The following is a guest essay from former Hollywood editor turned writer, podcaster, and creative career coach Zack Arnold who wants to help the FilmStack community learn more effective ways to network and build relationships.
Zack has put together a live virtual event that is SOOO impressive called The Connection Conference (🗓️ Oct 19-23) that brings together the world’s top thought leaders—like Adam Grant, Will Guidara, David Epstein, Angela Duckworth, Susan Cain, Charles Duhigg, Ethan Mollick, and many more—to teach us how to build our support networks so we can keep telling stories that matter. Together.
Anyone who has ever worked in the entertainment industry knows few things ring truer than the age-old adage: It’s all about who you know.
I would argue there are few (if any?) other industries where having a strong and diverse network is literally the only path to breaking in and becoming successful. Whether film or television, long form or short, studio or indie, virtually every role across every craft from the bottom of the ladder to the top is filled via referral networks. As soon as a job opens, the search begins with:
“Do you know anyone who…?”
If up until the collapse of the industry beginning in 2023 your primary means of employment was waiting for the message, “Hey, are you available?” Well…yeah…we all know how that’s been working out. With less sets to work on, less festivals to attend, and frankly way less productions period (at least here in the states), the serendipity of traditional networking is all but dead. Any networking events people do still attend are at best meat markets reeking of desperation and at worst funerals bringing together those of us mourning the death of a business we once proudly called Hollywood.
As Ted himself wrote when asking the question Has Anyone In The Film Industry Ever Truly Helped You Out?,
A life in film is now barely sustainable.
But all Hope is not lost (yes, horrible pun intended). As Ted shared in our interview together from my “Navigating the Future of Entertainment” summit last year:
We will solve this together. We’ll make it better working together.
This begs the question Ted…how?
It Begins With Redefining What It Means to “Network”
As someone who broke into this industry with exactly ZERO contacts and built a successful twenty year career across both film and television, I’d like to share an alternative strategy to building your filmmaker network and surrounding yourself with creative collaborators that doesn’t involve schmoozing, working the room, or plastering the internet with your résumé, only to watch it disappear into cyberspace.
Cold outreach. 📨
As a socially awkward introvert who avoids traditional “networking” like the plague, I’ve instead built my entire creative career across three completely separate sectors of the industry—theatrical trailers, indie films, and television—from the comfort of my inbox. In fact I secured nine seasons of employment (4 seasons editing Burn Notice, and 5 seasons as the lead editor/associate producer of Cobra Kai) from two cold outreach emails.
No matter the people you would love to collaborate with, everyone has an email inbox, and everyone has to process it. The hard part is getting someone to respond.
That’s where I come in…
Introducing The VSA Outreach Formula™
I’ve spent the last ten years working with hundreds of my artistic and creative clients developing a cold outreach formula (read: NOT a template or swipe file) that has a 70% response rate. 👈 Nope, not a typo. When done well, your cold outreach will not only receive responses but also enthusiastic responses, helpful responses, and most importantly human responses.
Don’t believe me, ask #1 NYT bestselling author Adam Grant:
“I remember when I got your first email, and I thought, wow, this is a masterclass in how to write a cold email. It was on my top five list of the best cold emails I’ve ever gotten from readers. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten an email from you that didn’t communicate this guy really cares about other people.”
I didn’t reach out to Adam Grant because he’s sold millions of books or his TED talks have millions of views. I reached out to Adam Grant because I genuinely admired the way he writes and what he writes about. Even more importantly, I wanted to connect with Adam because I truly admired his mission: The most meaningful way to succeed is to help others succeed.
Making genuine connections requires following your intuition and taking big swings. Begin with someone you’d kill to collaborate with, then think about why. If it’s just because they have amazing credits or they’ve won awards, think harder. Go deeper. They most likely chose to be a filmmaker for a reason. Find that reason. Find their ‘why.’ Seek out filmmakers on a similar mission who tell stories that share similar values as yours. And then reach out.
