Taking Risks – Keith Urban On Changing a Successful Business Model

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One cool thing about living in Nashville is watching the music industry business model. It goes like this:

• Do what it takes to build your career
• Get a hit song
• Replicate the style of that song over and over to get more hit songs.

Unless you are Keith Urban, who has decided to change the usual music industry model and take a big risk, putting his multi-million dollar career as a star on the line. Urban and his wife, Nicole Kidman, live here in Nashville. And Urban, who released his newest album, Fuse, on Tuesday, decided to change his business model.

In an extensive interview in Sunday’s edition of The Tennessean, Urban says he is making career decisions by “taking a look at his comfort zone and then taking one whopping step outside of it.” His new album reflects that risk taking. “I’m OK to fail,” Urban says. “I just don’t want to be one of those people who stay in the little zone of familiarity.”

Instead of working with one producer for his new album, Urban worked with 8 – unheard of in the music industry. The album’s title comes from the work it took to fuse together sounds from country, rock, folk, and pop along with the vision of 8 producers, each of whom worked in their own distinct ways with Urban’s songs.

Was it uncomfortable? Urban readily admits it was. He says he had to question himself every step of the way, asking “is this not working right now because I’m just scared and it doesn’t sound like the old me?”

Keith Urban puts a lot on the line by coming out with a totally new sound in Fuse. He’s changed his business model and has gone against the grain of how country music stars usually produce new albums. He’s mixed sounds from 4 different types of music. His decision to challenge himself and step outside his own comfort zone is something we each have to do as business owners. Otherwise, we end up stifling ourselves because we are scared.

If you take the lesson from Keith Urban, you’ll ask yourself these questions:

• Am I OK to fail, and learn from what I tried?
• Am I stuck in a “zone of familiarity?”
• Can I tolerate being uncomfortable as I try something different in my business?
• Can I tell the difference between being scared and really believing that something isn’t going to work for reasons other than my own fear?

Growing your business means taking risks. Maybe one of Nashville’s many music stars has given us a good model to follow when we need to step out of our comfort zone.

Want more about taking risks in business? Try my blog post “Children, Risk, and Success” or “How To Be a Predictably Successful Entrepreneur” by clicking here. You can also download my e-book about risk and change by going to my SuePainter.com website.