Help Me, Help You!

Personal interaction has died in today's Hustle Generation of execs and this must evolve in order to bring a better creative environment on both sides of the deal. I own a Digital Management company representing online creators from social media that intersect all platforms.?I have more than 20 years in the business from film and tv production to representation.??However, in the last few years I have had to retrain myself to intersect a new generation of buyers and executives.?

As a former agent at CAA, the art of a curated list was paramount.?Agents and managers were known for their taste and ability to help executives and buyers to think outside the box.?“Doing Lunch” was critical and your workflow consisted of making your out bound calls in the morning, hitting your lunch meetings and then returning your inbound calls in the afternoon.?There was conversation, the tone of your voice created confidence inspiration and imagination.?

These moments are now gone in a work pipeline that is done over text or email or platform submissions.?The Pandemic killed the lunch meeting and today’s execs of the Hustle economy don’t have time for phone calls probably because they never used them in the first place for talking.?Today it is all about speed of execution and a system that has been set up for conflict avoidance.?

With influencer marketing, there are components to a campaign: casting, presenting to the brand for selects, offers for the talent, contracting and execution. ???When a campaign goes into casting for talent, managers and agents get the spec and we are asked to send ideas and give rates.???The coordinators on the agency side, sift through all these submissions and hopefully our clients are chosen.?At this point in the process there is not one physical conversation.

Here is where both sides lose.?On the rep’s side, without guidance, a talent might lose out because the rep quoted a high rate.?On the Brand/Marketing Agency side, they might have missed out on a talent who would have done the deal regardless of getting a high quote.?The missing component in this process is a level of communication that never happens.?If both sides don’t talk to each other, the Brand can lose out on getting a great artist to work with.?What happens now is that campaigns will get filled but we begin to see the same faces and the art of the curation and a breakout campaign falls to the wayside due to the speed of execution.

For those social agencies and executives filling these campaigns, let me say one thing.?“Help Me Help You!”??Take a moment to once in a while hop on a call and hear out a manager.???I have always taught my teams to have a level of taste and curate a short list that gives the reason for “why” a client is a good fit.?

I implore the manager of digital clients to push the buyers to get on a call with the reps.?They might hear some great ideas they never thought of.?By hopping on a call, I was able to get an agency to understand how two dancers can take talking points and turn them into movement which became a very successful campaign .??When sending a list, I try to I send some names that are fastballs down the middle hitting the spec and then others who are a little outside the box getting the buyer to think creatively.?I do this because the outside of the box ideas show how you as a rep are thinking.?We also help expand the buyer’s creativity.?When that buyer goes into a meeting with our list, they appear to be thinking more creatively and it sparks a discussion.?Part of our job as reps is to make the buyers look good to their teams and their bosses.?This can only happen if there is a conversation that takes place.?Within a call we can ask about mandates and problems they might have with a campaign.?Let us be problem solvers.

Today there are so many social agencies working for the same brands.?Most of these agencies work on different margins so you could do a deal for Nord VPN and get three different rates from different agencies.?Another challenge is that all agencies want your roster or submissions sent in different ways. Some like an excel spreadsheet of a roster, some like media kits and others like names hot linked in an email.?My favorite comment was “Please do not to attach a file because if I have to download one more attachment I will jump out of a window.”

Who is the party that loses in this kind of environment??The actual brand client that is paying the money!?Influencer Marketing is all about authenticity and an emotional connection.?When the process boils down to just checking boxes, the unicorns that can make a program pop and go viral stay hidden in the forest and we begin to constantly see the same faces coming out of the agencies.?

For the buyers, we understand you are working with budgets but it helps if you give us guidelines.?When we are asked to quote rates blindly, we will always go high because part of our job is to get the most revenue for our clients.?However, sometimes if we talk, we can help each other.?I once quoted for a client and it was way out of budget for the agency/brand.??The agency exec literally said, that’s too much and we need to move on.?Lucky enough their number was in their signature.?I texted first to get their attention and then we called.?When we spoke, they said we are too far apart and didn’t want to counter.?I asked what the budget was and they told me.?It was low, however, I told them that I wanted that brand on my client’s portfolio.?The value of the brand affiliation would help me level up the category of brands for my client and we did the deal.?It helped this exec look good for their team and it paid off in my ability to help attract a higher level of brands for my client.?It was a win for both sides and never would have happened had we not connected and had a call to understand each other’s goals.?

When my buyers email me asking about influencers for campaigns, they ask me if I have clients that hit a particular demo have a certain level of engagement and their rate.?Sometimes I don’t even know what the brand is!!!?If I reply and my rate is too high, more often than not, I am ghosted and they move on swiping left making me feel like some Tinder Date.?

This kind of work flow does not do the brand client any justice.?What is lost is the art of curation, taste and out of the box thinking.??Our job as reps is to help our clients but also our buyers look good for their clients and their teams.??Sometimes if my client likes a brand, they might do a campaign for less money.?But how do we know if the buyer passes because I quoted too high a rate??I’m not playing any games but as a rep, if I’m asked my clients rate, I can’t undersell them.?But if I understand the budget first, if there is an affinity for a brand or we can make something cool or fun, we just might do the campaign.?

Without a conversation, we can’t be helpful and what will happen is influencer marketing will start to bore the audiences and work against the goals of the advertisers.?

A conversation with a CPG company who wanted to use royalty free music soon understood the value of us helping them find a music artist to make an original sound that didn’t overwhelm the budget. ??When we combined the original sound with the main creator, it proved to be a winning combination and a successful campaign .??

As execs have been working remotely for 2.5 years, the water cooler conversation and the quick ideas that happen passing in the hall or stopping by a colleague’s office have been lost.??Creative thinking has diminished to the speed of execution.??The sales trip to meet buyers has also died because remote workers from one agency can live all over the country or even international.

While I have adapted in many ways from working remotely and using offshore execs for certain tasks and coordination, I implore the reps of influencers to push the outside of the box ideas to your buyers and work to get them on the phone.?On the buyer’s side, I ask that you take five minutes to have a call and make a personal connection with some reps who have interesting rosters.?The art of the conversation can open up a range of possibilities.?

We are there to support and build together.?As the hustle generation likes to leapfrog jobs in their career this becomes another reason why it is good to have relationships with reps who talk to all the buyers.??We hear a lot of information, and we can be helpful getting one of these execs their new job.?From campaigns to job openings.?It is always great to help someone find their next gig.?The way to do that is through communicating on a more personal level.

Our job is to be problem solvers for our buyers.?This cannot happen without communication and an openness to figure it out together.?Repping talent is an art and a craft.?I see a lot of companies hiring people out of college and calling them managers.?That is a disservice to the artist and to the agencies.?A good manager gets vested in their talent and looks at the big picture.?A few of my clients, I have repped when they couldn’t rub two nickels together.?I helped with their rent or purchase some better equipment and now they are buying new cars and shopping for houses.?

When media agencies understand the passion we have for our clients, they should feel confident enough to listen, hop on a call and collaborate with us to help them with their initiatives.?We can help make our buyers stars as well in their companies.?The buyers are important to us and when that relationship grows, we make this industry more functional and sustainable. ??The multi-generational business world needs to evolve to include an element of in-person negotiation and communication.??So, feel free to text me, and let’s do lunch!?