Hello again friends. Thanks for listening to Winfluence, the Influence Marketing Podcast.
It’s been a minute! For those keeping track, the last time I posted an episode of Winfluence was two years ago. I hope you haven’t missed me, but I also hope you’re excited to hear something new from my thoughts on influence marketing.
And, as a measure of transparency, know that the only reason I stopped regular episodes of the show is … well … it worked. I’ve been blessed with a full roster of client work in that time and just didn’t have the bandwidth to keep up the pace.
But that means I have two more years of experience dealing with the day to day of influence marketing strategy, campaign management, execution and measurement. I’ve also been teaching students an influence strategy course at the University of Louisville, so it’s not like I’m coming back to the podcast without new ideas or fresh perspective, so I hope you’ll appreciate that.
And, to be realistic, I can’t promise I’m going to churn out a weekly episode from now on and be right back in the saddle. Let’s just say when I’ve got to something to share with you, I will. So your subscription is still worth holding onto. And I won’t be throwing countless episodes at you just to stay top of mind.
For those of you who enjoy a good Jason Falls rant now and then, you’ll be delighted to hear that those moments are really the ones when I have something to say and share. So expect less interviews and more grumpy old man wishing the world would be better.
When a new episode of Winfluence pops into your feed … It’ll be fun, for sure.
What burr in my saddle has me champing at the bit to return to the podcast?
Talent managers are killing the creator economy.
Talent managers can be very useful to creators. They take a lot of the busy-ness of the creator’s tasks away so they can focus on creating. Talent manager can also be quite useful to brands, agencies and consultants like me who often handle the brand-side tasks of finding, contracting, directing, coordinating and measuring a creator’s collaboration.
Some creators can be hard to just get hold of, much less work with. Talent managers make that easier and better, and are really good at making sure the creator crosses all the Ts and dots all the Is on deliverables and such.
Sadly, the frequency with which I’ve been dealing with those types of productive, useful, delight-to-work-with talent managers is dwindling.
And it isn’t my opinion or even experience in working directly with them that is driving this. It’s that of the creators themselves.
In the last year, I have had more than one … in fact a good half-dozen creators reach out to me and ask that I communicate directly with them rather than their talent manager. Now six in a year might not sound like a big number, but that is so unusual that the first time it happened, I called around to see if anyone else was experiencing this on the brand or consultant side. Only one other person reported a similar experience.
When I rechecked with the same group a few weeks ago, everyone reported at least one and in most cases many more than one, creator had asked to circumvent the talent manager.
The total numbers I’m aware of may be small, but they speak volumes of a growing trend.
In every case that I have direct knowledge of, the reason the creators are asking brands and their representatives to cut out the talent manager is the same:
The creator is getting less money and less brand collaborations than before they hired them.
So you have to ask why?
I’ve talked to several talent managers … some small, independent ones, others who should be described as talent agents more than managers … the ones at the big firms people in the industry know. And, of course, I’ve been doing this a long time, so I understand the space well enough to know why certain things happen.
The primary reason a creator would get less money and less deals when they hire a talent manager is because the talent manager is in it for themselves, not the creator. Most talent managers are paid on a commission basis. That means they only get paid more if the deals they secure for their creators are more. So what they do right out of the gate? Raise the creator’s prices.
You know what the talent manager doesn’t do? Increase the creator’s audience or effectiveness. So right out of the gate, the same creator is asking for more money for the same audience size, content quality, engagement rate and so on.
Do you raise your rates without reason or justification? Probably not. I can’t think of many industries where that happens without the subsequent fallout of less money, less deals.
In this construct, the creator is hiring someone to take a certain amount of work off their shoulders. This someone is then changing the creator’s pricing to ensure they – the someone – is paid optimally.
Think about that scenario in any other walk of life. When you hire an accountant to manage your books, does your accountant then increase your prices 20%, likely without your knowledge or approval, to pay their fees?
I’ve got more to say about that, but we’ll save that topic for a future rant.
