Estefan, Juan Luis Guerra, Santana, Julio Igelsias, Chayanne, Arturo Sandoval and of course… Andrés Solé. Not only is Eric a fantastic Producer, Mixer, Engineer, but one of the nicest people I have had contact with in the music industry. It was a great learning experience, truly a pleasure and of course an honor to get to work with him.

You can find his contact information by visiting his website. Here’s his credit list in PDF format.Here’s a great interview with him on Mix Online where he talks about his work as producer and sound engineer.

Here’s a picture of Eric and I at the legendary Crescent Moon Studios in Miami. To both Eric and Susan a huge hug and all my love and respect. May peace and joy fill your lives everyday!

Music online – for musicians

Here is a book I read recently which really was an eye-opener for me. Thanks to it, I am on the right track now to promoting my musical career online. If you are a musician READ IT. This was written by Andrew Dubber at NewMusicStrategies.com. Thank you Andrew!

Click here to download: Things to know about music online – for musicians