As many who know me know, I got my entrepreneurial start as a musician and continue to perfect my professional musical craft via live performances, producing, album/song sales, music royalties, etc.

Early on in my musical journey I was more enamored with making a decent living with music than ever being famous, which is something I talked about in my book, The Local Music Journey. 

Fast forward to today with more access and distribution across the internet (and a declining old-school record label model), 80-90% of musicians are independent of a major label -- even those formerly on a major label.

That said, it's a long road to the middle.  Most musicians I know simply want to make a reasonably comfortable living doing what they're most passionate about and motivated to do.

This article, does a nice job offer further details about the dream of the middle-class musician.  Check it out -- it's an interesting entrepreneurial case study, even if you're not a musician.

Posted by:  Nick Venturella

So I came across this site, www.wallaceliving.ca. It's a retirement living community website. At first glance the site seemed fine, the organization logo even caught my eye a bit.

However, I noticed the organization had some social media icon links on the home page of their website. These were the usual suspects, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

My first initial thought was, "a retirement living facility with a YouTube channel, that's a great marketing idea. They could show prospective residents what the facilities look like in video."

Unfortunately, when I clicked through the link to their YouTube page there was nothing there -- no videos whatsoever.

My advice if you want to use social media, go ahead and secure your company's brand name on the social network of your choosing, however, I wouldn't suggest promoting that social media site unless you have content there.

As a final saving grace, I am happy to report that Wallace Retirement Living's website had links to both Twitter and Facebook with presences on both social networks that were alive and active.

Posted by: Nick Venturella

One way in which some businesses and entrepreneurs get started is by seeing a particular need and developing a product or service to fulfill that need. 

In many cases the need is something you as the business owner had and couldn’t find a solution for, so you built one.

For all intents and purposes, you became a bit of an inventor.  Many who have a great idea and want to start businesses around it don’t know where to begin or how to protect and fully capitalize on their idea and invention.

This is where patenting your product is likely useful in protecting and allowing you to fully maximize earning potential from your invention.

What’s involved with patents? 

Where does one start?

Once you have a patent, how can you license that protected product to earn revenue?

These are all questions you or your business would need to answer.

A place you might start is Vince Kehoe’s website, 2innovative.net.  Vince is the President of Innovative Licensing & Promotion Inc., which has helped many inventors patent and promote their innovative products worldwide.

Posted by: Nick Venturella

I had mentioned printingpeach.ca in a previous post, and as I was searching the web researching more about them I came across the website of Jimi Jive 5 -- a client of PrintingPeach's web design services.

Jimi Jive 5 is a '50's Motown band. Anyway, as a musician myself, and a lover of Motown I naturally had to go further down the web-surfing-rabbit-hole to discover more about them.

Jimi Jive 5 is a wedding band. From their site it appears they're often hired for wedding or similar events as well as corporate events. While for Manu musicians being the wedding singer seems less rockstar-ish than what may typically come to mind when someone dreams of making their living as a musician.

But that's the key phrase, "making a living as a musician." Many musicians complain that they're broke and can't make ends meet with their music, but often what they're saying is they're having trouble making ends meet with only their music.

The truth is, that's tough to do --certainly possible, but tough to do, but then again, making a living in general is tough to do.

I digress...my point is, you can be a musician and write and perform your own music to generate an income, but if that's not covering all of your bills consider how you can use your musical talents to supplement your income, like playing a few weddings or corporate events that tend to pay well.

Posted by: Nick Venturella​

Do you give your website visitors explicit directions as to what you want them to do while on your site?

It’s helpful for new visitors to your website to know where to go.  It’s even more helpful if you actually tell them where you want them to go.

One great tactic is to use a ‘Start Here’ navigational link.

This helps visitors go through your site in a way that allows you to build up your brand story in the order you want.  You’re taking new site visitors down a specific path.  It’s your chance for a first impression and to build an authentic rapport with your new site visitor.

The ultimate goal is to have more of your site visitors convert to sign up on your email list and/or buy from you.

Gary Bizzo, business mentor, provides a good example of a ‘Start Here’ navigational link on his site.

You can check out other examples, too:  

• My own, on this site.  
• Here’s Chris Brogan’s ‘Get Started’ link.

Posted by Nick Venturella