What to Ask a Prospective Family Advisor / Agent Before Signing
Today there are more prospective Family Advisors and Agents in the market place than ever before. This is good because it provides players and their families choices and options to choose from! But is also means that you need to be diligent in your assessment of those Advisors and Agents to ensure you find the one that is the best fit for your own unique needs.
First and foremost, do your advance research on the many Advisors and Agents that exist in the market place. Use Google search and visit the websites of some of the many options that will come up. Be careful to not just choose the first one that comes up as Advisors / Agents can PAY to appear #1 or to be top ranked. Look for how professional the web site is, is it just a “page” or is it a full blown “website”, is it informative, does it provide in-depth details on the Owners / Agents / Advisors, does it describe the services, do they have client testimonials, is there easy ways to contact them, etc..
Next step would be to reach out to 2 or 3 of your top choices based on what you viewed and read on the various websites you researched. Most professional firms have “contact us” forms on their sites to make it easy for prospective clients to contact them. This is the first “test” for these Advisors/ Agents you have chosen to contact. Reputable Advisors / Agents will typically respond to your inquiry within 24 hours or less. If they do not respond with in that window, you should question how long it might take for them to respond to you if you were to become a client. There is quite often a co-relation there.
Best of Breed firms will typically look to set up an initial telephone conversation or video call to get to know more about the player, their hockey & academic goals, and unique personal needs. This allows the firm to then share details with you about their services and how they potentially map to your unique personal goals and needs.
Questions you should ask a prospective Family Advisor or Agent include but are not limited to the following:
Who will be my Advisor or Agent that is my prime point of contact and who will serve my needs?
• Often the person who returns your call MAY not be the ACTUAL individual who is your day-to-day contact or who actually advises you. It is IMPORTANT you clarify that!
Is being a Family Advisor or Agent your SOLE occupation or is it just “part-time”?
• Many Family Advisors and even Agents have a primary occupation and just do advising or agent work as a sideline. This is a BIG RED FLAG!
• If they say it’s “part-time”, it is important you ask what % of their time is dedicated to being an Advisor / Agent vs. their primary occupation
• To help verify above, ask them if the % they spend on each job aligns with the proportionate income of their total employment income (this can be very revealing)
• If the individual is NOT the one who will be handling your day-to-day needs, and taking your calls, ask to set up a conversation with the individual who will do that
Ask about their own family situation, are the married, do they have kids, their ages and activities they are in?
• This too can be very revealing for prospective clients as the reality is if your Advisor is married (or divorced) with young kids up to teenagers and potentially involved in after school activities that will ultimately impact the availability and accessibility of that Advisor / Agent.
Ask what technology and analytics tools they utilize?
• Do they have hockey analytics and database programs like Instat and Rinknet? This demonstrates they are truly invested in the Advisory business vs. “dabbling”. These tools can be great benefits to clients
• Do they have IT tools like DocuSign for electronic contract signing, Zoom Meeting and Webinar tools for efficient and in person like interactions, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools that allow them to better serve their clients?
• Are they active on Social Media sites like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook promoting their players and sharing education insights? This may seem small but it is quite big.
Ask for a copy of their Advisory Contract
• The contract should be detailed and include important things like fees, payment terms, what are the services included (or excluded), do they have service level guarantees on how quickly they will respond to emails, texts and calls; termination terms if you wish to cancel, etc.. It should be more than a single page.
Other Resources you can use:
• Most professional Advisory firms will have client testimonials on their web site for you to review and contact personally. If you wish more client references don’t be shy to ask for a list of 10 clients and indicate you would like to text or email a couple of your choice.
• Search the Web for new articles or stories on the Advisory firm. This would allow you to see if stories are mostly positive and flattering or if any negative stories have been posted.
• Check out Elite Prospects and search for their Advisory firm and players there, see how many clients it shows them with, what types of clients do they have, where are their clients from, are their player client profiles updated with accurate data and contain a recent photo of the player, etc.
In summary, there are many very good Family Advisors and Agents in the business. But like every industry, there are also many others that you most likely want to avoid dealing with. Doing your research and due diligence will greatly increase your probability of hiring a good Family Advisor and having a positive experience with positive results for your player and family!
