In their first sentence, they asked for a job. Didn’t beat around the bush. Didn’t ask about opportunities. Didn’t hint at the desire to work with/for me. Full-on asked for a job at McBeard.

I wrote a simple and kind reply, but the more I thought about it, I thought I might write a more thorough post on how to cold-pitch people for jobs or gigs or freelance work. I wish someone had written this to me when I was 22.

So, my advice:

1. Don’t directly ask for a job.

Don’t do it. Ever. Especially not in your first email to a stranger. It’s just presumptive and rude. I don’t know you, I don’t know your work. You don’t know me. You don’t even know if you want to work for me. I could be a terrible, manipulative boss who will literally steal money from you.

As it turns out, I’m a nice guy who works hard, but gets annoyed when strangers a) ask for a job, b) pitch him ideas for books or movies or TV shows, or c) ask for a job.

Friends are different. Family is different. Contacts from networking events are different (but only slightly). But strangers… don’t do it.

2. Seriously, don’t ask for a job.

There are a thousand better ways of getting to the employment question. You can ask to learn more about my company, or my work, or how I got here. You can ask me a few pointed questions, because you’re interested in the nature of creative and compelling copywriting. You could offer to take me to lunch. You could ask if I’m the appropriate person to talk to about freelance opportunities, because you don’t want to waste my time.  Asking for something that costs me less is a much better (and more successful) tactic.

Asking for a job in your first contact is like asking me out on a date. You drive up. Adjust your tie. Walk up to my door. Ring the doorbell. But before I can even open the door, you shout, “I’M READY FOR THE SEX NOW!!!!”

Seriously, it’d be better to just ask for something that requires less as a first step. You get more wins that way.

3. Paint yourself as a capable person with a positive attitude.

In the email, this person started out saying that they wanted to be a writer, but couldn’t bring themselves to write a novel or be a journalist. So they settled on “copywriter.” Bad move. You let me know that you’re a settler. That there are things you can and won’t do.

Unfortunately, I want to hire people who are successful in whatever they touch.

My company gets work from well-known international companies who love our book, but they don’t hire us to write funny tweets or publish a best-selling book for them. We do more than that. They hire us because a) we are easy-going and professional (the lowest bar possible), and b) our work — no matter what they ask us to do — is killer. We deliver every time, no matter what crazy stuff they ask for.

Don’t sell yourself short. It makes you look unfit to do the work.

4. Don’t send a resume (or offer to send a resume).

The pitch email is your resume. Don’t tell me you can write solid copy. The words you write in the email is the test of that. That’s how the world works now. No one judges you off your resume. You get judged on your work and your relationship and whatever I can Google about you.

Instead, include a link — maybe two, if you have them — to something AMAZING that you’ve done. It’s low commitment for me (again, I’m a stranger) to click on it and look at your work — and it makes it easier on me — without having to commit to answering you back to get it. That’s socially awkward for a guy in my position. And guys in my position will never do it. They’ll never answer you back asking for a resume. But they would (and I would) click on a link to something amazing.

But (big “but”), it HAS to be amazing to get my attention. Or a response.

5. Do some research about me.

I have a lot of lures out there, in the internet. Sites with my name on them. It’d be easy to Google my name and learn something important. When it comes to seeking a job, you’d probably stumble onto the McBeard “About us” page where we say “we’re a small shop” and list only three employees. If we only have three people — and two of us are co-founders — then our chances of hiring (and growing our company by 33% with one hire) is relatively low.

But it also means we’re hard-working guys who are hustling for their work. And that we probably appreciate people doing the same. Given the right offer (see #2 above), we’d probably reply to anyone.

Even personal stuff. You’ll find a lot of information about me. I wrote screenplays, I have a kid. I live in Los Angeles. I went to Pepperdine. That all helps inform the kind of email you write to me.

In conclusion…

I hope you don’t read the above and think, “Geez, what a douche. Take a Xanax and get back to me.”

Hopefully it’s a gut check if you need one. Or if you’re a person in a position to hire, you agree with some of it.

In any case, I want to stress mastery in the lost art of “thinking about how someone will read this” when writing emails, especially when asking for something.

Copywriting and creative work is about expressing your ideas to others. Your emails should be no different.

