In my time running Leechon, I’ve learned it’s absolutely necessary to know where every penny is coming from and where every penny is being spent. With that knowledge you operate your business appropriately.

COUNTING MONEY

One of the major responsibilities of a business is to make money for it’s stakeholders. That is the bottom line. It only makes sense you keep an eye on it regularly and measure it’s progress.

When keeping track of money you really have to pay attention to two things. (1) Accounts Receivable – money that is coming in into the business or is at least owed. (2) Accounts Payable – money that is going out. Basically the bills and invoices you have to pay.

A great habit to develop is to sit down every month and generate a monthly financial report.

A habit you should protect yourself from – I learned this the hard way – is waiting until the end of the year to see how your money is moving. You won’t like what you see. You’ll see fiscal mistakes that could have been prevented if only you stopped to see your progress and financial activities.

Work this habit of sitting down every month habit and seeing what direction you business’s life force is flowing.

You’ll learn you can consistently communicate hard numbers and progress to those who are invested in you and your project or those whom you’d like to invest in you.

It’ll allow you to make calculated budgets and plans for spending for the growth of the business and you can use it to forecast what situations you’ll run into in the near future.

MAKING MONEY

In January I made a blog post about 35 Ways To Grow The Business In 2010. A little over two months later looking back at that list I realized only a handful of them can be put into action immediately or within the next couple months. However, before any action could be taken, that overwhelming mind map of projects had to be cut down.

I canned everything that wasn’t directly bringing in revenue and started moving forward with those that do. The following is just some of the things that are already in motion or are soon to be:

1 -
Leechon Producership. This is an effort towards multiplying myself. The more leaders you train, the more potential you have to reach out to others exponentially. InshaAllah the idea is that inevitably will help the company’s bottom line while also creating some jobs. Part of the effort to raise some funds for the project will involve conducting paid workshops/events within the communities of the interns.

2 -
Islamic Kids Show. You may already be familiar with Abdullah the puppet. If you’re not, then click the puppet above or go here: facebook.com/abdullahkidshow. This project is simply a market test to decide whether or not we’re going to turn this into a full fledged venture.

3 -
Client Work. As part of client work, the focus won’t just be applied to producing videos, but developing marketing and business strategies where the client can use video increase sales and exposure online and offline. I’ve been doing this already, but never emphasized this. An addition to this is offering branding and PR services through my wife’s company MinbarMedia.

4 -
Expanding MessageMastery.com. I’m currently in the process of  relaunching “Secrets of Video Production” course. Developing the marketing plan right now as well as working toward building a continuity program. The objective is to expand the current members’ community and build passive ongoing revenue for the company.

5 -
Independent Feature Film on AlMaghrib Institute. The objective is to start seeking investors and taking pre-sales by Summer time. Currently in development stages. Should have a title by end of the week inshaAllah. Here’s a thread that explains a little bit more about it: http://forums.almaghrib.org/showthread.php?t=39623

Vote for the best title here:
http://forums.almaghrib.org/showthread.php?t=39691

Imagine having $20 million dollars to make the movie you want to make with total control. That’s kind of what happened with director Spike Lee and producer Jon Kilik.

In the past I’ve blogged about meeting Batman producer Mike Uslan and Walden Media’s post production vice president Jonas Thaler at Montclair State University’s Film Forum. Earlier this week at the Film Forum I meet Jon Kilik who has been the producer on 13 of Spike Lee’s films (see his IMDb profile).

–
WHAT WAS HE BEFORE MALCOLM X?

His story starts off as an individual born and raised in New Jersey. He went to college in Berlington, Vermont, where he met a film professor. After taking a few classes he discovered there was a career in it for him.

After college he started as a production assistant on commercials, doing crowd control, getting coffee for people, etc – anything to be on the set.

He went on to entry level gigs, working on films by Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet to pay the rent, then on his free time he’d work on his own projects.

The whole idea was to to start somewhere. Everyone starts somewhere. He started as an assistant to an assistant and worked his way up. So did individuals like Spike Lee.

He worked the ladder to get into higher level stuff and worked his way up. 30 years later here he was talking to a group of aspiring young individuals like myself.

