What Bloggers Can Learn From Buskers

This is a guest post by Adrian Swinscoe.

Here's a story about a band that I saw busking in Covent Garden in London back in 2005. I'll hopefully show you how they focused on their craft and their audience and by doing so were able to sell CDs, eventually get discovered and now have a multi-album deal and are an award winning band......oh, and i'll tell you how all of this offers a great parallel for bloggers.

The Story

I first came across Portico Quartet, a 4-piece modern jazz group from London, when they were busking in Covent Garden back in 2005 or so. I'm a bit of a jazz fan so was fascinated by their sound, which is made distinctive by the use of the hang, a new-type of percussion instrument. The hang looks like a bit like two 'woks' welded together (check out the videos and you will see what I mean).

Watching them play, gather and entertain a crowd, keep playing great music and, all the while, loving every minute of it, made me buy their 'home-made' CD, go home and talk to all my friends about them (some of them repeatedly, much to their annoyance).

On seeing them perform, I hoped that they would get their break but I wasn't too worried as they seemed to be having a blast!

I couldn't find a video of them busking in Covent Garden but here's one of them of them busking on the Southbank in 2007.

Portico Quartet busking on the Southbank in 2007

After nearly two years of playing mainly small gigs and busking regularly outside the National Theatre on the Southbank and Covent Garden, they were 'discovered' and were signed to Babel Label in 2007. Their first album, Knee-deep in the North Sea, was released on 5 November 2007.

This is not where the story ends because that album was then nominated for the 2008 Mercury Music Prize. The week after the awards show it debuted on the UK Top 200 Albums Chart at #186 and went on to be voted Time Out's best jazz album of 2007.

Here's a clip of them at the Mercury Music Awards:

Portico Quartet at the Mercury Music Prize press release

When I heard this I was so pleased for them and felt that their success was richly deserved. They have since moved labels and are now signed to Real World Records and have released their second album 'Isla'.

The Lessons

So, I hope you enjoyed the story and liked their sound as much as I do, and now's where I get to the part as to why I think this story offers great parallels for bloggers. Here's what I think the lessons are:

1. Concentrate on your craft - Portico Quartet worked very hard at producing great and interesting music. As Bloggers, it's easy to get distracted by 'money-making' schemes or trying to monetize your blog to the detriment of your content. Content is king!

2. Don't worry about the money.....if you're good then it'll come.....notice the unsolicited donations being made and CDs being bought in the first video

3. Get out there and promote yourself - Portico Quartet worked hard at promoting themselves by playing, playing and playing some more, more often or not, as buskers.

4. Give and you will receive - this is a bit of a karma one and is similar to number 2 but I left it in as I like it and the sentiment it conveys........in order to receive you first have to give. Like the saying from Zig Ziglar: "If you help enough people get what they want then you'll get what you want."

Adrian has been called a number of things in his time: coach, consultant, teacher, 2nd brain, problem-solver, speaker, trainer, etc. All he says is that he helps his clients grow their business and loves what he does. He writes on different ways that you can grow your business through adding value to your customers, different growth strategies, building a great team and being a better leader on the blog Ideas for Business Growth.

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