The Nickelback Negotiations: Marketing Strategy vs. Metalhead Meltdown

An honest account of running a vinyl business with the man you love, the music you don't necessarily love, and the occasional urge to change the business credit card PIN.

There are many things nobody tells you about running a business with your husband.

Nobody tells you that a perfectly ordinary discussion about stock can turn into an international diplomatic incident.

Nobody tells you that you can spend an entire afternoon trying to explain a perfectly reasonable marketing strategy to a grown man who is behaving as though you've personally insulted his ancestors.

And nobody, absolutely nobody, tells you that one day you might find yourself standing in your own home, negotiating the commercial merits of Nickelback with someone who appears to consider the band a threat to civilisation.

Welcome to Crimson Vinyl Records.

Built by collectors. For collectors.

And, occasionally, managed by a woman who is seriously considering changing the business credit card PIN.

I haven't done it.

Yet.

Two people. One business. Very different agendas.

Jamie and I have divided the responsibilities at Crimson Vinyl Records in a way that makes perfect sense on paper.

Jamie is our Product Manager. He chooses the stock, knows his music, understands his collectors and has an extraordinary depth of knowledge about the rock and metal genres he loves.

He is a genuine enthusiast. A collector. The sort of person who cares deeply about the music, the albums, the editions and the details that matter to other collectors.

I am responsible for marketing and brand management.

I think about customers, market opportunities, advertising, brand identity, website traffic, search engines and, rather importantly, sales.

I think about who might buy our records, how those people will find us, and whether we could reach more customers by carefully expanding the range.

Jamie thinks about the records he wants to buy.

I think about the people who might want to buy them from us.

You can probably see where this is going.

Two thousand records and one very particular musical universe

I should probably explain that Jamie's enthusiasm for heavy metal is not a passing phase, a teenage rebellion that got slightly out of hand, or something he picked up because he needed a hobby.

The man has a personal collection of more than 2,000 records.

Two thousand.

And these aren't 2,000 records representing a broad exploration of the musical landscape. Oh, no. We're talking rock, hard rock, heavy metal and every increasingly extreme corner of the genre you can imagine.

Death metal. Doom metal. Stoner metal. Growling, roaring, grinding, thunderous music that seems to involve a considerable amount of shouting at the universe.

There are entire subgenres in Jamie's collection that I couldn't confidently explain if someone offered me a cash prize.

And, if I'm being completely honest, I have absolutely no desire to learn how to appreciate all of them.

I love music. I love discovering artists, getting lost in a good track and finding something that makes me stop whatever I'm doing and listen. But my musical happy place is considerably more likely to involve pop, trance, progressive techno, drum and bass or electronic dance music.

Jamie's musical happy place is somewhere I would probably visit only with a packed lunch, a map and a clearly established exit strategy.

The truly fascinating part is that the more extreme the music becomes, the more enthusiastic he seems to get.

I have occasionally wondered whether the neighbours are aware that, when I leave the house, a completely different soundscape takes over.

I suspect some of them are.

And this is the man responsible for choosing the stock for Crimson Vinyl Records.

Which is wonderful, because he knows his music, understands his collectors and has a level of specialist knowledge that you simply cannot manufacture.

It's also occasionally problematic when the person responsible for marketing the business has to explain that there may be a world of customers beyond the 2,000-record universe currently occupying the living room, the shelves and a considerable portion of her husband's brain.

Enter Nickelback. Exit all rational thought.

I should explain that I am not a heavy metal devotee.

My musical preferences live somewhere in the world of pop, EDM, trance, drum and bass and progressive techno. Give me a good beat, a proper build-up and a track that makes me forget what time it is, and I'm perfectly content.

Jamie, on the other hand, inhabits a rather different musical universe.

This creates an interesting challenge when I'm trying to suggest new stock.

I don't have Jamie's encyclopaedic knowledge of heavy metal. I don't spend my listening time studying every subgenre, debating the merits of different bands or working out which albums every serious collector should own.

I'm the marketing person trying to make commercially sensible suggestions within a musical territory that isn't necessarily my natural habitat.

So I have to do my homework, think about the market and make a case.

Sometimes, that case involves Nickelback.

Now, if you suggest Nickelback to Jamie, you don't get a calm response along the lines of, "Interesting idea. Let's examine the potential customer demand."

No.

You get what can only be described as a full-body rejection.

There are vomit noises.

There is head shaking.

There is eye rolling of such magnitude that I'm surprised he doesn't strain something.

