GUEST: Michael Genet
Welcome to Marketing Masters. Each week we bring you the best of the best thought leaders from around the world to share marketing strategies and best practices so you too can grow your market.
Michael Genet is no stranger to overcoming rejections. He works in an industry where rejection is the daily normal. Learn how Michael will not allow rejection to defeat him and rose to greatness.
“Your belief in yourself must be greater than the disbelief of everyone else around you.” ~Michael Genet
ABOUT
Curtain Up on Michael Genet! You may not know the name, but you probably recognize the face. Michael Genet, a native of Washington, D.C. has carved out a stellar career in the toughest game in town; who business. Michael’s award winning talents have graced Broadway and the stages of every major theater in America and abroad. He’s lit up the big screen in such films as One Fine Day, 25th Hour, and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
Michael is also an acclaimed radio broadcaster, having honed his craft by spending several years as the velvet voice Host of the AM Quiet Storm on Washington’s WOL-1450 AM, which was the cornerstone purchase of his family’s broadcast ventures, now known as the Radio One and TV One Networks.
He’s popped up in living rooms everywhere on such shows as Ugly Betty, As The World turns, Law & Order, and CSI. With a skill-set that knows no bounds, Michael has successfully collaborated with show biz royalty from Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Viola Davis to Al Pacino, Oliver Stone, Elton John, and Anne Rise. Michael is the 2008 NAACP Image Award winning writer of the FOCUS Features Film, Talk to Me, and the author of the critically acclaimed book They Must Not Know Who I Think I am: Lessons in Defiant Resilience.
His upcoming work includes film The Cape Island Affair (ATO Pictures) is a magical romance based on a short story by acclaimed British novelist, Joanne Harris (Chocolat).
Memorable Failure
Ha! Being in Show Business, I’ve averaged five “failures” a day for over 30 years! Most people don’t have five legitimate failures in a year. But to this day, my most memorable and paralyzing failure came very early in my career when I got resoundingly kicked out of the Juilliard School. Kelsey Grammer was a 4th Year student when I arrived, and the late great Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve had recently been kicked out themselves…I never fully understood why I was kicked out. Many years later I learned it was because of the economy. My scholarship was no longer available. Thanks to my mother, and my own inner will to never quit…I continued chasing my dream, in spite of the huge scar that failure left on my heart. If I had given up I never would’ve starred on Broadway, television, became a playwright and I never would’ve written my first book. I was able to do all those things and more because in the end, my BELIEF IN MYSLEF WAS GREATER THAN THE DISBELIEF OF EVERYONE ELSE AROUND ME!
Ah-Ha Moment
I was 10 years old standing on stage in a school production of The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Something happened. I stood there and looked up at the light burning down on me, and all of a sudden I just knew! I knew that this was a place that I felt comfortable in. It wasn’t a stage anymore. It was an extension of my very being. In that moment I felt like what Muhammad Ali must’ve felt like every time he stepped into the ring, or Michael Jordan when he stepped on a basketball court. I felt like what a Med Student must feel when they first stepped into an operating room, or a new Attorney when they set foot in their first courtroom. I felt at home. And more importantly, at peace and in control.
Digital Trends
I’m an old school guy. And at my core, I’m a storyteller. So what I focus on for my business model is using videos and Blogging as a new and effective medium to tell my stories. Before I was predominantly using the stage and screen. But now I have a marketing person, and we’ve experimented with this and that. And what we’ve found is that my greatest reach comes from videos more than anything else. That said, with those videos this new wave of heightened Social Media gives me an even greater platform to reach a wider piece of the Market Audience pie.
Favorite Success Quote
“Hard work always beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard!”
Favorite Business Book
SLEEPLESS IN HOLLYWOOD; Tales From The New Abnormal in the Movie Business. By Lynda Obst
Your Most Influential Person
My mother, Jeanette and my grandmother, Mahaley Butler who is now 102 years old!
You can learn more about Michael Genet by going to michaelgenet.com.
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