Naturally, with great interest, I have watched closely the evolution of the music business.  It is my life.  Inspirational music has become my mission for the past 15 years and in that time I’ve watched this business of music spin out of control, crash and burn and then try to rise from the ashes time after time only to crash and burn again.

During this time we invented a company, Watchfire Music, to sell our product and to be the machinery behind all of our musical efforts.  It has been just that for us, and so we continue to try to make it all work during these historically toughest of times.

My approach has been to try new things to see if they would work, to stay creative and turn out good and great product and to sometimes pause and simply watch where the world, and especially our industry, is going next.

If we were a rich organization, if there were an endless financial stream of support, we could be leaders in the industry – we certainly know and understand the technology and keep up to date on the evolution of music and the Internet – but we don’t have that deep well of cash.

Many companies have tried to lead and gone down trying.  We have survived because we have stayed small and nimble, watching for the technology to evolve to a point where the industry would settle into a music delivery system that would make sense during this collapse and ever-changing time.

To a certain extent, it has worked.  We’ve not spent millions of investor money.  We have a powerful and well-developed ecommerce website that is pretty automated, easy to manage and graceful to change.  And we have gone from a start-up company to more than a breakeven company in these 5 years of both success and failure.

Have we failed?  You bet.  I could name 20 great ideas that have come and gone and now only exist in the depths of one of my hard drives.  Have we had our share of successes?  Another “You bet”.  After all, we’re still here.

Will we change things again?  A third YOU BET.

It seems now that with the success of Spotify and Pandora, music is now a streaming medium.  For the average Joe with their smart phones and iPods and iPads and whatever new fandangled thing is just over the next horizon, music is available to be searched and found, listened to at any time and collected in organized fashion – all for free.

This puts a serious dent in the ability to maintain a company that sells recorded music.  Oh yes, I know, there are still people who want to actually own their favorite music, still people who want to play their music on their CD players and hear the music at its quality best, but unfortunately they are a rapidly dwindling few.

Case in point:  We have one lovely man and wife set of “customers” who absolutely love WFM Radio and are often found writing us and suggesting new programming, updating of our channels and new ideas for better radio.  They are devoted listeners to our free radio.  They have never bought a single download.  They’re happy with what we give them, but do not buy.

I look at all this and wonder…

Where do we go from here?

Over the next months we will continue to watch, listen, work and pray.

This Christmas I have a new CD, Goin’ Home, coming out that is presently the hope of our company.  We’re going to do new things in new ways that we’ve never done before.  We’re going to try to do everything in our power and imagination to reach people with this life-changing and life-supporting idea.  We’re going to spend more money than ever before on promotion and packaging and quality.

My favorite quote from music blogger Bob Lefsetz sits before me here on my desk.  “But can you build something so good people will be drawn to you?” It’s all I think about these days.  I will tell you this:

We’re gonna give it a shot.