As an actor starting off it can not only save you money but can help you advance your career in ways you never thought of.
Where do I start??
This isn’t me asking where to start my blog, this is me reiterating the question every Actor asks at the beginning of their career. This and a list of other questions you'll have as an actor are questions that a consultant can not only help you answer but also guide you towards solutions.
In regards to this blog let me start with answering what a consultant is before answering the question of what it is they can do for you.
A consultant is a professional who provides expert advice in a specialized field.
In the summer just before I started High School I decided I wanted to learn to play basketball so I could play in High School. So my Dad signed me up for the cities rec league. The team I landed on was coached by a guy who had a passion for basketball but not much more. His idea of teaching the team during practice was to go over a few basic rules for the first half hour and then have us scrimmage for the remaining half hour. Needless to say, when it came time to play games against other teams, not only did we lose every one of them but we lost badly. In addition my knowledge for the game hadn’t increased that much more than when I signed up and my goal to eventually play for my high school wasn’t any more likely.
Not being skilled enough once again to make my High School team, I signed up with my cities rec league once again and once again was assigned to a team.
What I eventually found out even before being assessed or even allowed to take a shot was that this coach handled things a lot differently then the coach the year prior. The first thing he was hand my teammates and I a proposal sheet mapping out who he was, what his intentions were for us and for the season. Even though this was the first practice he had already mapped out all 10 of our practices as well as what would be the keys to success for our 10 game season
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Our practices consisted of skill enhancing drills and conditioning, our free play had drawn out plays featuring things we learned during our skill enhancing drills.
Not only did we win every game but by the end of the season our team was so advanced that 8 out of the 10 players including myself made the city All Star Team that year because of our stats.
The difference from one year to the other was that I had encountered a Professional with a working knowledge of the game as well as a plan on how to execute that knowledge to produce the type of outcome he desired.
Though my story can’t teach you anything you need to know about acting, the lesson it does teach is on how having the right professionals helping and advising you verses just someone with some knowledge and experience has a much greater effect in helping you reach the outcome you desire to achieve.
To me that’s what a Professional consultant with a specialized knowledge and passion for acting can do for actors.
A consultant will help you create a strategy to solve the problems that you are facing as well as assist in creating a plan based on skills and knowledge to help you develop.
Imagine starting your journey in the middle of a forrest and the only thing you know for sure is that one of the paths you see lead you out and the others just lead to more forrest. Now imagine having a guide that not only knows which road leads you out but opens your eyes up to things along the way that make you see areas of that forrest in ways you wouldn't have imagined.
That's another part of what a Consultant can do for you as an actor, while helping your reach your goals, they give you guidance on areas in your career you would have missed
Michael Zipursky stated "A consultant's business is always a relationship business".
When working with a consultant a relationship is formed and trust is gained.
It is part of that consultants job to genuinely care about your success because your success is also their success. Knowing this should give you the satisfaction of knowing that through everything they have your best interest in mind and will do what it takes to make sure to your desired goals are reached.
Below is a list of other things a consultant can do for you as an Actor.
1. Consultants can help develop strategies for growth
2. Consultants bring expertise and experience to provide better creative solutions
3. Consultants keep up with current trends, strategies and methodologies and can help Actors stay on pulse with their indusrty
4. Actors can learn new skills from consultants that can be a benefit to their careers
5. Consultants have worked with other actors and have perspective and solutions that worked that they can implement as well as the competitive advantage to know what other actors aren’t doing so that they can outperform them.
6. Consultants have extra time to develop plans and strategies that the actor may not have which frees up the actors to concentrate on their craft.
7. Starting an acting career is a lot like starting a small business, there’s a lot of start up costs in the beginning such as headshots, demo reel, training, casting profiles, etc. so before starting to spending your hard earned money, It would be a good idea to consult with a professional to make sure that money is spent wisely so that you don't waist money on the wrong headshots, training, etc.
In closing, A Consultant would be that professional, that financial advisor, that career strategist, that person helping you build a plan that leads to success.
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