Why every Actor needs to treat acting like a business

I get it. You became an Actor because you love the craft of acting.

But...to build consistency in the Film/TV industry you gotta treat your acting career like a business. 

That's why I am breaking down all the reasons why you need to start treating your acting career like a business.

In today's episode you'll learn:

• My tops tips to treating your career like a business
• Why most Actors fail at making money as an Actor
• Easy, actionable things you can start doing now to prepare for your career in 2023

If this episode inspires you then I’d love to hear from you! Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, post it to your Instagram stories and tag me @katherine_beck_

Then follow me on Instagram to go ‘behind the scenes’ with me and my own journey as an American accent coach and Voiceover Actor.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Ready to learn how to take your Acting career to the next level and get coaching for an entire year? Apply for The Actor's School of Business here and let's start smashing the Actor goals: https://www.katherinebeck.com/apply

 LEARN MORE FROM KATHERINE BECK:

WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | YOUTUBE | TIK TOK

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SHOW TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to the All American actors Podcast, episode 78. In today's episode, we are talking about the business side of acting and why every actor needs to treat acting like a business. That's coming up next.
Ready to go behind the scenes and learn what it really takes to build a sustainable career as a working actor in the US film and TV industry. Join me Katherine Beck, you're all American accent coach, as I give you the insight and inspiration to take action on your career, learn my best tips and tricks to performing with an American accent and hear from working actors and other industry professionals. To give you a comprehensive overview of this biz we call show them.
This is the All American actors podcast.
We will get started with today's episode in just a moment. But first, I want to thank all of my loyal listeners who in the past have sent me five star reviews for the podcast, because one of my favourite things is to share those reviews here with all of you on the podcast. But I'm a sad podcaster
because I haven't received any new reviews lately. Do you like the podcast? If so can you let me know because one of my favourite things to do is to hear back from all of you read those reviews, they not only helped me to know that I'm giving you great value in these episodes. But it also helps to get the word out to actors all over the world that I am there to support you and give you great content here to give you some insight into the biz and share some really amazing interviews with you as well. By the way, I've got some really great ones lined up for you and I'm so excited to share them with you. So if you can do me a favour. If you're loving today's episode, would you mind taking about 30 seconds and just leave a very brief review on Apple podcasts for me and you will get featured right here on the podcast when I read your review or feel free to drop me a DM on Instagram, take a screenshot of the show and share it with me on your Instagram Stories. Oh, by the way, speaking of Instagram, I've got a new handle just for the podcast. So make sure you follow it at all American actors podcast. So I'll link that up in the show notes. But just drop me a DM there or take a screenshot of the show, share it with me on your Instagram stories so that I know that you are enjoying these episodes, it would mean the world to me. So I hope to see you in those reviews or on the ground. Alright, let's get into today's episode on why every actor should be treating their career like a business. And one of the biggest mistakes I see so many actors making is that they don't treat it like a business. And I'm putting my hand up. I've been guilty of this in the past for sure. In fact, as a young actor in my teens, when I started out acting professionally and auditioning I was 1718 I despised the idea of having to do anything businessy because I felt like it stifled my creativity. The whole reason I got into acting was for the creative expression that I felt like I came alive on stage or performing as another character not to be a business person. And the idea of having to do business or career stuff was so not interesting. Part of the reason why I actually removed myself a fair bit from on screen acting and moved more into voiceover. But in voiceover, I didn't feel like I had to play the game of the business side, as much as in the on screen side of things. I kind of felt like in voiceover, it was a little bit more geared towards talent. Once you understood your brand, and you had some great reels behind you, it felt more about the talent and less about the business, whereas the onscreen felt more about the business and talent was secondary. So I get Yeah, I feel Yeah, I hear Yeah, it's not attractive. It's not sexy. It's not fun, sometimes overwhelming. And so I can see why so many actors struggle with this, because you don't want to think about the business side of things, or you don't even know how to because let's face it. This is something that we're not taught in school or if they are teaching you in school, it's very minimal. It's very general, but they're not going into the detail that you need to support yourself in making strong choices, having a strategy, having a clear plan in place to achieve your goals as a working actor, and hands up if you can relate to that. And I'm imagining
You're raising your hand right now. And as more opportunities arise, and more information is fed to you on the internet as to what to do or not to do, it can be so confusing and overwhelming. And one of the greatest pieces of advice I got from my business coach, I want to share with you here today, everyone needs a coach, because it is much harder. And it's going to take you a whole lot longer without a coach, and without guidance. And when I say Coach, I don't mean an acting coach. Because we know we need an acting coach, we know we need to be in class, we need to train to keep our craft strong, I get it. I'm talking about another type of coach, some form of coach that coaches you through the business or career side of things, the things that you need to know about the acting industry marketing strategy, a clear plan in place visibility, all the things that traditionally as actors, we don't consider. And the fact that most actors don't consider this, I'm going to share with you this is a very clear and intentional way to separate yourself from the pack to separate yourself from the competition and to position yourself in a way that attracts those