Steven Michael-O'Hara, Founder & CEO of Genesis Model Management, London

0:02Welcome to the Business of Modeling, the podcast where we explore the fascinating world of the modeling industry. I'm Tessa Dewing, Managing Director of Sandra Reynolds, a commercial model agency celebrating its 50th year of business. We're in our home city of London today in my favorite podcast studio, The Boat Pod in Little Venice, with Stephen Michael O 'Hara, the founder and CEO of Genesis Model Management, one of the newest names in the industry that's quickly building a strong reputation. Being MD of an agency that's been around for 50 years, I'm really keen to hear how the next generation of agencies are positioning themselves.

0:47Because whether you're long established or brand new, agencies of every age have equal value to offer. And it's important that we keep those conversations going. Stephen's known for being refreshingly open about how agencies really work. From scouting and signing new talent, to how jobs are booked and the challenges that come with running an agency. So in this conversation we'll dig into what it's really like behind the scenes and hear some of the stories that make this industry so unique. Stephen, thank you for being here on The Business and Modelling. Thank you for having me. So can we start with your story?

1:24What did you do before and how did Genesis come about? I mean immediately before I started Genesis I was acting at the time. I I studied philosophy, but I only studied it for one year. Then I switched to University of Manchester. Right. Yeah. And because I was really invested in my sports back then. I was doing athletics and mixed martial arts and I was actually competing as well in both. It wasn't like a major scholarship offer, but it was enough to convince me to switch universities. So you did sports at Manchester? No, I was studying planning with real estate, which was an integrated master's.

2:01And then I had some philosophy modules as well. My main thing there was to go and focus on my academics, but then also see where I could get to on the sporting side of things. I was a mixed martial artist. I mean, my first fight for my team in Manchester was, it's a funny story, but I was watching my teammate fight. And there was this guy that came out who looked like an absolute tank. And he destroyed my teammate. That teammate of mine, when we were training, I thought, you know, we're pretty much the same level. And I thought, damn, I don't want to fight that guy. And then about two weeks later, my coach called me into the office and said, oh.

2:38You're fighting that guy. You're fighting that guy, yeah. And when he told me that, I could just feel my palms sweating. But back then, you know, it's easier to talk about it now. But back then, you know, all that I had in my head was I've got one life. Anything I do, I'm always going to put my mind to it. Work as hard as I can to see where I can get to. I'd put up good scrap, but I didn't win. and when I didn't there was a lot of pressure for a 19 year old and looking back I am proud of myself for even getting into that situation and pushing myself that far I think after that I actually said to myself do you know what I can really just push for anything at this point you know I've thrown myself into a cage at 19 with someone who's fighting full time when I'm at university it taught me a lot about failure and how to handle that and how to adapt as a person and then moving on from there finished university I was actually walking through Covent Garden and I saw this was just as I finished uni I had had a graduate job lined up with Deloitte and I had a final stage oh right okay yeah and then I didn't get it when I didn't get it I was walking through Covent Garden and I saw this little sign saying some acting school and I walked in and I just did it but accepted and then my first two roles were two films that were on Amazon Prime during that time I met so many people a lot of the extras that were working on set were models so I got really familiar with them and I started understanding a little bit more about how they were managed I began looking at how I was managed myself by my acting agent and there were a few differences so I just said to my friend who's a lawyer some of these models that I've met I started by saying that when they were sent to jobs I don't feel like there was enough written down to make sure that they're you know going to this job and they're getting fed like something as simple as that because just something as simple as finding out whether the models get lunch on set is super important on that day when i had that conversation about starting genesis it was a scene where it was a club scene and the character i was playing was a dj they had to have extras to make the club look busy when i had my lunch break like main cast bowls like rice and then the extras they literally the the runner on set literally went to a Lidl and picked up a huge bag of crisps and just put it there and this was like a 12-hour day so I really wanted to make sure that things were like fair and when that happened as I was speaking to my friend I said you know what maybe we could start an agency where we put the models first when I pitched it to my friend my friend said you know what Steve like at this point I think you should just you should you should you should just try it and I started to do my own little bit of research.

5:22So I got myself signed up to an agency, but I just signed up just so I could like see how things work. So I did a big job. Processes and things. Then I understood the processes. I was there for six months or so and of course they hate me now. But yeah, I did my research that way. And then in the background, I was just studying, learning more about the industry.

5:48We were in this chat, myself and my two business partners at the time. And we were just pinging names left, right and center. But Genesis really stood out to me in the end because before we made that final decision on the name, we were just pinging names out and just, you know, mainly talking about the business side of things first. I was going through a really tough time in that period because, you know, I had so many ups and downs, you know, for such a young person. I was, you know, like 22 years old. Obviously there was the opportunity with Genesis. Where were you living? Were you back in High Wycombe at this point?

