As we prepare to head to sunny Palm Springs, Calif., for the 2013 WCAA Conference, we thought it only appropriate to address the networking potential of conferences. If navigated correctly, you could meet potential colleagues, make valuable contacts and, yes, even land some new clients! We have some tips to make the most out of conferences:

I remember talking to a frustrated advertiser who was complaining about a certain media sales rep. “I was interested in his publication,” the advertiser told me, “and in fact, I had called him to set the appointment. But from the moment he walked into my office, he was insincere and sales-ey. He spent the whole time boasting about how great his paper was. After a few minutes, it was obvious that all he cared about was making a sale. He never made an effort to learn about my business. I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough.” 

Email is an integral part of our daily communication — especially for professionals — and it has been for quite some time now. In fact, many professionals have their work email sent straight to their phones, blurring the lines of standard in-office work hours. This constant flow of back-and-forth emails brings with it some interpersonal issues. Sometimes emails are written in the moment, without a second glance. This can lead to not only technical errors, but it can also cause the message to be received as rude, even if it’s unintentional. Therefore, just because email provides a way to instantaneously communicate with others to get the job done, that doesn’t mean they should be sent in haste. In fact, doing so could potentially burn some bridges with colleagues and potential clients! With the help of The Huffington Post’s Dana Sachs and her article, “9 Rules of Email Etiquette,” we have some basic rules to keep in mind when composing your next email. 

As a sales rep, you have to have a thick skin and almost impossible confidence. Sales can be a touchy career that causes reps to toughen up to meet its demands. However, sometimes the key to sales and relationship building is more about softening up and losing the tough exterior to make your clients more comfortable around you. In Jeff Haden’s article for Inc., “6 Habits of Remarkably Likeable People,” he details the ways people unleash their inner charisma and likeability that puts others at ease.

“Recently I fired a great salesperson,” Stacey Alcorn wrote in the opening sentence of her article for The Huffington Post.  It took me by surprise, and I’m willing to bet your reaction was similar to mine. The success or failure of a newspaper ad department often hinges on the sales team. So why on earth would Alcorn fire someone she defines as a great salesperson? That is what she went on to explain in her article, “Firing Your Sales Force – Redefining Greatness.” As she noted, the sales industry has undergone a complete and utter transformation in the past 50 years, if not in just the past decade. It wasn’t so long ago that we would receive a knock on the front door and be greeted by a salesperson trying to sell kitchen utensils, make up or the like. Those days are past us, and now, with the help of smartphones, laptops and tablets, consumers go to the source for their purchases, often circumnavigating the salesperson. Although many salespeople, like the one Alcorn let go, may be great at their jobs based upon previous definitions — like the number of sales they can close — that may not be the case any more. Alcorn implored readers to redefine what it means to be a great salesperson and hire accordingly. She set up three key characteristics to look for when creating a sales team to be reckoned with.

It can be a hard thing to hear that the majority of you success can be mental, but it’s true. Having and maintaining a positive attitude is one of the keys to success, especially in sales, because it allows you to keep going, even when times are tough and the road ahead looks hard. In “Three Mindsets of Long-Run Sales People,” an article by Ted Haro found in the Huffington Post’s Business Section, the author discusses some keys to having and keeping a positive attitude.

Sales reps face a tough job day in and day out. Often, when customers are approached by a salesperson, they are cautious, or even worse; they’re suspicious. This distrust can throw more than a mere roadblock in many sales deals; it can stop the sale before it even gets off the ground. As a result, what Ted Harro called sales “shortcuts” in an article for The Huffington Post tempt many salespeople. These shortcuts, however tempting, can do more damage than good. They can have a long-term negative impact on a sales rep’s reputation within the industry. Below, we assess five of these shortcuts and why they should be avoided.

School’s out, and kids everywhere are thanking their lucky stars that they won’t have homework for another couple of months. While school-aged kids may not see the value in doing their homework, you most certainly understand that doing the necessary research and organization can help you make that clutch sale. Now is the time to do a little extra work and show your clients not only how much they mean to you, but also how much you can help them.

In order to be a successful newspaper sales representative, it’s incredibly important to be aware of your relationship with your customers. Are they happy? Are they dissatisfied? Why or why not? It’s essential to create a strong foundation to build from, and then continue to develop it as long as they’re doing business with your ad department. Even if a customer decides to part ways, it’s critical that you learn why, and then take that knowledge to strengthen relationships with future clients. One of the goals of your position is to create customer loyalty — to make a customer happy enough with your product and service that they will continue to do business with you. By placing importance on building and maintaining customer relationships and loyalty, you increase the likelihood of new leads and clients. On the other hand, if customers are left unattended, it will instead give your ad department a bad reputation that will follow you everywhere you go.

Facebook is an obvious asset for marketers when working to advertise products and services throughout your community. The instant connectivity to a local demographic that is available through the newsfeed and convenience of posting and sharing only scrapes the surface of the benefits Facebook has for your department. Beyond having the ability to upsell services to advertisers that may be less technically savvy or may simply not have time to deal with general upkeep of their social site, your sales reps can use Facebook to create or enhance working relationships with local marketers and community members to strengthen their reputation and increase their sales potential.

Creating and maintaining relationships with advertisers can be done in a multitude of ways. Actual connection and social media are two of the most predominate facets of communication in modern times. Often though, as the digi-era ages on, the reality of relationships becomes distorted. Some reps have confused the idea of digital intimacy for true intimacy. The ease and convenience of connecting to others online has given reps the idea that these relationships are more intense and more committed than they really are. These reps “run the risk of alienating the people who populate our daily lives in pursuit of intimacy with our online friends. We each have only so much intimacy to go around and we need to make sure we’re investing it for our own maximal benefit,” according to socialmediaexaminer.com. While I’m not suggesting neglecting the benefits of social media, I do recommend you proceed with caution, and remember the value in human interaction.