Hiring first media buyers (local vs virtual) (13)
I'm now making a transition to starting a team. I've always had VAs for banners/graphics/programming which can be easily outsourced to Upwork or other freelancing websites, but I wouldn't really consider those as a real team, more like ad-hoc stuff.
Now having a dilemma to starting a real team with proper full-time employees, and was wondering if anyone could give some input or have thoughts around this. One of the first person I'd like to hire to take over my own position is definitely a media buyer, who uploads ads, launches new landers/angles, creates at the traffic source, optimizes etc.
Of course the most ideal situation to have an office space with a couple of media buyers, a programmer, designer etc for everyone to work together, however that seems to be a little overwhelming to think about, and want to break it down and making steps/progress there instead.
Does anyone have any experience or thoughts with hiring media buyers on websites like Upwork, and how does that fare out for you?
And if anyone has any tips for me to start transiting to having full-time staffs on payroll easier, it'll be much appreciated too!
Thanks guys! (Those gng AWA see you champs there 
)
Definitely build a local team that you see everyday.
It builds trust/loyalty and communication is just more efficient.
Start with one and build your team from there. In person might be easier but it's certainly not the only way.
My recommendation is to create videos and text documentation for the the tasks and then start training the 1-2 people you find that. You won't get it perfect to begin with but it will be much better than nothing and the materials can be improved for the next hire.
Furthermore, you should start them as a junior media buyers and delegate those tasks, then be available for questions. It won't be faster initially but you train them once then they do everything. The way you should think of it is actually creating a training programme that you can reuse. Maybe the first hire is not great, but you will already have a big part of the training prepared for the next. So you spend a few weeks on the programme, then 1-2 weeks with each employee following closely how they do things and address any questions.
The mechanical part, that doesn't require creativity, will be relatively easy. What won't be so easy to do is have someone else make the decisions regarding what offers, traffic sources and keep in touch with account managers. I haven't reached the point where I can have someone else do that for example.But when it comes to campaigns, I don't have to do much, if anything. I am only available if something can't be done and do some tasks when it's the best use of my time.
First person that I trained, was someone I met often in person (not in an office working all day together though), and I had no training material. There was quite some chaos in not having a place where he could find answers, except by asking me. I remained the bottleneck. Now, I have videos and text for all relevant tasks and I am training a remote guy. He is already doing a better than expected job and he can do productive work. Basically the videos were worth it already, since he can rewatch time and again.
I also wrote a post here about how to structure a team:
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...onal-Structure
Cheers,
Manu.
Good media buyers are working mostly for themselves. Its better to hire a smart learner and train him/her yourself from scratch. Give them a good basic salary and a massive performance based bonus so you are completely aligned with them (they need to be profit driven).
Thanks for the input!
Ive always believed in local real-life team being better, but if anyone has tips on hiring virtual/overseas media buyers to start out I appreciate your pointers too.
In regards to a local-team, any tips on doing the transition over to a face to face local team? Would you suggest I go in with guns blazing and set up a nice office space, get equipment, sign lease, contracts etc or is there a more cost-efficient way for the transition?
I advise you to hire 10-15 people on one time, a month later you will understand with whom you can work and can learn other guys will have to say goodbuy.
after 2-3 those operations you must have good team, but your work will be changed fully
Originally Posted by alfiss
Equipment you probably need to some extent. If your potential hires don't have a laptop... A few extra screens are always useful and not so expensive, usually worth buying. Easy enough to resell at a small loss too. I just wouldn't buy laptops/PCs before hiring for the long term.
Start with ~1 month trial/training, then re-evaluate. For most people you need to have ~3 months total working experience to tell if they are really good enough for your situation, so 1 month training, 2 months working. Only afterwards you can decide for the long term and have a standard hiring contract. That's just on average, maybe you get superstars, maybe you get people you fire on day 1 :P
Best way to transition is essentially to create the same setup you'd have long term but without long term commitment. And once you see it works, then you can keep the setup or invest more into it for some upgrades
I have some experience here.
- you own a unique offer
- you have a special relationship with an aff network
- you farm your own accounts
- you have a funnel that is hard to replicate
- your traffic source has capital requirements that are steep
...then you would be in a pretty good position.
Another way to do things is similar to what Besmir spoke about at AWA last year, the 'triad' where he has a landing page person, working with a copywriter, working with a traffic person, in a group of 3.
The problem you'll always run into though, is that if you're doing volume and theres no points of leverage, eventually your media buyers will leave you, or circumvent you.
Ultimately, having an office operation, a strong culture, etc., is a sustainable advantage in-and-of itself.
I see companies like golden hippo media doing 100mm per year on media buys, and yet they only pay their top media buyers 3k or 4k per month, because they have built in so many points of leverage, and such a strong office culture that they can keep people around for a while.
Sounds strange to me. I'm not saying that you're wrong, no way. I just can't understand why would a good mediabuyer work for 3K or 4K per month when he generates like 100K profit a month? I don't see any issues outsourcing tech stuff like creating promos, system administrating servers, etc.. But Mediabuyers... If the guy is dumb and satisfied with low salary, are you sure he won't waste your 100K one day because of his dumbness? On the other hand, if he's smart, he should be profit driven, and get a share of a profit. Not sure about the specific values, but I suppose it's something around 30%.
Originally Posted by sc2alone
I think there is a wrong perception here that most of the good media buyers will only work for themselves.
Most companies buying media at a massive scale only pay their media buyers a fixed salary with year end bonuses and KPI bonuses.
There's also the not-so-small-factor that just knowing how to run campaigns is not enough to make a sustainable business. If you teach someone how to run campaigns it doesn't mean they know how to manage the business, develop relationships with advertisers and publishers, do accounting, figure out financing, etc.
Some good media buyers will leave, whether to work alone or to a competing company... But that happens in every business and department anyway, so it's not a deciding factor whether to hire or not in my opinion.
Originally Posted by michaelza
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