Why Your Sales Forecast Keeps Missing the Mark
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.
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.
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.
AI works for sales when the purchase is simple and low risk enough that a buyer feels comfortable clicking a button without talking to anyone. The moment a deal gets complex, expensive, or risky,
Field sales reps who blended virtual and in-person outreach during the pandemic consistently outperformed those who relied solely on in-person contact. The most efficient field sellers use virtual tools for prospecting, qualifying, and maintaining
The best pitch I’ve ever heard about didn’t have a single slide. It had an ax, an elevator, and a crowd that had no idea what was about to happen. The sales storytelling techniques
Stalled deals are rarely a follow-up problem — they’re a process problem. When you’re selling to risk-averse, consensus-driven buyers, deals die in the middle of the pipeline because the decision-making process was never defined
Sales complacency is the silent performance killer that sets in after winning — and the only defense is returning to the fundamentals that built your success in the first place. Key Takeaways When Success
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
Quick Summary Reading buyer signals means recognizing the behavioral and psychological cues prospects send before they ghost you, and using that information to keep deals moving toward a real decision. Key Takeaways Listen to
AI call screeners are blocking more sales calls every day — and most salespeople are making it worse by leading with the wrong message. Getting past AI gatekeepers comes down to one thing: relevance.
When results drop and motivation fades, the fix is to increase your prospecting activity above your normal baseline, not wait until you feel ready. More calls create more conversations, more conversations create more opportunities,
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
In this video, Jeffrey Gitomer, Jeb Blount, and Jennifer Gluckow discuss the two types of objections: The ones that we respond to. The ones that are prevented in the first place. A solid sales
The 3p’s holding you back from prospecting are: Procrastination, perfectionism, and paralysis from analysis. They are the enemies of prospecting and building pipeline in sales.
Douglas Burdett of The Marketing Book Podcast and CEO of Sales Gravy, Jeb Blount, dissect Jeb’s new book, Objections: The Art and Science of Getting Past No in this jam-packed episode. From becoming rejection-proof to understanding
How do you know when it’s time to give up on a prospect and stop hounding them, especially when you’re tasked with drumming up new business? Sometimes it’s hard to give up on prospects
The real cure comes down to first of all believing in yourself and your ability to help others. If you don’t believe you are helping others achieve a better outcome, then little else will
Try to put yourself into your prospect’s shoes. What would you want to hear when you pick up the phone where somebody is interrupting your day? As a brief introduction, we experienced a really
In this article, Mike Brooks encourages sales teams to ask themselves what’s really holding their prospects back from buying. The holidays are upon us and guess what? The teams I’m working with are still
Jeb Blount, Jeffery Gitomer, and Jen Gluckow offer tips, tricks, and techniques for getting past sales objections on this episode of Sell Or Die podcast. Jeb Blount, Jeffery Gitomer, and Jen Gluckow discuss actionable
On this short, high impact video, Jeb Blount and Jeffrey Gitomer battle it out over sales objections.
Steal this trial close technique and exact scripts to motivate buyers to make decisions and act without making big price concessions.
Salespeople fail at cold calling for five common reasons. Fix them and the phone starts producing appointments again.
Most salespeople are looking for the secret edge that will move them to the top of the sales ranking report. The truth though is that there isn’t just one thing that separates top performing
Short Answer How honest should you be in sales? Completely. The moment a customer catches you in even a small lie, like fudging how long a meeting will run, they have every reason to
The best pitch I’ve ever heard about didn’t have a single slide. It had an ax, an elevator, and a crowd that had no idea what was about to happen. The sales storytelling techniques
Sales complacency is the silent performance killer that sets in after winning — and the only defense is returning to the fundamentals that built your success in the first place. Key Takeaways When Success
Quick Summary Reading buyer signals means recognizing the behavioral and psychological cues prospects send before they ghost you, and using that information to keep deals moving toward a real decision. Key Takeaways Listen to
When results drop and motivation fades, the fix is to increase your prospecting activity above your normal baseline, not wait until you feel ready. More calls create more conversations, more conversations create more opportunities,
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.
Here’s the scenario that’s playing out in sales organizations everywhere right now: Your team fought through a brutal first half of the year, rallied momentum in the second half, crushed their numbers, and now
You’re Coachable, But Are You Truly Humble? You’ve been coachable your entire career. You take feedback, adjust your approach, read books, listen to podcasts, and implement what works. Yet being coachable doesn’t automatically make
The automated “Great job, team!” email blasted to 47 people at 4:37 PM on a Friday isn’t authentic appreciation. Neither is the generic gift basket ordered by someone in HR who’s never met your
To a sales leader, it’s a familiar story.Month one: Your new SDR is on fire. Energy through the roof. They’re excited about cold calling.Month two: Still strong. Meetings are getting booked. Dashboard looks good.Month
This time of year is critical. As sales leaders map out their budgets for the new year, the conversation always centers on a core conflict: How to cut expenses and, simultaneously, motivate teams to
Here’s a question that’ll keep you up at night: How do you take a company from $300K in annual revenue to $1.5 million in 18 months, then scale to $3-$5 million within five years?
Your sales team has the tools. They know the pitch. The CRM is full of leads. So why are half your reps still missing quota? The real issue? Most sales leaders are managing activity
Walk into any sales conference, scroll through LinkedIn, or join a sales team meeting, and you’ll hear the same tired arguments: cold calling versus social selling, interruption versus relationship-building, quantity versus quality. The sales
Leadership is the single most important factor in a sales team’s success. You can have talented reps, strong products, and a solid sales process, but without effective leadership, performance stalls. As Duff Tucker, Sales