The 3 Golden Rules of Salesmanship
Pitching is the single most important skill anyone, including writers, must acquire in order to succeed in the film industry.
In our everyday life, we pitch all the time. When your best friend or dearest relative calls up, they will ask you ‘What’s new?’ You will then pitch them either a problem at work (to elicit sympathy) or prospects in love or work (to gain support or admiration). People who can’t succeed at this elemental task are often referred to as ‘cold’ or ‘loners’.
Three Golden Rules of Salesmanship
These rules work for a pitch meeting for a screenplay, or just about any situation where you are trying to get the deal, film industry or not.
1. Never say a number
He or she who says the first number loses. Think back to the times that you had to negotiate payment for a job. Do you remember having to answer the question ‘Make me an offer?’
For research and a laugh, walk into any car salesroom anywhere in the world. Car salesman are trained to get you to say a number. And they are not beyond lying to get that number out of you. A car salesman always ask you what your budget is, what you want to spend. If you resist naming a price, the salesman will badger you until you say a number, using phrases like ‘We’ll work with you/Let me paper you into this deal/I’ll speak to the manager, but you have to give me something to work with’. And before you know it you are saying something like $200 per month.
The minute you say a number, you lose. If you say a hundred to a hundred-a-fifty a month – do you think for a minute that the salesmen heard the number one hundred? And the irony is, in the car sales showroom context, the car salesman has already lost the argument by virtue of the fact that the cars all have huge red price stickers on them.
Similarly, in a pitch meeting, the person you are meeting, be it a producer, agent or story executive will often ask you what you are looking for money-wise from your script. Never say a number! You may over-price or under-price yourself. Always make it very clear that the person that they need to speak to regarding money, or price, will contact them later. You will make yourself look more professional, and can restrict the energies of future meetings to the creative issues involving them and you. If you don’t have an agent or representative, now is the best time to get one. Other alternatives are to get to use a friend, or a solicitor.
At the time of re-writing this book, I have been working simultaneously on a novel to be illustrated by a world-famous artist. As a result of his attachment to the project, and a few contacts in the film industry, it was relatively easy for me to get an agent based on the prospect of immediate publication. I found myself sitting in the editor’s office of a British publisher known for publishing a series of the most successful children’s books of all time, all of which had been made into blockbusters. Sniffing I suppose, my great talent and the prospect of duplicating this great money machine, she leaned over and said ‘How much do yo want?’ I had been forewarned by my agent, and responded ‘What is the retail price?’ She said ‘Between $12 - $30, depending whether or not you actually get this artist to illustrate.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘And how many copies are you planning to print?’ ‘Two hundred thousand’, she said. ‘World-wide, or just Europe?’ I said. ‘We’ll have to see how it goes’ she said.
Can you see how we were kicking around the price, without actually saying a number? Author royalties are ten percent of wholesale, and wholesale is thirty-five – forty percent of retail. I guess it’s a good thing to brush off your mental arithmetic skills!
Hint: Never talk money with a producer. Not only will you come out short changed, but that could scuttle the deal.
2. Never go to money
By this I mean you should try to get the person who you are pursuing with your script to come to your place of work. If they don’t ever come to you, you are essentially dealing with an onanist. The theory is that, if the person will not leave their yacht, penthouse or mansion to come to visit you, then they will never take you seriously.
This rule definitely applies to producers attempting to raise money, but as a writer, it is always more difficult to get a stoy development person out of their office – they are simply too busy. You try, however, to get them out onto neutral territory: a coffee shop, or park bench.
Never suggest lunch. A lunch meeting can take an hour or more. If you have not met this person before, and they don’t take to you, or if your pitch is wrong, they will feel totally trapped by you.
Hint When they start calling you, when they start trying to hang out with you, then you know you are getting hot.
3. You don’t ask, you don’t get
If you are ever in the second part of a meeting and you notice that the person you are meeting glances at their watch, and you have yet to ask them for the deal, you are automatically in the third part of the meeting.
You must ask for the deal the minute you are in the second part of the meeting. Of course ou don’t blatantly ask if they want to buy your script – that would be tacky and an ineffective marketing approach. However, you can ask ‘I hear you are looking for a thriller’ ‘Now that your most recent hit was a hit, isn’t it true you are entertaining romantic comedies like the one I have?’
You basically ty to build accord with the person you are selling to. If they say ‘No’ it is your job to discover what kind of ‘No’ it is, for there are three different kinds on ‘No’.
Believe it or not, when I was really broke, I became a professional debt collector. My job was to call up corner store owners who had defaulted on their extortionate loans for wet/dry vacuum cleaners. Some of you will recall such machines in many corner stores in the mid-nineties. My job was to get them to settle their debts, either by rescheduling their payments at a better interest rate, or by repossessing the vacuum cleaners. It was on this job that I learned the three kinds of No.
No number one means ‘The house is on fire. Emergency! No! I can’t speak to ou for another second! Fait enough. They’re busy. Maybe I can call you later. When you are pitching a script the equivalent might be that the company has just been bought out, and no one knows what the new owners want to fund. Put the contact to one side for a few weeks and call back later.
The second type of No, the No I hate, maybe No – the ’can you put some details in the post and we’ll review your material and get back (if we are interested)’ No way. You bet. Sure thing. That’s the huge pile of stuff beside the desk that nobody looks at. I got so many ‘No’s’ that I didn’t even bother sending stuff out to the maybe No’s – they just never responded and I as a commissioned salesman was charged for postage. I’d just pass the file over to the student lawyer who would start court proceedings.
I used to think there were only two kinds of no until one day I had a revelation – these people didn’t really mean know – they just needed more information. They were frightened to get a telephone call from a debt collector, they were also fearful about the consequences. I changed my tack with comments like ‘Let me explain why I think we can sort this problem out right now. It will only take a few minute.’ Of course my success rate rocketed.
The third kind of No was the ‘No with reservations’ This became a joy to my ears because it meant that thy wanted more information. It meant you had a chance to close. The way to handle this situation was to learn to recognize objections and then offer alternative information to make them feel comfortable with the transaction.
Trial closings
The final aspect of ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get’ is the trial closing. You have to ask for the deal. You say things like ‘I understand you are looking for a thriller,’ if that is what you have. Or, ‘How would you feel if Kiera Knightly was playing the lead’, if you want to get them an image of the lead female role. If you haven’t asked by the time they sneak a sideways glance at the LCD clock in the upper corner of their computer screen, you are automatically out of there – you’ve struck out, and you are in the third part of the meeting.
Can you remember taking to someone who is really boring, and you have an important meeting to go to? Remember how you go into all sorts of convoluted gestures in order to see what time it is without this boring unfortunate recognizing what you are doing?
In your pitch meeting you have to start asking for the deal as soon as you are in the second part of the meeting. ‘Is this the type of thing yu are looking for?’ or ‘Did you find scary?’ And so forth.
About the author
Elliot Grove founded Raindance Film Festival in 1993, the British Independent Film Awards in 1998 and Raindance.TV in 2007. He has produced over 150 short films, and 5 feature films. He has written eight scripts, one of which is currently in pre-production. His first feature film, TABLE 5 was shot on 35mm and completed for a total of £278.38. He teaches writers and producers in the UK, Europe. Japan and America. He has written two books which have become industry standards: RAINDANCE WRITERS LAB (Focal Press 2002) and RAINDANCE PRODUCERS LAB (2004). His first novel THE BANDIT QUEEN is scheduled for publication in 2008.
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Submitted by hector on Fri, 04/11/2008 - 09:49.