Category Archives: Entrepreneurs

The Golden Rule of Marketing

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I receive several newsletters from entrepreneurs and/or artists in LA. They come in several different forms, and some are better than others. I may not read them all, but I tend to open them all because they are my colleagues. But what actually entices me to read them? Content.

The Internet, at the beginning of this 21st century, is essentially the “Wild West” with no law enforcement and it’s free to anyone willing to travel it! How awesome is that? This has, however, created a sea of “experts” in social media, but who has the best advice? The one that applies to you. But how can you be effective unless you know who/what you ARE!

"Who . . . are . . . YOU?

“Who . . . are . . . YOU?

Better than giving you a list of “10 Dos and Don’ts” (the most common device used in e-marketing), I’m going to cut to the Golden Rule of Self-Marketing: Share who you ARE.  This is too often confused with sharing what you do. While I don’t pay much attention to where my musician friends are gigging this month, I do care how much they love what they’re doing, and this sets the tone of their entire newsletter. I don’t practice yoga, but I read my friend’s yoga news, because she shares her world travels and spiritual experiences.

So if you’re sending out newsletters as a form of self-marketing, always ask, “What can I share about myself, and how does this help others?” I think actors make the most mistakes, when they just send a list of recent bookings. Ask yourself, how does this help others? Instead, share an on-set story, or something you learned along the way.  It doesn’t matter what you do, it matters who you are.

I Have Too Much Money

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Yep, that’s my problem – I have more money than I can handle.losing-money And as long as I continue to believe that, it will forever slip through my fingers.

Over the last 5 months, I’ve taken money education classes through the Actors Fund in Los Angeles. The first seven weeks we examined our earliest money memories, our family history, our assumptions about money, and more. This was not easy, but with carefully guided homework and weekly discussions led by a professional social worker, we saw things more clearly. We discovered that while we (all artists) claimed to be broke or bad with money, none of us had the same amount of it. None of us had the same parenting around it, and none of us had the same “script”.

For years, I thought my script was one of 'Rent an auditorium and charge $39.95 a seat. Thank you for coming.'“scarcity issues”. Turns out, that’s just a catchphrase used to sell wealth seminars. When I discovered what my true script was, the clouds parted, and I was ready to take on the next phase of unearthing my real numbers. Discovering exactly what I earned and spent each month – down to the penny – was both terrifying and liberating. Louise Hay says, “In order to clean your house you have to see the dirt.”

Money is just one facet of our lives that needs identification. It also applies to our talents – if we don’t know what are talents are, we will never use them wisely. When I work with entrepreneurs and artists (one in the same, really) I say,  It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you. And we must begin with ourselves. What do I want? What kind of person do I want to be known as? What brings me joy? When we recognize who we really are, it frees us to fully express it. We no longer give away or talents, but instead we use them wisely, and life no longer slips through our fingers.

 

LAW #1 Infinite Creativity

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Get Out of Your Head

Get Out of Your Head

Get out of your head and you will have access to infinite possibilities. How many times have we been told, “Get out of your head”? The problem is, the harder we try, the more we’re sure to stay in it. When our minds are occupied by thoughts of trying  to think ahead or trying to find the joke/game or what furthers the plot, we are no longer open to every possibility. So what to do? Get out of your head and get into  . . . the now.  You might ask: But if I get out of my amazing memory of impressive facts, how can I wow the audience with quick wit and pop culture trivia? Or, how can I make the scenes relevant without implementing current events and philosophical references? Personally, I hate when a stage gets littered with “clever clutter”. It’s a guaranteed sign that the actors don’t trust the scene. The 13th century poet and mystic, Rumi, said, “Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” Observe the artist who successfully suspends their rational, linear mind andmoves ‘into the zone’. It’s when your thinking mind lures you out of the zone – out of the “now” –that you resort to the clutter. Be present. Look at your partner. Look at them entirely. Really look at them. (Or really feel them.) When you get into the present, your mind stops, and everything that is important rises to the surface. Compare the hyperactive dispensing of cleverisms to a string quartet where the musicians are banging on their instruments. If the “chatter” is noisy, then no one will notice the subtle pluck of the perfectly tuned viola. That subtle pluck could be what takes you to the next level of relationship and scenic progression. That subtle pluck was probably the heart of the scene. If you’d rather make a joke, then that subtle pluck will never be heard.