"I wish we had more time", my manager told me, "but your territory's already been empty too long and we've got a big special section due at the end of the week and I'd really like you to sell some of the businesses in your territory into it".

I was completely overwhelmed. "Sell advertising?" I thought. "How can I even think about selling anything when I have no idea how to read a rate card, what sizes people can run, how to reserve an ad in the newspaper, how to design and produce an ad, when the deadlines are, why people should be running in our paper as opposed to other products, and a hundred other things I don't even know that I don't know yet?"

Like most new ad salespeople, I fended for myself, and after a number of months and help from patient co-workers (and many, many, mistakes), I finally felt sufficiently comfortable with all the different parts of my job and started attaining the goals that my manager had set for me.