If you’ve ever been in sales, you know first-hand that one of the most powerful ways to go from good to great is having a strong sales manager. The best sales managers are active listeners and innovative thinkers. They know how to inspire and motivate their teams. So, is there a secret that only these superstar managers know?

Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, transformed a personal frustration with pantyhose into a billion-dollar brand by blending grit, humor, and outsider thinking. With no background in fashion or business, she taught herself patent law, pitched her product door-to-door, and earned Oprah’s endorsement, launching Spanx into national fame. Her success is rooted in empathy, authenticity, and a growth mindset that embraces failure as fuel. Blakely’s marketing strategy relied on storytelling over ad spend, and her leadership style fosters vulnerability, purpose, and resilience. Beyond business, she’s a philanthropist, adventurer, and prank-loving mom who believes joy and discomfort are both essential to growth.

Department stores are still shrinking in 2026, with more closures expected as Saks Global restructures in bankruptcy and Macy’s continues its downsizing plan. But “decline” doesn’t mean “dead”—these chains still generate billions in sales, and shoppers will keep spending; the difference is where those trips happen. For local media reps and agencies, the opportunity is in the disruption: anchor changes reset traffic patterns, create conquest moments, and open “displaced budget” conversations with specialty retail, off-price, and emerging replacement anchors. The winning local pitch is simple: shopping trips are being reassigned—let’s make sure your client is where they land.

With Christmas over, many small businesses go quiet—but January can reward the advertisers who stay visible across digital, radio, TV, and print because competition often drops faster than consumer intent. As holiday campaigns shut off, media markets typically loosen, creating better efficiency (often lower CPM/CPC) and more negotiable avails and added value in traditional channels. Consumers still buy in January, but with a “reset” mindset—practical, purposeful purchases—so messaging that leans into New Year goals can outperform leftover holiday creative. For local media reps and agencies, the play is a simple “January Reset” plan: maintain presence, shift the offer, use trusted local environments (news, print, familiar audio voices), and measure outcomes like calls, appointments, and store traffic.

If your sales reps had an expertly crafted, clear-cut sales process, how much would their sales performance improve? Using a company-wide sales process flowchart gets your whole sales team on the same page. Maintaining consistent sales processes across your team enables you to seamlessly manage sales company-wide and easily refine processes. If your sales reps are clear on the language and steps they need to follow to successfully sell more, your company sales will skyrocket.

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.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming how advertising agencies and local media sales reps operate by automating routine tasks, enhancing targeting, and improving campaign performance. This beginner’s guide introduces practical, easy-to-use AI tools that help streamline content creation, email marketing, lead scoring, and social media management. By starting small—like using AI to write emails or analyze audience data—users can quickly boost efficiency and gain a competitive edge. The article also dispels common myths about AI and offers a simple roadmap for getting started, making it accessible even for non-technical professionals.

Local media sales professionals and agency teams face rising operational pressures, making disciplined time management a critical competitive advantage in a fast moving advertising environment. By prioritizing tasks, implementing structured systems such as time blocking, and leveraging digital tools, professionals can convert daily chaos into predictable, high value workflow. A new force—client expectation inflation—has intensified the need for clearer boundaries, faster decision frameworks, and consistent communication rhythms. Those who master time not only improve personal productivity, but gain an edge in responsiveness, strategic insight, and long term client retention. close

Weekly Newsletter February 10, 2026

Increasingly, you hear the argument being made that CEOs need to allow their employees to do more — that is to say, to take part in the leadership process. The upshot? As the senior leader, it’s no longer about asking your team to blindly execute a job description or tasks you feed to them and judge them by, then wonder why they seem less than engaged.

Small businesses are entering 2026 confident but not carefree—80% say they’re confident over the next year and 79% expect revenue growth, yet the mood is shaped by inflation, tariffs, and regulatory uncertainty. For local media sellers and agencies, the takeaway is that optimism won’t automatically convert into bigger ad budgets, but it does create a receptive moment for plans that feel practical, measurable, and easy to execute. The “confidence hotspots” (South; tech, healthcare; 10+ employee firms) double as a prospecting map, while more cautious categories call for shorter commitments, tighter offers, and clearer ROI proof. The most actionable signal is that capex is back (57% planning spending, averaging $109K), which often triggers immediate marketing needs—new capacity, locations, services, and hiring—especially as rate cuts nudge owners toward controlled, calculated investment.

These are examples of objections we often hear in the middle to the end of the sales cycle. One thing that hasn’t changed in the wake of COVID-19 is the necessity of sales professionals to respond effectively to buyer objections. Objections are explicit communications from a prospect that they are resisting or not planning to move forward with a purchase, which become a barrier to advancing and closing the sale.

Parents, teachers and other influential adults teach the members of each generation the skills they need to lead a fulfilling and healthy life. Navigating an ever-more complex consumer landscape is one of the most important sets of skills. Gen Zers like recent generations were born into a world driven by consumption. That consumption engine is responsible for approximately 70% of the United States GDP, and Gen Zers are expected to keep stoking that engine.

Independence is a fundamental belief of Americans and more of us are declaring our independence from the traditional workplace by becoming freelancers and contract workers and seeking additional income from side hustles. It’s another significant cultural disruption of the 21st century and with implications for businesses of all sizes, consumer habits and the retail environment.

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