frederic
New member
Warning - long thread alert. Not sure if this is of any interest to anyone or not, but I've been working on this on and off for a few months, so here it is.
While the vast majority of us will be building and operating a home studio for our own projects, and possibly friends, I would imagine there are some of us who will be making our grand facilities available to the general public, or a selection thereof. If the latter fits your situation, then this might be interesting.
Disclaimer: This is a compilation of my experience having run two professional studios, one unsuccessful due to our collective inability to manage finances properly (we were young, inexperienced gear sluts), and the second we got out of it due to one partner being a overstressed, socially inempt monkey, and the two remaining partners (myself included) unable to buy him out individually or collectively. These are just my thoughts, no warranty expressed or implied in any way.
So lesson #1, Don't be a gear slut and choose your partners carefully
Semi-amusing anecdotes aside, know first and foremost that your professional recording studio is a business, and should be treated as such. She is your mistress, and can be gentle, sweet and comforting, yet a hostile bitch as well. Be prepared. While it might be a lot of fun to run a recording studio, and it should be, it is a business and you'll have to be prepared to deal with business issues. These will include property management, finances, advertising, people issues, and sometimes customer issues.
Owning your own business is really a lifestyle change for most of us. Its very different than commuting to a 40-hr work-week making widgets for SuperWidgets Incorporated. Instead of one job, you as the owner or partner really need to wear multiple hats. You might be the owner, bookkeeper, advertising manager, cable jockey, floor sweeper, ceiling painter, customer greeter and customer support, equipment repair person, etc.
Without further adeau, here are some pros and cons.
Pros:
1. You have opportunity to make more money than you can working for someone else.
2. You'll control your own destiny, both financially and in a business sense.
3. No one can really fire you.
4. You have a tremendous opportunity to learn the many facets of business practices, which can only help you and your career whether you remain self-employed or not.
5. You'll enjoy running the business overall.
6. And if you do well, you'll be able to sell your business when its time to retire, if you want to.
7. You can become a successful business in your own community, earning the respect of others.
Cons:
1. You may have to take a large financial risk.
2. You'll have little to no free time for vacations, time off, et al.
3. In the beginning, you'll have less fun because the majority of your time will be spent running a business, not doing what you enjoy.
4. Income can fluctuate depending on projects, customers, market, etc.
5. You may have to deal with firing relatives, friends, etc whom you employ if they don't work out or business isn't good initially.
6. You may struggle with accouting, marketing, and management issues if you do not have a fair amount of experience in those areas.
Since you're still excited about owning and operating your own recording studio, its time to build a business plan. "I like music" is not a business plan, but rather a concept. Important difference. A true business plan will force you to answer for yourself, and possibly family members, investors and financial institutions, what you intend to do, how will you market what you do, how you will make profit from what you do, and what the start up costs and pitfalls will be. This is probably the most skipped step and I cannot emphasize enough how important it is. While its perfectly acceptable to whimsically buy a silk tie "because you like it" most of us would not buy a house, or a car, without doing research beforehand. The same goes for starting your own business. I would recommend writing your business plan as if you were going to seek external capital from banks, friends, family or venture capitalists, even if you are going to finance it yourself, because after all, if its your money, you are technically a venture capitalist too
Your business plan, at a minimum, should answer the following concerns:
1. Company Description
What does the company do? What is the mission statement, and overall product focus of the business plan? Recording? Mixing? Mastering? Duplication? Practice Rooms? Indie Label? All or some of the above?
2. Company Founders
Give a brief description of the key employees with respect to leadership, education, background, and work experience, and how it relates specifically to your business. Does your strengths as a collective compliment individuals weaknesses?
3. Markets and Customers
Who are the customers? What are the target markets? How will you collect and analyze customer feedback? Who are your competitors? What services do they provide and at what rates?
4. Value Proposition
What does your recording studio, and the way you manage it, provides your customers with a superior end result, or saves them money, or both. Note you don't have to be the cheapest if you are the best
5. Business Opportunity
Write down precisely how the company makes money. Describe the revenue streams, and include a yearly projection of revenue, expenses, net income, and funding requirements for the next three years.
6. Uniqueness
What does your recording studio do, that differentiates it from other studios in the marketplace? What is the competitive landscape? Discuss studios that can be viewed as competition in the market segment. Please explain the key points of differentiation between your studio and its competitors.
7. Scalability
Is your studio scalable? Can it grow based on client requirements? Does it need to? Can you rent specialized gear for specialized projects (vocoder? Special pre-amps? Mics?)
