The Business Handshake: Types, Meaning, and How to Do It Right
Quick Summary A good handshake is firm but not crushing, palm to palm with the webs of your hands meeting, paired with eye contact and a smile, and lasting about two or three seconds.
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.
Quick Summary A good handshake is firm but not crushing, palm to palm with the webs of your hands meeting, paired with eye contact and a smile, and lasting about two or three seconds.
Quick Summary Your goal in the first few minutes of meeting a prospect or client is simple: make them comfortable enough to trust you and open up. In sales, that first impression decides whether
Quick Summary The most effective way to follow up with a prospect is to make it structured instead of hoping they call you back. Set a specific day and time for the next contact
If you’ve earned a real database through years of cold calling, you stop the eight-hour grind, not the activity itself. You still need a steady trickle of new contacts coming in every week to
Quick Summary A strong sales follow-up call starts before the first call even ends. Lock in a specific date and time, then show up prepared and exactly on time. Open by reminding the prospect
The accounts you feel safest about are the ones you’re most likely to lose. When account managers grow familiar with long-term clients, familiarity quietly hardens into complacenct.
Here is the thing worth remembering. You don’t like being passed from person to person on the phone. Your customers don’t like it any better.
Quick Summary An effective cold calling approach isn’t about a slicker pitch — it’s about earning the right to a conversation. The five elements below are research, asking questions, listening, honesty, and follow-through. Cold
To follow up without being pushy, stop assuming silence means rejection, bring value to every touchpoint, and vary your communication channel until the prospect responds. Key Takeaways: Why Silence Doesn’t Mean No Have you
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
To prioritize prospects effectively, evaluate every opportunity using three variables: lead temperature, sales cycle timing, and deal size. Together, these factors show which prospects deserve immediate action, which need ongoing nurturing, and which belong in automation. Key Takeaways Why do so
Three Turnarounds to Common Insurance Sales Objections In inusrance sales, there are three objections that you will face when engaging prospects and customers. You gain a competitive advantage when you prepare in advance and
Your Prospect’s Attention Span is Short It is super easy to lose your prospect’s attention on a cold call. When you do, click . . . the call is abruptly over. When you make
Gatekeepers Are Not The Enemy It may seem like the gatekeeper’s primary job is to keep you out. But they can be your ally if you learn how to enlist their help. Knowing best
3 Key Elements of Sales Fitness To reach peak performance and productivity, sales professionals need to be physically fit, because mental energy is limited by physical energy. Here are three steps you can take
Snail Mail Isn’t Dead When it comes to making connections with hard-to-reach decision-makers, gaining familiarity with a prospect, and maintaining a relationship with your past and current clients, snail mail can’t be beat. Here’s
Video Messaging Works The simple truth is that video messaging works. Even a 60-second video can get you and your team right to the people who matter the most. Prospecting Isn’t Easy I was
Quick Summary There are real alternatives to cold calling that build pipeline: referrals, warm introductions, LinkedIn, email, video messages, in-person prospecting, live events, and more. This guide ranks all 13 honestly, including what each
Finding The Right Time To Prospect The best part of weekend warrior prospecting is that prospects tend to be more relaxed without distractions. Here’s why you should set aside a block of time on
Lessons In Sales Negotiation I built the confidence to never get rattled and to always ask for what I want. The worst thing that could happen is that a buyer walks away without putting
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.
First of all, I don’t enjoy gambling; and second, I really don’t know how to read a horse racing program. When it comes to betting on a horse race, I tend to look at
Be a true leader and use these 13 rules to ensure your business not only survives, but thrives, in any economy! Adversity is just a road to success – you have to learn from
So, what is the front line sales manager’s job? Simply stated, it’s maximizing the performance of each person on their team. The only way sales managers achieve their goals and make their numbers is
In the chaos of daily priorities managers often forget their most important responsibility: Developing their people. Overlooking this core leadership imperative sub-optimizes the performance of their team. A manager’s primary job is to develop
People don’t learn by listening to the words you speak. They learn by watching your behavior. They learn from what you do, the actions you take, not your words. Make sure the lessons you
The most dangerous lie that salespeople tell themselves (and anybody else who will listen) is that they lost the opportunity with their dream client on price. Salespeople—like all other groups of people—lie to themselves.
Developing a deep knowledge of your sales landscape helps you sell more in less time. English navigator Henry Hudson learned the hard way in the 17th century what can happen when you don’t know
Characteristics of a resilient, sustainable business include leadership that understands the difference between working “for” and working “with” their employees. Consider these glum facts: Only one in eight workers worldwide are engaged at work,
Salespeople and sales managers are caught up in their own version of Ground Hog Day. They keep using the same approach, having the same conversations, which are leading to the same outcomes. Sales Ground