The Hello Group is a global entertainment company, with its head office in London, UK. Today, we are joined by Kyran Jones, Chief Operating Officer at the agency who talks about relationships with artist and brand clients.
Kyran’s role at the company is on the senior leadership team working alongside former Warner Bros. veteran Phil Q, and well known music executive and brother Taylor Jones. Daily tasks including talent management, original content development (TV/film/brand production), brand marketing, and distribution. As a manager, he has nurtured THG’s business interests by brokering deals for it’s artists with entertainment industry behemoths such as Republic Records, Universal Pictures, Warner, HBO, and Disney.
Just as importantly, Kyran has guided THG artists to an impressive collection of successes that have helped the company’s reputation soar. Between 2019 and 2020, THG and Kyran were involved in 25 Billboard Number 1 Chart results and more than 26 golden/platinum records, and their artists won countless awards, including an MTV EMA Award, an ASCAP Award, and a UK Official Charts Number One Award.
Kyran’s recent activities promise to usher in an even brighter future. He recently took on co-management duties for Holland’s most successful artist and YouTuber Emma Heesters, as well as top-tier digital talent, including the UK’s most followed prankster Kristen Hanby (who has more than 38 million followers online). Kyran is also becoming increasingly influential in the K-Pop market, supporting A&R as the company’s writers & producers have produced records with BTS, Super M, NCT, Baekyhun, ITZY, WayV, and more.
Below we hear first hand from Jones, how to manage reputation and how important it really is to a company at the helm of the entertainment world.
How important is having a good reputation in your field?
Extremely. This is a tough business, and unfortunately full of managers and agents that have bad intentions. We started our business because we wanted to cause change, and be the good guys.
We’re very cognizant of doing the right thing, being honest, working hard and having fun. It’s always a good time at Hello, no matter what division of the company or in which office – it feels like family between the team and our clients and that has naturally cultivated a great reputation for us, whereby our clients themselves promote us and champion us – it’s nice to know they are proud to be represented by The Hello Group, just as much as we are proud to represent our amazing talent.
How do you find new clients?
We used to monitor the web for talent and still have junior agents and scouts that do, though at this stage in our business and in my career, clients tend to come to us either by referral or by contacting us directly. We have a very good reputation in our field and our marketing and brand strategy is pretty strong.
We have a great social media presence, and are always very particular about our branding, the events we sponsor, the panels we talk at, etc. More than anything, success speaks for itself and the projects we have been involved in that have achieved great success speak for themselves, and we are very proud of that.
What is the most important factor in a successful artist management relationship?
Honesty, and work ethic. If you are honest with your clients, no matter whether the feedback on a creative piece of work is positive or negative, then you will always be able to get the best results and continue to improve.
Once you’re on the same page as far as quality (whether it’s a song, production, script, or other), then you kick in the work ethic to pull the projects over the line. With these two factors constantly in-play, you’re set up for a good run.
What do you do at The Hello Group to ensure you keep a good reputation?
We have a very strict hiring policy. Good people only, who are qualified for the job. There are lots of qualified individuals, who don’t fit our culture or who’s ideals we don’t agree with. Therefore, we put the good first, and the qualifications second. Anyone who is good, intelligent, ready to work hard, can be trained and guided to success.
Finally, what are 3 pieces of advice you would give to an aspiring entrepreneur or business in reputation building?
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