Question: Tom Hess, what is an effective way of communicating to record companies, A&R that your project/product is worth financing? And if I live in a small country where my style of music is not popular, is it possible for a record company in the US to offer to see me from just hearing some of the songs I've come up with and recorded myself on my PC?

Tom Hess's Answer: You need to have more to offer them than simply “recordings of your music”. No matter how great your music is, before a record company (in any country) will want to invest tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars into advancing your music career, they need to be sure that their investment will not simply disappear and instead will bring EXTRA money in that wasn’t there before they began working with you.

So your REAL challenge (in addition to recording your music well) is to show to these record companies how you will help them meet this goal.

Record companies exist because they want to make a profit (this is their goal), and you want them to invest their money and resources into you and your music career (this is your goal). In order for a fruitful relationship to happen both of you need to act to get the other party’s needs met.

If you can do that, then the record companies will suddenly become very interested in helping you and promoting your music.

One example of this is if you are actively promoting yourself and your music on your own and you have a lot of fans who are interested in your music already (and can PROVE IT!). If you can show to the record companies that your band has achieved some success and developed loyal fans who ALREADY BUY your records, this is a huge bonus that works in your favor.

So as you can see, there is a lot more that goes into attracting the attention of a record company than most musicians think about. Show them they will make money with you and they will be interested, your great music alone is no guarantee for them that money can be made.

To learn more about this, read this article about getting a record deal.

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