Simulmedia's SVP of Sales Focuses on Driving the Ad Sales Team to Success

Adam Quinn, SVP, Sales highlights career milestones and talks to us about the many challenges and opportunities facing the Ad Sales team in the upcoming year.

What do you do in your current role within the Advertising team at Simulmedia?

I help the team unlock the proven value we bring to clients and ensure the team is knowledgeable of the broader video advertising marketplace and are able to articulate our value and adroitly customize that value based on an individual client or agency’s needs. This also includes helping them learn about our clients’ businesses to surface where and how we can help. I also work across the various departments to establish strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders. Finally, I leverage my 25+ years of experience on the agency and sales sides of the business, along with my deep network of contacts, to contribute to everything listed above.

Can you share insights into your journey to leading the Simulmedia Advertising team?

I spent many years in what would be considered more established and traditional buying and selling roles at other companies. My journey at Simulmedia began as an Account Executive, using a scrappy and disruptive approach to find and connect with the right clients. It's challenging but rewarding to communicate with contagious enthusiasm, helping clients see the benefits of partnering with us. Closing a partnership after all the effort feels great. I thrived as I faced diverse client and agency challenges, shaping our approach to meet their needs. Eventually, I earned the trust to manage a small team in a "player/coach" style. Helping colleagues replicate what I know works, and witnessing their enthusiasm and excitement is the best part, all while helping clients achieve business goals. Now, I'm honored to manage the entire sales team, scaling up our collaborative achievements. I continue to roll up my sleeves and use the skills I've developed along the way.

What are the most significant experiences and lessons you've learned as you ascended to your current leadership position, and how do you intend to apply them in your role?

All we have is time, the most valuable and perishable aspect of life. Everyone is either genuinely busy or has convinced themselves that they are. It doesn’t matter which is true. Anyone seeking the right to engage with someone in this business needs to add value and help them address whatever keeps them busy. This has been an ongoing lesson throughout my career, spanning all aspects of buying and selling, managing teams, and establishing partnerships. Regardless of whether someone is on the buyer or seller side, adding value at every point is essential. Adding value along the way holds both sides accountable and earns a seller the right to make a request. Also critical, is following through on follow-ups and commitments. It’s hard work, but when it all comes together, there are few things more satisfying and rewarding. So, I need to keep the team thinking this way.

What were the biggest challenges you faced when climbing the ladder in advertising sales, and how did you overcome them?

Related to everything I mentioned above, the main challenge in advertising sales is often breaking through and getting the chance to convince clients and agency partners that there's a better way to do business. This is particularly relevant to my time at Simulmedia. In the early stages of my career, the goal was to learn as much as possible about all the available options. A colleague from my early career on the agency side advised me to keep being a sponge, absorbing as much information as possible, which I took to heart. Similar to being extremely curious about everything, I focused on learning as much as I could about the business of advertising early in my career. This allowed me to form informed opinions on topics that emerged later in my career. Overcoming these challenges involves working hard and staying focused on what truly matters.

Can you describe your leadership style and how it has evolved throughout your career in advertising sales?

I've always admired leaders who clearly learned and became leaders by proving they could do the job at hand. These leaders can understand different perspectives and angles to an issue or task, putting themselves in others' shoes. This not only shows empathy but also means the leader won't ask a colleague to do something they haven't done themselves. It might be challenging to see everything a leader has done to reach where they are, but there are no shortcuts to hard work. Leaders who take shortcuts often get exposed or become ineffective. So, my approach is collaborative, providing guidance and helping colleagues find solutions by looking at what worked in the past and applying it to the future with new and innovative approaches.

Can you outline specific long-term goals you aim to achieve in your role, and how these goals align with the company's overall objectives?

The long term goal is to have a team of talented, inspired salespeople who are collaboratively and consultatively helping clients accelerate their business growth while recognizing the contribution of Simulmedia. There’s a higher level of accountability in this, and when achieved, benefits all involved. Specifically, this means managing ongoing partnerships to grow Simulmedia’s role in those clients’ marketing efforts, bringing back marketplace feedback to shape our capabilities to meet the broader needs of marketers, and helping arm the team with the skills and collateral they need to achieve all of this.

Which are the top opportunities you see for Simulmedia and how do you envision scaling your advertising team to meet the evolving needs of our clients and the industry?

The main opportunity we're focusing on is boosting accountability and effectiveness for our clients' video advertising. This involves connecting meaningfully with our clients, understanding their needs, educating them about our data-driven, cross-channel approach, proving its success with our measurement capabilities, and collaborating to optimize campaigns for the best customer growth. As the team brings in more clients, we'll expand to manage successful partnerships and use that success to find more clients and agencies who can benefit. Recently, we split the sales team into two groups— one focused on attracting new clients and agencies for growth, and the other on expanding existing clients or finding new business related to established clients. As the team excels in these areas, we'll decide which group to further develop.

What strategies have you/or plan to implement to keep your Advertising Sales team competitive in a rapidly changing marketplace?

We will always need to keep building on the fundamentals of consultative selling. Understanding a client’s business needs and matching those needs with our capabilities, in a consultative way that will drive both of our businesses, requires repetition and practice as businesses evolve and new dynamics and competitors come into play. Celebrating and evaluating wins with the team encourages sharing successful strategies to keep improving at Simulmedia. The new business team will connect with clients we've had trouble reaching before. The established-client team will intentionally expand and enhance our successes with ongoing partners. Both teams will collaborate to share and celebrate what's effective. Lastly, we need more visibility in the marketplace with competitors and potential partners. As a team, an ongoing goal is to keep learning about opportunities in the marketplace related to our data-driven premium video capabilities..

What key market opportunities do you foresee for Simulmedia in the next 3-5 years?

Linear TV is expected to continue to decline, while CTV will continue to grow. Despite the decline in linear TV ad spend, total TV ad spend will grow from $86.40 billion this year to $97.73 billion by 2027. The beauty of our approach at Simulmedia is that it’s built for the ongoing fragmentation of viewers. We benefit from the proliferation of content. So the more the streaming publishers, linear networks and other content producers develop content, and market it to everyone, the more necessary Simulmedia is. The market opportunity is: More great content means more opportunity for Simulmedia, and as we continue to build our cross-channel capabilities and scale our gaming audiences, we will continue to rise as the perfect solution for brands and agencies. We can’t miss the opportunity to spread the word. This also means we must execute with excellence so every client we get onboard, quickly becomes an advocate.