Indie musicians and small business newsagents have a lot in common

Finding fans is tough for indie musicians as they don’t have the support of the marketing machines of massive labels to drive airplay and attract fans. Their success comes from many small steps, plenty of ‘local’ activity.  The same is true for us small business newsagents in our competition with supermarkets and others who sell what we sell but in a mass way.

I was thinking about this just now when I saw this tweet from south-west London indie band Elephant & Castles following a small item in the UK music magazine NME:

We got some @NME love this week. Read it the old fashioned way from your newsagents. Thanks @NME_Radar @JonHatchman

I love their support of newsagents.

Their success will come from many small steps – lots of playing gigs in small locations, getting their name out fan by fan. It’s true for us. Greater success for us will come from many small steps attracting shoppers for unique and special interests.

The challenge for our channel is that we have many newsagents who have not had to do this and here they are toward the end of their time owning a business having to learn new skills and reinvent their businesses.  That is a difference between many newsagents and indie musicians – for the indie musician they are starting out and stepping into their challenges of their own accord.

I know I am getting a bit off track here. The point I want to make is we can be successful if we rely on many small steps for our success rather than fewer big things. Like the indie band playing many gigs to find their success.

You can catch Elephants & Castles on soundcloud.