Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Are you looking for people to help you advertise or for customers to advertise their products/services with you? In any event, we'll need a lot more details about your business, where your customers are located, what distinguishes you from your competition, etc...

I'm with Jay - your title (advertisers) and your question (ad sales team) are two different things. Now, a quick googly oogly of TEXAS HEAT MAG yields a Facebook page of a magazine devoted to Texas-based entertainment. Advertisers in your magazine want a target-rich environment, so think of advertising in a ladder of things they care about the most:

1. the readers of your mag. who are they, and how many are there
2. how likely are they to spend money on relevant products and services
3. the tone of your magazine - is it humorous, serious, technical, etc...
4. the content
5. the appearance of the actual magazine

When I was in pub ad sales, this was what I heard most for relative tiers of importance. For a lot of this stuff, data will be required from surveys and other sources. Ad sales is as much a scientific endeavor as it is a personal endeavor these days, so make sure your team are armed with good statistics so they aren't wasting valuable time.

Hire great people.
Get out of their way.

I started a magazine a few years back, and after that experience wrote a bit on a blog about how to get advertisers - here it is in case that info is useful: https://expandabroad.blogspot.com/2011/06/ads-in-new-publication.html

In my magazine's area, It wasn't big enough to justify full time sales people. So if we used an external person, they would be paid a commission - some 10-20% of the ad price if I remember correctly. Optimal would have been a person who knew or was calling on the potential advertisers already. Has to be someone who has good sales people traits (like a high tolerance for rejection, so they are willing to keep contacting folks even after most say no).