Managers and agents. Two important roles in the entertainment business that are commonly misunderstood. Let's discuss everything I know about both professions. What does each position actually do and how can I help you indicate when it's an appropriate time to seek out or take on one or both roles to elevate your career? Artist managers usually handle the overall strategy, direction, marketing, and long-term goals of an artist or entertainer. They are the business department for each artist. The artist traditionally creates the art and the manager usually figures out how to bring the art to the marketplace. By definition, managers are the business-minded side of an artist or entertainer's organization. Entertainment managers usually handle the overall strategy, direction, marketing, and long-term goals of their clients. Agents are dock connectors and have similar roles as managers, but for specific opportunities and bookings. They represent their clients and usually work within a structure of a bigger umbrella company to pull resources and connections. The three big agencies are WME, which is William Morris Endeavour, UTA, United Talent Agency, and CAA, Creative Artist Agency. A manager's your business partner. He's the person you have to turn to when you don't know what to do. He's supposed to help you figure out the things that you can't do on your own, help you execute the actual tasks that need to go through in order for you to see growth in your business. He is your right-hand man. He is your business partner. He is your chief operating officer. He is the guy who takes it from concept to business with you. Artists and managers focus on the short, middle, and long-term goals while the agent steps in and can provide opportunities on the business and booking side. The right time to start looking for a manager is when you've done everything you could do on your own and realize you're gonna need help in a collaborator to take you to the next level. The best manager in the world can't do anything for you if you're not gonna work and bust your ass for yourself. A manager's supposed to be a complimentary piece to the business and the strategy that can help bring some of your ideas to life. You're looking for somebody who's good at the things that you're not good at. If you're an artist, you shouldn't be looking to bring someone on a team that does exactly what you do. You should be looking to add somebody to the team that could be called your manager that has a different level of expertise in a completely different lane that can make you more dimensional and more valuable in the marketplace. An agent, on the other hand, doesn't come into the picture until phase two. Phase one is to build something, to get something off the ground. It's a startup. Don't forget, I mentioned this in previous episodes. You are still a startup, even with a manager. When you get to the place where you think you need an agent is after you've built a strong enough foundation that there is demand in the marketplace and now you're ready to execute on some of the demand that will overwhelm or drown you in opportunity. You look to an agent to help take the load off your back and start delegating some of these possibilities into real life business opportunities. There is no dream management. I wish there was a blueprint or roadmap to help all you artists out there that are looking for the right collaborator and manager or agent, but there is none. It's kind of like dating out in the real world. You're gonna find people that you don't get along with desk jockeys that just wanna call themselves your manager, stepping up to the plate, thinking they're gonna grab an easy check. But the truth is, it's a process. You're looking for people that actually wanna build with you, not take from you. A manager in this business, I reversely feel the same way. I don't want somebody that's just looking at me like a check grabber. I want someone that values my opinion, that sees an interest in the way I look at certain things, the way I go about practicing management and looks at me as a collaborator. I value my own opinion, so I want an artist I work with to value my opinion equally. This is a relationship thing. This is not a I hire you and you run this one function. A manager and an artist are very much in a deep relationship and need to have more important level of understanding of each other than a normal nine to five desk job. What are the red flags you should look out for to stay away from bad management? Let's keep it simple. The managers that are coming out of the woodworks after you have something highly established is usually a warning flag for me. A lot of times you see managers that put in all the time, energy and effort to help an artist or entertainer build their brand up, get dumped to the side just to find a big wig manager because they have an established name. Those aren't the people I wanna see my clients working with at any time, not because I selfishly wanna work with them, but I understand the nature of why they're around and that's because something special has already been built. I have to really understand you as a person, an artist, what your vision is, what your plans are and where you wanna take this. And if those things aren't present in your meeting with them, I think that's a big enough red flag to avoid. Having the right manager, I can't stress enough how important it is in this business. I see way too much managers get downplayed, stripped of their value, just as a position player and a title. And the reality is I feel like a good manager has just as much weight, if not more, than the artists themselves because I've seen far too many artists with all the talent in the world end up on the side of the street with nothing because they have shitty management. On the flip side, artists with far less skill than the best end up at the top of the mountain with good direction and leadership alongside them. I look at management as an equal value to the artist if it's good management. It's unfortunate that managers are positioned to be just the business side of the operation when in reality they're a sounding board and a partner in a lot, if not all of the operations that take place on a day-to-day basis. The way you make sure you're in sync with your clients or clients with their management is by opening a line of communication. You have to learn how to have this open dialogue respectfully, honestly, and strategically, otherwise none of these relationships are gonna work. All right, do it yourself, artists out there, figuring it all out and it's not easy. It's not gonna be easy. There is no magic potion I can give you or no one liner that's gonna help you get away from some of the obstacles you're gonna face. You're not ready for a manager. If you were, believe me, managers would be approaching you and if you were ready for somebody to be in your life, you could find a collaborator. Stop looking for a known manager that has a plate full and can't take you on because they've never heard of you before. In a good artist-manager relationship, the artist has input on the business side and the manager has input on the artistic side, but only if that relationship's built from the foundation up. If you have any comments, please leave one below. Let me know what you want to hear next and I'll be back next week to give you some more.