All language subtitles for 3. Manager Agent

So talking about what I do for Greg, I'm a manager, right?

And I come from a commercial filmmaking background.

So I'm a sort of producer meets manager.

And that means basically that I run

all of the commercial aspects of what Greg does.

How does that differ from being an agent?

Sometimes I am referred to as his agent, and quite often,

I guess I do do the job of an agent.

So the difference between an agent and a manager,

an agent is there purely and simply to to get you work

through their own network or contacts

or through just going out and selling

that's what they're there to do, right?

Is they represent you commercially and they bring you work.

A manager is much more a sort of business partner

and a kind of operations person.

So in our business, a producer.

So I make everything happen

and I'm a sounding board for all of Greg's ideas,

we agree the strategy for the business together,

and then I help him deliver it.

You know, Greg has talked on the course about

whether or not you want to have a manager or an agent,

and also this idea that you should always be

your own manager/agent regardless of

who you're working with.

And I thought it might be interesting to talk about

how we do work together.

So I'll sometimes call it a sort of marriage

or even a sort of dysfunctional marriage.

And he calls us a, he sometimes calls us a two-headed beast.

And I think that's probably quite a useful insight

in the sense that where we work best

is the things that Greg either has

very little interest in doing, or perhaps is weaker on,

happen to be the things that I'm longer on and vice versa.

So together, we're quite complete and comprehensive.

And so I think the advice for somebody starting out is that,

you know, be realistic about obviously

what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are,

and find ways to plug those weaknesses.

And when you're starting out, what that might mean,

is that whilst you don't like writing emails

or responding to inquiries

or reaching out for new business or whatever it is,

you have to take it on to some degree

because nobody else is gonna do it for you.

And then of course, later on in your career,

when you do start to look for people that you can work with,

you can be quite precise about what they need to do.

I think that's different for every person.

So if I look at Greg, it would be very easy to think,

oh, you know, Greg's obviously a photographer, right,

he takes pictures.

A massive part of what makes him unique

and so successful is all the other stuff

that he's really serious and passionate about.

Like Greg's relentless, he never, never stops.

You know, he's always working on some aspect of his business

and his career.

And that could be researching new technology,

it could be looking at work of other photographers,

it could be thinking about clients

that we might wanna reach out to,

it could be scheduling the next chunk of time

to make sure that we're absolutely

getting the best out of it,

it could be consulting some of

the really really interesting people that he knows

but the important point is that it never ever stops.

And invariably, his success is due in large part to that.

Greg's massively personable,

he's absolutely brilliant with people, I would say,

without a doubt, second to nobody that I've ever met.

And you can't, we can't,

we are not pretending that we can bottle that or teach it,

but making yourself as personable

and sort of, you know

really when you're with somebody,

really being there and looking them in the eye

and listening.

and people will warm to that, and they will respond to that,

and they will remember that.

My wife has a great line,

which is people won't remember what they say,

they'll remember how you made them feel.

And the personality that Greg brings to his work

is very evocative of that.

Greg has said this to me before,

he said, as soon as I sort of feel comfortable

in a particular space or at a particular level,

I'm onto the next thing.

And you can see that when you look at his biography, right?

I mean, you know, you have to be restless

and relentlessly ambitious to be smuggled into war zones,

I think when you're sort of barely out of your teens, right?

And then the speed with which he sort of segues

and accumulates experience very quickly in his 20s,

speaks of restlessness and ambition.

And those are obviously really useful sorts of traits

if you wanna be successful.

You know there's another dynamic at play with Greg,

is that he's rightly enormously confident

in the work and what he's doing and his ability to do it.

And you can't walk into the situations that he does

unless you've got that confidence, right.

But at the same time, people need to like you,

and people need to wanna work with you

and people need to be happy when they see you.

So that confidence mustn't over spill to becoming arrogant.

and that's a really, it doesn't matter when, you know,

I'm pretty sure Greg would've been similar in those respects

when he started out in his career.

I think he's always believed in his ability,

and he's always been somebody that people love working with.

And, you know, if you only do two things right,

those two are gonna get you a long way.

I'm very lucky to work with Greg at this moment

in his career where he's put in decades of hard work,

hard and really good work.

And the situation for us now is that

not all, but the majority of the work, comes to us,

and it's obviously a very different proposition.

But both Greg and I have been in the situation

where you have to generate the work.

And it's all the same attributes

that are gonna make that happen.

A singular, creative vision that manifests really clearly

in your pictures, relentless hard work,

basic professional skills, a passion for what you're doing.

You could say that it sounds obvious

that you need those things,

but it's remarkable how many people are failing

on one or more of those criteria.

And if you can put it all together

in a singular portfolio,

hard work, and generally you're giving people

a good experience and being savvy about social media,

then you've got an exciting career ahead of you.