AdEdge Ad Sales Foundation™ Course

I’ve spent my career inside real media sales - long before it was clean, automated, or “scalable.”

I started in legacy publishing, selling B2B, and later B2C, at a time when media kits were printed, IOs were faxed, and creative was literally messengered across the city by bike. Early on, I was the first seller at one company to sell web banners, back when digital was an add-on, not the product.

I’ve walked down Michigan Avenue to drop off media kits that were requested because the mail took too long, and I had that sense of urgency to deliver the best service. I’ve closed deals from boardrooms, from borrowed conference rooms, and once, memorably, from a doctor’s office while still in a patient gown.

Over the years, I’ve:

• Sold across legacy print, digital media, and emerging platforms

• Launched verticals from zero and closed my first seven-figure, two-year deal, which was later renewed

• Led integrated sponsorship strategies that increased deal size by 164%

• Spearheaded go-to-market strategy for a business membership that generated six figures in under eight months

• Built long-term client relationships that extended well beyond contracts - weddings, birthdays, family celebrations, and lifelong friendships included.

I’ve also lived the unglamorous side of sales: owning mistakes publicly, walking into agency boardrooms with catered lunches and wine to apologize face-to-face, and learning, sometimes the hard way, what trust actually looks like when things go wrong.

Along the way, I’ve learned from some of the best publishers, ad directors, colleagues, and clients in the business. I’ve watched the industry change from fax machines to dashboards, from print-first to digital ecosystems, and I’ve carried forward the parts that still matter: clarity, credibility, and respect for how buyers really decide.

AdEdge and Ad Sales Foundation are built on that lived experience.
Not theory. Not trends.
But decades of real conversations, real deals, and real lessons distilled into a system that founders can actually use.

Chicago has been the backdrop for much of this journey, from walking Michigan Avenue with media kits to seeing the Cubs World Series parade from the office windows to witnessing some of the most infamous moments the city has ever produced.