–
LESSONS FROM HIS 30 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

It’s all about good writing and and script. -
This is where you tell your story. Scenes that define character NEED to work and come through. If it’s not on the page, its not on the stage.

After script, focus on the two keys:
1 – How to MAKE it
2 – How to FINANCE it -
You have to think about technicalities of how you’ll execute your plan of getting the job done on time. When you set a date that you’re going to shoot on June 30th, doesn’t matter what comes through or doesn’t come through, you MUST begin shooting June 30th. No execuses.

When you’re trying to get the money to fund the making of it, understand that your stakeholder are interested in one thing, they want to make their money back. They’re interested in profit. Hollywood likes formulas that work and they’re very weary of experimental projects. A film may win awards, but it is necessary that the film make money.

personal note:

Films like “The Message” and “The Lion in the Desert” are well known among the Muslim populas. However, you’ll notice no other films were made for Muslims in the same manner by that director because the very films were commercial flops. The investors lost millions of dollars in making them.

If you want people with money to support your film. Have their best interest in mind as well. After all its their money you’re playing with. Its a trust upon you that you spend it in the best possible manner to bring about maximum returns. The rest is up to Allah-swt.

When opportunity comes, you MUST deliver -
Every opportunity that comes you way, you have to prove yourself. If you succeed, its no gurrantee that the next one will be the same way, but if you don’t deliver, don’t expect there to be trust between you and your supporters anymore.

Fail forward -
In the event that your idea get’s rejected – and it WILL get rejected – you have two choices. ONE, you quit right then and there and be sure of mediocrity for the rest of your life. Or TWO, you figure out a way to tell your story (script).

Jon Kilik, a producer with over 20 years of experience is still having a hard time getting financing for his film and getting that green light to enter production. It’s not going to be much different for you, so don’t fret. Be prepared to work hard and keep your eye on the prize.

Develop people skills and build relationships NOW -
As a producer you need to be able to effectively work with people. You can’t be a technical junkie.

No one will deny that Tiger Woods is the world’s most impressive golf player. When he’s on the field, he’s in the zone. He shuts out the world and puts all his focus on that white little ball propped up on that tee. However, you can see from recent events that he just doesn’t know how to deal with people.

As a producer, you cannot shut the world off. You must make connections, build relationships and continuously build your leadership ability. Understand that as a producer you’re a liaison between the people who make the film and the people who finance it. You need to be able to understand and speak the language of both sides.

The people who make the film speak the language of art. The people who finance, market and distribute the film speak the language of business. You, the producer need to understand and speak both.

Get started TODAY -
There’s are really three simple ways to get started as a producer.

1 –
Internships and assistant-ships – Studios are big on this. Even independent producers. They’re always looking for free help. Colleges are also willing to give credit for time spent as this. It will help if you identify which specific department you’re interested in.

Are you into the corporate suit type of jobs like finance, law, marketing. Or the technical on set type of jobs like director, cinematography, camera man, sound, editor, etc? The more you can define for yourself the easier it will be for you to get started.

2 -
Work for free. Find out where the shoots are happening, show up and volunteer yourself and your time. Sooner or later they’ll get you in touch with the right people.

3 -
Become a producer. Put together your own team and grow with them. You’ll have to have a day job to pay for your up keep. Dedicate your free time to work with talent, network and train yourself.

Relationships between directors and producers begin well before they get on set. Start nurturing those relationships today.

The weekend was spent filming an episode of with Ghetto Abdullah with the help of Wisam Sharieff of Bayyinah as well as Sameer Sarmast and Uzair Sarmast of Qabeelat Durbah’s Simply Act.

Special thanks to Omer Farooq for letting me borrow his Sony Z1U camera for the weekend.

We’ve created a Facebook Page for Abdullah so you can follow along on this adventures and videos. Click the image to go there now.

After we did the two online videos for fun a little while back just to see where this goes, we found that support for Abdullah had been growing. We got emails, comments and messages from people to continue it.

