Hire Excellent Digital Sellers: 5 Secrets - Walter Sabo

The account executive turnover at major digital firms is very high Startups raise funds to salary qualified experienced sharksellers but their hires sell nothing Not a little but nothing In talking with dozens of startup CEOs they share the same storyquotI hired a seller with a killer resume and they sold nothing Almost all of the billing we have was sold by me and my cofounder or by sellers with no sales experiencequotCEOs then try new adwording sharks nothing Or they outsource freelance sales teams only to discover those are often scams ie the outsource company wants the client to fund their enterprise 100BLAME THE BUYERSAfter studying this for years I believe that professional sellers are less than effective at selling digital advertising because BUYERS HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO BUY DIGITAL ADVERTISING MBAs call this an quotinefficient marketplacequotFIVE REASONS DIGITAL SELLERS CAN39T SELL ONLINE ADVERTISING1 Sellers are hired based on their robust resumes in sales They have effectively sold TV Radio Print Outdoor Digital is a new medium with a new language and buying patterns Prior experience therefore is not applicable It may be a hinderance2 Buyers have no rules for digital engagement Go to Mindshare Mediavest Starcom Starbright FirststarIseetonightnetuk or any major buying agency and they have well tested methods for buying proven media But they have less robust algorithms or measured demands for free tickets to close a digital buy No of course not your agencyThat39s why they always ask quotHow do we measure the ROI if we buy this from youquot Fact is every brand has their own ROI standards but these standards have not been established for new media It is not the seller39s job to outline the ROI Brandsagency ask because they don39t actually know what the ROI should be3 There is no standard for online video ROI Do you measure the first click The first 5 seconds Or does a person have to watch the whole video for it to count4 No training Because it39s a new medium there is no standard for training digital sales people Larger digital enterprises have inhouse training programs but their success rate is about the same as companies that have no formal training This is because the parameters for training are rooted in traditional media examples5 The timeline for success is different Transactional timelines used for radio TV print do not apply to digital It takes at least 10 times longer to close a digital sale than it does traditional media Most of the time is not spent on selling it39s spent on finding the buyer quotNew Mediaquot is dumped into different silos depending on the company While many companies and agencies lie and say quotOur entire company is the digital departmentquot the reality is that the true digital buyer is either the boss or the justhired kidIt39s not just you The frustration of finding and managing digital sales is both profound and unspoken Now you are free to speakThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Hire Excellent Digital Sellers: 5 Secrets - Walter Sabo

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