Networking for Actors
and Other Artists

My name is Susan Dansby, and I’d like to introduce you to the magical coming together of people with like interests and diverse goals helping each other to achieve their greatest desires... also known as:

Networking.

What? You didn’t see it that way? Neither did I. For me, the word networking conjured visions of stuffy cocktail parties with people in suits exchanging boring small talk, stacks of business cards, “let’s do lunch.”

And then I met my friend, Rose.

I was working on GUIDING LIGHT and we were doing a remote shoot in Weehawken, NJ (glamorous, huh?). Since I was way down on the food chain (production coordinator), I was part of the crowd control team.

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So, I’m hanging out on the streets of Weehawken, waiting for the next cue when this freelance stage manager named Rose starts talking to me. She asks my name, what I do on the show, mentions that she stage manages regularly and has for a number of years. Although she’s younger than me, she’s much more accomplished. And I start feeling a little depressed.

However, when Rose asks what my goals are, she doesn’t laugh when I tell her I want to direct. Instead she encourages me, and says we should keep in touch. I shrug. I figure she’s just being nice. But before Rose left that day, she made sure she got my number, and I got hers – which (since I was the world’s worst networker) I promptly lost.

But Rose followed through. Every once in a while, I’d get a call from Rose about various things: freelance Directors Guild jobs, updates on people we both knew, Happy New Year, let’s do lunch. Next thing I knew, I had a friend. Twenty years later, she is still my dear, dear friend.

And, no, it’s not just social. When I moved from New York to LA, Rose opened her personal phone book and started reeling off names of people for me to contact: a sitcom writer, a director, a stage manager, people I could hang out with if I got lonely. Rose even called ahead to ask her friends to be nice to me! She was hugely instrumental in helping me land my first West Coast directing job.

What was my contribution? If you asked Rose, she'd probably make a big deal of how I "taught" her to edit videotape - a skill she needed to move up to Associate Director. Yeah, like that was some big sacrifice on my part. Just doing my job as usual with Rose in the room asking questions. Far from being an imposition, it was a great pleasure. Rose is fun - who wouldn't jump at the chance to hang out with her?

My friend Rose is the most brilliant networker I know. Here are just a few of the tips I learned from her:

• Be truly interested in other people – no matter what their job title.
  
  
• Find out what’s important to people – their goals, their jobs, their families, their hobbies. Why? Because it’s fun! As artists, we reflect the human existence. The more humans you know, the more attuned you’ll be.
  
  
• Anything you can do to help someone realize their dream, do it. Why? What goes around, comes around. If you help others, maybe they won’t help you, but someone else will.
  
  
• Make it a habit to get the phone numbers and email addresses of new acquaintances.
  
  
• Always have pen and paper handy, so that you can get contact information from interesting people when you meet them. And get yourself some business cards and/or be ready to beam your info from your Palm - whatever works for you.
  
  
• Follow up right away. Drop an email almost immediately saying how nice it was to meet this person and how much fun you had talking to them.
  
  
• Make notes of details when you put someone in your book, like their spouse’s name or their kids’ names or the fact that they like auto racing.
  
  
• Be for real. Only keep in touch with people you genuinely like.
  
  
• You don’t have to befriend everyone you meet, but you can certainly help everyone you meet. If you didn’t click with a new acquaintance, put his/her information in your phone book anyway. Then, if you hear about an opportunity that would be perfect for them, drop them a line.
  
  
• Don’t attach strings. Most of the people I’ve helped with jobs or contacts have not helped me in the same way. But I have gotten help from others whom I can never repay personally. Pay it forward.
  
  
• Be yourself (yes, it bears repeating). If you’re not the type to send a birthday card every year, don’t. But if you have shown true interest in someone else’s goals, you’ll have other reasons to keep in touch: “Hi, Mary: I know you had a leaky roof and were looking for an honest plumber – I think I met one today.” or “Hey, Chuck: Are you still trying to sell your 1968 Chevy? Here’s the name of a collector.”

See how this works?

Be a friend, gain a friend – that’s true networking.

To your success... scene by scene...



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