VISIBILITY2026
Four papers, four deadlines, one set of records.
This publisher ran four weekly newspapers on paper order forms and pages dummied by hand. Their advertising manager moved sales, production, billing and receivables onto one set of records - and stopped losing recurring advertisers in the gaps between four papers.
Four weekly newspapers in Missouri, plus a website and a year-round calendar of specialty editions
- Under half a day
- Billing close, down from a day and a half
- Hours, not a day
- Page layout for an issue
- Cut by half
- Postage, with affidavits and e-tears close to automatic
- Once
- Times an order is entered - by the rep who sold it
Background
The advertising manager here runs four weekly papers in Missouri, plus a website and a year-round calendar of specialty editions. Four deadlines, one team.
How it used to work
- Reps wrote ads on paper, and the front office re-typed them into a separate system
- Pages were dummied by hand, so nobody saw the ads together until the paper printed
- Recurring advertisers were re-entered every month, across four papers - so some got missed
How it works now
- An order is entered once, by the rep who sold it
- Recurring ads load for the full year in one pass instead of being rebuilt every month
- Reps send a click-to-pay email straight to the advertiser's inbox, and payment lands almost immediately
- Layout happens on screen, so the team sees where every ad sits before the issue goes out
“From horse and buggy to rocket ship.”
One set of records
Sales, production, receivables and CRM run off the same records - entered once, planned on screen, and billed where the ad was booked. Nothing is re-keyed on its way from the rep to the page to the invoice.
Working the quiet accounts
The system surfaces advertisers who bought and then did not come back. Sorted by rep and worked quarterly, that is a renewal list somebody can act on rather than a number to chase.
Green for on track, red for behind
The dashboard tiles read at a glance - revenue, expiring orders, advertisers who have gone quiet - and each one clicks through to the detail behind it. A rep hired this year was working in the system while still learning the territory.
Nobody is the single point of failure
When someone is out, someone else gets the paper out. Billing closes on days the bookkeeper is not in, and exporting an issue does not wait on one person being at their desk.
What the reps do with it
Reps know what the bars mean, and the green and the red do the work. One will walk into the ad manager's office to say a colleague is outselling them that month. Her answer: what are you going to do about it?
“We don't have to make that call and say, 'We forgot your ad this month. We're so sorry. Here's a make good.' Because we're not forgetting it.”
“That's not a task my sales reps have to do anymore. They load it for the year, and then they're done.”
What this story runs on
More customer stories
SALES GOALS2025
An hour of weekly reports, replaced by a dashboard every rep can read.
A fifteen-rep team across several South Dakota offices swapped hand-run weekly reports for a dashboard every rep can read.
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PAGE LAYOUT2024
Nine hours of ad and page work, down to five and a half.
A weekly paper stopped dummying pages by hand from spreadsheets. The customer asked not to be named.
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See It In Action
Want this walked through on your own numbers?
Bring a recent issue and a month of billing. We will show you where the time goes today and what the same week looks like with one set of records behind it.