8. Sales and Marketing Strategy
Identify the market size and market segments. How you will attract customers? How will you advertise? How will you earn repeat customers?
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There are several start up comments and potential pitfalls for the recording studio businesses I'll share with you at this time.
1. Do not try to be all things to all people.
If you absolutely hate hip-hop, don't try to record it. The reason is simple, actually. If you have immense dislike for a particular sect of the music industry, you can't possibly appreciate the nuances associated with that style of music, therefore your heart won't be into it the way it should be. The engineer is as much an artist as the band members, as is the producer with the "vision". Its truly a team effort.
There is nothing wrong with "only" recording what you like to record, but you have to balance this with cash flow. Over the years I haven't been overly fond of grunge and alternative music, but because its similar to rock as far as mixing techniques and allotted time, I did. I've actually grown fond of some of it because I did record such, here and there.
2. Look for multiple revenue streams.
While its nice to "only do what you love" the music industry has a lot of needs and facets you can capitalize on. Some are simpler than others, some more complex. Sometimes people get into duplication, whether in-house or outsourced, there is some money to be made there. Years ago I went the "practice room" route whereas for $20 or $25 an hour, a band can rent a rehearsal room, crank the Marshall's to 11, and no one would care. A band of four or five high school students can afford to split $25 five ways for an hour. Three hours is $15 a band member, and its essentially free money since the studio lights were on anyway. I had four such rooms, BTW, and any and all equipment that had gotten beaten up went into those rooms, as did equipment I got "dirt cheap" from auctions, garage sales, etc. All name brand stuff too, fender amps, tama drum kits, stuff like that.
You can also make money offering artwork... most bands like to have "pretty" CD's and cassettes for distribution, and this is an opportunity for the artsy types whether its yourself, a freelance college student, your wife etc to enjoy some creativity to which you can bill for. Becareful of using copyrighted images however. A digital camera and a couple of nice backdrops (even black sheets) work well for capturing the band or artists in a "pose".
If you have true musical talent, whereas you can play many instruments or teach music theory, you can also offer lessons. While time consuming to some degree, you can use this to fill in "odd hours" whereas your studio is empty. In order for a studio to really flourish, you need to find a way to book as many hours as you can, even if its just music lessons.
3. Know you don't necessarily need the best equipment in the world, and used stuff is just dandy.
While its certainly nice to have a $100K protools setup, a $1mil sony oxford, or a digital SSL, this alone will not make beautiful recordings. All it will do is give you the technical power to do so. If you can't afford it, or operate it correctly, its out of the question. Many hit records have been recording on mackie 32-buss mixers, "home grade" Tapco's and the list goes on and on. If you really want that Neve cache, there is absolutely nothing wrong with purchasing an older console out of a studio that recently upgraded to something newere, shinier, with more blinking lights. This will take a lot of hunting on your part, but anyone who remembers the "old days" know that Neve was one of the best consoles in the late 70's early 80's, so much so several companies have copied the input channel design (licensed or not) and sell today, rackmount "Neve preamp channels" so you can have one such channel plugged into whatever hokey gear you're using.
4. Remember that your customers are your bread and butter.
Even if a band comes in and really is a pain to work with, try to keep a "happy face" even though you want to string up a moody guitarist by his patch cord. If they leave happy, they more than likely will come back. Repeat business is good because its repeats, but also because they often recommend you to other artist wanna-bes as well.
5. Supply accessories.
I cannot tell you the number of times dumbasses show up missing batteries, short patch cords for between stomp boxes, guitar straps, picks, etc. Having a set of fully charged rechargable batteries on hand and boxes of "leftover" cords is a good thing. Certainly expect them back, but having it handy prevents waiting 2 hours for the guitarist to drive home, get his cords, then come back. Your clients won't appreciate the bill for two hours of downtime, and sitting around waiting just sucks for them and you. If you wanted, you could even have a counter full of accessories (like batteries, picks, etc) and simply sell them instead of loaning them. Either way.
6. Sign out, and possibly rent, nice stuff.
If a garage band comes in with beat up garbage, you could rent for $50 a day a nice jackson you have on the wall, or loan a drummer a set of ziljins. We charged sometimes, sometimes not, depending on the customer as well as the recording time blocked out. Someone wanting a four hour session typically could rent gear, bands blocking out an entire week pretty much could borrow what they wanted, as long as they signed for it.
