So you’re a creator, and you want to know: When is the magic moment to sign with a manager? We have your answer, straight from Viral Nation’s Head of Creator Relations.

Imagine this: You’re a small-town mom with two kids, working long shifts while your husband goes back to school. Time is short and money is tight, so your household is constantly on the hunt for new meal-prep kitchen gadgets.

Then you find one that makes your life infinitely easier–but when you look online, no one is talking about it. So, you record a quick video and post it to your Instagram or your TikTok. You think it’ll be a nice recommendation for your friends.

Instead, the video blows up. You get 50,000 followers overnight and a message from TikTok about monetizing your content. The brand that made the gadget pops into your email, asking if you want to collab.

What do you do?

This sort of scenario has played out for thousands of people. It’s not always a product review, and it’s not always one overnight hit, but thousands of creators have found audiences online that turned out to be bigger than they expected.

With the creator economy generating more than $250 billion annually, it’s only natural for these folks to start thinking about turning their content into careers.

A talent manager is one of the key people who can help make that happen–and onboarding with a manager is often a major inflection point for a creator.

So…when should creators sign?

There’s no one-answer-fits-all, says Chloe Morris, Head of Creator Relations at Viral Nation Talent. Morris has more than a decade of experience in our space, and at Viral Nation, she helps identify promising creators who’d be great additions to their roster.

“I was on a panel at VidSummit, and the follow-up question from a lot of creators was, ‘At how many followers should I be before seeking representation?'” she says. “I’d say it’s one of those things where metrics aren’t the only thing that comes into play. It’s really the creator identifying when they need support, and that level of support can vary. It can differ depending on the creator, their goals, what they’re looking to achieve long-term, and also identifying their own skill set, and what they enjoy.”

She adds a perhaps surprising piece of advice: “I encourage a lot of creators to have at least one [solo] brand deal under their belts before seeking representation.”

The point of this is giving creators the opportunity to “know what they enjoyed about the process, and where they feel they need help.” Doing at least one brand deal on their own “is going to help them identify when they need representation and who that representation is,” she says.

Once that brand deal is done, Morris generally considers the creator to be in the second stage of their journey. The first, she explains, is meeting the thresholds necessary to start earning revenue from platforms (think YouTube’s AdSense or Twitch’s affiliate status).

This second stage is “where an agency really comes into play,” she says, because “you’re moving to the next level of monetization, which is working with brands. You’re doing things like integrations, sponsorships, becoming a brand ambassador.”

Agents can be critical in managing increased brand communiques and making sure contracts are in everyone’s favor.

“Oftentimes creators don’t go into content creation because they’re passionate about sending outbound emails and redlining contracts,” Morris laughs. “I always say it’s not the glamorous part of the gig.”

This second stage of monetization sets creators up for the third stage: “releasing something around your own IP, whether it’s a book or a tangible product or a podcast,” she says. “Brand deals’ value is being able to show that you can push product and you have an influential relationship with your audience.”

All this being said, Morris notes that creators should always be in control of how much management they want to receive.

Sometimes they’re comfortable with their following as it is, and email handling and contract negotiations are all they need. Sometimes they want more intense production help, like booking filming venues, hiring staff, or upgrading to better equipment. Sometimes they want to expand to brand deals outside their niche, or look at putting their content on FAST channels.

And sometimes creators want full-fledged career coaches who can help them strategize every step while they grow their viewership and build a personal brand.

Viral Nation offers all these levels of support–but though Morris of course wants creators to come on board there, she says they should always feel comfortable investigating their options.

“I always joke that shopping around for an agency is a bit like speed dating,” she says. “You get on a lot of different calls, you ask the same questions, sometimes you get different answers. Ultimately, your agency should be an extension of you and your brand, and you want to make sure it’s a good alignment.”

If the alignment is good, a manager will fill one very crucial role: #1 cheerleader.

“The reason an agency is working with a creator should be because they’re a fan of the creator and the art that creator is putting out,” Morris says. “Find representation that really empowers you to keep doing what you do best.”

Viral Nation is a Tubefilter partner.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.