Wednesday night, Trevor Swenson of Dynamic Talent joined about 30 NFL agents on Zoom to talk about his area of expertise: name, image and likeness (NIL). Trevor’s company represents more than 400 bands, entertainers and influencers, and he’s seen the rise of social media and figured out how to exploit it for his clients’ benefit.

Here are just a few tips I picked up from listening to him Wednesday.

• Even though football is our sole focus at Inside the League, it doesn’t mean it has to be an NIL agent’s sole focus. In fact, Trevor said track athletes “always sell,” partially because track is more individual in nature and therefore athletes are easier to identify with for potential customers.
• Social media is very visual, so you’re going to have to identify clients that are pleasing to the camera. “Turn them into models,” Trevor recommends.
• Facebook is one of the greatest commerce engines our nation has ever known, but it’s almost completely irrelevant to today’s athlete. Instead, get used to Google Ads as well as every vagary of each of the different platforms (especially Instagram).
• If you’re going to get active representing players on NIL matters, get familiar with Shopify. Trevor calls Shopify “a huge tool” when it comes to marketing merchandise for his clients. 
• If your client has a YouTube account, and hopes to make a few bucks with goofy videos or instructions on how to throw the ‘out’ route, he’s going to have to log 10,000 hours and gather 1,000 subscribers before his channel is monetized. 
  
• Before a company is willing to spend money on your client, the industry standard is an expected return of three dollars returned on investment (ROI) for every dollar pledged in sponsorship.
• If your client is a little low on followers, he can probably gain about 1,000 new ones per month if he’s aggressive about engaging with his followers and providing fresh content.
• Before he can expect to have any sponsors, he’s going to need at least 10,000 followers on at least one social media platform.  
• Trevor does not believe in deleting controversial posts. One reason is that no publicity is bad publicity. Another reason is that he believes his clients should own their posts and not run from them. 
• He said the only reason he’d dump a client is not because of poor performance, but because of no performance. For example, if he represents a band that doesn’t tour for a year or more, he goes in another direction. Though they aren’t musicians, you should encourage your clients to have the same mindset. 

If you want even more, consider joining us at 8 p.m. ET next Wednesday, Nov. 17. For $100 plus tax, Trevor will present a case study on how to turn a garden variety college football into an NIL machine on a step-by-step basis. He’ll also provide the basic documents you’ll need to sign an agreement, to pitch a client to a vendor, and more. 

We’ll discuss it further in today’s Friday Wrap, which you can register for here. Ready to sign up now? Here’s the link.