7. Always take a deposit.
Cash talks bullshit walks, especially when you are dealing with the younger crowd. Sorry, its the way it is. We'd only block time with a 20% advance payment (in any form), and payment in full upon arrival. If the sessions went short by a few hours, we always refunded the difference but I'd rather be in a position of refunding than in a position of chasing people for money. Collections always sucks, and is unpleasant for everyone.
Somewhat related, always provide an itemized bill. Its easier for customers to see what they actually got, and its an old trick that itemizing a bill makes the bill look much longer, thus the perception of more value. Not everyone is wired this way, the ones that arent won't care but the ones that are will appreciate seeing many line items.
To make it easier on your customers, try to take any credit card common in your area. This way you can block time and take credit cards over the phone without forcing people to come down, leave cash. You really don't want cash sitting in your studio anyway.
8. Respecting the facility.
You should not eat, drink, or smoke in your recording rooms. If you have a big enough studio to where you can service bands, artists and groups, you need a properly equipped lounge. Let them smoke, eat, and drink in there, and follow that rule yourself. Set an example. Its difficult to tell people they can't smoke in the live room when you have a cigar stub balanced on the edge of your console. When takes just keep getting worse, suggest a break, lead them all into the lounge, and fire up a coffee pot. I generally kept coffee on all day for those who wanted it, providing nice ceramic mugs as well. When the day/night was over, in the dishwasher they went, and the next morning they were clean and dry. Its a nice touch.
We implemented a no alcohol/drug policy and hung posters from "MADD" in our lounge. You don't need the hassle of someone driving home buzzed, getting into an accident, and blaming the studio/owner. Even though pot is a fairly benign drug its still illegal so avoid this legal quagmire at all costs. Its just not worth it for you as a business owner. Years ago we had one band that would often arrive wasted, indicating they "play their best" wasted. Good for them, they're not playing here. If the police show up, they generally arrest everyone first, then ask questions later.
Though less important nowadays thanks to cell phones, having a pay phone in the lobby/lounge is/was a good idea. Young'ens can call home for rides, and order chinese food if they really want if they don't like pizza The pay phone we had in studio II provided free local calling, no coins necesssary. Long distance (out of the immediate area) it was like any other payphone. The local telco was running some kind of deal, we went for it because we thought it was a neat idea. Ordering pizza was free.
9. Attitude.
Having the right attitude, and having that propogate through all your employees can be a difficult task. There are days that just suck because you spilled coffee on your lap while driving to your studio. Always keep the happy face. Be fair, be reasonable, keep smiling. Try to be helpful too. If someone is struggling with instrument, maybe you could help tune it, restring it, adjust a patch setting, etc. Its suprising how many people really don't understand how their gear works, and a tiny bit of help can go a long way.
10. Hire quality people.
If you are running your studio by yourself, great. If its large enough you probably need several employees, especially if you want to be the house engineer. You do not want to get up from the console every 15 minutes to adjust microphones, lighting, power cords etc. An assistant can do this. Most colleges seem to have music programs, and hiring one of these people might be a good thing. They appreciate the opportunity to work in a "real" studio and at the same time you can share your knowledge and have some fun. I happen to enjoy mentoring, not sure why, so for me its fun. I'd rather hire someone who has a strong interest in the arts and seeking an eventual career in this direction, over some McDonald's flunkee who views your studio as a "job". Hire like minded people if you can./
A side note - try to avoid hiring close friends and relatives, unless they truly bring skills to the table that you can utilize. The reason for this is if you're going to have to train them for their job from scratch, its a lot of work. And sadly, if cousin Marvin doesn't work out, Uncle Ted will be highly pissed when you fire cousin Marvin. Its just a huge hassle you really don't need. Its much easier to terminate total strangers.
11. Advertising.
Having the "we built it and they will come" attitude does not work in the beginning. You can put pretty "slicks" on the bulletin board of most music stores (at least here in the northeastern US) for free, but expect them to be covered with "vocalist wanted" ads in about 10 minutes. Expect to refresh this often.
Newspapers.
Often local newspapers have very little "neat stuff" to write about, however when you're opening your studio, make a big deal about it. Call your local paper(s) and introduce yourself. Explain your business plan and how you want to be a serious part of the community. In exchange for some paid advertising by you to them, which you'd want to do anyway, you might get a nice article written about your studio, your personal history, the atmosphere, etc. Since ads in newspapers aren't terribly effective as a general rule, articles in papers usually are because people read them. An extension of this is if you find a local, reasonably popular band, you can invite the newspaper columnist to attend part of one of the recording session and let them do a story in the community session. Headline might read "Local Band, 'Zolt', records their first session at Bob's Recording Hut!
