Behind the sales pitch

Jampper stories round four 🥊 In this fourth edition of Jampper Stories, our outstanding Director of Sales in Europe, Philip Weiskirchen shares his view on the adtech market in Europe, working within a globally distributed sales team, and… well read on and find out!

Tell us a little about your prior experience before joining Jampp.

I started working in digital advertising right after I finished my studies in Business Administration. It was a small startup focused on the distribution of online games 👾 and it had the typical startup setup: a small team, lots of work and lots of opportunities to wear different hats for a new starter like me. With the rise of mobile apps (around 2013) 📱📈 the company shifted their focus to mobile games and I helped to develop this new business. Then in 2015, I joined the sales team at TUNE, the company who essentially invented the concept of mobile attribution.

These were all great learning experiences, as I had the opportunity to work with extremely knowledgeable sales people from around the globe — a great stepping stone for what would later be my role at Jampp.

So tell us about your role at Jampp… What’s a typical day for you?

I’m part of the globally distributed sales team at Jampp and my focus is on the European market, which has its own set of particular challenges. It’s a very competitive and fragmented market (111 geos, 7 hubs, 24 official languages), with a new set of regulations thrown into the mix (does GDPR ring a bell?)

A typical day doesn’t really exist and I love that. A good portion of my time is spent on the road traveling through EMEA to meet prospects and clients either at their offices or at conferences. My time in the office is usually dedicated to research, calls, meeting prep and syncing with my colleagues.

As a child, I always dreamt of a job that would allow me to travel the world and follow the nomadic lifestyle of both my grandfather and father, who worked as sea captains #FunFact. I guess that working as a Sales Manager kind of means that I followed in their footsteps 😉

What challenges do you face in this role?

In Sales, you basically create your own work, so it’s very important to be on top of the sales funnel and to constantly reach out to new potential customers. This is what we call prospecting. Having an entrepreneurial spirit and a targeted prospecting strategy is crucial to ensure you invest your time efficiently talking to the right people ⏱️.

Another challenge is to understand how buyers make their decisions… this means really understanding the customers’ business models and needs. At Jampp, we have dedicated “squads” for each app vertical. Each squad has jamppers from different teams (Sales, Operations, Data Science, etc), to gather deeper insights into the specific challenges apps face and define strategies to help them.

So for a successful selling strategy: entrepreneurial mindset, obsessive organization, and constant learning… anything else?

Obviously, the best setup in the world doesn’t help if you don’t talk to people, so business networking is a big part of the sales role and I’m building relationships with all kinds of people from the industry and beyond.

For me, it’s not about immediate gain and it takes some time. But ultimately, talking to people from the industry will open doors, help you find new clients and centers of influence and, in the best case, build meaningful relationships.

Can you tell us a little more about building those relationships? Do you attend a lot of events, how do you go about starting those conversations?

Events are a part of it. I think the conference format is a little tired, most events are too focused on the vendor pitch. We’ve started attending and hosting smaller events from workshops to happy hours where we can have real conversations with other people from the industry. Last year, we launched our own series of events called App Marketers Unplugged, and I actually got to help coordinate the first Unplugged in Berlin 🇩🇪!

So you got to see the behind the scenes of the event, what was that like? And how did it turn out?

Yes, it was definitely interesting to see all the details that go into planning an event, even a small one like this. We always host them at advertiser/partner offices because we want marketers to feel they’re on their own turf. We were fortunate to have Wooga host us, and they have a great space! Then we reached out to some marketers and brainstormed the event content together to make sure it was relevant and interesting for them. We ended up having a varied and interesting discussion. We covered cross-channel marketing, incrementality, and challenges of building an efficient marketing team. I think it turned out great, but don’t take my word for it…

You’ve been in the startup scene for a while, surrounded by entrepreneurs too. Do you have a favorite motivational/entrepreneur quote?

I find motivational quotes quite cheesy, but there’s one entrepreneurial quote I really like. It’s from “Measure What Matters” written by John Doerr: “Ideas are easy. Execution is everything”.

What made Jampp the right fit for you?

Over the years, I’ve gotten a good understanding of what type of product and company fits my personal style of doing sales. Jampp is a well-reputed and fast growing company in the booming mobile industry. My team has a consultative sales approach and we don’t do hard selling. If we see that our technology doesn’t fit a customer’s need, we let the customer know, explain why and work together on finding a solution.

It’s not a secret that people like to buy from people they like and trust and they also like to buy products that work and add value. Given that, my role at Jampp is perfect because I’m in a position where I can sell state of the art technology in one of the fastest growing industries. I like that I get to talk to people I find interesting and build meaningful relationships at the same time. I’d say: it’s a match. 💥

Of course, this consultative approach also means that, as Sales Managers, we go the extra mile to make sure we’re specialists in what we are selling. For us, it’s all about truly understanding the technology we develop and the products we create. When this happens, the whole team feels part of the product we are building.

Wrapping up…

• Random fact about yourself : I used to work as a paramedic while I was studying. Medical emergencies at night 👨‍⚕️ and macro-economics during the day 🤓
• Favorite app at the moment 📱: Google Maps and Spotify are my life savers. Instagram is my guilty pleasure 😜
• Favorite Jampp Swag (so far): The Jampp branded Patagonia Jacket is the best swag ever!

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