Record companies would rather you stay dumb, not even think of it as a business, so they can either rip you off or get you out of the way in five years to make way for the new groups.
When I first came to New York I was a dancer, and a French record label offered me a recording contract and I had to go to Paris to do it. So I went there and that's how I really got into the music business. But I didn't like what I was doing when I got there, so I left, and I never did a record there.
We were not given any statistics as to how many records were pressed on the blue label. I used to ask Bob Shad how we were going to get paid from record sales and what I got for an answer was not to worry about the business end of the deal.
I am in a business that's built on record sales and reputation and how your single is doing and where your song is on iTunes. But the kind of music that I do comes from my beliefs.
When I was a child, life felt so slow because all I wanted to do was get into show business. Each day seemed like a year, but when you get older, years pass like minutes. I wish there was a tape recorder where we could just slow our lives down.
I made so many mistakes in my first successful business I'm almost embarrassed to recount them.
One is constantly trying to figure out what came together in one's childhood. Lots of people spend significant portions of their lives in therapy - especially in the States - trying to work out who they are. I'm certain there is a little of that in the business of writing. That would explain why certain images and themes recur.
I've been involved in motorsports from the commercial point of view for many years with my involvement with DTM and managing other businesses, such as a rally business as well where we are collaborating with Red Bull.
Asia can learn much from Europe. Trade could be made easier in Asia, and the conditions for doing business could be improved by reducing red tape. In this regard, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea have done better than the best in Europe.
When you're a touring musician, you're always turning over new rocks, and there's always a certain level of tension in your life. The music business, and the travel that comes with it, is stressful, challenging, redundant, exhausting, exciting, and often very depressing.
When a salesperson truly cares about you, trust forms, and you're more likely to buy, come back for repeat business, and refer new customers.
My sweet spot is figuring out how to make a product that people love and how to refine it to make them love it more. All the rest is business noise.
Nearly every business collects metrics on inventory, sales, and workplace process. Health care has been slow to measure these kinds of outcomes. Increasingly, general medicine, via either managed care or large practice settings, is improving by collecting data through electronic records and refining practice based on what works.
Politics is the reflex of the business and industrial world.
In the restaurant business, there's the concept of pivot. Pivot to the stove, pivot to the refrigerator.
I have never once regretted missing a business opportunity so that I could be with my children and grandchildren.
You know, public service is serious enough on its own, and what I've found is if you take yourself take yourself too seriously in this business, you'll lose sight of what it is that you're trying to get done. So I mean I've tried to have the proper mix of being a serious public servant, but also still being a regular guy.
Kids are great. That's one of the best things about our business, all the kids you get to meet. It's a shame they have to grow up to be regular people and come to the games and call you names.
You can't regulate a soul into a business.
Regulation is strangling businesses of all sizes in California, and we've got to streamline regulation so it's easy, not hard, to do business.
