Millionaire Masterclass Preview

MYOB 2009-06-29
Show #105
Release date: 29 Jun 2009

Notes

Our Millionaire Masterclass videos are now available!

In production for the last two years, these cover every aspect of starting and growing a business.

To coincide with the launch, Guy Kingston and John Richards return to the studio and discuss business advice and business education as well as the background behind these videos.

Millionaire Masterclass

The Millionaire Masterclass is a new concept in business learning – a series of 9 videos made to exceptionally high standards, on sale at price levels everyone can afford.

These videos are available in 3 separate bundles:

The Works:
All 9 Millionaire Masterclass videos plus our unique
Recession Special - How To Survive & Profit During Downturn (66 mins)

Start-Up:
Videos 1-6

Business Development:
Videos 4-9
Offer Price:

How To Be A Mini-Mogul

Elmore Leonard’s novel Get Shorty builds on a fantasy which many who are successful in relatively mundane businesses have had from time to time:

What if we could take the skills that we have developed in our own businesses and apply them to the supposedly more glamorous business of film-making?

In the novel, a movie buff’s established business is what might be termed the provision of high-interest, high-risk credit. The satire is based on his discovery that the skills that made him a successful loan shark are also the skills that make a good Hollywood producer.

Adding to the irony, some Hollywood producers bought the film rights to Leonard’s book and turned it into a very successful movie.

It is undoubtedly true that many of the skills of a successful entrepreneur are the same as those of a successful producer. Indeed, the organisation of a film project resembles the organisation of a new business with a short product life cycle. At the very end of a movie’s closing credits, you may see that a limited company has been set up specifically for the purpose of making that one film.

It starts with a business plan. This is not usually a formal business plan, but the script acts as both the initial business plan and the initial product: the objective is to sell the script to people who can finance the film. To the script may be added a production budget, properly costed by a professional production manager, and an outline of how the film, once produced, is to be sold and any profits distributed.

The financing of a major feature film is usually even more complex than the financing of a major new business, with a budget of six to eight figures. Most of the money is usually found by pre-selling various rights – to cinematic distribution, to DVD, to television, etc.

The actual making of the film is no more than a giant exercise in project management, a matter of hiring the various professional specialists and letting them get on with it – while making sure they keep to budget. Since the film project is not a permanent organisation, these people are not permanent employees, so the producer has few effective sanctions and even fewer inducements to offer these people. So, like any product management, film production demands the highest qualities of leadership.

Finally, there is the challenge of selling the finished film to the general public. If a major studio has invested in the film, the studio’s own distribution division usually takes over the marketing. These organisations are well-connected, so they ensure that the film actually gets on cinema screens, and is reviewed by all the influential critics. A film without these big studio connections is much less likely to be noticed – indeed, it may never be seen on a big screen.

It is easy to see how the standard enterprise skills that are required in any business apply to all these stages of film-making.

Many entrepreneurs from other sectors have therefore flourished in the movie business, especially in its early years. Sam Goldwyn famously learnt his craft as a vice president in charge of sales in a successful garment company before co-founding MGM.

It is more difficult now. Like most sectors, the film industry has become more formal in its structures, with its own academic qualifications and standard career paths. Although there are still glorious exceptions, Hollywood is now very much a town for insiders.

This is reflected in its product, the sequels and franchises that betray a narrow-minded lack of imagination.

In the long term, this will prove to be to Hollywood’s disadvantage. The public are always looking for something new to entertain them. If Hollywood ceases to provide that originality people can and will look elsewhere.

So the best option for an entrepreneur who dreams of film-making is not to muscle his way into Hollywood in the Get Shorty style that Hollywood itself sells to us.

Instead, the entrepreneur should ask how he can provide what Hollywood is not providing – how he can become the alternative to Hollywood.

This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Modern digital video cameras make good quality production standards an affordable option. The internet provides a versatile marketing platform.

The film business is but part of the entertainment sector and the entertainment sector is in a state of permanent revolution, with both technology and public taste changing by the day. A new age is dawning and the pioneers of that new age are not Hollywood executives. They are the equivalents of Goldwyn and the pioneers of Hollywood itself, entrepreneurs looking for new ways to turn a buck.

At the moment, they might well be selling suits.