Welcome to The Manager’s Playbook, my personal newsletter where I share weekly insights for aspiring artists, emerging music managers and executives on how to navigate the music industry, by Ruiz.

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Ruiz Note:

“You’re Part of An Infinite Energy If You Can Tap Into It!” -Che

There is infinite wisdom in edition 005 of ‘The Manager’s Playbook’ Podcast with the legendary Che Kothari.

Che is the manager of the King Of Soca Machel Montano. This was a great conversation with a friend who I’ve always considered to be from another dimension! And I mean that in the best way possible. Che is wise beyond’s his years. Always has been.

We talk about his first meeting with Machel, tools for burnout, the art of just being, navigating the trappings of personas and so much more.

Please do yourself a favor and take in this TMP pod to not only learn about his journey in music but his journey and approach to life. It’s worth it.

Simply put, a conversation like this doesn’t come cheap.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our Youtube Channel HERE

You can also listen to ‘The Manager’s Playbook’ Podcast on several other platforms HERE

Let’s get to the rest of our newsletter below…


-Ruiz

STRATEGY

(Today's strategy is brought to you by Adelwale Adisa. Although not directly related to the music business, I found this on LinkedIn and felt it was worth reposting due to its relevance.)

WHAT IS THE FLYWHEEL EFFECT?

The “Flywheel Effect” as a business concept was introduced by Jim Collins in his seminal book Good To Great and it was used to state the fact that companies don’t become exceptional as a result of a single intervention or initiative, but rather from the accumulation of little wins that stack up over years of hard work until such a moment that momentum takes over to power sustained periods of accelerated growth greatly outstrip the effort being applied at that particular point in time. The underlying hypothesis underlying the “Flywheel Effect” is that there’s always a combination of elements within a business which if properly aligned over a period of time will gain significant momentum and subsequently create a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle for the company.

The term “flywheel” comes from mechanics, where it refers to a very heavy wheel that is used to generate and transfer energy to other parts of a machine, the “flywheel” requires significant force to start spinning, but once spinning at high speed and building momentum will begin storing and continue to turn by itself. Flywheels come in different shapes and sizes, and since rotating objects generate kinetic energy based on the distribution of their mass (moment of inertia) and how fast they rotate (angular velocity), those with larger diameters and heavier wheels will store more energy than smaller and lighter wheels, while those that spin faster store much more energy than ones that spin slower.

Just like in machines, the “flywheel effect” occurs in business as a result of very deliberate building and linking together of capabilities to execute against articulated strategic objectives in such a manner that a compounding return on effort, resulting in the delivery of a continuing acceleration in business growth, is introduced. An important concept in building the “flywheel effect” is the hedgehog principle which simply states a business must have an understanding (not a goal, a strategy or a plan) of what it can be the best at, the distinction is absolutely crucial.

In most cases, though businesses are unable to achieve the flywheel effect because they don’t commit to a clear set of objectives for the required period of time required to achieve the desired outcomes. They do not apply the hedgehog principle and as such are pushing themselves in different directions at the same time because they do not have a “true north”, they don’t have a clearly articulated “Theory of Their Business” and as such are easily swayed towards new objectives.

Each time the objective changes and resources are re-assigned, the “flywheel” loses momentum and slows down and slips into what is called a Doom Loop, a situation where every action that is taken results in an outcome that's worse than the initial situation. Sometimes the same business can experience both the “flywheel effect” and the “doom loop” after each other, especially if the business does not clearly understand what components enabled the “flywheel” in the first wheel and make not well thought through adjustments.

Flywheel to Doom Loop

An example of an organization that has gone through both the “Flywheel Effect” and the “Doom Loop” is the Chicago Bulls, a basketball team playing in the National Basketball Association league in the United States of America.

While most people consider the break-out performance in the championship-winning 1991 season as the “event” that triggered the team going on to win six championships in eight years (1991 to 1998), it actually was the many decisions taken by the teams General Manager Jerry Krause between 1985 to 1991, that accumulatively built a team around Michael Jordan and resulted in the “overnight” success of 1991.

