Steven Golus Consulting
Call Prep — Vol. I Confidential
Discovery Call · Pre-Brief

VDX.tv,
magnified.

A first conversation with Evan Kramer about why his US sales team needs an AI training partner — and why no one else is offering what you are.
Counterparty
Evan Kramer
Head of Client Partnerships, US
Account
VDX.tv
Exponential Interactive
Type
Discovery / Intro
~45–60 min
Walk Evan to two yes's:
AI training matters for his sales team — and what you offer is genuinely different from anything else on the market.
— 01 / Account Snapshot

The lay of the land.

VDX.tv is a video ad tech company punching above its weight — privately owned, certified minority-owned, deeply technical, and increasingly visible.

Company
VDX.tv — division of Exponential Interactive. Headquartered Emeryville, CA.
Headcount
~280–340 globally, six continents. Average tenure 9.4 years — an outlier in ad tech.
Core Product
TV Magnify — sequential CTV → personal device targeting. Interactive, shoppable, measurable. New: TV Magnify Surround.
Identity
Privately owned, certified minority business enterprise — rare in ad tech at scale. Plays directly into supplier diversity mandates at brands.
Recent Wins
2026 Reed Awards (Best New Product, Best Use of Dynamic CTV Insertion). 2025 MarTech Breakthrough — Best CTV AdTech Solution. NewFronts presenter — Jim Johnson's "Core Four" framework (Audience, Experience, Environment, Outcomes).
AI Signal
Already partnered with Neurons (AI attention prediction) and Dotter (shoppable). They believe in AI as a product layer — but rep-side AI training is a separate, unsolved problem.
— 02 / Who You're Meeting

A builder, not a pitcher.

Evan has been at VDX.tv (and its predecessors) for over a decade. He came up through Traffic Marketplace, Tribal Fusion, Exponential. He's seen the cycles. He won't fall for theater.

Evan Kramer
Head of Client Partnerships, US — VDX.tv
11+ Years VDX NY-Based Decision Maker
Background
Built US client partnerships from the ground up. Lifer in this lineage — knows everybody, knows where the bodies are buried.
Style
Recommendations describe him as energetic, humorous, big on customer service. Engages if it's real. Won't tolerate BS or generic pitches.
Hot Signal
Hiring aggressively right now. Posted multiple times on LinkedIn — including pulling sellers out of the IPG/Omnicom layoffs. Team is in growth mode.
Opening Line
"Saw you're hiring out of the IPG fallout — how's the bench shaping up?" Warm, current, non-transactional.
— 03 / Why This Conversation Matters Now

Three converging realities.

Each of these is independently true. Together they make Evan's team the right buyer at the right moment.

He's hiring aggressively.

Every new rep needs to ramp fast. Onboarding sellers from agency layoffs into a TV-tech-AI environment is exactly the gap your course fills. Faster ramp = faster revenue. That's a CFO-friendly story.

VDX leans on differentiation.

"Core Four," interactive units, attention AI, shoppable formats. His reps need to tell that story — and respond intelligently when clients push on AI. Reps who fumble AI questions undermine the brand promise.

The market moved past "Is CTV worth it?"

Clients now ask about authenticated audiences, closed-loop measurement, AI-driven optimization. Reps have to operate at that altitude. Old playbooks won't carry the conversation.

— 04 / What Makes Your Offer Different

The commit you're after.

This is the heart of the call. Lead with these. No one else combines them.

— 01 / The Anchor
You've been a buyer, a seller, and a builder.
25+ years across Right Media, AdX, programmatic platforms — and now you build AI workflows yourself. Most sales trainers teach soft skills. Most AI consultants don't understand media sales. You're both.
— 02
Rep-specific, not generic AI 101.
The AI-Powered Seller gives each rep their own AI-powered sales operating system — automated research, prep, follow-up, intel — built for how media/CTV sellers actually work. Not "here's ChatGPT, good luck."
— 03
Tools the competition has never seen.
Every other rep is using ChatGPT. Yours will be using purpose-built tools that make them dramatically faster on prospect research, account intel, pitch prep, and objection handling.
— 04
Long-term partnership, not a one-off webinar.
You become an extension of his L&D function with calendar access throughout. Five to six deep clients only. Disney, NBCU, Paramount, Cadent, Kargo all renew with you — that's the proof.
— 05
Battle-tested track record.
7,000+ media sellers trained globally. The AI-Powered Seller launched April 28, 2026 — fresh, current, ready to deploy.
— 05 / Suggested Flow

A 45-minute arc.

