Sometimes it can be stressful being an agent. There is a whole lot of pressure on you to keep parents happy. We have a lot of kids to manage and time can be limited.
With that being said I think it would be safe to say every agent has a list of questions that automatically causes an internal eye roll. I think sometimes parents don’t realize they are one of many.
The same 5 questions being asked by every talent daily can become a bit exhausting.
Especially when they take the time to write out welcome packets, and blog that give the answer to their questions.
So what are those questions that every agent hates being asked ? Glad you asked.
1. Don’t ask your agent if they received the calltime unless it’s the night before the booking. If it’s Afterhours and you still haven’t heard anything feel free to ask your agent. I promise we will not keep your calltime from you. We are waiting patiently for it as well and you can rest assured if we received it you will have it immediately. So please try to avoid asking unless it’s the night before. Chances are we are just as anxiously awaiting the call time.
2. Don’t ask your agent if your kid booked the job if you haven’t heard anything yet. Again, same as above. We will never hold a booking from you.In fact you will typically receive your booking within 5 minutes or less once we have received it. I get it that your anxious but try to be patient. If you haven’t heard please assume your child didn’t book this job.
3. What’s the rate ? If we didn’t include the rate in the details then we don’t have it. Please don’t ask your agent the rate if it wasn’t given to you yet or it’s just a submission. Many times we submit without having the full rate and we are waiting as well. We always include all the details we have right away. So if something is missing it’s because we haven’t received it.
4. Why isn’t my kid booking ? Please don’t ask this especially if your child has mediocre photos and you haven’t updated your child’s profile. We also don’t always know why your child isn’t working. Agents do not pick the talent. The client always picks the talent so we most likely don’t have a good anwser as to why it wasn’t your child. If your looking for advice on if there is anything you can do to help your child’s success rate you can politely email your agent asking what you can do to help increase your child’s booking potential.
5. Please do not ask your agent if they submitted your child. Please for the love of god don’t ask if your child is being submitted. There is this common rumor in the industry that parents spread that agents only submit their favorite kids. This is ludicrous! It costs us nothing to submit your child and we don’t always know what the client is looking for. So it be hooves us to submit everyone that fits the category asked, as we never know who the client will choose. I promise you guys agents do not only submit their favorites. Some kids just book more than others because their look or personality is inline with what clients tend to look for. We would sooner release a child from contract than keep them in the system and not submit them.
I know as parents these seem like super common questions all or most of you have asked at one point or another. I totally understand why they are asked and you guys mean no harm. If we were only representing one child it wouldn’t be such an issue to be asked the above 5 questions. Unfortunately we represent hundreds of kids and are asked these questions daily, it can certainly become a bit exhausting. I mean the best by providing this info to you as I’m trying to help you have the best relationship with your agent as you possibly can , even if it isn’t Sprout 🌱. Be mindful that we are insanely busy and would love more than anything to have the time to answer every question you have ,but if it’s one of the 5 above I would write it down on a piece of paper and throw it away before you ask it.