justinmblack-blog

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This month, I got off track with my goals.  My goal for this class was to negotiate the biggest or most important deal that I’ve ever negotiated in my life. I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen. I forgot all about my goals for this month, so I can’t really say that I accomplished any of them for this month.

But one thing I will say is that I’m not disappointed with what I did accomplish this month. I got to speak with Marcella Araica (mixing engineer for Timbaland, Missy Elliot and many others) and tell her about my passions in life. She seemed really open to talk with me and it felt great to be able to speak to someone with that much experience in the industry without feeling weird or nervous. I was able to get her personal email address so I can talk to her further about my dreams and goals.

This class taught me a lot about finding out what truly matters in a conversation.  The greatest thing this class taught me was to learn the underlying interests because we could argue all day about “Positions” and weather you believe this or I believe that.  Once you get down to what really matters, everything seems a lot easier.  For example, Usually If I’m going to meet someone famous or someone who is very well respected in the industry, I try to make it the best moment ever and I try to say the right thing, wear the right thing and do the right thing.  But that makes me super nervous and I’m usually not thinking straight when I’m get the chance to speak with them. After learning about different negotiation techniques, I was able to speak with confidence and a purpose.  

I was able to identify to Marcella my main passions and goals in life outside of mixing and engineering.  Yeah mixing and engineering is great, but that’s not really why I do it. I was able to tell her that I really want to inspire people and help the youth through music.  Music was just a platform for me to do that.  So after knowing my own interests I was able to relate to her on another level where she saw what I saw deep down in myself instead of just someone trying to get a job or a picture with her.

I didn’t meet my goal for this month, but I will say that I’m on my way to meeting my goal very soon because this class has given me the basic knowledge that I need to communicate with everyone in a way where we can both mutually benefit from our negotiations.  I wish I could speak more about all of the great things that this class has taught me and made clear to my mind.  But, concisely, this class has given me a means to communicate my purpose to people and to understand the underlying purposes in their lives so we can both help each other come to a mutual benefit in a negotiation. I’m looking forward to next month, which is Product and Artist management. Wish me luck and thank you for reading!

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Negotiating In The Music Industry: DJ "Jordan" Swivel

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This month at Full Sail was great.  So many opportunities were presented to the students. This month’s class is called “Negotiating and Deal Making”.  One of our assignments was to reach out to an industry professional to see how they handle negotiations in their field. At first, I wasn’t sure who I was going to interview.  But, thanks to Full Sail’s Hall Of Fame event, I was able to rub shoulders with a few great minds in the industry and schedule an interview with the Grammy award winning Mixing Engineer/Producer Jordan “DJ Swivel” Young.  He’s worked in the studio with such artists like; Beyonce, Jay Z, Fabolous, Rihanna, Mary J Blige, Monica, Ne-Yo, Rick Ross, Wale and many more talented individuals.  This guy is super talented and I was excited to be able to speak with him about professional negotiations in the music industry.

Here’s the interview:

Justin Black - Was there a time in your career when you had to negotiate a deal with someone who knew a lot more about the industry than you did?  If so, did you come to a mutual agreement/benefit with this person?  What tactics and or skills did you use to come up with an agreement on both sides that suited the needs of everyone?

DJ Swivel - For me, agreements usually always come down to common sense. Am I being fairly compensated based on the work I'm doing? Also I will generally be more aggressive with my offer or counteroffer, to offset my lack of legal expertise sometimes. This sort of makes up for any lack of experience I had, so by the time the negotiations are over were in a more fair middle ground.

Justin Black - From the last question, did the person you were negotiating with use any dirty tricks in the negotiation for example; “Take it or leave it offers, demeaning words and/or sly remarks.”  

DJ Swivel - Take it or leave it can be common, though it's usually phrases like "this is all we have for the budget. Unfortunately can't do anything better".

Justin Black - Do you think it is important to use facts and industry standards (Objective criteria) when negotiating?  Can you give an example of a negotiation when you had to use facts/objective criteria to persuade the other side?  For example; “average salary for recording engineers with a certain amount of experience.”

DJ Swivel - It really all depends on which artist you're working on and what your past discography looks like. You have to be able to justify your rate. When I started recording I would get $35/hour on a major label project because I had little experience. After several years of actually working, I was able to raise my rate to $100/hr, based solely on my discography.

Justin Black - Did you ever go into a negotiation with a backup plan (Batna: Best alternative to a negotiation) for what you would do if the deal didn’t go through?  If so, what is the importance of having a back up plan/batna?

DJ Swivel - When it comes to mixing, if the artist can't do my full rate, sometimes I'll limit the number of back and forth changes to 1 round to limit the time spent on a project. Other times I might balance out a lower up front fee with a higher back end.

