Blog Post #110 – Five Reasons Actors Need to Learn to Sell

Actors think of themselves largely as artists only. This means they are creative beings who are ‘not good’ at the business side of acting. If they got over the initial fear of it they would realize all that defines business is that there is a buyer and a seller. No business gets done until a sale is made. Since actors are sellers of services, actors need to sell.

I have to point out that there is a certain irony to having to write this article. Most actors are quite capable of selling pots and pans or personal training or martinis or nutrition supplements but ask them what they have done to sell their acting services and all they can come up with is, “I submitted online or I emailed them or I ‘tweeted’ them or I followed someone on Facebook. If you can’t or won’t sell, you are treating your acting career like a hobby. Hobbies are tough to live on.

All art has to be sold. How can you communicate the benefit you bring unless you go out and explain that benefit to the people who can hire you? Who needs to sell actors? The actors themselves. No one else will ever care about you or your career like you do. The early stage actor needs to sell more than anyone because no one knows who they are. So polish those pitches; here are five reasons actors need to sell.

1. Believe in Yourself and Others Will Too – If you dont believe in yourself no one else will. Most actors are doomed to failure because they think so little of themselves. The practice of selling yourself ingrains your best points and encourages you ignore the rest.
2. Sell Quick Now, Sell Big Later – People will see your value most quickly when you learn the quick pitch. Just like a writer has to pitch a script, actors need to learn to pitch themselves. Whether it’s shaving down your reel to 30 seconds or encapsulating yourself in two sentences, as you build a network of professional contacts you need to learn to pitch anytime and anywhere to be in their projects.
3. Greatness has to be Communicated – You need to learn all your product attributes and the benefits they convey. If you can’t put it into words then you probably don’t know yourself well enough. If you don’t know yourself how can you play someone else?
4. More Sales People Means More Work – You need to sell your team on you so they can in turn sell you. No agent is going to make an effort to sell someone who can’t sell themselves and even if they wanted to, they can’t sell what they don’t understand. You need to get your agent excited about you so they can pass that excitement along to casting directors.
5. Selling Enriches the World…once you believe in yourself and what a contribution to people’s lives you are making, you will see the need to share yourself with the world. Everything you consider great was unknown until it was sold. Good thing Francesco del Giocondo was a good seller. He pitched Leonardo on doing the Mona Lisa.

Bonus and most important rule: Never ask someone if they mind if you sell them something – just start selling.

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