Today we meet Lisa Pollack, part of the list brokerage team at Adrea Rubin Marketing Inc. Pollack joined her family’s firm in 1991.
She started part-time as receptionist while attending college, before moving into brokerage full time in 1993. She’s been a senior account executive there since 2003.
Pollack received the Ron Davis Young List Professional of the Year Award in 1999, presented by the Direct Marketing Association’s List and Database Council.
Pollack primarily makes postal list recommendations. She specializes in list brokerage for insurance and financial services offers, in addition to assisting continuity marketers and consumer catalogers. Over the years she has worked with clients such as Columbia House and Yves Rocher.
“I’m very hands-on from the renting of lists to seeing the results, list segmentation and analyzing and exploring what makes a list work,” says Pollack.
She credits her success in brokerage to her stepmother Adrea Rubin’s mentoring and voracious reading of books on business and sales management. “Even books that don’t apply directly to this industry have helped make me a better marketing person.
After work, she’s an avid moviegoer. But her favorite movies are classics from the 1940s and 1950s starring Cary Grant. She enjoys traveling and her recent destinations have included London and Paris, but nothing beats her beloved hometown. “I live in New York and I love New York,” says Pollack.
What can brokers do after they’ve exhausted all the obvious choices for making list recommendations?
They can source additional names from out-of-category lists and statistical list models, which predict a person’s propensity to respond to a particular type of offer.
“List modeling is different way to go after psychographics and demographics, says Pollack. It’s a good way to cherry pick names.”
Data derived from list models can sometimes prove more accurate than survey data, plus these two data sources can be combined.
“List modeling is a new area of opportunity,” she adds.
What have you learned that you wish you knew when were just starting your career?
“If I could be my younger self again, I would never push a list. I’d listen more to clients. And I’d listen also for what clients don’t say,” Pollack says.
Combined with intuition, a good listener can tell a lot by a client’s tone of voice, questions asked and how quickly a client moves on to another topic.
“I listen to better understand what my client thinks. This is very important and applies to everyone—brokers and list managers alike,” she adds. It’s a skill that I wish I’d learned earlier.”
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