Entrepreneurial Journalists: You Must Make Time for Ad Sales
What you love to do can get in the way of what you need to do.
My family got its first computer when I was 15. It was 2001. By the standards of my peers, I was a late arrival to the PC age. That wouldn’t impede my interest though; I was fascinated from the second my dad and I opened the cow-spotted box. When we set it up and I pushed the power button, I heard the whirring of the internal fan and the clicking of the hard drive. It was nothing short of magical.
I spent the entire summer in front of it. Sunny days passed while I sat in the computer room with the window shades down. When night came, it was even better. I’d sit in total darkness, apart from the glow of the screen. It was just me and my computer, and that’s the way I liked it.
I slowly learned to write code: HTML, Javascript, Visual Basic, PHP. I was infatuated with the notion that I could turn my ideas into programs and websites.
Sometimes I would just sit in front of an open text editor, with a fire burning in the pit of my stomach, knowing that at any moment I could to turn an idea, something totally abstract and existing nowhere but in my own mind, into something real and powerful. Me and my machine could achieve anything.
To this day, I love to write code. When the world seems cruel or overwhelming, I still want to close the door, pull down the blinds, turn off the lights, and follow my interests in code.
I’m telling you this because although I love writing code, the majority of what I do during the day is not write code. In fact, I’ve found that it’s critical that I spend the majority of my time on something completely different.
I am the founder of an adserving company that focuses on small news and magazine publishers. Many of those customers are entrepreneurs, and they have a different passion. They are journalists. They live to shine a light in dark places. They tirelessly engage in a never-ending effort to keep the foundations of democracy, an informed public, intact.
I am a software engineer turned businessperson. Many of my customers are journalists turned businesspeople. We are very similar. We both started this business because of a passion — and that passion, as it turns out, often gets in the way in the way of our success.
For four years at Broadstreet, I prioritized code over money. I hoped that one day, new accounts would come flooding in, providing enough cash for me to live on. I worked side jobs to keep the company alive. When I didn’t, I watched my savings dwindle. I could write all the new code I wanted, but it wasn’t pushing the company forward.
In the depth of an ensuing depression, I admitted what had been staring me in the face the entire time: I needed to radically rethink my revenue model. More importantly, I needed to sell. The undeniable truth is that a business needs to consistently make money to stay in existence.
Every entrepreneurial journalist with a revenue problem knows in the back of their mind that they aren’t devoting enough time to that necessary evil of sales. They know it’s important, and perhaps they’ve even tried a few times with limited success, but they have not persisted in their efforts.
The thing we love doing — our reason for being — can stand in our way. There’s no shortage of excuses to give in to that passion and forgo focusing on sales on any given day.
One time, perhaps, you asked a few prospects about advertising and got no response. You tried to hire an ad salesperson but they were ineffective and quit. Someone once told you they don’t advertise. Maybe you don’t even know how to price advertising. Maybe Facebook will start selling for you and share some of the money they’re making. How about this reader revenue thing — maybe that’s the answer?
Since I made selling my first priority, I have been able to stop working side jobs. I have been able to hire employees. I have seen a bright future that I couldn’t have possibly imagined in 2015, when I was staring into what appeared to be a void of uncertainty.
I am a better and more capable person because I committed to selling. Looking back, I thought selling was just a necessary evil. I found that it was actually a path to learning and personal growth. I forced myself to do something that I didn’t fully understand or even care about, and I am better because of it.
You need to carve out time to sell. I maintain that selling, whether it’s to advertisers or readers, is the single most reliable way of building revenue. It puts you in charge of your own future. And as much as you may not believe it, you are the best person in the world to sell your product — the owner always is.
Debbie Galant, the founder of the famed hyperlocal Baristanet, once told a room full of entrepreneurial journalists in Montclair about her staff’s Money Mondays.
Money Mondays were weekly efforts by the Baristanet staff to focus exclusively on money. On that day, Debbie and her ad salesperson would review who owed them money, who was likely to advertise soon, and who should probably be advertising with them in the future.
This approach is a simple but effective first step. Block out time and get rid of all distractions. Turn the police scanner off. The fires, car wrecks, and politicians that you could write about today are not as important as the hundreds that you could write about in the future — when you have the cash flow to survive.
Start small. Ask yourself these questions:
- How much money do I need to make this a success by my own definition?
- What am I selling, and for how much?
- Who am I selling to, and is there real potential for a return on their investment?
- How can I make sure that when a business advertises with me, that I can deliver undeniable value that keeps them working with me instead of someone else?
The answers aren’t always (if ever) immediately obvious. The outlook might seem foggy right now. But the fog does clear. That starts when you take the first step.
Carve out time for sales. Commit to it. Do not read this post and go back to doing something else. Put it on your calendar and commit to making some measure of progress on sales every single day. You will get good at it, and you will be better for it.
Side notes — don’t read these unless Money Monday is already on your calendar.
- Uriah Kiser of Potomac Local originally got my wheels turning on this topic.
- I recently wrote a guide titled “Ten Advantages: How Magazine and Hyperlocal News Publishers Will Win in the Era of Google and Facebook.” It has 6 years of insight on the success of small publishers packed into forty pages. The (very) short version is a post on MediaShift: 10 Advantages That Small Publishers Have Over Tech Giants in Selling Ads
- I’m planning a guide, similar to Ten Advantages, on the nuts and bolts of digital ad sales. How to package, price, pitch, and close. If you’re interested in that, sign up for our newsletter.






