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
Summary When the market shifts, your salespeople are not going to figure it out on their own. That’s your job. As a sales leader, your responsibility is to see the change coming, get ahead
Time management is a myth. Time is fixed and unrecoverable — what salespeople can manage is how they choose to spend it. Every sales day presents three types of activities: trivial, important, and impactful.
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Summary How do you know what sales advice to trust? Look at who’s giving it. Credible sales advice comes from people who are actively selling today, have a verifiable track record across years and

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
All’s fair in love and war—and sales. At the end of the day, what really matters is whether the deal closed or if you were left holding the bag. Did you make quota this
Great advice is everywhere, but most of it is fluff. In sales, you don’t need clichés—you need real strategies that help you win more deals. We’ve pulled together five of the biggest game-changing sales
The right mindset doesn’t just win games—it seals deals. It’s the “get it done” frame of mind that keeps your head in the game, keeps you sharp, and keeps you working for excellence. Work
You nailed the pitch. The budget was there. The decision-maker was engaged. So why did the deal go cold? The problem might not be your process. It might be you. Before a prospect buys
Everyone has been there. You’ve spent months working on a deal only to find out that you were talking to the wrong person. After conducting three discovery meetings and a demo, the stakeholders level
The best salespeople spend hours rehearsing sales calls, because statements, and meeting pitches so they know exactly what to say when they finally get a prospect on the line. The best know that practice,
Marcin from Warsaw, Poland, asks: What are the top sales trends shaping the future of sales? Our conversation ranged from the impact of AI to the growing importance of a consultative selling mindset in
On the surface, you’d think that “selling” and “asking” go hand in hand. In reality, salespeople at all experience levels often hesitate, tiptoe around, or dodge direct closes because they’re afraid of rejection, worried
In this episode of The Sales Gravy Podcast, take a look back at the best insights from the year. These moments aren’t just memorable, they’re actionable advice that sales professionals can take into 2025

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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