Once you've talked to your accounts and figured out which ones that ran last week want to run this week, you'll need to get them into your newspaper. Again, you're not selling yet, you just want to keep anyone running who is supposed to be running.

This is pretty simple if they want to run the exact same ad as the previous week, but most likely, that won't be the case.

Take a look at what the advertiser has given you to run. Some advertisers will simply hand you an old ad, having marked it up--crossed out items, added new information, and moved things around.

And that's if you're lucky. Many advertisers will just type up all the words they want on a sheet of plain paper or sketch out a rough ad on anything they can find.

In fact, many will sketch out the ad much larger than what they want, and tell you to "make it fit" into a smaller size. A good advertising salesperson will do more than just take what the advertiser gives them and get it in the newspaper.

A good rep will offer suggestions and ideas on how to create a more effective ad. However, at this stage, I'm guessing you'd be happy just getting your accounts' ads in the newspaper the way they want them, so let's talk about that next and hold off on what we call "saving the advertisers from themselves" until a later chapter.

Next: Put it in writing