Mark Struczewski calls himself “Mister Productivity” and with good reason. He’s singularly focused on solving productivity problems. Through his website, speaking, coaching, and podcast he brings valuable productivity advice to thousands. With that in mind, when Mark invited me to be a guest on his show I focused on lessons I learned from making movies that have an emphasis on productivity. The truth is, even though my book is called Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER, a lot of the learnings I gained from filmmaking are indeed productivity related (and not just about marketing). Mark is a smart and passionate host, and he had some great questions as he had read my book in advance of our talk. To listen, click here or on the player embedded below. I hope you enjoy it and find some value in the productivity advice we discuss.
https://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/LinkedIn-Jeff-Sass.png400698Jeffrey Sasshttps://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Untitled-5-6.pngJeffrey Sass2018-08-03 19:47:392018-08-03 19:47:39Mister Productivity Gets Some Productivity Tips from Making Movies
Greetings from Tromaville! Here is Chapter 20 of my book, Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER. In this chapter, we take a look at the importance of breaking down your objectives into manageable tasks… similar to the strategies of war (and Troma’s WAR).…
They say “business is war.” I am not sure who “they” are, but I can assure you that when I began getting involved in Troma’s business, my first shot at working on a movie was indeed war. Literally. The very first Troma film I had the opportunity to work on was Troma’s War. When I enlisted, my job at Troma was to sell movies, but I dreamed of making them. When plans began for Troma’s War, my number came up, and I was drafted to “temporarily” move over from sales to production. My dream had come true, and like many dreams we have, be careful what you wish for—you might get it.
If you haven’t yet had the pleasure and delight of seeing Troma’s War, it is the story of a plane crash on a mysterious island long before the TV series Lost laid claim to similar territory. Rather than the long-unfulfilled, and unexplained, “monsters” of the TV series, the lost crash survivors in Troma’s War find themselves on an island run by bizarre and deadly terrorists. According to Variety, Troma’s War “makes Rambo III look like Lassie Come Home!” It was quite an entrée into filmmaking for me.
Yes, I wanted to make movies. No, I had no freakin’ idea what that meant, especially in Tromaville. One moment I was trying to sell Rabid Grannies to a home-video distributor in Japan, and the next moment I was on my way to Camp Smith, training ground for the NY Army National Guard, outside Peekskill, NY, to meet with Colonel Garvey to see if I could convince him to let us use their grounds to film and blow shit up (and let our kooky cast and crew live in their barracks for weeks at a time). The irony of having the cast and crew of Troma’s War living and filming on a military base was not lost on any of us.
But let’s start by looking at how the War began.
Once there’s a script and a budget and funds to cover said budget (or enough of the promise of funds, through pre-sales and other means, to risk taking the risk of pulling the trigger on the production), it is time to start staffing up and commencing “preproduction.” Preproduction is the planning stage for a movie production when the script is broken down into manageable daily chunks, and the schedule is set. The locations are scouted and finalized, cast and crew are hired, and costumes and props are decided upon and created. Basically, everything and anything you can do in advance of actual filming so that you are ready to go like a well-oiled machine when that first day of “Principal Photography” rolls around.
Sounds great, right? Of course, it is never as smooth as the previous few sentences make it sound, and come day one of filming that ideal well- oiled machine may well spit and sputter like an aged clunker only partially restored. Still, it can and must move forward. The proverbial clock is ticking, and, like the car you drive around in the midst of rebuilding it, you can keep working on the film machine while it is running. Not ideal, but not unusual, especially for a low-budget Indy production, where location and talent availability might dictate a hard start date. Ready or not, here we come!
As we started hiring (and given the lack of actual monetary compensation offered to many early staffers I am using the term “hiring” lightly), we needed to set up a temporary production office to act as home base, ideally somewhere nearby (but definitely not in) the Troma Building. We found a great deal on a short-term lease on a dinky and dirty four-story, walk-up brownstone on West Forty-Eighth Street, a short walk from Tromaville central. I remember thinking it was an odd building with an odd smell, and odd-looking “cubicles,” each curtained off and just wide enough for a small mattress to fit inside. Oh, and did I mention that there was a red light by the front door stoop?
