Maintaining your relationship

Show business work is very sporadic… it’s feast or famine, so don’t expect the phone to ring regularly throughout the year. It just doesn’t happen that way for most people.

However, if you haven’t heard from your agent in a couple of weeks, give them a quick happy phone call to see what’s happening. If the agency have a lot of people on their books, it might just be the reminder they need that you’re there and ready for work.

Many talent make the mistake of leaving it months waiting for the agents call and then phone them to complain they’ve been forgotten. If I was an agent I wouldn’t be giving priority to people who do nothing but complain whenever I hear from them. I’m much more likely to give opportunities to talent who are pleasant to deal with and up with the play. I expect talent who don’t call for months on end are probably not that interested anyway.

Every once in a while some agents reduce their books down to those doing the most work. I feel, most of the time though, agents will leave the less active talent on their books in case a job comes up which specifically suits them. This leads to a huge amount of unsatisfied talent sitting on agent’s books, not getting the service they expect. You don’t want to be one of these people!