6:26I was in London. I was in London. So, I mean, there was the opportunity with Genesis, but then the drawback was, of course, the fact that I wasn't getting any work either. Sure. Like I couldn't work. Like people weren't working on film sets at that time in 2020. They only really started opening up again in 2021, I think. I've heard so many stories where people have started things during COVID because all of a sudden you have got this time this thinking time whereas if you're working every day you maybe wouldn't have done that you wouldn't have been able to do that of course 100 % and um yeah and Genesis is obviously biblical and during that time I called one of my friends explaining how I was feeling my friend Jan and he advised me to you know go to church with him basically and Genesis definitely stood out to me during that time because it sort of coincided with you know a new beginning and it was just amazing to me that there wasn't an agency called Genesis and it was just perfect and as soon as we came up with it I I knew at that point it was going to work I knew like when we when we had Genesis the name and I looked at the logo I I thought yeah like I'm going to put my all into this one again I'm going to park acting and if I decide to go back to acting I can right now my main priority is starting an agency that can facilitate the best opportunities for people in a time where there are no opportunities so started off by contacting clients who needed to sell their inventory because of course you know during during covid people everyone's worried including the clients and i just said to them to say okay if you have anything that you want to you know any inventory that you want to sell during this time you can send the product to our models that we have and they can do user generated content and you know you can still promote your product you don't need a studio so when you started were you more of a kind of influencer side rather than a yeah a model agency okay so how did you get your your first sort of influences models it's interesting you ask that because no one really knows this but genesis was an influences agency when we started obviously all of those posts have been deleted and it's not in anyone's memory anymore we had some models but mainly models with followings and we even had even had bodybuilders we even had we had fitness athletes we had all of all of that and i knew that that was the best way to get the name out there plus the best way to get opportunity because when you say modeling agency modeling agency appeals the most to influencers and to these people who want to be models essentially so we targeted that and gave them those opportunities but then there came a time of course where i said to myself if i've got a modeling agency i want it to be as good as it can be so what makes a good modeling agency which was the next step

9:32the two guys that I started with I love them to bits you know they're two of my best friends but about two months in they were like damn this is too much work don't want to do it so I had to go in solo after that yeah I was like there's no chance I'm giving up on it no chance that point where my friends said they didn't want to continue was definitely it was actually that was one of my biggest low points actually because so I just felt a little bit disappointed because it made me feel like, oh, do they not believe I can do it? But then that drove me as well because I made that pledge where I was like, you know what, like, I'm happy to take it by the horns.

10:11I just need like a bigger share. So we had that conversation and then that happened. In the modeling industry, relationships, they come and go quite a lot because contracts are short. You build a relationship with someone, then they go. And, you know, it was hard for me to handle that to start with. And in the modeling industry, I had to get used to the aspect of, oh, it's quite transient. Yeah. And because I was so involved at the start, you know, I was booking, I was scouting, I was doing everything. And I was learning as much as I could. I struggled a lot with building models up and then they move on.

10:47And it was only until two, three years ago where I started to realize that that was the nature of the job. it's interesting because when you're when you're running a business you're always putting this front on well not front you always have to you have to make decisions regardless of what's going on but there are a lot of times where i really felt like i'm trying to build this agency but then every day i need to be at 100 in order for that to happen but i'm not 100 every day and it's the days where i'm not which were always the toughest

11:26you know i remember fashion week 2022 at that point we didn't really have that many models who were of the profile to be walking i was speaking to someone at this little event and they said how many models you have um walking at fashion which is a weird question but at that point we were doing a lot of commercial stuff we had a lot of influences and everything did you always know you wanted to go down the fashion route you wanted to be an editorial agency yes and no i knew that to be a good modeling agency you have to have that but i was very much focused on what would help us be the best business financially and to be the best business financially i believed when we started it was the influencer route and the user generated content and you know the amount of eyes that are going to be looking at something but then i slowly realized that the best position you could be in is being is being a top modeling agency with top editorial faces because then that attracts everyone so you could go that direction and then you could diversify on something else but you can't start off as an influencer agency continue as an influencer agency and then five years in when your name's already associated with you know influences and commercial modeling say oh I want to be a high fashion agency now so I had to make that decision quite quickly and that conversation I had with someone in 2022 about who we had at fashion week prompted me to really get working with it

12:59for someone listening who doesn't know how agencies work can you explain you're like what does an agency actually do for a model day-to-day to put it simply we're responsible for their their development and also for promoting them as a model and doing all of the things behind the scenes to make sure that they get the best rates possible their image rights are being used correctly and we basically help direct their career a lot of people think it's about just getting work for the model but some of it is to do with protecting the model's image rights as well which no one really really important now yeah exactly no one really understands that side and the development side as well you know when a model comes to us and they're completely fresh it's about you know developing them by uh building their book um helping them work in their poses if they want to get into a certain part of high-end fashion then it'd be about you know guiding them with you know things such as nutrition like we we do everything we give nutrition plans we um you know teach models how to walk how to pose but that's this is what a lot of agencies do but when you speak when you're talking about Genesis specifically we take a lot of pride in that and that's something that we had to do from day one and we've continued to do tell me about when you found your office like on Kings Road what was that like there was six of us at the time so before that you were all just working from home and co-working and so before that so we were all in SohoWorks and then I decided okay we're not going to be in SohoWorks anymore.

