What to do next: Go where the money is!
If you've just taken over a territory, your goal is to get as much advertising running as quickly as possible. The trick here is to simply go after the money that is easiest to get, namely, from people already running. You'll find these either from your activity reports or, if you're in a geographical territory, by simply looking through the newspaper. Stop by, or if you can't, call them up. Tell them you're their new advertising representative and that you'd like to get to know them better as soon as possible, but right now you just want to make sure that if they had been planning to run an ad anytime soon, that you'll make sure they get in the newspaper.

Now, in a perfect world, you would think that the salesperson formerly in your territory would have let someone know who was scheduled to run in the next week, but as you'll learn, putting out a new product every day or week makes for a very imperfect world. By the way, don't be surprised if a few things happen when you introduce yourself. Many retailers will love to complain about the turnover of staff at your newspaper. Don't be too concerned, it happens everywhere.

Retailers also like to complain about the last rep, about how he stopped by too often, or never at all, or how he lost all his artwork. In every territory I ever took over it appeared that the previous rep did nothing all day. And files on advertisers may seem inconsistent at best and nonexistent at worst. It seems to happen everywhere. At the same time, the retailer will probably tell you all the special agreements he had with the previous rep, such as guaranteeing a certain position in the newspaper, not requiring money up front, or allowing later deadlines. Be careful. Most people are honest, yet there will always be some retailers who will try to take advantage of a new rep, somehow hoping to get a deal that he never even had before.

In any case, your immediate goal is to keep these people running, which shouldn't involve too many selling skills since they're already planning on running. The harder part at first is going to be navigating through all the paperwork and deadlines, which can seem almost incomprehensible at first. Don't worry, once you get them all sorted out, they'll be second nature. So before we talk any further about territory management, let's talk now about exactly what you'll have to do to get an ad in the newspaper.

There are really two categories of things you need to do to get an ad in your newspaper--get the production staff to make the ad look the way the retailer wants it, and get all the paperwork through to reserve the space for the ad. Both require a few skills I'll share with you now. Let's talk about the making the ad first.