Hey everybody, welcome to this week’s blog post which is a continuation on agents.
Today I’d like to talk about, let’s say now you have an agent, how do you support that agent? How do you straddle that fine line between staying present with them without being pesky and obnoxious?
Over the years I’ve asked many an agent how they like to be supported. What are the do’s and don’ts that they’ve seen actors do that either help or begin to cause frustration with the agency (or alienation, which is the worst part). Any good agent is going to say the following:
“If we have opportunities for you, you’ll hear from us. You don’t need to be badgering or pestering. If we had something, we’d be contacting you. And if we don’t contact you, just trust that we’re doing our job on our end to promote you”.
I think that’s really accurate and true. I also think that on our end as actors, there are things that we can be doing to stay in their mindset without bugging them. So when you sign with your agent, I think the very first thing you want to do is ask them, “How do you like to be supported?” and follow up with something along the lines of, “I’ve heard from friends of mine who are further along in their careers that it’s a balancing act with agents and I really want to foster a healthy, strong, positive relationship with you. I want to keep you abreast with what I’m doing, I would love to keep abreast with industry trends, feedback on my work or auditions I’ve been on. Can I meet with you once a month, if I can take you to lunch or breakfast or something where we can sit down and talk”.
Begin to build this relationship and they may or may not take to that. I still think it’s important to ask that question, “How do you like to be supported, what can I be doing, what are some of the things that you want and don’t want from your actors/ clients?”
That’s a good start to that topic. There’s more I’d like to share and we’ll do it in future blog posts.
As always, we’d love to hear your feedback and what you’ve learned along the way. Things you’ve done, mistakes you’ve made, and things you’ve done well so you can share it with the community that’s following us by posting your comments below.
I HAVE A GIFT FOR YOU
I’d like to invite you to check out my Artistic Family Newsletter. These newsletters are for any actor in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Europe, and beyond because my goal every week is to empower, inspire, and educate any actor living anywhere who has the burning desire to really do this.
I believe these newsletters are the best of what I do as an acting teacher and it’s free to you so join our family today by going here and signing up.
ANOTHER GIFT FOR YOU
When you register today I’ll also send you the link to my latest Q&A Webinar that was held a few weeks back. This hour long video Webinar was a wonderful exchange between myself and dozens from our Artistic Family members so I hope you’ll enjoy the information as much as I enjoyed sharing it.
Ok, see you next Wednesday so until then my very best to you,
Jim