8 Questions to ask when building a roster for your Influencer Talent Agency

I’m an award winning Influencer Talent Manager because of my roster. Your roster is the single most important part of your agency. You want to curate your roster to align with your agency’s goals, vision and values. You as an Influencer Talent Manager are only as good as the success of your clients. If you have a desirable roster of talent that brands want to collab with, awesome! If you don’t, well then not only will your inbox be quiet but your bank account won’t be happy either. 

Building your influencer talent roster 

Building an awesome roster takes intention, focus and commitment. You have to know clearly what type of Influencer you’re looking for based on their content, follower count or personality. 

Honestly, it takes a lot of work and persistence as the internet is flooded with Influencer Talent Managers. Having a roster you love not only helps you have a successful Influencer Talent Management Agency but it will also ensure you have a blast being their Influencer Manager. 

Question 1: How many followers should your Influencers have?

Do you care about your talent’s follower count? Do you want to work with them because you like the idea of having influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers?  Maybe your talent even has celebrity status? Or do you prefer working with influencers with a smaller following?

There is no right or wrong answer, it’s up to you. Each profile of influencer comes with its own pros and cons. Personally I think there’s more opportunity for projects and budgets for talent between 25k-150k following on Instagram.  Once someone’s following size increases, their engagement rate goes down. That’s just fact. But budgets don’t increase in tandem with an increase in followers. 

The bigger the following of an influencer, it tends to be that they are less connected and engaged one on one with their audience. There seems to be less of a personal touch. 

It’s much harder to reply to 496 comments than it is to 27.  I wrote this article “How many followers do you need to be an Influencer” which will give you some more perspective on this.

Question 2: What age range of Talent do you want to work with? 

Different generations approach this work differently. Different generations on your roster bring different perspectives and skill sets for the entire roster to learn from. 

Your talent’s age is not something to be overlooked as I’ve found having a variety of generations to be hugely beneficial to my roster and agency. As I write this I’ve got Lorraine Ladish who is very open about her age as my eldest talent on my roster with the Boomer Generation.

In turn, Jessica Serna, who is my youngest talent on my roster as a Millennial. The rest of the roster is scattered in ages between those two women. Lorraine and Jessica are my two bookends as I like to call them. They both bring very interesting perspective and all of us in my agency learn a lot from each of them. 

If you’re bringing on talent and this is their first job or the only work they’ve known because they were born with an iphone in their hand & already online, consider this :  you may have to take on a heavier lift of teaching them about life, being professional & how the world operates. 

I was chatting with another talent manager awhile ago about how we got into this industry. Some of her first creators she signed were 15 years old when she signed them. They got big on Tiktok so not only did she manage their brand collabs but also had to nurture them into adulthood. That would have me running for the hills, but I share because maybe that’s for you. 

Question 3: Full Time vs Part Time Creators 

Will your influencers do this work on the side and have a more traditional 9-5  job or do they do this full time, 100% dedicated to being an influencer? Or are they a stay at home mom and do content creation on the side? There’s pros and cons to each. 

Honestly, it really depends on each Influencer,   how they handle their time and what you want on your roster. For me it gets to how committed, available and motivated they are to be successful with this work. Personally I love when people are doing this work full time. It means they’re available for work calls, agency gatherings and in person retreats. 

Question 4: What niche or verticals do you want to work in?

You’re going to be eating, sleeping and living this content. You’re always looking at your creator’s content to approve it, check it against the brief and then engage with it online. I’d encourage you to think about themes you like. Do you have to care? No, but I do think it’s worth picking an area of interest and starting there.

For example, I’m not interested in parenting, fashion or beauty content. Not my jam. No particular reason why but I personally don’t desire to work with any creators in that field as the content doesn’t grab my attention. And now that I’ve built my roster and my huge network of agency contacts, my strength in campaign connections falls more into food, travel and lifestyle with a touch of health & wellness. 

Question 5: Do you want to work with someone who is undiscovered or already established?

This is the question I say could make or break your influencer talent management agency in the future. If you partner with a lot of people who aren’t yet discovered, haven’t done a lot of paid brand deals yet and need a lot of your help it will impact your time and income.

You will be spending a lot of time on them before you see any financial reward. Not only are payment terms stretched out depending on your agreement. But it could be months, even a year before you are appropriately financially compensated for your time.

Keep in mind that if you’re growing someone’s brand, you won’t be able to charge higher rates. For an IG post at $1000 assuming your business model is 20% commission, earns you $200. 

When you’re starting your business and you have opportunities to manage people, you say yes! One of my Influencer Talent Manager Coaching clients was telling me how he said yes to opportunities so he could keep learning. 

Every entrepreneur has been there when we’ve said yes to opportunities that would very clearly be a no later on. You do what you gotta do to get things off the ground. The hustle is real. I get it. If someone is willing to take a risk on you as you get started, who are you to say no, right?

