Once you and your client have entered into a player-agent agreement, you must begin the job-finding process for your client. The process varies depending on your client’s marketability, prestige, professional experience, college rank, and so on.
If you sign a professional athlete, your job will be relatively easy because your client has nothing to prove and a team will either want to sign your client or not sign him/her. There are instances when a player is coming off of a major injury and a team might want to give that player a “workout” to see how he/she performs before committing into a player-team contract.
Let’s say that you sign a free agent basketball player who plays the center position. You should contact teams who are in need of a center and can afford to pay your client his/her market value. How do you know if a team needs a center? Well, as an agent, you must really follow and understand the sport that most interests you (that is why it’s difficult to master all major sports). If a team is interested in your client, then you are ready to negotiate (see “Negotiating the Best Deal for Your Client”).
Let’s say that you sign a prospective pro athlete coming out of college. Now, this athlete is not a highly ranked stud but he/she certainly has the potential to be a professional athlete. Haven’t you ever seen pro athletes on TV and wondered how they got into the pro ranks? That’s right, the athlete had a good agent! What you must do to get your client the maximum exposure is to round up all of his/her college statistics, awards, achievements, etc. and make a player profile sheet. In addition, you must gather a few good quality video tapes of his/her college games and start making copies so that you can mast-distribute them to the pro teams along with his/her player profile sheet.
Before you send the tapes and profile sheet to the teams, call each team so that you can at least develop a relationship with someone from each team. Let them know that you are sending them information and a video on a player. Teams will never turn down your offer because they simply don’t have the manpower and resources to scout each and every player on the face of the planet.
If the team is interested in your client, the team will set up an individual workout or invite your player to a training camp.
Once you develop relationships, it will be easier to set up workouts for all your future players. One thing you don’t want to do is to have a bunch of clients who absolutely don’t have a chance of playing at the pro level and then marketing them to teams. You will lose credibility. Try to recruit players who you think have a good chance of playing at the professional level.