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of course you pitch this way. you hire an inside sales guy who has personal relationships with c-level execs, and those execs make it happen because they're per

of course you pitch this way. you hire an inside sales guy who has personal relationships with c-level execs, and those execs make it happen because they're personally invested.

scarface74 7y ago
It amazes me that people act like Enterprise sales isn’t a thing.
- manigandham 7y ago
  Advertising isn't enterprise sales.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    That’s just the point - why not? What different strategy would you use selling a SAAS app to a few whales than selling advertising to a few whales?
    - manigandham 7y ago
      Most ad money is in walled gardens (Facebook running ads on facebook.com). SMBs and performance marketers buy billions without ever talking to a salesperson. Advertising at big companies is the only space left for traditional sales teams and it's all outsourced to agencies. Adtech vendors and publishers sell to these agencies, not the client (and if they do, its just redirected) but there aren't any long-term deals because everything is constantly shifting. Agencies have lots of teams, they win and lose accounts, work on multiple campaign initiatives and strategies with constantly changing budgets and requirements, and use dozens of vendors to create and execute campaigns. This is the opposite of a traditional SaaS contract sold for a term directly to the people that will be using it. There's also a steady trend towards all inventory being traded programmatically which will eliminate most of the sales negotiations. Unique inventory and formats can still stand out but they also cost more in effort and money so there's less overall demand. It's very hard to scale custom sales like that, especially if one of your requirements is to avoid all the javascript verification, brand-safety and measurement. Most media sales these days is more about biz dev to get the pipes connected to exchanges and represent your inventory in the best way possible while letting the market work.
manigandham 7y ago
Make what happen exactly? C-level execs do not run ad campaigns. At most they'll defer to the CMO, who then just tells you to talk to their agency. There are private marketplaces and other deals you can work out with agencies but this is usually for inventory against existing campaign RFPs, and comes with all of the typical creative requirements. They're not going to run an entirely custom campaign under your own terms and restrictions, not at any sustainable scale.
- qroshan 7y ago
  Thanks for your insights here dude. It is wasted on HN crowd though, who are mostly clueless about business and have pre-conceived notions and hate about everything. Any books / blog posts that you recommend. You should write a book :)
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Yes because all business is based on ad sales....

of course you pitch this way. you hire an inside sales guy who has personal relationships with c-level execs, and those execs make it happen because they're personally invested.

scarface74 7y ago

It amazes me that people act like Enterprise sales isn’t a thing.

manigandham 7y ago
Advertising isn't enterprise sales.
- scarface74 7y ago
  That’s just the point - why not? What different strategy would you use selling a SAAS app to a few whales than selling advertising to a few whales?
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Most ad money is in walled gardens (Facebook running ads on facebook.com). SMBs and performance marketers buy billions without ever talking to a salesperson. Advertising at big companies is the only space left for traditional sales teams and it's all outsourced to agencies. Adtech vendors and publishers sell to these agencies, not the client (and if they do, its just redirected) but there aren't any long-term deals because everything is constantly shifting. Agencies have lots of teams, they win and lose accounts, work on multiple campaign initiatives and strategies with constantly changing budgets and requirements, and use dozens of vendors to create and execute campaigns. This is the opposite of a traditional SaaS contract sold for a term directly to the people that will be using it. There's also a steady trend towards all inventory being traded programmatically which will eliminate most of the sales negotiations. Unique inventory and formats can still stand out but they also cost more in effort and money so there's less overall demand. It's very hard to scale custom sales like that, especially if one of your requirements is to avoid all the javascript verification, brand-safety and measurement. Most media sales these days is more about biz dev to get the pipes connected to exchanges and represent your inventory in the best way possible while letting the market work.

manigandham 7y ago

Make what happen exactly? C-level execs do not run ad campaigns. At most they'll defer to the CMO, who then just tells you to talk to their agency. There are private marketplaces and other deals you can work out with agencies but this is usually for inventory against existing campaign RFPs, and comes with all of the typical creative requirements. They're not going to run an entirely custom campaign under your own terms and restrictions, not at any sustainable scale.

qroshan 7y ago
Thanks for your insights here dude. It is wasted on HN crowd though, who are mostly clueless about business and have pre-conceived notions and hate about everything. Any books / blog posts that you recommend. You should write a book :)
- scarface74 7y ago
  Yes because all business is based on ad sales....