When you build an audience, you don’t have to buy people’s attention — they give it to you. This is a huge advantage. So build an audience. Speak, write, blog, tweet, make videos — whatever. Share information that’s valuable and you’ll slowly but surely build a loyal audience.

It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.

Know your audience. The better your understanding of your audience the better you can communicate with them.

Every filmmaker have their audience. It’s okay to find what your audience enjoy, if it’s the art for arts slogan, be loyal to them.

Your job is to get your audience to care about your obsessions.

Audiences not only want to stumble across great work, but they, too, long to be creative and part of the creative process. By letting go of our egos and sharing our process, we allow for the possibility of people having an ongoing connection with us and our work, which helps us move more of our product.

Content strategy, 101

1. Find a topic you’ve learned a lot about in the last two years.

2. Create content for your two-years-ago self.

• Best resources
• 80/20 one-pager
• Common misconceptions
• How you’ve changed since learning

Boom - you’ve built an audience.

You must shape your story in a way that both expresses your vision and satisfies the audience’s desires.

You can control the audience. You can make the audience so happy one minute, and so sad the next minute. In film, it’s up to the directors to cut it well. Sometimes an actor may not give a very good performance, but the editor does a good job.

Your audience gives you everything you need. They tell you. There is no director who can direct you like an audience. You step out on the stage and you can feel it is a nervous audience. So you calm them down. I come out before an audience and maybe my house burned down an hour ago, maybe my husband stayed out all night, but I stand there. I'm still. I don't move. I wait for the introduction. Maybe I cough. Maybe I touch myself. But before I do anything, I got them with me, right there in my hand and comfortable. That's my job, to make them comfortable, because if they wanted to be nervous they could have stayed home and added up their bills.

I think the main thing I do every show, and I guess most performers do this, is engaging the audience, but I like to engage the audience in a very direct way right off the bat by starting the show with giving them the choice to participate or not because that’s the choice. By choosing to participate or not, you’re participating. Do you know what I mean? And I can figure out what their level of participation’s going to be and where I can go into crowd.

There are a million different ways to approach any topic. The key is: Instead of focusing on the competition, focus on your audience. Who is your audience, and what do they want that they are not being served right now? I guarantee you, in the yoga audience, there are people who have never done yoga. Then there are people who tried it a couple times, and they kind of gave up. They say things like, "I should go back," but they haven't. What you can do is take your special insight and your perspective on the world, and serve their needs. That's how you build a business that stands out from all the rest.

The audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the converted. The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be.

To come up with your unique viewpoint, ask yourself a few questions: What is something everyone thinks is true — but you think is wrong? What is something nobody in your target market is talking about — but should be? What are the biggest mistakes people in your market are making — but are totally blind to? Ultimately, your audience wants to learn something from you that’s relevant, useful, and surprising. And they want to do that by going on a journey with you.