The Glow Up Year
If you’re ready to chase your own dreams, fuel your passion, and see what it takes to rise to the top, you’re in the right place. This podcast is your front-row seat to my journey as I hustle, learn, and level up my modeling and acting career in real time. From auditions and photoshoots to script breakdowns and behind-the-scenes chaos, we’re diving into the ups, the downs, and everything in between.
The Glow Up Year
Agencies and Test Shoots and Websites—oh my!
The wheels are finally turning, y’all—and this entertainment career of mine? Fully in motion. After months of prepping, building my portfolio, and putting in consistent behind-the-scenes work, I’ve hit a streak of wins that feel like pure proof that when focus meets aligned action... magic happens.
In this episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes of my very first agency meeting. I’m spilling everything I researched before walking through the door—from digging into their socials and poking around their website to prepping questions about exclusivity, market focus, and red flags. I’ll give you the full breakdown: the pros (personalized attention), the cons (a few broken links, yikes), and why I still said yes to the offer despite a few hesitations.
But we’re just getting started! I also got featured on The Model Workshop’s Instagram (!!!), booked a fire test shoot with the incredible Chelsea Bradway—think road signs, red pumps, and a jacket so good I had to buy it on the spot—and finally started building my acting website after putting it off forever. Shoutout to my dream designer, RuthAnn at RArtspace, who made it happen with a payment plan that actually worked for me.
The thread running through all of this? Intentional energy. When you commit to your craft, show up consistently, and trust your timing, the glow-up starts to unfold in ways you never expected.
Your journey might look different than mine, but the formula still applies: show up, stay ready, and trust the work you’re putting in.
Check out my Test Shoot BTS as well as my stylist, Brooke Kanal!
And as promised, here is a link to my digital porfolio, just incase you need to build one quickly just like I did!
✨ 2025✨ is about to be huge, and I want you to be part of this journey. Let’s glow up together.
🎭 Follow My Journey: Stay connected and get behind-the-scenes insights!
📸 Instagram: @megsalisburyofficial
🎬 TikTok: @megsalisburyofficial
Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with your fellow dreamers—we’re all in this for the long game!
Let’s glow up together—because your breakthrough moment might be closer than you think.
Hey there and welcome to the Glow Up Year. I'm Meg, an actress and a model, and your go-to guide for what it really takes to make big dreams happen. After six years in the entertainment world on camera, behind the scenes and everything in between I'm declaring this year my glow up year. This podcast is your front row seat to my journey as I hustle, learn and level up in real time, from auditions to photo shoots to script breakdowns and behind the scenes chaos. We're diving into the ups, the downs and everything in between. If you're ready to chase your own dreams, fuel your passions and see if you have what it takes to rise to the top, you're in the right place. So grab a coffee or a tea, get comfy and let's glow up together. Hey there, friend, I am so excited to talk to you today because I have a ton and when I say a ton, I mean a ton of updates for you guys.
Speaker 1:First off, I was featured on the Model Workshop Instagram page, yahoo. I was really curious to see if they were going to post one of my photos or not and, if so, which photo, because I felt like I had so many strong photos and they posted one with my denim on denim outfit with my testimonial and I felt so special and so loved. And if you want to follow the model workshops Instagram page as well, the handle is the model Workshop Boston, so go and check it out. It was such a wonderful experience. I can't speak any more highly about it. But Yahoo, a little win. I figured I'd start our podcast episode off with a little win that I had.
Speaker 1:Also. I submitted to three agencies in the New England area with my updated photos, just like I told you I would. And guess what I heard back? I heard back from three out of three agencies. Yeah, baby go me. So I put a lot of thought into this and I don't know that I'm going to share the agency names. And the reason I'm not going to share the agency names is because, as I go to meetings, I want to give you a very clear idea of what happens in each meeting and what my thoughts and ideas were on the meetings themselves, as well as the agencies. So I'm not going to disclose names because I want to give you a really clear and honest review of every meeting I go to.