Raising the creator’s fees without an increase in effectiveness or efficiency to justify it, is simply the talent manager eliminating a percentage of brands that will be able to afford, or have interest in working with the creator. If we were paying $10,000 for this creator to collaborate with us last month, we aren’t going to pay 40% more this month without a corresponding 40% jump in performance.
And then there’s the 80-20 rule. Talent managers, like any other professional in a capitalist society, wish to spend most of their time with the clients that account for most of their money. When a new creator comes into the fold, they’re not likely developed to the point of demanding high dollars from brands, so the talent manager is going to focus on the established creators that do.
As long as the new creators are thrown enough bones over the course of the year to not leave, the talent manager hasn’t failed. And they’ve probably taken home a nice chunk of commission that benefits the haves and ignores the have nots.
This wouldn’t be such a hot-button issue for me if it weren’t for the fact that the creators that are being priced out of their market are not the ones with hundreds of thousands of followers and a big bankroll of brand deals. They’re the 25,000 to 100,000 follower type micro and mid-tier climbers who can’t afford to lose deals. They’re teetering on the edge of being able to really earn from their content, talent and audiences and one less brand deal next year might be the difference between quitting their day job and not being able to afford to.
Talent Managers who follow the strict rationales of capitalism, are in it for themselves first and everyone else if they’ve gotten theirs, and expect the brands to pay them rather than their clients, are killing the creator economy. The middle class of content creators can’t move up if someone is trying take more than their fair share of the pie.
So how do we serve those creators better?
I don’t advocate for getting rid of talent managers. But I will advocate for educating creators so they can get rid of the greedy ones.
First creators need to understand they hire and pay the talent manager. The brands they work with hire the creators. We don’t mind working with your staff rather than you directly, but it’s none of our business what you pay them.
That means the creator-talent manager relationship is such that the creator calls the shots. Insist the talent manager copy you on every proposal or even email exchange with the brands in question. It is to your benefit they negotiate up, but make sure they aren’t negotiating you out as a result.
Creators should require a new talent manager to freeze prices until or unless there is audience or engagement growth to justify it. That is the only way a brand will accept a sudden jump in price. And if you say, “let’s just go out and find a dumb brand to pay more for the same thing” … well, you’re a greedy prick and that will come back to bite you in the ass.
Creators should also negotiate a flat management fee for the administrative services the talent management professionals provide, then pay a lower commission as an upside to compensation. I’ve seen talent manager deals that pay them up to 40% of what the creator’s brand deals. That’s ludicrous in my opinion. List the things the talent manager does for you … things like scheduling your posts, responding on your behalf, managing paid promotions of your content, managing your content calendar. Now price those activities to virtual assistants or other community management professionals and see if you can’t get a better deal on the work-work. Reward the talent manager for the sales-sales.
And yes, I should clarify that not all talent managers are bad eggs. Many are wonderful to work with and do right by their clients without hurting anyone else. Some do bad things because they’re trained that way, “it’s just the way it’s done”, but they have no ill intent. I’ve had the good fortune to work with a lot of really good ones over the years who understand that everyone has to benefit in the relationship – the creator, the talent manager, the brand and the consultant or agency that represents that side, too.
But when one becomes two, becomes four, becomes eight in an industry that isn’t big enough to ignore exponential growth of a hurtful trend, we have to pay attention and do something about it.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Especially if you’re a talent manager or their client, the creator. If you’re the latter, are you getting less money or less deals after hiring a new talent manager? I’d love to know about it and yes, I’ll protect your anonymity. I have no intention of singling anyone out. I only want the influence marketing space to get better for creators, brands and those of us in between.
Email me at [email protected].
And I know you know someone who might get fired up hearing this little tome. Share this episode with them. Send them to winfluencepod.com or the direct link to this episode which is jasonfalls.co/talentmanagerangst.
Thanks for sticking with a largely dormant feed for the last couple of years. I hope to talk to you again a lot sooner than the last gap between meetings.
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