"Spiffs".
We thought about this long and hard before implementing it, but for us it turned out to be successful to some degree. What we did was approach three family-owned music stores with the idea that if they sent us business, we'd commission the store directly. Once in a while customers of ours would chat about new guitars, new amps new drums, whatever, and we'd send the over to one of the family owned music stores, which the family owned store really appreciated considering all the skank-chains that seem to keep popping up like diseased mushrooms. This also goes to building community relationships.
Avoid Downtime.
Having an empty studio costs you about as much as a full studio, except a full studio is billable. Typically early in the year (jan/feb) was often slow, and for whatever reason, the typical tuesday was spent measuring patch cords because it was better than watching snowflakes out the window. Use your downtime to your advantage... one such example is we ran specials for "common folk" where as for $300, you could give a friend, relative, parent, child a full day in the studio, including coffee and pizza, to record about 6-8 songs of their choosing. We had nice gift certificates printed up on a parchment-like copier paper with a gold trim, with matching envelopes so it could be given as a gift and not look cheap or stupid. The gift recipient would come in (usually on a tuesday) record the songs, maybe two takes a piece, then they'd leave and we'd call them a week later to pick up a nicely (but simply) mastered CD with their headshot (which we took) as the 'cover art' and picked lettering and colors to suit the headshot. We could use midi from our library to put the music together, or a vocal zapper if someone brought a CD or cassette to workfrom. This was a lot of fun actually, and $300 instead of nothing for an unbooked day made it worthwhile. Didnt' require a tremendous amount of patching, we provided some basic vocal coaching, and tried to make it as fun as possible. We had some repeat business with this too. A loooooooot of really young girls... and early 40's-50's women. Not sure why, didn't matter, was all fun.
Sponser things.
Assuming you have the finances to do so. One of my partners on the second go around had a daughter playing little league. So, we sponsored their team. The cost was approximately $1600 for a year, and there were 14 little girls in pigtails running around with our logos and phone numbers on their uniforms. This is especially good if the team you sponsor makes it to the county championships, with your logo and phone number We also sponsored a Boy Scout paper drive a few times. All that happens is you give up your parking lot on a sunday, a tractor trailer is dumped there, and everyone body in town brings their newspapers to your property, to be tossed in the trailer, which leaves the next morning at about 5 or 6am. One day of inconvienence and the entire community has parked in your parking lot. If one person comes buy to drop off newspapers and goes "holy shit, I can record a song here" its worth the inconvienence. This is a good time to have a HUGE sign in your window "give the gift of song" (see above).
Direct mailing.
The chances of you purchasing a mailing list that has only people who would use a recording studio are very slim. Its such a specialized thing anyway. But, every time someone books your studio, you have their name and address, so you can direct mail them if you want. Have a purpose for it, maybe George Lynch is a personal friend of yours and he's coming over a for a beer or two, heck, ask him to do a greet and meet. Make sure you call the local newspaper, "George Lynch meets local teenagers at Bob's Recording Hut! Keep them all in the live room, not the console room
Clothing.
I'm not sure how effective this was for us, but we got suckered into the shirt/hat thing. We went for hanes t-shirts, decent golf shirts, and baseball caps with the studio name, number, and logo in the middle. We gave a lot of them away in the beginning, and after a year or so we sold them at cost. If you have a young crowd coming in a lot, t-shirts sell good, and if they are decent t-shirts they will wear them 10 times a month too
Lessons/apprenticeship.
Music lessons were covered above, but another option is on down-days is to over a month-long once a week class in basic mixing. Have one of your friends who likes to diddle on guitar one day, a trumpet player on another day, etc, and offer an inexpensive class ($300?) that will teach the basics of recording. A lot of young people like this kind of stuff, and if you pack 10 young people in your console room (no food, drink, smoke!) thats $3000 for four evenings, and its another opportunity to stick your name in the paper. Do it once a year, makes up for some dead time. That comes out to $750 a night, by the way. Can you bill that normally recording a band, a quartet, or a vocalist?
Web Presence.
Its good ettiquite to have a website, with photos, possibly sponsored projects, rates and stuff but I don't believe the web is going to be the primary way you attract local business. I really don't. But, its a quick way to give "virtual tours" of your facility and have bragging rights of various former, er, repeat customers You could easily setup a feedback form where people can request more information and possibly cut down on the phone ringing, but I personally believe I or anyone can do a better "sell" on the phone or in person. Often people say stuff that can clue you into their frame of reference that you wouldn't get in a six line feedback form or email.
