Sky Bison's business plan by Roderick Jackson-Bradley

Table Of Contents The Business A. Executive Summary……………………………….........… 2 B. Current Marketing Situation……………………….……. 2 C. Strategic Alliances……………………………….....………3 D. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threat Analysis.. 4-5 E. Objectives and Issues………………………………........... 5 F. Marketing Strategy ………………………………...............6 G. Action Programs………………………………................... 7 H. Application & Expected Effect of Loan or Investment… 8 I. Schedule A………………………………..............................9

J. Profit and Loss Statement……………………………….....10

Executive Summary Sky Bison exists as a regional recording studio whose mission is to produce, promote, and manage local and regional music acts. The market for our industry is mature and lead by independent studios like ourselves. We can compete because our offerings to our targeted market combine exclusive services at a value-added price. We are targeting specific segments in the consumer and business markets, taking advantage of opportunities indicated by higher demand for honest and legitimate promotional/management companies that offer radio quality recoding services.

Current Marketing Situation Sky Bison, founded 7 months ago by three entrepreneurs with experience in the music industry, is about to enter the recording studio service market dominated by independent studios such as ourselves. With emergence of multifunction recording hardware and technological advances in the recording software industry has increased competitive pressure. To gain market share in this environment, Sky Bison must carefully target specific market segments

Market Description Sky Bison’s market consists of consumers and business users who need a company that has the resources to produce, promote, and manage their acts. Exhibit 1 shows how Sky Bison’s services addresses the needs of targeted consumers and business segments

Exhibit 1 Targeted Segment

Customer Need

Corresponding Features/Benefits Ÿ Professional recording equipment and staff to provide recording service at a cost conscious priceLocal bands (consumer market) Record a radio quality demo, EP, or full length at a reasonable price Ÿ Ÿ

Ÿ Ÿ

Complete booking directory of the nations venue, publication, and record store contacts Experienced team of artist management to help with General strategy, goal planning, and band guidanceRegional and National bands (consumer market) Venue contacts to book tour General career guidance Ÿ

Ÿ Ÿ

Team with social media marketing experience and business affairs experience from working at a prominent record label.Mid level record labels (business market)

Cost effective grass roots marketing Reduce to their essentials, and take responsibility for many aspects of legal, financial, and general business affairs

Online promotional strategy, presence, and intelligence

Strategic Alliances One of Sky Bison’s competitive advantages is our strategic alliances within the music community.

Phoenix Local Music.com (PLM) PLM is the biggest local social network for phoenix musicians, bands, venues, radio stations, local business, and many more. In exchange of usage of our facilities to interview bands PLM provides with the resources we need to achieve co-op marketing campaigns with different local businesses. PLM also refers our services to the many bands they interview and encounter on a daily bases. Because of PLM heavy involvement in the phoenix music scene, it’s only logical to form an alliance with them.

Fiasco Shows Fiasco Shows is a very well known promotional company in Phoenix, AZ. The company books and promotes local and national acts. In exchange of a finders fee incentive, Fiasco Shows refers business to us and allows us to pass out brochures at their shows.

Jeff (Tooth & Nail Records) Jeff is one of the top producers at Tooth & Nail Records. This label is a well known record label in the United States. Jeff has agreed to refer us to high profile bands and artist for business.

101 Distribution 101 Distribution is an independent music distribution company based in Phoenix, AZ. This company has worked with several multi-platinum artist like Kanye West and Lil Wayne, now one of their top sellers is Mesa, AZ’s own Austin Gibbs. We refer business to 101 Distribution, in exchange they provide us with the resources to get our client’s music into stores like Best Buy, FYE, Wal-Mart, and more.

Services and Products Production- This service includes song composition, recording artist, and providing professional musicians for session work. Promotions- This service includes radio promotion, concert promotion & booking, publicity, social media marketing, and sales. Artist Representation- This service covers any and all duties affiliated with artist management.

Competitive review Increased entry of independent recording studios has pressured industry participants to continually cut prices. Despite this strong competition, Sky Bison can carve out a definite image and gain recognition among our targeted market segments. We have the resources it produce, record, promote, and manage the music acts of our clients, a critical point of differentiation for our competitive advantage.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threat Analysis Sky Bison has several powerful strengths on which to build upon, but our major weakness is lack of brand awareness and image. The major opportunity is the growing demand for legitimate music businesses in Phoenix, AZ that provide innovative ways to get your music recorded, heard, and sold. We also face the threat of a failing economy, and the new emergence of technologies that allow anyone with $1000 to buy recording gear to call themselves a studio. This saturates the market.