Admittedly, I was quite naive in those days, and it took me a few late nights in the production office (where some of our young, more adventurous Troma Team members had essentially moved in) before I realized why this building was “available” so inexpensively. I figured it out when every night an odd “gentleman” or two would ring the doorbell only to be awkwardly surprised when one of our heavily pierced and tattooed young folks of indiscriminate gender would answer the door. The “gentlemen” would invariably look past the welcoming Tromite as if they were hoping to see a familiar face inside, and then, clearly disappointed that they did not, would turn and hurriedly leave, mumbling obscenities under their alcohol-laced breath. Yep, our production office had previously been an operating brothel. Oh, brothel, er, oh brother! When the realization dawned on me, I felt truly blessed that I had a home to retreat to each night and was not one of the “adventurous ones” camping out on the “great mattresses” the previous tenants had left behind.
Despite its lewd history, our production office for Troma’s War served its purpose, and our preproduction was off and running, and I was learning on the fly. I went to battle in Troma’s War, and it was my deployment to film school…on steroids. But the lessons I learned in preparation, scheduling, and negotiation, were lessons that have proven to be valuable in every career move I’ve made since. The discipline and planning of pre-production is something that every product launch could benefit from. Few businesses understand their processes as well as a film production, where literally every page of the script (think product roadmap) is broken down into manageable (well, hopefully manageable) chunks, to be executed according to a strict schedule, literally laid out on a schedule board for all to see. Imagine how much more efficient your business would be if it were broken down with the detail and depth even a lowly Troma production had. Every day was fully accounted for, with a breakdown of every needed element—location, actors, costumes, set pieces, props, equipment, crew, a plan to get us all there, a plan to shoot something else should Mother Nature, or other forces, interfere.
Of course, things were fluid and could and would change along the way, but at the onset, we had a plan that, in theory, would successfully get us from point A to point B. From having nothing to having all the necessary footage in the can to piece together the film we intended to make.
Do you have a script breakdown for your business?
•••
That’s Chapter 20 – Do you breakdown your objectives as if you are going to WAR? Should you? Stay tuned for Chapter 21: “Delegate or Die!” which explores the importance of letting go and surrounding yourself with smarter, better people, and letting them do the things they are good at (while you do the things you are best suited for!)…
https://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/chapter-20-this-means-war-Tromas-War.png315560Jeffrey Sasshttps://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Untitled-5-6.pngJeffrey Sass2018-07-29 14:06:392018-07-29 14:06:39Chapter 20: This Means WAR!
A great time was had by all at Florida Supercon (as mentioned before). It was great to talk to people about my book, including some who had already read it and came by the booth to let me know. It was especially fun to chat with folks who had watched and loved THE TOXIC CRUSADERS and various Troma movies I had been involved in the making of. Good times, then and now.
Aside from enjoying my time hawking my book, one of the highlights of my long weekend at Supercon was the chance to be reunited with William Shatner. Almost 23 years ago I had the pleasure of working very closely with him on the release of his TekWar computer game. At the time I was VP marketing at IntraCorp Entertainment, the developer and publisher of the game, and I personally accompanied Bill-er, Mr. Shatner, on both East and West Coast press tours for the launch of the game. They were great times, and thanks to the Queen of Supercon, Sandy Martin, I was able to say hello and spend a few minutes catching up with Shatner (and yes, I gave him a copy of my book). 🙂
I had a great weekend being a “CON” man at Florida Supercon. Here’s a short video with a few more highlights. Enjoy!
https://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Yes-We-CON.png7201280Jeffrey Sasshttps://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Untitled-5-6.pngJeffrey Sass2018-07-28 12:32:162018-07-28 12:32:16My Weekend as a CON Man! (Supercon, that is...)
