Ben Decowski

What led you to a career in sales and to memoryBlue in particular?

In college I was big into journalism. I was the sports editor for Old Dominion University’s newspaper, working with Justin Brown, who was the editor-in-chief.

Justin graduated a year before me, and he started his career working for memoryBlue. When I graduated, he called me and told me about his job. It sounded interesting, and he set me up with an interview. I thought that my skills from interviewing people in college would be highly transferrable to a position at memoryBlue. What we do here is sort of the same style as a newspaper interview – asking clients and prospects a lot of questions, getting to know them better, trying to figure out what they’re dealing with and why.

A lot of people come out of college unsure about what they want to do. I know that I like working with and meeting new people. I thought this job would give me the opportunity to continue to do that, as well as to develop professionally.

What about memoryBlue specifically attracted you?

The interview was a long process – way more than I expected it to be. To be honest, that actually turned me on to the job more because it showed me that memoryBlue actually cared and wanted to make sure they were bringing in the right people. And once I spoke with Marc [Gonyea] and Chris [Corcoran], I was sold on the position. It’s a competitive atmosphere. I’m working with a lot of people my age with the same interests as me, who want to do well and develop as professionals. So once I got an idea of what the culture was like, I was pretty much sold on the job. It’s a blast working here.

After a year with the company as an Account Executive, you’ve now been promoted to Delivery Manager. Describe your current role.

There are two sides to what I do. One side is working with the clients, making sure that they’re happy, making sure that we’re on the same page as far as their campaign goes. The other side that I really like to focus on is developing my own team of Account Executives. People come to memoryBlue not just to make money, but for the training and to develop professionally. That’s why I came here and I know that’s why they’re here, so I want to be the person to help them grow. If you’re helping your own team to produce and become better salespeople, then your clients are going to be happy, as well.

Was there anyone you worked with or view as a mentor who helped you out?

Yes, a few people. The thing I’ve loved most about memoryBlue is the mentoring. Everybody here is assigned a mentor as a new hire. Mine was Robert Pamm. He was a great mentor. And Justin Brown has been a huge help for me, as well. He was my Delivery Manager when I first started. He’s always been a bit of a mentor for me, even dating back to college. And when I was starting out, Nelson Imade was somebody who was crushing it. On one of the more difficult accounts, he was always at the top of the [leader] board. I knew that he was somebody who worked hard and had his head on straight. So I sat down next to him and I learned a lot of things that got me to this position.

I have now mentored six Account Executives myself. When you mentor people you can see them grow, and that’s definitely a rewarding feeling. When you see them hitting their goals, getting their first lead for a client — which means that they get to go up and hit the gong at the front of the office — it’s an electric feeling.

The mentoring here is one of the strongest pros of the job. It’s one of the things that really sets us apart from other companies.