Inside Talent Management with Amanda Marzolf and Austin Mayster

At Underscore, talent management isn’t just about securing deals—it’s about building relationships, fostering trust, and staying ahead in an ever-evolving digital landscape. Amanda Marzolf, Partner and Co-Head of the Beauty, Fashion, and Lifestyle department, and Austin Mayster, Partner and Talent Manager in the Entertainment department, sat down with each other to discuss their career journeys, the evolving creator economy, and what sets Underscore apart.

Austin: So, Amanda, how did you first get into talent management?

Amanda: I mean, I sort of just went the traditional, I would say, route. You know, where you climb the ladder, you start with an internship, then you make your way. For me, I went to an agency. Did the assistant thing and just kind of, you know, rose through the ranks. And I think, maybe specifically targeting the digital space kind of at the time because it was 2012/13. It was a new space. It kind of catapulted me maybe faster than other areas would've at the time. But yeah, quickly went to agent and rode that kind of ladder out. What about you?

Austin: It's super similar. I moved out to LA 15 years ago. Also had an internship, a very small talent agency in Santa Monica. Did that four days a week. I worked at a restaurant for the other days during the week just so I could have money.

Amanda: I worked at Veggie Grill!

Austin: Veggie grill? I was Houston’s at Century City Mall. [Laughs] And yeah, I was at that internship until I got my foot in the door. At a larger talent agency. I was there for a while. And similarly to you, I noticed that the conversation started changing. People were asking about YouTubers and Instagrammers, and I thought that that was a really interesting opportunity to grow because everybody wanted to work in TV, everybody wanted to work in movies. So I decided to shift my priorities into digital, went to a marketing agency for a little bit to be on the brand side, which I love, but I knew I really wanted to represent talent. And then I started at Studio 71 and started signing talent there and really fell in love with the digital space. That led to work at an agency and then, back to [the] Studio 71 guys, Dan and Reza, [who] had approached me about Underscore. That was four years ago, which is really crazy.

Amanda: I always felt like we had such a parallel path, you and I, I feel like we knew about each other before we even came here.

Austin: We were at competing agencies, so it was always like a friendly [competition]. We always had that parallel path. I remember our first lunch together when we finally got you over, and we were just so thrilled about it. And it seems like many moons ago, but yeah, it's awesome.

Amanda: What do you think makes a successful client manager relationship?

Austin: Oh, that’s a good question and it’s a tough question because really, everybody is different. I always like to say, you know, this isn’t a black and white type of job. You're dealing with people and people with personalities, and you're dealing with artists, and everybody likes to operate a little bit differently. So I think having mutual respect and really just trying to figure out the best way [to handle] each of those relationships. It's an always on job. I like to look at how I work and how you work and how our colleagues work. We're giving 110%, 110% of the time. I love clients that are also giving that same amount of energy into their business.

Amanda: Yeah! I think also it kind of comes down to trust. I think what we're trying to do from the get go when we sign somebody is to just build and build and build upon that sense of trust by just working on different types of projects, knowing when to pivot on projects and things, and I think of it as the more we know about our clients, we arm ourselves with all the right tools. And so, they're arming us with tools by giving us all the information we need about them, their hopes and dreams, what they want to do, and then we go out and use all of those tools to get them as many opportunities as we can.

Austin: And it's like so cliche, but just communication. I mean, in any relationship, professional or otherwise, communication is so key. I am on the side of over communicating. And I always think that over communication is best. So things don't fall through the cracks too.

Amanda: What trends are you seeing right now in the creator economy?

Austin: There's a bunch that we're noticing specifically on the brand side. We're seeing advertisers are asking more and more for data. We're seeing a lot of these businesses developing their own third party platforms, where they're asking talent to sign up for a platform and connect their different social media so [brands] have access to those analytics in real time.

What are the demographics? How is their campaign going? That was something that we didn't really see a few years back, and we're getting more and more of that.

Brands are getting smarter and they're asking for data. They're asking for screenshots. I feel like there is more of an emphasis on guaranteeing views. We're seeing the request from a lot more brands saying, hey, if we're paying X amount of dollars, we want to see Y, amount of views, seeing more and more in the industry brands, asking about paying a cost per click or a cost per view, or offering commissions based on how many, you know, certain amount of products are sold.

Amanda: Yeah, I feel like a lot of people talk about like, literal content trends, but then there's not so much an emphasis on like, the business trends, the like actual economy, of the creator economy and the trends that happen with dealmaking. I think that's really interesting.

Austin: If you weren't in talent management, what would you be doing?

Amanda: I think I would be in something tangential. So, like, I am a big reader, I've always thought I would be a great book agent, or I think publishing would be interesting. We get to work on book deals and things like that, that touch that world, which I love to do, and I think I might go that way. Or maybe the legal role, a lawyer, if I didn't quite go this route. But yeah, something close, you know, not like completely the other direction. What about you?

Austin: Well, I love entertainment. I moved out to California to pursue representing talent. So if I wasn't doing it for digital, maybe it would be movies. Maybe I would have stuck with that. Maybe it would have been television. Maybe you would have been a different sector of representing talent. But I really love this job. I can't really imagine myself doing anything else. I also love real estate a lot. I think it would be fun to venture into the real estate world. And really cool with this job is I represent a handful of really, successful real estate related creators so I can kind of live vicariously through the content they're creating while bringing them opportunities with what we're doing.

Amanda: So no matter what, we were going to work with people.

Amanda: What advice would you give to someone just starting in talent management?

Austin: It's not a clock in, clock out kind of job. It is a 24/7 job, which I think can be daunting for people, but clients are always on and opportunities are always on, and if you can accept that this is going to be just a lifestyle– it can be really exciting. I feel very fortunate that I love the work that I do, and I care about my clients and the projects that they're working on. But you're going to be answering emails on the weekend and taking phone calls later at night to get the deal done. So, I would be prepared for that.