The troves of forgotten memories are amazing, both from my childhood and my parents’ childhoods. It’s a virtual look back at history, before GPS, color TV, and even push-button telephones. Dare I say it, “a simpler time.” I’ll be sharing the photos and videos over the next few months, one per day.

Looking forward to your thoughts and comments, about how these relate to your own memories of the 80s, 70s, 60s, and 50s…

First up, a video of me as a baby, circa 1979. Waaaaaaaaaaah!

Alan and I wrote the Historical Tweets book together, and it has spawned many new opportunities to create branded social media for clients I never thought I’d be able to reach.  Collectively, we call the new agency McBeard.

So, for the meantime, you can find me over at McBeardMedia.com, and see some of the work we’re doing over there.

Feel free to give a shout at alec (at) mcbeardmedia (dot) com or hit me up on ‘the Twitter’ at @alecmcnayr.

I’ve seen enough “nail in the coffin” and “last Streamys ever” updates on Twitter.  They get it.  They did a bad job.

There are a lot of people who have meticulously deconstructed why the show went wrong, from the bad opening number to the streakers to the embarrassing technical glitches (in a room full of nerds, no less) the “nobody cares about online video” man-on-the-street video to the way-too-long and obscene “comedy” bits.

As an IAWTV member and someone who knows the show’s executive producers Marc, Drew, Brady, and Josh personally — I’ll add this to the conversation: just one year ago, this didn’t even exist.

This was an event that literally didn’t exist a year ago.  And though I think the show was really bad and a detriment to the  momentum we all feel about online video, people are calling for heads to roll.  Really?

Without the Tubefilter guys, would this even exist?  No.  Would there be a community as thriving as there is in Los Angeles?  No.  So let’s back off a little, because these guys aren’t money-grubbing, smarmy used car salesmen.  Trust me, they’re taking this seriously and will come forward with a plan.  That doesn’t happen in 24 hours.

Do I think this was a bad show that showcased the juvenile nature of the Web against its more established media counterparts?  Yes. But the result — the backbiting and negative comments — are proving the other stereotype of the Internet: not unlike the comments on a YouTube video, a lot of people are hating on something they don’t want to do (or couldn’t do) themselves.  These guys built this from nothing.  Give them a break.

BEHIND THE FRUSTRATION

I wonder if a lot of the frustration with the show is because there feels like something was lost.  A naive dream, perhaps.  Web series creators, including the majority of people in that theatre, make little money and can’t support themselves doing it like their TV or film counterparts.  Surely, a Streamy Awards show debacle doesn’t help them getting closer to “sustainable living,” but surely the big payoff wasn’t so close that the Streamys ruined it.

The sad truth is that, for most online content producers (and offline for that matter), there is very little income to be spread around right now, and for independents who are also “up and comers” — myself included — there is a smaller and smaller pie.  Celebrities that you might normally see on TV and movies are taking advantage of online opportunities (such as Kevin Pollak, Tony Hale, Zach Galifianakis, Illeana Douglas) to have more creative control and ownership over their work.  Traditional media companies and ad agencies are looking for “sure things” from people with TV/film experience.  Sure, there are indies that get funding and/or distribution.  But for every Bannen Way, there’s a thousand Web series that won’t make a cent.

It’s tough to be independent.  But it’s just tough in general.  That’s the entertainment business, regardless of medium.  The road for online producers/creators/writers isn’t an easy one.  And you can’t blame the Streamy Awards this year for you not getting what you want.

If you want to make Web videos, do it. And keep doing it.  Just like the Oscars and Emmys — just do what you do and let the awards take care of themselves.

But don’t look to the Tubefilter guys as scapegoats.  If you want things to change, offer to help.  I’m sure they’re all ears to real criticism if offered with a helping hand.

[Some updates made above to my rhetoric and logic, after some comments called them out below.]

Last week, when we were in the room, the potential client — smart guy, executive, nice suit — shared a creative gap in his marketing strategy. Not a huge thing.  Not a show-stopper.  Just a small problem he didn’t have a solution for.  An idea he didn’t know how to execute on.  A lingering itch he didn’t know how to scratch.

So we offered up five options for salving his itch.

