How Steven Spielberg Transformed My Career

I feel obligated to begin this article with an admission that I’ve never personally met Steven Spielberg. I’ve been lucky (or determined) enough in my life to meet some incredibly influential people, including business magnate Steve Forbes and Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.

In fact, I’ve made a conscious habit of seeking out successful individuals so I can learn from their experiences. But the man often nicknamed the “King of the Hollywood Blockbuster” continues to elude me.

And yet, despite never meeting face to face, Spielberg taught me one of the most important lessons of my entire career. It’s a lesson I’ve learned through engaging with his work.

From Raiders of the Lost Ark to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg’s most memorable films all have one thing in common: a certain indelible “wow” factor that they manage to crank all the way up to 11. These movies might fall more on the side of entertainment than fine art, but I’m okay with that. The art of entertainment is important, too — especially if your goal is to attract an audience.

So what does it mean to “wow” your audience, and how can you do it for your business? Here’s my advice.

Striking while the iron is hot: Novelty and the five-year rule

What is it that made the first Jurassic Park movie a modern classic and the rest of the series so much less memorable? All of those movies, as far as I can tell, have roughly the same number of CGI dinosaurs.

But audiences get tired of seeing the same thing over and over again. Box office revenue from superhero movies is currently less than half of what it was at their peak in 2012. And while the Jurassic Park series continues to make money, none of the newer movies by other directors have managed to touch the success of Spielberg’s original after adjusting for inflation.

When the first Jurassic Park movie came out in 1993, no one had ever seen anything like it. It wasn’t just new; its novelty made it visceral. People screamed and ducked in their seats during the T. rex attack. It was so intense that some audience members walked out before the credits, but it also changed movies forever. Most blockbusters made afterwards have been following in its footsteps.

There’s a quote I’ve always associated with Spielberg, although whether he actually said it may be apocryphal: “What got a wow five years ago won’t get a yawn today.” Whether it originated from Spielberg or not, it certainly applies here. It’s also been my mantra for almost every project or platform I’ve ever worked on.

Applying the “wow” factor to business development

Take PhoneBurner, for example: the power dialing platform for outbound teams where I started as Chief Commercial & Product Officer in 2022 and eventually worked my way up to CEO. From my first day with the company, I knew it wasn’t enough to simply keep adding features. It would be like making a movie that was all special effects and no plot.

I didn’t want our platform to be overengineered and unfocused. But more importantly, I didn’t want to bore our audience with bells and whistles that didn’t have real-world impact.

Instead, we focused on building things that changed how people experienced outbound calling, often in ways they didn’t see but rather felt.

We became the first dialer to partner with a Tier 1 carrier. Though few know what this is, it quietly improves the reliability, quality and, notably, deliverability of every call they make. We developed Connect Scores: a way for our users to prioritize contacts most likely to answer the phone based on activity data and carrier signals. And with our ARMOR® service, we rejected gimmicks in favor of data-backed insight and remediation to help teams reduce spam flags and respond intelligently to answer rate issues.

That might sound dry and technical, but so was the work behind the first CGI dinosaurs. Audiences weren’t asked to understand how it worked, only to feel the result. We aimed to do the same — handling the infrastructure, data and deliverability so users could focus on what actually matters: conversations.

The best way to replicate your success might be to diversify

Whether you’re a filmmaker or a founder, the “wow” factor ultimately comes down to two things:

1. Doing something your audience doesn’t expect

2. Doing it in a way that’s memorable and valuable

That might sound simple, but doing it even once is deceptively difficult. Doing it repeatedly is harder still.

That’s where listening to your instincts becomes essential. Spielberg knew when to step away from the Jurassic Park franchise, but he didn’t stop making groundbreaking movies. Instead, he applied what he’d learned to entirely different kinds of stories and found new places to inject the “wow.”

I still run PhoneBurner, but the same principle pushes me to branch out. The ARMOR® service is now a standalone solution, so organizations that don’t need a dialer, but still need help with spam flags and answer rates, can benefit from our expertise. And while we’re known for our work with answer rates, our next “wow” will hit a different angle: helping teams improve what happens once someone actually picks up.

I may not get the chance to meet Spielberg, but I’m thankful for everything he’s taught me. Pay attention to your heroes — not just their work, but how they evolve. Because every “wow” has a shelf life. Knowing how to deliver the next one is what separates a single hit from a career.

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I feel obligated to begin this article with an admission that I’ve never personally met Steven Spielberg. I’ve been lucky (or determined) enough in my life to meet some incredibly influential people, including business magnate Steve Forbes and Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.

In fact, I’ve made a conscious habit of seeking out successful individuals so I can learn from their experiences. But the man often nicknamed the “King of the Hollywood Blockbuster” continues to elude me.