The Best Prospects
Once you made sure that the contract accounts and the accounts that ran last week are running this week, who do you go after next? Well, you might want to check to see who you can't go after first.

Who Not to go After
Many newspapers have certain accounts that are off limits. These would include accounts that a specialist at your newspaper would work with. Most newspapers have a dedicated automotive and real estate sales force that deal exclusively with these types of accounts. You might want to check to see if that's the case at your newspaper. Another category that might be off limits to you would be major accounts. Check to see if there is one or more major account representatives at your newspaper who handle the bigger businesses such as supermarkets, banks, department stores, etc.

Also, depending on your newspaper's size, you might have a national sales rep who deals with the ads that require that you call an 800# to respond, such as airlines, car rental companies, etc. Again, check on this. Another category of accounts you might want to check on are what many newspapers call "house accounts". These are advertisers that for whatever reason are handled by the managers, usually older, long term or troubled accounts. Also, while we're on the subject of older or trouble accounts, sometimes these accounts have built up a relationship with a more senior ad rep years ago, and although that rep is no longer working in your territory, you might find an odd account in your territory that has made arrangements with the newspaper to always have a certain rep handle their account.

The good news is that most likely you'll find that the number of accounts you can't call on are minimal. My policy was to try find out about any conflicts like that, but when in doubt, make a sales call on the account, sell him, and if it works out it's not your account and you lose the commission, then at least you showed your manager that you can sell, and sell better than whoever was supposed to be handling the account. Your manager will be impressed that you made the sale when the rep handling the account couldn't, and the rep will be happy that you earned him the commission.