And it struck me that that’s how you make art pay.  Your art — your creative work, your ideas, your outlook on life — should make the small concerns in the corner of someone else’s mind go away.  Puts them at ease.

That said, there’s two ways of going about it:

1. You can customize your art to salve someone’s itch (some call this selling out; I call it creative adaptation).
2. Or you can keep plugging away at your own voice and art, and wait for the right scratchy people with money to come to you.

You probably have to do both.

What itch/problem (logical, emotional, motivational) does your art salve/solve?

We just sent the book off to the printers, and we couldn’t be more excited. It’s destined to be the year’s #1 best-seller in the crowded history/Twitter/humor category, hands down.

SO, now that the book is done, we bring you:

10 Little-Known But Totally Inspiring True Facts About
Historical Tweets:The Completely Unabridged and Ridiculously Brief History of the World

1. The book has 144 full-color pages.
2. For all you spatial thinkers, it measures 8-1/8 inches wide by 5-1/2 inches tall.
3. The cover art was created by artist Barry Blitt, whose work is often seen on the cover of The New Yorker.
4. The book features 50 of the best tweets from the Historical Tweets site from 2008 to now.
5. The book contains over 8o brand new, never-before-seen tweets.
6. New tweets from the likes of T-Rex, Socrates, Merlin the Magician, The Vikings, Napoleon, and Gorbachev.
7. The book also features all-new types of Twitter-esque humor like conversation stacks, tag clouds, and hate tweets.
8. Besides @historicaltweet, you can follow our whole team on Twitter: authors @alecmcnayr and @abeard, our humor and fact checker @dbrisco, our editor @ryandoh, and our agent @kate_mckean (she’s popular).
9. Of the new tweets in the book, our personal favorites are Agamemnon (Alan) and Isaac Newton (Alec).
10. The book is on sale for pre-order for as low as $9.45 right now.

We hope you’re as excited for the book as we are. As always, thanks for your support.

- Alan & Alec

If there’s one thing to learn from this, it’s that the main thing is the main thing.  Management and production is all subservient to the director, who has the difficult task of maintaining quality, on Walt’s direct behalf.  Without quality, the whole thing falls apart.

For those that don’t follow me on Twitter, I turned in the final materials for my Historical Tweets book yesterday, due in bookstores April 27, 2010.  Our editor is already loving it (whew!), and the Random House juggernaut is starting to take over.

I’ll probably write more about this later, but I wanted to share my immediate thoughts as I finished the book, and now consider myself an author.

• It’s anticlimactic. All that work, and a delayed reward.  Book doesn’t come out for over four months.  For the book business, by the way, that is lightning fast.  There’s probably a lesson in delayed gratification there.
• I’m proud of what we did. There was a few weeks when our draft had a lot of flab, but last week we trimmed our Tweets list from about 170 to 130, and the fat was cut away.  The final product, I feel, is very, very funny.
• I’m thankful for a team. Not only for Alan Beard, a funny writing partner, but for the extended team: Darnell Brisco, who did a lot of research and grunt work for us, for our families, and Katie in particular, who allowed “the book” to be an excuse for not cleaning up the house, not having a “real job,” not showering, saying no to social gatherings, and not going to bed until 2AM. And that doesn’t even include the extended-extended team that includes friends and family who have been endlessly supportive through notes, calls, Twitter, and Facebook.
• I’m humbled by the scale. They’re going to do a first run of 100,000 books for the U.S. and Canada alone.  At a retail price of $14, they’re looking to generate $1.4 million off of a little idea I had a year ago.  That’s crazy to me.  Makes me treasure little ideas more.
• I’m ready for more. We’re already talking about the follow-up.

Any questions about the process I should go into?  Leave me questions in the comments, and I’ll answer.

Thanks for your support!

PS — I’d be remiss if I didn’t give you a link to pre-order the book on Amazon.  Here it is.

How to Create Product Demo Videos that Get Social Media Attention: 6 Strategies to Increase Sales
via Marketing Sherpa

“Aaron Miller, President, ProGuitarShop.com, sees online video as the perfect medium for selling the retailer’s boutique electric guitar effects pedals.

In late 2007, ProGuitarShop.com was primarily an eBay retailer struggling to build traffic to their website. Miller’s team created a new strategy that avoided focusing on search engines. Instead, they built traffic through social networks, mostly by video marketing through YouTube.