While the vast majority of us will be building and operating a home studio for our own projects, and possibly friends, I would imagine there are some of us who will be making our grand facilities available to the general public, or a selection thereof. If the latter fits your situation, then this might be interesting.
Disclaimer: This is a compilation of my experience having run two professional studios, one unsuccessful due to our collective inability to manage finances properly (we were young, inexperienced gear sluts), and the second we got out of it due to one partner being a overstressed, socially inempt monkey, and the two remaining partners (myself included) unable to buy him out individually or collectively. These are just my thoughts, no warranty expressed or implied in any way.
So lesson #1, Don't be a gear slut and choose your partners carefully
Semi-amusing anecdotes aside, know first and foremost that your professional recording studio is a business, and should be treated as such. She is your mistress, and can be gentle, sweet and comforting, yet a hostile bitch as well. Be prepared. While it might be a lot of fun to run a recording studio, and it should be, it is a business and you'll have to be prepared to deal with business issues. These will include property management, finances, advertising, people issues, and sometimes customer issues.
Owning your own business is really a lifestyle change for most of us. Its very different than commuting to a 40-hr work-week making widgets for SuperWidgets Incorporated. Instead of one job, you as the owner or partner really need to wear multiple hats. You might be the owner, bookkeeper, advertising manager, cable jockey, floor sweeper, ceiling painter, customer greeter and customer support, equipment repair person, etc.
Without further adeau, here are some pros and cons.
Pros:
1. You have opportunity to make more money than you can working for someone else.
2. You'll control your own destiny, both financially and in a business sense.
3. No one can really fire you.
4. You have a tremendous opportunity to learn the many facets of business practices, which can only help you and your career whether you remain self-employed or not.
5. You'll enjoy running the business overall.
6. And if you do well, you'll be able to sell your business when its time to retire, if you want to.
7. You can become a successful business in your own community, earning the respect of others.
Cons:
1. You may have to take a large financial risk.
2. You'll have little to no free time for vacations, time off, et al.
3. In the beginning, you'll have less fun because the majority of your time will be spent running a business, not doing what you enjoy.
4. Income can fluctuate depending on projects, customers, market, etc.
5. You may have to deal with firing relatives, friends, etc whom you employ if they don't work out or business isn't good initially.
6. You may struggle with accouting, marketing, and management issues if you do not have a fair amount of experience in those areas.
Since you're still excited about owning and operating your own recording studio, its time to build a business plan. "I like music" is not a business plan, but rather a concept. Important difference. A true business plan will force you to answer for yourself, and possibly family members, investors and financial institutions, what you intend to do, how will you market what you do, how you will make profit from what you do, and what the start up costs and pitfalls will be. This is probably the most skipped step and I cannot emphasize enough how important it is. While its perfectly acceptable to whimsically buy a silk tie "because you like it" most of us would not buy a house, or a car, without doing research beforehand. The same goes for starting your own business. I would recommend writing your business plan as if you were going to seek external capital from banks, friends, family or venture capitalists, even if you are going to finance it yourself, because after all, if its your money, you are technically a venture capitalist too
Your business plan, at a minimum, should answer the following concerns:
1. Company Description
What does the company do? What is the mission statement, and overall product focus of the business plan? Recording? Mixing? Mastering? Duplication? Practice Rooms? Indie Label? All or some of the above?
2. Company Founders
Give a brief description of the key employees with respect to leadership, education, background, and work experience, and how it relates specifically to your business. Does your strengths as a collective compliment individuals weaknesses?
3. Markets and Customers
Who are the customers? What are the target markets? How will you collect and analyze customer feedback? Who are your competitors? What services do they provide and at what rates?
4. Value Proposition
What does your recording studio, and the way you manage it, provides your customers with a superior end result, or saves them money, or both. Note you don't have to be the cheapest if you are the best
5. Business Opportunity
Write down precisely how the company makes money. Describe the revenue streams, and include a yearly projection of revenue, expenses, net income, and funding requirements for the next three years.
6. Uniqueness
What does your recording studio do, that differentiates it from other studios in the marketplace? What is the competitive landscape? Discuss studios that can be viewed as competition in the market segment. Please explain the key points of differentiation between your studio and its competitors.
7. Scalability
Is your studio scalable? Can it grow based on client requirements? Does it need to? Can you rent specialized gear for specialized projects (vocoder? Special pre-amps? Mics?)
