Why the Basics Still Beat Fancy: The Unsexy Skills That Close Deals
Everybody wants the hacks. The quick fix. The shiny new tool. The LinkedIn post that magically draws leads like moths to a flame. But let me give it to you straight: Sales isn’t won
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.
Everybody wants the hacks. The quick fix. The shiny new tool. The LinkedIn post that magically draws leads like moths to a flame. But let me give it to you straight: Sales isn’t won
Steve from Portland, Oregon, faces and an all-too-common consultative selling dilemma: how to sell to prospects who claim they already know everything, have already “done the research” and question what value he can bring.
We are coming off of a week that can only be described as a stock market bloodbath—amping up uncertainty and making selling even harder. As the new tariffs imposed by the US government were
All’s fair in love and war—and sales. At the end of the day, what really matters is whether the deal closed or if you were left holding the bag. Did you make quota this
Dennis from Chesterfield, Missouri, wants to know if sales coaching truly moves the performance needle, especially when shifting from transactional approaches to more consultative selling. Below are the key insights from our conversation on
This is a very important Monday because this is the first Monday of the second quarter, and it’s time for a major gut check and assessment of where you are against your number coming
Great advice is everywhere, but most of it is fluff. In sales, you don’t need clichés—you need real strategies that help you win more deals. We’ve pulled together five of the biggest game-changing sales
Wes from Flower Mound, Texas, has a familiar challenge: how to attract more qualified B2B leads and convert them before they slip away. He’s already tried a variety of channels, including inside sales, social
George Foreman gave us a masterclass in resilience, on never giving up. His pivots and comebacks from defeat were legendary. He was a force of nature and one of the greatest boxers, salesmen and
Wherever you are in your sales journey, you need a mentor—now. If you’re serious about becoming a top performer or want to stay at the top of your game, you need more than just
The right mindset doesn’t just win games—it seals deals. It’s the “get it done” frame of mind that keeps your head in the game, keeps you sharp, and keeps you working for excellence. Work
Gaius, who runs an insurance brokerage in Ohio wants to know how to get his new sales agents cold calling and building pipeline earlier in their training cycle, without making them feel overwhelmed and
How To Open A Prospecting Call Besides being very busy, your prospects probably get a lot of sales calls every week, and many of them from your direct competition. So why would they want
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
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
Build Relationships With Gatekeepers Tricks or tactics to “bypass the gatekeeper” may get you some surprise face time, but it’s often at the expense of the deal. Winning over a gatekeeper can often be
Your Prospect Is Stalling. Now What? Top producers know a weak prospect when they hear one, and they would much rather know ahead of time who is leading them on and not likely to
Why You Should Start Reversing Objections Reversing objections is counter-intuitive, highly effective, and requires superior preparation and courage. You must consider the response that requires the most confidence, preparation, quick-thinking, understanding, and sales talent.
How To Sound Natural Over The Phone If you sell for a living, sooner or later you have to pick up the phone for prospecting, follow up, and sales calls. To be effective, you
The Dreaded “I Am Not Interested” Objection Nothing, absolutely nothing, cuts a conversation with a prospect shorter than a brusque, “I am not interested.” Knowing how to respond to this objection can make selling
On cold calls, to grab attention your message and approach needs to be relevant. There are 5 questions to answer before you make that cold call that will help you develop a message that
The year was 1938. Families across America gathered, listening during the golden age of radio. On the eve of Halloween, a broadcast interrupted their evening: A live report claimed Martian cylinders had landed in
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?
Every week, someone asks me: “Jeb, do I need Sales Navigator to prospect on LinkedIn?”My answer: No. But you do need a system. LinkedIn is the most powerful prospecting platform on earth. It’s a
You’ve probably heard it a hundred times lately—AI is coming for your job. Every week, there’s a new headline about another role being automated, another company replacing people with bots, another “AI agent” that
The buzz around “social selling” is deafening. Every guru, every pundit, every platform is screaming about its power. And yet, most salespeople are failing at it. Miserably. They log into LinkedIn. They dabble with
The gap between average salespeople and elite performers lies in process. While most reps chase quick wins and hope something sticks, top producers follow proven sales strategies that consistently deliver results. They’ve mastered the
Most salespeople are busy. Few are productive. They chase. They pitch. They get ignored. And the cycle repeats. Why? Because they’re committing one of the worst offenses in modern sales: They’re treating LinkedIn like
You’re on LinkedIn, but do you really know how to use it effectively? There’s no good reason to avoid mastering LinkedIn. Your prospects are on LinkedIn actively engaging, researching, and making decisions. LinkedIn is
Every day, your prospects are assaulted by a digital firehose of generic, AI-generated emails and connection requests. It’s an incessant barrage of noise, and as a survival mechanism, your buyers have learned to ignore
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.