FROM THE MAILROOM TO PRODUCER IN 4 YEARS

If you are willing to do more than you are paid to do, eventually you will be paid to do more than you do. –NAPOLEON HILL

Back when television producer and screenwriter Stephen J. Cannell had 2,000 people working for him, his company would hire talented kids right out of film school to work in the mailroom and do other odd jobs. Often, Candell would hear complaints about the $7-per-hour starting wage or all the overtime and think, Wow, they just don’t get it. That job and their wages and my company are here for just a short time in these kids’ lives. While they could turn this experience into a tremendous launching pad, instead they’re complaining about short-term stuff like dollars. They don’t even comprehend that how high they go in life could very well be determined by how much time and effort they put in downstairs in the mailroom.

Then one day, Cannell began hearing about an unusual new recruit. He was ‘40 years old’ and ‘had been a rock-and-roll drummer earning over $100,000 a year in the music business’. With his wife expecting a

baby, he wanted off the road and ‘was willing to take a job at minimum wage’ in Cannell’s ‘mailroom’. “Have you met the new guy?” people would say.

Soon everyone was talking about his work ethic, attitude, and drive. Steve Beers was one of

those guys who was always looking to be of extra service, always with his ears open to projects that needed to be done.

When he was filling in for Cannell’s regular limo driver one day, he overheard Cannell mention a suit he would need cleaned for an upcoming function. The next day it appeared, freshly back from the dry cleaners, on the hook in the limo. When Cannell asked him how it got there, re replied, “I got it from your wife and had it cleaned.”

When he heard that a secretary needed to get checks to the bank right away, he offered to take them on his lunch hour. When kids in the mailroom fumed about having to

deliver scripts to actors’ homes at midnight on a night they had a date, Beers said ,

“Give them to me. I’ll do it.” Yet he never asked for extra compensation or even took credit for his efforts. When two of Cannell’s producers asked on the same day that Beers be made associate producer on their new shows, Cannell enthusiastically assigned him to 21 Jump Street —a huge jump from the mailroom . 1 year later, Cannell moved him up to producer on 21 Jump Street and then shortly thereafter to co-executive producer

on that show and on Booker, paying him over $500,000 a year. “He’s not a writer,” Cannell said. “He really had none of the tools you would need to become an executive producer---‘except one’. He was willing to work so hard that he stood head and shoulders above everybody else, which showed me exactly the kind of attitude and dedication he had.”

Since becoming the co-executive producer for 21 Jump Street, Beers has produced numerous pilots and series, including Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi mini-series Taken. Beers is currently the co-executive producer of Showtime’s hit series Dead Like Me. Beer’s directing credits include episodes of Dead Like Me, Magnificent Seven, Seaquest, and, of course, 21 Jump Street.

What was the success principle that took Steve Beers from the mailroom to the

top--- from $7 an hour to $500,000 a year? He was willing to go the extra mile ‘and exceed everyone’s expectations’. What could you accomplish if you were willing to go the extra mile, put in just a little effort, provide just a little more service? Are there circumstances in your life right now where you could do more, provide better value, overdeliver, or improve on what is asked of you? Do you have the opportunity---but also the personal initiative---to go the extra mile?