What I’m going to say now is going to be hard to believe but it’s true “The Beatles” were the biggest selling rock band during the first half of 2020. It's hard to believe right it's literally been 50 years and still, they are being remembered and the surprising factor is that there is no capable artist in the music industry to claim that throne which was occupied years ago.
No one other than The Beatles themselves would have predicted their success in 1962 when a small mistake nearly sabotaged the band.
Paul McCartney once said, “while listening to the old tapes I realised why we ditched the Decca Audition we weren’t that good….“ Though the word The Beatles didn’t appear in the sentence we all know that the early career of the Beatles was comprised of failure and unsuccessful auditioning with the leading music company of the era, Decca Records was a miss-step which nearly sabotaged the band. Young and aspiring Entrepreneurs can learn several lessons from the way The Beatles dealt with Decca.
- The songs to be sung at the audition was selected by the group's manager Brian. His industrial experience was in name only, having only recently signed with The Beatles as manager. The band was impressed by him because he presented the record department within his dad’s furniture shop.Of the 13 songs, Brian selected ten were not an impressive cover for an American accent. But Brian had other plans his intension was to portray the group's multi-generation appeal by drawing upon mainstream songs. He included only 3 of John and Paul songs for the audition and the joke is none of them was released by the band as they were of low quality like Hello Little Girl and Like Dreamers Do these songs are still not released.
Lesson To Be Learnt: Entrepreneurs must have the will power/confidence to listen to their advisor and reject their advice when it looks risky to you. This could be stated as the selection of the wrong product.
- As per “The Great: George Harrison” it was funny to see a whole band singing, during that era there was only one member in the band who should sing and he was the lead singer almost every band till now follows the rule but The Beatles and BTS were the only few bands to break that rule and so they stand alone in their field. John point of view of much funnier: they were funny and so dumb when they listened to these tapes.
Lesson To Be Learnt: Always try to go from Zero to One. Don’t follow the crowd this is what made The Beatles stand unique in their field. Understand a potential client’s point of view before engaging with them.
- The Beatles line up was incomplete at the time of Decca Audition Ringo wasn’t there rather Pete Best was the Beatles Drummer. And all three John Paul and George hated Pete’s music and the main reason why they hired him was that he had a drum kit and was available at the last moment during there playing at Germany at 1960. Then they replaced him with Ringo because Starr was considered to be the best drummer of Liverpool. So they fired Pete after his 2year stay. Pete Best had a difficult year after being fired from The Beatles. He even attempted suicide at one point. But life must move on right! he became a government employee. When The Book about The Beatles was released in the late 1990's it is said that Pete received a million dollars in royalties.
Lesson To Be Learnt: One of the key success of The Beatles was Ringo Starr, we could not know what would have happened if Pete was still there maybe The Beatles wouldn’t have existed. Likewise in a Startup, there must be no compromises when establishing a core team. No friends or families consideration should be only for the skilled once.
- Everyone knows that timing is everything in Business, Comedy and life. And in the 1962 Decca Audition, The Beatles should have forgotten about that fact and now Paul understands. He says that We weren’t ready to do the audition now I understand why we failed the audition. The team wasn’t good and we weren’t that good but there were some interesting and original things.
Lesson To Be Learnt: Startups have little resources and funding to secure key client’s, investors and employees which makes it hard or even impossible to get back in feet after a bad/negative first impression. Entrepreneurs must know what they are doing and when they are doing and should ask this before releasing a product “is this the right time to do it?”
After the group's success, the band recall they're funny moments with Decca with bitter satisfaction this is what life is all about work hard for a few days and remember the funny moments you did at the early stage of your life. Fortunately for classic music addicts everywhere, The Beatles handled their failures like entrepreneurs. They were the perfect example of “Hard Work Pays Off” Lennon once said that “It is up to you whether you let your mistakes define you or motivate you to reach the top, it is up to you”.
“All Things Must Pass”
-George Harrison
Comment