How to Build an Artist Management Team

A management team does not have to be big. It has to be structured. The team collects the decisions, while the artist stays in the room for what is theirs.

The first step is to write down the decisions that need to be made. Releases, bookings, brand work, partnerships, and planning. The second is to assign those decisions to people who will own them.

A lean management structure can be copied out of a search list, a distributor's advice, or a manager who has worked with similar artists. The list should cover the same ten or so decisions every time.

What the team owns, and the artist keeps: the artist owns the sound, the vision, and what is theirs. The team owns the schedule around it. That keeps the artist in the room for the work that is theirs, and the team in charge of the work that is not.

Good management is a decision-and-copy process, not a discovery process. When the team owns the pipeline, the artist gets free to make music, write and perform.