All of that persistence and commitment to your record keeping will pay off in the long run. At first, your numbers might look dismal or astonishing – but it’s not safe to trust statistics until you’ve collected data for a reasonable amount of time – since you’re just getting started, we’ll say that time frame is 6-12 months before you’ll start seeing numbers you can relatively rely on using.
After you’ve been tracking your business on paper for a while, you can figure out what your casting to booking ratio is by simply adding up the number of BOOKINGS and dividing it by the number of CASTINGS. Obviously, you will get a very low number followed by a point.
Let’s use our previous worksheet image as an example. Based on the image in the BLOG #153, I have booked two jobs. This is my BOOKING number – 2. It also states that I have auditioned in the CASTING room twice, with two callbacks completed. This is my CASTING number – 2. If we divide 2 (Booking) by 2 (Casting), we get 1.00. Transfer that 1.00 into a percentage by moving the decimal point two spaces to the right and we get the statistic that I booked 100% of the jobs I audition for.
You can see I have been up for three jobs, however, so that statistic is misleading since I haven’t been working but three days. Maybe I started off strong and think I’m amazingly talented . . . it’s obvious, right? After six months, we’ll say my BOOKING total remains at 2, but my CASTING total has gone to 30. If we divide 2 (Booking) by 30 (Casting), we get 0.067. Move that decimal over two spaces to the right and now my Casting to Booking ratio has dropped dramatically to 7%.
A year later, I refigure the numbers when my castings total 50 and my bookings total 5. If we divide 5 (Bookings) by 50 (Castings), we get 0.10. Move the decimal two spaces to the right and our new Casting to Booking ratio is 10%, which is actually pretty average.
Based on this information, I now know that I can expect to go on 10 castings before I will likely book a job. Sometimes it feels like forever when a talent has only been seen 5 times, and knowing how far you have to go is very encouraging to some personalities. Even if it doesn’t affect your emotions or give you encouragement, the statistics are helpful to your agent, manager, and coaches. Over the period of 3-5 years, which is the amount of time on average it takes to launch a new business and begin to turn a regular profit, the casting to booking ratio can help a talent find trends on which they can capitalize!
How else can these numbers help you with your career?
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