Passion to Profits. Alice LaPlante

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      The Grammy-nominated Hampton String Quartet was created in 1985 by RCA, which wanted to record an album of Christmas music played by a classical ensemble. The debut album of the group, “What if Mozart Wrote ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,’” was a smash hit, selling more than a million copies. The quartet is made up of Regis Iandiorio, first violin; Abe Appleman, second violin; Richard Maximoff, viola; and John Reed, cello.

      After releasing another best-selling album that featured the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” the group received so many requests for its classical arrangements of popular rock songs that the group’s cellist, Reed, along with his partner, Janna Glasser, created Mona Lisa Sound, a sheet music publishing company and record label, in 2000. The Hampton String Quartet later released three albums through Mona Lisa Sound.

      “When we started publishing our sheet music, we expected to sell the arrangements primarily to professional musicians—quartets like ours,” says Reed. “But, surprisingly, we’ve really found our niche in the education market.” What apparently happened, says Reed, is that high school string teachers discovered Mona Lisa Sound’s arrangements and eagerly snapped them up for students bored with the usual classical repertoire. Once he realized what was happening, Reed placed advertisements in the American String Teachers’ Association (ASTA) magazine, String Teacher, and in String magazine, and participates each year in ASTA’s annual convention. So popular are Mona Lisa Sound’s arrangements that Reed has to operate two booths there.

      One of Reed’s biggest challenges is managing the intellectual property issues that arise from arranging the work of other composers. For each new work he arranges and publishes, he has to track down the copyright holder—which is not necessarily the composer of the work—and negotiate a licensing deal. “When we started, no one would pay attention to us when we asked to license the music,” he recalls. “It took us two years to break through. Finally, we actually went to England and asked Led Zeppelin’s manager personally if we could license ‘Stairway to Heaven.’” The members of that band got so excited about Reed’s arrangement that they convinced Warner Bros. to license the rights to their music.

      But there was a major gotcha in all the licensing arrangements. Try as Reed might, he could not get a copyright on his arrangements—the copyright for all the music, no matter how much he changed his versions from the original, belonged to the people or businesses that held the print rights to the music. “There was no way to protect our intellectual property,” he says. “It was a hard pill to swallow.”

      Despite that, Mona Lisa Sound is thriving. It has plans to release two more Hampton String Quartet CDs, and its list of sheet music arrangements keeps growing. It makes the majority of sales via its website, although it also has a catalogue that it sends out every other year to 35,000 music educators and schools.

      Reed credits the firm’s ability to turn a profit on its low overhead. “We financed it all ourselves and never borrowed any money,” he says. They also chose to selfpublish the sheet music on demand rather than use an offset press, which would have been considerably more expensive. “To make offset printing cost-effective, you’d have to print thousands of copies,” he says. “But we’re always tweaking our music—fixing typos or changing a note, and so we bought our own printer and only print music when we get an order in.”

      Reed believes that every classically trained musician should be thinking entrepreneurially. “The odds of making a living as a classical musician are horrendously low,” he says. Yet by being creative, musicians can come up with very viable businesses, he says. “I would absolutely encourage young musicians to try.”

      ■ Control. Many people start businesses because they want more control over their lives. Perhaps you want more control over the way your good ideas are implemented. Perhaps you want, or need, more control over your work hours or conditions so that you can be more involved in family, community, or hobbies. Control is a major motivation for most entrepreneurs—usually more important than money. But how much control you need—especially on a day-to-day basis—directly influences how large your company can be.

      If you need or want a great deal of control over your time, you’ll most likely need to keep your company smaller. In a large company, you have less immediate control over many decisions. If you’re a person who needs control, you can still grow your business larger. You’ll simply need to structure communication and reporting systems to ensure that you have sufficient information about and direction over developments to give you personal satisfaction. If you seek outside funding in the form of investors, understand the nature of control your funders will exert and be certain you’re comfortable with these arrangements.

      ■ Challenge. If you’re starting or expanding a business, it’s clear you like challenge—at least to some degree. You’re likely to be a problem-solver and risk-taker, enjoying the tasks of figuring out solutions to problems or devising new undertakings. Challenge-hungry entrepreneurs can be some of the most successful businesspeople, СКАЧАТЬ