Greetings from Tromaville! Here is Chapter 19 from my book, Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER. In this chapter, we take a look at the importance of having a plan B and making sure every day is moving your business agenda forward!
On a movie set, there is no shortage of things that can go wrong. Your camera truck can be stolen. Your location can be locked when you arrive with the owner completely denying they ever gave you permission to come and film there. Your lead actress can refuse to come out of the bathroom to film a scene or refuse to kiss the leading monster—er, man, despite the romantic scene that was in the script and agreed to when she was hired. Essential costumes and props disappear. Cars containing essential talent or equipment break down. It rains (it pours). Actors show up drunk. Actors show up without knowing their lines. Actors don’t show up. Assholes do show up. Equipment breaks. Crew members quit. Sound people forget to record. Camera people forget to load film. It rains (it pours). Teamsters protest and interfere. Stunts don’t work as planned. You run out of power. You run out of light. You run out of time. You run out of money. You run out screaming.
Shit happens.
Lots of shit.
Every day.
All the time.
It is fun, really.
That’s Hollywood (well, Tromaville).
But on a set, the clock is always ticking, and whether you are on a shoestring Indy budget or a gazillion-dollar studio budget, time is still money. There are pages to cover, and a schedule to follow. The shit may hit the fan, but the film still needs to end up in the can. So, when something does go wrong, and it will, you need to make a decision. You need to fix it, fast, or work around it, fast. Innovation and creativity will save the day more than money will, and that’s a solid lesson for any business.
Even if you have the money, replacing something that breaks can take time and delay production. What’s the backup plan? To successfully make a B-movie, you’d better always have a plan B (and frankly, the same applies even if you are attempting to make a blockbuster).
Do you have a true plan B for your business? When making a movie, learning to be prepared and expect the unexpected is essential (which actually makes the unexpected the expected).
Filming on a soundstage is expensive and outside the budget of most independent films. As a result, to get great on-screen production values at a reasonable cost, many Indy films are shot “on location,” leveraging the scenic beauty of the real world in lieu of the fabricated beauty and control of a costly studio set. But in the real world, you can’t control Mother Nature, and your location is always at risk of being shut down by bad weather. Having a plan B means that for every day of exterior filming, you had better have an alternate scene ready to be shot indoors should Mother Nature decide to fool you for a change. That means an alternative location, indoors and nearby, so you could quickly and efficiently save the day.
So, when we were filming The Toxic Avenger Part II (and Part III) in and around the lovely town of Peekskill, NY, we always had several indoor “sets” ready and waiting inside the abandoned Masonic temple that doubled as our local production office. While these makeshift sets were far from “studio” quality, they were good enough, and if Mother Nature decided to poop on our heads, without hesitation we knew exactly what to do, where to go, and how to make the day as productive as possible.
This is a lesson that is easy to forget in the nonmovie world because in most businesses there is a lot more flexibility on a day-to-day basis than there is on a movie set. You may be under pressure to meet a monthly or quarterly goal, but what about losing sunlight before all the necessary pages are shot in a location you absolutely, positively can never return to after the end of the day? Movies function day to day, and that fosters a discipline that would be beneficial to apply to any business. Every day on set must contribute to the end-goal of a finished film.
Is every day at your office contributing to your end-goal? It’s hard, and something I try to remind myself of, not always successfully.
•••
That’s Chapter 19 – Do you always have a plan B? Stay tuned for Chapter 20: “This Means WAR!” which explores the importance breaking down your objectives to manageable tasks… similar to the strategies of war (and Troma’s WAR).…
It’s Supercon time! On July 12-15, 2018 Supercon returns to the Broward County Convention Center, which is literally in my backyard, just a few minutes from my home. So how could I not take advantage of this great opportunity to promote my book to avid pop-culture fans!
