028: Free of Full
Determining what you are ‘worth’ can be a hard thing. I know it is something many artists struggle with. There is some inherent difficulty in trying to assign a monetary value to presenting art. I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole. However, I do think it is important to have some tools at hand to help you when it comes to deciding on which offers to take, and which to pass.
We’ve all heard the expression that you can ‘die from exposure’. The allure of ‘exposure’ often leads musicians (and others), to pursue ‘opportunities’ they may otherwise pass up. I know more and more musicians are starting to see the fault in this type of thinking. Living in the digital age that we do, we no longer necessarily need to hunt for exposure, to get past the gatekeepers as others did in the past. However, artists are still often presented with these types of opportunities; ‘this doesn’t really pay much, but it could be good for my career’. When we start thinking like this, it can lead to us making poor choices and devaluing our art. We look for ways to justify the decision, instead of taking it at face value. Here’s the approach I try to take in these situations.
You need to use the ‘Free or Full’ mentality. Essentially, there are only 2 scenarios that will lead you to say yes to an opportunity. Either you would do it for free, or you would do it for your full price. A couple of asterisks to this way of thinking.
‘Full’ can mean a few things. What you expect to get paid on a Tuesday would be different than a Saturday for example. Flying across the county vs. a gig close to home would be different. The point is to know the dollar number you need to make to ensure that all of your expenses are covered and you are getting paid fairly. Make a list of these numbers and keep it on hand so it is not an arbitrary decision each time.
‘Full’ is meant to eliminate any of those other things you often use to convince yourself. ‘It could lead to future opportunity’, ‘I could break a new market’. It needs to make sense financially first.
We’ll get to this later, but this doesn’t come down to a binary choice. You can still decide to take gigs for less money. This is meant to give you a clearer line of thinking in making that decision.
Ok. So you’ve established what your ‘full’ price is. If you are offered that amount, it should be easy to say yes. But what if the offer is lower? What if it’s half your ‘full’ amount? Here is where the ‘free’ part comes in. Ask yourself if you would do it for free? Does it make sense to do this for no money? Maybe the answer is yes - it’s a good cause, it’s an opening spot with an act you’ve always wanted to connect with. Only you will know this answer. But by taking the money out of the scenario you are left to decide if all of those perceived benefits are truly worth it. You’re left to decide if this exposure will actually help you, or if it won’t. All too often musicians say yes to a lower amount of money, hoping for the benefits, but they never materialize. Deciding if you would do it for free forces you to really understand if those benefits are real or just your hopeful optimism.
The purpose of ‘free or full’ is meant to give you some perspective on making these types of decisions. Ultimately it is up to you to decide what is worth it and what isn’t. Hopefully this method will help and offer you some tools when making that decision.
~ Steve