How to Negotiate in Sales: 7 Rules That Win the Deal
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.
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.
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.
Summary A LinkedIn social selling strategy works when sellers show up with authenticity, not automation. The biggest mistake sellers make today is using AI to generate posts and messages in bulk, then publishing without
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Under-slept reps make more mistakes, take longer to respond, remember less, and read prospects worse, all of which show up in fewer calls made and fewer deals closed.
Summary The four principles of effective sales conversations are: (1) people respond in kind, meaning emotions are contagious and you set the tone; (2) people communicate in stories, and the clues to their real
Most salespeople are wired for now. The quota is now. The pipeline review is now. The pressure to close is always right now. And that urgency is exactly what gets in the way when
Summary How do you get your first customers when you have no sales experience and no reputation? Target people who have not committed to a competitor yet. Define a tight ideal customer profile, qualify
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I was about two years into my sales career when I took a deal I had no business taking. A local business owner was expanding fast, opening new locations all over town, and I
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
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
In this podcast, Jeb Blount discusses how to get Psyched Up for sales with psyched up Dan McGinn.
Jeb Blount and Izabella Bray (ClearSlide) discuss how to engage prospects and accelerate sales pipeline velocity with powerful messaging.
On this podcast, Jeb Blount and Chris Beall (CEO of ConnectAndSell) discuss why salespeople are afraid of the phone and how to sell to the invisible stranger.
The reason salespeople fail to get what they want is they fail to ask. Instead of asking they beat around the bush and passively wait for their prospect to do the work for them.
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
In one of our most intense podcast episodes ever, Jeb Blount and Alex Goldfayn discuss why salespeople who want to make more money must re-learn how to use the phone.
If you are using these three words you need to stop. They add no value, trigger reflex buyer scripts, and stall your deals in the pipe.
When your customers make buying decisions based on value, they are doing exactly the same thing that you do when you make buying decisions as a customer. Many top sales executives believe that few
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