I’ll be selling and signing books at Booth 735 all four days of the show. Also, on Saturday, July 14th at 1:00 pm I’ll be giving a presentation in Room 304 sharing some of the business and marketing lessons I learned working for Troma that have helped guide my career from B-movies to the C-suite!
During Jeff Sass’ 7-year tenure in Tromaville he worked on classics including TROMA’S WAR, TOXIC AVENGER II & III, CLASS OF NUKE’EM HIGH II & III, he co-wrote SGT. KABUKIMAN, NYPD and he was instrumental in the creation and launch of THE TOXIC CRUSADERS cartoon series and merchandise. In this entertaining and educational talk, Jeff shares the lessons he learned making Troma movies that have helped him throughout his career as a tech entrepreneur and CMO – lessons that you too can apply to your career. Fun Fact: When Jeff left Troma in 1994, they hired James Gunn to replace him…
(By, the way, I offer a customized version of this presentation as a free webinar for businesses that purchase 12 or more copies of the book – contact me for more information).
If you are in South Florida and love movies, comics, cosplay and pop-culture you should definitely make your way to Supercon. It is an awesome event, with costumes, celebrities, tons of great products and merchandise, and great content sessions every day. Organizers Mike Broder and Sandy Martin and their team run an amazing show!
And if you do attend, please be sure to stop by Booth 735 and say hello!
https://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2018-FLORIDA-JEFF-SASS-1024x576.jpg5761024Jeffrey Sasshttps://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Untitled-5-6.pngJeffrey Sass2018-07-07 14:44:332018-07-07 15:16:45Get Ready for a Super Time at Florida Supercon!
Greetings from Tromaville! Here is Chapter 18 from my book, Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER. In this chapter, we take a look at the importance of having some basic rules as a way of aligning your team.
By now you may be thinking that things were fairly loosey-goosey in Tromaville, with inexperienced young lads and lasses running wild and wreaking havoc. You would be mostly correct. In truth, while there were certainly some wild and crazy times (and even more wild and crazy characters and personalities), much of the working of the Troma machine was actually quite well-oiled. There were processes and procedures, and there were rules. In particular, there were the “Rules of Production.”
On every Troma movie set, in numerous, highly visible locations, the following sign was always posted:
Rules of Production:
1. Safety to people 2. Safety to property 3. Make a good film!
This was key. This was important. These were the rules Troma lived by on set, and at any given moment, Lloyd could walk up to a member of the cast or crew and quiz them on these three simple rules, and they had better know them. When it came to setiquette (etiquette on the set), the Troma Team was very clear on their priorities. A film set can be a dangerous place. There are lights, there are cameras, and there is action—big heavy things that can fall on people, miles of cables and electrical cords strewn about, vehicles, explosives, and lots of people around. A lot can go wrong. A lot does go wrong. It is a tribute to the dedication to these three “rules of production” that in over forty years and dozens of productions, Troma has a solid record and reputation when it comes to safety.
Safety to people is the number one priority. Safety to property is second. We were grateful for the fair deals we received on the equipment we borrowed or rented. We were forever grateful for the folks who generously let us use their homes and businesses as sets and locations for filming. The least we could do was to respect their property and do all we could to leave it in the same condition it was in when we arrived (which, frankly, was often no small task).
Finally, the third rule was to “make a good film” and in practice, if you paid attention to the first two rules, you were far more likely to succeed on the third.
These were good lessons in focus and culture. While a Troma film set consisted of a wild and varied sampling of human existence, a seemingly random collection of delightfully disparate souls, the one thing that they all had to have in common was respect for and adherence to the “Rules of Production.” Anyone who could not live up to these three simple concepts did not belong (and did not last long).
While in some cases, rules can be restrictive, when they are simple, direct, and core to your objective, a few good rules can help bind your team together and help keep things moving forward in a positive way. If it can work for Troma, it can work for you.
What are your business’s “rules of production”?
