“If you are who you say you are, you want to put yourself in the best position to win and give yourself the opportunity for your dreams to come true — I want my dream to slap me in the mouth.”
Those wise words came from a man WordPlay T. Jay has been consulting with to “get his money right,” DJ and financial adviser Martinez White.
In recent weeks, T. Jay has been talking to White about his financial situation in the business and what he can do to improve it, and much of that advice is ripe for sharing with other artists.
White is a financial adviser for Northwestern Mutual and a graduate of the University of Milwaukee. The main question T. Jay asked him was, why is it important for an artist to be financially aware?
“From what I see as an adviser, my goal is to make a plan for clients to be able to deal with the unexpected,” White said. “It’s all about positioning. Having what it takes to become successful is important, and you need to position yourself to be able to go on offense. You don’t want to be living defensively your whole life, or even half your life.”
White said his hope is to help people live out their American dream and create intergenerational wealth. But to do that, you have to start at the beginning, like having an emergency fund that can keep you going for 3-6 months.
After reaching that point, you can use a budget (like this one provided by T. Jay) to start thinking about dividing surpluses between planning and playing.
“Budgets give you the ability to see what’s coming in and what’s going out,” White said. “Then you can see your surplus and figure out how you want to earmark that. Marketing, advertising, production, etc., these are the things you’ll have to pay for to get out there and be successful in the industry.
“If you don’t put yourself in that position to plan and expand, you do your fans a disservice.”
When budgeting, there are three key steps:
1. Lay out your income and your expenses.
2. Determine what your surplus is.
3. Divide your surplus between planning and playing.
“In particular for artists, you have to sit down and have a date with your money,” White said. “You have to talk to it, become desirable to your money, and be real with yourself.”
White recommends making a T-chart of what is going in versus going out, then deciding how to split surpluses between plans and play.
“There are only three things we can do with our money as artists: pay down a debt, buy more production and services, or invest in ourselves or others,” White said. “The biggest challenge in all this is how to get eyes on you. Marketing plays a big role in that, because you need more exposure to create revenue.
“Make sure your planning money is going to marketing so more people know about you. The wind will always be in your face, but you can create more wind at your back.”
For more of the interview with White, check out the video below!