Dissecting Jerry Maguire’s Mission Statement – Part 3

I will break down the entire document over the course of this week, leaving you with a couple of highlights every day. I have broken the Mission Statement into 5 sections (based on its length). If you would like to skip this segment and just read the whole document, you may do so by clicking here. If you missed Part 2, you can catch it here. Here are my bullet points from Part 3:

• “Take a successful t.v. show. The following season, you see twenty others just like it. Same goes for our company. Sports Management International was, of the first great success stories of our business. But the great ones all do one thing at the time of their greatest success. They change the game. They make it harder for themselves. They raise the bar. They work not just harder, but they work smarter.”
  • IMG was one of the first great success stories in the sports agent business.  They have continued to change the game as more entities have joined the ranks.  The bar continues to be raised by conglomerates such as CAA, WMA, WMG, etc.  The barriers of entry continue to grow.
• “‘Why aren’t I making what Athlete Y makes,’ said my client. And the truth is obvious to everyone but Client X…And so begins the game of flattery, of lip service, of doing everything possible to soothe and stroke. It is part of our lives, and part of our jobs. The game of agenting. The tapdance. If the tapdancing becomes less constant, less furious, less necessary, what will the result be? The result will be more honesty, more focus, fewer clients, but eventually the revenues will be the same. Because the new day of honesty will create a machine more personalized, more truthful, and the client that wasn’t bullshitted this year, has a greater chance of greatness next year.”
  • I happen to agree.  While Dynasty Athlete Representation is still in its infancy (it became an LLC in April 2007 and currently has 2 clients), it has been formed on complete honesty.  We will not bullshit any client into thinking he is someone whom he is not.  Agenting should never be considered a game, much less a tapdance.

-Darren Heitner