Strengths Sky Bison can build on three important strengths: 1.

Innovative business model. Sky Bison markets the music they produce, manages the artist that created the music, provides exclusive distribution channels to distribute the music, and has the resources to publish the intellectual properties of the artist we represent.

Pricing. Our services are priced lower then the competing recording studios, and marketing firms - all of which lack distribution and publishing resources for their client music- which gives us an edge with price conscious customers.

Our strong network of music industry contacts. Each member of management of Sky Bison L.C. has an unique list of contacts the range from independent record label owners, A&R personnel, national touring artists, major independent distributors, local businesses, and promoters. We’re able to leverage these contacts for business use.

Weaknesses By entering in a mature market, that’s lead by independent studios like ourselves , as late as we did, we’ve allowed the competitors more time to build brand equity and trust among their market. Sky Bison has learned from the successes and mistakes of others. Nonetheless, we have two main weaknesses. 4.

Lack of brand awareness. As a start-up , Sky Bison has not yet established a brand or image in the market place, whereas Flying Blanket Studios and other rivals have strong brand recognition. This is an are we will address with promotional campaigns.

Smaller Facilities. Our studio space is slightly smaller then most our competing studios. To counteract this, we will emphasize our value-added pricing, offerings of packaged deals, and exclusive distributing resources, three important competitive strengths. 4

Opportunities Sky Bison can take advantage of one major market opportunity 6.

Independent bands and labels are rapidly stealing market share from the majors. 51% of all Grammy’s won in 2008 were won by independent artists. Since independent artists and labels are our target market segments our offerings will be seen as a value added alternative for their needs.

Threats We have two main threats 7.

Downward economy. This uneasy economy has resulted in a decrease of spending in America. Still, we’ve seen more bands then ever perform locally, and those bands will always need a production services to capture their art and sell it. We have contingency plans to keep sales growing by targeting additional segments, adjusting prices, and offering flexible payment plans.

Increased Competition. New technology has made it cheaper and more accessible to buy recording equipment to call themselves a studio. These low budget studios offer some but not all of the features and benefits provided by Sky Bison. Therefore, Sky Bison’s marketing communications must stress our clear differentiation advantages and value-added pricing.

Objectives and Issues We have to set aggressive but achievable objectives for the first and second years of our market entry.

First-year Objectives During Sky Bison’s initial year in the market, we are aiming for a combined 15 percent share of the production, promotion, and management market in phoenix, AZ.

Second-year Objectives Second year objectives is achieve a 3 percent market share in the southwest region of the U.S., based on sales from production fees, management fees, ticket sales, CD’s, downloads, and licensing fees.

Issues One major issue is our ability to establish a well-regarded brand name linked to a meaningful positioning. We will have to invest a considerable amount of resources into marketing to create a memorable and distinctive brand image projecting innovation, quality, and value. We also must measure awareness and response so we can adjust our marketing efforts if necessary.

Marketing Strategy Sky Bison’s marketing strategy is based on a positioning of service differentiation. Our primary consumer target is lower to middle income independent bands and artists who needs one company to produce, promote, manage, and license their intellectual properties. This segment can described demographically by age (16-30). Our primary business target is mid-to large-sized independent record labels that need affordable, reliable production services and a service provider that’ll produce cost effective marketing campaigns for their artist rooster. This segment consists of labels with $100,000 or more in annual sales. Each of the four marketing strategies conveys Sky Bison’s differentiation to the target market segments identified above.

Positioning Using service differentia tion, we are position Sky Bison’s services as the most versatile, logical, convenient, cost conscious service provider for independent artist, bands and labels. The marketing strategy will focus

on our one stop service provider business model as the main feature differentiating Sky Bison.

Service Strategy Building the Sky Bison brand is an integral part of our service strategy. The brand and logo (Sky Bison’s distinctive yellow, blue, brown, and white bison) will be displayed on every ticket stub, CD we produce, MySpace pages of our past clients, and will be reinforced by it’s prominence in the introductory marketing campaign.

