It’s become high fashion to declare the future of selling is “virtual.” While F2F, telephone, text, and other approaches will continue to exist, everything is moving to virtual. Usually, there’s a whole bunch of data to support why this is important. For example, sales people can make back to back sales calls through the whole day.

Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, turned a college paper into a global logistics powerhouse. After serving in the Marine Corps and earning multiple honors in Vietnam, Smith launched Federal Express in 1973 with a bold idea: overnight delivery via a hub-and-spoke model. Despite early financial struggles—including a legendary blackjack win to cover fuel costs—Smith’s vision and discipline helped FedEx become the first U.S. startup to reach $1 billion in revenue within a decade.
He pioneered real-time package tracking and built a culture rooted in service, accountability, and innovation. Smith’s leadership style, shaped by military experience, emphasized clarity and empowerment. Personally, he was a devoted father of ten, aviation enthusiast, and philanthropist, turning down a second offer to serve as Secretary of Defense to be with his daughter in her final days.
Smith’s legacy offers timeless lessons: trust your instincts, build scalable systems, lead with empathy, and stay mission-focused. His story is a blueprint for entrepreneurs and sales professionals aiming to deliver impact with purpose.

Usually, when we think about thing, we focus on our return, we answer the question, “How do we make things better for ourselves?” As sales people, we focus on our goals, quotas, and commissions. The customer is only a vehicle for achieving those. As leaders, too often, we focus on ourselves and our own goals. Again, our people become vehicles for achieving those–and if they don’t we find others to do so.

Dec 2, 2024 | Digital Media and Technology, Industry Press Highlights Executive Summary: X, formerly known as Twitter, has launched new labels for parody and fan...

Some of the best sales organizations use role-play to sharpen their skills. Role-play is a powerful tool because it allows sales teams to practice the language they need to use. Sales is a conversation. Sales managers who emphasize role-play provide their teams a safe place to find the right words—or borrow them from other sales reps who have mastered their talk tracks.

One of the most common traps leaders fall into is to dominate, not facilitate. It shows up in meetings. It rears its head when a team is faced with a complicated calamity. And we often see it when assessing the merits of an innovation. This dynamic can even be present when leaders and their direct reports have one-on-one meetings. Why is this pernicious problem so prevalent? I think it mainly comes from common myths and outdated mental models we’ve assimilated about leadership.

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Historically, the interaction between the credit collections department and the sales team has been an adversarial relationship. The credit collections team believes that salespeople have no concern for collections and just want to sell to anyone to make commissions and meet quotas. The sales team sees the credit collections department as an obstacle to opening new accounts and closing deals.

In media sales, your ability to build relationships, influence decision-makers, and close deals depends as much on how you communicate as what you say. While seasoned sales professionals understand the fundamentals of body language—eye contact, posture, and mirroring—true mastery involves recognizing the subtle cues that reveal client intent, controlling your own nonverbal signals, and using advanced techniques to create trust and urgency.

A new study suggests that AI disclaimers on political ads may reduce trust in the message even when the ad itself contains little or no AI-generated content. For local media sellers and agency professionals, that creates a new planning issue: AI may improve speed and efficiency, but required disclosures could weaken credibility and audience receptivity. The takeaway for radio, TV, cable, print, outdoor and digital professionals is that AI use in campaign creative should be evaluated not just for compliance and cost savings, but for its effect on persuasion and trust.

The programmatic advertising landscape is evolving in ways that benefit premium, trusted media sellers. A Q1 2025 ANA study reports that effective impressions are rising and low-quality ad placements are sharply declining. However, inefficiencies like optimization gaps and data compliance concerns remain. For local media—TV, print, digital, out-of-home—this presents both a challenge and a powerful opportunity to highlight the unique value of trusted, local ad environments.

In the world of sales, the ability to effectively communicate, negotiate, and understand products is imperative. While traditional training methods often involve presentations and role-playing, integrating games and activities into sales training can be a game-changer. These interactive approaches not only enhance engagement but also foster skill development in a more immersive and enjoyable manner.

Mark Zuckerberg’s journey from a Harvard dorm room to leading Meta showcases his visionary leadership, product-first mindset, and resilience under pressure. He built Facebook by prioritizing user experience, embracing bold risks like acquiring Instagram and pivoting to the metaverse. His management style emphasizes mission-driven culture, strategic delegation, and long-term thinking. Case studies such as the Cambridge Analytica response and Meta’s global expansion highlight his ability to lead through crisis and scale effectively. Local media sales reps can learn from his approach by innovating, embracing technology, building trust, and thinking beyond short-term wins.

BrightEdge’s 2025 industry report shows that AI-driven search is growing rapidly, but organic search remains the dominant driver of conversions and brand visibility. While AI referrals account for less than 1% of total traffic today, they are doubling month over month, signaling a major shift in how consumers discover products and services. For local media sales reps and ad agencies, this means combining traditional SEO with strategies that help clients appear in AI-generated results—through structured data, authoritative content, and local media mentions. The report emphasizes that local credibility and trusted content are becoming essential signals for AI models, giving local publishers and agencies a competitive edge. The key takeaway: success in 2025 requires selling not just impressions, but discoverability across both search and AI ecosystems.