Death of a Sales Call: A Day in the Life on an Indie Ad Rep

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Dec 1, 2001 by Sarah Gonser

It's 9:55 on abright, chilly October morning in Manhattan, and a coatless Eric Dorfman, wearing a powder-blue wool Gucci V-neck pullover, grinds his Marlboro Red into the sidewalk in preparation for his first sales call of the day. "We're seeing Burberry now--oh, they're very nice," says the founder of EdMedia, a one-man shop that sells ads for four achingly hip culture and fashion magazines, the independently published Big, Contents, Flaunt and Nylon.

Dorfman has been up since 6 a.m., walking his Jack Russell terrier (and best friend), Jack, smoking half a pack of cigarettes, and dropping by his local firehouse with a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Now, a battered cell phone to his ear, Dorfman retrieves his work messages as he makes one last check of his sartorial ensemble. "How about these blue socks," he says, pulling up a navy Calvin Klein pant leg. "Do they work with my black shoes?" Dorfman doesn't wait for an answer; he rarely does, unless it's from a client.

"Ladies, ladies," Dorfman greets Kristy Stanton and Sara Roberts, the media planners at the Lipman, Richmond, Greene advertising agency that handles the Burberry account. Stanton has gleaming long blond hair, which she wears down; Roberts has her brown hair pulled back into a tight, tidy bun. They both wear dark turtlenecks, pencil skirts and open-toe heels. They've got the Burberry look down pat: youthful, classically tasteful and establishment sexy "How are you? How about my socks?" he asks, standing in the agency's lobby. "What do you think-they work with the black shoes?"

The two women lean over to get a better look. "Sure," they say, laughing, and in goes Dorfman to sell his magazines.

He spreads the magazines on a table in a small, cramped office, balances his briefcase on his lap, and launches into his spiel. "Okay, so ladies, I want to show you what we've been doing. Look at Big. You know Big, right?" Dorfman says of the flashy, heavily artdirected magazine, each issue of which uses a new set of contributors to focus on the latest cultural trends in a different country. "Well, did you see how Wired totally copied Big's Japan-themed issue? That's how influential this magazine is. We influenced a Conde Nast publication; that's the caliber people we're reaching."

But Roberts' attention isn't undivided; a photo spread in Flaunt (which Dorfman isn't hawking today, but which is still on the table) showcases two hairy, mostly-naked men in white briefs leading a dead, pale-pink pig on a leash, and the spectacle has caught her eye. "Eewww," Roberts squeals as she leafs through the "Christian Dior Haute Couture by John Galliano" feature.

"What? What?" Dorfman asks, half smiling and laughing, like he just missed a good joke. They don't fill him in, so he just plows ahead into his pitch for Contents, a six-year-old, I00,000 circulation fashion and culture quarterly that will reappear as a bimonthly next February after an eight-month hiatus.

"Our strategy was to promote the relaunch of Contents with cool artistic events, get our name out there," Dorfman says in his thick New York accent "But after September II, everything changed. We can't do events, it would be insensitive and nobody would come--it would be a disaster. So, because it's very important to generate press, Contents--[which is all about] the style of culture--is doing a symposium [about September II's effects on this world] with one high-profile photographer, one fashion designer, one actress, one movie director, and--what's the other one?--give me a discipline," as he snaps his fingers loudly--"oh, a writer. We already have the writer, Jane somebody, the Oscar-winner writer from ub, what's that movie?"

Roberts and Stanton shake their heads. "Oh, Crouching Tiger," Dorfman yells, although the screenplay for that movie was written by three men. "Of course," he says matter-of-factly, "you guys are invited. You guys understand this stuff, you're cool."

Roberts and Stanton nod. But that's about as much affirmation as Dorfman will get this morning from the Burberry media buyers His big ideas for Contents and Big are reciprocated with little more than talk about the new, post-September II sensibilities. But in a cab back to the office, Dorfman is psyched. "That was planting seeds," he says between checking his cell phone and yelling directions at the cab driver. "I know nothing's going to happen for the rest of the year. You build relationships. It's all about being considered.

"You get the meeting because they like you," Dorfman adds. "You gotta be calm, you can't be pushy. The deal is that I can't walk in there now and say 'you gotta buy.' They'd think I'm an asshole. It's my job to show them why the books offer them pizzazz."

But the climate during a media recession, one exacerbated by the terrorist attacks, the resulting war and anthrax scares, is not particularly hospitable to pizzazz. Particularly for small publishers who traffic in fabulousness and have no real endemic advertising categories to speak of. In this wrenching downturn, ad reps-even those with the resources of the big publishers behind them-become more important then ever. Lovingly nurtured relationships are what get you in the door; creative value-added concepts are what keep clients listening; and passion, relevance and persistence are the qualities that just might allow you to survive when the money continues drying up.