Speaker 1:With that being said, the three agencies that I submitted to one sent an email back saying that it was going to be four to six months before I was even able to get into their process. That's just how long it takes to start their whole process. So that is going to be on the back burner. It'll come up in a couple months, but for now they are interested. They just are. They're just starting the process and the process takes a while. So that was the first correspondence I got back. The second one said that they were interested and we set a meeting, but it took a while to set our actual meeting because my schedule is a little busy and their schedule is busy as well. So I don't have that second meeting until next month. And then the third agency I heard back is a smaller agency, more boutique, but I had my agent meeting and I'm so excited to give you a wrap up of what happened today. So I want to give you what I do start to finish before agency meeting for prep, what I did during the meeting and what I do after the meeting, just so we're on the same page and I'm giving you step by step guidance of what I'm actually doing.
Speaker 1:The first thing that I did was my research and my prep. So I went on to the agency and I looked at their social media and I looked at their website and I looked to see what types of projects they were booking. This is my honest review of this first agency, number one, that I went and had my meeting with In my research and in my prep. What I noticed was that they're not very active on social media, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but that they're a boutique agency, so they're very small, which tells me they probably have a small amount of employees. So I wouldn't expect them to have this major following or this really intricate social media marketing plan. Because you're smaller agency, less employees, you do what you can do and some stuff gets thrown in the back burner. So first thing I noticed right away was they're not super active on social media, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but not necessarily a good thing.
Speaker 1:The second thing I noticed was when I went on their website, I went through every single tab. I looked at the other people they represented. I wanted to see if they had anybody that looked similar to me and it seemed that they didn't. But one thing I did notice on their website was some people that I clicked on their links were broken and that made me a little bit nervous. I'm not going to lie, because if somebody's coming to book me and the client's looking on my agency website and they push my picture and they can't get any more information, that is a little stressful to me.
Speaker 1:So ahead of time, I decided well, if the meeting goes really well and I decide I'm going to sign with them, then this is something that me, as the freelancer, I need to pay attention to and make sure that my link isn't broken when I'm on the website, because do I really care if somebody else is broken? Yes and no, but what's really most important to me is is my link broken If I go on to look at myself? Is my link broken? Because that's something I would call my agency and say hey, can you fix this? Because this is not working right now. And I also came up with some really basic questions to ask.
Speaker 1:So when I got into my meeting, I didn't feel unprepared. Some of the questions that I asked and that would be beneficial for you to ask in your next agency meeting is are you an exclusive agent or are you exclusive within a certain range? An exclusive agent means that you can't have other agents or potentially other agents within a radius. In this particular circumstance, this agent wouldn't really conflict with my other agents because they were across the state line and they are non-exclusive at all, which means I can have as many agents as I want. And then the second question that I had prepared to ask was what's your primary location market Like? Where are they booking jobs? Where do they get the most bookings within their market and where? I'm in New England, a lot of the local agencies in New England book for all of New England, which makes sense. We're a tinier area.
Speaker 1:This was a specific question for this agency because, based on my research I saw on your website and it looks like you're more focused on modeling than acting. You seem to have tabs for editorial, for beauty, for runway and for lifestyle. Is there one area that you focus more of your time and attention on? And the answer that I got for that was yes, they focus. No-transcript. The biggest market that they have is for lifestyle, which is perfect because I fit into lifestyle the best. That majority of the stuff that they're booking is like the southern part of New England. And then another question I had for them was do you book union as well as non-union work, and so we had a little bit of a conversation about what's the benefits of union and what's the drawbacks of union, and this agency in particular did book for both. But for me it's best to say non-union right now, that there's just more work and more opportunity for me as a non-union model and actor.