Mind you, we’ve been looking into this project for a while and trying to see where the demand for something like this can go. We actually spent some time on market analysis and looking at the potential for a Islamically themed kids show.

My wife came up with the concept of presenting Abdullah in a theme based series of episodes. Each episode will consist of a story revolving around a specific theme with Abdullah as the central character. Audience will be joining Abdullah on his journey.

The following are some production stills shot from this weekend:

This past weekend my Canon HFS100 and Azden SGM 2x shotgun microphone was stolen.

I was setting up to do recording for a video I’m working on with AlMaghrib and it was my mistake to not notify some of the people there to keep an eye on it while I go into the seminar room to make a note of which people I’d be doing recordings of. 20 minutes later I come back and find my equipment missing.

As it was a major bummer to find my equipment stolen, I figured it’s a great opportunity to upgrade.

The following setup is what I’m considering :

The breakdown of which is:

• $1,600 – Canon 7D body
• $350 – Canon 50mm EF f 1.4 lens
• $600 – Tokina 11mm-16mm f 2.8 wide angle lens
• $318 – 1 meter Glidetrack
• $125 – Manfrotto Tripod head
• $150 – UV and Neutral Density Filters
• $100 – Hoodman Loupe
• $140 – Battery and 32 GB memory card

Total cost: $3383.00

–

I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on the setup:

After exploring different options, I wanted to see if I can get some festival exposure, leading to an IMDB title page for some of the work I’ve done.

I started googling film festivals in NY and NJ and ended up withoutabox.com. Started looking up IMDb qualifying film festivals and landed on the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival.

Turns out there’s a bunch of festivals in NY and NJ that qualify for IMDb. However, almost all of them are between $35.00 and $65.00 per submission. NYC Downtown short Film Festival was an affordable $15.00 per submission.

All that’s left is mailing them a DVD of the video and awaiting confirmation. Make du’aa that it get accepted.

About a month ago I took a trip to Ottawa to attend sensei’s daughter’s aqeeqah and also deliver on the IlmFest 2009 DVDs for RIS.

After having done three episodes of Browntourage and another seven in the back burner – I wanted to take a new approach to it all. Instead of focusing the places or people, I decided to put the focus on story with a narrative.

A story structured in three-acts as well as following a “hero’s journey”

Let me know this short film engages you and makes you feel.

There’s only a few days left until the deadline. If you haven’t applied yet, then apply today.

As I stated in the video, as Muslims we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us and it’s not a one-man job. It’s for this reason I’m launching the internship.

My goal is to personally train SEVEN producers who have a solid understanding of the foundations of marketing, media, financing and are able to successfully produce professional films in a systematic manner.

–

I’ve received a number of questions regarding the internship and I hop this post will answer those questions:

–

• QUESTION: I’m interesting in learning graphic design/after effects/[enter technical skill]. Will this internship allow me to do that?

• ANSWER: No it wont. This internship is development and training in areas of being a PRODUCER. Think of it as a project manager. As a producer you’ll be focusing on your ability to connect with people, leadership, storytelling, self development and organization, understanding business and sales, hiring people, financing.

–

• QUESTION: Is this an on-site internship? If not, how exactly will it work?

• ANSWER: No, it’s not an on-side internship. Assignments, meetings, followups and accountability will be done virtually via MessageMastery.com and phone calls. There will be some instances where I’ll personally be there on site are your location inshaAllah for specific training.

–

• QUESTION: Is this a paid internship?

• ANSWER: No. What you’ll be getting out of this internship is knowledge, experience and relationships with contacts to help you more forward in your professional life. In the event, the intern successfully graduates from the program – that individual will have the opportunity to work with me professionally and benefit financially.

–

• QUESTION: How long is this internship for?

• ANSWER: It’s expected to last until the June.

–

• QUESTION: How much time do I need to commit?

• ANSWER: That really depends on you. How much time can you commit? Assignments and tasks have deadlines. If you spend an average of two hours a day to fulfill what you need to complete – you should be able to meet the minimum requirements of assignments and tasks.

–

LAYOUT OF THE INTERNSHIP

The internship is in three phases.

