Lessons - Building a Winning Team with Top Performers | Jonathan Perelman - President of ICM Stellar Sports

In this episode, you'll learn how to build high-performing teams in fast-paced, high-exposure industries by focusing on cultural fit, adaptability, and curiosity. Discover strategies for identifying talent that thrives in chaotic environments, the importance of trusting your team, and how staying ahead of industry trends can set you apart. You'll also hear insights on managing high-performance individuals while embracing innovation to ensure long-term success. You've always been working in organizations and been successful at, like you said, staying ahead of the curve. So how do you find people that are on that same wavelength? Because every business in the world would want to find people that can keep up with trends, you know, at ICM, you're dealing with athletes, and they're massively exposed, even at previous roles, like, you know, at BuzzFeed, you're putting out content all the time, trying to find what's relevant. There's always things that are in the public eye, which makes it even harder to find, you know, anything you screw up, everybody sees, well, even more so impolite, you've never worked in a low-exposure industry where the stuff that you're putting out into the world isn't scrutinized, you believe. So tell me, how do you find people that can keep up with that pace that can, like, at ICM, even your hiring, your strategy? What do you look for in people that you bring on? Oh, I can't tell you that's got that secret. No, I'm just kidding. Um, I never thought about the, the high exposure. I don't think there is a, it's the great, it's the right question to ask, and I talk to people about this all the time. I don't have a great answer for it. It's, you've got it, you've got it dig and find the right people. I'm a believer in, it's about the people or the person, not necessarily the experience. So someone can come with the perfect resume. But if I don't think it's a cultural thing, if I think they're going to come in and be a bull in a china shop and mess up what we have, if I think, yeah, they're great, but they're not going to speak up when they see something that they don't think is right. It's not going to work. And so do we, it's about the right, it's people more than, um, product people that, that experience. Um, and listen, I'm, this is me personally, and I think this is makes for great people that you work with and, and for a great environment. But I always say, I'm an expert, not, and this is a, this is a thing that's quote, but in expert, nothing but passionately curious about everything. I, you could have someone that is the best at this one thing, but I won't well-rounded people. I want to have a well-rounded team. I want to work with people that have interests, you know, outside of the stuff that they do every day. That could be their main interest. I'm in sports. I love sports. The business of sports is what I read is what I want to do. I I'm happy to work seven days a week. My family doesn't always love that, but I, I, I, I know what is your passion about it. I'm passionate about it. I'm passionate about it. But there are other things that I do that are outside. I think finding those kinds of people that are, are well-rounded. And, you know, there is be all these sands. I was at, at, at, at Google, at Google about finding Google is right, do they pass and sort of test? Would you want to sit next to them on a cross-country flight? Would that work? All that? I mean, it might be silly and not scientific, but I think it's really, really important. At the end of the day, that's how you find the best people. That's how you get the best deliver, the best output is by having good honest debate and, you know, not having people that always agree with you, but coming up and in that madness, in that chaos, in that, in that debate is where I think you create the best, the best product, the best outcome. And so, it's an imperfect science, but one that is really important. The, it's a bit, in my business, it's about the people. You know, that's, you, you have even gotten all of your career advancements, next jobs. You're not going on, you're not going on, indeed, and linked in, and applying for these things. This is entirely who you know. That's interesting as well. Yeah, that's also, you know? Well, I, that's true, Scott. That also worries me, right? Because if there could be a great person who is for the best job to work and help us grow the business, but if they don't know the right person, are we going to miss them? I, I get concerned about that. That is in fact your right, how I gotten to the point. I'm not sure success, but I'm, it's elusive, but I'm looking for that success. But you still, but you've still done, you've still done well by any, any standard throughout your career, and it's all been handshakes with the right people. That's not a, that's not a bad thing out by any means. By the way, it's just, it's a, it's a point that you're right. You could be missing out on good people, but it's also another point to people that aren't getting into the right rooms or talking to the right people or networking. Maybe you do more of that. She was with all say, Scott, I think that's right. The challenge is that can only take you so far. You could, they could say, oh, wow, you're great. Come on into this, to our organization and do this stuff. But if you can't perform, if you can't give something back that is good, you're not going to last very long. And so I totally agree. It is important to put yourself out there. I don't know how people necessarily network in a COVID world in a just pose kind of ish COVID world. Maybe not quite yet. We