The second thing I would say is figure out ways to be moving forward with your career. Everybody's got to start somewhere, but be asking questions and be asking for opportunities that are going to allow you to grow, and figure out what that path is to be moving forward. Align yourself with great people, too. I have a lot of pride that a lot of the people that have started as our coordinators at this company are now managers with great books of business. And so I would also say, find people that will be in your corner and make sure that you're being very helpful to them and have them be mentors and have them help guide you forward with your profession.

Amanda: Yeah. I would just add, and it's similar to what you already said, but I think also while you're moving forward, there's sometimes this urgency to move forward as fast as you can. What I like to tell people, though, is take your time with it. You want to make sure you're not like jumping off the deep end into situations you don't understand where you could come off looking a little underprepared or a little green. Make sure along the way you're using all your resources. Kind of like you already said, with a mentor and whatever, to kind of suck up all that info. You can become sort of like a mini expert at niches in the business, like really learning how to redline and focus on that for a while. Really learn the pitch, really learn this, suck up as much as you possibly can before you're trying to accelerate to the next thing so you are the most prepared you can be when you kind of make that next step.

Austin: It was Michael Green, I'm pretty sure, who once told me Austin going slow is actually going fast. And I like what you were saying, and it reminded me of that. Well, that was really instrumental to me. Not rush, rush, rush.

Austin: How do you see the relationship between what we're doing in digital and tradition, you know, all entertainment, how is that all evolving? I think historically, it's kind of ebbed and flowed, and this is sort of like a conversation we've all been having for years.

Amanda: I think the creator economy is only getting bigger. The talent pool is only getting bigger every year. There's millions more creators at this point and different interesting niches. So I think inevitably, right, like these two areas are going to meet, I think how they meet. And where is the question? I think like what it comes down to and the types that the types of talent that will have the most success with crossover, I think are talent with really strong IP.

We've probably all been talking about this for years too, but I think it's not going to be just this one creator who has sort of like a mid tier following and has a good POV and content. It's going to be like a channel with a very specific, strong IP where you can build out businesses rather than maybe a creator that just wants to get into acting. What's actually going to sort of make the difference in this sort of crossover are these interesting niches and creators with really strong IP. That's what's going to actually move the meter.

Amanda: What's the most exciting part of working with their clients?

Austin: I mean, this job can be stressful, and we're really busy all the time, but I think it's important to remind yourself to take a step back sometimes when you're really in the thick of it and say, we're working with people that are bringing joy to so many millions of people and like what? What an unbelievable thing to say that we have a little part in our clients businesses, which is to bring happiness to so many people.

Amanda: That's such a nice answer. What I really enjoy about it is that we get to sort of work on so many different projects, which is so fun, and it really expands our knowledge base. We can go from working on a book deal, to a product deal, to a very large brand deal, a commercial. And I think that's a very special type of career path. It's exciting for us. It also just benefits our clients ultimately, because we get that sort of breadth of knowledge, throughout that journey.

Austin: Totally. No two days are the same. You never know what's going to show up in your inbox or what that yeah, all is going to be about. And that's really thrilling.

Amanda: Yeah. It keeps you on your toes.

Austin: What do you think the most common mistake brands make when working with creators?

Amanda: I think a lot of my colleagues and clients probably agree with this, but when a brand is too married to a concept they've developed in-house, maybe in a vacuum, and they aren't so open to hearing what a content creator thinks will perform well on their platform. Specifically because, usually a brand has a reason for picking the creators and the talent that gets chosen. And so I think it behooves them to at least, [go] back and forth. It can be a brainstorm where they kind of both meet in the middle, but I think it would be a mistake to not take into consideration some of the ideas that a creator has. What do you think?

Austin: I think back to not too long ago where brands would give scripts for their brand deals, and it was like, read this word for word. [Laughs] We would have to push back and say, you've got to trust the creator. They're the ones with millions of followers or hundreds of thousands of followers. I think we've improved [from then], but I still think that brands can get married to these ideas and be less flexible, and it never works for them.

A great example, we have a client who did a brand deal with a movie studio, and they hired him for two different videos, and they had a very specific thing that they were looking to do. We wound up going back and we were able to push back. [We said] we'll do one the way that you want to do, and we’ll do one the way the creator thinks is going to perform well. The video the studio asked to do did around a million views. So very healthy engagement. The one the creator did? Organically over 100 million views. So, it just goes to show, trust the creators that you're working with.

Amanda: What do you think sets Underscore apart from our competitors, similar companies?

Austin: So glad you asked. I'm actually going to use your line, we were in a pitch meeting, earlier on when we first started, and you said at Underscore– we’re hiring the Avengers here. We are putting together a team of the Avengers of social media. And I truly believe we are a best in class management company. We've got managers who know the business better than any other managers in this space. We've got an amazing sales organization that is looking out across the entire marketplace and is seeing every RFP that is out there. We've got a Paywall division, an Affiliate division, a Podcast division. Our sister company Shorthand Studios, that does distribution for our clients. I don't know any other management company that is representing their talent to that 360 capacity at that level.

Amanda: I would say on top of that, I think that shows our general enthusiasm for bringing on services that we know are going to help our talent. I think there's a lot less pushback for innovating and like looking for innovative ways to service a client. And I've worked at bigger companies where it's just harder for that to be realized. But here it's a place where the enthusiasm to give the best service is real. It happens. Somebody has an idea on Monday, and by Friday we're like, interviewing for this brand new kind of department. I've never worked somewhere where we were that kind of flexible and nimble and quick, all in the name of trying something out, because a lot of our creators need it, you know? And I think that's pretty special.