Tanya Kersey | Hollywood Career Strategist | Hollywood Career Coach | Entertainment Industry Consultant | Hollywood Career Resources

Whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to do some seri­ous power net­work­ing if you want to be suc­cess­ful in Hol­ly­wood. You can’t be on the out­side look­ing in. You have to be IN the game. You have to build your “social cap­i­tal.” You have to cre­ate and main­tain pos­i­tive rela­tion­ships through smart and strate­gic net­work­ing. Don’t think of it as “sell­ing out” with the notion of being true to your art because that will put you on a road to nowhere real fast. This is a busi­ness and it takes more than just “tal­ent” to be suc­cess­ful. Hol­ly­wood is all about who you know. It’s about peo­ple and rela­tion­ships. That’s the bot­tom line. You can go to col­lege and learn the tech­ni­cal way of doing things and learn the busi­ness side of it, but to be suc­cess­ful in the enter­tain­ment indus­try and to get jobs, it’s all about peo­ple, who you know and who knows you. Play­ing the Hol­ly­wood Net­work­ing Game means you’re build­ing the rela­tion­ships which will be crit­i­cal to your career advance­ment. Remem­ber, peo­ple tend to work with peo­ple that they know and that they feel com­fort­able with. So your goal is to know peo­ple. And know the right peo­ple. Which brings up two ques­tions: “How do I meet peo­ple if I don’t know any­one?” and “Who are the peo­ple I need to know?” How do you meet peo­ple if you don’t know any­one? Here’s four ideas on where you can begin to build a net­work of asso­ciates and friends: First, after an act­ing, film­mak­ing or screen­writ­ing class, audi­tion, or at a film fes­ti­val, screen­ing or night at the the­atre, get your­self out there, intro­duce your­self, talk to oth­ers, exchange phone num­bers. Be friendly. Make it a point to meet some­one new every time you go out to an industry-related event. Sec­ond, the unions have diver­sity affin­ity com­mit­tees and advo­cacy groups that will expose you to a wider cir­cle of pro­fes­sional col­leagues. Take advan­tage of these net­work­ing chan­nels. What bet­ter way to meet and develop a work­ing rela­tion­ship with an indus­try insider? Third, join a gen­eral indus­try asso­ci­a­tion and get involved with other indus­try pro­fes­sion­als. This is one of the most pow­er­ful ways you can form friend­ships. When you meet peo­ple in a more casual way [like through an orga­ni­za­tion] you begin to bond. Friends are formed through the process of work­ing together towards a com­mon goal. And fourth, you should ask each per­son you already know for two refer­rals. This is how you build a tele­phone tree, a ‘power rolodex’ and expand your net­work­ing cir­cle within the indus­try. Like I said ear­lier, Hol­ly­wood is a very social busi­ness. You can meet indus­try peo­ple at par­ties, social events, din­ners, show­cases, and char­ity events. One per­son will intro­duce you to another per­son, who will intro­duce you to more peo­ple. Each of these is a con­tact and a way to net­work into the busi­ness. Peo­ple tend to look to those clos­est and near­est to them when jobs are being handed out. The bot­tom line is get your­self out there! The sec­ond ques­tion: Who are the peo­ple you need to know? is crit­i­cal because in order to net­work you have to know who the play­ers are. Who do you want to meet, who do you need to meet. The answer to this ques­tion depends on who you are and what your career path is. If you’re an actor, you may want to meet agents, cast­ing direc­tors and film­mak­ers. If you’re a film­maker, you may want to meet dis­tri­b­u­tion and acqui­si­tion exec­u­tives, financiers and actors. If you’re a screen­writer you may want to meet agents and devel­op­ment exec­u­tives. So decide who you are tar­get­ing your net­work­ing goals towards and then the eas­i­est way to iden­tify peo­ple is to go pur­chase one of the many indus­try direc­to­ries that are out there. Of course, make sure you get a copy of my Urban Hol­ly­wood Resource Direc­tory which is dubbed The Yel­low Pages of Black Hol­ly­wood”! Go through these direc­to­ries and make a hit list of peo­ple you want to meet. Another great way to iden­tify the peo­ple you want to meet is by read­ing the trades and just lis­ten­ing. And writ­ing down the names of the peo­ple speak­ing on pan­els at indus­try sem­i­nars and con­fer­ences. If you’re suf­fi­ciently immersed in the indus­try, you’ll hear the same names come up again and again and finally begin to get a feel for who the play­ers are. Once you where to meet the peo­ple you want to meet, and who those peo­ple are, you want to put together a game plan, a strat­egy for meet­ing them. Your plan should iden­tify why you want to net­work with them and what you hope to gain. Meet­ing some­one is just the first step. You then have to know what you’d like to get out of the bud­ding rela­tion­ship. Remem­ber, in order to make the right con­nec­tions in Hol­ly­wood you have to immerse your­self in the indus­try. You have to attend indus­try events, be with indus­try peo­ple, join indus­try orga­ni­za­tions, get involved in indus­try causes, what­ever it takes, just get involved. Be IN it to win it, Tanya Kersey