If you know someone who has contacts with a strong talent agent and that person you know can call them and refer you, great!  Have them do it.  But in most cases you will need to contact the agents cold.  How do you do that? 

The most popular way to get an agent when you don’t “know someone” is to do a cover letter mailing to legitimate agents.  But there are two major problems with that.

The first problem, if you’re like  most actors, is that you may not be sure the best way to sell yourself in your cover letter.  The second problem is that it’s hard to know who the right agents are for you and how to figure that out.

Smart Girls Productions can help you with both of these problems through our Smart Mailing to Talent Agents™. To see a video explaining it, go here.  Here’s how it works:

1. You place your order online or you call us and make your appointment to come in. You fill out a questionnaire on your background. Then we interview you about your credits, training, what roles you would be right for, what actors you’re the same type as, and so on.
2. As you relax and look at headshots of our successful clients on our walls, we will draft a letter that will leave you impressed with how great you sound — just highlighting the facts about you that would be of most interest to the agents.
3. Once we finish, you get a chance to review the letter and make any changes you want. You will most likely be very impressed with how good you sound when you are pitched in the right way!  And we always stick with the truth.  The key to making you sound great is to simply say things in just the right way.  That’s what we know how to do.
4. Once you approve the letter, then we strategize with you on what you want in an agent. Then using our proprietary SmartStudio™ software, we hand-pick the agents (or managers) that are best for you based on where you are in your career and what your goals are.
5. Once we hand-pick your custom list of agents, we then print out each of your letters addressed to the individual agent (not just the agency). We also give you the address labels, return labels, and a listing of your agents for reference, along with the rating (A, B, C, D) we give that agency. And that completes the process.

99.5% of our actor clients smile and say something like, “Wow, I sound great!”  when they see the letter written about them. 

The whole process takes less than 2 hours from start to finish. At the end of that 2 hours, we show you exactly the BEST way to mail it out — with lots of important little tips and tricks that we’ve learned over the past 15+ years to give you your best chances of getting your envelopes opened.

To schedule your appointment to get your Talent Agent or Personal Manager Smart Mailing going, call us at (818) 907-6511 or go to our Talent Agent Mailing Page to place your order.

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Smart Girls Productions offers an Actor Marketing Service to Casting Directors in which we hand-pick a list of Casting Directors of Shows that specifically use your type . We then create the content of the announcement message and set it up for printing either on the back of the postcard or on a sticker that you then place on the back of your postcard.

The Casting Director Mailing service itself does NOT include printing the postcards, just as the Agent Mailing service does not include printing the headshot. 

To get the postcards printed for this service, you can do it one of three ways.

1. You order your postcards from anywhere you want and you prep them with materials I give you.

You order your postcards yourself with a blank back. (Get enough for all of your postcard mailings with us.) I create the message for the back (with your approval of the message). I print them on 3×4″ stickers, give them to you, and you stick them on, along with the address label and stamp. This is the service you have already paid for, so there are no additional charges, except if you have me mail you the stickers instead of picking them up at my office.

2. I order the postcards with a blank back, they come to me, and I prepare them and send them out.

You have ME order your postcards with a blank back and they get delivered to me. I create the message sticker for the back; you get to approve it, of course. I print the message on 3×4″ stickers, and then I PREPARE the postcard for you, by sticking the sticker on the back, along with the address label and stamp.  This is $77 per mailing to cover the printing of the postcards and the stamps.  It takes around 21 days for them to be shipped without a rush charge.  For rush prices, please ask about the additional shipping charge.

Optionally:  We can order enough postcards all at once for the purpose of having them available to send when we’re ready without waiting the 21 days each time.  If we do this, I order enough of them to cover all of your postcard mailings, probably 500 or 1000, depending on how many mailings you’re doing.  For this, you will get the left-over postcards that we do not use.  To order them all at once which also gives us left-overs, there is an additional $25 charge to get the 500 postcards or $45 to get 1000 to have them ready to blast as desired.

3. I order your postcards with the message printed on the back directly on the card, but only enough for 1 mailing.

The message is printed directly on the card for this one time. Once I receive them, I put the address label and stamp on them. This is $77 each time for the postcards, preparation, and stamps, and they are ordered separately each time. This one looks nice on the postcard, but the turn-around time requires that extra 21 days for shipping because they have to be printed each time and shipped to me.

Whichever way you go is fine.  The most critical thing is that you get your face in front of the Casting Directors, repeatedly, over time, so that they get to know you and can therefore cast you in their projects!

