What Should You Ask a Master Agency Before You Sign?

Michael Onystok • October 5, 2026

Ask for the contract language behind every answer you get. An agency can describe its supplier access, its support, and its commission philosophy in a first meeting, and the agreement is where those descriptions either hold or quietly change shape.

Here is what that looks like in practice. An advisor asks who owns the account, hears "our partners always own their accounts," signs, and discovers two years later that the agent of record designation sits with the agency at every supplier. The answer was a philosophy, and the contract recorded something else. The ten questions below are the ones HonestStok recommends asking any agency before signing, HonestStok included.

Why the agreement outranks the pitch

The agreement governs the relationship for as long as your residuals last, which is usually longer than your relationship with the person who sold you on it. Supplier lists change. Portals get replaced. The partner manager who onboarded you moves on. The contract stays.

Who owns the account, and how is that recorded?

Ask who is named as the customer's agent of record, and what happens to that designation when the relationship ends. Ownership is a contract term with a specific mechanism behind it, and the mechanism is where the real answer lives.

Two questions get you there:

Who is the agent of record at each supplier, and can I see how that is recorded?
If I terminate, does that designation stay with me, transfer to the agency, or revert to the supplier?

Any agency can say the advisor owns the account. The follow-up is what document says so.

What restrictive covenants bind you

Ask for the exact wording of the non-compete, the non-solicit, and the governing-law clause, then read all three together. The enforceable restriction is often somewhere other than where an advisor expects.

The federal picture shifted this year. The Federal Trade Commission removed its Non-Compete Rule from the Code of Federal Regulations effective February 12, 2026, stating in the Federal Register that this action "removes the Non-Compete Rule codified at 16 CFR part 910." Enforcement moved to state law and case-by-case federal action, which makes your governing-law clause one of the most consequential lines in the document.

Case-by-case enforcement has teeth. In the Rollins consent order finalized June 22, 2026, the FTC required the company to stop enforcing non-competes covering more than 18,000 employees, restrictions running two years and reaching 75 miles from any of its locations. Duration and geographic reach draw attention.

State law does the rest. The Washington State Attorney General's April 2026 guidance sets the 2026 non-compete earnings threshold for independent contractors at $317,147.09 of annualized 1099 income, and lists non-solicitation agreements as a separate category with its own rules.

That distinction is the practical one. In many advisor agreements the non-compete is the clause everyone reads and the non-solicit is the clause that binds. Ask which clients you could still serve the day after you leave, and ask for the sentence that proves it.

Supplier access, measured by closed volume

Ask how many suppliers the agency holds contracts with. Then ask how many deals it closed with each of the three you care about most. Counts describe breadth. Closed volume describes whether the agency can get you attention.

Three questions for the room:

Which suppliers have you closed the most business with in the last twelve months?
Do you hold direct contracts with these suppliers, or reach them through another distributor?
Who is my escalation contact at your top five suppliers, and have you used it recently?

HonestStok holds advisor seats on 17 network provider boards and reaches more than 900 suppliers across over 4,000 points of presence. The board seats are the part that matters operationally, because that is where an escalation moves faster than a support ticket.

What support looks like in the first 48 hours

Ask what happens in the two days after you register a deal, and ask for the name of the person who does it. Published support benchmarks do not exist in this industry, so the answer has to come from specifics.

Who quotes my deal, and what is the turnaround?
Do I get a solution engineer on complex cloud, security, and AI opportunities, and at what stage?
When a supplier stalls on provisioning, who calls them, me or you?

An agency naming a person and a timeframe is describing a process it runs. An agency describing a portal is describing software.

What happens to my residuals if I leave?

Get the answer in writing before you sign. This is the question advisors most often skip and most often regret skipping.

Do residuals continue after termination, and for how long?
If your agency is acquired, does my agreement transfer automatically, and do my terms change?

That second question has become materially more likely. Outside investors participated in 80% of channel transactions involving an MSP or MSSP in the first quarter of 2026, up from 68% a year earlier, according to Omdia research reported by Channel Dive in August 2026. The agreement you sign with one owner may be administered by another.

Reading the answers

A usable answer names a document, a person, or a number. The difference shows up fast:

Who owns the account? Thin answer: "Our partners always own their accounts."; Usable answer: "You are the agent of record. Here is the section that says so."
What support do I get? Thin answer: "We have a full back-office team."; Usable answer: "A named person quotes it within a stated turnaround, and a solution engineer joins by the second call on multi-supplier deals."
What if I leave? Thin answer: "We would hate to see that happen."; Usable answer: "Residuals continue for the life of the customer contract. Here is the clause."

In HonestStok's view, advisors who ask for the clause either get a straight answer or learn something useful from the hesitation.

Quick answers

Should I have a lawyer review a master agency agreement? Yes, and specifically one who has read channel or agency agreements before. Assignment, governing law, and post-termination compensation are the clauses that matter most here, and a general commercial review can pass over all three.

Can I negotiate, or is this standard paper? Most agencies present a standard agreement and will still discuss specific terms, particularly termination and residuals. Advisors bringing existing volume have the most room.

How long does onboarding take? It depends on how many supplier paper trails have to be established. The supplier-by-supplier agent of record work takes longest, so ask for a timeline that lists each supplier.

About the author

Mike Onystok is Founder and CEO of HonestStok, a technology and telecom distributor that gives independent advisors, fractional CFOs, IT resellers, and consultants direct supplier access along with the back-office work of sourcing, negotiation, and implementation. He has spent more than 20 years in the technology channel. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeonystok/

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