Speaker 1:And then I also wanted to give you some expectations, so questions they would ask me that they would expect for me to answer. One of the things that I knew they were going to ask me is what are my stats or my measurements? And so I made sure that I memorized all of my stats and my measurements for my body so that when they asked I could quickly rattle them off and I didn't have to think about them at all. In preparation for my meeting, I also wanted to come up with a few things, like if they said tell me more about you, maybe non-industry related things that were interesting about me for the agent to know. And one thing that I had brought up in my meeting was that I paddleboard and that I love to go out on the water and on the lake, and so finding little tidbits that are non-industry related that you can tell your agent about is great as well. The question I also was prepared to answer was what is your booking percentage and what do you book most mostly, and for me, I'm about 50 commercial and 50 print, so just knowing that information would be good to know going into the meeting. And then things that if you're already represented, are good to know as you go into a meeting too. This is all prep still that we're talking about If you already have an agent, things that you need to know before you go into a meeting with another agent, even if they're non-exclusive, is are they exclusive? And you would find that by looking back into your contract and in my situation, the agent I currently have in the agents in this agent that I was meeting with were both non-exclusive, which was great. Another thing that would be good to know is are they your mother agent? You would also find that information in your contract and in my situation, neither one of these companies wouldn't want to be my mother agent.
Speaker 1:And then, lastly, a really good thing to know is what are the terms of termination? So some agents in your contract have terms of termination. What is important about terms of termination is what you actually have to do to terminate representation, because if I wanted to sign with this new person and they were exclusive, what would I have to do to terminate my representation with my original company? That process is usually a guided timeline in your contract, so does that process take 30 days? Does that process take 60 days? Is it instant or does you need a formal letter? Do I just need to call? So that was important information that I looked up. And also, maybe even more important is is there a grace period? So some agents have a grace period where any booking over the next one have a grace period, where any booking over the next one three, six months they get a percentage of. So even if you're terminated with agency A and you're signed with agency B now, agency A still has potential rights to a percentage of the income that you might make with agency B. So you want to make sure that you know all of these things.
Speaker 1:So this was all prep that I did before my meeting to make sure I was prepared and ready to go. And also, this particular agent asked for me to bring my physical portfolio and right now I don't currently have a physical portfolio, so I made a quick digital one and I will link it in the show notes below so you can see what my digital portfolio looks like and get an idea, if you need to build the show notes below so you can see what my digital portfolio looks like and get an idea, if you need to build one last minute, of what you can build. I'm building my physical portfolio here over the next month so I will let you know how that goes and give you an update once my actual physical portfolio is built. And the last few things I did before I went into this agency was I retook my measurements to make sure they were still accurate. I memorized a monologue in case they wanted me to showcase any acting ability. I looked at my portfolio and I memorized all my photographers and my stylists for each picture, in case they asked me the question casually who was your photographer, who was your stylist? I knew exactly who everybody was and I really just got organized so that I walked into this meeting feeling confident.
Speaker 1:This is how my meeting went. This was a longer drive for me. I live up in Maine and so this was about a two and a half three hour drive for me, and I was a little more tired, honestly, than I wish I was, which sucked a bit. But I went into my meeting. We had good conversation. We talked for almost an hour and a half, which felt very long for an agency meeting. I would have anticipated it to be 30 minutes, I think.
Speaker 1:If I was giving myself criticism, I asked some questions that seemed a little bit too specific and weren't appropriate for an agency meeting. When you're first meeting an agent, you know you're getting to know each other. I asked questions that maybe were a little too like you've already signed me questions Like once you're signed, how do you like to communicate with your talent? Are you reaching out for my availability? Are you sending me submissions? And then I'm replying to them, which I mean part of me feels like isn't jumping the gun but is a little bit jumping the gun. But at the the end of the day, the meeting it was definitely a boutique agency. It was small, but the person that I met with seemed very knowledgeable about the industry, seemed very happy to guide me and give me information, very communicative. Overall, I left feeling like the meeting was positive and like there was an opportunity for me to get signed with this person.
Speaker 1:And one good thing about having a boutique agency is it's smaller right, and so they have less clients they're not looking to. When you have a bigger agent, when you're submitting for a project, they're submitting five different people from your agency and you're all like fighting against each other to get the role people with all within the same agency, versus in a boutique agency. You might get some, you might be the only person they're submitting for the role. It feels a little bit different in terms of how, like, how it's run and how you're treated as an individual. So the meeting went well.