Two years and more than 550 videos later, the team captures about 45,000 unique video views daily on YouTube and between 15,000 and 20,000 on their website — all from a niche audience. Sales have doubled each year since the effort began.”

Stella Artois Ditches Old-Time Campaigns, Creates Retro “TV” Station
via Fast Company

“How long is it until companies begin sponsoring full-on TV shows of their own and publishing them on the Web? That doesn’t sound too much different from television entertainment in the 1950s and the rise of soap operas. And now, the economics make tremendous sense: Why bother creating TV ads if you can get a few million views with no distribution costs while simultaneously creating and having final cut control over far more ambitious content?”

How long indeed?  It’s happening already.  One by one, brands are realizing the power of creating a constant flow of interesting, inexpensive media — forgoing the overhead-rich worlds of TV and traditional advertising.

The Fast Company asks how long it will be until a brand asks the creators of a show like Gossip Girl to create extended storylines with brands in center stage.  Not too long, I feel. But the question for aspiring and independent creators is — if I don’t work for a network and I don’t make a TV show, what career path can I take to get better cred with brands?

It’s something I’m wrestling with myself.

The answer is that you have to have proof of your work.  And, following the logic trail, you have to have work to get results!

If you’ve followed my career — and I know all six of you reading this have — you’ll see Pepperdine University (recognizable brand), Mann Theatres (regionally known brand), my own project Flipper Nation (350,000 views + awards), deals with ABC (again, a brand), Historical Tweets (4.7 million page views this year), and only now do I have an opportunity to step in front of brands.

The shackles are off.  Make something.  Put it online.  Do it again.  Brands don’t want a one-time hit, they want someone who can deliver results.  So don’t be the one-timer.  Keep working, keep crafting.  Keep getting better.  In time, the results will come.  And so will the brands.

Speaking about a friend’s relative who had to drop out of college, Hugh says…

But even though the situa­tion clip­ped his wings con­si­de­rably, he still ended up having a nice life in the end, with a home, a big yard, two cars, a steady paycheck, wee­kends fishing or hun­ting deer, and vaca­tions in Hawaii every year or so. “The days where a blue collar guy like my uncle could have a nice life without doing much,” my friend said, “those days are gone. Gone forever.”

I’ve spent 10 years cobbling together a hodge-podge of skills that are now paying off in a way I never had expected.  Web design. Acting.  Comedy.  Photography.  Writing.  Late nights.  Little pretense.   It doesn’t feel like the kind of career/life/path my University degree led me to believe I’d get, and I bet it makes my parents worried.

But it’s the kind of life that can give me a shot at living the kind of life Hugh describes: a normal, middle-class life.  And then the thought hits me: The lifestyle my parents thought was normal will be thought of as exceptional to my generation.

My generation may have to work harder to get less.

That’s scary.  And incentivizing.  Get back to work.

BBC America shows reruns of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, and if you haven’t seen any episodes, it’s worth a watch.  Before he made it big with Hell’s Kitchen, Gordon traveled around the world walking into the emptiest, dirtiest, and shoddiest restaurants, and shaping them up in less than a week.

It’s the best type of reality TV; every owner is on the brink of bankruptcy, suffering from a tragic balance of professional ego and personal shame.  And by the end of an hour, they have a fresh new start.

After watching about seven episodes now, I see a bit of a formula of what it takes, in Gordon’s mind, to run a successful restaurant.  And — big surprise — they’re lessons I can apply to my own creative work.

• Never send out crap. Often, the chef is running behind and sends out sub-par food to “get ahead” in his or her orders.  Never a good idea.  The only reason people come to your restaurant is to get a good meal.  If they don’t get that, then the core value of your business is wasted.  As a creative, I’m continually challenged to never settle on sub-par work, in favor of appeasing the client or getting it out the door.
• Put a sign up. On the show, many restaurants don’t have a well-lit sign in front of their business.  They’re hoping that customers will.  In my world, it means that you should have a business name, a pitch, a business card, a web site worth spending more than 8 seconds on.
• Make it simple in order to stand out. Often the menu is crazy complicated.  Mixes, sauces, meats, etc.  Never one single direction, but the owner’s “unique take on food,” which they believe will propel them to notoriety and success.  Gordon always makes over the menu, and normally cuts it in half.  And they balk at being good at simple things like “steaks.”  But “steaks” are what the people want!  How many items are on your creative menu?  Are you sacrificing quality for quantity?  Are you claiming to specialize in something that no one wants?
• Change the scenery. Gordon’s unseen “design team” always makes over the restaurant.  For the show, it’s a big reveal, but I’m consistently underwhelmed by what they do.  But it always makes a huge difference to the people working there.  Like to the point of tears.  Maybe just a little sprucing up can make a big difference.  If you’re stuck in a rut, change your view.  Your desk.  Your office.  People resist change, but they embrace investment.