•••
That’s Chapter 18 – Do you also have common guidelines you could be using for your business, to help keep everyone on the same page? Stay tuned for “Chapter 19: “Fix it, or Forget it… FAST!” which explores the importance of having a “plan b” and thinking creatively on the spot…
https://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Chapter-18-playing-by-the-rules.png315560Jeffrey Sasshttps://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Untitled-5-6.pngJeffrey Sass2018-07-01 10:56:132018-07-01 10:56:13Chapter 18: Playing By The Rules
Greetings from Tromaville! Here is Chapter 17 from my book, Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER. In this chapter, we take a look at the importance of always carrying… not weapon, but rather, marketing materials – SCHWAG! What do you think?
“I pledge allegiance to the schwag…of the United States of Tromaville.” As part of the Troma Team, I quickly learned the power of “schwag” and the importance of always “carrying.” In this instance carrying did not mean a concealed weapon, although one could argue that good schwag is an excellent sales and marketing weapon. In Tromaville carrying meant you were always equipped with a supply of stuff—stickers, flyers, T-shirts—schwag. Your briefcase was full of the stuff. If you owned a car, your trunk was full of the stuff. If you carried a purse or murse*, your purse or murse was full of the stuff. While representing the Troma Team, you never walked into a meeting empty-handed. You always had your schwag at the ready. Schwag sells.
There’s a reason printed paper flyers were called “sell sheets” in the movie business. They were also called “slicks,” perhaps because the slicker they were, the better they sold. For every movie in the Troma library, having a great key art image that became the basis of the poster, and then the smaller sell sheets was essential. As essential as having a good trailer. Arguably far more essential than having a good movie. Back in the day, especially in the realm of international film distribution, the sale (technically, the licensing) of a film for distribution to a small foreign market was often concluded based on the sell sheet and trailer alone, many times long before the film in question had actually been completed (or in some cases, even started). We were selling the dream. Selling the outcome. And schwag helped.
Like trusty Boy and Girl Scouts, always carrying schwag meant you were always prepared. You never knew when you’d have the opportunity to leave behind that flyer for Curse of the Cannibal Confederates or that gorgeous green “I love Toxie” sticker. And then there were the T-shirts. Especially the T-shirts. We would print bright-red (and sometimes yellow) “I made the Troma Team” T-shirts by the hundreds. They were inexpensive thin cotton tees with a big Troma logo on them, and people loved them. When it came to production time, our “I-Made-the-Troma-Team” tees were like a liquid currency. They were our beads, our wampum, our bitcoin, and often our savior. It is amazing what regular unassuming humans will do or give up in exchange for a free T-shirt.
When scouting for locations, popping open the car trunk and tossing a couple of T-shirts to the owner of the property you are begging to trample and defame was often the tipping point that sealed the deal. When casting dozens of background actors (we never had extras…always “background actors”) to fill a scene, hordes of fans would stand for long grueling days, all for a stale bagel at seven in the morning and a Troma T-shirt when they left at the end of the day, often past midnight.
When making a movie, especially a low-budget independent movie, there are 1,000 things that can go wrong at any moment. Giving someone a free T-shirt can solve 937 of them.
As proof that the Troma Team always carries (schwag) wherever they go, I will share a story that Hertz. Not Herz as in Michael Herz, Lloyd’s partner in cinematic crime and Troma co-founder, but rather Hertz as in the car rental company that doesn’t quite try as hard as Avis. Many years after I emigrated from Tromaville, I was in Los Angeles on business, and I rented a car there. At one point while navigating my way through the torturous traffic that is synonymous with driving in LA, I stopped short at a light, my unpracticed foot a bit heavy on the brakes of the unfamiliar vehicle. As I screeched to a sudden stop, a sudden mess of papers and folders slid out from under the driver’s seat. I looked down, and lo and behold, my feet were surrounded by Troma schwag—flyers, stickers, press kits, and the like. It was literally a blast from the past.
