The best sales teams get into an aligned operating rhythm and execute using agreed-upon best practices. So many sales organizations operate with frontline sales managers “doing their own thing.” It reminds me of the times I spent watching my step-daughter’s Pee Wee/youth soccer games when she was growing up. She played in an all-girl league, and wherever the ball rolled, the ponytails followed.

People in the Northern Hemisphere may celebrate June as the beginning of summer, but across the entire globe, it’s when Mary Meeker and her firm, Kleiner Perkins, publish their annual Internet Trends Report (with a little help from their friends). As has been the case for many years, the 2018 edition is book-length, at 294 pages. (See page 8 for a live link to the entire report.) It contains much more information and insights than can be shared in this month’s Special Report from Media Group Online, Inc.,

There is way too much on cold calling. On any day, you can find all kinds of self-proclaimed experts publishing posts about cold calling. Occasionally, you will find these experts arguing over the best way to make a cold call. One expert will focus on how you introduce yourself, while another will claim that they can improve your chances of a conversation and acquiring a first meeting. It is rare to see the cold call expert offer anything important outside of their chosen area of focus.

Since its inception, television’s journey across the media landscape has been steady and relatively smooth. More recently, however, the media landscape has changed and television has had to adjust its course. That journey into the future will be an exciting ride because of the many new opportunities the changes in viewing habits, advertisers’ needs and technology will create for content creators and ad sales teams.

Weekly Newsletter March 16, 2026

In today’s fragmented and fast-changing advertising landscape, local media sellers face the challenge of promoting a product—news and community media—that can feel both complex and misunderstood. But this very complexity offers a unique opportunity: to become more than just ad reps by positioning themselves as trusted partners aligned with their clients' values. By shifting focus from features to solutions, leaning into authenticity, and involving advertisers in the creative process, local media professionals can mitigate risk, deepen trust, and foster long-term client relationships. This approach not only increases revenue potential but also reinforces the critical role of community media in a rapidly evolving world.

As a sales leader, it’s your job to analyze the market and make decisions based on the data available. You must then pass your wisdom and experience to your sales team to develop their skills and motivate them toward success. Sales leaders must understand product fit, as well as the company vision, mission, and culture, to lead their teams to success.

The world of work is filled with challenging moments, unexpected events and unanticipated reactions. Learning to lead yourself first is critical for survival and seizing any possibility of success in these stressful moments. One of today’s essential skills is developing a personal system for keeping control of the logical thinking part of your brain when your body’s natural reaction is to rip away this control in a flood of chemicals. Get this right, and you’re at your best when many are at their worst. Get it wrong, and you’ll set an example for those around you — just not the type of example you want.

The squeaky wheels in your organization may also be important sources of innovation. Some of the links between creativity and risk are pretty self-evident. Creativity is all about trying something new, exploring the unknown, and accepting uncertainty and the possibility of failure. In the corporate setting, we understand intuitively that creativity fuels strategy, innovation, and growth. In a world where machines are taking over predictable, tedious tasks,

Direct mail is experiencing a remarkable resurgence in 2025, delivering an average ROI of $42 for every dollar spent while achieving response rates of 3.63%—significantly outperforming digital channels struggling with privacy regulations and ad fatigue. Eighty-two percent of marketing executives plan to increase direct mail investment this year, with modern campaigns leveraging AI-powered personalization and QR codes for attribution tracking that boost response rates by 63% when integrated with digital touchpoints. For local media sales representatives and agency professionals, this shift represents a significant opportunity to offer higher-value services, though success requires mastering new competencies in data strategy and attribution modeling. The convergence of digital advertising headwinds and direct mail's tangible advantages suggests this is a fundamental market realignment rather than a temporary trend, positioning early adopters to capture disproportionate value.

Building trust virtually, finding qualified leads, getting in front of the decision-makers — these are all challenges that salespeople face. And as a sales manager, you’re finding innovative ways to address these issues. However, to become more effective in your role and provide a better overall direction for the entire team, it’s important to know the current challenges that sales managers face as well.

I hear this a lot from business leaders — and it’s always kind of sheepish: “Chris, how do we actually make a sales process?” And I get it. Sales processes don’t just happen. They don’t just appear out of thin air. Instead, growing companies realize that they don’t actually have a sales process in place, so they either let their sales reps do their own thing — or they cobble something together that pleases no one.

Large language models are rapidly becoming standard tools in advertising—speeding up planning, reporting and workflow—but they’re still being kept away from the moment where real ad dollars are actually spent. Across agencies and ad-tech platforms, the industry is drawing a firm line between automation that helps humans move faster and automation that replaces humans at the point of financial accountability. The hesitation isn’t just cultural; it’s driven by flawed measurement signals, unreliable bidstream data, and the risk of scaling today’s attribution blind spots into machine-driven decisions. For now, the industry is modernizing infrastructure and using LLMs in orchestration layers, while keeping core bidding logic deterministic—because the real battle is less about AI capability and more about control of the money.

Weekly Newsletter January 5, 2026

There are a handful of popular and effective ways to stay in contact with customers, but it’s important to understand the limitations and how to utilize technology to your advantage. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Most people running a business are well aware that customer communication is critical to success, but that’s only partially correct: It’s only successful when executed in a way that not only engages customers but builds meaningful relationships