Welcome to The Manager’s Playbook, my personal newsletter where I share insights, tips, and strategies for artist managers on how to navigate through the music business.

Ruiz’s Letter:

THE GIVE BACK

This week, I just want to express my gratitude to all the readers—thank you for the overwhelmingly positive feedback and constructive criticism. We’re only in week 3, with almost 500 subscribers and an 80% open rate. Crazy.

As a thank you, we want to give back to this community. From today until next Thursday, the top three current subscribers with the highest number of referrals will each receive a free 30-minute Zoom consultation with me. 

All you have to do is simply share the referral link HERE.

NOTE* Make sure to use the referral link above or I can’t track your referral progress! 

Anticipate beyond "advice" in these consultations. Advice is abundant and not always practical. Let me understand your journey, exchange information, offer resources, and forge meaningful connections. Allow me to deliver high value, as others have done for me.

Winners will be announced in next week’s newsletter.

This week's STRATEGY section is handed off to 8 Til Faint project manager, Erica Kongvongxay.

Project management is one of the most important pieces in a successful artist career. It’s really hard work to keep things in order. It isn’t the sexiest work, and can definitely keep you up at night, but it’s incredibly crucial in order to have successful rollouts and campaigns.

Erica dives into the complexities of project managing the monumental BAPE collaboration. This venture involved a past client of 8 Til Faint—the legendary Jessie "Mutha F**king" Reyez.

-Ruiz

STRATEGY

By Erica Kongvongxay

Project Managing My First Big Brand Campaign

Hello! I’m Erica and I joined 8 Til Faint as Mauricio’s Executive Assistant in 2019. Fast forward two years, and I began my journey as a Project/Day-to-Day Manager.

Jessie Reyez was the FIRST ever female to collaborate with A BATHING APE®, Japan’s leading streetwear brand, on a collection. I was fortunate enough to spearhead the campaign, which spanned two years, from ideating the initial design concepts with Jessie of course (she’s across all her creative) to rolling out the products into retailers. Big shoutout to Jessie on a well-deserved successful collaboration!

Most brand campaigns consist of countless emails, calls, sampling, content shoots and promo, however, for this particular campaign we were working across multiple timezones (Toronto, Los Angeles and Tokyo) with multiple teams (BAPE, management, legal, label and PR). As a Project Manager, it was my responsibility to communicate with stakeholders to clearly define the project’s scope and execute within the budget and timeline. The tools I listed below helped me stay organized, on track and kept our internal team in the know every step of the way.

Mastering the Art of Project Management

Here are some useful tips and tools that have helped our team successfully carryout workflows, rollout plans, brand campaigns and more.

Calendar Management

At the heart of our organizational strategy lies the almighty Google Calendar–our holy grail. Calls, meetings, appointments, travel plans, friendly reminders, even those crucial moments of downtime–every facet of our professional and personal lives finds a time slot and a colour coded event to bring order to the chaos. Managing an executive calendar can be challenging, but there are many benefits to effectively managing a schedule such as long-term planning and work-life balance.

To-Do Lists

Write a daily to-do list not just for yourself, but for your client(s) too. Prioritize based on deadlines to help guide you and them through each day. I personally keep a to-do list in my Notes app and Google Calendar, so that it is easily accessible across all devices.

Tools & Software

There are a ton of project management tools and software out there that your team can utilize to assign, manage and communicate on projects and tasks in real-time collaboratively. At 8 Til Faint, we love Monday.com, Slack and Dropbox. You can customize and use these tools on both desktop and mobile, which is perfect for when you’re on the go. Transform the way your team works together. Find what works best for the needs of your organization and stick with it!

PAY ATTENTION

Drew Simmons & Noah Kahan are on fire

This one hits.

Very good interview with Drew Simmons, the manager of one of the hottest breakout new acts of 2023 and Best New Artist hopeful at this year’s Grammy’s, Noah Kahan.

Drew gets into the difference between managing an artist and a songwriter/producer, owning IP (intellectual property), balancing working with several clients on his roster, and working with James Brown. Lot of great gems in this one from one of the hottest artist managers in the game.

It’s 100% worth the read.

Elliot Grainge has a vision. It’s working

Elliot Grainge, the 29-year-old son of Lucian Grainge, CEO of UMG, is someone you need to know about. He is forging his own path in the music industry with his independent record label, 10K Projects.

He founded 10K Projects in 2016 with a couple of hundred grand he earned from flipping an apartment in Boston. Since then, the label has achieved notable success with over 30 platinum-certified singles, and their latest artist signing: Ice Spice.

His success with 10K is attributed to his strategic use of data, belief in social media influencers, and the ability to identify hits before others. He most recently moved his enterprise over to Warner from UMG (save for Ice Spice) which you can also read about here.

Sidenote, this article is hidden behind a paywall. Copy / paste the article link into the red section of this paywall blocker and hit “save” to view the article in full.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Ariana Grande signs with new management, Brandon Creed

Carousel of the latest headlines courtesy of your friendly management online directory ROSTR.

Sidenote: Brandon Creed is a Toronto mans. Any chance I get to hype up something about Toronto, I shall and I will. Home team all day babyyyy.

Sped-Up Remixes Ruled TikTok in 2023

TikTok's musical landscape is all about speed, literally. Every single one of TikTok’s top hits in the U.S. for 2023 was a sped-up remix, led by the "more sped-up" version of Justine Skye's "Collide."

Sped-up remixes are a tactic that should at least cross the mind of every artist and manager when thinking about how to push a record, seeing as though TikTok is a first stop for many in discovering songs.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

tonsil®

Best way I can describe this is cultural internet randomness, but not really…

Godzilla, minus one

Big shoutout to Myles Garrett and my Co-Founder/CEO at Mad Ruk, Rey Mendoza for putting me onto the new Japanese made film. In separate conversations, both of them raved about the movie. Both of them were right. It was great.

Speaking of which, I either didn't know or had COMPLETELY forgotten (until I watched the film last weekend) that a monster hip-hop track from the late '90s, "Simon Says" by Pharoahe Monch, samples the original Godzilla Theme Song. Pharoahe discusses below how not clearing the song costed him $375,000+ in the early 2000’s!

GOJIRA (GODZILLA) THEME SONG SAMPLE

PHAROAHE MONCH “SIMON SAYS” RECORD

NOT CLEARING THE SAMPLE/COSTING A $375,000!

Moral of the story, make sure you f**king clear your artist’s samples!!

CHECK THIS OUT

The Best Music Industry Job Openings

We had a ton of interest in music industry jobs in the last issue of the newsletter, so we decided to bring it back. Have a look at ROSTR’s job board for some of the most exciting and impactful jobs in the industry.

Stay hungry. Stay open.

Bio

I’m Mauricio Ruiz, the Founder/CEO of 8 Til Faint, a talent management agency with 5+ billion audio streams worldwide. Past and current clients include Grammy nominated, Juno Award winning multi-instrumentalist and singer songwriter Jessie Reyez, Marley Bleu and more. I am also the Co-Founder of Mad Ruk Entertainment, a content agency with over 3 billion long form video streams worldwide. Clients past include Eminem, Celine Dion, The Weeknd, and more, along with renowned brands like Nike, Pernod Ricard, Canon, NBA, and others.

Follow me on IG @mauroisruiz

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