How to know if you need an agent (checklist)
Here’s a quiz.
True or False: To get sponsors interested in you, you need an agent.
True or False: To create demand for yourself in the market, you need an agent.
True or False: To get booked for paid appearances, you need an agent.
The answer to all of these is “false”. The perception in the sports market is that if you are a professional athlete, then you need to have an agent to help you grow your brand and get deals.
But this couldn’t be further from the truth.
So what do most athletes need if not an agent?
Most athletes need to focus on investing in and building their brand.
As Steve Forbes (Editor in Chief of Forbes Magazine) has said, “Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.”
Below is a checklist for athletes to realistically benchmark themselves on where they are at in terms of needing an agent to help them manage their business.
The Pro-Athlete Business and Brand Checklist (do you already have the below?)
Brand Strategy: Have you developed your brand strategy that clearly answers “here’s who I am and what I’m about”, to the market? This will guide your social media, website design and the types of business opportunities you will engage in.
Website: Do you have a website setup? 99.9% of the world’s businesses have websites - athletes are no different. It’s important to make it easy for people to conduct business with you. Your website is how many future deals and business opportunities will come finding you.
Social Media: Do you post regularly at a cadence of 1 post (IG feed, not stories) every 1-3 days? This is pretty much the standard that paying sponsors are looking for when they invest in an athlete.
High Resolution Photos: Do you have a library or folder of high-res images of yourself containing a mix of lifestyle and sport photos that you own the rights to. This is achieved by hiring your own photographer and doing a photo shoot.
Endorsements/References: Do you have endorsements or testimonials from people who have worked with you in the past?
Consistent requests: Are you currently receiving requests for paid opportunities twice per month at a rate of $5,000 - $10,000 or higher.
If you don’t have many of the above items - this will give you a realistic goal to shoot for. Until you hit this threshold, the best place to focus your energy is on building your brand and generating demand for yourself in the market. The actual growth of your market mostly falls to the athlete. It is the responsibility of the athlete to create demand.
Malcom Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and one of the highest paid speakers in the world, has said:
“The break for me in speaking came when I realized it required 10x the amount of effort I was putting in”
Focus on building your brand first. Use this checklist as a guide. The deals will come and eventually you will have so much business that you need an agent to help you manage it all.