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But before I get to that, let me go over what I mean by professional acting headshots.  Professional headshots are not the kind of shots you get taken at Sears Glamor shots.  They’re also not the kind of shots you see in People magazine – those are publicity shots or paparazzi shots.  Professional acting shots are very specific headshots that make you look your very best – but still look like you.  It’s an art form in and of itself. 

Once you find a professional photographer such as Bradford Rogne, one of the tops in Los Angeles, then here are the step you must take to move forward on your career.

Have a professional in the business help you pick out the photo you should use to pursue your acting career with.

There are two main reasons to have a professional like me (Melody!) help you pick out your headshots.  One:  You have too many bad ones and you need someone to see what you can salvage.  Two:  You have too many good ones and you need to somehow narrow it down!  If you shoot with a pro like Bradford who takes a few hundred photos in a session, I guarantee that it will be hard to pick out the best ones.  But don’t try to do it yourself as you have a certain image of yourself that you want to see, but it may not be what sells you to the industry.  Get a professional’s input on this.

Create an acting resume if you haven’t already.

If you’re a newbie to pursuing your acting career, you may already have a starter resume and that’s fine even if you have next to nothing to put on it.   But even if you have no idea what to put on it and you’ve never taken an acting class, you still need to have a resume.  You have to put your contact info on it.  Your height, weight, hair, and eyes.  And if you’re under 21, go on and put your Date of Birth.  All of this is important.

You must have a resume, stapled to the back of your headshot when you send it out to get an agent or manager or to get and casting directors to call you in for auditions.

Get your headshots duplicated.

I’m assuming if you’re reading this article that you are a newbie.  So let me just say very simply that once you get your headshot and you pick out the best one (with help from someone in the business – LIKE ME!), then you will need to get duplicates, meaning multiple copies of them, to send out to Hollywood agents and casting directors.

Here’s how it works.  In today’s market, your photographer will most likely give you a CD of the pictures he took or give you a link to go to online where you can see the hundreds of shots he took.  Once you look at them, you will then need to decide which ones you want to use to promote yourself with.  You might choose one or you might choose two.

After you choose the one (or two) you want, then you will probably need to have it touched up.  That means to remove little flyaway hairs or to soften the smile lines (also known as wrinkles for people who are a little bit older).

Once you have your headshot touched up (digitally), then it’s time to get your pictures duplicated.  One of the places to do this is Isgo Lepegian in Hollywood.  This company has been around for literally decades.  They are a Hollywood staple, and I highly recommend them.  They are consummate professionals and actor-friendly.  You can order in person or online.  There are other places you can go who do a good job, but I will tell you for sure that this one is one you can count on consistently, so I recommend them.

Just to give you an idea of the pricing to expect, you should never pay more than 1.00 (one dollar) for a photographic duplicate, and usually it’s more like .80 cents.  Check out their pricing as a guideline.

Generally, no matter what “lab” (aka “photo place”) you go to, you will pay about $10 to $15 for an 8×10 proof, which means they’ll print ONE out for you to look at and give the okay on before you order the 100 or so pictures.  You’ll also get to choose the type of border and where to put your name on the photo.  Then it takes 3 to 7 days to get them back… and Bob’s your uncle.

So!  That’s how it works.  I’ve written all of this here because I am constantly asked these questions by my newbie, beginners.  And sometimes even actors who have been doing this for a while get some new info on these review articles.  If you would like to know LOTS more tips and basic steps to take, then check out my ebook Hollywood Actor’s Crash Course.  It has tons of good info in it, and I promise you , it will potentially save you not only hundreds of dollars but possibly even two or three years of figuring things out on your own!

 Enjoy!

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First, if you haven’t yet seen how the cover letter mailings to Hollywood talent agents work, then check it out.  Assuming you understand that — or may be in the process of having it created with Smart Girls — then you will need to decide how you want to handle the mailing itself.

Let’s look at your options in terms of the logistics of handling your Cover Letter Mailing to Talent Agents once the service has been completed.  If you are within the U.S., it is very simple:  We will use the U.S. Mail to send you a box filled with your Cover Letters and Labels.  Then you sign each letter, put it in a 9×12 envelope with your headshot and resume, put the postage on it, and send it out.

