Hello beautiful people!
Let’s talk about your fanbase.
Listen up!
Realize that people who were previously at the “rabid fan” area of your third can slide down to the level of “gets you” and that’s okay! You needn’t try and woo them back to rabid fan status! Someone else is up there AT that status and you’ll make yourself nuts mapping out the comings and goings of those who — even within your third — leave your party from time to time.
(Seriously, if you’ve not checked out my “Don’t Leave Your Party” piece, read it now. Or listen to it. This concept is one of the best things I’ve ever put out there to MY third. Life-changing. Truly empowering.)
When I was casting for the second season of the hit series Bite Me, I spotted this pillow in the production company lounge.
Second, how freakin’ simple! When I get hatemail (and I do), I go, “Great! Non-buyer.” (And a very specific KIND of non-buyer, non-fan, in a special-third-of-their-own type person, too.) That’s as much energy as I put into it. I now have a strong muscle for not attaching ANY emotion to this sort of thing.
Where things tend remain sticky for us is in dealing with someone who’s not a raging whackadoodle but instead someone we really feel we could “convert” if they just understood us more. This ranges from the casting directors who didn’t see us do our best work and gave us stoppers to the besties who ghosted us. We spend a LOT of energy here.
I encourage you to put ’em all in that same category: Not my demographic. You’re a network. You’re programming for your key demo. If you’re HBO you don’t care that you get angry letters from people who think you feature too much nudity. Similarly, you never stress out hearing you’re “too commercial” if you’re a booking machine when it comes to nationals that air during the Super Bowl. Eff those indie films. Not your demographic!
For now.
(If you get the sense we’ll come back to this, you’re right.)
Today’s work: Begin to release the energy you expend trying to be everything to everyone. Label the people already in your life, who come into your life, and whom you hope will be a part of your life. Without judgment, note which third they are in. Where are you spending energy trying to get an edgy violence-loving fan to understand why your squeaky-clean family-friendly fare is worthy of their adoration? More importantly, where are you depriving your existing fanbase of what it’s craving due to your focus on the wrong two-thirds?
Tweet it: When you try to be everything to everyone, you accomplish being nothing to anyone.
Trusting that someone at this very moment is NOT getting you and then acknowledging that the only reason this ever bugs you is because you know about it should set you free. Right this second, all over the world, there are people actively NOT clicking with what you have to offer as a storyteller. It’s not their thing. Someday in the future you’ll learn about one of these people. Their opinion was formed long before you’ll learn about their very existence. So why focus on it now? Or then? Or ever?
Say it with me, now: “Some people just won’t get me. There is NOTHING to fix. I will no longer spend my precious energy on people who are committed to NOT getting me.”
You have stories to tell… for the third of the world that’s WAITING for the next amazing thing you’ll do. No matter what level, no matter what tier, your existing fanbase deserves your attention, your appreciation, and your stories. Get to labeling folks, get efficient with where you direct your energy, and then get to work!
’til tomorrow… stay ninja!