To ensure you’re reaching out to the right people for the right reasons, begin by asking yourself the following questions:
-
Where do you want your filmmaking career to be in the next few years?
-
What’s stopping you from getting there?
-
Who has already achieved these goals and overcome these obstacles?
If you approach your outreach properly, these are the people who will be excited to see you in their inbox and eager to help. Why? Because they’ve been there before and can empathize with your struggles.
But do me one favor before reaching out…don’t ask the robots to write that outreach for you. 🤖
Step #1: Open your message delivering VALUE.
Value doesn’t mean offering your services for free or showering someone with empty flattery. And value is not using the robots to summarize someone’s work for them (trust me, they’re already familiar with their own work!). Delivering value begins with making this person and their work feel seen. This requires doing your homework. Actually watching their shows. Actually listening to their podcast interviews or reading their articles. Then not only sharing what resonated with you but also why.
As the #1 NYT bestselling author of Human Raised, Dana Suskind, shared in our Connection Conference conversation:
“I loved the email you sent me. Not because it was flattering, but the fact that you were thinking deeply about the things that I was thinking about. I was moved because you were connecting with me as another human.”
In short, my outreach formula only works if you actually care. Kindness and thoughtfulness don’t scale. You have to make genuine connections one hand-crafted email at a time.
Step #2: Tell a clear and compelling STORY.
Which story you tell largely depends on the context of your outreach. Are you seeking guidance and expertise? Requesting a referral? Hoping to connect as peers? Or making the direct approach to collaborate right off the bat?
Before writing ask yourself, whose story is it? I.E. whose goals and whose obstacles? If the story of your email is about your goals and your obstacles, your story paragraph needs to make the following clear:
-
Where you are now?
-
Where are you going next?
-
What’s stopping you from getting there?
Listen, it’s not that people don’t want to help you, it’s that people don’t know how to help you. Your story paragraph makes this clear. And if the goals and obstacles in your story paragraph belong to the person you want to collaborate with, then your story paragraph needs to make it clear how you can be helpful to this person so they can tell their stories.
Step #3: Make your ASK.
This is where so many drop the ball (don’t worry, I have too!). The ask is the hardest part, but it’s also the most important.
According to the author of the brand new book Should I Say Something? and psychologist Vanessa Bohns (another one of my guests at The Connection Conference), people are more than twice as likely to help you than you think they are! So before you abandon your outreach because of your FORO (Fear Of Reaching Out), keep in mind that people want a reason to matter. And your message might give them a reason.
Your ask needs to be clear, direct, and require less than five minutes to respond to. Ideally they should be able to both read your entire message and respond to it while they’re waiting in line for their Starbucks fix. But DO NOT ask them for their time so you can “pick their brain.”
If the story of your message is about you, your ask should start a conversation that leads to them talking about themselves rather than giving you advice. They can’t give you good advice yet because they don’t know enough about you. Give them a reason to share something they achieved that they’re proud of that’s also relevant to help you achieve similar goals. If the story is about them, the ask is not “Will you collaborate with me?” or “If you have any jobs I would love to be considered,” it’s instead “Can I help you solve these problems? If so, would you like to chat?”
V – Value.
S – Story.
A – Ask.
Done well, using The VSA Outreach Formula™ makes your recipient and their work feel seen. Giving this person an opportunity to talk about themselves allows this person to feel heard. And answering a question or two that might help you in return allows them to feel useful.
If you’d like to dive deeper into the psychology, the art, and the science of great outreach that can lead to amazing connections and meaningful relationships, come join me and the world’s experts at my live virtual event The Connection Conference, Oct 19-23rd, featuring the world’s top thought leaders and experts like Adam Grant, David Epstein, Angela Duckworth, Will Guidara, Charles Duhigg, Ethan Mollick, Susan Cain, Priya Parker, and many more.
For a little more from Zack (on HopeForFilm)…