There may be stomping.

There is huffing and puffing.

And there is the unmistakable impression that I have suggested we abandon our entire business model and start selling something morally questionable out of the boot of a car.

I stand there wondering whether I should produce a spreadsheet, a market analysis or perhaps a bucket.

Eventually, after considerable resistance, I might receive the words:

"Oh, I suppose we can try."

I have never been so grateful for such an unenthusiastic sentence.

I haven't won an argument. I've secured permission to conduct a commercial experiment.

In my world, that's progress.

In Jamie's world, it may require several minutes of recovery time.

Meanwhile, back in Google Analytics...

While Jamie is thinking about which records to order, I am doing something considerably less audible.

I'm checking Site Kit. I'm looking at Google Analytics. I'm reviewing website traffic, worrying about page clicks, wondering which pages people visit and trying to understand why somebody can browse our website, find an album they apparently want, add it to their shopping cart and then disappear into the digital equivalent of thin air.

Where did they go?

Did they change their mind? Did they find it cheaper somewhere else? Did the shipping cost put them off? Did something go wrong at checkout? Were they just browsing while sitting on the toilet and never intended to buy anything in the first place?

I don't know.

And not knowing bothers me.

Because a website visitor is not automatically a customer. Someone clicking on an album isn't the same as someone buying it. And a shopping cart containing a lovely record is not particularly useful to the business if that record remains in the cart until the end of time.

So I look at the numbers.

I think about the sales funnel. I think about how people arrive at the website, what they look at, where they go next and what might be stopping them from completing a purchase.

I think about advertising, search visibility, the customer experience and whether our marketing is actually producing the result we're paying for.

In short, I spend a considerable amount of time trying to understand the behaviour of people I have never met, who visit a website I help manage, and then proceed to do things that make absolutely no sense to me.

This is apparently what marketing is.

And when I'm not doing that, I'm trying to work out how to persuade more of those people to buy something.

Jamie wants the business to make a profit, of course. We both do. We're in this together, and neither of us is under the illusion that enthusiasm alone pays the bills.

But when it comes to choosing stock, his attention naturally goes to the music, the artists, the releases and the records he believes belong in the shop.

Mine goes to a different set of questions.

Who is going to buy this? How many potential customers are looking for it? Will they find us? Is the price competitive? Does this product attract a new audience, or are we buying another record for the same relatively small group of collectors?

And, perhaps most importantly, if we get someone to our website, can we give them a reason to stay long enough to actually buy something?

These are not exactly the questions that inspire a man with 2,000 heavy metal records to leap enthusiastically out of his chair.

Particularly when my proposed solution involves stocking a band he considers an offence against music itself.

The problem with having a marketing strategy and a metalhead

Here is where my frustration really lives.

I don't expect Jamie to become a marketing analyst. I don't expect him to spend his evenings studying website engagement or to wake up in the middle of the night wondering why our checkout conversion rate isn't where we want it to be.

That is my territory.

But I do want the commercial picture to be part of the stock conversation.

Because a business cannot always be run on personal taste alone.

We sell vinyl records online, primarily into the Australian market, with a strong identity built around hard rock and heavy metal. Every one of those choices gives us a clearer identity, but it also defines the boundaries of the audience we're trying to reach.

Vinyl is a specialised format. Online retail has its own challenges. Our geographical market has its limits. And heavy metal, as passionate and devoted as its fans are, is not every music buyer's first stop.

I'm not suggesting we suddenly start stocking every album ever released or turn Crimson Vinyl into a musical department store.

I'm suggesting that perhaps we should look at opportunities just beyond our existing territory.

Could a carefully chosen artist attract a new customer?

Could another rock subgenre bring more people to the website?

Could we test a small quantity of something before deciding whether it deserves a permanent place in the catalogue?

Could we broaden the audience without losing the identity that makes Crimson Vinyl special?

These are the sorts of questions I ask.

And sometimes the answer I receive is a noise that suggests someone has just stepped on Jamie's favourite record.

I have a strategy. He has feelings about the band.

This is where the difference between marketing and product management becomes particularly entertaining.

I can look at an artist and see a potential customer segment.

Jamie can look at the same artist and experience a profound personal objection.

I might be thinking about demand, search behaviour, product availability and whether a new category could complement our existing range.

He might be thinking, in no particular order, that the band is terrible, the music is unbearable, the album cover is offensive to his sensibilities and the entire proposal should be taken outside and dealt with accordingly.

We're looking at the same business decision through completely different lenses.