14:36SohoWorks we're going to find a new office space. I deliberately put the company and myself under pressure because I said to SohoWorks that we're handing we're handing in our notice which had a 30-day period but then I didn't have anything else lined up. I just did it because I knew that by doing that it would make me make it make me take steps and i didn't want to pay for two offices at once and then unfortunately i didn't find a place within 30 days so then we had a two-week period where we were working from home and during that two-week period i was going all over the place just thinking i was thinking you know i really want an office that has my logo there i need that I need that because in this time all of this time I've been working so hard I'm happy for us to have that because it's gonna you know give a good energy to our work environment you know walking in and being being able to see my logo every day or the logo our logo is it's something that I I was really you know kind of dreaming about you know it was something that I couldn't get out of my head I I just thought so you were literally looking for the perfect wall yeah I was looking for the perfect wall and i was looking for something where if when someone walks in they feel the the energy and the aura of the agency because you know there's only so much you can do when you're constantly taking google meetings or you're in a co-work space and there's someone talking about accounting in in the corner and it's like getting into our conversation like it was too much yeah and my business part so my two new business partners that i had because the other two left i brought two other people in they were kind of against it but i mean i made my own decision there and when we eventually moved and we set everything up I thought you know I've been thinking about this for the last couple of weeks let me see what it looks like I'm going to stand beneath the logo it's still my whatsapp picture till today but I thought okay I'm just going to stand here and I'm just going to look up at the logo and embrace it and then when I looked at the picture it was just as I imagined it to be honest so that was a very that was a point for you when you were like okay this is us this is our yeah you're first off yeah yeah and it just it just happened that my brother and my sister i'm a twin i'm a twin twin brother he was um working at genesis at the time as well um as my sister my sister was working too so it was very it was a very lovely moment having that to be honest

17:08when we scout some new talent we're looking for exactly what the casting event is looking for that's to put it simply you know I obviously have I can you know talk about what I believe is a great model which for me is something which you can't really describe is someone who really stands out and someone who in my schema from from seeing all of these emails and all of these you know casting sheets and everything they fit into that and that's not something that i can necessarily describe because it changes quite a lot as you know but as long as i'm active within the business i always have an understanding of what the clients have been saying who they've been requesting and who's been working the most at the agency and also where there are gaps within our agency so we would look at the castings that we didn't get and the castings that we didn't get we'd make like a little excel and just you know have the profiles of the people who um we were missing yeah or the people who find out who did book those jobs who did book those jobs or where we where we were lacking a little bit of depth that that helped a lot that was part of our initial scouting strategy that actually worked because when we initially decided to shift to high fashion i didn't do that because i hadn't had the high fashion request yet so but then once once i realized that i decided to get our first you know set of scouts at that point i thought okay i'm going to do it on a basis of you know performance only you know freelance scouts and that taught me a lot i mean i really i really learned so much during that period where we were scouting a lot of our you know fresh talent that we're that we're getting that we're getting a lot of work when clients are reaching out to genesis i think because we're still perceived as a newer agency but an agency with good faces we'll often get requests for um new faces like new face packages or unseen talent you know so a lot of the agencies in paris really love us at the moment because we've got a lot of like strong talent about unseen and they they love that for their shows and all the rest of it and you know prada we've got like quite a few models optioned for prada exclusive show in paris because as you said we protect their image rights we see that they're a great model we just get them digitals that's it so that's the way we're operating we have been operating for you know the last two years which is entirely different to how we started you know it's a completely different agency But you've listened to what the market wants and you've adjusted to that.

19:22What's the structure of Genesis? Like how are you, how are you finance? Like who are your shareholders? I've got myself and my two fellow directors. One is, I'll call him an entrepreneur now. When he came into Genesis, he's working at a venture capital firm. And then the second director, he's a director also at PwC. He's like really good in the business consulting side. So we're very business heavy when it comes to the board of directors. For us, it's all about return on investment and expanding and building the company in a very well-structured way. Then going into the team, we've got men's board, women's board.