• PHASE 01 - is all about establishing the foundations of a producer. Foundations in marketing, relationship building, social media, personal development and  leadership. A lot of this will be me walking you through processes and getting yourself settled in.

• PHASE 02 – is where your development as a leader and connector will take off. In this phase I’ll be doing some live in person training with the intern.

• PHASE 03 - is the major portion of the internship in terms of time. Time will be spent on the graduations assignment which is to finance and produce short film on a budget slightly under $10,000.

As I stated earlier, interns that successfully graduate from this program will inshaAllah have a real opportunity to work with me professionally while also earning money.

The benefits that you as an intern will gain is the increased ability to influence people, professionally work twoards benefitting Islam, connect with people that will help you grow professionally and Islamically and gain the pleasure of Allah-swt along the way.

You’ve probably heard about the unfortunate news of the recent bombing attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airline jet on Christmas Day by Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Turns out, in one of the news coverage videos they played the trailer I produced for AlMaghrib back in December 2007. The trailer plays from 2:00 – 2:26

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can find out more on the new coverage on Houston’s local ABC-13 website: Terror Suspect Attended Classes in Houston

–

I hope that this doesn’t affect the good work that people at AlMaghrib and the students are doing.

Seriously, I don’t understand what people like Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab are thinking. They’re not helping the Muslims or society. They’re simply making lives as Muslims harder.

About 10 days ago I started an exercise on coming up with ideas to help Leechon grow financially and in social capital for this next year. The following list is what I got with your help.

–

1 -
Develop a financial processing system
for processing company transactions to ensure timely execution of reimbursements and accounts receivables

2 -
Find funding sources for clients
where the funding for video comes from the organization’s member/subscriber base. This way more organizations can actually benefit form the service and more people can be engaged.

3 -
Relaunch Secrets of Video Production with affiliate partners,
separate from the full Message Mastery membership while also giving new courses and content to existing members.

4 -
Produce a sound loops and scores product without musical instruments
by partnering with a sound designer to sell as digital downloads as a means of helping Muslim indy producers.

5 -
Start a slate of three feature projects budgets at $30K each
with on demand distribution model and private funding partners to finance it.

6 -
Online product launch of 20 minute short film
with educational content partnered with a specific organization

7 -
Setup speaking engagements
followed by paid live-in-person workshops with Message Mastery on topics of marketing, strategy, social media & video

–

8 -
Outsource all projects with budget under $1500
to Pakistan or India

9 -
Release case student of past projects
via Message Mastery. Price would vary based on depth of coverage and time spent on project.

10 -
Perodically release fun merchandise for people to buy
What type of merchandise would people be keen to pickup? t-shirt? gear? dvd?

11 -
Decade of Dawah good will project to invite bloggers & orgs to share their achievements
major events and accomplishments for last 10 years – (response to idea) – RT @shMuhammad @khanb1 I was reading one of those “decade in review” and thought: how about a series on AlMaghrib’s growth? Who’s interested?

12 -
Build segmented email lists and databases for smaller and/or Start-ups
via permission marketing – to increase social capital and lead base for Leechon and the organization

13 -
Release Tufaan not only as a film, but also with uncut interviews
as direct download and/or cinema-on-demand

14 -
Organize an indy conference on novel topic
Produce all it’s lectures in professional quality with a short documentary on the subject/topic. Sell it online as a complete package in Direct Download and/or DVD

–

15 -
Remake Egyptian film “Tito”
adjust story to relate with American Muslim youth and with similar flair of action and drama.

16 -
Instead of selling Tufaan, release it for free as a lead generator
and a place to build a larger fan base for future film sales

17 -
Start a restaurant review show with Zabiha.com
traveling across the country

18 -
Map out a 50 year plan
of where Leechon, Message Mastery and how it will impact Islamic dawah in the following years

19 -
Produce a children’s show
on a full investors budget complete with merchandising and maybe an online social game.

20 -
Produce discussion videos
on contemporary topics featuring a numerous prominent people

21 -
Enter film competitions with a cash prize

–

22 -
Team up with a grant writer
and apply for grants on specific film projects.