And the inconvenient truth is that both perspectives matter.

I can identify a market opportunity, but I still need enough product knowledge to make sensible buying decisions. Jamie can identify records that collectors will value, but his personal preferences cannot automatically tell us which adjacent markets are worth testing.

His job is not to buy records simply because I think they might sell.

My job is not to accept every buying decision simply because he loves the band.

Somewhere between his musical convictions and my commercial ambitions, we have to find a decision that makes sense for Crimson Vinyl.

Preferably without anyone making vomiting noises.

The business credit card incident that never happened

Every business partnership has its negotiating tactics.

Some people use spreadsheets. Others use presentations, financial forecasts or carefully constructed arguments.

I occasionally threaten to change the PIN on the business credit card.

Let me be clear: I have never done it, and I never would.

But in the heat of a particularly frustrating discussion, the threat has crossed my mind.

You have to understand the circumstances.

You've spent the day trying to explain why a broader product range might create new opportunities. You've considered the market, the customer, the costs and the commercial implications. You've tried to be reasonable. You've tried to be persuasive. You've tried to remember that your husband is a knowledgeable collector whose passion is part of what makes the business special.

And then, somehow, you're still arguing about whether a particular band should be allowed anywhere near the inventory.

At some point, a woman has to consider her options.

Changing the PIN is not one of them.

Mostly because it would solve absolutely nothing, would probably make the situation worse, and would be an appalling way to run a business.

Also, Jamie would probably just stand there shaking his head.

So the threat remains precisely what it has always been: a dramatic expression of frustration, not an actual business policy.

Although I reserve the right to mention it again.

The trouble with working with your husband

Here's the part that people don't always understand about running a business with your partner.

When you work with someone else, you can disagree, leave the office and go home.

You can have dinner, watch television, complain to your partner about the ridiculous day you've had, and eventually forget about the whole thing.

When your partner is also the person you've been arguing with all day, the logistics become considerably more complicated.

You cannot simply leave the office.

You are already home.

You cannot complain to your husband about the man who refused to listen to your marketing proposal.

He is the man who refused to listen to your marketing proposal.

And he may still be sitting right next to you.

You have to find a way to resolve the disagreement, or at least reach a compromise you can both live with. You have to remember that the person who drove you absolutely mad at three o'clock is the same person you love, respect and chose to build a life with.

And you have to go to bed without allowing a disagreement about business to become a disagreement about your marriage.

That last part matters.

Because the stock is important. The money is important. The future of the business is important.

But none of those things is more important than the relationship you're trying to protect while building a business together.

Sometimes we reach a solution quickly.

Sometimes one of us has to reconsider a position.

Sometimes we agree to try something, measure the results and let the customers have the final say.

And sometimes we simply need a little time to stop being annoyed with each other.

The trick is remembering that a disagreement about a business decision does not have to become a judgement about the person making it.

Even when that person has just made a noise like a cat coughing up a furball because you've mentioned Nickelback.

Why I wouldn't trade it for the world

For all the frustration, the negotiations, the occasional threats involving financial access and the entirely unnecessary theatrical performances, there is something wonderful about building a business together.

We are invested in the same thing. We care about its future. We bring different strengths to the table, and we see opportunities and risks from different perspectives.

Jamie brings the passion of a collector who genuinely understands the music and the people who love it.

I bring the commercial perspective: the branding, the marketing, the customer experience and the question of how we turn that passion into a sustainable business.

He reminds me that a record shop needs authenticity and specialist knowledge.

I remind him that authenticity and specialist knowledge still need customers.

Neither of us has all the answers. And, if we're being honest, neither of us always enjoys hearing the other's opinion.

But the business is stronger when we use our differences rather than pretend they don't exist.

The challenge is learning when to stand your ground, when to compromise and when to admit that perhaps the other person has a point.

I'm still working on that last one.

So is Jamie.

And if you're wondering whether we've reached a final agreement on Nickelback, the answer is that we are still negotiating.

I suspect the business credit card PIN is safe for now.

The same cannot necessarily be said for my patience.

Your turn, fellow music lovers

Do you run a business with your partner? Do you have completely different ideas about how it should operate? Or are you simply living with someone whose musical taste you find deeply questionable?

We'd love to hear your stories.

Tell us about your own business negotiations, your musical disagreements or the moment you realised that loving someone and agreeing with them are two entirely different things.

And if you're a Nickelback fan, please be gentle with Jamie.

He's had a difficult day.