Just some lessons I’m hearing and applying to my own life.  Any of these strike a chord for you?

[A part of my continued Pursuing Creativity series.]

1. How did you come up with this idea? Did it just develop out of your studies in history and interest in social media, or is there more to it?

We came up with the idea after seeing Mad Men characters Twittering in mid-2008. People were signing up as the characters from the AMC show, and the juxtaposition of fake 1960s characters using 21st century technology was interesting. Thinking as a marketer and comedy writer, I called my friend (and former boss) about the idea of Twittering as all the previous U.S. presidents — and having them comment on the then-current presidential election. Luckily for us, that idea sounded like too much work (plus, how many times can Taft be funny?), so we settled on single tweets from lots of historical figures.

2. I started a street-fashion blog a few months ago called Work It, Berk. Although I’m starting to get a bit more traffic, I’m interested in knowing how your site was able to jump to 4.5 million page views in a year. What methods did you use? Word of mouth, other sites, Twitter, Facebook?

We launched the site in October 2008 with 50 tweets in queue, and we probably made 100 more blog posts total during the next 8 months. Around June/July 2009, we were featured on Time.com and CNN.com — and even Ashton Kutcher tweeted about us — and we got 2.5 million page views over a weekend. Crazy.

Honestly, we didn’t do any extensive marketing, nor do we continue to do so. It’s kind of a lesson plan on what not to do. Our Twitter account is not very active. We don’t have a Facebook fan page worth looking at. We don’t really reach out to other bloggers.  As the book looms closer, we’ll probably do more of that; talking to history and education bloggers.

The thing that we do successfully, though, is that we keep the content coming. The sheer amount matters. 10 tweets would never have taken off. We needed a critical mass of at least 100 posts to really get noticed. I don’t know why that’s a rule, but I think it is. Totally unscientific, and with no real numeric basis.  When it comes to online content, it pays to be prolific.

The other positive thing is that we let others participate. From day 1, we put the Photoshop template on the site. The complexity of Photoshop keeps most fans from contributing, but it’s been a nice way to reward our true fans who want to do the extra work.

In the end, however, we just struck gold.  Our idea was right and the timing was right.  I’ve jotted down and created tons of sites in the past few years.  None of them have hit like this.  It was just my time.

And I’m not going to lie; every time I see someone tweet “I’m kicking myself for not thinking of this sooner,” the little malicious boy inside me grins and does a backflip.

3. What did you do before this site?

I’m a self-taught web designer with 10 years experience building web sites, leading marketing strategy. I also have a lot of experience acting and doing improv comedy — which has led me to write a lot of comedy TV scripts. Somehow, all those skills have contributed to this site happening the way it has…. but I never saw it coming.

4. Is this site for mere entertainment or do you do “corporate social media” for your day job?

The site, originally, was for entertainment. But now that we’ve gotten some traction and a book deal, we see it as a way to promote ourselves as creative thinkers and creators — people that can make something memorable and viral out of something as “boring” as history. We’re hoping the site can continue to entertain fans, but also bring corporate marketing clients our way. It’s already working… we’re close to working with a couple of big, international clients to do social media for them.  We’re really excited.

Thanks for your email, Brittany.  Best of luck to you as you push forward (keep pushing, btw… it will come…. you just don’t know what “it” will be).

What do you expect?

Unfulfilled expectations are the death of any creative-type, or anyone, for that matter.

