5 Mistakes that cost filmmakers TENS or HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars

Film Distribution is a weird and wonky system full of highly specific jargon and terms of art that are meant to be difficult to understand by its very nature.  I’ve already written several blogs on the basics of how these agreements are structured in a way that a person who is not a lawyer should be able to understand. However, even if you gain an understanding of this wonky system, there are a lot of things that can really hurt your film’s bottom line.  Some of these things could even erase any profits you might have otherwise seen.  Here are 5 mistakes I’ve personally seen filmmakers make that have cost them a minimum of 5 figures per filmmaker.  

Not Fully Appreciating Exclusivity

Managing the rights of an independent film isn’t easy.  There’s a lot more to it than uploading to Amazon and expecting a few million hits.  In fact, making your film available on any wide-scale platform is going to make it nearly impossible for a sales agent to sell whatever territory the film has already been exploited in.  Even if you take the film down, you’ve blown exclusive deals, and those are the only deals that pay anything notable upfront.  One of the first things a territorial distributor does is to google the film from their home country to see where it’s currently available.  If they see it’s available in their territory, they decline.

I’ve lost multiple territorial sales for multiple filmmakers due to someone prematurely exploiting a film in a certain territory without letting the sales agent know about it.  Don’t be one of those filmmakers.

To be clear, films are not evergreen and there will come a time when the smart play is legal wide aggregation in order to cut losses from piracy and build your notoriety in those territories in order to better sell future work.  That time starts at the earliest 2 years from the market premiere of the completed film.  If you do it too much faster, you could be leaving significant amounts of money on the table.  

Sending Screeners too early

Most of the time a distributor, sales agent, or even producer’s rep will only watch a film once.  Additionally, they’ll only watch the first 5 minutes of it and if they’re not hooked, they won’t keep watching.  I’ve seen many distributors walk out of buyer screenings around that mark.  There’s very little you can do to prevent this from happening entirely.  Even though a strong hook in the first 5 minutes will help lessen this happening, buyers are busy people with too many films to watch so you won’t be able to fully prevent it due to shifting market demands and mandates. 

What you can control is how early you send out your film.

In general, it’s unwise to submit anything aside from the final, finished cut of your feature film.  Distributors and sales agents get a lot of submissions, and often won’t watch with the eye of what the film could be, only what it is now.  While they may give you some leniency because they know it’s not finished there’s more than likely going to be some degree of subconscious response reminding them that they weren’t big on the film when they watched it.  That will manifest in several ways, nearly all are bad for the filmmaker. 

Dropping promotional assets too early.

It’s totally natural to be excited when you get your new promotional assets like your trailer, your poster, box art, or anything of the sort.  When excited, I’ve seen many filmmakers run straight to social media to show off to their friends.  This is unwise.  

Distributors use poster drops and trailer drops to get press coverage in the trades to grow awareness of the film on a global level.  If you just put it up on Facebook, we can’t get the same drop in the press.  Your friends will be more impressed if you drop an exclusive from BloodyDisgusting, Collider, or /film to show off your poster, trailer, or exclusive sneak peek.  In general, it’s always wise to ask your distributor if you can show off their work to your social media contacts, if they say they’re looking to get an exclusive, hold off and check back in a week or so for a status update.

Making the wrong Genre

I know, I know this one has been beaten into the heads of most independent filmmakers.  There’s a reason for that though.  The sad fact of the matter is that not very many people watch dramas without names or high-level accolades.   A bad horror movie is an easier sell than a great drama.  If you make a drama, without recognizable names you’re only likely to make money in your home country, and at least in the US, you’re likely to make significantly less than you would have made if you made something like a thriller.

One suggestion I often give on this front to filmmakers who are still in the script stage is to consider telling the same story in a different way while emphasizing suspense over emotion in order to make the film into a thriller instead of a drama.  You’re going to make a lot bigger splash with a thriller than a drama, and if all other things are equal in terms of cast and production quality, you’ve got a much better chance at recouping your investment.  

Pulling their film without a plan.

Sometimes you have to take your film back from a distributor.  There are a lot of sharks out there and there’s a good chance you’ll need to exit a distribution agreement at some point in your filmmaking career.  Generally, when it’s time do to this you will have a very good reason to do so.  That being said Just because you’ve taken your independent film down make it as though it was never there.  If the film is taken down, platforms often won’t put it back up through a different distributor, meaning you’ll be in a rough spot to get it back up.  

