Even with the best of intentions, nearly every actor I have ever met, makes at least one of these career killing mistakes.
In fact, most of them are making all 3 so it’s now wonder that most leave the industry without ever making real progress or getting anywhere to achieving the goals they set out to achieve when they first decided to become an actor.
Seeing an actor leave the industry is heartbreaking enough. When you consider that it’s pretty simple to fix the mistakes they were making, it’s devastating.
Here’s how you can keep from making the same career killing mistakes so you can reach your goals and build a career that exceeds your wildest dreams.
How do you know if you are making these mistakes?
Be really and truly honest with yourself for a moment and ask yourself what the problem is in your career.
Are you not getting enough callbacks?
Are you getting callback auditions but not getting booked, or are you simply not getting auditions to begin with?
These are the symptoms that are present when you’re making the career killing mistakes.
What most actors do, and what you want to avoid, is to immerse yourself in a flurry of random activity in the hopes that something will work out and they will get more auditions.
Then, the law of averages would come into play and they would get booked more as a result.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, yet it’s what most actors do.
They continue to do more of what is isn’t working.
Simply going on more open calls is not the answer.
Getting a new agent is not the answer.
All you have to do is make yourself into a memorable character.
Since you are an actor this should be a rather easy thing for you to do, and everything else will fall into place.
It’s the “medicine” that cures every symptom caused by making the “career killing mistakes.”
If you are not getting called back but you are not being booked, then you didn’t stand out enough to the CD during the audition process.
It’s seldom about one actor being “better” than another.
It’s typically that one actor stands above the rest in terms of their memorability, and having some quality that was simply unforgettable to the Casting Director.
Don’t completely fabricate a quality that makes you stand out. Make sure that it’s an amplified quality that you already have.
One of our tribe members is a phenomenal guitarist and he has always listed it as a talent on his resume.
Rather than just letting it be another item on there, which isn’t really all that unique in the grand scheme, he figures out the most clever ways to incorporate it into his image.
His headshot features a pocket square with very brightly colored guitars on it.
When he goes to an audition, he is always wearing a bracelet made of guitar picks and he wears a large ring shaped like a guitar, just in case the bracelet were not visible enough.
He does this, even when the role he is auditioning for has nothing to do with his guitar skills.
It accomplishes something very important: standing out and being memorable. He becomes the “guitar guy” in the CDs mind.
Don’t be afraid to do things like this and break the mold. Get outside of the box and do it with conviction. If he were to shy away from it, he would just a dude with a weird bracelet.
Having that image consistently through all of his materials is what helps the branding element.
Here’s how it helps solve every one the symptoms that stem from the career killing mistakes.
It dramatically increased the amount of auditions he was getting. Remember the pocket square? When a CD is flipping through hundreds of headshots that all look the same, his immediately stands out.
That’s the first step to getting called in to audition: being seen.
Because there’s an immediate recall from his headshot, when he goes into an audition with the bracelet and ring it becomes a second interaction and there is a subconscious familiarity.
Of course he is talented, so because he is memorable and delivers a good performance at the audition, he gets a ton of callbacks.
If he delivered a good performance but was completely indistinguishable from the dozens of other actors that also read for the role, he wouldn’t be called back nearly as often.
Since he gets a good amount of callbacks, he also wins a good number of roles.
Just by making this simple adjustment and branding yourself uniquely, you can do the same.
The other part of this is to make yourself visible to the industry, which is why I created this for you.
When you take care of this element, everything else will fall into place. Your social media will be much more powerful, because you will also be able to distinguish yourself from the thousands of other actors vying for attention and followers.
You will even see the difference in your networking. The circles and groups you are involved with will come to associate your with your unique branding.
Fair warning.
When you go down this road, you must be prepared for the backlash.
Your fellow actor friends will think you have gone insane for breaking out of the traditional mold. Pay them no mind. If you want to build a long lasting and highly rewarding career, you have to be willing to do what others are not willing to do.
Don’t solicit their opinions and feedback unless they are on your same wavelength and you are working together on something like this. Otherwise, they won’t have the same perspective and steer you back into the box, you are trying to break out of.
Our tribe here at Boost My Star is made up of actors that think differently and I know how difficult it can be to find someone that is on your wavelength, so I’m always just an email or a comment away.
Don’t be afraid to reach out anytime because my goal is to…
See you at the top,
Scott