How I got the attention of Talent Agents in four out of five cities
One of them represented me even though they told me “I wouldn’t succeed…”
I’ve been represented by four talent agencies, and I’m about to share the exact methods I used to get attention and seal the deal. What you choose to do with your relationship after you get your agent is up to you.
I didn’t do any “viral marketing.” I didn’t find out an agents favorite food and arrange to have it sent to their office. I didn’t have any fancy connections, nor do I have a “special look.” Sure, being “Asian” is popular right now, but set that aside for a minute.
You can believe I was not a “hot flavor” and got lucky… Because I’ve had multiple agents, meaning, something about me wasn’t good enough at one agency, so I had to hunt for another. I have my own ideas about what that is and I’m sure you will too. And sure, luck has something to do with it, but you need to put yourself in the position to get lucky, and you’re about to find out how I created my own luck.
And these aren’t those agencies that say “we want to make you famous, sign up for our class and our headshot program and we’ll represent you.” Real talent agents eat only when their talent books.
But here’s my approach. (Use it ethically because you’re about to learn something incredibly helpful.)
I’ve spent years in sales and marketing. When you work in sales for a long time, your perception changes. You adopt a mentality I think most artists don’t build-up until they’ve had years of auditions under their built. And that is what I believe separates me. But it is a combination of easy to apply hard skills I will share right now. We’ll break this down by city.
Get Yourself on Everything
My first break on a commercial was with an agent that found me through social media. I think luck came because I joined dozens of groups across every major community building and social networking website. I also used Google Maps to pull up the agents I could find and sent out emails with my very small resume and first headshot. I hadn’t ever performed in front of a group before.
Also, here’s a side story about my first audition. It was for a BIG audience. Like a group audition where all the theater companies come to watch a bunch of actors and find the ones they want for their future plays. I did my first monologue and didn’t know how to exit the monologue, and walked into a corner behind some curtains. I let someone else finish their monologue before I walked out. They all laughed, I thought it was hilarious too.
Breaking it down, the agent contacted me after months of improv classes and training. I saved up all my vacation and sick time with my regular job so I could go to auditions and book work. Eventually, I moved out of that city, so obviously I would leave the agency.
This is somewhat of an unrealistic situation because I didn’t even have to interview. They only spoke with me over the phone before I booked my first job.
Where it Didn’t Work
The second city I lived in was a small southern city. I’m guessing my look wasn’t ideal, and they only had a handful of commercials with somewhere between 2–4 agencies that I could remember. I used the same tactic of emails but only followed up a couple of times with the offices. I had a great job and didn’t really care that much anyway.
Getting Out of Dodge
I didn’t find much success in that smaller city. But I went on the hunt. I was either moving to Austin, TX, or San Francisco, CA. So I honed my email game.
By this time I was already proficient at sending out good emails. Finding agency contacts is easy. So I started blasting out emails to all the agencies with a quick bio to both cities. I got agents in Austin to respond, but none of them would talk to me unless I was already there. I ended up heading off to San Francisco.
The Big City
I didn’t do much in the entertainment biz for a while because I was productive in my day-career (B2B sales). But then I got bored and needed to do some hunting, and have fun. Being in front of the camera is exciting!
I applied the exact same tactics. Make a list of the agencies. Paint a nice picture about myself.
This time I had to interview so the next tip I would say is look your best, as long as it’s like your headshot. This was a pretty hot boutique modeling agency, but they booked me work on commercials.
I didn’t fit the criteria for their “modeling” work. That’s code for too ugly and/or too short and/or not personable enough. This was the agent that said I probably wouldn’t find success.
But the takeaways here are: list the agencies. Create a compelling message about yourself. Email agencies. Wait for responses, and look your best for interviews.
Around this time I was wondering if I’d ever live in NYC or LA.
Hitting Hollywood
A brief time later, I had the opportunity to move to the entertainment mecca of the world — Hollywood. I am grateful for that luck.
But I’ve been graced with two agents since being here. I applied the exact same tactics combining email with contact list. A few smaller ones have contacted me but they didn’t seem all that legitimate. There is a lot of networking and resume building that goes along with that, but there is no clear shortcut their except making your own work. The 48 Hour Film Project is a wonderful way to do so.
Testing
If you’re keeping track, that’s only four cities and four agents.
Here’s the fifth city. I played around with this idea that instead of emails, I would cold call the talent agents in NYC just to see what they’d say. I wrote a script to quickly pitch myself so I would feel confident on the phone, and cold dialed a bunch of agencies throughout NYC. And they listened — some of them even gave me direct emails to mail my stuff in.
Email and cold calling is powerful, in every business. I even used the methods to pitch ideas to a couple of the world’s top entertainment people. Some have responded, other’s didn’t.
And I only share this story to help some budding artist out there who is incredibly talented, but has some limitation and can’t quite nail it.
Use this method ethically. It is a business after all.