Justin Black - What do you usually do when you are preparing for a big negotiation in the music industry?  What have you learned not to do when going into a big negotiation?

DJ Swivel - I'll avoid being the bad guy. It's always nice to have a lawyer or manager play the role of the bad guy, which can maintain the integrity of the relationship. Always try to look like the good cop in a negotiation!

Conclusion:

After speaking with Jordan, my eyes were opened up to a different world on communication.  It seems as though sometimes in a negotiation, you don’t always need to know every trick in the book.  If you are genuine and come well prepared, then you will usually come out with a fair deal.  I learned that your discography is most likely going to be a big deciding factor on whether or not you get paid like the pros.  Even if you are talented, that doesn’t mean you have the experience of working with professionals in your field.  That, to me is the main thing that separates the beginners from the pros in a negotiation.

Justin Black - Thanks to Jordan for agreeing to be interviewed.  You can check out his website if you would like to know more about him http://djswivel.com or Follow twitter/instagram @djswivel

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Thanks you so much for reading!  

-Justin M. Black

JustinMalikBlack@gmail.com

404-482-5254

Twitter @Jaybe_OnIt

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This month, time has been going very slow. There are many things that I have learned and many tips that I will be using on my journey through the rest of this program. Today I am just going to talk about a few of the things that I have learned and highlight some of the difficulties that I had while taking this class. 

First off, I got my first F on an assignment. During the third week, I was very tired and I decided not to study for my test. This did not work in my favor. However, the rest of the month was a lot better. I managed to get all A‘s on the rest of my assignments, so hopefully I will retain the information with practice. 

My favorite part of this Finance class was learning about securing revenue streams and creating assets. We learned a lot about how money makes money on top of money and how some people don’t realize that they are spending money on liabilities when in reality, their money could be working for them (Kiyosaki, 2000). 

At first, I did not understand the concept of your money working for you. Then I realized that it was very simple. For example, a savings account makes you money: not very much but in essence, your money makes money. However, it would be unwise to try to make big profit from savings account interest payments. It would be wiser to try looking at money marketing accounts. They will give you higher interest payments. 

Another important aspect I learned was the difference between simple interest and compound interest. I learned that compound interest would most likely be my best bet moving forward. With compound interest, I can earn interest on top of interest as opposed to simple interest, which earns interest on a fixed amount. 

For example, if I saved $100 with 10% interest per month, that would give me $110 in one month. Using compound interest, the 10% would then be applied to the $110 for the next month, giving me $11 dollars in interest the second month. If my account were using simple interest, then I would only gain $10 per month because the interest would be on a fixed amount. Granted, these are very small numbers. But, if applied to larger amount like $10,000, you would gain $90 more than a simple interest account in the second month. 

Obviously, I have not even scratched the surface of the amount of information that we have learned this month. However, for the sake of time, I have tried to keep it very short. My goal for this month was to get a good financial plan down for my business and I truly think that goal was accomplished very successfully. I am looking forward to my next class Negotiating and Deal Making. Thank you everyone for reading this blog today and wish me luck moving forward! Link to blog - http://justinmblack.tumblr.com/

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     One thing that I’ve always been interested in is money and thinking of different ways of making it.  When I was 11 years old I use to work on an Ice cream truck.  My job description consisted of inventory day and night, bagging candy, stocking the trucks and riding in the trucks every now and then.  I had the opportunity to see how a business ran at a very young age.  I always thought that it was very easy to make money, I never really thought about the process.

      For this post, I am going to review the first couple of chapters of “Rich Dad Poor Dad”.   Our class this month is called Entertainment Business Finance and we have been given this book to read.  It is funny because I heard of this book about 3 or 4 years ago.  Someone told me that I should read it, but I did not really take him seriously.  Now years later, I’m seeing the book again and I’m loving the insights:  

     • Working a job without pay is probably one of the best ways to learn and understand the difference between working for money and making money (Kiyosaki, 2000).  

     • Stop focusing on the fact that you cannot afford something.  Instead, focus on creating a stream of income (asset) for that particular item that you would like to purchase.  

     • A higher income is not always the answer to your problems.  

