Folks tell me, “Everyone wants the lowest price.” I tell them, “How much is a haircut?”
Selling things for a price below value is how selling things works.
I want to get a deal. I want others to get a deal. If you don’t, you’re a thief.
Getting a deal at a world renowned haircut shop in NYC that guarantees you look good is a different price than getting a deal at a rusty scissors shack in a village in Bali.
Having a strong brand saves us time, money, and headaches. A common thinking among independent entertainment people is that a brand is a device for commercializing or deceiving fans / consumers.
No matter how important our work is, it’s not as important to others as it is to us. We can’t expect others to spend enough time understanding our work so that they appreciate it in the same way we do. They will not get the whole picture. Most will not get even a big picture. So, if most people only get a small picture of what we do, it’s our job to communicate that small picture with the most honesty and clarity.
This honest small picture is the brand.
We are window dressers for someone peeking through a keyhole.
When an isolated ADHD teenager takes a glimpse at the cover of my book and sees that the book is made for isolated ADHD teenagers, that’s more important than the other aspects of the book that are also important. That teenager doesn’t need to know that the book is set in Idaho, or that the main character’s parents are divorced, or that the writing is in iambic pentameter as much as they need to know that this book is written for them.
It’s great that a brand draws in the right customers.
Then, the book content sticks to the brand. The story is an empowering or heart-tugging story for ADHD isolated teenagers.
The content on-brand serves the customer.
Then, the message that that teenager takes with them is a clear message about what the book is and who it’s for. It’s either for other people like them, or it’s for readers who want to understand people like them. Again, we’re empowering our audience by giving them clear tools to share and connect with others.
So, our branding is a service to our audience all the way down the line and our branding (if strong) is integrated into every part of our creation.
I love bending genres and creating things nobody knows how to characterize. I marketed myself for a long time as “Pancake Juggler” which is interesting, but not remarkable. It’s hard to remark on it. The descriptions of people who saw my shows got even more muddied.
Because of this weak brand, I was constantly questioning…
And I had difficulty getting booked unless someone had seen my show. Even word of mouth didn’t work very well because it was way easier to say “Book this magician” than “Book this guy who is a juggler, but not like only that, he does… he has a pancake that he cooks… on stage… there’s a backpack for America… he has a really fast wit… it’s like a comedy show, but better…”
My point is, I know it’s a challenge to minimize our genius creative works into a simple little package. It’s hard to put a damper on the ever-expanding wonder of making.
This is our responsibility and also our relief.
Imagine the book cover for the isolated ADHD kid book again. I don’t know what you’re imaging, but I know what you’re not imagining.
While we HAVE to say ‘no’ to some brilliant things when we’re making a solid brand, the brand also makes it easy to say ‘no’ to a million things before we even consider them. These easy ‘no’s streamline everything. Suddenly, we’re not considering every composer to help us with our music, we’re not considering every shirt to wear to a photoshoot, we’re not worried that our video game can scare someone who’s not even supposed to be playing it.
There is power in the ‘no.’ As I wrote about yesterday, the limitation is our fuel. Most badass entertainment creators already think in ‘no’s. We think of all the things that need to be done that aren’t being done. We think of all the mistakes of our ancestors that we don’t want to make.
‘No’ is a great starting place, and when we stand up and say ‘no’ on behalf of our audience, we are giving them a tremendous gift.
About twenty years ago, I was a clown in a show run by a large corporation. I was fun, I was wild. I would get big responses from the crowds. I interacted so much and came up with fun games to play that got people laughing …at least this is how I remember it .
The corporate people saw what I was doing one day and thought one of my bits was a little bit to edgy for their show. I got a note from the director (who was very generous, patient, and a fan of me). Yeah, I guess I could not do that thing.
Next day, three shows. New note at each show. Each show, a new thing I couldn’t do. The director told me, they’re watching me. It’s going to be an overreaction because they’re very sensitive to every little thing I do. He was wise. It was right. Also, those people giving notes were not entertainment people. They were like HR people from the company. It was more dangerous for them to not say anything than for them to make the show worse.