This is not universal, but it is common that once a film is taken down its exceedingly difficult to get back up.  To be clear, if your distributor or sales agent is in breach of contract you may not have a better option than to take your film down.  You just need to be aware that you might have some trouble putting it back up, and you won’t make any money from the film in the interim.  

As I said at the top, this all gets wonky really quickly.  It’s more than most filmmakers can really take in over just a few times sitting down at their computer.  That’s why Guerrilla Rep Media offers FREE monthly content digests delivered straight to you as part of our Indiefilm Business Resource pack.  It’s easy to sign up and once you do you’ll receive a monthly email full of useful educational content completely for free.  Additionally, you’ll get lots of other goodies like a free e-book, free white paper, investment deck template, festival brochure template, and more.  Sign up below.  

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The Most Important Parts of your Indiefilm Marketing Mix RIGHT NOW.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about how we used to market movies, vs what works in marketing them now.  So to expand on that, here are the most important things in marketing your movie in today’s day and age.

Consumer Reviews

It’s been decried as outlandish and treasonous by many studio heads, but among the most important things that filmmakers need to do to make money making movies in today’s market is to focus on getting good customer reviews.  The same is true across any consumer product in any industry these days. 

People tend to look closely at what other people who bought the product think of it.  As such, negative reviews have a hugely negative effect on your bottom line.  The fact that the reviews are often tied into various algorithms or listed across multiple platforms generally makes it the most important single factor in how your film will sell. 

Genre

Genre is still as important as it ever was.  It’s a classification of both what you like, and what you’re presently in the mood for.  When I watch a movie with my wife, one of the first things I ask is what sort of movie we want to watch, and then we list through a few genres.  Not sure of what genre or sub-genre is? Check the links below.

Related: How distributors think of Genre

Related: How distributors think of Sub-Genre​

Professional Reviews

The term professional review has become more varied than it used to be. I don’t just mean someone reviewing your film for the LA Times or the NY Times, in this instance, I could also mean The Nostalgia Critic, Lindsay Ellis, MovieBob or any one of dozens of prominent YouTubers. (I understand that a lot of these are more in-depth film criticism than standard reviews, but I would lump them in there.) Sites like Bloody Disgusting would also fall into this category.

Traditional Press

Traditional press other than reviews is more important on an industry level and as such is much more important for traditional distribution. This would be things like acquisitions announcements trade magazines, or something of the sort.

The other way the traditional press can be useful is if you can get some kind of coverage on YOU or your company in a paper for where you grew up, or something of that sort.  Like most things in the entertainment industry, this is largely relationship based.  

Related: 6 rules for contacting press

​Poster

The poster for the film will always be important, but given that all of the pieces I’ve listed above tend to either greatly influence search results or Search Engine Optimization for your film, the poster has ended up down there. As I’ve discussed in other blogs, the post needs to be both authentic and eye-catching enough to drive the potential viewer to click through to the next stage and find out more information.

Related: The MOST important thing in Marketing your Movie RIGHT NOW.

Trailer

On an independent level, unless you can get some press with it, the trailer is most likely going to help convince people to watch the film more than help them discover it. That being said, next to the reviews, this may have the biggest impact in convincing them to watch it.

Synopsis

Finally, people want to know what the movie is about. It needs to be short, punchy, and focus more on SELLING your story than telling it. 

Thanks for reading! If you liked this blog, you’ll probably like the stuff you get on my mailing list.  For signing up you get a film marketing & distribution resource packet, as well as monthly digests of blogs just like this one.  Or, if you’re researching whether or not you want to self-distribute your independent film, you might want to submit it.  I have hybrid models for distribution that help filmmakers build their brands, and get the right amount of visibility for their films so they can rise above the white noise of content being created.

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Why Film Distributors & Sales Agents Need to know about your Social Media.

I try to stay active in at least a few Facebook and LinkedIn groups, and one question that comes up more often than I thought it would is why distributors need to know your social media numbers.  The argument that generally follows is something like “Just because people follow us doesn’t mean they’re going to buy our movie.” For the most part, we get that you probably have a lot of filmmaker friends, and your filmmaker friends are often surprisingly difficult to get to buy your movie.  That’s not the only, (or even the primary) reason why we need to know about your social media.  Here are 6 reasons why

1. Film Marketing works better if we’re amplifying your voice rather than creating it. ​

Your distributor is likely to be releasing multiple films around the same time as yours.  That’s just the nature of the business.  We generally need to have at least 5-7 films that we’re promoting or getting ready to release at any one time in order to continue to pay our overheads.  As such, if you can amplify the successes we have for your film, it’s likely that they’ll have a much greater effect than if we just sent out the announcements on our own.

