RSS feedsFor someone who describes her career as ‘unplanned’, Lesley Alexander’s moves have a textbook look to them. From trainee accountant to self-employed music industry specialist, to head of Berg Kaprow Lewis’ (BKL) media division, her career progress looks like the playing out of a well-orchestrated performance. And yet, she insists the start down the path towards her current status of expert media accountant was accidental.
A traineeship at Moores Rowland was intended to be nothing more than a productive way of spending a year in training, while deciding what to do with herself. But such procrastination was not to be. Alexander found herself working within the mid-tier firm’s media department, learning the ropes on licensing and royalty deals for its music clients an experience that saw her rubbing shoulders with the likes of Pink Floyd. It was a stroke of luck that sent her down an unusual and stimulating path.
Alexander’s music industry contacts have been no less illustrious since then. Dance acts such as Primal Scream and Moby, indie bands such as the Jesus and Mary Chain, rock legends Bon Jovi her client roster cuts across music genres. Clients range from the short-lived bands that last one album, one tour and two or three years of hard slog to the enduring. Notable among those is Julian Cope, who once immortalised Alexander by naming her on the album sleeve of Julian Cope Presents 20 Mothers as one of the most influential women in his life.
From Moores Rowland, Alexander went to work at Stainton & Shafto, a firm that had Terry Ellis, one of the founders of Chrysalis Records, on its books, as well as Rod Stewart, Andy Taylor of Duran Duran, Primal Scream and Pink Floyd’s Rick Wright.
Much of her work consisted of personal tax for artists and their bands, plus business planning. At about that time, the Inland Revenue set up its Foreign Entertainers Unit, a move that provided an additional line of work, plus her f irst international client. ‘All visiting foreign entertainers, whether media, music or sports people, need to put in an application to reduce taxes. So I did the very first Bon Jovi application,’ she says.
Alexander spent four years with Stainton & Shafto post-qualification before leaving to sail her own ship in 1990. Her practice grew largely through word of mouth, as musicians recommended her to friends and band managers recommended her to their new signings. But after 10 years of growth, and with a young family, she realised she would either need to recruit a second partner or join a larger firm.
Having hired a broker to seek out suitable firms with like-minded people, Alexander joined Berg Kaprow Lewis in 2001. ‘I decided it would be easier to join a bigger firm that didn’t already have a media department,’ she says. BKL’s pool of tax consultants also gave her a wider range of expertise on which to draw. ‘It gives more solidity to my advice,’ she says.
Joining a bigger firm also gives her greater opportunities to diversify into related fields. What started as a clientele made up largely of musicians and band managers now includes photographers, film makers and video producers.
Alexander provides in-house services to record labels and music publishers and in the past 12 months the firm has begun to attract more and more new business, she says. And with the backing of a team, she gets to take a longer view of her clients’ affairs. ‘What I really enjoy doing is meeting the new clients. Rather than actually performing services such as accounting myself, I like to be able to give them advice on developing their business spending more time with them and their businesses. I can be more proactive than before,’ she says.
Developing people’s businesses has, at times, meant trying to get some individuals particularly newcomers to the world of music and film to absorb some fairly basic notions about money and the industry. Very often, the faultlines that emerge in a band will be financial, she explains.
There is a big element of hand holding involved in getting people to understand that the apparently large sum of money they have received from a record company, for instance, may have to last them two or three years. ‘Even artists who do go on to make second or third records have probably been skint for a few years while they’ve tried to get their band together. They suddenly get a lot of money and think, “this is fantastic”. But you then have to make that record, go out on the road and promote that record. And during that time, there’s no more cashflow coming through. That money often has to last a very long time.’
It can be a hard dose of reality for creative individuals recently enriched by a windfall, particularly if they have spent a few years trying to get their careers to take off. ‘Not everyone is going to become a Robbie Williams,’ she points out. ‘And while it might be depressing, I think they’ve got to look at it as having this one chance of establishing their careers in something they enjoy doing.’
Although Alexander has seen plenty of bands come and go, there is, she believes, a big opportunity to make significant sums of money for those who take her advice and put themselves in the driving seat. First of all, there’s the matter of sound management of personal finances, increasing their wealth and using the money to best advantage.
Second is the opportunity that increasingly exists for taking control of intellectual property rights the royalty payments that come from song writing and the merchandising around bands and their music. Julian Cope is a case in point. Cope, she says, enjoys a cult following and still makes money through record sales. He doesn’t have to sell the quantities that today’s artists have to sell because he holds the publishing rights to his own back catalogue.
Merchandising via websites, once established, can also provide recording artists with a steady flow of income. Songwriters have the potential to become highly successful people. ‘Sadly, most of them haven’t got a clue how it works,’ she says.
Some bands side-step record companies altogether from the off. Recent chart-toppers Arctic Monkeys and Nizlopi, for instance, brought themselves to the attention of the music buying public via internet downloads. This kind of self-promotion and marketing helps new acts find a fan base and means that new breeds of artists and music genres become viable. ‘The music industry is still quite rigid,’ says Alexander. ‘If the record label doesn’t know where to slot [the artist], it doesn’t happen quite often. It is possible, but [the artist] needs to be championed by someone within the record company.’
The making of a film is also dependent on attracting the right people’s attention, says Alexander. In fact, fundraising remains the biggest issue for would-be film makers. ‘We must have two or three calls each week to ask if we can help with funding and new projects.’
But the process can be long-winded. Some projects get an initial injection of cash from a grant. But to really get a project moving, film makers need a bankable star and it is here that projects may stall, sometimes for months on end. It is not uncommon, for instance, for scripts to sit on people’s desks for six months until an actor or agent makes a decision. And if the answer is no, then the process starts again.
Alexander explains that one client eventually filmed a 10-minute version of
his film and took it to the Cannes Film Festival in an effort to attract some
investment. He was surprised to find a market for the finished 10-minute taster.
The likes of Channel Four and Sky look for short films to fill scheduling gaps
around their film screenings, Alexander explains. ‘So, suddenly, he has a market
for something he hadn’t thought of marketing.’ And, in the meantime, the short
film also awakened the interest of two major film industry heavyweights.
For film makers of a sufficiently entrepreneurial frame of mind, happy endings in the film industry may just be a possibility.
Telling it like it is
Dealing with creative people in the music or film industry often means Alexander
is forced to take the financial side of their affairs off their hands
completely. Alexander has a particular interest in helping clients take a
long-term view of their plans. Music and film work is project-based, so she acts
as someone who helps clients to join the dots.
‘The actual business development side is growing quite quickly. I try to spend more time with them and take that side of things off their hands so they can concentrate more on making music or films,’ she says.
And in the case of the financially illiterate, she tries to inject some cold, hard financial reality. ‘I tell them how it is. I just explain to them that cashflow is the major thing.’
Alexander says that putting clients on a firm financial footing means having an ability to communicate on financial matters in a readily understandable way. She also believes that lateral thinking adopting and applying normal business concepts to creative businesses is a key quality to working with her kind of client. And at the heart of all this? ‘Good financial planning for erratic cash-flow streams.’
Liz Loxton is contributing editor of Best Practice