20:02We split up with two bookers on each side. And then we've got two interns on each side as well. We also have like, he's like the glue between both teams and between everything. um his role isn't something that i guess you wouldn't have it in other agencies but we have one of our team members there who like i'll quote him now enrique and he basically keeps the team chemistry very high because sometimes there can be disjointed communication between team members or even i might feel like something's going wrong and i i need help with it um or i need a second voice to speak to someone and he and he's the gluten team and i've had that one i've had that sort of role always there just one person for the last i think for the last two years he's super important and then in terms of scouts our scouts mainly work on location so we've got are they freelance or employed your scouts one's employed one's well one's employed and then one who works really closely with us is still freelance but works closely enough with us to have day-to-day communication with the team and is obviously doing super well um in order to for them to even give that time and then we work with loads of other freelance scouts in the sense where they'll send us their proposals and we'll decide whether we want to sign the model or not so then if you're working with a scout with a freelance scout like that you do a commission split or do you do a one-off payment one-off payment yeah one-off payment it makes it much simpler yeah so how how many people do you like have in the office at any one time and are you in the office every day i i would say that everyone in the team is in the office bar two and that would be i'm not always in the office you know sometimes i have to thought around and whatnot the most experienced booker in our team is working from home at the moment and the reason why he's working from home is because we trialed it for a period of time because he wants to be with his family and it just works he's not in the uk he's not he's in slovakia he has that past because it's it's a point where as a business owner, I have to think to myself, okay, if someone has presented an option to me to work from home to, you know, be around their family, that's something that I always have to consider, especially if I value them as a, as an asset to the team, because their mental health and, you know, their peace of mind is super important.

22:20I'm always going to listen to that sort of request. And then I listened to it and it actually turned out really well. I would never have a new starter who doesn't have experience working from home, you know, because it's super important to be in the environment. If someone's no longer learning and they're just implementing what they already know, then it's fine for them to work from home. If someone's in a process of where, you know, they still need to develop in quite a few areas, then it's much better if they're in the office. But with that being said, there are still drawbacks because everyone, you can always be learning.

22:50Even if someone has 10, 15, 20 years experience, you know, they can obviously have the past work from home, but it's still important that they are still in the loop with everything that people are doing and you know they still feel the team chemistry and the company's culture and we try and do that in various ways you really do build like a relationship with with these employees yeah i think the hardest thing for me was if an employee would leave but you're not even expecting it it's like the unexpected yeah yeah that's that's that's what hurts that hasn't happened too often to be totally to be honest because usually you can sense it you have meetings before they're on they might want to switch careers i've had people leave and go and be a teacher or be you know go back to uni and do something or you know yeah actually that reminds me my hardest one was um my brother leaving oh yeah that was my hardest one i yeah that was the most difficult for me because when you're working with family it can be the best thing in the world and at moments it could feel like the worst and when it feels like the worst it's in those moments where you know you're trying to understand them or there's a misunderstanding between the two of you yeah it definitely it hurts a little bit more but it hurts a lot more on a personal level how does genesis work with models when it comes to sort of terms and earnings we obviously get a commission from the from the jobs that we book for the model and then as a mother agency if we place the model in a different market we get a smaller percentage because the model would essentially have to pay commission to the agency that they placed at so the commission that we get when we place the model is you know significantly lower it's like less than half but that commission comes from the other agency yeah it comes from the agency that's that's how it works in in that sense and then of course from a supplier stance.

24:42Like if you think of a modeling agency as a supplier, the supplying models, there are a lot of companies where you have to like sign supplier forms. And then with those supplier forms are like obviously payment terms and the payment terms can really vary, especially when it comes to international jobs, obviously to always be aware of when you are a model. And we're an agency that invests a lot into our talent, especially the talent that we're bringing in internationally. What might happen is if a model, if model can't afford to, you know, live in the UK, but they really want to work during fashion week we might advance them their costs essentially which would be you know accommodation travel some of our models the models that work a little bit more have business cards as well so with those business cards they use it for their expenses obviously has a cap on it and then that just gives them that peace of mind where they're not gonna and then that gets deducted yeah it gets deducted yeah so they go to like because i know how it is sometimes you know sometimes a model might have to get from a to b and we just don't want the models that are super busy in town working getting into any of these situations because we know that with the business cards it's like a useful way for them to use some of their earnings whilst knowing that they can't like like those cards are purely dedicated to travel food accommodation it's like a prepaid card it's like a prepaid card and then and then it tops up every week but that's just it's just for general expenses you know it's never like a huge chunk and when you're bringing a model in on stay how long do you have them for we test the waters to be honest we test the waters to keep things on the safer side we'll issue the certificate sponsorship for three months and then when the model comes in if they are working well within the first two three weeks then it's a good sign there are times where someone hasn't worked well or hasn't worked a lot in the first two three weeks but we continue with things because we really believe that perhaps it's just uh you know the is perhaps the time and then it's a bit of seasonality as well but yeah it really ranges between two weeks to three months four months five months really depends and then back in the day we used to if we had a model here the first thing we do is send them we'd have a list of clients they go and go see so they go to see the magazines photographers obviously that doesn't really have you know covid kind of put a stop to all of that what do you do how do you kind of get them out there because obviously there's so many there's no then hardly any live castings now yeah and it's all self-tape it's all so how do you keep them busy you know obviously if you've got a model in town you kind of want to keep them busy when it comes to go sees it's become less popular because the way it works now is we send packages you know and packages is preferred over live castings these days and it's just purely a technical development people have to remember that businesses they don't want to have too many resources being used on something where it doesn't need to be used in this day and age having your full book printed and then your time traveling from one side of london to the other for a casting although it's something that people believe they want to show activity i think a lot of models need to trust that the agency are doing that but in a much more efficient way and so it's not actually more productive yeah yeah in our case what we what we typically do when we have a new face is we've got our mailing list and we'll ping out we'll ping out to the mailing list but then on top of that we would do tailored outreach as well where we will obviously yeah we'll speak we'll speak to those clients and maybe a phone call and then what would typically happen is they would definitely see the client but they see the client when the clothes are there ready to fit or there's a campaign coming up in the next week or two as opposed to just you know going and seeing them just to show face and show that they're here they're available they're active we have to always think about the client's demands as well and clients aren't demanding models to to come in person anymore you know and lots of the clients aren't in the office yeah yeah they're not in the office and yeah yeah it's just the way the world's moving at the moment when you're when you are booking models for those big names the reality of the situation is you'll often be corresponding with a casting director that's working with that particular brand and then the models would then would then need to go to that casting and it's a very it's a very difficult process a lot of people see the end product but they have to remember that up until that point up until the point of that image being being made and then posted on instagram either our instagram or the models instagram up until that point there was a whole casting process a whole fitting process sometimes you know rounds of castings as well and obviously doing the job on the day.