Spend more time on his world than yours. Get the commit verbally before pitching anything.

01
OpenReference his hiring spree out of IPG. Get the lay of the land on team composition, ramp time, where new hires are succeeding or struggling.
5 min
02
DiscoveryHow is the team handling AI conversations with clients today? What does onboarding look like? How are veteran reps adapting?
15 min
03
Your POV on the AI momentReps don't fail on knowing AI exists; they fail on applying it to their workflow. The gap is operational, not conceptual.
10 min
04
What you offerWalk through The AI-Powered Seller — the operating system + tool exposure + media-sales specificity. Drop the client logos.
10 min
05
Land the differentiation"Here's why I'd argue no one else is doing this..." Get him to either agree or push back. Either way, you've earned the commit.
5 min
06
Next stepPropose a 30-min follow-up with sales enablement / L&D. Or a small pilot scoped to new hires.
5 min
— 06 / Discovery Questions

Six questions to fill the gaps.

Use these as anchors, not a checklist. The order matters less than getting him talking about his team.

  1. How is your team currently using AI day-to-day? Where's the biggest gap between adoption and impact?
  2. With new hires coming in from IPG — what does ramp look like? How long until they're carrying a full number?
  3. When clients ask your reps about the AI in your products — Neurons attention, dynamic insertion — how confident are you in those conversations?
  4. Have you done external sales training before? What worked, what didn't?
  5. Who else inside VDX is thinking about this? Is there an L&D or sales enablement counterpart I should know about?
  6. If you waved a magic wand and your reps were all 20% better at one thing six months from now — what would it be?
— 07 / Likely Objections

What he might push on.

Have these queued up. Don't pre-empt them — but be ready when he goes there.

We do training internally.
Internal training teaches your products. Mine teaches reps how to operate in an AI-first sales environment — completely complementary, not competitive. Most internal teams don't have the bandwidth to keep up with the AI tool landscape week to week. I do.
AI training is everywhere now — what's special?
Most of it is generic. Mine is built specifically for media and CTV sellers, with tools and workflows tailored to your reps' actual day. Plus I expose them to tools their competition has never seen.
Budget is tight.
Understood. Let's start with a pilot — one cohort of new hires. If it doesn't pay back inside a quarter through faster ramp, we don't expand.
Our team is senior — they don't need training.
The senior reps are exactly who needs this most. Junior reps experiment with AI naturally. Veterans risk falling behind because they're confident in old workflows. My most engaged students at Disney and NBCU are senior leaders.
How is this different from Sales Navigator + ChatGPT?
Those are point tools. I teach a system — research, prep, intel, follow-up — that ties them together into a personal operating system each rep owns and runs every day.
— 08 / Internal Notes

Strategy, off the record.

The two-yes test: "Does it sound like AI training matters for your team's growth right now?" and "Does what I'm describing sound different from what you've seen elsewhere?" Two yes's = mission accomplished. Get them verbally.
Don't over-pitch the course. Evan is a sales leader. He'll smell pitch from a mile away. Spend 60% of the call on his world, 40% on yours.
Lean on the IPG hiring angle. It's a current, real, public signal that he needs ramp acceleration right now. Most prospects make you guess at urgency — Evan is broadcasting his.
You've already done deep prep on this account. A web brief was already deployed in a prior session. This is the focused operator's version for the call itself.
Logos to drop, casually: Disney, NBCU, Paramount, Cadent, Kargo, Globo. Long-term renewals, not one-offs.