My first week at Millie Lewis was a great jump into the talent agency business. A lot of what I was being trained to do was first learn how to answer the phone. Answering the phone is a very important job to do at Millie Lewis. There are many people who call day to day on how to get information, how to sign up for auditions, speak with the CEO and or booking agent and the first person they speak to needs to know how to work the phone system as well as know how to answer certain questions. I know on my first day of work I had to get more familiar with the actual classes, auditions and other events going on at Millie Lewis because I had no idea how to answer certain questions for people. Thankfully I had someone who shares an office with me so I was able to take notes on how to speak to potential clients and present clients. Also on the first day, my other task other than answering the phones was to actually make phone calls. At the Millie Lewis website, anyone who wants to submit their information to us can and I go through it and call each person and invite them to the next open audition. This was not foreign to me in that I love communicating with different types of people.
For the rest of the week I got more comfortable with how the office works . I also got to sit in on the Advanced Professional class that Millie Lewis offers. This is a class for ages 17 and up and it teaches models, actors, singers, dancers, etc. on how to properly be prepared for auditions, photo shoots and even just how to be successful in anything you do. The class curriculum is on proper commercial modeling, runway modeling, how to do proper make-up and hair, etiquette and more. A reason for this class is to help experienced or inexperienced models get training on how to be prepared for auditions so that when they audition for jobs they will know what to do. Millie Lewis actually offered to let me take the class in June in order to be certified as a professional model and therefore will benefit me in any future work with their talent agency! This class is valued at around $800, so I was more than excited to take them up on that opportunity. The second week was an even more exciting week! I had the opportunity to go to two schools in the Charleston area and speak to kids on their school career days about Millie Lewis. This was a great experience for me because I was able to interact with kids of all ages and it was different then just working in the office all day. Also in the second week I was taken to a seminar on something called Constant Contact. This seminar was something Millie Lewis was needing to attend in order to stay connected with all the cliental. With over 3,000 people they need to be in touch with this organization, Constant Contact, helps better organize the connection through e-mail and social media. Millie Lewis is run by two women over the age of 60 and a man who is in his 50's and they thought it would be best to bring me in order to get them started on setting up the best way to stay in touch on the social media aspect. I thought it was a great experience and it will help me with all future work.
Part 2:
1. I work with four people directly at Millie Lewis. The size of the office at Millie Lewis is way bigger than what is needed because there is only 4 people working in the actual office (before my internship). The reason is rather large is because we have space for auditions, classes and meetings. The reason there is not more than the few workers in the office is because that's the way it has always been, for the last 35 years. There have been minor changes but as far as the administrative staff it hasn't been but a few people. I believe that if there were more people in the office it could be less stressful. For example, when I went to the seminar, three of the five people went to the seminar, one person at the office and one person had the day off. This type of thing doesn't happen often but it did make more work for the one person in the office.
2. The location of Millie Lewis is next to a popular mall which is great because it is a highly populated area. One of the cons to this area is that it is right off an exit of the busy highway and it is blocked by trees when driving by. The only way you can see it the best is if you are driving on the frontage road it is located on. Another con is that it is only located in North Charleston. I believe that if it were to open another building up closer to downtown Charleston or Mt. Pleasant because a lot of clients are in that area. I also think that if there was more than one meeting site for clients they would be more likely to come to summer camps, auditions and sign up to be a part of Millie Lewis in general.
3. I have witnessed formal mentoring taking place in Mille Lewis. I have and will continue to sit in on the Tuesday night advanced pro class held that helps prospects learn how to be a better model, actor, singer, etc. This type of training is given by professionals who have had hands on and multiple years of experience in the fields they are teaching. I am excited to get this training later on in the summer. I have experienced formal training on how to answer questions for any phone calls and trained on how they operate in excel. The more informal training was when I went to the public school speaking events and I just learned what to say to the students by observation of the first day of the event. By the second day I was able to do what I knew and then present the same type of information in my own way.
Part 3:
I spoke with John Totaro, the Marketing Director at Millie Lewis. He was interested before I was hired what I wanted to do with a talent agency and what I had to offer to the agency. He was very impressed that I was a dancer and explained to me that Millie Lewis really needs something like that to get more kids in the door. I was curious as to how he came into this business and so he of course shared his story. He started off in the piano business and sold and rented pianos to famous musicians like Bruce Springsteen, Madonna and Sheryl Crow. It was so interesting to hear how that lead him into the marketing business of Mille Lewis. That is why I love the entertainment industry. It allows for all types of entertainment to make an impact on each other positively. He let me know that his many years with working for himself and trying to promote his own music, he learned how to market himself enough to sell his own records. With Millie Lewis only bringing him on board six months prior to my internship, he has done great things with getting new people into Millie Lewis. I look forward to learning as much from him as I can as well as the CEO, Suzanne Green and the Booking Agent, Louise Teems.
Michelle_Michy
JournalSample1.docx
0
