AC/DC supported Kiss in December 1977. Kiss were one of the biggest bands in the US at the time, and AC/DC were unknown to the American audience. Gene Simmons saw AC/DC play at the Whisky a Go Go and personally put them on the bill. Back in Black, the record that made them one of the biggest bands on earth, came out almost three years later.
Metallica supported Ozzy Osbourne on his Ultimate Sin Tour in the US in 1986. Metallica were three albums in, but had no major hits. Their first number one album, The Black Album, came five years later.
Sabrina Carpenter supported Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour in 2023. Carpenter was five albums into a career without a major hit. Swift personally invited her onto the bill. Short n' Sweet, the record that made her a superstar, came out the following year.
Three important points to make here about all three examples:
- Each support act had a set. No set, no performance.
- If the main band and/or record label didn’t like the music this supporting act played, they wouldn’t get the opportunity to borrow their audience.
- Though it can happen, the first music an act writes, performs, and records is rarely what propels them to stardom.
You can’t get in front of an ideal-fit audience without something to share. And that something needs to be good: an alternative angle on a relevant topic that gives existing authorities and organisations a reason to share their stage with you.
But that first asset doesn’t need to be your future classic. It simply needs to be good enough to get moving.
I love what Blair Enns did.
When he launched his business, Win Without Pitching, in 2002, it was on a relative hunch. Most creative agencies won work by submitting to the client’s pitching process. Blair developed something different. He’d taken a new sales approach while employed as a salesperson, and it worked. But he didn’t have a tried-and-tested system of winning work without submitting to the pitching formality.
Within 12 months of launching his Win Without Pitching consulting business, he’d written a book that captured his process and thinking. He printed it in his home office and put the pages together in a blue ring binder.
He sold the manual to agency owners for $995, then upsold consulting engagements. He used the manual to get early speaking opportunities, then sold it to the audience and repeated the process.
His definitive work, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, would come eight years later and sell over 100,000 copies. The Manifesto, and the success that came with it, was made possible because of the earlier Manual Blair had published before he became an authority on sales and pricing.
Publish something before you feel ready, and use it as the platform to work on the masterpiece later.