#9 YOUR STRATEGY IS AN URBAN LEGEND

#9 YOUR STRATEGY IS A COLLECTION OF URBAN LEGENDS

and not an informed business plan. The #9 reason that you just lost a decade in Hollywood is because you didn't know that your career was A) a small business, B) your small business doesn't have a customer need (your LOOK or unique selling proposition) and because C) your entire understanding of the selling process in Hollywood is lacking in canonical American free market business practices; THEREFORE your "strategy" amounts to a collection of urban legends that you heard: from fellow actors, acting teachers, podcasters and from any number of hucksters who run a huge business tricking inexperienced actors into paying thousands of dollars in "consulting fees" to hear recycled versions of these urban legends.

(SEE ALSO "Never give a sucker an even break.")

The reason that this "strategy" results in a lost decade can be easily calculated with 8th grade algebra; here's a fictional example:

Jane is waiting for a commercial audition and she meets Jill, another actress.  Jill explains to Jane that her career got a boost by hiring a company to shoot a "fake scene" for her reel.  Subsequently, Jill's agent "gets her more auditions."

The problem with remedial strategies that arise from urban legends is there is always something "a little true" about the legend.  However, with the great variations in looks, resume credits and categories (age/ethnicity/enneagram type), there's no real business strategy here.  Business is about selling products to consumers.  Which is why when I was getting settled to write this blog, I first wrote a prerequisite blog "Do you know who your customer is?"

In business (free market) the selling chain goes like this:

1. Identify the customer.
2. Identify a very specific "pain point" or "product need" in the customer demographic.
3. Develop a product that meets the need identified in #2.
4. With the product created (the LOOK), develop the marketing collateral (headshots, videos, training) to support the marketing of the product.
5. Sign up distributors and sales personnel (lets call them managers and agents here) to sell your product.
6. Support sales and distribution with anything they need to sell.
7. Go in and make the final presentation (ie. you auditioning).
8. Secure the sale (book the Co-Star, Guest Star or Series Regular etc).

The point here is that if you don't know your customer or you haven't specifically identified a "pain point" or "product need" that the customer has/wants, the entire remainder of "the strategy" is moot.  Step back and ask yourself how many times your acting friends have revamped #4-#7 and never made a single effort to understand the customer or the customer need.

So let's say that Jane hears 7 urban legends from various people at various random social encounters and decides to test the veracity of each urban legend.  Arguably, to test any talent marketing strategy in Hollywood you would need to:

a) Generate new marketing collateral (get new headshots, shoot a video).
b) Provide the new marketing materials to the seller (agency) - assuming they even agree the materials are useful.
c) Allow the seller to execute their selling activity for some period of time, and study the effect of the new strategy on the overall customer interest & volume. Probably 6-18 months would be the minimum viable time period to assess whether a strategy is working.

Well, if each urban legend takes 18 months to evaluate, simple mathematics says that 7x18 months is 10.5 YEARS running around chasing down urban legends.

So, 10.5 years to test out 7 urban legends.  IOW, a lost decade.

After spending 10.5 years trying out seven urban legends with a product that has no demand in the marketplace either the actor quits the business or starts over again with a different set of urban legends.  Or makes an uniformed change (probably also an urban legend) like dyeing their hair red.

This whole cycle of evaluation also is typically done by talent trying out different talent agencies without ever considering changing their product (their LOOK, their training etc.)

This lost decade is extremely problematic for young talent (say 18-21) because there are considerable opportunities in Hollywood for this age range and once you "age out" of the category, an entirely different strategy may be needed.  Sometimes you will hear in the popular press "If you haven't made it by age 25 you'll never make it."  They are referring to "lottery winners" who come out of the 18-21 age range with a major booking on an important project.

Mrs. Waddlesworth will always be here for every age, type and ethnicity.  But you might not like what she has to say.