You sharing big announcements and successes of your film with your community will not only have some level of an impact on sales, it will also help build awareness of the film which will help the broader marketing done by your distributor be effective at helping your film capture enough attention to break out of the white noise caused by the sheer amount of content being created. ​

2. We need to see you have the ability to build community.

Being a successful filmmaker requires a lot of the same skills required to build community.   (Check the Community Tag below for more on why.) Your social media is generally the easiest way to understand that.  Again, this is not JUST about sales.  It’s also about how personal you are and likely feeds into how easy you are to work with.

3. We need to see you understand and engage with your target market.

The most important thing in selling your film in the current market is authenticity.  If you try to write about a niche you’re not a part of, it probably won’t be very well received by said niche.  We look at your social media to make sure that you do have ties to those communities, as it means that your work is more likely to be authentic.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or sometimes the inclination to be a part of all the niches and subgroups we’d like to truly understand.  As such, it’s not always possible for us to accurately assess the authenticity of any film targeting a niche or sub-group that we don’t take part in.  Seeing that you take part in those groups can be a good indicator for us. 

4. If you’re a filmmaker, you’re a public figure.  We need to see how well you manage that.

If we end up with a breakout success on our hands, your social media will get some additional scrutiny.  We want to see if there are some bombshells that could cause problems for us later on.  Most of us don’t go back too far, but we do take a look to assess whether or not it’s likely that something bad might come out.

5. We want to understand your brand to see how it will be to work with you

As I said before, filmmakers need a brand. For most people, the way they manage that brand is through social media.  We want to see what you do with it.

Further, we want to see if you tend to do nothing but troll, shitpost, or rant about politics all day.  We also want to see if there’s a major sign of mental instability in your posts.  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that on its own, but we will be working with you in some capacity for a few years, and we need to ensure that the working relationship will be healthy and productive.

6. We’ll help you find new customers, but it’s more effective if there’s a base to start from.

Finally, as I alluded to at the top our voice and marketing is best used to act as a megaphone to hone to get your message out there. If you already have an engaged base, our job will be much easier. It really is as simple as that.

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The 5 Rules to Running a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

Since my exit from Mutiny Pictures Most of my work, these days is as an executive producer, consultant, distribution representative, and marketer. However, there was a time when I was a filmmaker and a regular (as opposed to executive) producer.  During that time, I raised a total of 33,000 on Kickstarter for two projects.   This blog gives you some of what I learned from those two campaigns.

​While those two projects never went as far as they could have due to a parting of ways between myself and my former business partner, there’s still a lot of information I learned in running these campaigns in the early days of Kickstarter.  Here are 5 of them.

​#1. Prepare

You CANNOT be successful in crowdfunding without preparation, and that preparation starts early.  Generally, your soft preparation for a crowdfunding campaign will start at least 6 months before you launch your campaign.  This soft preparation will consist more of being an active member of your community.  About 3 months out you’ll need to get ready to shoot your video, and about 2 months later you’ll need to get ready for pre-launch. 

I’ll be releasing a preparation timeline in a few weeks, so check back soon!

#2. Grow Your Network

About 80% of your donations will come from people you already know and interact with regularly.  This is why you need to become active in communities that will be interested in your film.  This can be alumni organizations, groups of people enthusiastic about the kind of film you’re making, and any other group of people that are tangentially connected to the film you’re planning on making.
​

#3. ​It’s a Full Time Job, Plan Accordingly

No matter how much preparation you do, when the campaign starts it will be at least one person’s full-time job.  You’ll need to personally thank everyone who donates, and you’ll need to spend a lot of time emailing basically everyone you know individually.  If you’re smart, you’ll do it twice.  Bulk emails aren’t going to do you anywhere near as much good as individual emails, and individual emails take a lot of time. 
​

#4. Try to Get as Much Press as Possible

The best way to add legitimacy to your campaign is to get mentioned in the press.  In order to get that press you’ll need to reach out to any editors and reporters you can that might cover you.  Note that I say editors and reporters THAT MIGHT COVER YOU.  If you know a reporter at Variety, you probably don’t want to email them about your campaign since they’re not going to cover it.  If you grew up in a small town with a local paper, you definitely do.  You’d be surprised what they’ll cover. 

