Interview Prep ALC/iDify Flashcards
1
Q
Tell Me A Little About Yourself
A
- I’m a pretty down-to-earth, Southern-bred guy from North Carolina driven by two great forces:
1) To live as passionate and purpose-driven a life as I can and
2) To accomplish as much as I can within the field of technology – which, I believe, is the defining industry of our time - What that’s translated to, though, from a purely professional lens is a track record over the past 6 1/2 years of helping companies grow by breaking critical ground
- I started as an appointment setter and quickly worked my way up to eventually leading an outbound sales team
- And what prior bosses and colleagues will tell you, is that whether it’s a small SaaS platform or a large research organization, I’m a force at winning new revenue, diversifying customer bases and helping both my colleagues and our clients really root for our success
2
Q
What are you looking for in your next role?
OR
WHY THIS COMPANY
A
- I’m looking to be a part of something that’s really going to transform its space
- even set the bar for others to follow
- What I’m after is the ability to meaningfully contribute to that growth story, to be a force that helps to make that happen
- On a practical level, I think this means a company that can tap into my specialized experience of selling underdog products into enterprise businesses, building consensus across an organization and leading those tough strategic conversations with C-Level leaders
3
Q
Tell Me About Qualia
A
- Not sure how familiar you are with the space but Qualia delivers what’s called consumer identity-resolution technology
- Essentially, we solve for one of the most expensive and resource-exhausting challenges in the eco-system:
The inability for brands and brand-advertisers to consistently recognize a consumer as he/she hops between different screens, user-personas, browsing environments throughout the day
*Our machine-learning intelligence plugs into your raw audience or visitor data to map each visitor to all additionally owned devices and to deliver in real time a truly reflective view of your audience so you can make better decisions about how you target or influence them
4
Q
Who do you typically work with?
A
- Because a huge part of my job is having conversations about something that is both highly technical and also very sensitive to a company: namely their audience identity
- I’m responsible for a lot of consensus-building
- This means that I touch the CTO, CMO, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Head of Data and Analytics, but also the Head of Digital Marketing, and Consumer Insights team
- I’m often talking to about 3 teams on average at a single company
5
Q
Some Clients?
A
- Banks: BNY Mellon, Capital One, SoFi
- E-commerce: Air BnB, StitchFix
- Fintech Companies: Prosper, SoFi, LendingClub, Marlette Funding
- Agencies: Havas, Horizon, 360i
6
Q
Walk Me Through A Current Deal:
A
- At Qualia I was originally tasked with pulling in accounts that fit our traditional mold of clients: ad-tech businesses or agencies
- When I arrived though I realized that the space was plagued by a couple of problems: 1) they had been over-called and over-prospected 2) a lot of these companies were barely able to survive, so there was a financial problem and 3) their decision-making process was very long, so it wasn’t good for us as a business that was trying to beat each successive month
- From my research and following the tech sources and news I read, I noticed a surge in conversations about fin-tech companies and an explosion of activity from them
- So think digital lending platforms like SoFi and Lending Club
- Closer inspection revealed to me that they could be a fresh opportunity for us because our technology was almost perfectly built for a client like them
- They could use our cross-device-identity-mapping for customer acquisition, use intent cues to personalize marketing and what’s more, they could accomplish all this through the secure framework that identity-recognition generates
- So we can unify a number of huge imperatives for them in one go
- So for several weeks I hit up my linkedin network, sent hundreds of cold emails, called a few people I knew, even attended a few events
- Once some people were interested, I used my first call with them to get them to articulate what they had been struggling with when it comes to consumer identity
- And with each meeting I became more and more of an authority on the subject
- Our first big client was Marlette Funding. I had reached out via Linkedin, had 3 calls with the head of data analytics
- Then he decided to bring in his boss
- So I handled the entire process, end to end, from outreach all the way through negotiation to close of contract
- I even sculpted my own messaging, and created decks, and pulled in our CPO when it got to that point
- After they closed we kept going with their competitors and peers
- And eventually that random seeming initiative ended up being the most successful pivot we made all year
- Currently fin-tech companies command anywhere between 25-30% of our 2018 revenue
7
Q
Sales Style?
A
- First: anyone who knows me can testify that I am the opposite of your smarmy buzz-wordy sales guy
- I believe in authentically connecting with people, and in authentically understanding their reasons for why they would buy something
- This means that every interaction of mine is consultative where I bring my expertise and specialized experience from working with both large and small companies alike to bear and ask real questions centered actually helping prospects accomplish whatever they are after
- At the same time I understand that my role at the organization has a concrete purpose, to drive revenue
- And the second ingredient is equally important: a real energy and contagious passion for sourcing new revenue opportunities.
- So I’m constantly on the lookout for opportunities to be instrumental in someone else’s growth story — whether it’s swooping in and capitalizing on accounts that were just mentioned in the news or circling back to an account that wasn’t ready before to talk to us
- This also satisfies my OCD-ness a little bit and prevents anxiety.
- But I think those are the two defining elements that are ground into my DNA and they have delivered a track-record of success
8
Q
What does iDify do?
A
- IDify is a platform for compiling and unifying the identity, devices and attributes of real consumers for far more effective marketing, measurement and personalization
- You shift the focus from reach to accuracy by unifying data at the individual level so that marketers and suppliers can accurately identify consumers across the physical and digital world.
9
Q
Current identity questions:
A
Start with the basics:
- we know that over 90% of American consumers use more than 1device to shop for a product
- most of them own 3-4 on average – how confident are you in your ability to recognize them and distribute dollars accordingly?
- Studies show only 9% of marketers feel they are nailing it
- By 2020,20.8 billion connected devices will be in use, ranging from watches to TVs to cars to home appliances.
- Each of these devices is just another avenue where consumers might interact digitally with brands.
- For marketers who fail to implement a cross-device strategy that allows them to see the people behind the ever-evolving screen of choice, the forecast isn’t bright.
10
Q
Greatest Strength
A
- It may sound like a crazy answer but honestly it’s the way I communicate with clients, and the way I speak to them
- When you have a genuine interest in something – including an intellectual fascination with it – you can speak from a place of conviction and authenticity
- I’ve had numerous conversations with clients where they think they’ve mentioned some random system or tool they think I wouldn’t know and because of how steeped into that world I am and how hungry for knowledge about something I am, I’d either share a new fact they didn’t know about that thing or get them to open up to me and enlighten me
- Having that as a starting point and as the overall energy of your meetings allows people to see that you are authentically trying to help them and work together with them
11
Q
Greatest Weakness
A
Trying too hard with a single client (marketsmith example)
