Fake Brains Software

Your Sales Team, Untethered.

Your reps already know their accounts. SalesScout gives them somewhere to put it - every account, balance, quote, and follow-up, from the phone in their pocket. Nothing to install, and nothing to re-key when they get back to the office.

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SalesScout on a laptop, tablet, and phone: the rep dashboard with color-coded print advertising goals pacing for the month and the year, sales metrics, proof counts, and today's follow-ups, beside the Deal Maker pipeline moving deals from new inquiry through verbal commitment to signed.

WHAT SALESSCOUT IS

The ad sales CRM that is already part of your AccountScout.

SalesScout is the web and mobile CRM for ad sales teams at newspaper and media publishers. It is part of the AccountScout platform rather than a separate CRM - it reads and writes the same advertiser records, rate cards, and orders that AccountScout bills against, so a rep can quote, close, and log an order from a phone and nobody has to re-key anything.

Same database, different surface

Not a synced CRM and not an integration. The same records, presented for selling instead of administering.

Browser-based, mobile-first

Any modern browser on a phone, tablet, Mac, or PC. Passwordless login - enter an email address, get a verification code.

Included with AccountScout

Every user gets access. No per-seat mobile fee and no add-on tier.

Your reps say "I'll do it when I get back to the office" - and then they don't.

Your sales manager has no idea what the team actually did today.

Your CRM lives on a desktop that nobody opens after 3 PM.

Most of your ad sales history is a spreadsheet, an inbox, and one rep's memory.

The publisher asks what you quoted an account last year, and nobody can answer without digging through email.

Quotes sit in inboxes instead of turning into orders.

A DAY WITH IT

What the job actually looks like.

  1. Morning

    The call list is already built.

    Open your phone and see which orders are expiring this week and which advertisers have gone quiet. Nobody had to run a report for you first.

  2. Midday

    On a call, with the whole account in front of you.

    Pull up an advertiser and see their orders, balance, and history. Build a quote on the spot, email it from the record, and track it on your deals board.

  3. End of day

    Logged, not remembered.

    Check where every deal stands and what is promised for tomorrow, from your desk or from the road. Nothing is waiting to be typed up.

THE DIFFERENCE

There is nothing to sync.

Most CRMs sold to publishers are a sales tool bolted onto an accounting system with a sync running between them. A rep sells the ad in one place, somebody re-types it in another, and the two versions drift until an advertiser disputes an invoice. SalesScout does not sync with AccountScout. It is AccountScout, with a surface built for selling on it.

Two ways in

No sync, no nightly export, no two versions drifting apart until an advertiser disputes an invoice. The quote a rep builds in a parking lot is the order the office bills.
  • Reps sell from the real rate card, not a copy of it - so the quote and the invoice agree
  • An accepted quote becomes scheduled insertions without anyone re-keying it
  • Calls, quotes, contracts, insertions, and payments sit on one timeline per account
  • When a rep leaves, the relationship stays with the publication

What your team can do

Everything here is shipping today.

Advertisers and history

  • My Advertisers and Other Advertisers views, governed by AccountScout roles
  • Account number, assigned rep, billing office, contacts, and address
  • Account balance, last touch, and next touch on the record itself
  • Global search across accounts, contacts, and phone numbers
  • Create a new advertiser from the field

Calls, notes, and follow-ups

  • Quick Note, Follow Up, or a full activity - call, email, visit, prospecting
  • Rich-text notes attached to the account, the contact, and optionally a deal
  • Scheduled follow-up reminders and full advertiser activity history
  • Clickable phone numbers for one-tap dialing
  • Sales Blitz: a ready-to-dial list worked one account at a time

The deals board

  • Drag-and-drop Kanban, with the stages you defined in AccountScout
  • Stage, value, expected close date, and Won or Lost
  • Activities and documents roll up under each deal
  • Built for longer-cycle sales - special sections, annual deals, digital bundles

Quotes and orders

  • Four-step wizard: advertiser, rate and section, publications and discounts, schedule
  • Color-coded publication dates in the scheduling calendars
  • Email a price quote, then Convert to Order when the advertiser accepts
  • Rerun an ad, submit a copy change, or schedule pickups per publication

Proofs

  • The whole queue, from New Ads through Design Ready, In Composing, and Awaiting My Review
  • Approve, request changes, or add designer notes
  • Email the proof to the advertiser, and the published copy after it runs
  • Proof work happens here or on the desktop - whichever is to hand

Email, payments, and documents

  • Personalized email from templates, sent from an account or a contact
  • Personal Email Tracking: opens and clicks per contact, in real time
  • Take a card or ACH payment, or save one on file without charging it
  • Attach proposals, contracts, and media kits to the advertiser record

FOR THE SALES MANAGER

Green means on track. Red means behind.

The dashboard is most of a sales manager's job on one screen - individual, team, and group goals across publications, each tile color-coded and clickable through to the detail behind it. Nobody has to ask a rep how the month is going.

