I was asked to speak about how I raise money for shows a couple of weeks ago, and I was reminded about a simple tip that I’ve been using for years.

See, during the Q&A portion of the event, a budding Broadway Producer raised their hand and said, “Ken, I’m not raising money for a show right now, but I want to prepare for my next raise. What should I do?”

I corrected them pretty quickly.

If you’re a Producer or you want to be a Producer, you are always raising money. Period.

So maybe you don’t have an opening date, or maybe you don’t have offering documents for people to sign, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t always thinking about what you have coming up next, and how much that might cost.

And this means you should be meeting more people, going to more galas, having more coffees, playing more golf (!), developing deeper relationships, etc.  (I made it a personal goal of mine this quarter to have 13 lunches with people I haven’t lunched with before, and I’m gonna beat it!)

As I wrote in Raise It, people invest in people more than they invest in projects. So when you don’t have a project, you can actually help your cause even more!

In fact, I find that my favorite time to raise money is when I don’t have a project, because I can be more natural about it. I collect business cards like they’re baseball cards. I go to more parties than a frat boy.

And raising money is a numbers game.  The more people you have to ask, the more likely you’ll hit your goal.  It’s simple sales.

So I spend my “down time” increasing my number of leads by meeting more people.

Do I end each meeting with a hard close?

No.  That’s not what this stage of the raise is about.

But when I do have a project?  Well, if I’ve done my work correctly, I’ll raise my money in about half the time it would have taken me before.

Remember, you’re always raising money. Especially when you’re not. 🙂

If you want more tips on raising money, get Raise It.  Click here to read a free chapter.

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