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

Res­o­lu­tion #3 in this install­ment of my New Year career plan­ning series is: Develop myself pro­fes­sion­ally.

“I resolve that I am will­ing to invest in my career because I know that it costs money to make money. I will attend indus­try con­fer­ences, work­shops and sem­i­nars to hone my tal­ent and skills. I will read some career and busi­ness books, and I will read the indus­try trades every day.”

Among the many keys to unlock­ing and man­ag­ing a suc­cess­ful career in the enter­tain­ment indus­try are research, prepa­ra­tion, and stay­ing cur­rent with indus­try trends. You have to invest in devel­op­ing your­self pro­fes­sion­ally because it will pro­vide you with the skills and infor­ma­tion needed to build your career and suc­cess­fully sus­tain it. Remem­ber, it costs money to make money so put some money aside now for the new year. You should plan on attend­ing a few indus­try con­fer­ences, work­shops, sem­i­nars and film fes­ti­vals this year. This is how you keep your skills sharp and fur­ther hone your craft, as well as net­work (which I’ll dis­cuss in the next install­ment). If you’re an actor you should be attend­ing actor’s work­shops, TV com­mer­cials and audi­tion tech­nique sem­i­nars in addi­tion to your reg­u­lar scene study work. An actor is always grow­ing and learn­ing … the jour­ney is never-ending. Sim­i­larly, direc­tors and writ­ers should also attend work­shops and sem­i­nars related to their crafts. And gen­eral indus­try con­fer­ences and film fes­ti­vals are impor­tant to every­one. If you’re sit­ting at home and not “in the mix,” you’re at a huge dis­ad­van­tage already. The peo­ple who are suc­cess­ful, who are mak­ing it, are in the game. That’s where you need to be. And being in the game in this regard is not “invitation-only.” If you plan and bud­get wisely, you can put your­self in the game by putting your­self out there. You should also have the newest career and busi­ness books on your read­ing list. And, read­ing the indus­try trades every day is career-critical! If for noth­ing more than con­ver­sa­tional pur­poses. You don’t want to find your­self in a sit­u­a­tion where peo­ple are dis­cussing cur­rent indus­try news and you’re totally out of the loop. It doesn’t make you appear to be a pro­fes­sional and some­one that oth­ers would be con­fi­dent in work­ing with or rec­om­mend­ing. Peo­ple want to work with peo­ple who are on top of the busi­ness part of show busi­ness. Read­ing the trades is also one of the best ways to gather job leads. Read between the lines. If a project has gone into devel­op­ment, look to see what exec­u­tives, pro­duc­ers and writ­ers are involved in the project. Then put your net­work­ing plan into high gear. You want to make sure your name is in the pot when they begin hand­ing out jobs. Sim­i­larly, if some­one gets a job pro­mo­tion, what bet­ter time to send an email or let­ter con­grat­u­lat­ing them on their step up the lad­der. The infor­ma­tion is price­less if you just pay atten­tion and like I said before, read between the lines. You can read the trades online for free (www.hollywoodreporter.com, www.variety.com, www.billboard.com, www.blacktalentnews.com) so you have no excuse for not being on top of your game! The bot­tom line is that you have to con­tin­u­ally invest in extended learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that will expand your skills and tal­ents, and give you a high level under­stand­ing of the enter­tain­ment indus­try. Make sure you include as many pro­fes­sional career devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties as you can as part of your over­all career strat­egy and plan. To fur­ther aide in your pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment, be sure to check out my new tele-seminar: “How to Get on the Hol­ly­wood A-List: Sure­fire Tips for Build­ing your Social Cap­i­tal in Hollywood” and the record­ing of my “Strate­gies for Hol­ly­wood Suc­cess: How to Build a Win­ning Plan for Your Career” tele-class. In the next install­ment in this career plan­ning series I’ll be dis­cussing build­ing your net­work. Until then, here’s to your suc­cess in 2009! All the best, Tanya Kersey