
Are You In It To Win It?
If I get into a game, I play to win. What nobility is there is playing like a slacker? What virtue is purposeful mediocrity? None! I live my life to be a winner. Have
Welcome to the Sales Gravy blog, where salespeople and sales leaders get better every week. We publish new sales training articles and podcast episodes three times a week, covering prospecting, cold calling, objections, negotiation, and leadership, written by Jeb Blount and the Sales Gravy trainer team.

If I get into a game, I play to win. What nobility is there is playing like a slacker? What virtue is purposeful mediocrity? None! I live my life to be a winner. Have

Do you long for a life lived in high gear? One that is filled with joy and achievement? It is possible! How would you like to kick your life into high gear? I can

When you are winning deals, it’s easy to slip into a euphoric mindset and completely forget about the process that got you there in the first place. Out of all the sales rules, there

What would happen to your business results if you just said “no” a little more often? Building business demands that you, as the solo professional, wear many hats. In wearing all of these hats,

Hark back to who you were on interview day. We promised to deliver above and beyond. Chances are, we gave it our all for a while, settled into a groove and have gotten lazy

Working smarter with people entails three key activities: assigning the right number of people, identifying roles and planning compensation strategically. Sure-fire Ways to Work Smarter with People Your sales force is defined by the

Data can do more than tell you facts about your own business. It also can reveal important information about what’s going on with your competitors in the marketplace. How to Be Data Savvy In

The difference between average salespeople and UHPs is, more often than not, their mindset about prospecting and pipeline.

In this podcast, Jeb Blount tells the real truth about why you suck at prospecting and gives you the tips, tactics, and techniques you need to keep your sales pipeline full.

On this podcast, Jeb goes head to head with the great Jeffrey Gitomer on some of the toughest objections faced by sales professionals.

Rejection points you in the right direction. It toughens you up and makes you stronger. It tells you when you are on to something big!

The Social Proof Heuristic is a powerful way to minimize fear. On this podcast, you’ll learn how to leverage it to make it easy for your buyer to move forward.

On this podcast episode Jeb Blount answers the number one question we get about prospecting and gives you the secret to timing your telephone prospecting calls.

One of your goals going into any sale is to deal with the potential of inaction. Risk is a big factor in sales, and there are many ways to manage, mitigate and maneuver risk.

On this episode of the Sales Gravy podcast, Kendra Lee and Jeb Blount discuss cold email prospecting techniques. Kendra Lee is the author of The Sales Magnet and one of the top experts on

Talking comes easily for most sales reps, but getting others to listen is a bigger challenge— and a critical element to your long-term success. Many sales reps have convinced themselves (and try to convince
What Does It Mean To Give Your Customers The Red Carpet Experience? How many people are you losing because you treat even one person poorly? What’s at the heart of good or bad service? You
The Two Opposing Sales Philosophies After years of pursuing sales as a serious closer, I grew into what I refer to as an “of service” sales professional. While I’m still all about closing deals,
How To Design An Effective Sales Call Plan You are supposed to sell in such a way that people would prefer to work with you over anyone else. You need to be known, liked,
Email or Telephone: Which one do you use more for prospecting? The question should not be the number of people you can contact. The question we need to be asking is, “What is the
How You Open Your Closing Calls Might Lose You The Deal I’m going to share with you one of the easiest and most effective ways to close more business. And it all starts with
On this Sales Gravy podcast episode, Jeb Blount and Daniel Disney discuss the real secrets to becoming a LinkedIn selling machine. You’ll learn the keys to to filling your pipeline with qualified opportunities, building
Got a Stalled Pipeline Opportunity? Here’s What To Do Next When facing stalled pipeline opportunities, you might wonder, “Was it something I said? Did I do something wrong?” Often, it is out of your
Cold Calling C-Level Executives When calling into the upper “C” suites, assess their mood and circumstances at the time of the call quickly and match it with your tone and conversation. This will give
The buyers in procurement are professionally trained to negotiate. Salespeople not so much. This can put you at a huge disadvantage when you are forced to negotiate with them. But not anymore. On this
The best way to measure sales productivity is with leading indicators—the KPIs and metrics that predict future revenue and let you fix problems before sales dry up.

Most sales team meetings fail because they aren’t actually about selling. Mike Weinberg says the fix is simple: stop running status updates and start running meetings that make your team more aligned, more energized,
Jumping in to save a rep’s deal feels like leadership, but it trains your team to call you instead of solving problems themselves. Real sales leadership means coaching the rep, not closing the deal
If you want to know how to scale a sales team, document your sales process and prove your close rate before you add headcount, then decide whether your next hire is a leader or
Most sales forecasts fail for a reason no CRM can fix. Sellers stop telling their leaders the truth the moment honesty starts costing them something.
Summary The most effective sales compensation strategy for getting a small team focused on high-value complex deals is to layer a significantly higher reward on those deals without reducing incentives on transactional ones. Pair
Summary When the market shifts, your salespeople are not going to figure it out on their own. That’s your job. As a sales leader, your responsibility is to see the change coming, get ahead
Summary: Most sales managers confuse empathy with sympathy and pay for it in team performance. Jeb Blount breaks down the real difference, why listening first is the most powerful coaching move you have, and
Summary: Q1 is feedback, not failure. Top-performing sales teams use a Q1 sales strategy review to assess whether they have an execution problem or a focus problem, then make targeted adjustments heading into Q2.