DOING THE BUSINESS

Big George's Guide To Commercial Success: Applying for Grants and Loans

Published in SOS January 2000
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Music Business

This month Big George looks at filling in forms, adding up columns and kick-starting your musical career with cash!

Last month we tackled the dreaded Taxman, and as I recall we beat him into submission. Now let's look at how you can get hold of large chunks of money before you've even done any real work. How? It's easy - all you've got to do is ask the right people in the right way. But who are they, and what is the right way?

There are two sure-fire sources of money available to you: loans and grants. You can apply for loans at any high-street bank, credit-card company or from dodgy Den down the boozer. Personally, I'd start by shopping around the banks, as they give highly competitive rates and are desperate to get your business - though if you borrow, say, £10,000 from them over a period of four years, you'll probably end up paying approx £315 a month (with a protection plan), making them a massive £5,120 profit. Grants are available from your local Arts Council/association, through the National Lottery, or via the Government's new business initiative (I would name the current scheme being offered to new businesses, but it seems to change its name weekly in order to provide a continuous flow of new political soundbites).

Whichever avenue you go down, the one thing any selection committee will want to see is a Business Plan. This means putting down on paper what you want to do, how much you're asking for in order to do it, and what the return will be. I won't go into the finer details of Business Plan logistics, as there are forests' worth of books in your local library explaining different designs in minute detail. In simple Big George terms it comes down to this: The figures MUST tally up at the bottom of the columns for income and expenditure. Now I know and you know and they know that it's impossible to correctly guess exactly how much money you're going to make from a given venture - whether it's setting up your own recording studio, producing a CD or starting a PA-hire company - but that's just how it has to be.

The type of grant available from your local Arts Council or the National Lottery differs in one respect from bank loans: a bank wants its money back! You need to ensure that you can keep up with regular monthly payments otherwise, before you know it, they'll send round the bailiffs. Of course, that's after the debt-recovery people have sent some charming letters to you, threatening all sorts of legal action, the vastly inflated cost of which you'll be expected to meet. The £1,300 you borrowed could quite easily turn into a debt of £2,132.78 (debt collectors don't care about nice rounded figures, they just want the money). If the bailiffs do turn up at your door, they will seize goods "to the value of", and there's nothing you can do about it. They set the price, so the £750 DAT recorder you bought may well be valued at £100 or less - and after they've sold it and charged you for the sale it may only account for £60 of the money owed. It's unfair, unjust and downright criminal, but the law's on their side if you default on the payments. I guess that's why it's easier to get a loan than a grant...

But getting a Government grant isn't impossible - in fact, there's no reason why you can't get thousands of pounds. You just have to think about who you're applying to and why they might want to give you money. The first thing you have to do is have a project. You won't get a grant for simply buying a load of gear to improve your studio. As for what the project is, that's up to you. It might help if you thought carefully about the kind of activities that the funding authority has supported in the past - although we musicians must always be prepared to pitch harder for grants than those in other fields of the arts (grants seem to be readily available to anyone who wants to create sculptures in zebra dung...). Whether it's a piece of music that you're composing to celebrate the dawn of a new materialistic age, or the creation of a recording facility available to the community (for a fee, of course), give your project an exciting title, and a positive aim. Try to pitch your idea in language that your potential benefactors will understand.

If your music career is going nowhere, get yourself a project together. It's only if you're doing something that you're in with a chance of funding. You're a hit just waiting to happen - but it's up to you to make it happen!

Write To Big George     If you have a topic that you think I should look into, or you want to invite me to your birthday party, or you merely want to heap praise on me, you can write to me here at SOS or email big.george@soundonsound.com