5. People Skills
This one should be obvious, but nevertheless, I think it can’t be emphasized often enough. The people skills will almost always win out over the technical skills. No one wants to work for the “genius” that treats others poorly.
We’ve seen it in bands, we’ve seen it on crews, and it always ends up badly. If you tend to ever think, “this is everybody’s fault but mine,” (to quote Homer Simpson) you might just want to look in the mirror and figure out how to get some people skills.
Generally, most everyone is trying to do his best. So how will you help them do that? And, of course, people skills are even more important when dealing with clients. Don’t forget that they are paying the bills, and need to be treated accordingly.
Sure, they might have some stupid ideas or an unrealistic sense of “what it takes” to get a particular job done. And there’s a nice way to tell them those things – a way that will have them eating out of your hand and not calling your competition.
Here’s a statistic to remember – people generally feel more loyal to a vendor when something goes wrong, was corrected, and they were treated fairly vs. loyalty to vendors where nothing ever went wrong. Think about that.
6. Technical Skills
Yes, of course – in our technical industry, tech skills are a must. But how good are your tech skills really? If you don’t think you have anything to learn, check the second item (Continuous Learning) above. We can all learn more.
In fact, it never ceases to amaze me whenever I learn something new how it immediately is applicable to what I’m doing.
Back when I was starting out in this business, I was surprised how some of the basics I’d been taught in school, like how to calculate dB, Ohm’s law, basic power supply design, and signal flow through various systems set me apart from my peers.
Part of the problem with our industry is that anecdotal information is prevalent, but real knowledge is often more rare than anyone is willing to admit. Take the classes, attend the seminars, hit the books once in a while.
Even “old” books like the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook can be an excellent resource. You should have a copy, and you should randomly flip to sections and read what’s in there.
Related to this are things like soldering technique, how to use a Volt/Ohm meter, how to troubleshoot a system, how to solve grounding problems. It’s almost inconceivable that any of us could be in this business without some of these kinds of skills, but you and I both know that indeed it is the case.
7. Listening
Finally, we all have to learn how to listen. First off, we have to listen to what people are telling us, even if we don’t agree. There’s almost always an element of truth to what others are saying. This is true in any business.
The type of listening, specific to our business, is about sound. And even if our physical hearing acuity is excellent, we must train our brains how to listen critically and then what to do with that knowledge.
Unfortunately, 99 percent or more of the sound we hear is of poor quality in a variety of ways. Mucho distortion. Horrific frequency imbalances. Too loud. Inappropriate for the source or the genre of music, etc.
So what do we do? Well, I always recommend spending time listening to acoustic music whenever possible. Listen to or play an acoustic guitar. Go hear an orchestra or a bluegrass band. Get your ears used to what real music sounds like, without any system and the associated distortion involved.
And while doing so, ask yourself, “how can I tell this is acoustic sound?” This is the great question, and the answers are not obvious.
By now you should have noticed many times before that when you hear a real instrument, you know it’s real. The sound of a saxophone coming out of an open window. A real Celtic harp. A real string quartet.
But how can you tell? Take this question and apply it to how you design, set up and run your sound system. We’ll all be better off for it.