within the industry, because they treat it like a business. And when they can see an actor that treats it like a business too. They find that desirable. Now, back in my day, when I was an acting school, they focused on acting voice and movement. That was it. So what was an actor supposed to do? They don't know how to set themselves up to get auditions and get work as soon as they finish school. And this is a constant struggle and thing that I see with so many actors that I work with each and every day, on a daily, monthly and even yearly basis, I see you wanting to make the next step, but not knowing how and hesitant. So I've been considering this for a very long time and decided that in 2023 because one of my goals is to support actors on the business side of things to teach you the strategies and the plans that I've used in my business to help support you in breaking into the US film and TV industry. Because we should not have to do this alone, we also should not have to wait for the phone to ring or the agent to email you or the callback that you get you have the opportunity to take action and to make things happen for your career. You do not have to wait for others to do it for you, you can do this. And you can take action and get recognised and do the work in between the auditions and in between the acting jobs. So here's a few areas we need to focus on. When it comes to treating acting like a business. The first area is mindset. One thing I know from my experience, and working with some very high performing entrepreneurs in the online space is mindset. And the ability when you are second guessing yourself hesitating, making a choice is to ask great questions. When we ask great questions, we can make clear and concise choices and take action on that choice. So this applies not only to the business side of acting, but also can apply to how you approach and audition sides. When you get a scene and you're asked to make strong choices. Sometimes we waffle sometimes we second guess our choices, we make a lamb choice, we hesitate, maybe for fear that the choice you might think is wrong. And so we need to get in the habit of making a choice, a strong choice and sticking with it. So you'll find that this is not only going to impact the business side of things, but you're acting as well. Next is system and strategy. Just saying that it just sounds boring, doesn't it? It's not very attractive for the actor for the creative type. But system and strategy is so important. And it is going to make your life a whole lot easier. It does not mean that this needs to take a lot of time. In fact, this is going to help you get your time back when you've got a system in place. So what can we do as actors to streamline things for us and make it a little easier? Well, one thing I'm going to give you one tip here is if you are and you know the value of creating content online, you can start scheduling it in advance. You could batch your content ahead of time and schedule it out every day.
I use something called later later.com. And I found that to be incredibly helpful for me because I don't always have time to schedule every day, I need days where I can batch some content, especially for the podcast, it makes it so much easier. So when you can start scheduling things out, you'll start to get some time back. Another thing you can do, and I like to do is I like to take my Sunday mornings and plan out my week ahead and block out, I think, first and foremost, your personal time, the time for yourself that the things that you need to do, you need to make sure you take time for yourself, then block out one chunk of time within the week, where you've got a good 60 to 90 minutes of time, no distractions. So turn off your phone, you know, make sure the TV's not on you don't have any while you could have music playing as long as it's not distracting, but where you can clearly focus on your career and moving that needle forward. So you want to have that time each week, just like 60 to 90 minutes. That's it a block of time where you can focus on moving your career forward. Because ultimately what happens is we get busy with all the other things and we forget about the career where we want to go, and it gets pushed to the sidelines. And then a year comes down the road and you go gosh, I haven't done anything that I wanted to do those goals that I set for myself this year, I haven't done, we're not going to do that anymore. We're going to block out some time and we're going to make things happen. And then next, I want you to write down 123 action items that you're going to do that week for your acting career. And you're going to make sure you get those things done. So you may only do one action item, write down three, you may only achieve one. But even if you're just achieving one, you are moving one step closer to your goal. Now with strategy, strategy is so important. You need to have a game plan, right? Like if you're in a football game, they've got a plan of attack. And that's what we need to do. As actors, we need a strategy in place, one thing I want you to do is start tracking your numbers know your numbers. And what I mean by that for the actor is things like your auditions, your feedback, your star metre on IMDb, or your engagement online, I want you to start tracking things. So we can see the progression. So strategy is super important. I could give you so many different ideas for strategy. But I just want to give you one thing, one tangible thing that you can do like in all these different areas so that we reduce the overwhelm. Next is social media. And with social media, this is a beautiful opportunity to create your own content. So whether it's on Instagram, tik, Tok, YouTube, or even if it's not on social media, creating your own short film, every actor should be creating their own content. This gives you your own opportunities, your own voice as an actor. And this is very powerful, because you can start to show people in the industry that you have a voice, you've got creativity outside of just acting, maybe it's writing or directing or another facet, but it positions you in a way against other actors who aren't making this next move. And sometimes you can get great opportunities from this too. I've seen this from some of my actors in the past that now get these amazing opportunities because they took the time and initiative to create their own content. And when we do this, and we share it on social media, I know not everyone is keen on social media. But as actors, we have to face the fact that it's just part of the business. Now you can use it to whatever degree that you want to. But I do think that it's important to position yourself and utilise the tools of social media, letting the industry know who you are, so that you are no longer the industry's best kept secret. We are now learning about your talent and who you are and who you are is so important in the industry because casting directors people that are going to book you they want to know that you're likeable, one of the most important things I've heard from so many people I've interviewed on this podcast, one of the key bits of advice they give us is to really build those bonds on set with people and to be kind to be kind to the people that you work with on set and be kind when you are in the room with a casting director or something like that. So the more that you can start to build that community and let people know who you are online. I think the better off you are in the long run. Next is branding and branding is one of my favourite things to do with actors, because I think it's a really clear
