An Agent Must Be On a Good Team, Too

Teams excel when their athletes understand the importance of teamwork.  This is no different for agents.  In structuring your agency, teamwork allows you to be effective and serve your clients well.  This industry offers a lot of services to athletes and is extremely competitive.  Having a team with expertise in multiple disciplines not only gives you the ability to offer those services, but positions you against the competition.

The first thing that comes to mind when putting a team together in my industry is diversity.  I want to offer expertise and experience from multiple fields to my athletes.  This includes areas such as business, negotiation, media, public relations, marketing and health and nutrition.  This is a simple concept--the stronger the team is, the stronger the product or service being offered.

Having a diverse team does not necessarily require many employees.  In some cases, less team members can be the best choice if they are the right team members.  For example, Drew Rosenhaus is one of the most successful and notable NFL agents.  He has a team of 5 (www.rosenhaussports.com/staff.php).  Together they have developed one of the most successful agencies in sports.

There is another level to putting together a team that I believe is overlooked, and is not on a resume.  It is personality and strengths.  This is separate from your disciplines or education.  These type of things are more rooted in who you are and your make-up as a person.  My eyes were opened to this by a company called the Boosterthon Fun Run (http://boosterthon.com/).  They are a leadership development company that bring character programs and fundraising to schools.  I was thoroughly impressed with their hiring process where they put every candidate through three tests: Meyers Briggs (http://www.myersbriggs.org/), StrengthsFinder 2.0 (www.strengthsfinder.com) and Kolbe Index (http://www.kolbe.com/).  These tests reveal such things as how you work and process information and what your strengths are.  This information can be utilized to better understand teammates and effectively position within a company.

When I put my team together I plan to asses both their disciplines and experience along with their personality and strengths.

Lastly, practicing solid communication amongst your team is of vital importance.  In the agent business you are constantly having to communicate effectively with athletes, coaches, other agents, GM’s, team executives, scouts, marketers and decision-makers.  If you cannot communicate effectively within your own team, you will surely be unable to do so  outside of your team.  The key to this is information and consistency.  It is important for a team to meet consistently and be on the same page.  Information and understanding lead the way to effective communication.

I look forward to having my team help athletes succeed with theirs.