John Goldsmith.

Why do you need an agent? Why do you need someone to negotiate on your behalf, review your legal contracts and advise you in your career choices? You are smart, you understand business, you know the trajectory of your career; so why pay someone ten percent of your income to do what you can do for yourself?

Simply put, an agent is an expert, someone who deals daily in the marketplace and has a broad overview of an individual artist's place within the context of an entire industry. A good agent is a specialist, who knows the craft of the deal as well as the temperature of the marketplace. If you are buying a house you would likely use a Realtor to guide you through the negotiations and financing process. After all, you don't buy a house every week, but your Realtor metaphorically does. Similarly, a talent agent with good deal flow knows what to ask on your behalf and what hard fought deal points, pioneered by other deals, can be incorporated into your contract. If I could draw or write half as well as the talent I represent, I would be in a different profession. The thing I do better than my clients, however, is negotiate on their behalf and understand the intricacies of all their deals.

Agency Benefits
A good agency creates packaging opportunities and synergy among their clients. Being a part of an agency also enhances networking by affording you greater contact with your contemporaries. A good agency should function like a club with the agent introducing you to your peers and encouraging clients to work together. An agent who places a story editor on a show then has opportunities to influence his client to hire other agency clients to write individual scripts.

Another critical reason to have an agent is that people like dealing with people they have dealt with in the past. A good agent has a cordial relationship with the business affairs executives against whom they negotiate. A good agent will fight for your rights hard, but will not ask for things that are blatantly out of the realm of possibility. Think of the last time you played tennis with an amateur. I am sure you found it rather frustrating as you never knew how the ball would come back across the net. Similarly, business affairs executives like negotiating with experienced agents rather than talent. At least with two experienced professionals negotiating there is a rhythm and efficiency that eliminates ambiguity and hidden problems.

As the cliché goes, a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. That same adage applies to talent who represent themselves and are forced to talk business rather than creative issues. In doing this they either do not push hard enough for a fair deal or they push too hard and alienate the executives with whom they are working. Agents play the role of "bad cop," allowing talent to get what they want without damaging their professional relationships. Further, most studios will not deal with talent unless they are represented. The reasons for this are threefold. An agent serves as a pre-screener for the studio. Generally, studio executives know that, if a well respected agent sends in a client, that client has the creative endorsement of the agency. Secondly, there is the issue of copyright protection. Studios are wrongly sued for copyright infringement with great frequency. With an agent in the picture, this concern is assuaged as there is a third party that can trace the history of a project. Finally, an agent will assure that negotiations will proceed in a professional manner rather than bogging down in unimportant or irrelevant issues.