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There are advantages to an automated system. It saves money in salaries and benefits. It prevents old-fashioned phone tag by allowing people to leave detailed messages in their own voice with clear and correct
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.
There are advantages to an automated system. It saves money in salaries and benefits. It prevents old-fashioned phone tag by allowing people to leave detailed messages in their own voice with clear and correct
Don’t you wish that along with those bizarre directions on how to set up and use your phone—the ones written by the people who designed the phones and therefore already know how to use
Do tattoos and body piercing belong in business? There seems to be an increased number of people with tattoos on their body and a variety of body piercing. Body piercing used to be limited
As a media crisis trainer, Ms. Hoffman advises her client to figure out what their audience will be wearing and to go one step above. The same rule applies in all areas of business.
The same overall rules apply to women’s work attire as apply to men’s. Business clothing is not a reflection of the latest fashion trend. A woman should be noticed for who she is and
If you choose to vary your business attire depending on the day’s schedule, make sure that you are prepared for the unexpected. Have a change of clothes at the office. And remember that it
Many of my clients tell me that their sales team are made up of a bunch of service people or farmers. The challenge in difficult times are that new customers are risk averse to
The key to success during a downturn, aside from surviving, is to further entrench yourself with your existing client base and at the same time look for ways to penetrate and position your product
It is up to us to respect time and give it both meaning and value. If you want to know the value of a year, ask a P.O.W. that has lost his freedom. If
If you were to poll all of your customers as to why they bought from you, they would respond with a variety of reasons. What follows are the most common reasons why people choose
The greatest obstacle in making a purchasing decision is fear. When it comes to selling, you better handle the prospect’s fear or it will handle you. Fear of making the wrong decision. Fear that
One advantage that salespeople posses is this; aside from being a salesperson, you are also a consumer and a prospect, enabling you to better connect with each prospect you speak with. Think about
Prospecting is the price you have to pay in advance for success in sales and the income you want. -Jeb Blount In this episode of Level Up: From Agent to Entrepreneur podcast, featured sales
Prospecting Machine Jeb Blount and Adam H. Michaels talk sales, prospecting & more! The Lighthouse with Adam H. Michaels · Jeb Blount | The Prospecting Machine From dealing with crazy rejections to what makes a
Salespeople cultivate customers through prospecting and referrals; they convert customers into clients by establishing and maintaining a relationship that allows them to build a sense of trust. Times are tough – but as an
Objections frustrate sales reps to the point of them developing some serious call reluctance. Don’t you wish that you, and your team, had a proven approach that actually works? Every month, I get emails from
Introducing a salesperson to cold-calling is the same as Edison introducing electricity to the world by demonstrating the use of the electric chair. It’s universally known that sales professionals hate cold calling. And, yes,
Instead of wasting time figuring out an impressive response, spend time understanding what caused the objection in the first place. Identify what you are doing, or not doing that triggered the money objection in
As a call screener, my job is to protect the time of the decision maker that I work for – so I need to make sure I’m not passing through calls that are going
What is the real objection to buying your product? The “price is too high” is usually just a smokescreen to some other objection. Ask the right questions and you’ll get the answer. Do they
What you’re trying to do is isolate and uncover what the objection or stall is going to be at the end so you can position yourself to deal with it and advance the sale.
Mastering The Art and Skill of Sales Negotiation Negotiating is one of the most important skills you can learn. However, by understanding the common difficulties faced during negotiation and arming themselves with the right
Want To Be More Successful in 60 seconds? Maximize your sales success potential by making your minutes matter. A minute isn’t a lot of time…just 60 seconds. What you do with those minutes can make
How NOT To Respond to ‘No’ There are six common mistakes salespeople make when they hear “no” from a prospect. They might take it personally, not understand the reasons for the rejection, and give
Pain Motivates Buyers to Act A universal and timeless truth is that pain is a greater motivator than pleasure. Therefore, to compel prospects to buy from you, sell the pain. “So, what exactly is
The Six-Figure Secret While being a top 20% producer and income earner is obviously a nice place to be, the next question I get is, “How do I get there?” The answer to that
Closing the Sale Meets the Modern Buying Journey When your sole focus is on closing the sale rather than helping your buyer, they sniff this out, it turns them off, and you are more
Sales Closing Rock Stars Focus on Customers Not Quotas Start paying more attention to your customer needs, pains and problems and start solving their issues and challenges you’ll find you no longer have a
Closing the Sale Should Not Be Hard Closing the sale is easy if you follow your sales process and gain commitments along the way. Sales managers are always asking me for help teaching their
Struggling To Build A Connection? Try This! Sometimes you just won’t click with a buyer right away. This doesn’t mean you’ve hit a dead end! Try out these two suggestions for enhancing engagement and
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.