By Tom Vaughan — Aug 4, 2026

How to approach a general meeting.

General meetings are panning for gold. A lot of effort, usually fruitless, but when it hits, it hits.

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How I approach a general meeting.

Last week, I came across an email I sent my agents three years ago about a general meeting I had and how much I enjoyed the two people I met that day.

My heart kind of sank.

Why?

Because I have no recollection of that meeting whatsoever. No idea who those people are.

Am I getting senile? No.

It was simply one more general meeting where I was in the door and out, and I never thought about it again.

This is a terrible waste of an opportunity.

In fairness, most general meetings don't go anywhere anyway, and my memory is notoriously poor to begin with, but this meeting was only three years ago!

And it was after I promised myself I was going to try to leverage generals more!

Apparently, not so much.

A general meeting is exactly what it sounds like.

It's a meeting without a predetermined topic. It's a "get to know you" meeting. This is vital in this industry, because --

It really is a business of relationships.

And it will remain that way.

But over time, you get jaded, you get a little lazy, and you stop helping yourself. I know better than to just show up for a meeting and then forget about it afterwards

It's a bad approach that I encourage you to avoid.

One of my most enduring relationships in the business came from a general meeting.

They're not nothing. You are panning for gold. A lot of effort, usually fruitless, but when it hits, it hits.

Every contact is a possible relationship.

This is not a business of "Who you know." It's a business of, "Who you meet, and how you nurture that relationship."

A general meeting is usually scheduled for a reason.

This is especially important today as general meetings seem much harder to come by than they used to be!

In the past, general meetings were sometimes a thing people did to act like they were working. Or they were doing an agent or manager a favor so that the rep could act like they were working.

I am sure this still happens, but it seems today that if someone wants to meet you, they genuinely want to meet you.

So this is the seed of a relationship and should be treated as such.

It's up to you to take advantage of it.

One of my biggest regrets is delegating relationships.

I would always leave it to my agent, manager, or producing partner.

I just wanted to write, and do my thing, and have someone else put in that effort.

You would never guess this after seeing me teach, but I spent much of my life as an introvert.

Because of this, I told myself the story that I didn't like people much, and that I needed others to sustain that part of the business for me.

I told myself that my uniquely valuable screenwriting talent would do my talking for me!

Age and wisdom have shown me both of these things were entirely untrue.

Turns out, I like people quite a bit! Much more than I ever thought. Social time just drains my energy more than most. That's all.

I have also been disabused of the silly notion that my screenwriting is so uniquely magical that all I need to do is write and everything else will take care of itself.

It is not, and it won't.

Do not shirk this responsibility.

No one succeeds in this business alone (it's a huge reason I built Story and Plot Pro).

How I now approach a general meeting.

I've had two generals recently. The first one was a little odd. It was a new media company rather than a motion picture company, so there was a lot of learning what they do and how any of my projects or potential projects fit in.

That meeting was me asking, "What do you guys do exactly?"

The second one, last week, was a more traditional meet-and-greet.

This meeting was off RESET, which Kristy Dobkin helped me with, and because Kristy and I are working our way to writing full time together again, she attended as well.

It was with an exec of a production company that was built around a director. For whatever reason, I seem to have more success with those.

1. First things first. Who are they?

Obviously, we want to know what kinds of movies these people make. What is the genre, the tone, the budget, and who do they make them with?

If they have a deal, is it a first look (more common), exclusive (less common), and do they have discretionary funds?

After a quick review of IMDB Pro, I realize that I have totally forgotten how far this company goes back! They still get stuff made with the director helming and with him just as a producer.

Their feature deal is with Netflix and no TV deal anywhere.

They are definitely a company we would like to be in business with.

2. What's the goal?

This is something that I have learned way too late in the business, and I forget too often:

Never go into a meeting without a goal.

Know what you want out of the meeting and steer your way there throughout.

Kristy and I looked at the movies and projects this company makes, and we made a list of our projects that might fit. This is usually going to be a slightly broader list, because you have to get a feel for the meeting as well.

So our goal here is to get some help with a project we love. We came up with three to focus on. One spec, one treatment, and one TV pilot.

We reviewed the quick pitches of those projects so we'd be ready to talk about them.

Kristy says we met the director before back in the day, but she can't recall for which project!

I have no memory of this whatsoever. We both agree that twenty years ago, and we're not meeting with the director this time anyway, so it's not worth mentioning.

3. The Meeting.

Small talk is important. Don't fool yourself that it isn't. Small talk developed into our communication rituals for a reason.

