When FerroCity was being conceptualized, I never imagined it becoming a major influence in the entertainment production industry, yet it has!

Early on, I identified an industry need and waited for it to be addressed. It didn’t happen.

The need: “Why was there such a gap in the industry needing next-gen workers capable of learning and newbies wanting to get in but not being prepared to fill those gaps?”

And the correction went on uncorrected.

Correction addressed….

Then I became a WE, and we launched FerroCity; it became the “Correction”.

It’s a platform where hundreds of successful professionals are ready, willing, and able to mentor the next gen into thousands of career opportunities.  To begin, we gathered a monster amount of their genus in the form of video and text and offered it to the world.

Correction complete!

That’s the elevator pitch for FerroCity’s success.

But making sure that each year every one of the 800,000 communication and production college grads (that’s not counting non-college students wanting in) had a chance to become a member of FerroCity’s Multimedia Production Association and then entering the industry became the challenge.

That challenge became a bit of a heavy lift.

Getting the attention of an individual, nested within thousands of other individuals, all of them freaking out and running aimlessly, looking for the port of entry into our industries.  Which we all know never existed… (until now… FerroCity).

Guess what? Getting the attention of someone (or thousands) in a full-blown panic attack “ain’t” easy.

Internally, we have some heavy hitters in the world of highly trained sales and marketing people. Leading that team is Lou Rosalia, who cut his sales and marketing chops and built a successful career at American Express.

Our marketing team is supported by seasoned industry veterans in music, broadcast, live events, and theater. All of them understand that the one secret to becoming successful at “anything” in the entertainment industry is being able to sell and market yourself uniquely.

Implementing this key will almost guarantee you a seat at the table and career longevity. Talent and skill mastery are important, but selling and personally marketing those skills/talents to the industry is the KEY.

Collectively and individually, every successful person in the industry has written or sold songs, shopped their scripts, and developed and circulated episode treatments; started an industry-related business or product, and that list goes on and on.

The common thread in all of this is that we all had to learn to market and sell ourselves and our products. Even though the need was always obvious to us individually, you still need to convince the world that your idea or vision will be valuable to them.

Well, that was then, and this is now, so we thought.

The “now” says you need to invoke the phrase “Social Media,” and to do that, you need to engage with a Master, a “Social Media Master” or “Social Media Manager”.

Today, everyone with a phone claims to be a “sales and marketing” expert. Just like in the 60s, when everyone with a guitar knew the fingering of three major chords and thought they could play Madison Square Garden. There is a ton more to know when you’re trying to write a hit song, just as there is a ton more to know about marketing and sales before you push send on a prefab app’s template.

Growing up, we’d call them “all show and no go”. Like the guidos in my neighborhood who claimed to have a muscle car.  Then it turned out to be a shiny new TransAm, without a Hurst shifter but with an automatic transmission.

Oh, not a gearhead? How about the new camera op who shows up on set?  When I ask, “Have you ever shot a live pregame show?”, they begin to recite the tech manual for the camera, the cable, and the headset I handed them, etc., etc. Yet they never answered the question, “Have you ever shot a live pregame show?” Ninety percent of the time, I know the answer is no; they rarely share that with me, but their lack of skills and experience operating the camera confirms my suspicion.

You can’t “fake it till you make it”. You need to dig deep.  Study and believe in your vision?  Learn who it is of value to and WHY. Then learn from the more knowledgeable and experienced how to communicate your ideas to that market.

THE BIG PAYOFF

Here is the motto I’ve lived by and succeeded with my whole career (but for some reason forgot it when it came to social media)

“Don’t follow the pack. Lead the pack.”

I have not yet met a successful person who gained their success by doing what everyone else is or was doing. Successful people are typically and instinctively risk takers. Most are visionaries who see possibilities long before others do. They dig in and do the heavy lifting until their vision is realized.

Here are a few folks who believed in their vision: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Apple); Bill Gates (Microsoft); Jeff Bezos (Amazon); Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla (inventors).

How about some music risk-takers: Rock and Roll music pioneers, Motown, the Punk music movement, Rappers. The list goes on and on

How about the risk-takers whose film vision crashed and burned initially but are now considered classics: The Wizard of Oz (1939), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Fight Club (1999), etc.

Okay, now I can make my real point: Believe in yourself and your vision. At FerroCity, we are a community of the industry’s most creative and talented people, with best-in-class accomplishments to prove it. Why would you accept anything less when you have access to the best? If we were anything less than that, we would never have been asked to work on or with the biggest gigs in the world.

That’s our message, plain and simple.

Don’t trust trends or “experts” who can’t show you proof after proof of their expertise.

Those facts will change lives and move the industry into a new frontier, whatever the new creatives decide it will look like.

Be who you are. Trust who you are. Believe in your vision, follow your passion to success, and never let the loud voice of the time derail you from your goal.