
You Might Be A Sales Zombie If…..
A recent editor’s note in a sleep products magazine discussed how many people suffer from poor sleep and the editor referred to these individuals as zombies. Instantly, I thought of dozens of sales people
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.

A recent editor’s note in a sleep products magazine discussed how many people suffer from poor sleep and the editor referred to these individuals as zombies. Instantly, I thought of dozens of sales people

Winning companies are the ones that give power to the employees to make decisions that are in favor of taking care of the customer. Does your culture put the customer first, does it empower

A sales conversation involves two parties; the salesperson and the decision maker. The premise of this conversation is that the salesperson will try to present the decision maker with features and benefits to create

Asking questions can slow a situation down long enough to see where it’s heading. This allows you to take corrective action sooner instead of later. You can surface hidden agendas and reveal lies without

If you choose to power through your sales responsibilities, commit to them fully (no excuses). Understanding that you are not feeling 100% leads to an understanding that you must work harder to obtain the

When times are tough and prospects seem to be holding on to every dollar, your job as a sales manager is more important than ever before. Now is the time to roll out a

As professionals who take pride in their work (just as the celebrities care about their charities), your staff will likely try their best to ensure your company’s success while exhibiting. However, by matching your

If you employ salespeople or proactively sell a product or service by another means, you have a sales standard. Sales improvement is satisfied with an increase in qualities and quantities of various sales activities.

Mike called me recently and asked, “What does the 4th of July look like?” I replied, “It looks like the 5th, but a day earlier and it also looks like the 3rd, but a

Though still emerging, the concept of “sales without selling” has attained a precedent that no variation of the American standard can claim: the American sales model has not been merely revised, but rather replaced

How much, and how fast, would you improve if you could critique and correct how you handle the brush offs you get, the stalls you have to deal with when getting back with prospects,

In order for sales to occur, a process for converting prospects into clients or customers must exist. The essential goal of a sales improvement effort is to discover and maximize the process that most
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

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,

Jeb Blount and Anthony Iannarino discuss the biggest mistake salespeople make and how to avoid the stalled deal.

The time and energy you devote to things that are outside of your control is better spent in areas where you have control. We don’t get to choose what happens in the areas where

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
I hear all the time from salespeople saying how their prospecting plan doesn’t seem to be delivering the results they need. Everyone needs to continually fine tune their prospecting process. The biggest problem I

How then do we make coaching conversations productive, efficient, and less stressful for the coach and coachee? With a bit of forward thinking and action and these 3 sales coaching hacks: We all know

This makes the salesperson a shrewd negotiator, choosing to negotiate with the weaker party, making it more likely that a deal is done. One of the things I hear from sales leaders most often

Leverage Friday afternoons for phone calls to people you haven’t been able to connect with or with prospects who are tied tightly to a competitor. It happens every summer. The number of sales appointments
On this episode of Sales Pipeline radio, Matt Heinz and Jeb Blount discuss emotional intelligence, Sales EQ, and Fanatical Prospecting. You’ll be surprised to hear Jeb’s opinion about how sales and marketing should work

You must realize that leading someone does not consist of getting them to do what you want, but putting value on what they want. I’ve been a leader in various organizations and of teams

On this podcast Jeb Blount, author of People Follow You, and Will Frattini, Sales Leader at Zoominfo, discuss the challenges of leading sales teams in rapidly changing environments.

Leaders must never forget that every action they take and word they speak is being analyzed by their people for meaning.

We live in a society that thrives on the 24 hour news cycle where there always seems to be an endless stream of stories about leaders gone bad. In the midst of this barrage,

On this Sales Gravy Quick Tip, Jeb Blount introduces you to the five levers of effective leaders. This is how you get people to follow you!

On this Sales Gravy Quick Tip, Jeb Blount explains why leadership is personal, and why leaders must engage their people at the human level.

On this episode Jeb Blount and Kevin Eikenberry give you best practices and actionable tactics for leading and managing remote employees.

Sales cultures scoring low in emotional intelligence are filled with old sales dogs that refuse to learn new tricks. They sit on the porch of denial, refusing to adapt new approaches to selling. How

So what’s your team’s Sales EQ? Here are three emotional intelligence skills to look for in your next hire. You’ve met this person. They are brilliant. Their ideas are creative. Yet no one wants