Featuring four seasoned music business executives – David Avery of Powderfinger Promotions, Bernard Chiu of First Act, Steve Walter of The Cutting Room and Joe McGuire, formerly of Tweeter – discuss a number of topics of interest to music business entrepreneurs for an audience at Berklee College of Music. Among the things they discuss are: hiring your dream team, finding a balance between work and life, growing your business, and honing the instincts and skills that will give you the drop on your competition.

David Avery, President of Powderfinger Promotions, discusses the demands that running his own company places on his time, and how he carves out time for his family.

David Avery, President of Powderfinger Promotions, shares how he goes about finding and interviewing the right people to staff his company (hint: interns), his philosophy on managing these people into greatness.

David Avery, President of Powderfinger Promotions, discusses what he has learned from owning and running his own radio promotion company, and what he likes best about the job. In particular, he highlights the need to learn when to say “no” to a big pile of money that would compromise your or your company’s values or reputation.

David Avery, President of Powderfinger Promotions, responds to an audience question at the Berklee Music Business Seminar about when trust your gut instincts by recollecting his own decision to begin working with The String Cheese Incident in an era when jam bands were not fashionable, and sharing the thought process that went into that decision.

David Avery, President of Powderfinger Promotions, advises the audience at the Berklee Music Business Seminar in the importance of trusting your instincts and having faith that this risky strategy will some times pay off with a big reward.

David Avery, President of Powderfinger Promotions, discusses his background in music and business, from his childhood in a Pentecostal family in California, to pursuing a Doctorate in Musicology, to his accidental founding of Powderfinger.

David Avery, President of Powderfinger Promotions, tells a story to the audience at the Berklee Music Business Seminar from Powderfinger’s past in which what seemed like a failure to him and his staff seemed like a triumph to the client in question. He then uses this example to illustrate the need for artists, their team members, and entrepreneurs to understand what is expected from them in a given situation and adjust their expectations and goals accordingly.