How To Network Without Using People

My name is Tennyson, I’ve written more than 50 screenplays, I’ve helped produce some movies, I direct and edit, I’m a working script doctor, and I’ve been working on stage since I was 13 years old.

For the last few years, I’ve been blogging for Stage 32… and this week, we’re going to talk in a little more detail about why I do that.

EVERYBODY NEEDS HELP

Showbusiness is, and has always been, a collaborative effort. Even a one-person show needs an audience to be complete, so there’s nobody in this industry - no matter how much success or power they may have - who doesn’t need support when it comes to realizing their creative and financial goals. When we’ve been undersupported in our work and our lives, it’s easy to look at the careers of more established filmmakers and creators and imagine that there comes a point where a person’s privilege empowers them to simply greenlight any project they care to work on. In reality, nobody ever really “makes it” to that degree.

Even the most celebrated filmmaker is going to need to deal with the conflicts of interest posed by those seeking to finance their films, or the creative goals of the people they want to work with, or even just the assumptions that executives are making about the marketplace. Everyone’s got a project they desperately want to invest their time in, which they believe would make a huge difference in the world around them, which nobody else seems to see the value in.

Having that kind of ambition and imagination is what drives us to master our craft and build a strong community in the first place. Even the most visionary filmmaker feels stuck in their career, and even the most privileged filmmaker needs other people to invest in the project they believe will take their work to the next level. Everybody needs money, or new relationships, or some other resource they don’t have access to… and the people around us always seem to just want to share their ideas and tell us how to do our jobs.

Most creative professionals have too many ideas already, but the people in our lives who admire our craft don’t see that. What they see is that we’re working on our goals and that we’re not making as much progress as we’d like… and because sharing ideas is risk-free and soothing to the ego, that’s what they offer us. Success won’t change that fact.

Ever.

BE NECESSARY

So, how do we get people to give us actual, useful resources? How do we get them to actively work past the dopamine hit that comes with telling us how to do our jobs, and do something to empower the projects and efforts by which we hope to define our legacy? Simple. Be necessary.

When helping us achieve our goals serves to advance the goals of those around us, they stand a much greater chance of putting themselves out there and assuming some risk on our behalf. Strength in our community comes from making ourselves necessary to those around us to the degree that those people actually need our success to achieve goals of their own.

Where this need comes from will vary from person to person. Maybe it’s psychological, and they’re invested in our leadership, and they need us to achieve our goals because it gives them confidence. Maybe it’s because they know our goals will benefit someone else in the community, and they need the social authority that comes from bringing us together. Maybe it’s because they’re about to ask us for help and support, and they want us to have some incentive to give it. Possibly, it’s because they have a simple appreciation for the fact that our success is consistently making the community stronger and they want to see more of that.

My point is that for the purposes of this discussion, it doesn’t matter what motivates someone to help us out. When that help comes along, we can evaluate the risks and rewards of that resource accordingly. In a larger sense, it’s our necessity to the community that incentivizes people to invest in us.

UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT

How do we cultivate an image of being necessary to the community? This is where most people in Hollywood screw things up, and it’s where we all need to learn to set our egos aside. Most networkers are focused on investing just enough effort in the people around them to create an impression of helpfulness, in order to establish a favorable environment for their own pitch and their own agenda. No. What makes us necessary is our ability to help other people unconditionally, on their own terms.

What does this mean? What I’m saying, point blank, is that we need to be reaching out to other people in our community, finding out what help they need to achieve their own goals on their own terms, and then providing that help with no strings attached.

We need to volunteer, and we need to do so in the most meaningful and profound ways we are capable of. So we’re clear, some of the people we serve in this way aren’t going to bother thanking us - let alone offer to help us in return. Certainly, many of these people won’t have the power or privilege to turn around and help us with our own problems. All of these facts need to be accepted in advance, as conditions of the support we are offering.

Ok, but… if we’re just giving away help to anyone who needs it, isn’t that going to eat into our time and energy? Yeah. Of course, it will. When it comes to managing that time and energy effectively, I have two guiding principles to offer:

INVEST IN THE FUTURE

Specifically, invest in the future you want to see. If you believe that a person or project is especially good for the industry, show up for them. Help them succeed. Maybe they’ll remember you were there and maybe not, but at least there’s a greater good to be achieved through your efforts.

What’s more, any time you spend bringing resources or help to a person or production which you believe is bringing something special and important to the industry is inevitably going to get you surrounded by people who value the same things you do.

Even if the person you’re helping isn’t going to return the favor, you’re a lot more likely to meet people who will appreciate and respect you when you’re working on a project you believe in. Presumably, you’re not the only person on that project who feels that way!

Even if the show turns out to be a dumpster fire, and even if the people turn out to be abusive, we still showed up for something we thought was going to be of greater service to the community. So long as we always protect our own boundaries when it comes to ethics and safety, that’s a mistake we can live with. Provided we learn from those mistakes, it’s also a risk we can afford to take again, down the road, with someone else.

GIVE WHAT YOU CAN

Know your boundaries, know your resources, and don’t overextend yourself. If someone needs more than you can give, let them know what you can actually do. If it’s going to make a difference, then by all means do it. Just don’t offer anybody more than that.

Los Angeles is a culture defined by desperation, and so is the film industry. Almost all of us have been talked into overextending ourselves, at some point in our careers. What’s more, most of us have lived through times of extraordinary need. Most of us have tried talking other people into overextending themselves if we’re being painfully honest.

Learn to understand, compartmentalize, divide, and conquer your needs. Keep your own desperation out of your commitments and negotiations. Deal with those problems in other ways. Obviously, this is an idea that demands a lot of emotional intelligence and a lot of discipline… and believe me, it’s necessary for your success. All of us should be in therapy. Even if we can’t afford therapy, we still need to do that work.

Get yourself in balance, so the help you volunteer can be sustainable. Give people what they need to accomplish their goals, on their terms, according to their ideas about how things should work. Only commit what you can afford to give, and remember not to overextend yourself in the moment. Unless you’re making an explicit agreement to sell goods or services, don’t ask for anything in return. Just help people. Remember, everybody needs it.

WHY AM I HERE?

Why do you think I write these blogs? Every issue I raise here on Stage 32 is something I’ve wound up discussing, again and again, with people in my community. Lots of folks would like me to have these discussions with them in person… and mentorship is work I need to get paid for, at this stage in my career. Having those discussions with strangers overextends my time and energy.

What I can do, and what I have done, is spend a few hours a month writing this stuff down for people to digest at their own pace. If you look, you’ll find there’s a whole mess of articles that I've written on a wide range of topics relating to the work of building our craft and building our community. All of this is there to help you, and to help make Stage 32 an even more useful tool for the film community.

If I had some kind of hidden agenda with these blogs, then I’d be complicating and diminishing the support I’m offering with conflicts of interest. Maybe you agree with my ethics and practices, and maybe you don’t. All I’m doing here is laying them out, so you can see how they work and so you can use them to your advantage.

Of course, this is just one example of how I’m investing in my community. Like all my other investments, it’s sustainable. I don’t necessarily need to know that folks are taking my advice, or even that they appreciate it. All I need to know is that I gave what I had to give. Over time, I know these efforts can only serve to help people achieve their goals.

Making myself necessary to the community doesn’t require any more from our relationship than that.

Let's hear your thoughts in the comments below!

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