Do Creators Need Agents? Navigating Representation in the Creator Economy...
Alex is the Managing Director of major UK talent agency InterTalent. He represents his clients alongside overseeing the agency's creative strategy, day-to-day operations & acquisitions.
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Earlier this month, InterTalent sponsored the Creators Stage at the 10th anniversary Media, Production & Technology Show. Olympia was packed with 14,000 people each day, and our stage was chock-a-block with several impressive InterTalent clients on panels, including Grace Andrews, Cam Whitnall, Grace Dent, Harry Clark, Ash Dykes, Karel Prince and more.
I was also asked to join the lineup and discuss how talent agents work within the Creator Economy. Is it different? Do Creators need Agents? I sometimes hear that Creators don’t feel they need an Agent in the same way Actors or Entertainers do.
Or they think their friend or sibling can manage them.
OR they feel they don’t need agents, full stop.
It’s definitely something I’m hearing more and more, and I’m often being asked for my thoughts on whether agents are as essential anymore.
Even a friend (and someone I respect highly) wrote an article on LinkedIn recently titled ‘The Agent Is Dead. Long Live the Operator-Partner’ followed by this blurb: The talent agent is being replaced by a new kind of partner entirely: one that takes equity, builds businesses alongside the talent, and gets paid when the talent gets paid. Here's how creators can decide who they end up with: a partner, a parasite, or no one at all.
I appreciate the business angle… but ‘The Agent Is Dead’?
Hmm.
A partner, A parasite, or no one at all?
Hmm.
Which one am I meant to be?
These are the kinds of conversations happening in many corners of the Creator Economy… one where Agents aren’t needed and don’t exist.
So, the conversation I had with journalist Heather Fallon at MPTS was very timely.
For those who weren’t able to attend, I thought I’d bring some of my thoughts to Dealmakers and lay out why I obviously not only disagree that we’re not needed but that the truth is Creators actually need agents MORE than anyone else does.
Let’s go. ↓
So let’s cut straight to it: Talent in general, not just creators, needs an agent more than ever before.
Distribution has diversified so vastly, and the business of content is evolving rapidly. It’s now a myriad of platforms, companies, agencies and thousands of industry specialists, and it’s near impossible for a talent to fully be across the business side of the creator economy and wider entertainment industry to a first-class level expected of an agent. Yes, talent know people, too. People they work with, people they’ve met along the way, people who have slid into their inboxes, but that is just 1% of a global industry. Creators can’t and shouldn’t be expected to be able to replicate the breadth of what an agent’s role should cover.
Our job is to understand the entire creator economy landscape and beyond, to have a huge array of relationships and to know infinitely more about the business behind it all so, alongside our talent, we can make better strategic decisions to ensure not only an even bigger future for them but also futureproof their careers.
I won’t go into the full spectrum of what an agent does; you can read that HERE, but these are things that Creators just can’t do. They do not have the knowledge or experience to see around corners and know what’s coming next.
Most creators come into the industry with little or no experience of the world they are entering. There’s no training, no degree and no apprenticeships. For some, they are catapulted into it from out of nowhere. It can be a very scary place where they might not only be taken advantage of very quickly, but they also have a very limited understanding of what they are actually doing.
Agents are there to be protectors as much as anything else.
The protection aspect of our role is an extremely important one. It’s always there, daily, like antivirus software running in the background on your laptop.
I find it very strange that some creators, who come into this industry and earn eye-watering amounts of money very quickly, have the mentality that they don’t need an agent because deals are automatically flying into their DM’s. They don’t need help in securing work or money. They don’t believe that they need any help to navigate their future or protect themselves from the small print that will trip them up down the line. It’s all too easy, too transactional, and they can do it all themselves.
Put it this way…
I believe that when something important needs to happen in your life, you ALWAYS get a specialist to help you.
If you’re ill, you get a doctor.
If you’re buying a house, you get an estate agent.
If you’re in legal trouble, you get a lawyer.
You don’t do any of these things yourself, ask a friend with no experience to do it, or just think it’s not necessary.
Everything that you do in your life that’s incredibly important, you hire the right people to advise you.
Yet, when it comes to something equally as important as their career and income, I find it really strange that some people think, ‘I don’t need a specialist for that…’
I’ve never understood it.
The idea that they feel that they don’t need someone with knowledge, expertise or experience is just absolute madness to me. One of the biggest myths in the creator economy is that management is administration. It isn't. Replying to emails isn't management. Sending invoices isn't strategy.