At the end of Season 3 of Mad Men (one of my favorite shows on TV, hands down), Don Draper, the world’s best ad man (in his own mind… but then again, no one does anything great without first thinking that he is worthy or capable of undertaking it… right?), is starting off on a new adventure…

As Roger Sterling and Don Draper look at their old offices for what could be the last time, Roger asks, “How long do you think it will take us to be in a place like this again?” Don replies, “I never saw myself working in a place like this.”

Work as if you’ll never get glory or wealth (or pay, for that matter), and you’ll find a jagged stone of some original, creative idea.  Ugly, but yours.  Polish that stone for a while, and you’ll have a diamond.  Maybe.  But if you did it for the love, and not for the money, it will be worthwhile.

My friend Sam Parmelee is composing some original music cues for a series of Generosity Water videos I’m producing, and he just sent me his invoice.

He’s doing me a favor and is getting paid very little compared to his normal rate, but he included this in his invoice: “Thank you for your business!” (I don’t think I’m a special dame — I bet he writes that for all the producers he works with.)

He might have said, “Thank you for believing in my talent,” or “Thank you for trusting me with this project,” or “Thank you for keeping food on my family’s table.”  It doesn’t matter.  He expressed his thanks for the business opportunity — that he, as a creative type, isn’t so precious about his artistry to not realize that I could go anywhere to get it, but I chose to work with him.  Thankfulness means a lot.

Expressing gratitude means you have to suck up your pride.  Be selfless.  Be humble.

And then, be crafty to use the tools you have — like an INVOICE! — to express it.

But it’s a short break.  One or two days later, he starts the process over again.  Working out.  Training.  Lifting weights.

Similarly, a lot of people have asked me what I’m doing now that I’ve sold a book.

I’m writing it.  Working it out.  Doing the heavy lifting.  Thinking about promotion.

Remember this.  When you’ve “made it,” you’ve only just started.

View the story here.

I work with the non-profit Generosity Water (we’re friendly with charity:water), and we often talk about the value of turning negative causes into positive proclamations.  I just think this is a great step in creating media that brings value and dignity to a situation, and doesn’t ask us to dwell deeply on the ugly issue.

Now, if I were in charge of social media at charity:water, I’d make a parody video of Single Ladies
called “Beautiful Women,” but that’s just me….

Internet funnymen Rhett & Link made this commercial for Cullman Liquidation, and I think that, even though it’s fraught with stereotypes and humor, it’s a real commercial for a real local company.

Rhett & Link created a site called I Love Local Commercials, as a platform for them to create low-budget videos for small town businesses that normally don’t consider video as a marketing device.

It’s a smart move for two guys who got some street cred from Hollywood, but famously live in North Carolina, where buying a house is cheaper.

It’s a good example of making your skills work for you no matter where you live.  That you don’t have to live in Los Angeles to make good entertainment (but it helps).

By “Jack,” she means Jack Skelington from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Some backstory: when October 1st comes around every year, our house gets transformed into a scare palace, and the 1993 Tim Burton masterpiece goes into our DVD player.  And it doesn’t leave for 31 days.  I had no idea this would happen when I said “I do,” but it’s a pleasant surprise.

In the movie, Jack is very successful at his job: scaring people.  His whole world is wrapped around his innate talent.  Everyone pats Jack on the back for doing his job so well.  But he’s frustrated with the monotony.

What does he do?  He changes his world.  He goes to “Christmasland,” where his talents are so unique that they’re shocking to people.  They literally change the world, in a Guy Kawasaki-type way.

As I try to apply this to the business of creativity, I consider my own hodge-podge of skills.  Writing and comedy.  Graphic design, Photoshop, and photography. Presentations and public speaking.  I’m always trying to apply them in a better way than others, but what about applying them to a new world?

I’m pursuing a career in TV screenwriting, and I’ve been thinking about how my skills beyond screenwriting will make me stand out there.  Coming from the worlds of marketing and online media, my skills may be shocking in a world that seems so rigidly defined.  I’m hoping it will make me stand out…

My tagline for myself: “A new breed of TV showrunner, a writer with an eye for digital media and marketing.” Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it’s a start.

What are you good at?  Is it the same thing as 1,000 other people?  That level of competition makes you irrelevant; the line is too long to compete head-to-head.  So put yourself in a new world… one that makes you unique.  Stand out!

[Posted in the Pursuing Creativity series]