I got a message from a VOPro student this past week who says this. “I have a topic that could go down a big rabbit hole for all us newbies out here. When is it time to look for an agent? What milestones should you have met or be meeting to find an agent? How do you go about finding an agent and soliciting them?”

I'll answer these and other burning questions in Paulie's Secret Agent Plan.

Yeah, this is a big one, especially for newer talent. So, you've got your baseline training, you're competent, you have your professional demos ready, you have a professional website ready, you are finding work, maybe even you're finding a fair amount of work.

And yet the whole question of agent representation can be a big black box. So let's try and break it down for you into smaller chunks.

I'll give you three big answers to three big questions about voiceover agents and stick around because at the end I'll give you a bonus fourth question that my student didn't even ask.

Question number one, when is it time to look for an agent?

In my humble opinion, and yeah, some people, that I respect even, disagree. The best time to go look for an agent is when you've accumulated a body of work to approach that agent with to prove that you're bookable. Agents want to work with actors who book and they want to work with pros.

Look, think about it from the agent's side. They want to book with actors who book because that's how they make their money. When one of the actors on their roster books a job, the agent makes a percentage of that. Why would they want to work with someone who doesn't have any reasonable body of evidence to prove that they can do that.

And yes, there are some agents who will work with anyone. These agents typically will submit every audition they get for every casting they get. They don't cull, they don't curate, they don't chop anything down and use their own expertise to help out the casting directors. They just are simply a messenger service.

Good agents don't care if you booked a thousand gigs on Upwork last year at $50 a holler. They do though care if you booked 50 gigs last year at 500 bucks a piece.

And most reputable established agents won't work with anybody that's built their entire body of work on Fiverr and Upwork and Voice Bunny and the like. Why? Because it's a different world when you're competing for agent work.

So look, I hear you. You say…somebody said this to me today… “How do I build a body of work without an agent?”

That frankly, my friend, is on you.

You have to go out and find the clients and approach the production houses and the corporate clients and accrue that body of work so that you can then approach an agent and prove to them that look, I'm bookable, I'm good with clients, I'm driven, I'm self -motivated, and you can put me in front of your clients without a worry.

And so in general, a stronger voice actor with a bigger, better body of work will attract better agents with access to better and better gigs.

And finally, a good agent's job is to get you access to better auditions. Better auditions are, by definition, more competitive. That's what makes them better. They're more lucrative. You still have to be able to book those jobs.

Question number two: What milestones should you have met or should you be meeting in order to find an agent?

Now look, there's no hard and fast quantifiable criteria here because every agent is different and has different criteria. But I would say in my opinion, there are four pretty solid requirements.

Number one, you should have at least six months to a year of formal voiceover training.

If you're not well trained, you won't be competitive, you won't book and there's no reason for an agent to work with you.

Number two, you should have professional demos.

DIY demos ain't gonna cut it. The agent themselves will make 98 % of their decision whether or not to work with you. based on those demos. And if they're not professional, they'll know in the first five seconds and you'll land in the trash bin. You don't want to be in the trash bin.

Three, you should have a professional website.

Your website should show that you're a pro. If your website looks like your 10-year-old nephew did it with pictures taken by their buddy… (sigh).

Now I'm not saying you shouldn't build your website yourself. If you have that skill set, by all means, go ahead. But most people don't. And if you're going to be a pro and work with an agent, you should have a professional website. Hire a professional.

And number four, you should have that solid body of work to show.

That's what shows the agent that you can back up what you can do on the demos that you can deliver the goods.

In short, you're when you're approaching an agent, you're asking them to enter into a professional relationship with you. And as such, you should be fully prepared to show that you approach this as a professional.

Question number three, just how do you go about finding and soliciting an agent?

Pay attention here. The best way to get an agent is to be referred to that agent by somebody already on their roster.

Now do not… Repeat… Do not go to every voice actor you know and ask them to refer you to all their agents. Why? After you've been with an agent, you will realize that voice actors need to protect their relationships with their agents.

I have three great agents myself and I refer only maybe two people a year to each agent, tops. Because I want that referral to mean something.

If I take the time to refer someone to one of my agents, then they know that I believe enough. If I think that much of that person that I'm going to make one of maybe a couple referrals all year.

I don't want to be the guy just referring anybody. My agents look out for me and I look out for them. And that's true for the overwhelming majority of professional voice actors.

So, if you truly believe that you're ready for an agent, then

Do approach the voice actors you know and don't ask for a referral, but ask who they're with, what agents are they working with and how are they enjoying those experiences. What are the good things and the bad things about those agents?

