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For most music managers time is precious – and often limited. Considering what managers accomplish as it is, one can only imagine what they would be capable of if the day had more than 24 hours. However, it doesn’t, and many managers are already struggling to make time for sleeping, eating, relaxing, exercising, socialising, child-raising and in many cases balancing several jobs. Most importantly, they are working hard to make sure their acts have a business and that they are moving closer and closer to achieving their goals. Anyone who has ever worked in any sort of management knows the importance of being organised and efficient in order to ensure there is time and resources to focus on what’s important. But this is, as always, easier said than done. 

Last week the MMF hosted a Virtual Manager Meet Up with our long time associate Google, focusing on just this: productivity. Google and the G Suite platform is used by many (over 2 billion users in March 2020), but it is safe to say that few of us know all of the features, functions and tricks to maximise efficiency and minimise wasting time on swapping between programmes and platforms. Luckily for us, Google went through some of G Suites’ key features, and here is what we learned. 

G Suite is built on three main elements: Communicate, Collaborate and Control. These fundamental elements pretty much sums up the key requirements for running any sort of business. 

In order to make communication as smooth as possible, Gmail meets different needs in one place. The most obvious use of Gmail is to send emails. When writing emails, Gmail can easily suggest content (and spelling) that feeds seamlessly into other parts of Gsuite. Suggesting a meeting in an email? That can be added straight into the Google Calendar without even opening a new tab. If an email feels a bit too formal there is a chat option where you can send your team-members a quick message (still in the same tab). Emails are often translated into tasks, one way or another. Google Tasks is in the same way as Google Calendar integrated in Gmail and you can even drag an email into the to-do list in order to remember to get back to it when you have time and will automatically show up in your calendar. You can also start a meeting straight from the calendar or email through Google Meet. Still no need to open a new tab!

When it comes to collaboration, G Suite has your back. Google Drive allows you to keep content, whether it’s marketing campaigns or release strategies, all in one place. You can set up different workplaces and manage projects on one platform and have different team members accessing different parts of it via sharing settings. Google Sheets, Docs and Slides allow you to create new content online (no worries if your computer crashes) and collaborate with other team members in real time. There is even a function to type using your voice!

Controlling data and access is very important. G Suite provides different functions and tiers depending on your business that allows you to remain in full control. 

Collecting information and data is only one step of understanding an artists’ audience for example. The trick is to understand the data by being able to analyse it easily. Data collected through a Google Form is automatically gathered in a Google Sheet and can by using the “Explore” function interpret the data for you. Furthermore, Google Data Studio can automatically transform the data into visuals (or however you prefer to view the data). Google Sites allows you to set up a webpage that is automatically linked to the visual presentation of the data, meaning that the pie chart can have its own webpage and be updated in real time- opening up a huge range of creative possibilities for how a music manager might run their business or how their artist might interact with their followers.

These are just a few of the functions that G Suite offers. One of the absolutely key aspects is that all of the functions are connected to each other and talk to each other for you. You can design the functions using an endless list of add-ons and integrations to make it tailored to your needs. It might be worth paying the G Suite Learning Center a visit and discover how G Suite can help you to stay organised, efficient and productive. And save your most precious asset of all: time!