One of the most common questions for aspiring actors, writers or directors is how do I get repped if I don’t have any established credits? Repped is short for representation and in traditional media if you don’t have a rep you probably aren’t where you want to be. Reps are not only the gatekeepers of opportunity but partners in your business. Having spent over a decade working in both talent agencies and management companies I do believe finding a rep is a fundamental step in succeeding. However, it’s not about finding a rep so much as it is about finding the right rep. In this article I’ll show you exactly how to find the right representative for you, even without any established credits.
How to find representation with no credits? There are three critical steps in finding representation. Step 1: Identify the company that best reflects your artistic sensibilities. Step 2: Identify no less than two specific individuals at that company. Step 3: Make indirect connect with those individuals on a consistent basis.
Step 1: Identify The Company That Best Reflects Your Artistic Sensibilities.
The first step may sound simple, because it is, but you wouldn’t believe how many people screw this up. Why do they screw it up and how can you avoid doing the same? They get so desperate for any sort of connection to the business that they ask anyone with a pulse to represent them. Don’t do that. That person won’t do a good job for you and you’ll waist a year of your life before you’re out looking for your next rep. This is why it’s critical to identify the right company for you BEFORE you do anything. In order to do that you first need to answer the question; what type of artists am I? This is where you need to get specific both in genre and in occupation. I understand you want to be Jordan Peele or Reese Witherspoon and act, write, direct, star and produce everything you do but right now you need to simplify. “I’m an episodic television comedy writer.” “I’m an indie horror director.” “I’m an actor in the dramatic space.” You can truly be whatever you want, but it needs to be clean and it needs to be simple. Why? Because the more narrowly focused you are, the more likely you are to finding a rep who is just as narrowly focused and that is really what you want especially when starting out. After you’ve answered that question, you’ll then create a list of 10 people whose careers you’d like to copy. That simply means find 10 people that if your dreams came true, you’d have their career. This is your Dream Team List. Example: 1. Kevin Hart, 2. Amy Poehler, 3. Adam Sandler, 4. Adam Devine, 5. Kumail Nanjani, 6. Jenny Slate, etc. Notice that my list is made up entirely of comedic actors. Not only comedic actors but comedic actors who got their start doing stand up comedy. Yes, many of these actors write and might also even direct at this point in their careers but starting off they were actors first and foremost. While we all want to be Kevin Hart or Adam Sandler today, it’s critical to understand where they got their start because that is how they initially landed their first rep and that’s where you are now. Once you’ve created your list, you’ll then go onto IMDBPro, create a free account and use the 30 day free trial. Once you have your IMDBPro account, search each one of the names from your Dream Team List and on the left hand side of the page scroll down to where it says “contact.” In IMDB language, contact is short for reps. From there, begin adding what companies represent your dream team. Example: 1. Kevin Hart: Agency: United Talent Agency Management: 3 Arts Entertainment. 2. Amy Poehler: Agency: William Morris Endeavor Manager: 3 Arts Entertainment. 3: Kumail Nanjiani: Agency: United Talent Agency Management: Mosaic. 4. Awkwafina: Agency: United Talent Agency Management: Artists First. etc. The purpose of this is to identify what specific companies represent the type of artist you aspire to be but also what companies are competing with each other. Once you’ve gone through your entire list and have added all of the companies that represent your dream team, begin to take a look at the overlap and rank which companies you’ve listed the most. Example: UTA 4 times out of the 10. WME 2 times out of 10. 3 Arts Entertainment 3 times out of 10. etc. From there, go from top to bottom and click on each companies page. Once on their page, go to their clients and begin analyzing who they represent. NOTE: IMDB ranks clients by “Star Meter” which isn’t helpful for this process so make sure to scroll down the companies client list and get to the clients who do not have big credits. You are looking for people you’ve probably never heard of. Why? Because this is you. Examine the people you don’t know, who the company represents, and is similar to you. Go to those clients personal website. Read their bio, any festivals or competitions they’ve place or won. Check out their instagram. Is there a short film you can watch? A stand up set? A script published you can read? etc. You are collecting breadcrumbs at this point. You are trying to gain an understanding of what these artists have done that has resulted in them getting representation. The most important component to step one is identifying a company that represents future versions of yourself. That will be the company that is most likely to take on someone with no credits and is also going to do the best job for you.
Step 2: Identify no less than two specific individuals at that company.
