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.
Philip is a character licensing agent in the Philippines. His job is to connect beloved brands, anime titles, video games, and comic properties to companies that want to put those characters on their products.
Summary Elite sales performers differ from good ones in three key ways: they regulate their nervous system to lead conversations instead of react to them, they operate with clarity and alignment between their identity,
Summary LinkedIn hands salespeople more research than any other platform on earth, and most of them still send messages that get deleted on sight. This article covers the LinkedIn outreach mistakes I see constantly,
The sales player-coach — carrying a personal quota while also helping build and lead a team — is one of the hardest roles in sales, and most people in it burn out quietly. Surviving
Summary I spend my weekends on an ice rink. I have never been a competitive ice skater, not even close. But every Saturday morning, I’m out there at 5 a.m., ankles screaming, pride perpetually
You’re on LinkedIn every day. You’re posting, commenting, engaging with prospects, and doing everything the “experts” told you to do. Your activity metrics look great. Your pipeline looks terrible. And you can’t figure out
Key Takeaways When people leave training, why don’t they all perform at the same level? Training and coaching occupy different positions in the development process. One without the other leaves the job half done.
Caroline from Dayton, Ohio asked a question a lot of salespeople are wrestling with right now: How do you use AI efficiently without losing your human touch? It is a great question. And the
We all have the same number of hours in a week. The same golden hours. Yet so many sales reps do a poor job of protecting them. I have a customer who sells into
You just promoted your top performer to your newest sales leader. They crushed quota six quarters in a row. Closes deals in their sleep. Customers love them. The team respects them. On paper, it’s
Here’s a question that should stop you in your tracks: What do you do when you’re booking meetings but prospects keep ghosting you? That was the challenge posed by Brittany, a sales rep watching
Have you ever had a moment where the answer you were looking for was right in front of you? I’m talking about a giant neon sign moment where you realize that a strategy is
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
Get rid of old beliefs and outdated sales techniques. The new economy demands a new approach and philosophy in sales. The self-help gurus are the best at teaching, “You are what you believe. Your
In the context of selling, a blind spot is something you commonly do within your sales interactions that potentially threatens your success. And here comes the kicker… you’re not aware of it. I’m a
Successful salespeople craft a sales strategy and then periodically pause and reassess – modifying as need be. Recently I was talking with a sales manager who shared an interesting story about sales strategy reviews.
What one reads is different than the words written. Quite often the message we wish to send people isn’t actually the message that is received. What was meant to come across as good sometimes
All companies want to thrive. No company just wants to just “exist”. It’s “business nature” to want to grow, to become better…..to thrive. We wrote about Rising channels (see the previous blog) and discussed
This year, the company I had been using for the last several years was unresponsive when I tried to schedule service. Coincidentally, I received an email from one of their competitors offering the same
Why do sales professionals who become aware of their sales approach not working continue to plunge ahead? An unfounded “expectation of success” appears to play a significant role in such cases. Recently, I finished
Simplicity equates to clarity.Simple will always beat out complicated. Have you ever researched a new purchase only to find that there are too many options? What did you do? Sometimes people delay the purchase
Baseball players and sales professionals don’t have much in common. However, Elite athletes and Ultra-High Performing sales professionals know their numbers because that’s where the MONEY is. In this video, Jeb Blount addresses the
How to Lead the Pack The past year was very challenging for many sales managers, but now we need to look ahead. Have you increased your sales targets? How will you ensure that your
Motivating Your Sales Team Can Be a Challenge For a sales manager, motivating your sales team is a never ending battle. Here are five simple strategies for sales team motivation. Everyone has a set
The worst trait of ineffective sales leaders is that they believe that they’re more important, smarter, and more competent than the people working for them. In leadership, one principle stands above all. You need
There is hardly a leader on earth that doesn’t yearn for accurate, predictable sales pipeline forecasting. The good news is that there are three elements of sales forecasting, that when mastered, will give you
Every Sales Manager’s Real Priorities The reason coaching is so important to sales is that the more you develop your sales team, the better your sales team becomes. There are dozens of tasks and
Examine Leadership Before Sales Skills If you hired reps who you believed could sell, and who proved that they’ve been successful selling in the past, then the first place to examine when your reps
For leaders, questions are king when it comes to coaching and training. Learning and practicing effective questioning skills is central to effective leadership. There are five rules for asking the right questions, at the
Reduce Bad Sales Hires With Better Interview Techniques It’s easy to make bad sales hires – we’ve all done it. However, with a few tweaks to your interviewing techniques you’ll improve the probability of
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been more than guilty of falling in love with the tallies on the sales report. I’ll read the report and assume that those whose names line up
