There are a lot of areas in the music business that can crossover into different sections. A lot of times though you will see a lot of people/business’s who will find a niche and stick with that. For a manager this is definitely not the case.

Managers will be dealing with EVERY aspect of an artists career and it’s your job to be able to take care of your artist’s business in every area. Therefore it only makes sense that you need to be up to date all areas of the music business: labels, record deals, social media sites, marketing, touring, music videos, publishing, merchandise etc. etc. etc.

Honestly, as many different areas you can think of is how many you need to be educated in. It’s no news that times are changing and changing very rapidly. What may be the norm today maybe old news tomorrow so you need to be constantly educating yourself on what are the successful strategies used by…… well…… the successful people. And even they don’t have every answer and are still learning.

Books are certainly a good place to start. I’ve never met anyone who was dumber because they read TOO many books. Go to amazon.com and make yourself a list of required reading on these areas and make sure you do more reading on the topics that you don’t know a lot about. There are only so many hours in the day, so there’s no point in wasting them on reading things you already know. The point is to be educating yourself. If you just get one good idea out of a book, no matter how many pages, then the book was worth it.

However books can be out of date with the on going trends in the music business so make sure to tap into to other sources on the internet. Get a list of blogs together that you are going to read on a regular basis. Keep an eye out on any news story that has to do with artist management or any of the other areas you are trying to educate yourself on.

Remember, the more areas in which you can guide your artists to the most successful results the more successful you yourself will be.