8. Sales and Marketing Strategy
Identify the market size and market segments. How you will attract customers? How will you advertise? How will you earn repeat customers?
------------------------
There are several start up comments and potential pitfalls for the recording studio businesses I'll share with you at this time.
1. Do not try to be all things to all people.
If you absolutely hate hip-hop, don't try to record it. The reason is simple, actually. If you have immense dislike for a particular sect of the music industry, you can't possibly appreciate the nuances associated with that style of music, therefore your heart won't be into it the way it should be. The engineer is as much an artist as the band members, as is the producer with the "vision". Its truly a team effort.
There is nothing wrong with "only" recording what you like to record, but you have to balance this with cash flow. Over the years I haven't been overly fond of grunge and alternative music, but because its similar to rock as far as mixing techniques and allotted time, I did. I've actually grown fond of some of it because I did record such, here and there.
2. Look for multiple revenue streams.
While its nice to "only do what you love" the music industry has a lot of needs and facets you can capitalize on. Some are simpler than others, some more complex. Sometimes people get into duplication, whether in-house or outsourced, there is some money to be made there. Years ago I went the "practice room" route whereas for $20 or $25 an hour, a band can rent a rehearsal room, crank the Marshall's to 11, and no one would care. A band of four or five high school students can afford to split $25 five ways for an hour. Three hours is $15 a band member, and its essentially free money since the studio lights were on anyway. I had four such rooms, BTW, and any and all equipment that had gotten beaten up went into those rooms, as did equipment I got "dirt cheap" from auctions, garage sales, etc. All name brand stuff too, fender amps, tama drum kits, stuff like that.
You can also make money offering artwork... most bands like to have "pretty" CD's and cassettes for distribution, and this is an opportunity for the artsy types whether its yourself, a freelance college student, your wife etc to enjoy some creativity to which you can bill for. Becareful of using copyrighted images however. A digital camera and a couple of nice backdrops (even black sheets) work well for capturing the band or artists in a "pose".
If you have true musical talent, whereas you can play many instruments or teach music theory, you can also offer lessons. While time consuming to some degree, you can use this to fill in "odd hours" whereas your studio is empty. In order for a studio to really flourish, you need to find a way to book as many hours as you can, even if its just music lessons.
3. Know you don't necessarily need the best equipment in the world, and used stuff is just dandy.
While its certainly nice to have a $100K protools setup, a $1mil sony oxford, or a digital SSL, this alone will not make beautiful recordings. All it will do is give you the technical power to do so. If you can't afford it, or operate it correctly, its out of the question. Many hit records have been recording on mackie 32-buss mixers, "home grade" Tapco's and the list goes on and on. If you really want that Neve cache, there is absolutely nothing wrong with purchasing an older console out of a studio that recently upgraded to something newere, shinier, with more blinking lights. This will take a lot of hunting on your part, but anyone who remembers the "old days" know that Neve was one of the best consoles in the late 70's early 80's, so much so several companies have copied the input channel design (licensed or not) and sell today, rackmount "Neve preamp channels" so you can have one such channel plugged into whatever hokey gear you're using.
4. Remember that your customers are your bread and butter.
Even if a band comes in and really is a pain to work with, try to keep a "happy face" even though you want to string up a moody guitarist by his patch cord. If they leave happy, they more than likely will come back. Repeat business is good because its repeats, but also because they often recommend you to other artist wanna-bes as well.
5. Supply accessories.
I cannot tell you the number of times dumbasses show up missing batteries, short patch cords for between stomp boxes, guitar straps, picks, etc. Having a set of fully charged rechargable batteries on hand and boxes of "leftover" cords is a good thing. Certainly expect them back, but having it handy prevents waiting 2 hours for the guitarist to drive home, get his cords, then come back. Your clients won't appreciate the bill for two hours of downtime, and sitting around waiting just sucks for them and you. If you wanted, you could even have a counter full of accessories (like batteries, picks, etc) and simply sell them instead of loaning them. Either way.
6. Sign out, and possibly rent, nice stuff.
If a garage band comes in with beat up garbage, you could rent for $50 a day a nice jackson you have on the wall, or loan a drummer a set of ziljins. We charged sometimes, sometimes not, depending on the customer as well as the recording time blocked out. Someone wanting a four hour session typically could rent gear, bands blocking out an entire week pretty much could borrow what they wanted, as long as they signed for it.
7. Always take a deposit.
Cash talks bullshit walks, especially when you are dealing with the younger crowd. Sorry, its the way it is. We'd only block time with a 20% advance payment (in any form), and payment in full upon arrival. If the sessions went short by a few hours, we always refunded the difference but I'd rather be in a position of refunding than in a position of chasing people for money. Collections always sucks, and is unpleasant for everyone.
