
Sending Out Business Cards And Notes
Send notes and cards to anyone with whom you do business or anyone with whom you would like to do business. Your relationship to people and their level in an organization will determine the
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.

Send notes and cards to anyone with whom you do business or anyone with whom you would like to do business. Your relationship to people and their level in an organization will determine the

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
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.

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

For leaders, nothing is more important or critical than trust. If people do not trust you, they will not follow you.

On this podcast episode learn the keys to leading and coaching ultra-high performance from respected sales thought leaders, Jeb Blount and Alice Heiman.

On this podcast episode, Jeb Blount and sales leadership guru, Ken Thoreson, discuss how and why modern sales management has changed and where sales leaders need to place their focus to be successful.

The glaring gap in your hiring process is that you are hiring salespeople with no prior experience in lead generation. Are You Tired Of Hiring Bad Salespeople? You may have seen this movie before.

How can you enjoy sustainable and predictable revenues? Here are three ways that can make you the right kind of leader of the sales pack. It’s the second quarter of the year and revenues

Our interpersonal skills and our selling styles often influence buying decisions more than our products or services do. Sales training is great, but, we cannot expect sales training to sustain our success. Think about

People do not need to like you in order to follow your lead and work hard for you or with you as part of a team. Often, our best lessons are learned through stumbling

The cost of a bad hire extends beyond the physical hiring, from running the advertisement to interviewing. If this decision is made in error, other areas of the small business are affected as well. Many