29:12And then it leads to that final product. So there is definitely, you know, a lengthy process involved. For a lot of listeners who aren't involved in the fashion industry, they'd be thinking, oh, well, you know, what's the point in a casting director or even an agency? Surely if the brand wants someone, they'll just reach out to them. But a brand isn't necessarily going to have a casting team for a full-time position, you know, within their company. You know, to be resourceful, you would outsource for something if it's going to happen you know a few times a year and not not every single day that's what that's one thing that people have to remember yeah but then again you know with asos for example they do their own casting with jd sports they do their own casting but those are brands that are shooting very very very frequently so it makes sense for them as a business to do that tell us about some of your best jobs that you kind of got and you thought uh i would say the best jobs are okay there's two types okay best jobs on one side okay would definitely be the ones that pay the most that have paid the most which would be your brands like Sony Nivea the benefits of Genesis where I'm like okay we're really in the mix now was when we did campaign for Loewe because I got the supply form from LVMH that we had to sign and when we had when I had to put in all my details all the company details that was one of those things where even though it wasn't the best rate in the world it was definitely a moment i was like wow or from a placement stance when we placed models with img and you know you get that signed form from endeavor and endeavor is a company where when genesis started i was i was mad about endeavor and orio manual i was just like wow this is like crazy like insane you know a company that started off as like a tiny talent agency or not tiny but like a small amount of people to to then you know owning like sports leagues and being worth like several billions like it was just amazing to me and yeah signing that form was was something I guess for the models it's a completely different story you know when they're doing the job it's like they're the image so there's a different feeling I guess for me it's um the supply forms literally all the invoices yeah and how do you balance that kind of commercial slash editorial or you know if they get offered a job that is really amazing money and you're saying to them do you know what you can't do this job even though you can pay your 20k because it doesn't align with you know the journey we need you to go on yeah i mean it's that constant thing of weighing up the opportunity cost when it comes to modeling the opportunity is always the money and then also the way it can build your career um but then sometimes when the opportunity is just money the cost can be how it can damage your career and vice versa.

31:56So I think if a model, if we really want to protect the model's image rights, we would do it in a way where you have to be super strategic about the jobs that they do. For example, with the Prada exclusive shows that are happening start of next year in Paris, the models that are optioned for that aren't allowed to do any shows. And we keep them for that client. They might not even confirm it, but between now and then, the opportunity is debuting Prada. The cost is all of the... But they're turning down everything else. Yeah, but then if we're thinking between now October, I mean, the only shows I'll really be missing would probably be, it'd probably just be like student shows.

32:36I don't say this to throw shade on the Under Fashion Week, but I would always prioritise the other fashion weeks, not New York, but Paris and Milan, because it just so happens that they attract better designers. And that's the simple point of it. So I would withhold, I would stop our model from doing London Fashion Week shows if it means that they can do an exclusive show in Paris.

33:03You've been involved with the British Fashion Council and the British Fashion Model Agency Association. Yeah. Okay. And what does that mean in practice? Like, how did you get into that? What does that mean? So what happened there was, so you remember, so tracking back a little bit, you remember the conversation about that I had with that guy about, you know, who we had walking at the London Fashion Week shows? And I said a few, but I didn't. And then I had to work really hard to get people on shows. I ended up getting that list together and I ended up signing models who were able to go to the shows.

