Mel Gibson could have been a great grave digger.
When looking at my analytics traffic, I notice that I get a ton of traffic from actors looking for good day jobs. As an actor myself, it certainly makes a lot of sense to me. As an actor, you want to be flexible enough to take performing gigs when they come up, but still have an income sufficient to meet your needs.
I’ve been pondering the state of the actor’s world for some time now. It seems to me that the best thing that an actor can do is start their own successful business. I know quite a few who are thriving entrepreneurs, and their day job allows them to focus on the part of theatre & film that they really love – performing.
Not every actor has the motivation or the skills to be a successful entrepreneur however, so what to do?
We look for the best day job that we can find. Actors are a diverse group, so finding one job, or even a list of jobs, that fits all actors is a little tough. I did that here at The Abundant Artist in a post titled 10 Best Day Jobs for Actors. That post alone has generated a lot of interest and traffic.
I think that it would be possible to create a place where actors could gather to work together to create something that would generate work for them, in a way that matches the skills that actors have and is flexible enough to allow for ongoing performance work.
Ideas for the kinds of businesses that actors could collaborate on:
- Voice overs for local business commercials.
- A co-op talent agency where the profits go to the actors (thanks to @ChadMor for that idea).
- A team-building/creativity consultancy (from @Seabuckthorn)
- Temp staffing agency.
- video creation.
- SEO & Internet Marketing.
Of course, any good business is about the problem that you’re solving, not the cool idea it’s organized around. If you were going to start a business with a bunch of other actors, what would you do?