If you live out of the country there are a couple of other issues to address:

• Postage for a 9×12 package for anywhere from 75 to 125 headshot, resume, and cover letters when you are sending them from out of the country is not cheap.
• Further, the postmark will clearly indicate that you are from out of the country and it may be a negative in the eyes of the film agent or manager who figures you won’t be available for auditions, so why would they call.

The whole plan in creating a mailing to talent agents for you is to remove as many obstacles as possible — being a working actor is enough of a challenge without this added one!

There are really three options for you about how we can then get them in the mail and delivered.

1. You can hire Smart Girls to do all of the work to actually sign them, stuff them, and mail them from Los Angeles with first class postage. 

Quotes for this service are available upon request.  It has two parts.  Part 1 is the cost of the stamp at around $1 to $1.25 each.  Part 2 is the preparation, which includes signing the letter, stapling your headshot and resume, and so on.  A quote will confirm the exact cost for your particular mailing.  It may run around 1.00 per package in addition to the postage itself.

2. You can have your boxed of materials shipped to you and you put them together and mail them from your country.   

For this, you pay the shipping and handling to have the box sent to you and there are no other charges from us.

 3. You can have your box of materials shipped to you and you put them together and then mail the completed box back to Smart Girls in Los Angeles to drop in the mail for you so that it looks like you are local. 

For this you are also welcome to use Smart Girls’ local address as your return address.  Many of our clients do this just to make sure that it is not an objection from the agent or manager who gets the envelope.  For this, you pay the shipping and handling to have the box sent to you and there are no other charges.

Additionally, when you are out of the country, or even if you are in the U.S. but want to appear to be local to Los Angeles, you can do such things as get a Google Phone Number in a Los Angeles area code.  You can also work it out to get a personal mailbox in L.A. if you really want to go all out for the long-term.

The main point here is that whether you are an actor in Los Angeles, Brussels, London, or Sydney, or anywhere else in the world, you can take the first step toward your acting career and test the waters.  You simply need to work out the logistics and take it from there.  I’m not saying it is easy, but if you want to pursue your dream — taking that first step is where you begin!

If you have questions or comments about this post, please feel free to leave them below.  Thank you!

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You call us and make your appointment to come in (or we speak on the phone). You fill out a basic questionnaire on your background. Then we interview you about your credits, training, what roles you would be right for, what actors you’re the same type as, and so on.

As you relax and look at headshots of our successful clients on our walls, we will draft a letter that will leave you impressed with how great you sound — just highlighting the facts about you that would be of most interest to the agents.

Once we finish, you get a chance to review the letter and make any changes you want. Once you approve the letter, then we strategize with you on what you want in an agent. Then using our proprietary SmartStudio™ software, we hand-pick the agents (or managers) that are best for you based on where you are in your career and what your goals are.

After we hand-pick your custom list of agents, we then print out each of your letters addressed to the individual agent (not just the agency). We also give you the address labels, return labels, and a listing of your agents for reference, along with the rating (A, B, C, D) we give that agency. And that completes the process.

The whole process takes less than 2 hours from start to finish. At the end of that 2 hours, we show you exactly the BEST way to mail it out — with lots of important little tips and tricks that we’ve learned over the past 15+ years to give you your best chances of getting your envelopes opened.

At that point, you put the letters with your picture and resume and mail it out. The agents can call you anywhere from the next day to the three or four weeks later.

We’ve a maintained an 80% or higher Success Rate since we started in 1992. Our rates start at under $200.

We make it so EASY for you it’s ridiculous!

Go here to place your order TODAY!

Pick up the phone and make your appointment right now — (818) 907-6511.

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Most of the products and services you see on our site have a Paypal payment button.  But on some occasions, if you are paying for an add-on, upgrade, shipping, or unique service, you may not have a button for it, so here’s how you pay for that using Paypal.

Here are your options:
 
If you have a Paypal account already set up:

Login to your Paypal account, select SEND MONEY button, and then send it to smartgirls@smartg.com.  (Anytime you have the email address of someone’s account, you can send them the exact amount that way.)
 
If you don’t have a Paypal account already:

1.  You can either set one up to have for use any time you want, then do the step above. To do this, go to www.Paypal.com

OR

2.  You can go to www.Paypal.com and just enter your c/c info for the one time.  You would still select SEND MONEY button, and then send it to smartgirls@smartg.com, which is the Smart Girls Productions Paypal address.

It’s that simple!  If you have any questions about this, feel free to call us at 818/907-6511 or email us at smartgirls@smartg.com

Thank you!

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