Ask anyone who has ever pitched a show concept: No buyer is ever looking for ONE great idea; they’re looking to tap into a WELL of ever-replenishing material. They’re looking to put you on contract to perform as a factory for concepts. They need you to be filled with ideas, fast at churning them out, able to steer the concepts toward the trends they tell you they’re excited to invest in, and filled with professionalism. EVERY time.
It’s not just writers who are seen as commodities like this. Ask anyone who has ever auditioned for Saturday Night Live. It’s not the *one* character you nail at UCB or Groundlings or Second City or IO West or wherever… it’s that one and the 10 or even 20 others you can pivot toward one after the next after the next, flawlessly.
Agents aren’t looking to add actors to their roster because there’s this ONE role they were born to play. It’s because you have the potential of being a booking machine that you’re seen as worthy of investment. And let’s be clear, agents and managers are working for free ’til the second you BOOK WORK. So that means they *are* investing in you when they sign you to their roster. They’re saying, “I believe you will make us both some money.” Make it easy for them to say that.
When buyers invest in you, it’s often a long-term relationship. It’s one filled with potential. It’s one in which they’re certain you’re *bankable* because they banked on you first. It’s never about one great idea, one great character, one great role, even one great dream you’ve had for how it’ll all go down because you want it SO much. Nope. None of that.
It’s about your ability to consistently, predictably, reliably churn out the goods. Lots of ’em. You have to be a content-generating machine. And when buyers see that — even if some of what you’re creating isn’t quite their speed — they’re more interested in you as an investment than if you had one great idea, full stop.
Okay, so how do you *become* a content-generating machine?
Practice. Start now. Head back over to the self-taping challenge for inspiration or create any other 100-day challenge for yourself and just build the muscle for whatever it is you’re eager to show the world you can do. Seriously, give it an investment of 100 days. If you can’t hustle consistently for that long, how can you expect anyone else to hustle that long to help you book work? Really. Think about it! Hop on Periscope and shoot things you know you’ll want to share beyond that quick broadcast. Save those broadcast vids to your YouTube channel and whenever someone asks a question that’s answered by what you shared (i.e., “Can you do comedy?”) you have a link to provide.
I actually shot a Periscope broadcast on this exact topic. Check it out for more on this whole concept, shared in another platform.
The fact that the above vid exists actually underscores my point. I’m thinking about how I sometimes “warm up” for writing each week’s column. Sometimes I field a question I’ve been asked in social media or via email or in various message board spaces out there. And while I’m answering a question, I may realize, “Oh, hey! That could be a column!” and often it is. Either way, whether it’s a warm-up writing exercise or the seed of a chapter in my next book, it’s good practice. There is no one who doubts I am a content-generating machine.
I never write the same email twice. What I mean by that is when I *do* answer an email in meticulous detail, I say to myself, “Oh, that’s good! That should go into my website’s FAQ,” or it gets saved at my casting wiki and the whole team can pull from it when similar messages come across to which anyone on the team needs to respond. Create once, share way more than once. Smart.
Think about this *especially* if you have a survival job in which you could boost your income by monetizing something you do well if you would just offer it up beyond the ONCE. Do you train animals? Cook well? Offer brilliant product reviews? Rock at ASL? Kick ass at Parkour? Anything information-based or tutorial in nature is potentially gold in this territory!
Put it out there for free, build a brand by having consistent content available that shows the buyers what you’re about, and then track what’s *landing* to determine what might be worth elevating somehow. What I mean is, you may have *your* favorite character in your improv jam, but once you have legitimate feedback that it’s *landing* better (high viewership in the vid you uploaded to YouTube, requests for that particular character at every performance, increased Google traction coming your way), maybe you start investing in a self-produced short or webseries featuring that character (and not one of the others) so that you’re working with what you know is working.
Be out there sharing that thing that you do BEST so much that you are building your brand either way, and when buyers start noticing (let’s be clear, unless lightning strikes, this *does* take time), provide them with good “yes, and…” action for that. I regularly hire POV contributors on behalf of the good folks at Actors Access when I see them sharing quick tips that could be expanded into 1000 words of goodness. I see brilliant host-types getting sponsorship deals after doing unpaid product reviews that have gotten a lot of heat online. This happens! Why not make this a part of your creative journey instead of picking up another drink-slinging shift at the bar you hate?
Remember, do it because it’s a brand-builder *and* because it’s fun for you, not because you think it may lead to money. BUT, be strategic about how you budget your time and energy — again, think about how you can do something ONCE that you could make available many times over — so that you’re more likely to be perceived as a content-generating machine. Because you are, right? You WANT a career in which you are consistently invested in because you are non-non-non-STOP in bringing your work to the world, right? Get on that.
Really look at how you’re using your energy and be sure you’re investing in yourself the way you hope buyers will too. And then we will!
Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!
Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001987.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.