Aaron Marcus stopped taking silence from industry contacts personally by lowering expectations and using Boomerang to track whether emails were opened. He treats business communication differently from personal relationships, where he demands responsiveness. The shift from anger to courtesy changed how he handles follow-ups in the entertainment industry.
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In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you why these people really angered me. And when you watch this to the end, you're going to learn why they don't upset me anymore. I also have a great bonus video for you, how I had a wonderful opportunity doing a stunt on a feature film, and you'll learn all about it. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. Where I share information with my fellow actors based on my many years of experience working as a full-time actor. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, the notification bell, so you always know when I upload a new video. And if you like the video, give it a thumbs up, that's helpful. And please share the link with your fellow actors. I spent many many years getting angry with people in the industry. Now, I want to make this as a really clear distinction. I do things very differently in my personal life than in my business life. And on a side note, I know a lot of times the videos that I create, they're more Specific business-oriented, like, you know, how to do this. And this one, it is, it's still connected with the business in many ways, but it's not so much a how-to. It's really just a way of dealing with people in the, in the industry because it can be really hard. And that's why I want to share this with you. I have found, and I also want to make this really clear, I'm not judging and I'm not saying that what I do is right and what other people are doing is wrong. I'm just sharing with you what made me angry and why and how I dealt with it. And if any of this speaks to you and you find it helpful, great. And if it doesn't, that's great as well. But I've always run my business and my personal life in a very specific way. And I take other people's emotions, feelings into consideration with everything. And I respect other people's time as well. So when I would send out an email Or send a message, leave a message on somebody's phone, and they don't respond, I used to get really angry. And I would think, how could you not respond to me? I mean, sometimes it's really important information. It's not like, hey, haven't heard from you for a while, anything going on? If it's an agent, anything happening for me? That— those aren't the kinds of things that I'm referring to. Because I would never do that with an agent. I don't think that's good business. Hey, haven't heard from you for a while. Have you forgotten about me? It's just not a good way of doing it. But I would leave people that I was working with, people I just connected with, people who promised to send me things, just following up. Haven't heard. And I used to get really aggravated. And let me just tell you really quickly before I forget, there's a very interesting app that you can use if you are sending emails, and it's called Boomerang. And actually, I'm listing it right here, and I'll list it also in the comment section so, so you can see it, or in the description section. It's a great program. You can pay for a professional version, or you can get a free version. And what this will allow you to do, and it's incredible, I love this thing. If you are sending out an email, you can click on this app and it will let you know if the person opened up your email. Because maybe you sent an email to somebody and you're expecting a response and you didn't get it. Well, maybe you went into their spam filter. Maybe for some reason it got blocked. Those things happen all the time. So I believe that with the free version, you can send up to 10 A month, and then next, the following month, it starts over again at zero. So this is— so if it's a really important email, I highly recommend that you, you know, you use Boomerang so that way you know if the, you know, if the person got it, because you'll get a response saying that the person opened it. And if they didn't, then you might want to follow up and find out why they didn't. But it's just interesting because if somebody contacts me Even if I'm in the middle of 10 million things and I don't have time to get back to them, I will at least give them the courtesy to say, I can't respond right now. I can't talk. I can't give you the information, but I will. I will get back to you in a day or 2 days, whatever it is, just to let them know that I received their note. And that way they can relax. They can stop thinking about it. I used to find it so frustrating When I would send things to people and I just wouldn't hear from them. It's like I just got ghosted, and it's like, how could you not get back to me? Especially if it's somebody maybe I just met and I said, hey, I'd love to get your headshot and resume. I keep it in my files. Sometimes I do some casting, and I'd love to keep you in mind. I just don't hear from people, or I have a question for somebody and they don't respond. I just don't get it. So in my business life, and once again, I'll tell you what I do in my personal life, but in my business life, and I don't know if this is the right thing to do, but it's helped me a lot. I've lowered my expectations. I've come to the conclusion that people don't do things the way that I do. And instead of getting Angry with them. I just don't expect things from other people, and it doesn't bother me as much. Of course, like, I'm human, and yeah, I might feel it, but not, not in the way that I used to and just feel really angry. And so I just, I just lowered my expectations. And, and, you know, I might need to follow up a few times. And just, you know, say to them, uh, hey, I just wanted to make sure you got my email. Uh, I just wanted to find out something. And so I will follow up, you know, and I maybe I'll give somebody a phone call that I haven't heard from. And once again, I'm not showing any anger or frustration with them. It's just, hey, just wanted to check in, make sure you got my message. Uh, love to hear from you. And that's what I do. Once again, I do things differently. On a side note, in my personal life, I just don't put up with it. I very honestly— look, here's a great example, and I know this has nothing to do with the industry, but— and I don't want to say what, what kind of work it was, but there was somebody who was going to do some work around our house and sent me a contract, signed the contract, and now I'm not hearing from somebody. They were supposed to get started. Didn't hear from them. Sent them multiple emails, let them— sent them text messages, nothing. And, and here's what I decided to do. I called them up and I said— and I just had to leave a message because they didn't pick up— I just wanted to let you know I'm canceling the contract. And I didn't say why, I didn't get into it, I didn't say I was angry, just said, hey, I just wanted to let you know I'm canceling the, the contract and we're moving in a different direction. That's all I said. I don't want to work with people that don't respond to me in my personal life. And when it comes to personal relationships, I'm gonna have a discussion with somebody about not, not being thought of, not, not having somebody take, you know, respecting me and my time and, and my friendship. I'm going to have that discussion with them. And if we can't work things out, then I just can't go on like that. Life is just too short. And I'm not putting up with that kind of stuff. In business, it is different because if I wanted to cut out everybody who didn't respond to me in the way that I wanted to, I wouldn't have any contacts in the— I'm exaggerating. But anyhow, I just think it's really important Once again, this is just for me. Lower your expectations. And I'm not saying just let it go, because if you need information or you want information, then you follow it up. But you've got to be really careful, and you don't want to anger people, and you don't want to sound, you know, that you're really, you know, pissed off with them. It's, it's not a good way to do your business. But there are ways, like with Boomerang, or following up with really gentle emails. Hey, look, I'm not sure if You know, if you, uh, or a text, I'm not sure if you got my message. I know you're, you've probably been really busy. Just wanted to find out. And I have found that to be a very effective way to do business, uh, keeping relationships because not always, but most of my business relationships are business relationships. Um, there are pretty, there are a few, uh, people in the industry That I really have a personal connection with and really know much about me as a human being. And look, I'm fine with opening up and talking to people, but I really do things differently with business. So anyhow, by not feeling the anger, it makes my life much calmer. It's much easier because I just don't expect people to do things in the way that I like to do things, and I've come to the conclusion where it's okay. You know, we all do things differently, and that's fine. So anyhow, I wanted to share that with you. I, I'd be really curious to hear, how do you deal when people don't respond to you? Please let us know so we can all learn from each other. Um, really quickly again, if you haven't done this, subscribe, click the notification bell. If you like it, give it a thumbs up, share the link so we can Continue to create a great channel, a group of fellow actors who are trying to help each other. That would be great. And I did promise, if you look up here, you'll see both— you might see both the link for how I wound up doing a stunt. And actually, the movie was A Man Called Otto. You can learn about that. And you also might see See a thumbnail for a playlist, and that way you can check out some other videos as well. So anyhow, I hope this was helpful to you. I know it's different than what I normally do, but I like doing this stuff as well. So anyhow, this was fun. My name's Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. Thank you.