Start collecting data and start figuring out who might be a good fit for you based on that feedback. Then start researching those agents. If the agents have a website, go to their website. Then start researching that short list of agents. Go to their website. If their rosters are public, take a look and see who's on their roster.

Now, if you do have a very good relationship with a talent that happens to be on the roster of an agent that you want to work with, then certainly you should reach out and ask them for a referral if that relationship is solid.

But understand that voice actor, no matter how good your relationship is with them, is under no obligation to refer you. They may have just referred someone to that agent, and they need to wait a while. They may be in a newer relationship with that agent and they don't feel yet comfortable enough to start making referrals.

What you don't want is for that talent to refer you to their agent and for the agent to go, “Okay, so how well do you know this person? What are they like?” And that talent says, “Well, you know, I really don't know them all that well.”

That's going to reflect poorly on them and it's going to reflect poorly on you. Don't put another voice actor in that position. Make sure that you have a solid relationship with the people that you're reaching out to for referrals.

So referrals are the best way to get an agent, so choose wisely.

Now, can you cold contact agents? Yes, you can, but you better well have a damn good reason for reaching out to them.

And here's what I mean by that. There are lists floating around in the voiceover world, databases of agents. If you should acquire one of these lists or databases, do not, and again I repeat, do not blindly contact every agent on that list.

Do your due diligence, do your research, go to their websites, look at their rosters. Find out how you may fit in.

For example, I am an average, everyday, garden variety, middle -aged white dude. It makes no sense for me to reach out and submit to agencies that pride themselves on a younger roster, on a more diverse roster. It's just not a good fit.

And in fact, even as I'm filming this, I'm in that situation. Not because I reached out to an agency that was a bad fit and got signed, but because when I started with them, they were very new and as their roster grew, that roster shifted to a younger, more diverse roster and now it's not such a great fit anymore.

So, do your research. That includes finding out if the agency is even accepting submissions right now. If they are or if they are not, they will likely say so on their website.

Furthermore, most agencies have very specific instructions on how they want you to submit to them. Follow those instructions to the tee because every agent, every instruction is a little bit different.

Third, unless they specifically tell you not to. Be brief, be warm, be friendly, and be brief. Yes, I said be brief twice because I mean it. Tell them your name, where you're based, what genres you work in, how they can listen to your demos, whether they're attached in a link or whether they're attached as a file.

They do not need or want a novel on how you have a passion for this business, how Aunt Millie used to tell you you have such a nice voice, how professional you are, or what clients say about you. They just don't care.

The agent's going to listen to your demos and decide, yes, I want to work with this person or nope.

And by the way, they may not even listen to your demos for weeks or months. Some smaller shops get backlogged. That's just a fact. My first agent actually never responded. And a year later, I started getting auditions from them.

And one last thing about agents, if you reach out to an agent and you don't hear back in a few weeks, and this is the only time you're going to hear me say this, do not follow up. If the agent is interested in learning more, they will reach out to you.

If you don't hear back from an agent in six months, some agents will make you wait a year, then make sure they're taking submissions again or still and resubmit.

But don't resubmit with the same exact materials. Make sure you have new demos or new samples to show them. Reaching out to submit the same exact materials as you did six months or a year prior basically says to them, “Hey, hope you dropped your standards by now!”

And here's an important bonus question that my student didn't even ask. What should you look for in an agent?

Your mission is not to be represented by any old agent off the street.

First, look for an agent who, if it's a one- or two-person shop, is voiceover specific. If it's a larger agency, then they should have at least one, maybe more dedicated agents in the voiceover department.

Second, make sure that you're a good fit for the roster. And that also means making sure that they work in the genres and the types of work that you want to do.

Third, if you get an interview with them, right, if you're talking about working together, ask them flat out do they curate or cull the auditions that they get in or do they send in everything that you submit. Now some local and regional agents they're going to send in everything because they need the volume.

Some national agents will curate, some will not. Depends on the relationship that they have with the casting director. Typically, if they curate their auditions that means they're only sending the cream of the crop which can work for you if you're doing really good work. It can work against you if you're not doing great work.

Fourth, if you're newer to the business, generally you're going to start looking for local and regional representation. You wouldn't come out of the gate necessarily looking for a national agent.

Now, hopefully you found my Secret Agent Plan helpful. If you did, if you think it'll help other voice actors, make sure you share it with them, please, with an email, maybe sharing on social media, so that we can help other folks as well.

Get information on the VO Freedom Master Plan, the VO Pro Community and to sign up for my Move, Touch, Inspire newsletter for voice actors that comes out every Thursday.

As always thanks so much for your support and we'll see you back here again next week.