This is something you can work with your prospective crew about as well.  Maybe you’re not from a small town, but your DP or production designer might be.  This can be a very mutually beneficial arrangement, it puts your crew in the spotlight and raises the profile of the film. 

It would be wise to send out a press release via one of the many press release sites.  This will help you generate at least a few articles on affiliates for NBC, FOX, and others that you can use to grow the profile and perceived legitimacy of your campaign.  It also has some SEO benefits, but I’m not sure that would help too much on crowdfunding. ​

#5. DON’T SPAM

Don’t post your campaign incessantly on all of your social media,  Make sure you continue to provide value outside of asking for money while you’re in your campaign.

If you use Messenger to send your campaign to someone, open up a conversation first.  Don’t just copy-paste a form email with no conversation back from them.   

Say hello to someone first.  Ask how they’re doing.  Then send them info about your campaign when they ask what you’re up to. Taking the time to show you care about what’s going on in their life will greatly increase both your conversion rate and the amount each member of your network contributes.

Thanks for reading!  If you like this, you should go ahead and grab my FREE Film Market Resource Pack. It’s got a free e-book of articles like this one to help you grow your filmmaking career, free templates to streamline investor and distributor conversations, and even a monthly content digest that helps you continue to grow your knowledge base on a schedule that’’s manageable to almost anyone. Get it for FREE Below.

5 DO's and DON'Ts for Selling Your Film on Social Media

I sell a lot of stuff on social media.  In fact, that’s probably how you’re reading this blog right now.  Since I’m very active, I also get a lot of people trying to sell stuff to me on social media.  This blog is an amalgamation of some of what I’ve found works on social media, and some of the stuff I’ve found does more to harm your brand than build it.

Before you ask, yes I’ve been on both sides of pieces of this article at various times.

DO: Provide Value

Far and away the most important rule of building a brand on social media is to ALWAYS provide Value.  Even when you’re trying to sell something, you should be providing value.  It will take several impressions with a potential customer for them to engage with your content or buy your service, and in that time you’ll need to provide that potential customer quite a lot of value. 

DON'T: Post Nothing But Sales Links

Even if your service provides value to members of a group or your carefully cultivated following.  If all you do is post things like “BUY MAH MOOOVIE!” then you’re failing to provide value, and you’re not going to move too many copies. To be honest, it’s also important to avoid posting too many links to groups in general. I’ve definitely been on the wrong end of that in the past with my 100+ blogs.

DO: Focus on Building Relationships

Building a relationship with your potential customers is the only way to turn them from potential customers to single-time customers, to regular, recurring business.  Essentially, these relationships rely on trust.  In order to build that trust, try posting relevant articles from your blog, behind-the-scenes footage, a piece of press you got mentioned in, or whatever else that gives you a touchpoint with your fanbase without asking them to spend money. 

DON'T: Treat All Your "Friends" Solely as Potential Customers.

If you’re like most people, you have everyone from high school classmates to people you know from the bar to great aunt Gertrude on your Facebook.  Be cognisant of the fact that most of those people may or may not want to actually buy your movie.  Don’t forget to post the standard facebook posts alongside talking about your project.​

DO: Start a Conversation

If you want to share something you’re working on or the movie you just made with someone via a messaging system, start by saying hello.  If you open up a conversation and show genuine interest in what they’re working on, it will be far more likely that they’ll be genuinely interested in what you want to sell them. ​

DON'T: Send a Form Message with a Link to All Your "Friends"

When I say Start with Hello, I don’t mean a message like this.

“Hello! How are you? I hope you’re well. It’s been a while since we talked, but I just wanted to let you know about this movie I just finished called I’ma Spam You! If you could check it out via this link below, I’d be super greatful”

https://imgflip.com/i/23nduh

Doing that is more likely to lose you connections than convince people to buy your content.

DO: Know Who You're Talking To

Are you reaching out to someone you went to High School with?  Maybe you haven’t spoken in years.  If that’s the case, you’ll definitely want to try to catch up before you ask them for money.  If you have powerful people on your social media, you should be careful how you approach them.  I’ve had people try to sell me their unproduced scripts on Amazon, then go off on a fiery tirade when I didn’t want to buy it.  They are now blocked, although a mutual friend said they were still looking for some of the services I offer.  Don’t do that to yourself.