23 -
Upload content for monitzation
via ads for blip.tv views

24 -
Have lunch of coffee with at least one executive producer ever month
in NY to role model & draw map for personal dream of being one

25 -
Produce a DVD with general appeal and narrow focus
and go door to door selling it.

26 -
Stat a blog site to collect and follow all news on Prophet Muhammad-sal Allahu alayhi wasallam bio pic

27 -
Solicit other Major Islamic organizations for video services
After the internship, map out major Islamic orgs with already existent shows (means they have the money, equipment and workforce to sustain it) offer to do one episode / video free and show them the difference that can be made in terms of quality and affect. Then bam, we charge this much, here’s the profit / increase in hits you will make.
- submitted by RizaK

28 -
Start a reality show
A reality show behind the scenes of Leechon, a Muslim media (giant inshaAllah) in the 21st century in an ever changing word etc. etc. I’m sure it can be dramatized a bit. It will basically showcase the difficulties of doing something that hasn’t really been done before, at least not on this scale. Paving the way for the future inshaAllah. Feature film. Distribute… ??? …. PROFIT!
- submitted by RizaK

–

29 -
Start basics training course on Message Mastery
Simple video marketing training (lesser level than current MsgMstry course)
- submitted by Nahyan

30 -
Teach social media marketing
- submitted by Nahyan

31 -
Move beyond the Muslim space
working with bigger/smarter businesses with video marketing. Generally speaking, Muslim businesses aren’t that sophisticated to hire professional video people and pay adequately
- submitted by Nahyan

32 -
Video certification program
Complete DIY guide to video production, how to get clients, keep them, meet their needs, make a profit etc. You must prove yourself in order to graduate. Once graduation has finished you’re a Leechon certified video extraordinaire. You now have the option to work for Leechon or start your own business. (I may have lifted this idea from somewhere)
– submitted by RizaK

33 -
Tour AlMaghrib qabaail with short and sweet program on Video
Stepping up the Dawah Promo: Tour Qabail with a short and sweet program that peaks the interest of Muslims in video. Give them reasons to KNOW why video dawah is the future. Interest people and show them that it CAN be done with some effort. The basic idea here is to interest Muslims with the concept of video, create noise. Why? Leechon wil be the GO-TO organization for Muslim media bithnillah, thus they will come to Leechon for help. inshaAllah
- submitted by RizaK

34 -
Feature Film of the year
Call a bunch of organizations to find out common issues in Muslim communities. Then come back months later after the data is collected with a proposal.
- submitted by RizaK

35 -
Pitch to production houses and studios
risk it and start going to all the production houses that you know of [both Muslim and Non-muslim] and pitch ideas to them see if they pick it up. If not approach potential sponsers, i asuume that you probably have a few if not many contacts in the media and see if they would be willing to sponser a Muslim show which has a unique twist to it. [of course a concept paper for this show will have to be developed]
- submitted by Haris

Click here to view the embedded video.

(I didn’t make the above video)

The above promo is a sneak peak at the content of the series.

The first DiscoverU workshop that I ever attended was “Live Your Dreams” back in April 2006. This was just after I had completed my 1-on1 coaching sessions with Muhammad Alshareef – which resulted in a chain of actions that led to Leechon being born.

In June 2009 I got the opportunity to share the benefit of the experience with others by helping produce the workshop in an online video series format. Producing this particular video series was quite a challenge, mainly because the person who had shot the video delivered it in a very peculiar format, making the post-production more difficult than expected.

The other challenge was getting the video’s to interface properly with the current members area design. After a few hrs of tinkering this morning, I was able to get the layout to accept the videos. All I have to say is I love CSS when it comes to site design. It makes design very flexible.

The good news is that the project is done and this seminar is being launched online in video form. Inside you’ll find 12 Chapters that consist of over 480 minutes of video content. For those people who purchase this online video set, I pray that you benefit.

I wish my coach and mentor the best of success in this life and the next. He’s inspired myself and many others. May Allah-swt bless him to share in the reward that others make as a result of his inspiration. Ameen.

I’d love to hear back from you letting me know how you benefited.