Next day, two more things I couldn’t do.
The director told me to just do the same things the other clowns did. I took this direction. The notes continued. I eventually wasn’t allowed to do the things the other clowns did either. I wasn’t allowed to touch anyone or come within 5′ of a child (it was a family show). …at least this is how I remember it. Seems impossible in reflection.
The director told me that limitation can be the fuel for creativity. I wish I would have sat down and really talked to him about this because I didn’t understand it. Now, I understand it. Now, I know that he was right, but also wrong. Limitation is the fuel for all creativity.
To me, at the time, creativity was about endless expansion. It was about freedom and breaking down all barriers. No rules. No laws. No reality could hold creativity back.
I didn’t understand that the greatest things I had ever created or would create were only appreciated by anyone because of the walls that surround them. The stronger the walls, the more creative the exploration.
This is not a story of me being a hero. I didn’t do well in this situation. I felt bullied. I felt like a martyr. I felt like my ability to do the job was completely neutered. I stopped trying. I was mischievous. I was unprofessional, and I was not awesome.
If I could go back and talk to myself, I would like to tell me about what the limits will do for me in the future. I would tell myself to look at the limit, then look at the big playground next to it. I would tell myself when people see what limits were facing me in my next inventions, they will be inspired by how I flourished.
This is a time for all of us where many limits are in our faces. The good news is they’re in everyone’s faces. Rarely do we have a chance to create with such a spotlight on our battle. Let’s create great things and give our audiences miracles.
Creators who can easily get in the zone of generosity, generation, and joy when creating say to me on the regular “I don’t like to sell my work, because it feels gross.” We think we need to switch roles for these vastly different tasks. When I coach them thru the process, this changes. It’s not a big secret, but it does take a few big cognitive adjustments.
( I’m talking about selling products, getting gigs, negotiating contracts, selling tickets / downloads, and more )
Making entertainment stuff without an audience is pointless. It’s not entertainment. Making something that people don’t value is pointless in this craft. Understanding what sells informs how we can make things that the world values.
Even if we give away our novels, people are still paying for them. Time is more valuable that money. We don’t get out of selling our stuff by giving it away or making it cheap.
Making something free or low priced lowers the value of the something. It often lowers the value more than it lowers the consumer’s barrier to entry.
Okay, then!
We can’t escape sales if we’re going to make something that’s great for people. The mental shift to make sales fun is straightforward. “I am going to price what I have below its value”
If we could sell awesome shoes to people that need them and have the money for 50¢ per pair it would be fun. We would want everyone to know that our shoe store exists. It’s a miracle and the more people know, the more lives we could change. We don’t need to trick anyone. We don’t even need to convince anyone. We only need to communicate to people…
“But I’m not selling 50¢ shoes, I’m selling $10,000 paintings…” Now, we find our real block. Our block is not sales. Our block is imposter syndrome. The way to remove this block is to understand our value. People pay $10,000 for paintings because they are REALLY GETTING SOMETHING WORTH MORE.
Part of our job is to honestly examine our value to our audience, then communicate it. When we can land in this premise; it is clearly generous, part of the creator’s flow, and it is enjoyable.
Michael Gutenplan turned a stageless year into hundreds of performance opportunities.
Marketing our entertainment is not about wandering or pulling. It’s about serving. We have the chance to serve with every single thing that we do. Here are two headlines. One serves. One sucks.
Tell me what’s up! I have other stuff to do. If my time isn’t respected in a headline, it’s probably not going to be respected with the other things the company does.
If a reader (viewer, listener, etc) isn’t served, they will quit taking in what we’re saying. We gotta give them something before they go – a gift that they can remember us by.
If we get afraid that we are not being compelling without a question, we can make a compelling statement. Make it compelling!
When we give audiences something, and make it interesting, they want to see what the next thing is because they assume we will give them something else. When the headline, or the lead-in is a question, there is no guarantee there’s an answer anywhere.