DON'T: Try to Sell Your Movie to Someone Who Has No Reason to be Interested.

Someone you know who is incredibly christian, probably isn’t going to buy your body horror feature film.  Similarly, the goths on your friend list probably aren’t going to buy your faith based film.  Know who you’re trying to sell your movie to, and take note.

DO: Post Relevant Content to Relevant Groups

Maybe you’re putting some content into a filmmaking group.  If you are, you should make sure that whatever content you’re posting provides value.  The long and short of it is: Don’t post irrelevant content and expect people to engage with it in a positive manner.

DON'T: Be an Asshole

This point originally read Don’t be Spammy, but in a way the two are synonymous. They also both very eloquently summarize this entire article. If you’re not sure whether or not you’re being an asshole, then ask yourself the following question. “Am I being an asshole?” if the answer is anything other than “No” you probably are being at least a bit of one.

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5 Ways to Market Your Movie Besides Social movie

There’s a lot of advice on the internet, as well as on this blog about marketing your film using social media.  That’s with good reason, Social media is among the most cost-effective ways to market your project if you do it properly.  Further, it helps you maintain a long-term relationship with potential customers.  That being said, it’s not the only way to market your film.  It might not even be the most efficient way when it’s the only thing you do.  What follows are 5 ways to market your film other than social media.

For this blog, all 5 of these tactics can and should be used in conjunction with each other, and can greatly augment your social media marketing.

Before we begin, every once in a while I’ll take a question I get on Twitter and turn it into a blog.  This question came @AmandaVerhagen a while back, but I’ve not had time to adequately address it until now.  If you have a question about film distribution, marketing, financing, or sales, feel free to @Mention @TheGuerrillaRep and I might just write a blog to answer your question.  

Events

Hosting an event to spread the word about your project can be a great way to build excitement and generate interest in your project.  This can be something as simple as a happy hour at a local bar where you buy a few drinks for strong supporters, or as complex as renting an event space, supplying the booze, and having some people say a few words.  Ideally with entertainment.

What you do really comes down to how much time you have to organize and what your budget it.  The importance of the milestone you’re celebrating also plays a factor, although any milestone worthy of an event is also likely worthy of some time to organize it

Festivals

Shocking, I know.  However what does bear mentioning is that festivals are only as useful as you make them.  Getting into festivals can be a great way to expand your network and grow the reputation of the film, however the effect that will have will be limited unless you learn how to work the festival. 

Essentially, getting into a festival provides you a space where you can utilize every other item on this list to grow your notoriety, your film’s reputation, and your professional network. 

​Flyers/Givaways

​Having something tangible you can give away to people at events in festivals will help people remember you.  They’ll remember you even more if you attach something to the card that has some immediate value beyond the information you’re handing out.  This can be as simple as a tiny piece of chocolate attached to a card, a bottle of hand sanitizer, or even a small bottle of alcohol( if the demographic is right.)

Adding a giveaway will help you stand out in the minds of whoever you give your giveaway to .It’s easy to get lost in a pouch of postcards and flyers, but something as simple and cheap as a piece of chocolate can make all of the difference in how you’re remembered by the event goer. 

​Stunts

Pulling some sort of marketing stunt can be a great way to stand out and attract a bit of press.  Whatever you do, you’ve got to make sure you do it safely though. 

One of the most famous stunts at Cannes was when someone lit themselves on fire (in a fire suit) and then after they were put out, it was revealed to be an attractive your woman in a bikini who starred in the film she was promoting.  Rumor has it the woman later lost that bikini while being interviewed, but that’s another matter.  Also, that happened in the late 80’s/early 90’s, so the culture was different.

Your stunt doesn’t have to be as outlandish as that, but should be as memorable.  If you have a  war movie, you might want to consider throwing toy paratroopers from a rooftop you can gain access to.  If you’re promoting at Sundance, a woman in a bikini making a quick walk through the cold with premier tickets would certainly grab some eyeballs and some attention.  Especially if you can work in a joke about accidentally packing for Cannes. That said, make sure you have a trenchcoat and hot drinks on hand to help her out when she inevitably gets cold.

In any case, the goal of the stunt is to get eyeballs in a safe and legal way.  It’s to help you and your movie be memorable and to ideally attract a bit of the final item on our list. 

