Meet the Broker: Beth Wolven

Today we meet Beth Wolven, lead broker at Direct Communications Corp., a Rutland, VT-based list brokerage and management firm.

Wolven makes list recommendations for the publishers of Essence, Harper’s and Poets & Writers magazines. “Those are the three I’ve worked for the longest and my biggest clients,” she said.

Wolven began her career in the list business at Direct Communications 12 years ago as an administrative assistant. Now her official title is general manager because she oversees brokerage, list management and accounting.

“It’s a small company so I wear many hats. Though I definitely spend more than three-quarters of my time doing list brokerage,” she said.

Not knowing exactly what each day will bring is what keeps list brokerage interesting for her. She’s not perturbed by “that kind of day” when a client phones to say they want half a million names for a mailing in three weeks.

“People who are very regimented cannot be good brokers, because this is a job that requires thinking outside of the box,” Wolven said.

When she’s not brokering deals, Wolven enjoys shopping, travel and music. She’s presently single and has one adult daughter. She likes cats—and shares her home with five felines.

Her extracurricular activities include acting and singing in local community theater. Wolven majored in music, not marketing. She currently has role in a production of “Hello Dolly.”

Shoes are her self-reported vice. “Anyone who knows me knows that I love shopping for shoes. I have about 150 pairs, maybe closer to 200. But I’m certainly not as bad as Imelda Marcos.”

How do brokers know whether a list manager is good or bad?

“Personally, I feel the best managers are those who have worked in brokerage. And the best brokers are those who’ve worked in management. Then we understand each other better,” said Wolven.

The easiest way for managers to make a good impression with brokers is return phone calls and e-mail messages within one day—but few do, according to Wolven. “Sometimes it can take a week to hear back,” she said.

What truly impresses Wolven are those list managers who respond to her inquiries with more information than she requested.

“When a manager says, ‘you know, I thought you might want to try this’ and they give me the counts for a similar file—I know they thought about my request. And I know those list managers are worth their weight in gold,” she said.

How do you think outside the box?

“I look for lists that are not available on the (open) market. I call them boutique lists. These are files not mentioned in SRDS, NextMark or MINS. For all intents and purposes they don’t exist; but they do exist,” said Wolven.

By her definition “boutique lists” are typically small files, not promoted by the list owner that generally offer no selections. They’re highly targeted and can reasonably be expected to generate response rates at least two to three times higher than control lists.

The larger a file is the more likely that sooner or later it will become available on the open list rental market through a list manager. However, Wolven added that she has brokered deals with list owners who choose not to hire list managers to promote lists that have counts as large as 10,000 names.

“I was talking with a client today about a list with only 400 names. After the merge purge with their house file there might be 320 names left. If it turns out that 300 of those names generate a response, I say it’s worth the effort trying to find small lists,” said Wolven.

Most of the time, clients can provide leads on where to look for lists not available on the open market, leaving Wolven to track down the track down individual list owners and negotiate for access to files.

“First I have to know the name of the organization. Then I do my research on the Internet. Google is my friend,” she said.

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