
The Best Way to Handle An Email Brush Off
How do you currently handle the brush off, “Just email me – or send – me your information”? Believe it or not, about 80% of sales teams I speak with actually shoot off an
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.

How do you currently handle the brush off, “Just email me – or send – me your information”? Believe it or not, about 80% of sales teams I speak with actually shoot off an

If your pipeline isn’t full, you may be wondering how you can avoid and get out of that “sales rut”? In the age of social media there are more ways and opportunities to make

Business networks are the rolodexes of today. It’s not so much who’s in your address book that counts, it’s who is in your business network that counts more. And your value to the network

Not making any money off of a customer goes beyond your commission or bonus. It’s the bottom-line profit your company is not making because of the customer. No salesperson is going to intentionally go

Your Greatest Assets The heart of any company can be found beating inside the walls of its customer service department. Providing superior customer service after the sale is a smart business decision that pays

It’s much easier to move on than dwell on the past, and I’m a firm believer that dwelling on the past doesn’t do anyone any good. If you want to damage your sales motivation,

If you find that you are struggling to achieve a certain result – whether it’s earn more money, get in better shape, improve a relationship, etc., then before you wait to be successful at

Selling for a living is challenging. There are many highs and frequent lows. Constant pressure to reach sales targets, customer and prospects that are more demanding, and changes in the marketplace all make sales

You ask a person to do something. You ask nicely. You are reasonable. And then they say, “I don’t want to (do what you want them to). To which you reply, “But you have

By thoroughly understanding the customer’s PTR, you will be able to effectively price your product and/or service. Pricing too low means you leave profit on the table; pricing too high means you don’t get

From the lessons learned from Jordan’s mastery of the mental game of winning we can find paths to the same level of success in professional selling. The key to doing so is in finding

It goes without saying that in the process of professional selling, the sales conversation concludes with the prospect being asked to make a purchase. To fully understand the power of commitment questions we first need
Can’t stomach cold calling? Steal Jeb Blount’s 13 proven alternatives to picking up the phone that build real pipeline and actually work.

When should you ask questions on a cold call? Questions come after you’ve earned the right, when you’re gathering information and qualifying, and they lead the conversation only when the prospect contacted you first.
To prospect for new clients, stop making random touches and run a consistent five-step system. Work this system every day and you gain control of your pipeline, along with the peace of mind that
Salespeople fail at cold calling for five common reasons. Fix them and the phone starts producing appointments again.
Email response rates are collapsing because decision maker inboxes are stuffed with automated, AI-written slop. This is exactly why the phone is more powerful today than it was ten years ago.
Quick Summary Cold calling anxiety is not a symptom of weakness. It’s human and natural to feel fear when you cold call. You are interrupting a stranger who was not expecting you, and everything
Fear of the phone is quietly draining sales pipelines, and the reps who win are the ones willing to stop hiding behind email and LinkedIn and simply make the call.
Salespeople seek a magic window that makes cold calling easy. When prospects answer happy, say yes without a fight, and book the meeting themselves. So, is there a best time to call?

Short Answer Yes, you can make cold calling fun, and it is worth doing, because the reps who enjoy the phone are the ones who stay on it. Fun is not a personality trait
Growing up, I was easily the shyest girl in the room. Not just quiet—debilitatingly shy. I was so shy that I wouldn’t even ring the bell to get off the bus. I’d simply ride
“I can’t do that.” How many times have you said those four words when facing a challenging sales situation? It could be picking up the phone to make that intimidating cold call. It could
Here’s a hard truth most salespeople never hear: The most dangerous thing you can do is think like an employee. On this week’s episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast, business consultant for entrepreneurs David
Tyler Goss, from Tampa, has two critical sales questions: 1) How do we achieve those “crazy” prospecting numbers I talk about in my books? 2) When should a lead become a pipeline opportunity? In
Fear will kill sales and crush your chances of making quota. Hesitation, paralysis, and missed connections with prospects—that’s the consequence of fear. The truly trapped stop picking up the phone entirely. Fear hijacks your
During a practice round at a major golf tournament recently, one of the players hit an exceptionally beautiful shot. A fan in the gallery exclaimed, “Man, I wish I could hit a shot like
Here’s the brutal truth: Self-awareness is the ultimate sales skill. We obsess over skills like closing techniques, objection handling, and prospecting cadence. But self-awareness is the real make-or-break. Self-awareness is the lever that separates
You don’t want to be mediocre. You don’t want to be stuck in a rut of repeating last year’s performance. And you definitely want to smash your personal selling goals this year. In the
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.

If you truly want to do more with the same amount of time each and every day, then begin by developing those self-leadership skills necessary for personal success. Can we agree that: A minute

These 8 keys can help you unlock your sales training and development programs so that you get “the most bang for your buck”. Sales training will be one of the few training and development

Part of the reason so many small business owners are crazy busy is because they are not 100 percent forward-thinking leaders. “We don’t have a budget as much as we need to take this

How frequently in business do we continue to ride dead horses? From ineffective marketing to misaligned operational systems to poor management, all continue to exist even though they are, simply speaking, dead horses. Years

Often, when a sales rep knows the right way to ask for the sale, they’ll be more inclined to do so! This common error costs more sales than most sales leaders are willing to

Sales managers are all around us; those in the selling game have likely encountered multiple. Like salespeople themselves, they have a wide range of qualifications, personality traits and work ethics, but the role of

Early right actions make it easier to accomplish future critical milestones and prepare the team for unforeseen issues that arise later. Do you sometimes wonder how they do it? You know who I mean

Just as there is a set of best ways to paint a room, so there are sets of best ways to ask a question, seek an appointment, build rapport, make a presentation, close the

If you ask and they have found good examples, you have an opportunity to collect more stories and the new hire quickly learns what will be rewarded. If you ask and they have found