We were lucky to catch up with Daniela Saioni recently and have shared our conversation below.

Daniela, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

I am grateful every day for having accidentally ended up an online solopreneur when the events of 2020 essentially forced me to suddenly redesign my life at the age of 51. My main job for most of my adult life was working on film sets (which I still do from time to time, when there is a project or director I simply can’t resist working with, but it’s a seventy-plus-hour workweek so I always have to think long and hard before returning to that world).

Now, it feels truly surreal to be able to wake up when I want to and work from anywhere with a wifi signal. Every time I look out over a Mediterranean seaside or walk the streets of New York City or London with no particular place to go, knowing all my bills are paid, feels like being in a waking dream. When I can make time to write my own scripts rather than having to wait until I’ve recovered from working on someone else’s movie, I cannot believe it was this easy to change my life all along.

As a freelancer in the film industry, I’ve actually never had a “JOB job” the way most people experience work, but owning your own business and being responsible for the content, tone and direction is next level.

One of the big conclusions I came to in the first few months of being in business is that marketing and building transformational courses are highly creative acts, so artists of all stripes already have superpowers they may not even be aware of if they never tap into entrepreneurship.

When students tell me how their lives have changed after going through my programs, it strikes me how many more people I am able to impact now versus when I was mainly helping a select few directors, actors and producers on set. I have over 700 students in my online programs in 30 countries right now, and I make it my mission to meet as many as I can in person, another source of joy. Through my Director Whisperer slate of training programs, I am building a legacy of current and future filmmakers, and that is highly rewarding in and of itself.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

When I entered the film industry as a young person, I was surprised by the lack of diversity and the lack of access to well-paying jobs and creative roles in the business and was determined early on to be a conduit to help people without connections in the film business launch successful careers in as short a time as possible. So I had a history of creating training programs that I delivered in the classroom in Toronto since 1995 between my own work on set.

My brand, Director Whisperer Inc., is essentially an online film school with a unique slate of vocational programs in Script Supervision, Story Consulting, TV Writing, Comedy Screenwriting and Creative Solopreneurship.

As one of the few script supervision teachers in the world, people would fly in to Toronto to train with me, or film organizations would have to spend thousands to fly me out to them in the past before I switched over to offering my courses online in 2020.

I had a long list of alumni that had built careers as sought-after script supervisors, some of who, I am proud to say, beat me out for jobs today. Others went on to become working directors, which is no surprise to me at all, as I ask all my students to think like filmmakers. What sets me apart as a teacher is what set me apart as a script supervisor and now as a story consultant: my ability to tap into and support the director’s process by thinking like a filmmaker. I am able to train my students to do the same, hence the name Director Whisperer.

It also does not hurt that I have internationally-recognized film and TV experience shot in 10 countries with a number of A-list directors. Some of my personal favourite credits include: four seasons on Suits, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Boondocks Saints, Shazam!, A Simple Favor and Another Simple Favor.

That teaching history as well as my experience helped me to launch my online courses incredibly quickly because I already had testimonials and curriculum to build on, and had already spent part of the previous 25 years perfecting the courses live in the classroom.

Screenwriting was something I began teaching in 2012, after years as a stand-up comic. I felt the glass ceiling for comedians and wanted to give them a lifeline to apply their hard-earned skills sets to make a living as TV writers. I had a few success stories early on. Then, after working with hundreds of writers in my programs and privately, I became a story consultant with the WGC and then created an extremely rare annual training program called Story Editors’ Studio.

And in my habit of figuring things out, then throwing people lifelines to shorten their learning curve, I began training creative solopreneurs on how to start online business through my Coffee Break MBA program. The “MBA” stands from Maximum Bliss Accelerator and was a joke I made to myself when I realized that the income I was earning through my online business exceeded that of the average MBA grad.

All my courses are now delivered online but I provide varying degrees of touch points with my students on an ongoing basis via Zoom, email and occasional in-person meetups, as well as alumni groups where people can continue interacting with me years into their career. My programs incorporate courses, coaching and community, so they feel like living, breathing entities – with each student able to connect across borders to their peers in all the countries served. When I host meetups in London, people fly in from Italy, Spain, Greece and the US – it’s so wonderful to experience.

Although I get many professionals who join me well into their careers, they are designed so that someone who has no connection to the film industry whatsoever can complete them and be ready to launch. I have seen my alumni achieve this time and time again without any film school or connections, so they are road-tested, proven programs.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The vast majority of my clients find me on social media, and most of them find me on YouTube. I attribute 80% of my earnings to my YouTube Channel @schticktoscript, which currently has over 10K followers, but this was happening even when I had less than 1K followers.

I cannot stress enough how important it is for course creators especially to have a YouTube Channel, as it is essentially a search engine and a place people come to first when they want to get educated on something and / or solve a problem.

It’s a great way for clients to get to know your teaching style and philosophy, and to make the choice about whether or not to train with you.

I especially love doing regular YouTube Lives so that I can answer questions in real time.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Like a lot of people, I was a relatively new business owner when the Facebook Ads targeting rules changed. When I began, I was leaning into Facebook Ads as a way to find my clients, and back in 2020, that was really viable and sustainable even for small business owners.

But when all that changed in 2021 with the weakening of the Facebook Pixel’s ability to reach my ideal clients directly, I panicked. Gone were the days when I could get a 4x return or more on my ad spend. I knew I absolutely had to pivot to finding clients organically, and set about building up my Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube presence.

I soon found that, for me, YouTube was a vein of gold connected to my ideal clients. I was able to grow my business while spending a lot less on ads. I hope YouTube never changes, but I know I have the ability to strategize and pivot to something else if it does.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/directorwhisperer
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hellaciousdee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MondoCinemaFilmandTVWorkshops
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniela-saioni-74091b17/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@schticktoscript
• Other: I don’t have a website, but I do have a LinkTree that features my various program sales pages and other events I have coming up. Where it says Website above, I have posted my LinkTree URL.

Image Credits

The Toronto 2023 Meetup group photo was shot by Arlo Ed Khalajzadeh
The 2005 photo of me on set working was shot by Chia-Hsin Liu

(all others were shot by me, personally, or close friends)