33:35For our first London Fashion Week, February 2022, we had maybe 40, 50 bookings, which was a lot, considering the fact that before then it wasn't even something i was considering so i had to work at like a really fast pace and so you were just contacting all of those yeah clients casting directors exactly like introducing genesis as a new agency yeah having your model show pack you had together and yeah yeah yeah yeah and um after that one of the guys who was booking the models he suggested that we do a line of fashion week event together and from my side i was thinking why not like we it'd help our marketing and and everything so let's do it so then in june 2022 we're about to do this event and he's a member of the british fashion council so he's the one who could get us on the schedule and i'm talking to all of i'm talking to the club owner or the restaurant owner i'm talking to the people working on the pr and everything and then all of a sudden the guy goes ghost and when he went ghost on me i had this overwhelming amount of pressure again on my head where there's this huge expectation to do this London Fashion Week event it wasn't it wasn't a show it was just an evening event um in Mayfair and there were costs incurred and when when this guy went ghost to me and eventually came back and said he didn't want to do it anymore we'd already made a commitment to the club and the restaurant we made a commitment to the PR company and that was one of my low moments where I was like oh crap yeah I'm I'm really screwed right now i had to think on my feet immediately do you have a choice at that point yeah i called the british fashion council and i explained the story of genesis and i explained who we are and i said with this being said i really want us to be able to get on the schedule for an event they're like okay cool we'll jump on a call so i went on a team's call it was myself and three people working at the british fashion council and they were just finding out more about me because i i didn't explain that the person who i wouldn't say business associate but the person I was working with for this event I didn't tell them that he went ghost to me but I said okay because of this because I'm looking to do this event and what would I need to do like how could I contribute to the British the British Fashion Council how can I contribute as a young business owner I had that conversation and then they got back to me and they said look we'd love to have you on as a member that was it initially and um we'll well they waived the fees as well the fees incurred but they waived it so i could do the event so i was obviously eternally grateful and then the event happened and the event went really well and our models did really well also i think that was a turning point for the company that month financially so then i got back and i said we might do this a few more times so why don't we become patrons which meant that we could like we were on the website and things like that um and yeah i just i opted to do that because they helped me at one point so i thought okay like let me contribute to to them a little bit as well and from there we did several other london fashion week events so yeah the bfma um began life as the ama where you probably remember that the association of model agencies is how it started i think it's historically felt quite inaccessible so it's like just for the very very top tier of agencies and obviously in reality there's a much wider you know range of really good successful agencies operating in the UK and do you think that the association should open itself up to represent the full breadth of the industry to an extent but I do believe as I said before decision makers and people who contribute to the decisions that are being made need to have a certain level of experience and expertise to give an informed opinion um the the honest reality of social media and and the way things work today is a lot of people value their own opinions a little bit more than they would have in the past you know a lot of people are more outspoken which is fine like from a from a level of you know freedom of speech and everything but what that means is you never want too many heads in a kitchen because a lot of people have very strong opinions these days and sometimes when it comes to decision making and having a committee of people you want to make sure that everyone's pretty much aligned i say this because i've spoken to a lot of people that run smaller agencies and you know it's you could say it's slightly hypocritical because i obviously started as a smaller agency but i never asked to be a part of anything i sort of worked to get to that point so i think the proof has to be in the pudding in that sense before someone is um a part of a board or a committee where opinions are you know taken to then make decisions because actually i was just talking about this my last guest actually was the chair of beck to have set up a fashion uk branch so they're representing like creatives and i said to her why not models and she said well the bfma represent models i said well they don't they represent the agencies yeah so then she said no no they definitely represent models so that was something i was going to ask you they don't know they represent the agency there isn't uh apart from equity which obviously if a model is doing kind of commercials acting and stuff they can join equity there is no other union yeah there's obviously the model alliance isn't there in new york yeah there's no the bfma is for agencies not yeah an independent model can't go there can they to be a member yeah i i do think that's perhaps uh an avenue for development more than having smaller agencies because, you know, in this day and age, anyone can like start something.

39:15But then a model who is there within the job, someone who actually does need their opinion to be heard a little bit, I think that's something that would definitely contribute a little bit more to the development of the BFMA.

39:34The only patrons of British Fashion Club at their agencies is IMG and us. Okay. Has that not put a lot of noses out of joint? That was like one of the turning points of the agency. But we were patrons before IMG were as well. We were the first agency that worked. And that was in 2023. Because 2022 was when we did the event and we were members. And then the patronage came in 2023. Yeah, okay. But, you know, sometimes when I'm talking about the whole journey of Genesis, it's very easy to get lost in this present moment. The British Fashion Council patronage was one of the pivotal moments for us because there were only 30 at that time in like there were only 30 and we were there with the likes of chanel and then you said like genesis which you know oh and there was like google also like there were huge companies and it was really something that attracted a lot of international clients to us as well because it gave that stamp of like authority and then that stamp of approval plus doing the london fashion week events these things really helped build our brand quality very quickly because i think for our brand quality to get to the point it has in five years is it's obviously like those steps and those moments and those those high moments were big contributing factors and being able to then put the patronage like in our signature and things like that when we were emailing people we got taken very seriously after that after that that was the point where models would come to our agency and i'd be speaking to them and for the first time I'm going to be speaking to them.