The tiles

  • Sales Goals
  • Retail Revenue
  • Price Quotes
  • Deals
  • Expiring
  • Dormant
  • Holds
  • Cancelled
  • Sales Goals show progress as a percentage and how far ahead or behind the period is
  • Dormant advertisers filter by 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, and 91-180 days without activity
  • Daily Touch KPIs track new prospect contacts, follow-ups, and new relationship touchpoints in real time
  • A weekly sales rep report covers orders on hold, expiring ads, and activity gaps
  • 300+ built-in reports, including pipeline, rep performance, and year-over-year account revenue - without exporting to a spreadsheet

ON THE CALL

The whole account, before you dial.

Balance, last touch and next touch sit at the top of the record, with every open follow-up underneath. A rep opens an advertiser already knowing where things stand rather than ringing the office to find out.

  • Account balance beside the date of the last contact and the date of the next one
  • Open activities with their date, type, contact and status, newest first
  • Deals, orders, billing and contacts one tab away on the same record
A SalesScout advertiser record: account number, sales rep, billing office and contacts across the top, then account balance, last touch and next touch dates, above a tabbed panel listing open activities by date, title, contact, type and status.

THE PIPELINE

Where every deal actually stands.

Deal Maker is the pipeline as a board - new inquiry, verbal commitment, won, lost - with the count and the money on each column. A manager reads the month off it instead of asking a rep how it is going.

  • Columns are your deal stages, set up in AccountScout, not ours
  • Every card carries the ad, its value, the probability and the close date
  • Filter by pipeline and period, and the totals across the top follow the filter
The SalesScout Deal Maker board: a pipeline and period filter above deal and value totals, then four colour-coded columns - new inquiry, verbal commitment, won, and lost - each holding cards that name the advertiser, the ad, its value, its probability and its close date.

FROM WHEREVER THEY ARE

Four steps, none of which need a desk.

Advertiser, rate card, ad details, schedule. The rep picks a real rate card rather than a copy of one, so the price quoted across a counter is the price that gets invoiced.

  • Rates, sections and sales types come off the live rate card
  • A step you have already answered is a tap back, not a restart
  • The finished order is in AccountScout, so there is nothing to type up later
The SalesScout new retail order wizard on a phone, at the rate card step: pricing context set to open rate card, then the rate card, the rate, the sales type and the section, with back and next buttons and the remaining steps shown above.

NOTHING TO INSTALL

A browser tab your reps treat like an app.

SalesScout opens in any modern browser and uses a passwordless login - enter an email address, get a verification code. Reps pin it to a home screen in about fifteen seconds, and after that it opens full screen. No app store, no IT project, no forgotten password.

  • Phone, tablet, Mac, or PC - the same screens, not a cut-down mobile version
  • Pin it to a home screen and it opens full screen like any other app
  • Roles and permissions come from AccountScout, configurable per property
  • One database with order entry, billing, and production behind it
SalesScout mobile sales dashboard for newspaper ad reps: a print advertising goal for the month pacing at 66.8 percent and flagged as behind, week-to-date retail revenue, price quote and deal counts, and proof counts awaiting the rep's review, awaiting the advertiser, and needing changes, above a navigation bar for Dashboard, Advertisers, Deals, and Proofs.

DIVISION OF LABOR

What runs where.

Two surfaces, one database. Proof approvals work in either, so they appear on both sides.

SalesScout

phone, tablet, or any browser

  • Prospecting and call logging
  • Activities and follow-ups
  • The deals pipeline
  • Price quotes and field order entry
  • Taking a payment
  • Proof approvals

AccountScout desktop

in the office

  • Bulk email campaigns
  • Invoicing and statements
  • A/R and collections
  • Advanced reporting
  • Rate cards and deal stage setup
  • Proof approvals

Included with every subscription

Every user. No per-seat mobile fee.

SalesScout access is included for every AccountScout user - no per-seat mobile fees and no add-on tier. Your whole sales team has it from day one.

“I only use the AccountScout Mobile app. I don't have time to go into the office. I drive 1,000 miles a week, I use it everyday. It's Fake Brains at your fingertips.”

Calvin

Sales Rep

SalesScout is what Calvin is describing - it was called the AccountScout mobile app when he said this.

SalesScout is the sales team's window into AccountScout.

AccountScout brings the whole operation - sales, production, billing, and management - into one system. SalesScout is how reps and managers reach it from the field.

AccountScout

The newspaper advertising software SalesScout is part of

Ad sales and CRM workflow

How a publisher runs ad sales end to end, from prospect to renewal

Advertiser Portal

Let advertisers view invoices, pay online, and approve their own proofs

ClassifiedScout

Take and process classified ad orders online, around the clock

SalesScout questions, answered.

A newspaper CRM tracks advertiser accounts, sales activity, and the ad sales pipeline so reps and managers always know account history, balances, and what to do next. SalesScout is the ad sales CRM inside AccountScout - it holds every account's order history, contacts, and balance, lets reps log calls and follow-ups, and shows managers pipeline and goal tracking by rep, team, and publication.

See It In Action

See SalesScout on your own accounts.

Tell us how your sales operation runs today. We'll show you where SalesScout fits - and where it doesn't.

Book a Demo

Or call us at 303-791-3301