If you do nothing else on this tour…this lesson will be one of your most valuable. The QUANTITY vs QUALITY question crosses all businesses and industries. Trust me QUALITY has to come first. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and if you are too exhausted and amped up on energy drinks to give your BEST, you have missed an opportunity. Once it's gone.. it's gone.

Another lesson and probably the first lesson you better learn is FAMILY FIRST. Tours, phone calls, meetings, etc… will mean nothing, if you have no one to come home to or if you damage your home life by sending a continuous message that work comes first. Trust me, at the end of the day, nothing is more important than the hug from your spouce and kids so don't miss it while you are out there grinding away everyday.

I have to disagree with Colin here. I have been hiring outsourced workers for 5 or 6 years now. I have hired probably more than 30 now from at least 10 countries. The reason it is hard to hire good people is because most workers are looking for the easy way out. It doesn't matter if the are self-employed or not. Most people just don't want to work.

It really amazes me. Everybody wants the money of course. They will say anything to get hired, but so few deliver quality results. It is not a "corporate employee" versus "entrepreneur" problem. It is a "I'm too good for you mentality." Everyone thinks they are rock stars and are entitled to a rich and easy lifestyle.

The good news is that there are great opportunities for those of us willing to work hard and deliver great results. I suspect that Levi is already seeing the results of his work ethic. While his peers are out complaining that it is impossible to make a living in music, Levi is out there grinding away everyday.

Really interesting post. I'm not really sure if I can help you with your 3 questions, because I've never really dealt with any of these situations. I like a lot of the ideas that Colin brought up though. Just thought I'd say nice post and keep grinding man, you are the real deal.

To answer two of your three questions (sorry, I've never been to Virginia):

It's difficult to find good, reliable, knowledgeable people because they are either working for themselves or slowly having the goodness, reliability and knowledge beaten out of them by 'the real world.' It seems like most of the really talented, hire-able people I've known that have worked in a corporate atmosphere end up lacking the very abilities that made them hire-able in the first place after a few years. Sad, but true. And all the people who manage to hold on to those positive attributes seem to be working for themselves, so they are hard to lock down consistently to do work for someone else. That's my theory, at least (I've come across the same problem, which has left me, more often than not, in that uncomfortable 'Well I guess I'll have to do this myself, too!' situation more than I'd like to admit).

I'm still personally trying to find that happy medium between mico-management and irresponsibility…I just recently set up a niche affiliate marketing/ad revenue site that I'm hoping to automate. I found a fantastic author to write the initial chunk of content, and I've got a programmer friend of mine putting together some custom code that will stream new, target-specific content to the site as it becomes available. Will this be enough? Hard to say. I've already had to do more with the actual setting up of the blog than I planned for. Then again, it may just be that I'm meant to get my hands dirty when I start something and that completely trying to remove myself from the action is a fool's errand. Maybe you're in the same situation?

Either way, good luck and great post (especially for having written it on a phone)!

Good luck with your future touring!