What Should A Serious Musician Expect From Their SL Manager?

If you are a musician who is serious about their Second Life career, you should expect a higher level of service from your management. This is not really written for the hobbyist who is just coming into SL to play every now and then. Those management expectations would be different. However, for the serious musician, here is a list of things you should expect from your manager.

Seth Regan / Mankind Tracer performing at Club Graffiti in SL

1. The most important thing to expect from a serious manager in SL is COMMITMENT. A real commitment to you and your brand. Commitment means different things to different people. It will be up to you to define what commitment means to you.

2. You should expect your manager to BE AT YOUR SHOWS (barring any real emergencies or internet failure) and be there working. During the gig the manager's job is to get people to the show, work the crowd, answer messages about you, booking, your music or the show. Your manager should also be your liaison to the venue owner or manager, make sure the show runs smoothly, let you know if there is something wrong with the sound or stream, generally communicate anything you may need to know and promote you and your brand. Sometime a musician will also have a host that will greet people and remind people to tip you and the venue, let them know how to find your social media, videos and CDs. If you do not have a host, then these things would also fall on the manager. Which leads to my next item....

3. Your manager should PROMOTE YOU to the best of their ability. They should hunt down every group possible in Second Life to send notices to and then actually send the notices to all those groups before your show starts. You should be discussing the content of those notices with your manager to make sure what they are saying accurately reflects your brand. They should also be promoting you over social media. There are a lot of social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter your manager can use to promote your Second Life shows.

4. Your SL group should GROW! Ultimately, it is your talent that people will come back for but it is up to your manager to make sure your fans do get into your SL group and make sure they stay informed of events. It is also up to your manager to get people to your shows, which ultimately will lead to growth of your group.

5. The manager you choose should be able to BOOK SHOWS for you. It is your managers job to make sure you have gigs booked and listed in events. They should be booking shows that will help expand your fan base and get you paid.

6. You should expect to pay your manager the INDUSTRY STANDARD of 15 - 20% of each gig booked or the same % of tips if the show is a tips only show. No manager should get a flat weekly fee because it does not motivate them to book more shows. To make more money, they book more shows.

7. As a serious musician, your manager should TAKE YOUR CAREER SERIOUSLY as well. If your manager ever says "It's only SL", RUN... Run Quickly and find someone who doesn't look at your career as just a game.