Step 2: Identify no less than two specific individuals at that company. How do you identify any individual let alone two? And more importantly, how are you sure if they are the right individuals for your career? Great question. Let’s first look at who you don’t want to represent you even if they are at the right company. Far too often people will identify who Kevin Hart’s manager is and will simply say “great, that’s who I need.” WRONG. You do not want to focus on Kevin Harts manager because it is extremely unlikely he’ll take you on as a client given your experience, or lack there of. Even if he did, do you want to be competing with Kevin Hart for time and attention? Think about that, representatives only have so much time to focus on any one individual client and their career. If you did somehow land Kevin Hart’s manager, do you think that person would give you a tenth of the time they give Kevin or any of their other top clients? No, most likely not but that’s okay. Here is what you do. Now that we’ve identified the right company, we now need to find the right individuals. We’re looking for the reps who are newly promoted and have the least amount of clients. These are the reps with the most amount of time and the most to prove. Similar to you, they are at the beginning of their career and need to make a name for themself. You have to understand that your future rep will be committing their time, energy and reputation on you. The reps with more time, more energy and an unestablished reputation are the ones who will be most likely to consider someone with no credits. So how do we find the representatives who are newly promoted and have the fewest clients? Here is my favorite way to do this. In order to find who has been recently promoted go to Deadline, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, or simply Google and search the names of the companies from our Dream Team List. You’re looking for articles announcing internal promotions. Typically these companies will create a press release announcing internal promotions. The link below in an example of the type of press release you are looking for https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/caa-promotes-16-employees-agent-executive-1235836857/. In this article they not only tell you what specific individuals have been promoted but what department they work in and where they are based. From there you would then begin to list the names of the individuals who are best suited for your career. Note, do not worry if the article is a few years old. It takes a considerable amount of time for a representative to build a list of clients before they become overly selective on who they will even consider. Simply, if the article was written in the last three years you can consider that newly promoted and worth targeting as a potential rep. Now that we’ve identified the individuals let’s find out how many clients they represent. In order to do that, we’ll go back to IMDBPro and search that individuals name. Under clients, you’ll then see a list of names appear. Typically you’ll see anywhere from 25 – 75 names listed and that gives you the impression that individual personally represents all those clients. WRONG. Newly promoted representatives are often put on teams of clients who have already been represented by the company and who also have another manager or agent representing them. A way to check this is by clicking on the clients name and seeing how many names are listed within one company. If the client only has one name listed, that often means only one person represents them. Again, we are trying to figure which representatives have the most time. If a perspective rep as 50 clients listed and it appears they solely represent all 50, it’s likely they won’t have time to consider you let alone dedicate the ir time and attention to your career. Another way to check this is by searching the representatives clients websites. Artists websites generally have a contact page and under that page it will list who they want you to reach out to for all inquiries. AKA who they trust and who that artists views as their representative. After doing this a few times, you will get a pretty good sense of which perspective representatives have spots on their roster to fill and more importantly the time to fill them.
Step 3: Make indirect connect with those individuals on a consistent basis.
Step 3: Make indirect connect with those individuals on a consistent basis. What’s indirect contact? Good question and let me first answer what it is not. Direct contact would be reaching out via email, direct message, cold call, etc. While this approach has worked in the past and may work in the future, the percentages are so incredibly low I don’t think it’s a good use of your time. A better use of your time would be focusing on what I call indirect contact. This is simply coming into contact with are targeted represenatives are often as possible without directly reaching out to them. So how do we do this? We go back to their existing clients bio’s and credits and begin repeating what those clients did. Example: After searching our targeted representative we then pick five clients that individual currently represents and begin looking for festivals, competitions, lists, etc. that those five clients lists as credits. You’ll begin to see patterns. All five clients participated in the JFL (Just for Laughs) festival. 3 of the 5 clients had a script make The Blacklist. 4 of the 5 clients perform at UCB or have taken part in the CBS Comedy Showcase. Once you have your list of festivals, competitions, lists, programs, etc. you then need to begin participating in them. The goal here is for you to organically attract, or indirectly come into contact with your perspective representative. The assumption of artists is that a representative just needs to see their work and everything will fall into place from there. I don’t disagree however it’s important to understand how that representative discovers your work is just as important. Think about being force fed a sponsored ad versus organically discovering something on your own. You are much more likely to buy that product if you feel you’ve discovered it rather than being forced in front of you screaming BUY ME, BUY ME, BUY ME. You don’t want to be the screaming ad saying REP ME, REP ME, REP ME. You want it to happen organically and the best way to do that is to come into indirect contact as often as possible. That way the rep feels as though they discovered you all and it much more likely to reach out to you, asking to see your work than if you had reached out to them.