It is how you assure the other person you are normal and fun. Or at least comfortable to be around. It's how we put each other at ease.

My idea of small talk is I ask a lot of questions.

Get them to talk about themselves first. That will make them more comfortable and you more comfortable.

Learn about them and the company and what they do from their perspective. This might be very different than what IMDB has told you, and it will certainly be more updated.

Adjust the plan accordingly.

There is always the possibility that they have a project in mind for you, so stay agile if they do.

If they open business up with a project they think you would be great for, zero in on that and let the meeting be about that project.

Forget everything else, focus on that.

This was not the case here, and it was a true general meeting.

Kristy and I learned quickly that the TV show pitch we have would not be right for them. It never came up. We stuck to the two features.

This was an easy meeting because he liked RESET so much.

You will get a lot of people who like your stuff but are not necessarily over-the-moon about it. That's fine, and that's normal. You're not going to click with everyone.

But you will also occasionally get people who not only LOVE your script, but love the writing, tone, and voice. These people WANT to push this project forward, and they WANT to read your next project.

In short, these people already want to work with you, and this meeting is a vibe-check.

Lovefests are absolutely wonderful meetings to participate in.

We pitched one of the projects, and just mentioned the other one, and he wanted to read them both. As for RESET, we're waiting to hear about what studio they're going to take it into. Someone else already has Netflix.

Honestly, having a meeting with a generous person who loves your work, who actively reads and can talk movies is always a pleasure.

This meeting was easy. They're not all like that.

4. After the meeting.

Kristy and I chat and see how we feel, how it went, and discuss whether we should have done something different. We both agree the meeting was positive.

I call my manager, update her; she already heard from him, and the enthusiasm seemed to be mutual. We tell her what we're going to send, and we will CC her when we do.

Again, they don't all go so well!

We send the screenplay, and this is something I learned over the years:

Make the relationship YOURS, not your REPS.

I used to take some pleasure in having a rep send someone a screenplay. When you first start, it is fun and makes you feel like you're actually in the business. "I'll have my agent send it," is a very cool thing to say when you're 26.

And in the 90s, it was necessary! Messengers had to physically deliver the screenplay!

But always send it to them yourself. The sooner you have direct communication, the better. Once you meet them, there is no need for your reps to be the middleman until actual deals need to be discussed.

This is your relationship now, not theirs.

Keep notes and records.

I got lazy over the years with this and stopped keeping track.

It's important to know who has read your stuff, what they read and who enjoyed it.

When my current manager first repped me, she asked, "Who are your fans?" and I didn't have the greatest answer. And I should have for as long as I have been around.

So I've tried to get much better at this, but since I am still forgetting people I have had 45-minute meetings with, still not great!

I am now keeping meeting notes, too.

I love the Notion app. Over the last couple of years, I have migrated my life into it. To-dos, files, project management.

The killer app part of Notion is its flexible databases.

So now I keep my own records of submissions and meetings. I can make any notes about what was discussed and any notes on that individual. If they change companies, that relationship follows them.

Always remember, where this person is today is not where they will be tomorrow. They will be promoted, change companies, and some will even rise to the top.

This is all standard customer relations management (CRM)!

It's what salespeople do every day. But we're creative folks, so we want to be immune to this sort of thing.

Unfortunately, until we're in a different position in our careers and people are coming to us in numbers, we're not immune to any of this.

And those phases don't always last long either. Careers have ebbs and flows.

5. Remember to keep in touch.

This is where I have fallen the most short.

If you have a successful meeting, make sure you follow up with a project, a note, something. Update them later on new projects.

If it was a really great meeting, make sure you connect with them next time you're in LA.

I don't do holiday cards, but maybe I should.

Earlier in my career, I would get cards from companies where I couldn't quite remember whom I'd met or knew there.

I would think what a waste to send that, and I would be dismissive about it. As I got older, I realized that I was the jerk in this scenario!

It doesn't matter if it's off a list. It doesn't matter if I don't remember.

They were acknowledging that people matter, and I was trying to act like I was too cool to care.

Who would you rather hang out with?

Treat your writing as a business.

There are a hundred different ways to do this, and I waited way too long in my career to do any of them.

I was writing, and I was being paid, but I wasn't running a business.

I didn't protect my reputation. "Customers" would go away.

When I outsourced too much (agents), I wasn't able to do those functions on my own when I needed to.

I didn't plan ahead, so I had little influence on the direction of the business.

One of the biggest mistakes I made was thinking a contact and a relationship were the same thing.

They're not.

A contact is someone you email or call. A relationship is someone who returns them.