2:54
Acting coach Aaron Marcus says talent frustrated with their agent should ask "What can you recommend I do to get more work?" instead of complaining. Agents often suggest new headshots, more training, or a better fit for available roles.
Acting coach Aaron Marcus says talent frustrated with their agent should ask "What can you recommend I do to get more work?" instead of complaining. Agents often suggest new headshots, more training, or a better fit for available roles.
Hi, welcome to another Acting and Modeling Quick Tip with me, Aaron Marcus. So whether you're an actor or a commercial model, it can be very frustrating when you're not hearing from your agent. And here are the key 8 words you absolutely want to say to your representative to try to get more work happening. So typically what happens for a lot of talent is they get angry. They start thinking, well, this agent isn't doing me any good. I want to start looking elsewhere. Look, this is like any other kind of relationship. And not to say that sometimes things need to end, but you certainly want to do everything you possibly can to make this thing happen. So here's what I suggest doing. Instead of contacting the agent, blaming, yelling, screaming, you're not doing anything, you're not any good, what you want to do is see if you can set up a time to sit down and meet with the agent in person. That's always the best. If you live too far away, your schedules don't allow this, then a phone conversation certainly would work as well. I'm not crazy about doing this via email just because I really like to hear the person's voice. And here's what I would do. You can just say, you know, I've been with you for a certain amount of time, or it's been 2 months or 3 months and I haven't heard anything about any auditions or go-sees. I wanted to ask you, What can you recommend I do to get more work? And by stating it that way, you're not accusing the agent of not doing their job. And basically you're asking them for help. And you might be really surprised as to what you might hear. They might say, we've been submitting you a lot. People just haven't been interested. Maybe they want to look over your photos. Maybe your headshots or your commercial shots just aren't selling you well. Maybe you need to put together new shots. Maybe you need to take some more classes. Maybe they could say, I'm just not sure that you are strong enough for me to be submitting you now for acting gigs. So, but whatever it is, ask the agent for help and then take it from there, because that way they will be very open and free to give you suggestions, and you're not painting them and pushing them into a corner. I'd love to hear what you have done to try to get more work happening with an agent, so leave a comment below. If you're watching this on YouTube, please give it a thumbs up. If you're watching this on Facebook, please like it, and that way you will automatically be sent other information that I post on my facebook.com/howtomodel page. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. Bye.