41:00And I could sense that they really felt like, they felt something about the agency. Whereas before, I was constantly selling the vision and everything. And I did all of the talking. But then three years into the business was kind of the moment where I stopped having to talk as much because everything was sort of put into place. And that was, in one way, slightly refreshing. In another way, I really enjoyed those moments where I was constantly, you know, selling the vision. It was such a nice period of time. a very difficult period of time but it was a time where I was constantly trying to get people to believe in the vision and when you do that it's such a satisfying feeling but yeah the patronage that happening was uh was amazing and then yeah as I said we were the only agency that were patrons of the BFC for maybe a year and then IMG after.

41:49So let's going back to what you were saying about London Paris Milan so let's talk about London Fashion Week because some people have been pretty open in saying that they think it's lost its shine but you know what what is your view with with london fashion week i feel as though it's down to the designers to really say to themselves okay we want to showcase our collection at london fashion week not paris or milan everything has slowly over the years pushed towards paris milan when you're talking about you know main main brands like like brands that are you know commercially recognized and have a huge status in high fashion so when the designers move everything else moves with it the the pr the events the people that are attending the shows you know it all moves that way as well i hate to say it but that's just the reality and it's something that i've actually spoken the bfc about my point was as a modeling agency owner we want our models to look at london fashion week as like a big occasion um but then you know it's only a big occasion but when when the designers when the designers are top because the london fashion week's only as good as the designers that are there also you're not going to get the best models coming in for it you know you're not going to get the new york agencies aren't going to send their best yeah best girls over here if there's only two shows that are worth yeah and the rates as well yeah you know everything everything and it's really sad because i just feel like the distance and the gap between all of the fashion weeks is really starting to become apparent because if we if we took any any general member of the public if they looked at the london fashion week schedule they'd probably only recognize two brands which would be burberry and all saints realistically and if you look at paris and vallan there's a lot more but then again those who are sort of diehard into fashion would say well London Fashion Week isn't for them but I believe that London Fashion Week should be a little bit more of a commercially recognised thing where you know yes it's to appeal to designers and it's to appeal to people within the creative industry but I would like to see London Fashion Week appeal to the general public a little bit more not in a way where the general public are attending the shows it's not that but just you know the eyes on it and the publicity.

44:07You can have events around it and stuff anyway. Yeah 100%.

44:19the agency world i think has historically been very gate-capped sort of a lot of smoke and mirrors about how it all works and a lot of people have told me that it's refreshing to hear quite open conversations that that i've had on this podcast why do you think agencies have kept things so behind the curtain for so long yeah it's quite clicky is what they'd say um well when i started genesis i got a litigation letter from a partner of a big law firm in manchester from an agency that sounds like genesis that isn't genesis at all okay yeah um they sent me they sent me a letter um no and i just responded saying you must be having a laugh what what was what was the what was the litigation about um it was just like what was the case it was just like it was more than feeling like we were stepping on their toes a little bit despite the fact that We're in like a different location.

45:11And I think for some reason, the name side of things, I think got to them. But yeah, no, they came. I'm surprised they're even bothered about that because they're quite big in themselves, aren't they? Maybe they understood like the assignment of like how fast we were moving, but we only had like a few thousand followers at that time. But they sent the letter to my home address. So it was about the name really, mainly. It was about the name and then instances like that. And then of course, the agency that I was signed to like blocks me off everything and were like belling up my phone. I mean, to be fair.

