From Struggle to Millions: doacWeb CEO Didi-Omah Reveals the Truth About Talent Management

Asking me on my view of talent management. Talent management is a total study of its own. 

Talent are naturally born gifts, it can music, acting, content writing, creative artist, sport person, etc. or managing someone's career like political career, it varies. 

Talent management is a huge job, lot of work to do. I will break it down. But I will first and say, if you are managing a talent or someone's career, and the individual fails or still struggling, you have failed. Fully you have failed! You don't know what you are doing. You cannot manage anything — because you don't know enough of the job you are handling.

Executive. Lack of knowledge cause someone to struggle and perish. Talent management is likely to business management. Talent manager and business manager are the same but have slight differences. 

To know a successful person, look at his manager. Before you see a star, there is a good coach or talent manager that did excellent tasks. As there is no big successful business without a manager, so there is no star out there without a manager. Okay, let me open up what I am saying for your understanding, and for you to get it right!

Executive. Let me tell you the truth as it is. Talent management is not a side hustle, it is not guesswork, and it is not just about following somebody around because they can sing, act, play football, or write beautifully. Talent management is a full-time career, a huge responsibility that demands brains, strategy, sacrifice, and relentless focus. If you are managing a talent and the person is still struggling, still begging for opportunities, still not known, then the first person that has failed is you. It means you don’t know what you are doing, you don’t understand the science and art of the business. Because just like business management, talent management requires knowledge, planning, and execution.

Look around the world: before every successful star you see on stage, on screen, or in sports, there is always a smart manager pulling the strings, organizing, protecting, and driving that career forward. Success is never an accident—it is managed. Just like no serious company survives without a manager, no star shines long-term without someone managing them. It is the same principle.

Now, let’s talk about the duties and responsibilities of a career talent manager. First, your duty is to create visibility for your talent. If the world doesn’t know them, they don’t exist, no matter how gifted they are. You must know how to market, how to negotiate, how to position your subject in the right industry circles. Second, your job is to protect your talent from bad deals, fake friends, and poor decisions. Many talented people have died broke, not because they weren’t gifted, but because their managers didn’t know what they were doing. Third, your duty is to grow their brand, expand their reach, and ensure money is always flowing. A career manager must be half a businessman, half a strategist, and half a bodyguard. You must see ahead, you must plan ahead, and you must always think about the long game.

Executive. But here is the hard truth. Talent management is not easy, it is full of hardship. You will sacrifice your own time, your own comfort, even your own money to push your talent forward. You will face rejection, disappointment, betrayal, and sometimes, ingratitude from the very person you are helping to build. That’s the truth nobody likes to say out loud. But if you can stand the heat, if you can stay consistent, if you can turn those disappointments into lessons, then one day, that same talent you groomed will be worth millions, and you will have your share in those millions.

A career talent manager makes their subject successful by treating their career like a business. You don’t just look at them as an artist, you look at them as a company. Their music, their sport, their acting, their writing—those are products. Your job is to brand the product, package it, distribute it, and make people pay for it. That is how careers grow. You must connect them with the right opportunities, sign the right deals, push the right image, and above all, never stop building their network — because their network is their net worth. Money follows influence, and influence follows visibility.

Executive. Let’s not lie to ourselves: if your talent is not growing, if money is not coming in, then you are not managing—you are babysitting. A real career talent manager makes sure the person they are handling is cashing out, building wealth, creating legacy, and expanding into businesses outside their core talent. That’s how you secure millions, that’s how you move from struggling to abundance. A true talent manager is a builder of empires.

That is the real knowledge, that is the wisdom, and that is the truth about talent management. It is hard, but it pays. Executive, don’t ever forget: the star is only as strong as the manager behind them.

© Didi-Omah Augustine Chinazaekpere 

CEO, doacweb.com, Africa