Friday, May 04, 2012
Size of Your Team
This may seem self-evident, but bears writing down. There is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to people helping someone realize their vision. When a company is small starting out, perhaps as a solo operation, each new support person, someone that doesn't do the main operations of the company (example: sales, marketing, etc.) can build the bottom line and the success of the company in a big way. Part of this is a function of numbers and partly the effect of realities of business, any business. Adding a sales person to a thriving business that didn't have any can hugely impact the number and dollar amount of sales, no matter the industry. But as any organization adds even more people, the value the last person added is less than the previously added people. Again, this is partly due to numbers and also the realities of business.
An over-simplified analysis is that 2 people are twice the person-hours/focus/ideas of 1 person, person number 3 adds only half again the person-hours/focus/ideas that the first 2 had without person number 3, and person number 4 adds only 1/3 again the value and so forth. 1 more marketing person added to a multi-billion dollar transnational corporation doesn't add an overwhelming amount of value to the bottom line. This holds for actors and their organizations too. Agents are sales people, publicists are somewhere between public relations, marketing and outside sales, and classes and personal trainers are perhaps product development for actors. The actor with a 6 or 7 digit quote ought to build a team of a different size, and possibly functions, than the actor with a smaller quote not only because the commissions and fees of a larger team are more expensive, but the acting business of one actor benefits from a differently sized team than another actor's acting business.
At the solo level, you might be very happy making a living gigging at certain kinds of venues and being supported by a given audience. On the other hand, to support a manager, a band and a label, you can't just add a few more fans. You need different venues, different gigs, different revenue streams. If you can't (or don't want to) get to that new level, the new team isn't going to help, and it might destroy everything you've built
(from What's the right size? The quantum mechanics of growth).
Labels: agents, inspiration
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this posted by David August at 2:58 AM 
comments: I eliminated some of my team (a manager) when I got on Performertrack. Then I put some of that $$ into a per project publicist. My career has vastly changed with top of shows and bigger paychecks. If you don't know about it, you should check it out. There's so much WE CAN DO!
# posted by 
: 10:30 AM