We are commitment chunking thru positive reinforcement. It’s the same when we’re creating entertainment for consumption.
We don’t hold back the treats behind questions. We don’t put up a sign that says “Treat around the corner”…. or worse “Is there a treat around the corner?”
So many companies have tried to duplicate the “Got Milk?” campaign. It doesn’t work.
My adblocker on Facebook is not working anymore, so I’m seeing a disturbing trend in bad FB ads from entertainment companies. They’re bad because.
Most of the ads I’m seeing are from small businesses.
When I talk to entertainment people about how they’re making ads, most are just shooting in the dark.
What I’m hypothesizing is that facebook is seeing big profits from small businesses who can put in $3000 a few times a year without any expectation of results.
The crazy thing is that FB ads can be great for a small budget project.
Unfortunately, the promise of FB ads is that it’s a few clicks and we have money. This is usually not the case. Studying how it works, trying a lot of things with small amounts of money, and really knowing our customers takes work. If we do it the easy way, we will probably be wasting cash.
If we don’t know who our customer is, or we can’t target them thru an ad, or we can’t track the response, our low-budget project will probably not benefit us.
Targeting and tracking are the two most potent parts of online ads.
Our success is not a few clicks away. It starts with knowing our potential customer. We gotta know what our brand is and what our USP is. Getting a lot of eyes on our stuff is not great. It spreads us thin. The ultimate is when we need 100 customers and those 100 customers see our ad(s) enough to trust us and buy.
Facebook ads can target weirdly specific people around the world. Use this super power or piss away money. Get very specific. Laser focus.
A single ad view does not sell a Ford truck. For any major purchase, major trust needs to be built. Most of us in entertainment are not trying to sell a new truck. We’re trying to sell an album ($9.99) or something, so we don’t need a lifetime of brand building to get there, but we still need to build some trust. If we’re advertising to someone who’s never heard of us, that means what I call “saturation” — repeated attention.
Our customers need to understand the value of what we’re offering (greater than the price) and they need to trust that we can deliver it. This value / trust relationship is what we’re doing with advertising and all other outreach.
Arm & Hammer baking soda made their ads all about the multiple uses. Every new use is more value. Sure, every baking soda can be used like this probably… but are you sure?
Because of great tracking in online ads, we can see how much money we spent per successful customer. This is called “cost of acquisition.” That means we can find a formula for how much to spend and what to expect. For our formula, we also need to know how much the customer will bring us over their lifetime (“lifetime value”) because they might buy from us more than once. The simple version of the formula is…
lifetime value – (cost of acquisition + product cost) = profit
When we just boost a post or throw up some short sighted ad, I’m assuming Facebook is gonna try its best to make the ad work, but it doesn’t have a fighting chance.
I would prefer if to spend advertising dollars buying dinners for friends. Those are people who already trust us and understand our value.
Bonnie Gordon keeps on creating from her passions. She keeps on making stuff and making it public. Because of this pursuit, the phone keeps ringing with more work.
Being slowed down gives us new opportunities. Watch how Bonnie appreciates this gift.
World Record balloon artist Dave Brenn found a pandemic response that let him connect more, create more, and appreciate more. He’s rocking this moment.
A stage performer with TV appearances who now has a bigger fanbase off stage. A lesson in giving people what they want and giving generously.
Chris Ruggiero is a dedicated entertainment thought leader. He has a popular podcast called “Between Dreams” which goes beyond entertainment to open people up to the possibilities of following passionate lifestyles. In depth interviews with people who followed their dreams. For episode #100, he invited me to host the podcast and interview him instead. I love hearing about how much he cares about making something for others. It’s a guidebook for people who are on the verge of leaping into the unknown.
Robert Strong has found a new way to reconfigure his value into something that clients want. By developing long relationships with his network and continuing to connect, he’s been able to find new offerings that make him money now and keep him busy with creativity.