CHRIS EVERT:
Welcome to Episode 6 of What Moves You, an audio miniseries from Morgan Stanley in support of the WTA. Hi, I’m Chris Evert.
In the first five episodes, we covered a lot of the questions I had about money while I was on the tour - I mean, budgets, savings, investing, working internationally and why and when to work with a financial advisor.
In this next set of episodes with Morgan Stanley financial advisor Scott Lamson, we’ll look at how you can begin to think of yourself as a business. You’ll get insight into the process of building a seamless, efficient organization around you off the court.
SCOTT LAMSON:
Hi I'm Scott Lamson and I'm a Morgan Stanley private wealth advisor and a Global Sports and Entertainment Director.
And I work with athletes across a variety of sports - basketball, football, baseball, and of course, tennis. One of the first things I tell my athletes is - congrats, you’re the CEO of your own business. And that means you have the power and the responsibility to make decisions that are going to impact your success. And success will be different for each person, and each athlete.
So treat your career like a business, and that business will carry you beyond the court and far into the future.
Here’s an example. As a CEO, you assemble a team to help you run your business. There’s your on-court performance, and the business side.
So you’re going to have a coach, you might have a hitting partner, a physio. And then there’s reinvesting into yourself, into nutrition, health and wellness.
On the business side, you might have an accountant, an agent, a lawyer, a business manager and a financial advisor.
And as the CEO of your business, you must pay these people. What's your infrastructure to pay them? Are they getting paid on time? Do you treat them professionally? Do you guide your team to work together to reach your goals?
Because as you evolve through your career, you're going to have different team members come and go. And your goal is that everyone speaks fondly about working with you: “Oh, I worked for player A and they ran a smooth professional business.” That’s the goal.
These details matter when you start working with sponsors and partners. They're going to be impressed when they send you a payment and your business manager, or your accountant or your lawyer responds immediately, confirming receipt of the wire. “Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure to do business with you.” Right? And then they have this impression of, wow, that player really has everything dialed in. And it makes them want to work with you again.
This may sound like a lot of work. And in reality, it is. But you don’t have to do it alone and you don’t have to do it all at once — you can build this team over time. But say you choose to focus solely on playing, and you don’t manage or delegate management of your business — there are risks to that. Maybe you'll get audited. Maybe a team member will quit because they're not being paid on time or not being paid the right amount. Maybe your partners will stop endorsing you. You're traveling globally, so you're going to need visas and that can be a lot of administrative work. You can't just ignore this stuff. It can rear its head up and have real financial or reputational impacts.
And so the more time you spend early on building your business game plan, slowly putting a team in place to manage you as a business, to manage the infrastructure and the operations, the more you free yourself up to go back to doing what you enjoy, which is playing tennis.
CHRIS EVERT:
Thanks for listening to What Moves You, an audio series from Morgan Stanley in support of the Women’s Tennis Association. I’m Chris Evert. We hope this series is a source of guidance and reassurance as you navigate your financial life off the tennis court – so that when you’re on the tennis court you can focus on your game without extra stress or distractions. In the next episode — Scott, on the role your family plays in your business.
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