​Publicity

​Publicity is almost always the most cost-effective way to spread the word about your project.  However, it’s not always the easiest thing to get.  Generally, you’ll need a relationship with an outlet, something truly eye-catching, or a good publicist to get any substantial amount of coverage.  Sometimes you’ll need all three. 

There are a couple of ways you can disseminate a press release.  PRNewswire.com is relatively affordable, but it’s unclear how much individual press coverage you’ll get out of it.  It does still help with your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to at least a degree though.  

Generally, if you can afford a publicist, it’s the best way to go by far.  My favorite publicist is October Coast, they’re very cost-effective for the value they provide. While it’s possible to get big marquee press coverage from October Coast it’s unlikely. This means you probably won’t get you the big outlets like Deadline, Variety, or THR, but you will get dozens of relevant niche blogs. In general, you’ll need a higher-cost publicist, or if you’re lucky your distributor, sales agent, or producer’s rep will handle this for you.

EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: There may be a few more things I’ve learned from Running Mutiny that I’ll share in a new blog around the efficacy of paid ads and sponsorships. Comment if that’s of interest.

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7 Ways to become a leader in your Filmmaking (or Any) community

In any community, there are members who get more done than others. Some people rise to the top of the pile, while others tread water and don’t move their projects forward. Some people are only tolerated in their community, while others become leaders. It’s not random, the people who become community leaders do certain things to set themselves apart from the pack.

Successful entrepreneurs and filmmakers have a way of becoming leaders in their communities. The qualities required for both are remarkably similar. What are those qualities you ask? Fear, not my intrepid reader, what follows is a list of the 7 ways to become a leader in your filmmaking (or any) community.

1. Show up.

The old adage of half the battle is showing up is very true. If you always show up, then the community will begin to know you. After a while, you’ll become a face. You’ll get to know the other members of the community. If you’re always there then the organizers will eventually trust you with more responsibility. As you become more ingrained in the community, you will naturally figure out how the community functions. Once you know how the community functions, you can begin to become a leader within it.

2. Learn People’s Names

I’ll admit that I’m kind of bad at this one, but it really does make a difference. When you can greet a person by their name, then you’re going to forge a much better connection and business relationship with them. It can be hard to remember everyone’s names when you meet a lot of people at a networking event, but it really is worth the time and mental energy.

3. Actively participate

If you want to become a leader, you need to be noticed. It’s been said that only about 1 in 10 members of a community actively create content for it. If you sit in a corner and mess around on your phone, no one is going to notice you. If you ask intelligent questions, you become a part of the conversation. Take the time to actively participate, and you’ll be amazed at what it will do for your career.

4. Connect Both Online and Offline

If you only see members of your community once a month at whatever event you all frequent, your ties to them won’t be that strong. Assuming we’re talking about a professional community, connecting on LinkedIn will be the best place to do this. Google Plus and Twitter can also be good. Once you’ve known someone for a while, Facebook might not be a bad idea but you might want to add them to different lists in order to keep your personal and professional lives separate.

5. Don’t make it all about you.

The essence of community is being a part of something larger than yourself. Unfortunately, many people only take part in communities because they feel like they can get something out of it for their own personal projects. If you focus not only on your needs, but the needs of others, then you’re going to be able to get a lot farther in your community. Successful people never forget the ones who helped them get there. Not everyone you help will be successful, but if you help enough people then some of them will.

6. Help others before you ask for help.

If you have the resources and ability to help someone, you should. Time is one of those resources, so I’m not saying let your own projects or health fall by the wayside. However, helping people is key to building social capital.

7. Celebrate the successes of your community

If something good happens to someone in your community, celebrate it. Be happy for your community members who find success. Being envious of people for their achievements will prevent you from furthering your own goals. Negativity only creates more negativity. Luckily, the same can be said for positivity. If something big happens within the community, then share it. Revel in it. Take pride that you’re part of a community that is making things happen.

People remember how others respond to their success. Having found some level of success myself, I can tell you far too many respond with envy. They respond by tearing you down because they feel threatened by your success. Those people are toxic, and you need to associate yourself with people who will celebrate your successes. The only way to surround yourself with those types of people is to be one yourself.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Thanks for reading! This blog is one of 21 articles included in The Entrepreneurial Producer. As part of the celebration of the relaunch of my website, I’m giving that Ebook away FOR FREE as part of my film business resource package. In addition to that FREE e-book, you’ll also get some other templates, form letters, as well as money and time-saving resources. You’ll even get monthly digests covering industry topics you’ll need to know to be a successful producer.

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