Agency and talent relationships may be common in the growing age of digital influencers, but this makes them no easier to establish and maintain. Just like any other professional collaboration, it’s a two-way street, one that has the power to both cement and destroy a chosen business deal. This week, part two of agency and talent has arrived, allowing the agents themselves to shed light on just what it takes from their side to make and maintain a good working relationship. Some of Australia’s top agencies share their stories.
Jill Birmingham from MAXCONNECTORS
What makes a good agency relationship?
For me, honesty and transparency are essential in making an agency/talent relationship work. The agency must have a very clear understanding of the talent’s brand and individual goals, and the talent must have complete trust in the agency and know that they will represent their brand in the best possible way.
What is key to maintaining a good relationship with your talent?
As with any relationship, communication is vital. We meet with our talent regularly to discuss work in progress and to ensure we are both on the same page. Regular contact and honest feedback from both parties is essential for any relationship to thrive.
How regularly do you check in with your talent?
As often as possible to ensure campaigns are running smoothly, negotiations are in check and everyone is happy!
What is your preferred form of contact?
Phone calls are great to promote discussion, emails are crucial to firm up the details of any campaign, and of course texts are a lifesaver when you need a quick response!
What can talent do to improve a relationship with their agency?
Again, it comes down to communication and trust. Communicate with your agency about your personal objectives and the long-term goals for your brand, and then trust that your agency will support you 100 per cent and has your best interests at heart.
How important is it for you to make business decisions a collaboration?
It is absolutely essential! We work closely with brands to understand their business and campaign targets and we ensure that their values are in line with the talent’s. We often decline campaigns that do not align with the long-term goals of our talent. It must be a collaborative decision as we rely on the expertise and creativity of the talent to interpret the brand message for their audience.
What are the key reasons for a troubled relationship between agency and talent?
I can’t speak from personal experience, but I imagine any relationship would fail if the communication broke down or if the needs of the talent were not put first. We understand that our talent knows their brand better than anyone else so if they were pushed into doing something that wasn’t the right fit for their audience then that would be a recipe for disaster.
Roxy Jacenko from Ministry of Talent
What makes a good agency relationship?
Understanding. From the get-go it is so important to understand the offering that our talent provide and from there it makes working together such a pleasure as each and every one of those that we represent bring something different to the table, it’s important to appreciate that and be aware of their personalities when you’re pitching to brands.
What is key to maintaining a good relationship with your talent?
Going the extra mile – we’re more than a management agency, we want our talent to succeed and we will always go above and beyond to make that happen.
How regularly do you check in with your talent?
Daily – it’s not a 9-5 job because our talent don’t live 9-5 lives so it’s important we are available to them whenever they need us to be and vice versa. Managing 70+ talent is a demanding task and checking in regularly means you never drop the ball.
What is your preferred form of contact?
I couldn’t even begin to count the number of emails we send on a day-to-day basis – when dealing with so many talent it’s important to have everything available to revert back to however if you need an answer quick the best way to get it is over the phone!
What can talent do to improve a relationship with their agency?
Be responsive, for most of our talent this is their full-time job and it’s important to behave as such. Responding to queries as and when they receive them helps strengthen the power of their brand and in turn ours as an agency. We’re a team at the end of the day [so] it’s important to act as one.
How important is it for you to make business decisions a collaboration?
We essentially represent our talent’s personality, no matter the offering. If it isn’t a right fit for the talent it will never work from a business perspective and therefore when it comes to making decisions they have to be collaborative. No one knows our talent better than themselves.
What are the key reasons for a troubled relationship between agency and talent?
Communication is key, if you lose that it makes the process far more tiresome and ultimately prevents either side from moving forward in the long run.
Nadine Andrews from Chic Management
What makes a good agency relationship?
What makes a good agency is great energy, being positive and having a can-do attitude. Always being open minded and listening are key plus being a team player. We are here to help our talent achieve their goals and grow them as a brand.
What is key to maintaining a good relationship with your talent?
Always be open minded with your talent and always be realistic with their expectations. It is really important to set goals for now and the future moving forward as this industry is moving at a fast pace right now. Our talent rely on us to give them advice and opinion of what we think as Chic has been in this industry for a long time (over 20 years). I really enjoy watching my talent succeed and I feel that plays a strong part in my relationship with them, because you need to be the driving force behind them.
How regularly do you check in with your talent?
Every day. We have so many collaborations running with our talent all the time that it is important to check in, plus even if it is about nothing! Gosh I could chat on the phone with my talent for hours.
What is your preferred form of contact?
I [prefer email, phone and text] and always email them in full detail every single job so they are across what they need to do.
What can talent do to improve a relationship with their agency?
Always be transparent with your agent about what you want and [your] goals. Communication is the key to every relationship.
How important is it for you to make business decisions a collaboration?
When making decisions on collaborations for your talent I already have a very clear idea of what their expectations are and what direction they are going in. Again it goes down to communication with each other. Collaborations need to be the right fit in terms of style and if they love the product.
Lorraine Murphy from The Remarkables Group
What makes a good agency relationship?
Every great relationship is based on trust, and that extends to agency/talent relationships as well. We have placed a very high priority on building transparency into our relationships with our talent – from fees to contracts and reporting.
What is key to maintaining a good relationship with your talent?
Transparency on both sides is essential, and also honesty around what will and won’t work when it comes to brand campaigns. We lean heavily on our influencers to tell us when the fit with a brand just isn’t there – and we turn down a lot of campaigns due to their selectivity. That’s exactly how we want them to be, as the trust capital between an influencer and their audience should be treated with the utmost respect and consideration – if an influencer takes on a brand campaign that doesn’t fit with their channel, then that trust capital can vanish overnight. Building in face-to-face time is essential for us as well, given how much of our lives we spend online now. We get our group together twice a year for upskilling, inspiration and just to have time to hang out IRL (in real life!).
How regularly do you check in with your talent?
We speak to all of the influencers within our group at least once [a] week, and would generally have contact with them several times a day.
What is your preferred form of contact?
That totally depends on the influencer. Much of our campaign conversations happen on our project management software as that makes it super easy for everyone to keep track of what’s happening. Some prefer a phone call, and others a text.
What can talent do to improve a relationship with their agency?
Share successes with them – our influencers often screenshot a great reader comment, or forward on emails from readers to us. That all helps us share their appeal with brands.
Also don’t be afraid to have difficult conversations – like every relationship, talent/agency relationships will go through their tough times and it’s maintaining communication that helps both sides through that.
What are the key reasons for a troubled relationship between agency and talent?
I can’t speak for every agency, however rough patches in our experience have been caused by expectations not being met on either side and also lack of clear communication. I think it’s important to remember that this is a really, really new space and everyone is trying to figure it out as they go – the influencers, the agencies and the brands themselves.
