“Grit: The Primary Ingredient for Success” Featuring Mark Willingham, CEO, and Co-Founder of AGENT

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Willingham. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of AGENT and he is reimagining the modeling industry. As the CEO and Co-Founder, Mark is responsible for ensuring initiatives are aligned with the company vision, spearheading strategy, overseeing operations, and ongoing corporate performance. Mark is a frequent public speaker and has been a guest lecturer at California State University Long Beach since 1998.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what events have drawn you to this specific career path

My background has always been working to grow businesses; growing companies and building brands. I’m very passionate about finding opportunities that are disruptive and allow things to change in a meaningful, measurable way.

I spent 11 years as the northern hemisphere president of an international fashion brand. We had stores in 18 countries, and we hired models for many different reasons; whether it be for New York Fashion Week, where we hired some of the most significant top models in the world for runway shows, to hiring models for photo shoots.

After experiencing the process of hiring models, I recognized specific patterns; I would see that models were often reluctant, and seemed to be very concerned about their surroundings. They didn’t trust how much they were getting paid versus how much we were paying the agency. Their behavior struck us as odd because the models were referred by and were working for the agency and were under contract. Traditionally, models are meant to be paid the whole amount, and 20% of what they make goes to their agent. But, it wasn’t uncommon to hear a model ask “do you mind if I ask how much you are paying the agency?” Which ultimately led us to believe, and rightfully so, that they thought that the agency was getting paid much more than they were letting on.

Can you share your story of Grit and Success? First, can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life, so I’m used to challenging norms. In my experience, I’ve learned that you may have adversity at every step of the way. If you’re going to go up against a multi-billion dollar industry and try to disrupt things, most players in that industry aren’t going to be happy about it. A lot of naysayers will say that you can’t accomplish it, but realistically, I can name dozens of companies that have created a stir quite efficiently; from Airbnb disrupting the hospitality industry to Uber disrupting transportation, the list goes on and on.

So, it is doable. For me especially, the more someone says I won’t accomplish my end-goal, the more I will set my mind to showing them that I can. The greatest thing that works in my favor is adversity. I guess the tenacity component in me comes out and says, “Whatever you put in front of me, I will overcome it,” and that’s what we’ve done with AGENT.

When we started, people would say, “How will you ever get the models to come to you?” Now, as the fastest-growing modeling platform in the world with more than 25,000 models, and 50 to 150 models applying every single day, I think I have proven them wrong. That’s how we know we’re doing some great things. We’re addressing a significant need in the marketplace.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

I’ve always said that it’s great to work on projects that are the first thing on your mind when you wake up. The second that changes, it’s time to think of something new to take on. With AGENT, our entire team is relentlessly working towards a common goal because we know that there are so many positive things to come and it drives us every day. It’s never about the dollar amount; it is about creating positive change. If we’re great at this, we’ll be successful in other ways, as well. It drives us from early morning to late night, seven days a week, and we’re thrilled at what we’ve overcome so far.

So, how are things going today? :-)

Things, I would say, are miraculous in a lot of ways because when we started AGENT, we had some high expectations of what we wanted do. Many people say luck has a lot to do with success… Well, sometimes it’s luck and sometimes it’s just the times changing or things moving in the right direction.

For us especially, with the Harvey Weinstein situation, although it is terrible that any of that had to occur, the conversation that it sparked in the media was the beginning of improvement. It certainly worked out in our favor and helped us with our goal to create change. People started to see what was happening in entertainment.

Entertainment is lopsided when it comes to supply and demand; whether it is actors, musicians or models, people are chasing their dreams. They won’t risk anything getting in the way. So, they find themselves in situations where they don’t know what is expected of them, or what others in the past had to do to become successful, and with those thoughts they become vulnerable.

These conversations work in our favor, they are the wind in the back of our sail, pushing us forward and making people aware that there is a need for change.

In 2019 we are zoning in on client focus.

Now, it’s time for the clients to have the opportunity to leverage our platform, and to know that they’re advocates for positive change. Not only does our platform allow for companies to find models quickly, but they will also be supporting a just cause: models working in a safer environment, which is promoting the empowerment of models, people, and especially women.

