How to Sell Your Ideas Like a Movie Producer
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So you have a great idea. It’s the idea that will change the world, eliminate poverty and make you a million bucks. The only problem: when you talk about your idea, you only get blank faces looking back at you.
You’ve probably been in a situation where you need to communicate an original idea. You might need your boss to look at your proposal for a new product. Maybe you want friends to read your new novel. Perhaps you want to relate your passions to people who don’t share the same interests as you.
The problem in all these situations is the same: you have a complex, original idea. But you need to summarize the idea quickly. How do you solve this problem?
Sell Ideas Like a Movie
One of my professors shared a strategy movie producers use when pitching ideas to a studio. Given that producers may only have a few minutes to pitch an entire movie, it would seem almost impossible to explain the plot.
The secret, my professor shared, is that they base their idea from components of existing ideas. He used the example of J.J. Abrams new movie, Cloverfield:
“It’s a mix between Blair Witch Project and Godzilla.”
In one sentence, he created a decent sketch of the movie.
Mash-Up Ideas to Sell Something Original
Cloverfield is a good example because it blends aspects of two well-known movies. Your idea might not be such a good fit. Here are a few ways you can help mash your ideas for better communication:
- Find a base. Pick a point of reference for your idea. If I wanted to explain to people what I do on this website, I could start by saying that I’m a writer. This is an incomplete picture for what I do, but it is a good starting point.
- Mash in a new element. From your starting point, add in a completely different idea that contains missing elements from your reference point. For my own example, I could mix in online business owner to mix with writer. This approach will miss nuances, but will convey 80% of my idea in 2-3 sentences.
- Add Exceptions. The final step would be to fix the common misconceptions people make about your mash-up. This is the stage where you want to throw in the details to make your idea more unique.
A Few Mash-Ups to Consider
Here are just a few mash-ups I’ve considered:
- LinkedIn - Facebook + business contacts.
- Skype - Free long-distance + through the web.
- Lifehack.org - Self-help + practical.
- Blogger - Writer + Online Business Owner
- Bears - Cats + Dogs (only larger)
Are these mash-ups 100% accurate? Of course not. But if you’ve never heard of LinkedIn or you’ve never seen a bear before, they cover about 80% of the description you need. All in just a few words.
Why This Idea is Counterintuitive
As an innovator, the first instinct you have is to preserve the uniqueness of your idea. Claiming your masterpiece is a derivative of three or four other works feels wrong. You put a lot of effort to create something unique, and in the first sentence of your explanation you remove the originality.
I’ve fallen into this trap many times. Pride for a great idea sabotages you in trying to sell it to other people.
Why it Works
If you don’t offer a point of reference for your idea, other people will make their own. Using a mash-up puts the idea into terms the other person already understands. After this person understand the core of your idea, you can worry about the window dressing.
Here are some mash-ups questions for you:
- Assume nobody had heard of your profession before. What mash-up would best explain it?
- Mash-up one of your hobbies.
- What’s your favorite style of music? Mash-up two different genres as a way of describing it.
Try picking one of these questions and add it to the comments.
nicolien said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:20 am
I enjoy reading your blog, but one comment (because I’ve seen you make the mistake before):
“other people will make there own”
there = place
their = possession
(they’re = verb)
not so hard, is it
Olga said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:37 am
Perhaps a credit to the professor would be appropriate?
Adam Alexander said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:37 am
Like blogging in a textbook…
Real idea: A website which lists tutorials on nerdy subjects, such as HTML and software development… With the web elements, it allows progressive revelation. I.e., a person can read more nerdy information about a topic, or continue to the next step of the tutorial. Like a blog, it has tangents scattered rather haphazardly. Like a textbook, it has a core set of knowledge to present. Also takes elements of blogging, such as commenting on specific topics within a tutorial, and RSS feeds.
I’d love someone to steal this idea and apply it to their own area of expertise. Nerdy topics like software development are my domain, but if someone could make a tangent-rich time management site, it would be excellent.
After I have written the code for my site, I’ll be happy to share it with anyone interested… though this could take months.
Cal said,
March 17, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Hi Scott,
Can you give a few examples of this principle at work outside of the world of business ideas? I’m curious how well it translates across different fields…
- Cal
etavitom said,
March 17, 2008 at 1:10 pm
This is a great post! Thank You. Making 1 + 1 = 3 is magical and a smart way to explain/develop concepts.
Scott Young said,
March 17, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Cal,
Good point. Most of the examples I can think of where marketing an original idea would matter would be with new products/innovations. But here are a few I’m guessing off the top of my head:
Ayn Rand -> Moral Philosophy + Adam Smith
Law of Attraction -> Positive Thinking + Metaphysics
Music -> Sound + Rhythm
There are times when this approach might miss too many of the nuances of an idea to make it completely worthless. But I think, as a starting point, it can help you communicate ideas quickly.
J.D. said,
March 18, 2008 at 1:51 am
I’m a fan of sharing practices across disciplines and borrowing the best from the best.
My cousin is a movie editor and I’m in software engineering/project management, so we compared how we pitch ideas. What’s interesting is while there were so many approaches, we spiraled down on a common theme that works: Walk your potential investors through a meaningful scenario or storyboard. The most important thing is the emotional reaction to the scene. Does each scene make you feel?
The meta lesson was — win the heart, the mind follows.
Scott Young said,
March 18, 2008 at 3:51 am
nicolien,
Clearly I’m too hasty making my postings and not spending enough time in the proofreading phase. Yes, I am aware of the distinction, but even I miss a few things…
Olga,
The professor in question was Chris Street.
This is a public blog, so I make it a habit of not “outing” specific people who aren’t already in the blogosphere. I made a conscious decision to have elements of my personal life shared with several thousand people. Other people have not, so I generalize to respect privacy.
-Scott
Olga said,
March 18, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Thanks for following up. I would make an exception for university professors–their life’s work is having ideas and communicating them to other people. I would think that they’re already sufficiently public figures that the medium doesn’t really matter, so an brief credit of name/dept./school would not be unwelcome. I’m a student myself (in the U.S.), and there seems to be a huge problem with academic honesty here, so my guess is that a professor would rather be surprised by seeing their name somewhere they did not expect than seeing their idea (well, I’m not sure if it’s their idea, but that’s as close as you’ve got to a source) without proper credit.
You could go the more complicated route of actually contacting the professor prior to posting the article, but it probably gets a lot more complicated here (can they say no, you can’t publish this, or do they just get the heads-up and a choice about how they’re credited?). I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not sure what the law is (especially outside the U.S.) with respect to intellectual property of public speaking. Perhaps you have some insight into this from Toastmasters. In any case, this is probably something that you as a blogger who’s trying to make income from their blog will have to deal with eventually.
Diego said,
March 18, 2008 at 1:05 pm
As a Californian, I found this really amusing because, perhaps because of the proximity to the movie industry, we use mash-up all the time as explanation and even make jokes about wanting to have been at the pitch meeting for this or that film. But seriously, it does work fairly well for the most part.
Scott Young said,
March 19, 2008 at 5:30 am
Olga,
The idea was suggested to me in an off-hand remark in a private conversation.
Credit is appropriate, but when I get ideas based on conversations with friends, I don’t pull up the footnotes.
-Scott
Scott H Young » Friday Links 08-08-01 said,
August 1, 2008 at 10:02 am
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