One Producer in the City

Manager wanted

There comes a time in every entrepreneur's life when they realize that they need to bring on someone else to manage the work. 

After the insanity of last week, I have realized that the time is now. 

If you are interested in being a content manager for this blog, fill out this form. 

The new content manager will get the opportunity to see shows for free, write guest posts, curate all outside blog content, and work one on one with me to build the readership. If you are interested in customer service, this could be a really good fit. The position is volunteer, but there is the opportunity to move into a paid position as the blog monetizes

I will only take one person from this list, so apply today if you are interested. 

Excelsior! 

Solving for X is this weekend! Grab your tickets HERE

Lessons from my first year of business: The fire of your followers

When you start your own business there is a very basic principal that goes into effect immediately. You are selling a product or service and you need people to buy the product or service. If they do not buy the product or service, you quickly go out of business. 

If you are a large company with substantial funding behind you, then usually there is a team that is hired to help sell the product or service. A system is usually in place and people are trained with the sole purpose of selling the product or service and the business either thrives or dies based on that team. 

When it is just you and no funding, then you are the one who sells the product or service at the same time that you are doing the admin work for the company, developing partnerships, taking meetings, and developing the business. You do not have a sales team so you need to find one. Chances are you can't pay for one, so what do you do?

You find the people who are the most passionate about the work you do. I like to refer to this as the fire of your followers. Some customers will enjoy what you do for them and some will absolutely love it. The ones who love your service have a flame going for your business and your job is to fuel that fire.

Give these people the tools to tell their friends about you, develop mutually beneficial relationships and partnerships, and these people will be the best sales team possible. 

Ignore these people and it's going to get really cold really fast. 

So if someone is kind enough to refer you, thank them and help them. Stoke the fire because it will catch on and the more followers filled with fire for you that you have the further your business will go.

Then you'll really be cooking.

Excelsior! 

Don't forget tomorrow is Awesome Person Thursday! If you want to feature someone awesome on the blog, email me! 

P.S.- There's a new Solving for X coming up and there are only a few seats left. Grab them here. 

Looking for leaders

So if you read this blog often, you may or may not notice, that I am always getting new ideas which inevitably lead to new projects.

These new projects often lead to businesses and since I cannot run a dozen businesses or organizations, but want all of them to live, I'm going to share them here today. You can look at any of the things below and do one of two things.

Email me at [email protected] and meet with me to discuss being a leader on any of these projects.

Look at these projects and come up with a better idea. 

Totally up to you if you want to include me or not, but these things have started and I have either lost the leader for them or just haven't revealed them yet. I want them to live though and that is more important to me than anything else. So see below and if you want to be a leader or know one, drop me a line.

The Small Pond Musical Theater Writing Lab- This was done once last year. You can read all about it here. The project is education based and I think it could be really cool in the hands of the right person. 

The I.P.A- This is the Independent Producers Alliance of NY. It is an organization created for the purpose of bringing independent producers together to work out problems in the industry and search for new solutions. The original meetings were very productive, so I am hoping someone will take the reigns

The Small Pond Ticket dock- A permission based list I created for people to be able to target their comp offers and gather info from the folks who took the tickets. It also provided a weekly blast of ticket offers for Independent Theatre productions.

Small Seeds- A seed capital firm for arts based start ups. Basically relationships would be built with investors who put small amounts into new arts based start up projects. So anyone with an idea for a new website or i phone app in the theatre world would have somewhere to go for funds. 

Small Pond Job Hunt- A service that posts available jobs to a permission based list on google docs. The main difference between other job boards, some jobs I will know the poster personally and be able to put a good word in. 

Real Estate Project- I'd like to get a team together to buy a building and bring the arts community in the city into one space. Lofty and long term, but looking for partners now. 

Small Pond Producers Sprint- This was an event where we gave someone a week to put up a show. It was really awesome and a lot of fun.

And there you have it. 

Look forward to haring from the leaders.

Excelsior! 

 

Shhhhhhhhhhh!

So a few days ago I decided to create a new one day workshop.

It is very experimental and I'm excited to try it out and see how well it works.

The first one will be limited, but larger than any other group I've worked with.

It will involve everyone.

It will teach a skill that many still believe is entirely innate.

The name of it will remind you of Algebra.

It will be affordable, but the price will get even better if it's full.

Curious?

Check the blog tomorrow for more details.

Excelsior!

Join my Tribe!

A while back on the blog I wrote about the concept of having 1,000 true fans. I made a commitment to myself, to follow through on that promise, but have had lots of issues figuring it out along the way. Then a day or two ago, I made a decision.

True fans are the members of your tribe. They believe in what you stand for, they believe in helping one another and together, you all make the water rise.

That being said, I was thinking about how I don't want another list serve or another website. I have no desire to run a social network or anything like that. I just want to help good people meet other good people, and allow them to help themselves.

So I did the simplest thing I could do. I created a Google form that transfers to a spreadsheet and I have begun inviting the people I know. For now, I am limiting it to people I have met in person. If it seems to catch on, I may change that.

As a reader of my blog, I invite you to:

1. Join my tribe and fill out the form below if you know me.

2. Email me if you do not know me and let's meet so you can join if you'd like.

No pressure. No emails. No hassle.

Once in the spreadsheet, you can then look around for others who need help and help in whatever way you can. Come back whenever you like.

I'll post on the blog when the tribe has reached 1,000.

Look forward to seeing you around the tribe.

Special thanks to Seth Godin for writing the book Tribes. Had he not done that, I may have never done this.

Excelsior!

Here's the form

Let someone else take care of your baby

Ok. So I'm not talking about this

But there are many paralells between a baby and a script that plenty of folks have brought up before me. A script is usually undeveloped when you first write it. It needs care and nurturing and eventually, if you do the right thing with it, it grows into something like this, or perhaps this -- speaking of which, if you missed it, you missed out. But a huge part of allowing a script to grow is not holding on to it too tightly.

Imagine if a mother never let go when a baby was learning to walk, or a father never took the training wheels off of a child's bike. This is what happens when writers don't allow anyone else to work on their scripts. One of the hardest things I ever did was allow someone else to direct my work, but it also made for one of the best productions of that show I've ever seen. Too often we're so afraid that nobody can see our scripts the way we see them that we don't allow for anyone else's input; this limits the work we do. The same is true for producers: it's the producer's job to call the babysitter.

No playwright wants to give up their baby; they want to act in it, direct it, and sometimes even run box office. As you develop new work you'll encounter these people. I'm not saying that every time they fail. I've seen some things that were written and directed by the same person and they have been very good, but for the most part when somebody tries to make something a one-man show. . . it usually reads as a one-man show and industry takes it less seriously.

So the next time you think of directing something you write, and starring in it, and greeting people at the door, etc. Think of how you'd want to raise your kid.  Do you want them to never know what it's like to walk on their own? Or do you want them to grow up confident knowing that they have someone besides mommy and daddy to turn to. Just think, if you never call the babysitter, you'll never be able to go out. If you never let your script leave your hands, you might never leave your home.

And no one wants to do a show in their basement for their stuffed animals.

Excelsior!