So, how are things going? I’d say super fantastic. We’ve overachieved all of our milestones at approximately 200% of our booking goals for the year of 2018, twice of what we had projected, and we look at that as just the beginning of what we think will be a 1000% increase over last year. We couldn’t be happier.

Based on your experience, can you share five pieces of advice about how one can develop Grit?

1) Nothing is easy. No matter what you’re looking to accomplish — whether that’s modeling or opening a pizza parlor — get out there and work super hard. Most people that are super successful have gone out there and have just done it better than others.

2) Have tenacity. You can overcome adversity or at least do your best to overcome it. Don’t just take failure as an ultimate failure; use it as a learning experience.

3) Have tough skin. You need to be able to learn from the negative experiences and don’t take it personally. You need to be able to weather those storms… When something is disheartening, take it as a positive learning experience.

4) Acknowledge what you excel at and what you’re not so great at. I could say I want to be a center for the Lakers, but it’s most likely never going to happen. I can love basketball and I could dream about it every night, but it’s never going to happen. Sometimes, we all need to face that reality; not everyone is a model; not everyone is a basketball player; not everyone is a scientist. At some point, people need also to understand that some careers may not be for them and that’s just the reality of the world. Everyone has to be realistic with their strengths and weaknesses.

5) Be professional and be humble and know that it goes a long way, because people’s reputations supersede everything else. Sometimes, people can get away with a bad attitude, but after a few jobs that can set the status for what people expect from you and it ruins your credibility.

The successful maintain a sense of professionalism, they have tenacity, they have thick skin, they stay positive, go out and chase their dreams. They know their limitations, but do the best they possibly can and do not take failure as a loss, but as an opportunity to grow.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped you when things were tough? Can you share a story about that?

I’ve said for years that everyone should have a mentor. That mentor should be a real person that you’re familiar with but could also be someone that you admire beyond belief. Whether it be an author or somebody that simply inspires you. Having someone that has skill sets outside of what you are pursuing and who can give you grounded advice and perspective that others aren’t willing to provide you.

One of the wisest men I know gave me some of the most solid advice; one being to “never waste heartbeats.” I wasn’t sure what he was saying and so he explained, “Heartbeats are like sand in a timer. If you turn it over, they fall. Gravity never allows them to go the other way, they just fall down. Once they fall down, they can’t go back up. So, if each one of those grains of sand is a heartbeat that you can never take back, you’ll realize how valuable each heartbeat is.”

We are all born with a finite number of heartbeats. We don’t know what that number is, but when they’re gone, they’re gone. Don’t waste time in company that you don’t get enjoyment from, don’t waste your time doing something that you don’t feel is bringing value to your life. Stop it and go do something else because you don’t know how many heartbeats are left.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I’ve always focused on things that I believe in and that I believe will bring happiness to the world. I’ve been on the board of charitable organizations where we’ve rescued women and children from domestic violence. Every time you see the individual impact of things you’re involved with, it does bring meaning to the days of your life.

Everything we’re doing with AGENT is driven by passion.

To know that we are positively affecting people’s lives all over the world, I believe that AGENT can certainly have an impact on many models and we can set the bar higher for all the other agencies. We’ve been asked about our intent before; whether or not it was to put other agencies out of business, and I can tell you that is not our intention at all. Our intent is to improve the industry.

For example, no other agency does criminal background checks on the clients. We do criminal background checks, sex offender checks, and ID verification on every single client on our platform. We do it because it makes the models feel as safe as possible.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

There are definitely other projects under the AGENT umbrella. We’re innovating new technologies to help maintain a safe environment, to provide more structure, more professionalism, more opportunity for our models and also more efficiency for the clients. We’re utilizing artificial intelligence and predictive analysis and all sorts of cutting-edge technologies that have never been implemented in the industry.

What advice would you give to other executives or founders to help their employees to thrive?

Give feedback to your employees and make sure that you utilize all of the people on your team to their fullest potential. Often times, it’s human nature for folks, especially entrepreneurs and leaders, to want to do it all. Some people are really good at delegating, other people frankly get threatened if they give too much power to someone else because they feel it minimizes their contribution. I make it a goal to always have people that are smarter than me around.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

To join AGENT.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

For more information about AGENT, you can go to our website https://joinagent.com/ or follow us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

If you’re a client interested in booking models, sign up here.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.