There’s a version of the backside of the music industry people think they understand. It’s the one shaped by movies and TV, where managers are barking orders, marketing is just ads, and success looks like a single big moment. It’s clean, a little dramatic, and not especially accurate.

Talking to Sara Baczewski and Stephanie Marks, who respectively serve as a Manager and VP of Marketing for Range Music, what comes into focus is something much less obvious and a lot more interesting. It’s slower, more collaborative, and built on relationships that don’t always show up in headlines, even if it quietly shapes everything that does.

Baczewski has spent more than a decade working alongside Pentatonix, the Grammy winning acapella group that managed to take a relatively niche genre, and break it through into a pop culture movement. Marks, as VP of Marketing, operates across an entire roster, translating artist identity into campaigns that actually connect. Their roles are different, but the throughline is the same: nothing in an artist’s career happens in isolation.

For Baczewski, longevity starts with a simple reality. As I ask her what it’s like to manage a band for so long, particularly one that has shifted and evolved so much over the years, she reflects, “This industry grows and changes and has adopted so much since the 2010s to now. So I think as a manager, it’s your job to make sure your clients, no matter who they are, are alongside those changes.” That sounds obvious until you look at what that actually requires. It means rethinking teams, shifting platforms, and constantly recalibrating what “current” even looks like.

Pentatonix came up in what she describes as “the era of YouTube, and all of the different YouTubers were like the original influencers.” That world doesn’t exist in the same way anymore, and neither does the path to success that came with it. Staying relevant now means moving with the industry without losing the thing that made people care in the first place. “No matter what we’ll have, we’ll never put a record out without something acapella,” she says. “It’s always coming back to what [Pentatonix] can do in a room, and how you can make that still feel current and interesting in the industry as it’s adapting and changing.” Baczewski finds a sense of grounding in that concept. After all, evolution only works if you know what you’re evolving from.

Her approach also reframes what a manager actually does. The stereotype, Baczewski admits, is not flattering. “The connotation out in the world is largely negative,” she says. “They come in and they’re money hungry, or they’re more slimy, or they’re schmoozy.” But the reality is less about control and more about connection. “There’s an artist, and they have a whole team of people… and there’s a manager who talks to all of those people and is the person closest to the artist.” That proximity ultimately holds the crux of the job, but on the other side of the coin, the most reward. “It’s actually really really beautiful to be able to be the first person responsible for making your clients dreams come true.” It’s also a lot more operational than people assume. Managers aren’t just advising, they’re coordinating, translating, and, as she puts it, “running the business for the artist that’s in the forefront.”

Marks approaches the same ecosystem from a different angle, but lands in a similar place. Marketing, at least the version most people picture, is only a fraction of what she actually does. “All the digital ads that help drive sales at the end of the day is just top level of what we’re actually doing,” she says. The real work is figuring out how an artist exists in the world beyond their music.

When she approaches a marketing strategy, she starts with the seemingly obvious, if not sometimes overlooked aspect: the artist’s identity. “Their brand is something that you can’t replicate,” she says. “No other artist can replicate another artist brand.” From there, it becomes a question of direction. “You have a goal post, and you’re trying to figure out the strategy to get to that. Everything that takes you there are brand partnerships, tours, releases, all the things under the sun.”

The difference between a good campaign and a forgettable one often comes down to whether it makes sense for the artist. Marks points to partnerships she conducted, like country artist Russell Dickerson’s campaigns with Raising Cane’s and Real American Beer Co., as examples that worked because they were grounded in something real. “It’s about figuring out what’s the most important drivers to your artist,” she says. “What the fans are talking about together. That builds community, that builds authenticity.”

There’s a clarity in the way she talks about it. Mere visibility is not enough. She seeks movement or action.“How do we bring a passive fan to buy tickets, to buy your merch? Butts in seats. That is really who our core driver is.” It’s practical, but it doesn’t feel cynical. If anything, it feels like a recognition that connection has to come before conversion. That same logic shows up in how she defines a campaign’s success. “Success is measured in such a big variety,” she says. “People always say, ‘We have to move the needle.’ I’m like, but what’s that needle?” Without a clear answer, even the biggest moments can feel directionless. “You can have a hit record, and then that’s it, and there’s no real career there.” For Marks, the campaign is never really “over,” and it never hits a set end point. Rather, she maintains focus of the longevity of the artists career. 

Both she and Baczewski keep coming back to incremental progress. The smaller, less visible wins that build toward something larger. “What are those little metrics that we can hit that signal success?” Baczewski says. It’s less about one defining moment and more about a series of intentional steps. Those steps only work if everyone is aligned, which is where the collaboration between management and marketing becomes essential. At Range, that relationship is built into the structure. “We are partners,” Marks says. “We are doing this together because we can’t want it more than the artist that we’re working with.”

That partnership extends beyond internal teams. It shows up in how they interact with labels, streaming platforms, and even other artists. Baczewski describes bringing Pentatonix into rooms with streaming partners not just to promote a release, but to build relationships. “Anyone has access to the artist is doing the job the best they possibly can,” she says. “Everyone does their best work when they have a direct connection to the artist.”

Marks sees a similar shift happening across the industry. “It doesn’t feel like there’s as many gatekeepers,” she says. “It does really feel like we’re all driving the same thing. This was us, we did this together.” That sense of shared investment changes how campaigns are built and how careers are sustained.

It also opens the door for a different kind of growth. One that feels more connected, more collaborative, and, in Baczewski’s words, more human. “There’s more authenticity now than ever,” she says. “There’s an openness and a vulnerability that didn’t exist previously.” It’s visible in the way artists interact with fans, but also in how they work with each other.

Marks puts it more bluntly. “Influence influences influence,” she says. The co-signs, the collaborations, the willingness to reach out directly instead of going through layers of intermediaries. It’s less formal, but often more effective.

For an industry that’s constantly changing, that might be the most consistent takeaway. The platforms will shift. The metrics will evolve. The definition of success will keep moving. But the core of it, the relationships, the trust, the ability to build something over time, stays the same.

And if you’re paying attention, that’s where the real work has always been.