Usually, more than one independent variable influences the dependent variable. You can imagine in the above example that sales are influenced by advertising as well as other factors, such as the number of sales representatives and the commission percentage paid to sales representatives. When one independent variable is used in a regression, it is called a simple regression; when two or more independent variables are used, it is called a multiple regression.
Regression models can be either linear or nonlinear. A linear model assumes the relationships between variables are straight-line relationships, while a nonlinear model assumes the relationships between variables are represented by curved lines. In business you will often see the relationship between the return of an individual stock and the returns of the market modeled as a linear relationship, while the relationship between the price of an item and the demand for it is often modeled as a nonlinear relationship.