The Worst Profession for Long-Term Success: a blog about being an agent that’s not looking out for his clients best interest.
I am an agent. I sell things. I sell real estate, insurance, and I am a stock broker. But first and foremost I am a salesperson and have been since the day I was born. My family is full of salespeople. My father sold cars for 40 years, and my mother was always trying to sell me on something or other. And it worked, I fell victim to her schemes numerous times throughout the course of my life.
What is your job? What do you do for a living? How do you make money? You answer these questions with pride in your voice because you like what you do or perhaps you simply need to make money to put food on the table so you are proud of yourself for having a job at all. But if you are like most people on this planet, your profession can be categorized as one which has the potential to generate money but not wealth. And the difference between wealth and money is huge! Money comes and goes, but wealth can last forever if properly managed and invested wisely.
The average person’s profession is that of employee, whether they work in construction
Agents are a lot like politicians; they (should) provide services to people. For example, an agent might help his client get more money in his contract, or get traded to a better team. An agent is supposed to represent you and do what’s best for you, but many agents do what’s best for them.
An agent that does what is best for him is good for short-term success, but not long-term success. By doing what’s best for himself he can make more money by getting more clients or having his clients sign longer contracts. But the downfall of this is that he will lose all credibility with his clients and future ones when they see that he doesn’t have their interest at heart.
I love it when agents do what’s best for their clients because I know that they are looking out for my long-term success as well as theirs. I have a great relationship with my agent and I know that he will always do what’s best for me and in turn, me doing what’s best for him will be beneficial to both of us in the long run.
A lot of people in the sports world have a problem with agents. And I can’t blame them. There are plenty of bad apples out there. But if you think about it, who wouldn’t want to be an agent?
You don’t have to be smart. You don’t have to know anything about sports. You don’t even need a college degree (although most agents do). All you need is some connections and a little bit of luck.
You get paid ridiculous amounts of money for doing nothing but picking up the phone and handing out checks. You can work from home and set your own hours. The work is easy and fun, and the job security is great. If you’re lucky enough to snag a couple of high-profile clients, you can make millions right away and retire in your early 30s.
Who wouldn’t want that? And that’s why so many people become agents these days. It’s an easy profession to get into, even though it doesn’t take much skill or talent to be successful at it.
But there’s one thing that most agents don’t realize: being an agent is not the best profession for long-term success.
If you’re an agent, the best thing for your client might be a 30-year deal. It’s certainly not the best thing for you, but it is the best thing for your client.
If you’re an agent, the best thing for your client might be a 30-year deal. It’s certainly not the best thing for you, but it is the best thing for your client.
And if your client has a great first year and gets traded to a team that doesn’t want to keep him, that��s bad. Even if he gets traded to a better team and has a great second year, that’s still probably bad. If he stays healthy and successful with his new team, then maybe it’s good after about 8 years or so.
If your client has a great first year and gets traded to a team that does want to keep him, then great! That’s exactly what you wanted!
The problem here is that agents are incentivized to take risks that aren’t in their clients’ long-term interest.
We are all familiar with the common phrase “think globally, act locally”. Today, I want to bring up a different take that’s been on my mind for a while called “think locally, act globally”.
This is the world we are living in now. For those of you who don’t know what I mean by this phrase, I’ll simplify it for you:
People think in a smaller frame of reference and act in a larger frame of reference (because they can get away with it). Let me give you an example that relates to my industry and something I see every single day:
Agent Charlie Baker represents two clients. He knows both clients well from having worked with them for many years. He knows one client wants to move to the city and another wants to move out of the city into more suburban areas. He has agreed not to represent both buyers at the same time when buying a home because it would be a conflict of interest.
A few weeks pass by and Agent Charlie finds out he has been shortlisted by both clients, who have independently decided to make an offer on one of his listings. The listing is a large family home located in the suburbs. The client that wants to stay in
I am writing this post to be read by my fellow sports agents. This is a message that needs to be repeated over and over again, because as of right now, we are the worst profession in terms of long-term client retention.
The fact that we have such a high turnover rate with our clients is alarming. With every new negotiation we engage in, it seems that each of us has the odds stacked against us. In the case of the NFLPA, the union has made it difficult for us to stay in good standing with them unless we are willing to “play ball” and do things their way.
In an effort to make it easier for my fellow agents and I to keep our clients, I would like to propose several ideas on how we can improve our retention rates.
First of all, I feel it is imperative that we stop lying about what we can do for our clients. I believe that honesty is one of the most important aspects of building a strong relationship between an agent and his client. Even though some of my colleagues may feel differently, I believe that often times honesty can be more beneficial than deception.
For example, if an agent tells his client that he will get him drafted higher than any other agent, he will likely lose his client
Hollywood is a town built on greed and fear. Greed for money, fame, power and sex. Fear of not getting those things.
The question is: why would you want to be part of that world? If you’re an actor, there’s absolutely no reason to get a manager or an agent.
If you’re a writer, I can understand the desire for a manager. But if you’re writing original material, it’s never going to get made, so what’s the point?
If you’ve written anything based on real life, or something original and want to write a spec script based on that material, then by all means hire an agent to sell it.
But if you’re writing anything based on someone else’s property – a novel or a comic book or something – don’t fool yourself into thinking your agent is going to help you sell it. He’s not. The chances are zero. Nonexistent. Nada. Zip. You’re better off emailing the producers yourself or submitting your script through sites like Inktip because at least then you won’t have to pay anyone 15% of your earnings for doing nothing but taking up space in their inbox (which is most likely where your script will end up
