Who to go after
So we know who not to call on, but who should you go after first in your territory?

They say in business, whenever you're in doubt about what to do at any given time, that you should ask yourself what is the most productive thing you can do at this moment. With selling advertising, your guide should be the question "What can I do at this moment to bring in the most money in the shortest amount of time?" The answer? Keep going where the money is easiest to bring in.

So after going after people who are already running with your newspaper, the second easiest people to go after would be people who have run in the last six months but dropped out. These people might just run seasonally and it might be time for them to run again. Or they might have just gotten away from advertising for whatever reason, even just the simple fact that an ad rep hasn't called on them recently.

Go through your reports and identify these people and stop out and see them. We'll get into some detail later about what to say to them. For now, let's just talk about organizing who to contact. Another close second would be accounts that are running ads elsewhere. Once you get those people running who are already running and/or under contract with your newspaper, accounts running in the advertising vehicles you compete with will always be your best source of advertising revenue.

I'll give you an example. Willy Sutton was a famous bank robber. One day they finally arrested him and asked him why he robs banks. His answer: "that's where the money is". He knew what a lot of salespeople forget. Go where the money is, or in your case, go where the money is being spent. By looking at this week's competitive publications that circulate in your area, and finding the ads in your territory, in most cases you're finding advertisers who are planning on spending money next week on another ad in that publication. And that's where the money is.