The first package was from a group called Sweetest Candie. They sent a beautiful wooden Godiva chocolate box. Inside, the box was laced with their pictures (which looked very professional), their CD (4 studio-quality tracks), a well-written and typed bio with contact information and a bunch of chocolate candy that was wrapped in paper saying “Sweetest Candie.†I couldn’t wait to hear what the music sounded like after receiving my package.
The second package was a CD player and headphones with a sticker that said press play accompanied by a bio and a picture. The presentation made it effortlessly convenient to press play and listen…so I did.
The third package is memorable not for being great, but because it became the laughing stock of my office. This brother decided to send me Polaroid shots of him in his boxers, him on the beach in Speedos, pictures of his kids, a hand written bio on copy paper, and a cassette tape. Not even a regular cassette tape…a mini one. I saved that package for a very long time…but for all the wrong reasons. LOL! Even now as I think about it I can’t help but chuckle.
We live in a visual society, so the first assessment a person will make of you will be based on what their eyes can see or what their ear can hear (as in my field). At first glance, who you are, where you’re from, and what you’re capable of doing counts for nothing if no one else cares to find out.
Yandy Smith is a music management powerhouse and co-founder/CEO of Everything Girls Love, a lifestyle, Web publishing and fashion brand. With valuable experience collaborating alongside entertainment heavyweight Mona Scott-Young at multimedia conglomerate Violator Management, and later, Monami Entertainment, she has worked with music industry greats including 50 Cent, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J, and Jim Jones.