Pricing Strategy The pricing strategy is as followed: Production- $350 (per) song Marketing- $550 (per) month Artist Representation- 20% of all income brought in by artist during terms of representation. Publishing- 100% of all publishing revenues during terms of representation. These prices and fees reflect a strategy of (1) attracting desirable clients (2) taking market share from our closest competitors.

Marketing Communications Strategy By integrating our messages in online and print media forms we will reinforce the brand name and the main points of service differentiation to attract market attention and encourage purchasing. We will offer a limited time premium packaged deals that includes our production and marketing services to attract, retain, and motivate our potential and current clients.

Action Programs Sky Bison will introduce it’s new services in August. Following are summaries of the action programs we will use during the next 5 months of this year to achieve our stated objectives.

July We will partner up with Phoenix Local Music.com to establish distribution channel partners in Phoenix, AZ. We will educate our channel partners and explain to them the features, benefits, and competitive advantages of our services.

August We will start an integrated print/internet/direct marketing campaign targeting local and regional bands, artist and mid-to large-sized labels. The campaign will show the advantages of using our services. This multimedia campaign will be supported by point of sale signage as well as online only specials.

September We will sponsor two battle of the bands at established music venues by offering our services at a discounted price.

October We will record a compilation album with the top local bands in phoenix and donate all proceeds to different charities.

November We’ll start expanding our distribution networks into the states of C.A., N.V., A.Z., W.A., & O.R.. December We will complete our distribution expansion into the markets listed above.

Application & Expected Effect of Loan or Investment Proceeds of the 10,000 will be used as follows Equipment:

Production Tool Kit ……………………………….................$650 Bass Guitar………………………………...............................$1200 Guitar Amp………………………………..............................$1500 Guitar Cab………………………………................................$1100 Laptop………………………………......................................$750

Studio filing system software………………………………....$350 Working Capital……………………………….................................................$2000 Reserve(not disbursed)……………………………............................................$2450 The Production Tool Kit has software we’ll need to create professional radio quality sound recordings for our clients. The bass guitar, guitar amp and cab will be used to provide our clients with in house instruments for their projects and we’ll be used to track songs we pitch to major broadcasting stations. The laptop and Studio filing system software will be used to track sales, maintain our bookkeeping, communicate with business partners, and to promote our studio. The working capital will enable Sky Bison to meet current expenses, and insure the continued growth of the business. The reserve will be held by the bank as a line of credit to be used to take advantage of special opportunities or meet emergencies.

Schedule A Equipment owned by business

Equipment and Accessories

Model

Cost

Mojave MA 200 Tube CNDSR STU MIC

$849.99

Digidesign 003 Rack Factory Bundle

$1336.02

Universal Audio LA Tube Mic Pre

$2799.99

Apple Mac Pro 8 Core

$2799.99

Presonus Digimax

$336.93

Behringer 10 ch pwrd mixer

$244.09

Digidesign Mx00 2pk Factory Bundle

$540.00

SE Electronics Serf refexior filter

$242.69

Sennheiser Mkll Card Mic

$329.62

Martin D12X Acoustic

$509.36

Yamaha Studio Monitor

$240.85

Presonus head phone amp

$110.23

Yamaha Studio Monitor

$240.85

Cajon

$123.14

TOTAL

$9207.85

Profit and Loss Statement

Profit/Loss Forecast Worksheet Jan

Feb $ 2 5 0

Sales Revenues G r o s s

Mar

1 0 0 . 0 0 %

P r o f it

April

$ 2 5 0 1 0 0 . 0 0 %

May

June

$ 5 5 0

$ 7 5 0

1 0 0 . 0 0 %

$ 8 5 0 1 0 0 . 0 0 %

P e r c e n t a g e

GROSS PROFIT Fixed Expenses O

f f ic e

r e n t

$ 0

$ 2 5 0

$ 5 5 0

$ 7 5 0

$ 8 5 0

$ 2 5 0

$ 2 5

$ 4 5 0

$ 7 5 0

S a la r ie s U t ilit ie s T e le p h o n e O

f f ic e

s e r v ic e

s u p p lie s

P o s t a g e W

e b s it e

I n s u r a

h o s t in g

n c e

P r o f e s s io n a l

s e r v ic e s

( a c c o u n t a n t ,

e t c . )

Loan payment M

is c e lla n e o u s

TOTAL FIXED EXPENSES NET PROFIT (LOSS)

($750)

($500) ($500)

($200)

$100