I attended a really interesting event recently hosted by Aodán Enright as part of his Smarter Egg series at the White Horse in Ballincollig, Cork.
This well attended event was all about the “Music Business” and Aodán had assembled an interesting collection of speakers to chat about various aspects of the business. All of this was after a delicious bowl of curry and a craft beer of course!
The speakers dealt with the impact of emerging technology on music, music PR, the life of an emerging artist and the lucrative business of concert promoting.
The young and enthusiastic Cork singer/songwriter Jack O’Rourke totally engaged with the audience with his presentation. He took the stage and admitted he felt very nervous, awkward and unqualified talking about the music ‘business‘.
He felt he lacked the skills and experience in this area but he did present his simple philosophy about business:
“You should be honest and truthful in everything that you do”
This pure and simple advice was delivered with personal stories including a very powerful story about the importance of being ‘true to your self‘, which was captured beautifully in his song ‘Silence‘ which he performed for the privileged crowd.
Make sure you check out Jack performing this powerful song on the Late Late Show at the end of this post.
This was followed by an interview with successful music promoter Peter Aiken who engaged us with many interesting stories about his early career, his dad, Rory Gallagher, the Marquee gigs and the Garth Brooks fiasco.
He spoke about the nuggets of wisdom that his father had engrained in him – you should honour all of your agreements as your good name was a precious commodity when you are in business. This would ensure that you did good business in the long run and not just short term wins.
He shared a story about how one of the bands he had booked actually returned significant money to him as they knew the gig was not a success and Peter would have lost heavily on it.
Honesty, truth and the importance of acting honourable at all times – these are simple and yet powerful pieces of advice for everyone in business to follow.
Gladly from my experience I feel these things are mostly present in business but I am still quite amazed as I unfortunately see the total opposite and in a few cases disappointingly from people I would have totally trusted. Sadly, nothing surprises me.
Honesty and truth in business …what do you think?
Tags: Fuzion PR, Greg Canty, Jack O'Rourke, Peter Aiken, Smarter Egg, White Horse
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 
February 21, 2016 at 12:08 pm |
Without trust you cannot conduct a relationship either personal or in business.
February 22, 2016 at 11:06 am |
Spot on Brian … I have a meeting this week with someone and I need to ask myself if I should for this very reason. Greg