The new midwestern crop - Talent Plus talent agency

Nation's Business, Sept, 1992 by Cheryl Jarvis

The 12 phone lines at St. Louis' Talent Plus start ringing at 9 a.m. and continue ringing all day long, past closing time, sometimes past midnight. Many of the calls are from those who want to buy talent: a movie studio looking for young twins; a television network wanting help with a cross-country talent search; a big business needing a headline celebrity speaker; an ad agency needing Batman and Robin voices. A modeling agency in Tokyo asks, "Do you have any new faces?"

The rest of the calls (certainly the 2 a.m. ones on voice mail) are from those who want to be talent--aspiring models, actors, and announcers. Two hundred call each month for voice work alone. And every day, every hour, there are calls from mothers. Some want to sign up their children to model before they are even born.

The woman who created this field of show-biz dreams in the unlikely Midwest is St. Louis native Sharon Lee-Tucci. As founder, owner, and president of Talent Plus, she oversees a company that represents 700 clients, contracts for work from some 2,400 talent buyers, and generates annual revenues of over $3 million. Her models pose for fashion shoots in Paris, Milan, and Tokyo. Her actors audition for parts in shows produced by Disney, NBC, and CBS--without ever leaving home.

Here's how it works: Let's say a West Coast casting agent is looking for a particular type for a recurring role in a new television series. The agent can't find what she's looking for in Los Angeles, so she faxes portions of the script to Talent Plus. The agency calls local actors, who pick up the script, then return the next day to act the scene on videotape. The tape goes to California that evening by Federal Express. In two days, an unknown has a genuine shot at stardom.

Lee-Tucci, 41, envisioned none of this back in the mid-1970s, when she dropped out of college, planning to become an airline stewardess. Not getting hired led her to modeling school, where she hoped to conquer her shyness and improve her interview skills. After she finished a course, she began working there--teaching classes, modeling, and placing models. "I didn't like the school part or the modeling itself," she says, "but I discovered I really liked the business/agency side of it."

She borrowed $1,500 from her parents and, with one phone line in a one-room office, founded Talent Plus. For six months, she was the only staff. "I had no specific plans or aspirations," she says. "I just saw an opportunity." She gave herself three years.

The talent hopefuls came quickly, mostly by word-of-mouth. Lee-Tucci signed "only the best," aggressively marketed them with high-quality direct-mail promotional materials (the talent paid for their own photographs, audio and visual demo tapes, and resumes), then followed up the mailings with phone calls. She also offered audition services right at the agency, so clients knew what they were buying. At the same time, she sought out women at ad agencies as an informal support group and got involved with the city's Ad Club. Within two years, she was making a profit.

Lee-Tucci continues to innovate and expand. When requests started coming in for celebrities to headline at corporate events, she opened a speakers' bureau. While regional talent typically earns $700 to $1,000 for a speaking engagement, Lee-Tucci has booked such national celebrities as Bruce Jenner, Robin Leach, and Harry Anderson for as much as $75,000. The agency's cut is 20 percent. Commissions for other kinds of placements range from 5 to 20 percent.)

In spite of the abundance of work and talent, the recession took its toll. "Last year was the first time I was ever worried," she says. "We pay our models in advance, so collection became a big issue. I ended up [severing] some accounts that didn't pay. I discovered you can choose who you do business with."

No one is more surprised by the growth of the company than the owner herself. "A lot of it was timing," she says. "The work just snowballed." She has moved her offices to larger quarters four times. Today the agency is housed in a 6,000-square-foot Federal-style mansion in the city's Central West End. Each aspect of the business (acting, modeling, speaking) has its own separate floor.

But some things haven't changed. Lee-Tucci still works 10 to 14 hours a day, mostly over the phone, with her electronic Rolodex close at hand. When staff members (nine in St. Louis, three in Kansas City) go on vacation, she takes over their jobs. Those weeks, she often works till midnight.

"Our market has changed so much the past two years," she says. "And I see even more national placement in the years ahead. More than anything, it's been networking. Phone numbers are my life."