I laughed, and at the first opportunity, I called Lloyd asking him if he had recently been in LA. “I just got back last night,” he replied. “How did you know?”
“Did you rent a car there?” I queried.
“Of course, I did; it’s LA,” said Lloyd. (This was years ago, before the invasion of Uber).
“Well, I think I rented the same car you were driving. You left your schwag under the front seat!”
Yep. He did. Schwag rules.
*A “murse” is a man-purse, carried by a man, just as a “manzier” is a brazier worn by a man. Watch Seinfeld reruns for more details.
•••
That’s Chapter 17 – Do you always have a pocket full of Schwag for your company? Why not??? Stay tuned for “Chapter 18: “Playing by the Rules!” which explains the “rules of production” that every Troma movie lived by, and which serve as an example for common guidelines you could be using for your business, to help keep everyone on the same page.
Greetings from Tromaville! Here is Chapter 16 from my book, Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER. In this chapter, we take a look at Troma’s take on “content marketing.” What do you think?
As stunts go, we did some amazing ones at Troma, and the best of them, like the dramatic (and now infamous) “car flip” have been used and reused in countless Troma movies. Shot one quiet afternoon on the back streets of Hoboken, New Jersey, while costly and complicated to shoot, the “car flip” has perhaps become the most cost-effective bit of film ever shot by the Troma Team (when amortized across the vast number of subsequent films the same sequence has appeared in). Why not? It’s a great stunt, even the seventeenth time you see it. Like a fine wine, it gets fermented—er, I mean better—with age. Like the pestering of a wild and crazy two-year-old toddler, with repetition, it becomes less annoying and cuter. Like a pimple that, after it won’t go away for nine months, reinvents itself as a beauty mark. You get the idea.
Of course, in the case of Troma, given the cult and culture of the rabid fan base, repurposing a stunt or scene across multiple movies turns into a welcome wink to the knowing film fan who can spot the repeated spot. So not only does the cloned scene save time and money, it becomes an Easter egg that delights eagle-eyed fans who are paying close attention—a double whammy win for the Troma Team.
What content can you wisely repurpose for your purposes? Do you have anything that can double as an Easter egg to charm your customers?
•••
That’s Chapter 16 – Short and to the point. Stay tuned for “Chapter 17: “Always Salute the Schwag!” which explores how important it is to always have some marketing material to leave behind… wherever you are!
Greetings from Tromaville! Here is Chapter 15 from my book, Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER. In this chapter, I talk about the team building benefits of “doing the hard stuff first…” What do you think?
Chapter 15: If You Don’t Want to Swallow a Frog, Start with a Stunt
There’s a popular productivity quote that is often attributed to Mark Twain about swallowing a live frog every morning. If you can get past that rather grotesque task, then anything else the day may bring on should seem infinitely more manageable. The fate of the poor frog aside, the concept is one we embraced when making movies in Tromaville, and it is a sound practice for any business. Start with the hard stuff.
When making a movie, especially a low-budget action/horror flick, the hard stuff is typically anything involving stunts or special effects. Those are the days that cost more money, often take more time, and ultimately have more at stake because it is harder to “fix it in editing” should the planned stunt go awry on film. These were the pre-CGI(1) days, and things like explosions and crazy car stunts were all done “live” on film for the most part. When we blew up a building, there were real explosives, fire, and debris. Cameras were set behind protective plexiglass shields, and crew and actors were reduced to the bare minimum possible and kept as far away from potential harm as possible. Fun stuff. Exciting stuff. Dangerous stuff. So why not do it on the very first day of filming, before anyone is comfortable working with each other?
Swallow the frog.
Exactly.
