Creating Your Network - Doubling Your Income

First of all what is a network? How does that relate to being an actor?

"A network is a large group of people who communicate, are interconnected and work together as a system."

If you create a network you double, triple, exponentially multiply your work opportunities a gazillion times. The more people who know you, like you, want to work with you, the more work you will get.

Then, the process of submissions, auditions and trying to get work is reduced to zero. Offers come out of nowhere from people who know you, have been referred to you, have seen your work.

It's like virus marketing or the internet which is a humongous network. Career-wise you can then focus on just doing the work-a film, a play, a new prime time series.

You become a working actor, not an actor trying to get work.

So how do you build a network? How do you get a team of people on your side to represent you? Submit you for roles? Hire you? Create projects for you? Develop your career until you are at the top?

Here is a roadmap:

1. Create a database of people you know- maybe that's only 10 at the moment: other actors, playwrights, directors, a few casting directors, agents you met through a "pay-to meet", a personal manager, an acting teacher.

Enter their names in a database with email capacity. There are many database email programs out there. We use Constant Contact.

There's also Icontact, eweber, infusionsoft, numerous companies and software but CC is easy to learn, has 5 minute tutorials and is free for the first 2 months - while you try it out. Then, if you sign up, it's affordable.

2. Grow your list weekly by meeting more agents, casting directors, writers, directors. Join organizations where you can network-NY Theater Meet-ups, AFI, Shooting People, Director's Guild, AFTRA, SAG, AEA, NY Women in Film and TV, LA Women in Film & TV, New Dramatists Guild, theater groups, acting companies...anything that will allow you to meet more people in the industry.

If you know 5 people you will probably NEVER get an acting job. If you know 50 you might get a call, an audition, a job once a year. If you know 500, you'll get a job once a week!

3. Enter all the names of your contacts and check out the graphics, templates and usage of the program. It allows you to send out everything from press releases to holiday cards, download a photo into your personal messages (create your own stationary), design flyers, etc.

Even if you are challenged on the computer-this is easy. It's all done for you with a few clicks. Not too difficult.

4. Start by sending out a few - "Hi! How are you doing'? Just wanted to say hello and tell you what I'm up to..." messages. As it becomes easier, send out an announcement when you are in a show, when you book a commercial, get a callback for a film, are appearing in an under 5 on a Soap, to wish them a Happy Birthday, Happy Labor Day, Happy Thanksgiving...there are templates for every reason, season and you can design more to relate to your career progress.

5. When you have a new demo reel or a new website, send a link in an email so they can see your most recent accomplishment and work .This seems like a lot of fuss but it's not any different than sending messages on Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace, only you are accomplishing a whole lot more.

You are building not only your network of people who like you. You are building your career. Just like in the Tipping Point (a book you should read by Malcolm Gladwell) you suddenly have reached a critical mass- a list of 100 or 250 or more.

Friends and Agents will forward your info on to other interested parties- Casting Directors who were looking for your type or tuned in to see you or Googled you when they were casting something. It all comes together. And you start working.

How long does this process take? Depends on how actively you apply the concept and follow up with the system. Months, a year or two. Isn't that better than staying in the same spot sending your resumes and post cards out and paying to meet one Industry contact at a time or having one audition at a time? Give it a shot!

Successful Marketing!

By : Gwyn_Gilliss

Team Building in Business - What is a Team?

The concept of Team is vital to success in Business, and Team Building is part of every Manager's role. By building high performing Teams, an organisation can harness the power of many individuals to achieve even greater heights.

A good Team has benefits both for the Company, and for the individual members of the Team. Belonging to a winning Team is one of the most satisfying and motivating factors inside and outside of work. Team Building is an important part of working life. But what exactly IS a Team?

Defining 'Team'
To build a Team, it is important that a Leader has a tangible, clear vision of what exactly he or she is building, and that they have a good definition of what a Team is, and what it is not. It is equally important when discussing Team Building with the Team itself, that everyone has a shared understanding of the definition of Team.

A Team is 2 or more people, but so too is a Group, and the two are very different entities. There are 4 factors that differentiate a Team from a Group of people.

1. A Team is a Group of people who work together to achieve a SHARED purpose. By shared, we mean that all of the Team members have the SAME understanding of what their purpose is.

2. They are cohesive, they have a SENSE of being on a Team. They do NOT have to be doing the same tasks, nor do they need to be working in the same area, but they still feel as if they belong on this Team.

3. The way the work together ENABLES them to work better as a Team

4. They perform better as a Team than they would as a group of individuals

Comparing Team to Group
To get a better appreciation of the term Team, it is useful to compare this to the definition of a group in working life. A group is 2 or more people who work together.

They may get on very well and they may have coffee or lunch together. They may even work very close to each other.

However, the members of the group are not enabling each other to achieve a higher level of performance.

It may be that they do not have feeling of being involved together in achieving their shared purpose. Indeed, they often do not have a shared purpose at all, with each focussing only on their own, individual, purpose.

They may be very nice, high performing individuals, but they are not benefitting from buzzing off each other. They may have coffee, but they talk about social life rather than work.

In terms of Team Building, if the group is, indeed, made up of high performers, it is even more powerful to bind them together in to a Team. The performance will skyrocket!

A Bad Group and Groupthink
A bad group is individuals who are working together in a way that is not helping, and may even be hindering, the output of the group.

A bad group is not cohesive, there are individuals and small cliques. Some of these are trying to achieve, while others are not. The output of a bad group will be much lower than a group or a Team.

Groupthink is the opposite of Team, and is another very powerful entity. Groupthink does not often occur in the working world, but it is useful to be aware of this, and to be careful to avoid this happening to your Team.

This is where a group is very cohesive and they have a very strong sense of belonging. However, they are heading in the OPPOSITE direction to their shared purpose.

These folk have a shared understanding of their working world and their role in work that is working AGAINST achievement and success. Achievement to this group is bad.

They protect their views and they will reject anyone who tries to argue with them, often stereotyping and labelling them as an 'outgroup'.

For the purposes of your Team Building, this will give you a clearer definition of the concept of Team.

By : Kate_Tammemagi