Nowadays, we see many artists that have opted to represent themselves and become their own managers. While for many of them, representing themselves without help is a successful task, for others it may be difficult and limiting to their growing as artist. The main reason that explains why artists should have managers, instead of managing themselves, is because it is not only time-consuming, but because the development of business-mind is required. In most of the cases, the way in which reality is seeing by an artist is very difficult than somebody that sees a potential successful business in somebody else.
When we talk about managing, it is important to define correctly what the word manager, in the entertainment world, means: the person in charge of running the business side of an artist or a band; this means their career. There are different positions/roles an artist manager develop depending in the situation of the band or artist. If a small label signs a band, the artist manager works as accountant, promoter, and agent among others. The manager is the one that is on the top of everything involving the band/artist as a business. On the other hand, if the artist/band is signed by a major (big) label, the role of the manager changes and he/she becomes the supervisor of other people, whom are in charge of those different aspects, such us, finance, promoting, gigs, etc. In a major label company, the manager is forced to delegate the job to others, and focus developing strategic plans to improve the band fame, which is associated with money and profit.
Having a manager, for an artist is very beneficial because of many reasons. Even though an artist should know the dynamics of the entertainment/music business, most of the time they don’t; and the manager is the one that takes care of the marketing and accounting, while the artist can focus in creating music, or improve stage performances. Another benefit consists in how the artist is perceived. Having a manager helps the artists give the impression that they're are not alone, and there is someone by their side fighting for their good. Major label companies; try to take advantages of the new artist, by signing them into contact that is not beneficial for them. The role of the manager is to protect the artist because if the artist is successful, he/she will be too.