45:39It's fair. because because i feel like i feel like yeah do you know what it was probably right because if one of our models i'd be pissed off i'd be pissed but they were blowing up my phone and i just just had to change my number but um no move moving into the industry had some challenges in that sense and i felt like some agencies well i know that some agencies um i would never throw shade on an agency to you know hinder their growth never like you'll never hear me talk badly about another agency to a model who's science of genesis just just to try and start growth or or or any anyone for that matter i mean that was something i learned really early on don't worry about anyone else just be the best you can be doing what you're doing don't you know worry about anyone else coming in to you know just yeah exactly that was really good advice and and yeah that's amazing advice and this is it's exactly how things should always go down when it comes to growing a business and I've been in the fashion industry as as you were saying it's one of those things where you get a lot of pushback from people within the industry and people outside of the industry as well so you just got to lock in you know stay hyper focused on what you need to do put the proof in the pudding and then move on from there and as I said no one no one really knew who I was even for the first you know for the first year and a half of the agency unless you were science genesis you didn't I didn't really market it you know I didn't put it in my Instagram and it promotes it like that obviously in the initial stage I did but then when I started to realize that it would be better to work behind the scenes and create a good brand and then when someone wants to you know see me hear from me they can hear from me but it's also it's very important to protect your protect your hard work and your piece you know but I believe that it's very important to keep some things close to your chest when you're when you're building things up because it is very clicky and people they do try and tear you down or say things that are going to put you or throw you off for the whole day so you may as well just keep it to yourself and just keep it moving what have been some of the biggest challenges of running genesis so far managing expectations is definitely one of the biggest challenges in this industry because this is a world where there are high expectations on all sides but in terms of delivery there's a lot that's taken out of the hands of the agency but the agency always it's always like we're taking like collateral damage all the time for things that are outside of our control for me that as a general point is the toughest part of running a modeling agency because you have to be super thick-skinned because the decision or the tardiness of a model or the tardiness of a client it always falls back on the agency because if the model because they're on set together and they want someone to blame yeah yeah exactly so if a model turns up late they'll find a way to blame us and then the client blames us somehow and then you know we're just sort of in the middle taking the blame for a lot of things and i realized this when we had a client that basically long story short they filed for bankruptcy after booking several models when we when we emailed them and basically um when they're doing their wind up and stuff we basically we basically filed a ccj to start but then when we knew that that wasn't going to go anywhere that makes me angry because they would have known that they were in issues before they even yeah and i realized that we really are in a tough spot as a modeling agency because i actually asked our booker to loop the models in to the communication so the models are aware understood yeah and they didn't understand the models then ended up getting at the booker saying why did you book us with this client they were this unprofessional that they were making us do our makeup this that that that all stuff that you know it's almost impossible for us to completely vet these things from the outside it's a normal brand obviously the models went there and they weren't happy with everything on set, but it only raised all of these things.

49:23Because they didn't tell you at the time. They didn't tell us at the time. They only told us when we were trying to seek remuneration for them and kept them in the loop. And instead of them sort of teaming up with us, they were like, well, you guys suck for putting us on this job. And then the client's ignoring us. And then at that point, that was actually one of my lows because you go into it thinking that there's going to be a level of empathy at least on one side because we've been screwed over as well, ultimately. but then there was actually zero and we were sort of left alone in the whole thing where we're spending a lot of time and energy and resources to try and you know fight for the models but it was just in that instance in particular but obviously obviously that's a that's a rare occurrence for the most part people can be very understanding and things are very smooth but it's just very unfortunate when the going gets really tough and we've sort of been betrayed in a way we obviously try our best to find a result but it's really it really puts a lot of pressure on us when we have to like deal with a certain situation and members of our team aren't really coming together i would say roughly five to ten percent of clients really take the mick when it comes to you know paying and stuff and since we've started genesis we've had um six completely non-paying clients um three of which were members of well they weren't members of the bfc but they they were at london fashion week three of them and to this day you know we we've had to pay out and just try to get what we can from it but either way you know we're just the collateral in the middle and it's not fair yeah it takes it takes up because we get treated as a supplier we're often having to do so much admin yeah for small rates yeah yeah we have to do so much admin invoice at our end then you've got to invoice on their end then you've got to make sure all the po stuff matches your client isn't even the client that's anything to do with payment yeah so they there's no comeback or they're like oh i'm not even on that job anymore yeah it's it's it's an absolute nightmare and it's a lot it's a lot of administration it is it is a lot

51:29lots of our listeners might want to be models um what should someone focus on if they'd love to be signed by genesis what they should focus on is ultimately themselves and the industry will come to them if if they're good for if it's right for you the industry will come to you it will but for now just focus on yourself you know focus on your health focus on your training and at some point someone will tap you on the shoulder of all of the applications we get maybe we accept 0.1 that would be that would be generous actually you know it'd be less than a fraction of a percent so if i was to give honest advice is you know focus on yourself focus on your health as much as you can and if it's right for you the industry will come to you no worries but if it doesn't it's all right and unfortunately there are lots of scams in the industry yeah and that's only going to get worse with ai there's lots of people sending it's really scary we get models forwarding emails to us that have been sent to them from our bookers yeah with our branding with literally everything what can people look out for a lot of the um scams that are out there mainly surround capitalizing on those people who want to be models inviting them in for a photo shoot and then charging them and anyone listening to this who's been through that experience would would know that when that happens it's a fake agency capitalizing on how much you want to be a model my honest advice which i know not everyone's going to take is don't go looking for it focus on yourself and if it comes to you it comes to you but then if someone comes to you and they say oh do you want to do a photo shoot they say no thank you steven no worries it's been a great conversation great convo glad to have it

53:15steven thank you for giving us such a clear picture of what life inside an agency is really like i've loved hearing how genesis is one of the newest players is approaching things As a heritage agency, it's inspiring for me to hear how the next generation are building their own way forward. I really believe that whether you've been around for 50 years or five, agencies of all kinds have value to offer. The more we talk, share and learn from each other, the stronger our industry becomes. That's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

53:56Have a wonderful day.