Perhaps you decide to take on one up and coming talent each quarter or every 6 months. I would encourage you to make sure you absorb the risk financially should it not pay off. Take that rising talent onto your roster with parameters on what the partnership looks like. Lay out a clear set of expectations of what they can expect from you and what you can expect from them along with milestones and metrics to track. 

Should you choose to work with talent that’s already established, in my opinion it’s more beneficial to both of you. You get compensated for your time spent on negotiating for them. They will be able to see the benefit of your hard work and having you on their team.

Question 6: Are they a friend or family member?

I highly recommend against taking on a client strictly because they’re your friend, neighbour or your cousin’s best friend and you want to help them.

You’re launching an influencer talent management agency. You have a business to run and if you’re pouring into someone without financial ROI, you can’t run a sustainable business.  

You have to pay yourself, pay taxes, pay contractors & monthly operating platforms,  you’ll have overhead etc. You can’t keep the lights on because you want to be nice to someone and help them out.

It’s one of the HARDEST things you might have to do, is saying no to people you adore. If you have a list of what you look for when bringing on new talent, and this friend or family member checks all the boxes, that’s great. 

Question 7 : Exclusive or non-exclusive Talent

Exclusive talent means you’re their only manager. They aren’t represented or managed by anyone else. No one else is pitching them or negotiating on their behalf. Non-exclusive talent means they aren’t signed to one Influencer Manager. Multiple managers could be pitching them for projects. 

My roster is 100% exclusive to my roster. I wouldn’t work with any non-exclusive talent for a couple reasons. I know how hard  I work for my talent and I’d want them to be equally 100% committed to me. It gets messy if multiple people are pitching the same talent for a project. Who gets the commission? 

I’ve also always got ideas and insight to help the talent land more collaborations and to help me pitch. If someone was non-exclusive they might not be open to my suggestions, which could make it more difficult for me to find them work. That doesn’t work for me. I want both of us to be set up for success. 

Question 8 : Should there be a 90 day trial period?

I don’t do 90 day trial periods with my talent. When I first sign someone new to my roster, I spend a lot of time getting to know them, learning about their business and goals. I introduce them to my network and introduce myself to theirs. I expend a lot of political capital so to speak those first 90 days to help land  brand collaborations and get them on the radar of agencies. 

At the end of those 90 days, I wouldn’t want to be in a position where either one of us is saying “I don’t want to move forward with you. This isn’t worth it.” Instead I spend a lot more time in the interview phase of getting to know a potential talent for my roster. A lot of Influencer Managers I know do one or two interviews at the beginning and then decide to “give it a try.” I’m a one woman show. I don’t have the time or energy to give it a try. I’m either 100% in or out. 

Finding your ideal client 

What matters most to building your roster is to decide what you want your roster to look like. Who do you want on it? What type of person? What’s important to you about who you say yes to?  The great part about having a roster is that you get to decide who you say yes and no to. There’s a million different ways to build your roster – type of content, strong on one particular platform, follower count, business revenue, location, full time or part time creator – the list goes on. 

Us managers are selling a product (the influencer/content creator). What we are not doing is creating the product. Us Influencer Talent Managers aren’t here to make someone an Influener. No, we’re here to help elevate and support someone else’s successful Influencer business. 

From the conversations I have daily with people who would like to be an influencer and inquire in my inbox and DMs about management, this point gets lost. 

Personally my ideal client is already established and makes a consistent stream of $100k+/annually. They create content I’m personally interested in, they’re a millennial or older and do this work full time. I’m also very tuned into the type of person they are. As I’m a one woman show who spends a lot of time with my talent, I want to love being around them! You can see my full roster of Influencer Talent here.

Asking the right questions when building out your influencer roster is essential for laying a strong foundation for your talent management agency. The influencers you choose to represent are a direct reflection of your agency’s values, vision, and reputation.

By being thoughtful and intentional about your selection process, you’ll attract talent that not only aligns with your agency’s goals but also resonates with the types of brands and opportunities you want to pursue. Ultimately, a well-curated roster positions your agency for long-term success, fostering trust with both creators and clients alike.

PSST! Are you an Influencer Talent Manager & just started your own Talent Management Agency? Do you want to learn the ins and outs of the industry? Do you need help pricing your talent’s rates, recruiting Influencers to build your roster & getting insight on where to find brand collabs?

Click HERE to learn about my 8 week Influencer Talent Manager Coaching Mentorship Program, taught by me, Johanna Voss, an award winning Influencer Talent Manager who has closed over $6M worth of brand deals.

You can read more about my story and how I became an Influencer Talent Manager. I share about how I picked the exclusive talent I worked with, their verticals and why they’re full time creators. Knowing how to build an awesome roster that you love is key part of how to start an Influencer Talent Agency so make sure you give it the time it deserves!