Somewhat related, always provide an itemized bill. Its easier for customers to see what they actually got, and its an old trick that itemizing a bill makes the bill look much longer, thus the perception of more value. Not everyone is wired this way, the ones that arent won't care but the ones that are will appreciate seeing many line items.
To make it easier on your customers, try to take any credit card common in your area. This way you can block time and take credit cards over the phone without forcing people to come down, leave cash. You really don't want cash sitting in your studio anyway.
8. Respecting the facility.
You should not eat, drink, or smoke in your recording rooms. If you have a big enough studio to where you can service bands, artists and groups, you need a properly equipped lounge. Let them smoke, eat, and drink in there, and follow that rule yourself. Set an example. Its difficult to tell people they can't smoke in the live room when you have a cigar stub balanced on the edge of your console. When takes just keep getting worse, suggest a break, lead them all into the lounge, and fire up a coffee pot. I generally kept coffee on all day for those who wanted it, providing nice ceramic mugs as well. When the day/night was over, in the dishwasher they went, and the next morning they were clean and dry. Its a nice touch.
We implemented a no alcohol/drug policy and hung posters from "MADD" in our lounge. You don't need the hassle of someone driving home buzzed, getting into an accident, and blaming the studio/owner. Even though pot is a fairly benign drug its still illegal so avoid this legal quagmire at all costs. Its just not worth it for you as a business owner. Years ago we had one band that would often arrive wasted, indicating they "play their best" wasted. Good for them, they're not playing here. If the police show up, they generally arrest everyone first, then ask questions later.
Though less important nowadays thanks to cell phones, having a pay phone in the lobby/lounge is/was a good idea. Young'ens can call home for rides, and order chinese food if they really want if they don't like pizza
The pay phone we had in studio II provided free local calling, no coins necesssary. Long distance (out of the immediate area) it was like any other payphone. The local telco was running some kind of deal, we went for it because we thought it was a neat idea. Ordering pizza was free.9. Attitude.
Having the right attitude, and having that propogate through all your employees can be a difficult task. There are days that just suck because you spilled coffee on your lap while driving to your studio. Always keep the happy face. Be fair, be reasonable, keep smiling. Try to be helpful too. If someone is struggling with instrument, maybe you could help tune it, restring it, adjust a patch setting, etc. Its suprising how many people really don't understand how their gear works, and a tiny bit of help can go a long way.
10. Hire quality people.
If you are running your studio by yourself, great. If its large enough you probably need several employees, especially if you want to be the house engineer. You do not want to get up from the console every 15 minutes to adjust microphones, lighting, power cords etc. An assistant can do this. Most colleges seem to have music programs, and hiring one of these people might be a good thing. They appreciate the opportunity to work in a "real" studio and at the same time you can share your knowledge and have some fun. I happen to enjoy mentoring, not sure why, so for me its fun. I'd rather hire someone who has a strong interest in the arts and seeking an eventual career in this direction, over some McDonald's flunkee who views your studio as a "job". Hire like minded people if you can./
A side note - try to avoid hiring close friends and relatives, unless they truly bring skills to the table that you can utilize. The reason for this is if you're going to have to train them for their job from scratch, its a lot of work. And sadly, if cousin Marvin doesn't work out, Uncle Ted will be highly pissed when you fire cousin Marvin. Its just a huge hassle you really don't need. Its much easier to terminate total strangers.
11. Advertising.
Having the "we built it and they will come" attitude does not work in the beginning. You can put pretty "slicks" on the bulletin board of most music stores (at least here in the northeastern US) for free, but expect them to be covered with "vocalist wanted" ads in about 10 minutes. Expect to refresh this often.
Newspapers.
Often local newspapers have very little "neat stuff" to write about, however when you're opening your studio, make a big deal about it. Call your local paper(s) and introduce yourself. Explain your business plan and how you want to be a serious part of the community. In exchange for some paid advertising by you to them, which you'd want to do anyway, you might get a nice article written about your studio, your personal history, the atmosphere, etc. Since ads in newspapers aren't terribly effective as a general rule, articles in papers usually are because people read them. An extension of this is if you find a local, reasonably popular band, you can invite the newspaper columnist to attend part of one of the recording session and let them do a story in the community session. Headline might read "Local Band, 'Zolt', records their first session at Bob's Recording Hut!