Speaker 1:I drove home and he told me I would hear back in about a week, and there were crickets for about 10 days, and so I just followed up with a really friendly email hey, I'm just reaching out. I hadn't heard back from you yet and I just wanted to follow up and see what your thoughts were. And he responded back quickly and said hey, we are interested in signing you. Here's the contract, review it. Let me know what you think. It's pretty standard. If you have any questions, reach back out, feel free and we'll get this whole thing set up. So, and he also mentioned that he was in a really busy season right now, and so I totally get it.
Speaker 1:You know, sometimes things slip through the cracks. Based on those few big concerns I had about, like the website being broke, I want to give it a year and I want to give it a try and, worst case scenario, a year goes by, I didn't book anything with them and I decide well, this relationship maybe isn't working out for me and I terminate the contract. So I think I'm signing with a new agency, yahoo, yahoo, and I will let you know how my next agent meeting goes. And the next thing that I wanted to tell you guys today was that I booked a test shoot. So my agency reached out with a photographer who was looking for models for a test shoot. I looked at the work and I went on. I researched the photographer, I did all the same types of things that I did with the agency, you know, and I asked them to submit my portfolio and the photographer picked me, and so I also had another great win. And so I went and I did this test shoot. And so, for those of you who don't know, a test shoot is where a photographer and a model get together and nobody gets paid, so like they're not paying me and I'm not paying them, and we create something that is cohesive for both of our portfolios. So if a photographer is missing a specific thing out of their book, out of their portfolio, that they want to build, sometimes they'll recruit a model for free to build that area in their book, and then the model also gets the digitals, and so they both get something out of the deal, even though they're both going unpaid.
Speaker 1:And so for this particular shoot, my photographer was Chelsea Bradway, and she was amazing to work with. She had these pretty red glasses. I loved her energy. She was so kind and so nice. And my stylist, brooke Canal, was awesome too. They were just incredible to work with. It was a really cool concept. Chelsea was having us hold up road signs over our face as a whole, like female empowerment thing. But because we were holding road signs over our face, we weren't going to actually be able to tell who we were in the photos. So in exchange for doing this really creative, like female empowerment shoot for her, she gave us headshots, which was fantastic. So we got to start off with something that would build our book as well. I got some fire pictures. Let me tell you I can't wait for these to come back. I'll share these with you, too, once they come back and they're all finished. Chelsea was so awesome Like I really can't say enough. She just had such a great energy and was so fun to work with and just made the whole process great and, honestly, her choice in music was fire as well.
Speaker 1:I started off in like a red dress with some red pumps for my headshot photo and I think they came out fantastic. I did some really cool things with my feet I know that sounds weird, but it's the true and then we moved into like this orange look with a jean jacket, construction boots with like a detour sign over my face. It was so cool and so awesome and also, not to mention, chelsea makes you feel so safe. She's like if your arms get tired, we take a break. If you feel uncomfortable, we stop. She's just so kind and generous to her models. Not all photographers are so kind and so generous. So we finished with that orange look and then we moved into this.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, it was a black dress with this like bomb ass jacket, these like zip up white boots. And I loved this jacket so much that I literally google lensed it and found it online and bought it same day. It was not not a cheap jacket. It's going to be like the first thing that I own. That was like $400, but I got it 50% off y'all, so don't fight me, I got it 50% off. I'm not upset about the amount that I spent on the jacket, because I loved it so much and it's going to be such a fun thing to add to my wardrobe. So I had a wonderful time on this test shoe. It was so great. I can't wait to see the final results of that and, like I said before, I'll share those with you when they come back. Extra, extra thank you to Chelsea Bradway and an extra thank you to Brooke Canal for being so incredible at their craft and just really caring about what the final product looks like.
