How to Negotiate in Sales: 7 Rules That Win the Deal
No matter your industry or deal size, mastering how to negotiate in sales comes down to seven rules that protect your leverage and win more profitable deals.
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.
No matter your industry or deal size, mastering how to negotiate in sales comes down to seven rules that protect your leverage and win more profitable deals.
Summary A LinkedIn social selling strategy works when sellers show up with authenticity, not automation. The biggest mistake sellers make today is using AI to generate posts and messages in bulk, then publishing without
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
Time management is a myth. Time is fixed and unrecoverable — what salespeople can manage is how they choose to spend it. Every sales day presents three types of activities: trivial, important, and impactful.
Summary The easiest way to spot a fake sales guru on LinkedIn is to ask one question: are they selling you something before they’ve proven anything? Fake gurus manufacture credibility through aesthetics and urgency.
Summary How do you know what sales advice to trust? Look at who’s giving it. Credible sales advice comes from people who are actively selling today, have a verifiable track record across years and

Under-slept reps make more mistakes, take longer to respond, remember less, and read prospects worse, all of which show up in fewer calls made and fewer deals closed.
Summary The four principles of effective sales conversations are: (1) people respond in kind, meaning emotions are contagious and you set the tone; (2) people communicate in stories, and the clues to their real
Most salespeople are wired for now. The quota is now. The pipeline review is now. The pressure to close is always right now. And that urgency is exactly what gets in the way when
Summary How do you get your first customers when you have no sales experience and no reputation? Target people who have not committed to a competitor yet. Define a tight ideal customer profile, qualify
Summary Sales reps who sprint through their prospecting activity burn out fast and end up with empty pipelines by mid-quarter. The fix is not working harder out of the gate. It is building a
I was about two years into my sales career when I took a deal I had no business taking. A local business owner was expanding fast, opening new locations all over town, and I

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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

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The “what” centers around the value you as the solution provider bring to the buying decision table. The hardest question for any business owner to answer and along with the correct response to potentially

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If you haven’t included video marketing into your integrated marketing plan, maybe now is the time to take that action. Ensure A Maximum Return With Limited Time Recently, I entered the world of video

You have done it. I have done it. And most of us will do it again. We ask this question without considering the consequences – which almost always turn out badly. On this podcast

The most pressing issues facing sales professionals and sales leaders are, Prospecting, Pipeline, and Productivity. In this exclusive re-broadcast of VSKO17, four of the world’s most cutting edge thought leaders, shatter modern day sales

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Learn to say “No” thoughtfully and respectfully with the focus on creating a high-performance sales culture. Are you limiting your sales team and the ability to increase sales by not ever saying “No”? Sometimes,
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.

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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.