Do some really super hard shit right at the beginning to get everyone focused (and maybe a little nervous), but in truth, there’s no better way to quickly bond a group of disparate people than to have them accomplish a really hard, potentially dangerous, task together. Focus is required. Teamwork is required. It is going from zero to sixty in the first few hours of working together. It forces the cream to rise to the top and quickly exposes the weak links in the chain. (There were always fewer people on the crew on day two than there were on day one.) It is risky, but it is also rewarding. And when it works (actually more often than not), it sets the tone for the rest of the production, with everyone diving in with a level of confidence and camaraderie that otherwise might have taken weeks to develop.
So, pretty much every Troma production I worked on started with a bang—literally and figuratively.
Are you pulling a team together for a project? Try scheduling the equivalent of your explosion or stunt right up front. Put the team to the test. Swallow the frog. (Then spit it out so the Troma Team can use it as a prop in that tender love scene that requires a regurgitated amphibian.)
•••
1. “CGI” referring to computer-generated imagery—that is, the technology behind digital effects. The only “digital” effects available to Troma at the time were effects involving fingers and toes.
•••
That’s Chapter 15 – When was the last time you swallowed a frog? Stay tuned for “Chapter 16: “Repurpose, On Purpose,” which explores how Troma was way ahead if their time in the realm of “content marketing.”
https://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/chapter-15-swallow-frog.png315560Jeffrey Sasshttps://everythingiknowabout.marketing/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Untitled-5-6.pngJeffrey Sass2018-06-03 16:06:032018-06-04 02:09:46Chapter 15: If You Don't Want to Swallow a Frog, Start with a Stunt
Greetings from Tromaville! Here is Chapter 13 from my book, Everything I Know about Business and Marketing, I Learned from THE TOXIC AVENGER. In this chapter, I talk about the “c” word – culture, and how Troma taught me what’s really important to pull a team together (hint: it’s not pizza and beer on Fridays). What do you think?
“I don’t make crappy movies. I spend two or three years making a film. I don’t take myself seriously, but I take my movies very seriously.”
—LLOYD KAUFMAN, TROMAVILLE
Willie and Lloyd are both sort of saying the same thing here. Know who you are and embrace it. Self-awareness is as important for a company as it is for each of us as an individual. There is so much talk in the business world today about culture. There are countless books, countless consultants, and countless dollars spent on “culture building” within corporations.
Often these efforts miss the core of what culture really is, what culture really means. Contrary to popular belief, culture is not about pizza and beer on Fridays, or unlimited free snacks in the company dining room (though on a film set of any size or budget, heaven help you if you don’t have a functional craft-services department. The fastest way to throw any film production off course is to fail to feed the crew, and feed them well and often). At its core, culture has more to do with your brand than your office decor.
A great company culture enables and encourages employees to embody and reflect the essence of the brand in their ethic, attitude, and execution of their work. It goes deeper than office environment and is more significant than a list of core values on a whiteboard. A great company culture is one where everyone organically lives and breathes the same brand. A great culture is one where all employees understand and appreciate the DNA of the brand. They don’t have to be it, but they have to believe it.
A great company culture is not a cult (though some of the highly publicized “great-culture” enterprises seem to have lost that distinction) because in a cult the disciples are most often following blindly while in a great company culture the employees are following with purpose. A great culture is created by a shared purpose that will move the company forward toward success.
Defining and communicating that purpose is core to a company’s success. On a film set, the purpose is most often very clear. We are making a movie. The roadmap is the script, literally. The strategy is the production schedule. If the director is a good CEO, then everyone on set knows their role and expected contribution toward the execution of the plan and the fulfillment of the purpose.
In business, the purpose and strategy also need to be clearly defined, and as important, the role each employee plays has to be understood by the employee(s) and management. There needs to be a screenplay and a production schedule for your business.
•••
That’s Chapter 13 – Another valuable lesson I learned making Troma movies: Having a clearly defined purpose and strategy is the best way to create a great company culture! Stay tuned for “Chapter 14: “Strategic Partners: Burn Houses, Not Bridges,” which explores some “hot” lessons about business development learned from location scouting for Troma films.