On the reverse side, the decision in 1998 not to renew the contract of the team's coach (Phil Jackson), and the clearing out (via retirement and trades) of at least four first-team players resulted in the slowing down of the teams “flywheel” and introduced a “doom loop” that made every action taken, from that point, to rebuild the team result in incrementally worsening the quality of the team.

As mentioned, the above is a copy and paste from Adelwale Adisa post on LinkedIn which you can find HERE

In his writing he adds a fun exercise to identify The Flywheel, but also the doom loop. I would suggest using examples in your every day as it pertains to this music business that has worked successfully, either it be delivering a song to DSP’s on time and having all assets, paperwork, and content ready to go before release or any a number 1 hit record.

Additionally, point to failures with your artist and/or manager, label etc (maybe your manager never follows up on emails or corresponds in an efficient manner or can’t communicate effectively and directly) and then compare the successes and failures to understand what can be improved upon.

PAY ATTENTION

Morgan Wallen= New Management

Big news in the country music world: Morgan Wallen has hired his current agent, Austin Neal, to also manage his career. Together, they have formed a new firm called "Sticks Management," with Wallen as their sole client.

Morgan Wallen’s previous co-manager Kathleen Flaherty will remain on as Executive Director in The Morgan Wallen Foundation

Sabrina Carpenter is CRUSHING: Take Notes:

One can chalk it up to going on road with the mighty Taylor Swift (it definitely helps) but the rollout/self awareness are top notch. Pair that up with a gang of hits?📈 📈 📈 

The More You Know…

Water and Music is a GREAT website. In the image above you can see all the players that control the music business (more or less) broken down by Cherie Hu. Get a good look. It’ll reveal a thing or two about a thing or two in AUM.

Speaking of Tech…

Stay up to date on the latest. Things are moving at lighting speed pace.

INDUSTRY NEWS

More labels Mergers out of UMG UK

Which most certainly means more job cuts…

A quote from MBW article on the mergers:

On a global level, Universal Music Group is currently undertaking a corporate “redesign” program which it says will result in EUR €75 million (USD $81 million) of annual cost-savings in 2024 vs. 2023.

Those annual cost savings (vs. 2023) will then expand to €125 million in 2025, before eventually reaching €250 million by the end of 2026, the company has told its investors.

Shake Up At HYBE

One of the main players at HYBE is no longer at the massive South Korean Multinational Entertainment company

DONE DEAL

Shareholders of Hipgnosis Songs Fund, which in recent years made waves by helping popularize music rights as an asset class, have voted to accept a $1.6 billion takeover from US private equity firm Blackstone, filings showed Tuesday.

LIMP BIZKIT?

Nu Metal heavyweights, and low key one of my favourite bands in my early teen years a long time ago, Limp Bizkit just went viral.

The reason being they to are jumping into the AI craze. This time it is in the form of a new music video completely generated by AI.

From Forbes:

This AI-generated music video by London-based music producer Pavel Zhigarev, who mainly composes music for commercials through his small studio Noizlab. He started to play with generative AI, and was inspired to create a faux music video for his favorite band, Limp Bizkit, “What if Limp Bizkit Were a Country Hit.” The video went viral. The band posted it to their socials, racking up a million views. Fred Durst messaged Pavel and asked him to make an official music video for their track "Turn It Up Bitch."

CHECK THIS OUT..

Music Industry Job Openings

As always, have a look at ROSTR’s job board for paid work in the industry.

Stay hungry. Stay open.

Bio

I’m Mauricio Ruiz, the Founder/CEO of 8 Til Faint, an Artist Management company with over 5 billion audio streams worldwide. Our past and current clients include Grammy nominated, Juno Award winning and nominated singer/songwriter Jessie Reyez, Skratch Bastid and more. I am also the Co-Founder of Mad Ruk Entertainment, a content agency with over 3 billion long form video streams worldwide. Our client list includes The Weeknd, Eminem, and Celine Dion, along with renowned brands like Nike, Pernod Ricard, Canon, and the NBA. Most recently I am the Founder of ‘The Manager’s Playbook’

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