Developing Your Roster (Part 1)
A good roster will have an identity of its own. It will form a cohesive group of artists and the agent will become known for the artists they work with. This will make the agent’s work less chaotic and reduce the number of talent buyers they need to work with.
Artist rosters are not a static list, in fact, they develop and evolve through the career of the agent. By making choices about who to represent and who not to represent, the agent can shape their roster.
To approach this ideal state, It’s important that agents are proactive and discerning in curating their rosters – that way they can reach their personal goals more quickly.
In this post let’s think about the agent’s goals for a minute…
We’ll get on to the detail in the next post…
Your Income Goal
This is the amount of money you want to earn from your roster. Agent Freelancers – divide your goal by your company % rate to get the amount of commission you need to make across the year to reach your income goal. This won’t happen overnight – it will probably take a year or two. Remember; Rome wasn’t built in a day!
Staffers FYI – this is the main variable we look at when offering agents PAYE roles in the company – it’s not the only one, but it’s the main one.
Number of Bookings Goal
Show dates tend to follow a seasonal pattern, but your work continues throughout the year. Focus on the number of bookings you make in a month, rather than the number of shows that are taking place in a month. It’s a much better measure of how well you are working.
Show Average Commisison Goal
Take your commission goal, divide it by the number of shows you think you can book in a year. This will give you the show average you are aiming for. Of course, this will vary wildly between artists – nevertheless this can inform your choice of artists! Lower average => more shows to book => more work => burn out.
Enthusiasm Goal
You artists must inspire you, they don’t have to be the music you turn to when you get home or in the car, but they do need to make you want to get up in the morning. This will doubtless be a combination of the music and the satisfaction you get from seeing how they create culture and sheer pleasure in their audience. Your enthusiasm goal needs to be really high to take on an act.
Achievement Goal
Your roster needs to get you back to your income goal. To some extent this is witchcraft – you need to see into the future and decide if the artist you are about to take on is going to grow and develop. But it’s also scientific – remember all of the factors we looked at in the post“Taking On New Talent”? well all of them play into this. On top of that, it’s not just about the money – You may be well placed to give the artist a platform and believe they deserve it.
Enjoyment Goal
Are you satisfied that you are contributing to the culture of a generation? You really have to love what you do. Otherwise, go and do something else… Simples.
