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Inspiration October 21, 2016
As a Hollywood agent for over 20 years, Byrdie Lifson-Pompan represented award-winning, visionary writers and directors, including Paul Haggis (from “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash”) and Frank Darabont (from “The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile” and “The Walking Dead”). Throughout her career, Lifson-Pompan fought to create opportunities for her clients and to outwork her competition, rising to become a top performer at the world’s premier entertainment agency, Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
Nowadays, Byrdie is adjusting her career as an “agent” for healthcare patients at her company, Clear Health Advisors.
ENTITY sat with Lifson-Pompan to discuss her secrets for making it big as a Hollywood agent, including how to build trust with clients, find allies in the entertainment industry and earn a reputation as “the best.” Read below to get tips on succeeding in Hollywood while keeping your integrity intact.
ENTITY: Can you describe the “aha” moment when you realized you were going to be successful?
Byrdie Lifson-Pompan: I knew I was going to be successful in October of my first year at Creative Artists Agency. I had been an agent for two years at a small agency before being recruited to CAA in March of 1994. In October, I received my first bonus check. It was more money than I ever thought a person my age (or any person) would ever make in their life. CAA had all of the resources available for someone who was driven to be successful, and that’s the environment I had been yearning for.
ENTITY: Can you walk ENTITY readers through your career path and how you got started as an agent?
BLP: I had never intended to be in the movie business. It just happened. I was a junior at UCLA when I applied for a job listed on the psychology department “job board.” It was to be an assistant at New Horizons.
They forgot to put the small detail that New Horizons was a film company. I thought it was a place for people in crisis, like a drug rehab center. I showed up for my interview and was quite shocked to discover that it was the film production company owned by the famous low budget filmmaker Roger Corman (King of the B movies). I took the job for the summer on a whim and fell in love with the movie business.
Entity: Did you have any mentors during your career as an agent? What was the best advice they gave you?
BLP: I had many mentors in my career as an agent. I was very fortunate. The two most valuable lessons that I recall are to be authentic to myself and to never sacrifice my deep sense of integrity in exchange for closing a deal.
ENTITY: Can you remember a moment that you severely “stuck your foot in your mouth” either with a boss or client? How did you handle it?
BLP: There are too many times to count! If you are authentic, opinionated and self-assured you are going to put your foot in your mouth. It is inevitable. All you can do is own your mistake, take responsibility for your “blunder,” apologize and move on.
Sincerity is easily detected, just as BS is easily detected. Always be sincere. How you comport yourself when apologizing is what people will remember.
If you are authentic, opinionated and self-assured you are going to put your foot in your mouth. It is inevitable.
ENTITY: What role do connections and networking play in the agency world? What advice would you give on building a network in the entertainment industry?
BLP: Connections and networking are imperative to being successful. Information is currency in the agency business. Without a network of peers, you will not have access to information.
Reach out to like-minded people across the entertainment spectrum. Get out of your comfort zone. Call people whose career you admire and ask to meet with them for 15 minutes. Then drive to meet them, prepared with three or four questions that you can grow from. Always send a thank you note!
ENTITY: Is it true that the Hollywood entertainment industry is ruthless?
BLP: The entertainment industry, like any business where the stakes are high, can be ruthless. But that doesn’t mean you have to be. I always conducted myself with honesty, integrity and respect.
ENTITY: On the business side, Hollywood has a reputation for being very competitive. How do you identify whether someone is an ally or enemy? As a young woman starting out, how do you protect yourself?
BLP: Women, like men, have to find their allies. You have to surround yourself with people who are invested in your success. Create allies by sharing information, being trustworthy, dependable and accountable. Always take the high road and outwork everybody else. You will gain respect, support and good will from your peers.
Always take the high road and outwork everybody else.
Entity: Winning clients might entail wooing them away from competitors or even colleagues. Did you experience this? Do you think love of the game (a competitive personality) is necessary to succeed in this field?
BLP: Being passionate, informed and strategic will result in winning clients. Your reputation is also important. Be known as the person who is (as stated above) trustworthy, dependable, well read, outworks everybody else and never compromises when there is a specific goal in sight.
Your reputation and allies will land you clients, much more than aggressively and blindly wooing clients away from other agents. Be known as the best by being the best. Be the person that talent wants to call their agent.
Entity: It’s said there are two types of agents: the well-compensated “signers” who land hot talent for the agency and the “service” agents who manage the less glamorous day-to-day work for client accounts. How do these two roles come together?
BLP: There are definitely two important components to being a successful agent; you have to sign the client and then service them. Some people are good at both, others focus on just one of them.
At CAA, both types of agents are really well compensated. Servicing a client, aka getting them work, is as important to keeping them at the agency as signing them as a client. The culture, specifically at CAA, was that each client had a team of agents on their team. A combination of signing and servicing usually results in a happy client.
ENTITY: How do you build your client roster? How did you convince new clients you are the best choice to represent them?
BLP: I think it goes back to “outworking” everybody else. If you are reading more than other people, you will discover new writers. If you’re seeing more movies, you will discover more directors. When you find an artist that you are passionate about, go after them and never ever give up.
Even if the client has an agent at another agency, write them a fan letter. Stay in second position. Make sure their manager, lawyer and anybody else close to them knows that you would love to represent them. Send them material that you love and that you believe they will respond favorably to. Make sure they know what you believe their potential can be.
As for signing clients internally, that was always an option at CAA. You didn’t sign them away from their agent, you simply join the team.
When you find an artist that you are passionate about, go after them and never ever give up. Even if the client has an agent at another agency, write them a fan letter. Stay in second position.
ENTITY: As you became a prominent agent, how did you make decisions about which clients and projects to pursue in order to advance your (and your clients’) career?
BLP: At CAA, I had the luxury of “no limits.” I fought as hard as I could for every project, every client, every opportunity. When I felt my client was the best suited for the job, I strategized with several other colleagues, lawyers, studio executives, producers – anyone who could be influential in the decision making process.
I represented writers and directors who created movies that won Academy Awards. I also represented people whose movies grossed record box office numbers. If you believe in your clients’ talents, you can’t help but be passionate about the opportunities you want to create for them.
Entity: Did you develop friendships with your clients outside of work?
BLP: I did not pursue friendships outside of my professional relationship with my clients. Sure, there were dinners and drinks and birthday parties. But for the most part, it was a purely professional relationship. I believe that clients are not your friends. Friends cannot fire friends. The minute you get too comfortable with the relationship, the paradigm shifts.
Clients are not your friends. Friends cannot fire friends.
Entity: I understand you have departed Hollywood to start your own company. What was the driving factor in this decision?
BLP: After a series of medical misdiagnoses personally and in my family, I had experienced our U.S. healthcare system up close and personal. I quickly learned that regardless of your relationships or resources, if you didn’t get to the right specialist for your medical needs, the outcome would not be as positive.
I left Hollywood to start a healthcare company with a physician. As an agent, I had been an advocate for my clients for over twenty years. I knew how to get what I wanted for my clients, but it was never easy. Whatever I was pursuing usually started with somebody saying “no.” But I also knew how to get people to “yes.”
Who needs this support more than people who are facing a devastating diagnosis and are left to brave the morass of our current healthcare system with no guide? At our company, Clear Health Advisors, we identify the very best specialist for our clients’ medical needs, and then advocate and navigate all of their care. Essentially, I am an agent for people who need it the most.
Learn more about Byrdie Lifson-Pompan and her latest endeavors as an agent for healthcare patients on her website, Clear Health Advisors.
