Agents Know in 5 Minutes If They'll Sign You-Here's How to Prepare

Most agents know within the first couple of minutes whether they're interested in offering a contract to an actor, and I've found that many, many actors are completely unprepared for this meeting. They go in, they wing it without thinking of anything ahead of time. So in this video, I'm going to share with you 2 ways that I prepare before every single meeting that I have with an agent, and it's been incredibly helpful to me. So please don't do what most people do and just go in there and go with the flow. Watch this video and learn how to really prepare before meeting an agent. Okay, let's get started. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and what I find is the more you prepare The more you know about the agent, the better the results are going to be. Look, agents know very quickly whether they're interested. It's like going out on a date. You get a pretty good sense, not always 100%, but you get a pretty good sense whether there's some interest there very, very quickly. So one of the things that I always do is I like to research the agent. Now, I don't stalk the agent. That's not a good idea. But I do some research and try to find out more about the agent before our meeting. So I will maybe go to LinkedIn, maybe Instagram, maybe X, maybe all the social media places and see if I can find out things like where they grew up, where did they go to college, what are their interests, what are their hobbies, what kind of movies do they like, just to get a better sense of who they are and if I have anything in common with them. Do they do martial arts? Do they play an instrument? Do they speak a foreign language? Do they talk about traveling? And what I would do is, you're not going to go in there and say, oh, you know, I read about you and you take taekwondo, and you know, I've been doing taekwondo for many— no. But you're going to just naturally bring up this information During a conversation. That is one of the ways that you can really connect with this other person. The other thing, and the second thing, is be prepared for questions that you might be asked and be prepared for a couple of questions you want to ask. So like, for instance, and this is pretty typical, an agent might say to, you know, an actor that they're talking to, So tell me a little bit about yourself. So if you hear something like that, be prepared. You don't want to start going into your resume. Well, you know, about myself. So I worked on this television show. I worked on this film. I did this play in college. They have your resume. Don't waste their time. They want to get to know you. And quite often It's really not even so much the specific details, it's the connection. Do they trust you? Do they like you? Do they feel like you are someone that they could really work with? And you don't want to get into things like, so why do you want to be an actor? Well, you know what? I love doing selfies. I want to be famous. I want to make a lot of money. That's not what they want to hear. They want to hear about people who truly love the craft. They love being able to explore characters. That's the kind of stuff that they want to hear. And if you're thinking— if you want to think of some questions to ask, because always keep in mind, yes, they're interviewing you. Yes, you want to get a contract with them. However, you're also interviewing the agent, and keep that in mind. It's not a one-way street here. If there's something that's not feeling quite right with you, you don't feel like they're showing you the kind of attention or interest, you feel like you might just be getting lost, look, there's nothing wrong with walking out. Thank you very much. And then continue looking. Just because something doesn't work out on the first date doesn't mean you can't go on other dates with other people. And so a good question— well, let me go with the bad question first. You don't want to say, Hey, so tell me, how long do you think it should be before I start booking jobs? You know, just as an estimate. I know you can't give me exact numbers, but, you know, about how much money do you think I'm going to make in the first year? They don't want to hear anything about that because number one, and most importantly, they don't know. They have no idea. You know, sometimes it really takes months and months and months, and there is no guarantee. know, for how much you're going to earn. So get rid of that concept. Here is a question that I always ask. Hey, so tell me, what, what kind of roles do you see me being submitted for? You know, what would you say is my type? That kind of information is invaluable because even if you don't wind up working with that agent, if you ask that question to a number of different industry professionals and you keep hearing very similar things, That is crucial information for your career. You're going to know what kind of headshots to put together, what kind of emotions you want to show, and it will really give you a much better handle on the kinds of projects and characters that you should be getting submitted for. So I wanted to share those things with you. And, and by the way, if you've ever had an interview with an agent, please share it here. Let us know what took place. What were you asked? Did you ask anything? Did go well? Love to hear about it so that way we can learn from you. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, the notification bell, so you always know when a new video has been uploaded. If you like it, give it a thumbs up, that's always great, and share it with your friends so we can continue to build a great channel of actors who are helping each other. And the very last thing, if you haven't done this, you can be on my special email list. Just go to howtoact.com/list. How to act. And model.com. You can see it right here, and just fill out the little form. You'll be on my list, and I'll be sending you really helpful information. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.