An easy way to position yourself within the industry and to gain attraction. Very interesting. Recently, I just saw a post on social media that concern me a little bit. And the funny thing is about social media and people that post in there that are experts, oftentimes, they could be giving out amazing advice. But every now and then they could give advice that
I don't always agree with. And this was the case with one particular person, I think that they've been doing a phenomenal job and posting online and challenging things that people think about acting or the industry and what other gurus are saying. But in this particular post, it was about branding and misinformation. And I actually think at the very tail end, they gave misinformation. So it became very meta if you catch my drift. So I always think with, you know, jumping on social media, you got to be careful about the advice that you get, sometimes it can be misleading, basically, what it was about, they were talking about, somebody else had posted something about deleting your social media account, and rebranding yourself as a series regular actor. And I think where it got confusing is at the end, the very tail end, she said, No branding, that's where I disagree. And that's where I thought the post was very Miss informative, because everything leading up into that point, I agreed with what she was saying. But I didn't agree with the no branding, because branding is so important for the actor, it is actually a great tool to position yourself in the industry, especially, especially if you're a foreign actor, and you want to break into the US TV and film industry, because we need to start thinking logically and strategically about what is right for you and how you fit in within the industry. So in terms of branding, I agree with her that you don't need to, you know, delete everything that you've done, start from scratch and position yourself as a series regular actor, know when it comes to branding, branding is the essence of who you are, and what you bring to the characters and the roles that you like to play and where you thrive within the industry. It's what makes you uniquely you. And for me, that's why branding is so important. And that's what can help to position you and help make you attractive within the industry. So in terms of branding, there's a few places that we do need to focus on in order to make your brand unique, that needs to be seen in your headshots, your resume, your reels, your website, your socials. And when you have a clear vision for your brand, it's going to make it a whole lot easier for your agent or to attract agents, it's going to make it easier for that agent to market you and everything comes in alignment. And you're going to find it so much easier to get auditions to get callbacks to get work. Networking, super important. Again, you can do that online, but also, you know locally as well. You want to be getting in rooms with your local casting directors and people in the business and start forming those relationships. But the more content that you have of your own, especially if you don't have credits yet, if you're creating your own content, this is gold, you want to use that as part of your tools in networking. So make sure that you're getting into rooms where you can network, whether it live or virtually. So if you're in other countries and you can't get to LA, for example, chances are there's a zoom class some sort of way that you can start meeting players within the industry on line. So make sure you're doing that networking, and last investing in coaching. This is what I've noticed for myself over the past two years in investing in coaching and training for me that we never stopped learning. And we need that person to help us to see things when we can't see them. Because often when we're making decisions or we're thinking from any emotional place, it is hard for us to get past that and sometimes it takes somebody else to help coach you through that. So find a good coach somebody who can support you and guide you through this process. If you've listened to all of this and you're thinking I really do need to start treating my career like a business, but I don't even know where to start or I need some support. I wanted to share with you today that I've decided at the start of January 2023. I am going to be running a very intimate 12 month group coaching programme container. It is the actor's school of business where we are going to tackle all of these areas and you're going to receive
You've the support and guidance of me as well as other expert coaches in different areas like mindset and strategies online and all sorts of different things acting improv to help support you in moving your career forward. With more roles and more opportunities, you're going to be working together in a small group, you are also going to be getting one on one support from me it is a very unique experience that I am creating for you if you're interested to learn more about it. There is an application process to be a part of the programme and be one of the first founding members you can head over to Kathryn beck.com forward slash apply to fill out the application form. Now I want to be clear that this is a high end programme and commitment because we are going to be working intimately together for 12 months I will let you know that because this is the first year and we will be building this together. You will get it for the lowest rate you are going to be a founding member with me as we build this together. And that is the most exciting year to be a part of the programme because you get your say as to what is a part of this container. Alright, that is it for today's episode. Now make sure to share the show with all your actor friends, let them know what's coming up next week and invite them to tune in with you want to learn how to become an All American actor. So you can be the Working Actor you dream to be until then go on, get out there and practice your American accent. And I'll see you back here next time.