Speaker 1:I also want to touch on today that I am starting my social media. I'm trying really hard to shift into like this new persona, this like new part of me that feels happy and confident on social media, and so my first video is actually from that test shoot. So if you want a sneak peek and you want to check out all my looks, go check out my video on my socials. I'm at Meg Salisbury official and you'll be able to see all these outfits that I'm talking about before my photos even come out in a couple of weeks. And then, just in the nick of time, I'm starting working on my website for my acting business, and I think I talked about this on my last episode, that this was a block for me, but I, like I needed to do it, and it's something that I just really needed to start working on, and mainly because there's an agency that I also want to submit to. But I felt like I needed more materials, and one of those things was a website, and I should have had a website this entire time, if I'm being completely honest. So I started working on my website and it's been hard to find time. I'm not gonna lie. It's one of those things that, like I, have more important things to do. It falls like deeper and deeper down the list, and then something magical happened.
Speaker 1:I have been in talks with this specific designer for a while and we've gone back and forth a couple times, but this person, ruthann, is my dream designer. Like dream designer, I just love her work. Her web design is just fantastic and it's beautiful and it's clean and it's elevated, and it's clean and it's elevated and it's luxurious and it's chic and I like it's just beautiful. I just am so in love with her work and we we have been talking for probably six months on and off now. She had a free giveaway. I signed up for the giveaway. Didn't make it, which inspired me to start working on my website on my own.
Speaker 1:She reached out to me recently and really the main issue has been the financial part of it. She is so wonderful at her craft but right now it doesn't fit in my budget, which has made me really sad. But I've also clinged on to the fact that we will work together in the future, like I knew. I have always known that we are going to work together at some point. Well, she sent me an email. She said I have an idea for you. I'd love to hop on a call. It's probably like the fourth time that we've talked and as soon as I saw her email, I was so excited. I was like absolutely, let's hop on a call. I would love to. I'm really excited to potentially work with you. You know we've had such good conversation every time we've talked. And her company, by the way, is R, art Space R as in the letter, r, and then art space. So if you want to check her out, go check her out.
Speaker 1:We hopped on the call and she said hey, you know, I, I just I want to make this work for you. I want you to have this product that really helps you grow and helps your business grow and helps you put yourself out there to your best of ability. And we had such a great meeting and she offered me a payment plan that was within my budget. For the first time, I'm getting a product that's going to be awesome, that I'm going to love. I already know I'm going to love it and she's still getting fairly compensated for the beautiful work that she does. So I was so, so, so, so blessed and stoked that this magical thing just fell into place for me, because I really, really needed help with this. I didn't want to admit it. I wanted to just go and say I could do it and prove to myself I could do it. But I really, really needed help with this, and so I'm just so grateful to be able to work with this new web designer to design something that makes me feel proud, to showcase who I am and showcase my work.
Speaker 1:That is the update, my friends. That's all of it. That's the update. I don't have any more. That's a lot of amazing things happening right now for me.
Speaker 1:I got featured on the Model Workshop Instagram page. I heard back from three out of three agencies. I had a wonderful first agency meeting. They offered me a contract, which was awesome. I had a really cool test shoot, which was super fun and empowering. I got to network with other people. I'm starting my social media campaign I guess, not campaign. I'm starting my social media dot dot dot in general, and my actor website all fell into place over the last couple weeks. I'm so incredibly blessed and I want to point out that this is what happens when you put your energy into the things that you want, when you are putting your energy into practicing, when you're putting your energy into creating more within your life and manifesting what you want for your dreams. This is the result of all of the hard work I've been doing mentally, emotionally and physically to make this career and make this year my best one yet, and you can do it too.
Speaker 1:That's it for today's episode of the glow up year. Thanks for hanging out with me. I'm seriously so excited to have you along for the ride. We're only just getting started and the best, it's yet to come. If you felt fired up or inspired today, hit that subscribe button. Leave a quick review or pass this episode along to another dreamer in your circle. Want some more behind the scenes pep talks or updates? Come find me over on social at Meg Salisbury Official. I'll be sharing more on my journey there. Links are in the show notes. Remember your glow up is unfolding, one bold move at a time. Keep showing up, keep dreaming bigger and I'll catch you on the next one.