Why Treating Your Acting Career Like a Business is the Key to Being Discovered

Whether side hustling or full-time, actors are the ultimate entrepreneurs, and are more successful when they treat their careers like a business.

Go the audition, wow the casting director with a well rehearsed scene, book the job. Sounds straightforward enough for any talented actor to master. The flaw with this oversimplification of becoming a working actor who can make a living from your craft is that it doesn't account for how relationships, investment, and marketing contribute to a sustainable career.

Who booked that audition for you? Was it an agent, self-submitted, or did the CD seek you out? Did you self tape? Have you auditioned in front of this Casting Director before? Did you take her feedback from your last session and improve? When last was your resume and headshot updated? Do you understand what the character needs from you? Are you right for this part? Do you know what your type is? Are the materials you use to sell yourself reflective of where you want to go in your career? Do you have concrete creative goals for your career? What can you do that you aren't doing now to get there? And most recently, how many followers do you have on social media?

A lot to think about. Still, those questions are only a portion of the business variables actors must consider when navigating and growing their careers. Study and apply these business principles to your career and give yourself a greater chance to succeed: research and development, branding, and sales.

Research and Development

Development for artists doesn't end, it evolves. You may have gotten a degree in drama or starting acting in childhood. As you enter your professional career, locally or in new markets, you'll need to learn new skills. Whether you're a theatre actor learning how to act for the screen, you're hiring a dialect coach to add to your range of accents, or taking martial arts lessons to reach your goal of working action films, development should be consistent and purposeful. If you're not booked for a gig, work on something you can add to your resume.

Knowing what to work on starts with knowing your type, taking great feedback from directors and CDs you've worked with before, and having clear goals for the next stage of your career. You cannot be right for every part, so understand what you're great at and build that product to attract the right agents, casting directors, and producers.

Branding

Once casting starts on a project, things can move really fast. Decisions have to be made with factors beyond the audition room based on what the film, production and character needs. You want to remove any hurdles that will prevent those at the helm from choosing you. When they Google your name, what will they find? If the answer is "nothing to do with acting", you've got work to do. If they do find your work, are your headshots, resume, and reel telling the story that ends with you being right for and able to handle the part you're submitted for? Invest in professional quality production of these 3 assets, those are your key marketing materials. Just starting out and don't have any work to put on a reel? Produce your own reel. Create a portfolio site to house digital and downloadable copies of your material. Update often.

Sales

You know where you want to go in this wonderful world of professional pretend. You have professional portfolio on and offline. Time to put on your sales hat. After all, acting is a sales business and your product is your talent. This part can seem a bit overwhelming, but remember sales is about relationships. The best place to start with building a meaningful relationship is really understanding what the other person needs. That means asking questions. Make it your mission to know what a role needs so you can honestly decide if you have the ingredients, then show the room what you got. Don't hesitate to clarify anything on a script that needs addressing before you begin, and ask for feedback when you're done. The other, possibly more important, part of sales is maintaining the relationships. Be memorable, collect contact info, and reach out respectfully. Booked a gig or updated your resume or reel recently? Good time touch base with industry folk you haven't worked with in a while.

Final thoughts. Different tactics may be needed for different markets, but the same principles apply. Learn what decision makers need, market your acting product strategically, and invest in continued training and skill building, like an entrepreneur.