This is the part of your life that you REALLY need a specialist for.
It is completely nonsensical, and for those who have those opinions and believe that this industry can be navigated blind is opening themselves up to losing their careers as quickly as they’ve built them.
Creators, who gain clout and money extremely fast, often at a young age, enter the industry with little preparation, and they, more than any other type of talent, need that guidance and protection.
This is what a reputable agent will deliver.
It’s way more than just negotiating deals and taking a percentage, which is often where the misunderstanding of our role comes from. Some people assume we exist just to take a cut.
Every talent is worthy of its place in our industry. The best creators are incredible. I am obsessed with so many people on YouTube talking to me about the things I’m passionate about.
The creator economy is as important as TV, books, stand-up comedy, podcasts, current affairs shows and everything else. Perhaps even more. Executing your creativity and ideas to a level that can find big audiences who stick around consistently is an extremely hard thing to achieve. Our clients have big ambitions, short and long term. They have goals. We help them navigate this crazy world to achieve their goals. It doesn’t just happen by saying YES to Instagram DM’s. It’s not just about seeing what sticks. It’s way more nuanced than that.
Just saying yes to jobs that land in your inbox is not a strategy; that’s called a mess.
It might feel good to grab money from job to job, but it will 100% unravel if you just say YES to anything and take no guidance. The power of NO is just as important.
I worry more about our clients in our creators division than anywhere else. Overnight fame and people sliding into their DM’s offering all sorts of things is a huge concern. They don’t understand rejection. Actors spend their lives being rejected. They’ve gone through drama school, they’ve started with nothing, they don’t start with big money brand deals. Actors know how to budget extremely well because they know what it’s like to live without a high income. TV presenters, authors, and other people are the same. The first paychecks are tiny. There is a lot of unemployment. They know failure, so when the good days do come around, and financial success starts to happen, they remember life without it and often tread carefully, knowing that another bout of unemployment is always around the corner.
Not in the creator economy.
Creators often arrive at success before they’ve experienced failure. Most other talent experience failure long before they experience success. Rejection will come at some point, and they won’t be ready for it. Our job is to ensure that when that moment arrives, they’re prepared for it and we can do our best to minimise the impact on their mental health, career and finances.
I see so many young people with limited life experience come into a lot of money and think it’ll last forever. I do have worries about what they’re doing with their money. We are not accountants or financial advisors, and it would be very wrong to ever give that kind of advice, but our job as protectors is to ensure they get those people on board. Those who listen and have great people around them (family environment, accountants, financial advisors) have a real head start. Those who don’t have smart people around them urging calm and safety can find themselves thinking this life will last forever, and they can spend, spend, spend. So many young people with a lot of money don’t even know what tax is. There could be huge problems down the line. They don’t teach this stuff at school.
And this is exactly why I believe creators need representation more than any other type of talent.
So what is the concern really about?
Creators who have no interest in having representation usually do so because of a lack of knowledge of what we actually do. That’s understandable.
I never take it personally.
It’s from a place of zero knowledge. It’s why I started Dealmakers. To shine a light on a role that is misunderstood and underdiscussed.
More specifically, it’s normally a concern about giving away some of their fee (commission) against the value they think we can actually bring.
Cost v Value
I appreciate that concern. That’s fair. That’s on an agent to prove themselves. I don’t have an issue whatsoever with a creator feeling uncertain about handing over a % of their income. I get it. That’s on us to prove every day that we’re worth the cost. You have to earn people’s trust. It doesn’t happen overnight. As an agent, you have to earn the trust of your client every day, no matter how long you’ve been doing it or how experienced you are. This is why we do trial periods when we sign a new client. I want us to prove that by having us by their side that not only is the amount of money they are going to receive is more, but that everything around their career is stronger and protected. When we prove ourselves, there is never an issue of paying commission or asking a client to commit to us… and if we can’t prove it, then we can’t have anything to complain about.
Are we needed?
The creator economy isn’t removing the need for representation.
It’s increasing it.
Because the bigger the opportunity, the bigger the risk.
And no group of talent is facing bigger opportunities or bigger risks than creators.
The Agent is NOT dead.
We’re needed more than ever.
📥 I would love to hear from you. Any ideas, thoughts and feedback via alex@intertalentgroup.com are always most welcome.
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See you next time.
Alex
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