     • There are certain patterns of spending in high-end households in comparison to the spending patterns of middle class households and different spending patterns for low income households.   These patterns can be analyzed and understood.  Obviously there are exceptions and anomalies in the data, but most times the spending patterns of a rich man are consistent.  Rich people use their money to make money by investing in assets instead of spending money on items that depreciate.  Their cash flow comes from assets.  They use the income from their assets and put it back into other assets which will continue to grow their wealth (Kiyosaki, 2000)  

     These were just a few of the insights that I have come across by reading the first couple chapters of this book.  This month is really changing my mind about how to make money.  So far, the Rich Dad Poor Dad book is a great read.  I would recommend it to anyone.  It is not a book that will teach you how to get rich, but it is definitely a book that will open your mind and show you some of the tendencies of wealthy people in comparison to people who just work hard.  Thank you for reading. Sources Kiyosaki, R., & Lechter, S. (2000). The Rich Don't Work for Money. In Rich dad, poor dad: What the rich teach their kids about money-- that the poor and middle class do not! New York: Warner Business Books.  

Kiyosaki, R., & Lechter, S. (2000). Why Teach Financial Literacy. In Rich dad, poor dad: What the rich teach their kids about money-- that the poor and middle class do not! New York: Warner Business Books.

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I watched this ted talk with John Lloyd and he talked about the invisible aspects of our life.  He talked about how the invisible things are more important than the visible things.  I mostly agreed with him on the subjects that he discussed. I didn’t agree with his views on there being a God.  I do believe that there is a God who created everything and I believe that he protects us and leads us throughout our life in ways that we cannot see and sometimes ways that we can see.  I trust and I believe it to be 100 percent true because there are many things in this world that are invisible, but experienced on a daily basis, like wind & gravity for instance. 

I used to think about how life would be if we grew up in space.  How would we measure days?  There would be no end.  We would probably go to sleep whenever we get tired just like how babies do.  How would we measure years if we were born in space?  If we never knew about days months and years, then what would our life consist of?  What type of plans would we make, if any.  I use to think about gravity and how fast we are spinning on this earth.  When babies are trying to learn how to walk, I imagine that they feel the earth’s rotation and that is why it’s hard for them to balance.   I also think about wind.  Where does it originate? And what is it?  Maybe it is the movement of billions of air particles.  But how can something that we can’t see be able to lift cars into the air?

John discusses the fact that we don’t really know much about anything.  He talks about how time is basically just a word and that our existence is just a constant flow.  John poses the thought that the good question is why are we all here and what should we be doing while we are here.   I liked his speech because it talks about the things that most people don’t talk about often.  Once you get rid of the outside factors and focus in on the magnificence of our own lives and the people around us, then it changes the atmosphere.  It makes you think, “What are we doing here?  How did I get here?”

This ted talk was pretty cool to me because I think about this type of thing all the time.  I want to find my purpose in this life and it would be great if I could help other people find their purpose too.  Check out this 8 minute video if you have the time.  Thanks for reading!

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_lloyd_an_animated_tour_of_the_invisible 

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Learning How To Lead

For this month, I have met all of my goals so far for the Executive Leadership class.  There are many principles that come into play when taking a leadership position, especially an executive position.  It takes a lot to be a great leader.  There were many concepts that we studied during the course of this month.  While reading Robert Greene’s, The 48 Laws of Power and John C. Maxwell’s, Developing the Leader within You, I have realized that I lean more towards Maxwell’s philosophies. 

If you are wondering how to develop yourself as an executive or as a person in general, then there are many ways to go about that.  From my reading, I have assessed that the key factor in someone’s success and happiness is a good dose of discipline and a passion for what you do and for whom you do it.

You also have to be able to connect with people in some way, form or fashion.  As humans, we can connect with people in ways that transcend our understanding.  There is a primal aspect to all of our relationships that goes deeper than any physical and emotional connection. 

Maxwell paints a good picture of the ideal leader in my eyes.  His teachings align with my personality.  I care deeply about the needs of others and I value integrity with the upmost importance.  I would also like to see everyone around me doing well, even if that means that I will have to suffer a little bit.  Maxwell’s teachings help to develop you as a person of understanding.  I plan to use most, if not all of the teachings that I have learned so far in my everyday life.  In the future, I plan to apply these teachings to my business model.  I know that the knowledge I have gained will help promote growth and integrity throughout my company.  I also want to use these teachings as a personal growth agent.  

Realizing what it is that you do good and learning how to convey that to other people is just as important as realizing what other people’s needs are and caring about their success in this life (check out my professional blog for an in depth look at defining success). http://survivinginthemusicindustry.blogspot.com

If you wanted to begin working with animals, you would first need a passion to work with animals.  Then, you need the knowledge that will present you with the right opportunities to get you involved.  In this process, you will need to deal with people.  The way that you deal with these people can make your life easy or hard.  However, if you truly care about the needs of others, then people will respect you and integrity will always follow you.  Stay true to yourself, care about people as you care for yourself and you will see significant changes in your life.