Seasoned advertising sales executives helping media companies improve sales performance

Do you want your company to:

  • Grow faster or sell more?
  • Improve the profitability of your customer relationships and harvest the full value of your inventory?
  • Successfully execute key strategic initiatives (new market penetration, major negotiations, acquisitions, etc.)?
  • Mold the sales group into a team that consistently delivers results, quarter after quarter?

Ascend Sales Partners brings deep advertising sales experience to these challenges and have successfully helped major media brands accelerate growth.

 

Deep Experience

With over 50 years of sales, business development, finance and C-Level executive experience, we can help you identify and resolve the causes of missed sales forecasts, shortfalls in earnings growth, and inconsistent operating performance. 

Ascend’s principals approach engagements from a CEO/owner perspective, drawing on their experiences as President and CEO of companies over the years as well as from their board positions with private equity-backed companies.  They rely on a combination of deep frontline experience and rigorous bottom-up analysis, grounded in approaches the principals used at McKinsey & Company and Deloitte Consulting.

Many of Ascend's techniques were developed and tested while one of its principals rebuilt the digital sales team at The Washington Post, growing revenue 10-fold from $5 million to $50 million during a three-and-a-half-year period.  For more information on Ascend’s principals, please click here, or contact us.

 

Example Services

These are a few of the questions and challenges that Ascend frequently helps clients resolve:

Company Strategy and Growth Planning

  • What segments and markets should we compete for business (and which should we bypass)?
  • How should we best position ourselves versus our competition?
  • What is our Unique Selling Proposition, and how can we best communicate it?
  • Is our pricing (and discounting) appropriate, or are we leaving money on the table?

Sales & Business Development Talent

  • Are we recruiting from the best possible talent pool for our needs?
  • Does our hiring process consistently select and close on star performers?

Sales Management

  • Do we use the right milestones and metrics to guide and motivate the sales team?
  • Are our growth and sales goals appropriately aggressive but still achievable for the best talent?
  • Is our sales team appropriately staffed and properly allocated?

Sales Compensation

  • Are our reward programs (cash, awards, recognition) properly structured and aligned with our growth and strategic goals?
  • Is the reward level sufficient to attract and retain stars in our segment?

Sales Process

  • Is our sales process sound and consistently applied?
  • Does our team effectively and efficiently qualify prospects so that time is always allocated to accounts with the highest expected yield?
  • Do we effectively penetrate prospect accounts in our calls and meetings, including selling to the right function and level?

For more information on Ascend’s principals, please click here, or contact us.