talked earlier about travel that we've done and starting to do more and how out of practice we were. But yeah, it's important to put yourself out there. It's important to meet people. And I get a lot of young people asking me for advice in their, in their careers. And that's one of the biggest things I say is, you know, go, go meet somebody and go talk to them. And this is your doing as, as your podcasts do, right? People are always pretty much happy to talk about themselves and their career and what they've done. And when you find someone that you connect with, maintain that relationship, follow up, keep going back, ask them questions. I think the idea of mentors and mentees are, that's one of the things that I think people talk about, but we don't do enough of. And it's really important when when people look to make moves and, and grow their career, but also I don't have the answers to everything. And there are times I just want to call somebody and ask them for advice. And I do that with peers. I do that increasingly with people younger than I am, not necessarily just an age thing, but with people that are maybe at slightly different levels, because I want to know how they're thinking about things. And I'll, I'll ask people that have been out of business for years, how they dealt with some of these challenges or some of these questions. And for me, that's what how I've always learned and grown and developed is by, it's really important to be a very good listener. You've got to know the right questions to ask, but when you do, listen to what the answers are. Okay, one thing that I did want to, I did want to get your insight on is the people that you managed now, sitting that's also interesting, managing really ultra high performance individuals. Um, walk me through, walk me through what it's like. And I know, and I know that you are managed people who probably do this while you manage agents that manage a lot of these relationships, but you still probably have a pretty good idea of what it's like to manage some of these athletes. So what's what's that like, walk me through that? Well, managing people that manage high performance athletes, uh, or high performance artists, whatever, um, yeah, is, um, these are high performing people. Uh, so yeah, it's, it's, my sort of style is pretty loose. I think if you're, if you're managing, like, we're managing people down to certain details, you don't trust them. You don't have the right people back to the, when the earlier parts of our conversation, it's just not going to work. It's not going to work for you as a manager. It's not going to work for them working. I think really what's most, you got to give people leeway and the ability to do it their way. You can't implement your way upon band again, have the trust and have the faith that you have the best people that will do the best work. And they shouldn't do it in the, in the shadow of how you want it done. They should do it their way, understanding what it is and how the business works and, and where they should be spending time. But I don't think you can dictate exactly how they do what they do. Now, as far as managing athletes or artists today, I really think you have to stay ahead of the curve. You've got to know what's going on in the business. Yes, some parts of being a football agent, which technically I am not, so easy for me to say, but some parts have never changed. You've got to look after the athlete, you've got to make sure they've got the right contract, you've got to, you are their advisor, you are, you are, you are together with them, you are on the same team. Do the best deal for them, make sure they are protected, make sure they're happy, you need to do all that. That, that hasn't changed. That will not change. That's really a huge part of a business. But you've got to be understanding of what new things are happening and opportunities. I think about this with NFTs and a year ago, I think whatever the time frame was, if you had said to an agency, what's your NFTs strategy? It was an NF who, right? That's not in the lexicon, that's not what they do. Today, you need to be able to talk to, as an agent, you need to be able to talk to your clients, answer questions from them, bring them opportunities in the NFTs space. Maybe it's not right for them for any number of reasons, but for those that are, you need to be on top of it. And that's a very new development. So staying on top of an abreast of the latest trends and how things happen, I don't have to tell you, or most likely, the listeners about how quickly things change. Today, that's, to me, you need to have this sense of how to represent somebody, how to look after them, how to ensure that they are giving their faith in you to help them with their career. That's a massive responsibility. And you need to take that responsibility and do your best with it. It doesn't mean it will be perfect every time, but that's a huge amount of pressure for an agent to have to look after somebody's career. But that's not it. You also need to be, and we'll say again, look around corners, understand what's coming up and what's coming new and where opportunities are that didn't weren't available, weren't a thing some time ago, but you need to at least be open to learning about what those new things are. You don't have to be an expert in it. You can, you can take someone with subject matter expertise to help get there, but you really do need to understand that things are changing, things are evolving, the pace at which we all live our lives is just maddening. So being on top of that stuff is really important to help bring the best opportunities to your clients. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one. you