"Spiffs".
We thought about this long and hard before implementing it, but for us it turned out to be successful to some degree. What we did was approach three family-owned music stores with the idea that if they sent us business, we'd commission the store directly. Once in a while customers of ours would chat about new guitars, new amps new drums, whatever, and we'd send the over to one of the family owned music stores, which the family owned store really appreciated considering all the skank-chains that seem to keep popping up like diseased mushrooms. This also goes to building community relationships.
Avoid Downtime.
Having an empty studio costs you about as much as a full studio, except a full studio is billable. Typically early in the year (jan/feb) was often slow, and for whatever reason, the typical tuesday was spent measuring patch cords because it was better than watching snowflakes out the window. Use your downtime to your advantage... one such example is we ran specials for "common folk" where as for $300, you could give a friend, relative, parent, child a full day in the studio, including coffee and pizza, to record about 6-8 songs of their choosing. We had nice gift certificates printed up on a parchment-like copier paper with a gold trim, with matching envelopes so it could be given as a gift and not look cheap or stupid. The gift recipient would come in (usually on a tuesday
) record the songs, maybe two takes a piece, then they'd leave and we'd call them a week later to pick up a nicely (but simply) mastered CD with their headshot (which we took) as the 'cover art' and picked lettering and colors to suit the headshot. We could use midi from our library to put the music together, or a vocal zapper if someone brought a CD or cassette to workfrom. This was a lot of fun actually, and $300 instead of nothing for an unbooked day made it worthwhile. Didnt' require a tremendous amount of patching, we provided some basic vocal coaching, and tried to make it as fun as possible. We had some repeat business with this too. A loooooooot of really young girls... and early 40's-50's women. Not sure why, didn't matter, was all fun.Sponser things.
Assuming you have the finances to do so. One of my partners on the second go around had a daughter playing little league. So, we sponsored their team. The cost was approximately $1600 for a year, and there were 14 little girls in pigtails running around with our logos and phone numbers on their uniforms. This is especially good if the team you sponsor makes it to the county championships, with your logo and phone number
We also sponsored a Boy Scout paper drive a few times. All that happens is you give up your parking lot on a sunday, a tractor trailer is dumped there, and everyone body in town brings their newspapers to your property, to be tossed in the trailer, which leaves the next morning at about 5 or 6am. One day of inconvienence and the entire community has parked in your parking lot. If one person comes buy to drop off newspapers and goes "holy shit, I can record a song here" its worth the inconvienence. This is a good time to have a HUGE sign in your window "give the gift of song" (see above).Direct mailing.
The chances of you purchasing a mailing list that has only people who would use a recording studio are very slim. Its such a specialized thing anyway. But, every time someone books your studio, you have their name and address, so you can direct mail them if you want. Have a purpose for it, maybe George Lynch is a personal friend of yours and he's coming over a for a beer or two, heck, ask him to do a greet and meet. Make sure you call the local newspaper, "George Lynch meets local teenagers at Bob's Recording Hut! Keep them all in the live room, not the console room
Clothing.
I'm not sure how effective this was for us, but we got suckered into the shirt/hat thing. We went for hanes t-shirts, decent golf shirts, and baseball caps with the studio name, number, and logo in the middle. We gave a lot of them away in the beginning, and after a year or so we sold them at cost. If you have a young crowd coming in a lot, t-shirts sell good, and if they are decent t-shirts they will wear them 10 times a month too
Lessons/apprenticeship.
Music lessons were covered above, but another option is on down-days is to over a month-long once a week class in basic mixing. Have one of your friends who likes to diddle on guitar one day, a trumpet player on another day, etc, and offer an inexpensive class ($300?) that will teach the basics of recording. A lot of young people like this kind of stuff, and if you pack 10 young people in your console room (no food, drink, smoke!) thats $3000 for four evenings, and its another opportunity to stick your name in the paper. Do it once a year, makes up for some dead time. That comes out to $750 a night, by the way. Can you bill that normally recording a band, a quartet, or a vocalist?
Web Presence.
Its good ettiquite to have a website, with photos, possibly sponsored projects, rates and stuff but I don't believe the web is going to be the primary way you attract local business. I really don't. But, its a quick way to give "virtual tours" of your facility and have bragging rights of various former, er, repeat customers
You could easily setup a feedback form where people can request more information and possibly cut down on the phone ringing, but I personally believe I or anyone can do a better "sell" on the phone or in person. Often people say stuff that can clue you into their frame of reference that you wouldn't get in a six line feedback form or email.
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