Free Sales Training Articles & Podcasts

The world's oldest customer complaint was carved in stone 4,000 years ago. Here's what 4 millennia of B2B sales history teaches modern sellers. Listen to the full Sales Gravy Podcast episode with Jeb Blount Jr and Ashley Blount

Stone Tablets, Trade Shows, and Telephones: 4,000 Years of Sales History

Imagine that you’re so angry about a business deal gone wrong that you grab a chisel, find a slab of stone, and spend hours carving your complaint. That’s exactly what a Mesopotamian merchant did

Read the full article »

Learn the 5-step system that increases show rates by engineering commitment at every stage. No-shows are a systems problem. Listen to the full episode with Ask Jeb on The Sales Gravy podcast, the number one sales training podcast

How Do You Stop Prospects From No-Showing Virtual Appointments (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a question that’ll frustrate every salesperson reading this: What do you do when you prospect, set the meeting, block the time on your calendar, and then… your prospect no-shows? That’s the challenge Emily

Read the full article »

You've got a champion. Someone inside the account who gets it. They love your solution, they're fighting for your proposal, and they're feeding you intelligence about the decision-making process. So you're golden, right? Wrong. One reorganization, one promotion, one departure, and your deal could vanish overnight. Research from LinkedIn Sales Solutions analyzed thousands of enterprise deals and found something most salespeople refuse to believe: sales teams that build relationships with multiple stakeholders inside an account are 34% more likely to win. That's the difference between hitting quota and missing it. Between a banner year and a brutal one. Why Single-Threaded Deals Die On average, 4-7 people influence a complex B2B buying decision. Even if you nail the pitch, you're still just one voice in a conversation happening behind closed doors. A conversation where people you've never met are raising objections you'll never hear. Where priorities you don't know about are shifting the criteria. Your champion can be dismissed as "the person who likes that vendor." But when you've got three advocates from different departments? Consensus wins deals. Your Champion Won't Stick Around One in five of the people you're counting on right now won't be in their role twelve months from now. They'll get promoted, reassigned, poached by a competitor, or laid off in the next restructuring. When that happens to your sole contact, your deal doesn't just stall. It dies. The new person in that role has zero relationship with you, zero context on your solution, and zero incentive to champion something their predecessor started. But if you've built what top performers call "account insulation"—relationships with two, three, or four people across different departments and levels—the web flexes when someone leaves. It doesn't break. Weak Ties Matter More Than You Think We're trained to go deep with our primary contact. Build trust. Understand their pain points. Tailor every message to their specific needs. That's not wrong. It's just incomplete. In complex selling scenarios, influence often spreads through what researchers call weak ties—the casual, adjacent connections that link clusters of strong relationships. These are your amplifiers. A brief introduction. A shared article. A helpful insight that makes someone in operations remember your name when your solution comes up in a meeting you're not in. These loose connections become the difference between a deal that stalls and one that scales. Think about how deals from referrals close. They close twice as fast as deals that start cold. Accounts with multiple contacts grow larger, stay longer, and refer more business. The pattern is clear. Get enough internal referrals, and you stop being the vendor someone works with. You become the partner everyone trusts. Five Mistakes That Keep You Single-Threaded Account multithreading fails most often before it ever really begins. Not because it is hard, but because salespeople sabotage it with impatience, poor judgment, or misplaced effort. If you recognize any of these behaviors, they are costing you leverage inside the account. Trying to build fifty superficial relationships instead of multiple deep, meaningful connections. Spray and pray doesn't work in prospecting, and it doesn't work in account multithreading. Asking for referrals before you've built credibility. You can't extract value before you've created it. Failing to nurture the relationships you've already initiated. You can't plant seeds and never water them. Ignoring the law of reciprocity. If you don't offer value first—business insights, useful data, relevant introductions—people won't feel any obligation to help you. You'll burn through goodwill and get nothing back. Wearing out your welcome. If you've reached out multiple times with relevant insights and gotten silence, that's a signal. Move on. How to Build Your Account Web With Multi-Threading Start by mapping the web of people connected to your account. Decision makers, influencers, skeptics, the quiet analysts whose opinions shape what the decision makers think. Write it down. Visualize the relationships you have, the ones you need, and the blank spaces in between. Then ask questions that open doors and show you recognize the decision is bigger than one person. "Who else on your team would have a point of view on this?" "Would it be helpful if I shared what other departments are doing with similar tools?" "Is there someone else who should see this?" Or use my favorite: "I need your advice on this." That phrase invokes reciprocity and dramatically increases the probability they'll give you the referral. When trust is formed, asking for a direct referral becomes an act of generosity rather than an intrusion. Frame it around value, not obligation. "Would you be willing to introduce me to your colleague in operations? I think she'd have an interesting take on what we're talking about." "If anyone else on your team might benefit from this, would you mind sharing my name?" People say yes far more often than you think when you ask this way. The Quiet Chorus That Closes Deals The more people who trust you, the faster and further your message travels inside the account. You've got accounts in your pipeline right now sitting on a single thread. One job change, and that deal you've been nursing for months vanishes overnight. Stop searching for the one perfect contact. Start building a small community inside every account. It's not a single voice that carries your deal through. It's three voices in three different departments saying the same thing about you when you're not in the room. Protect Your Pipeline with Discipline Account multithreading isn't complicated, but it requires discipline and a shift in how you approach relationship-building. If you're ready to protect your pipeline, increase your win rate by 34%, and build accounts that grow instead of churn, start mapping your key accounts today. Identify the blank spaces. Ask better questions. Build the web before you need it. “Ready to close more deals? Explore Keith Lubner's courses on Sales Gravy University.

Single-Contact Selling is Killing 34% of Your Deals (Money Monday)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

You’ve got a champion. Someone inside the account who gets it. They love your solution, they’re fighting for your proposal, and they’re feeding you intelligence about the decision-making process. So you’re golden, right? Wrong.

Read the full article »

Why Your Sales Team is Underperforming — Patrick Lencioni on Working Genius

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

“You know, at the core of Working Genius, what it does is it allows us to avoid guilt and judgment—guilt about ourselves and judgment of others.” That’s Patrick Lencioni, bestselling author and organizational health

Read the full article »

Here's a question that hits every sales professional right in the gut: What do you do when your email prospecting tanks and you're staring at response rates that are circling the drain? That's the question Tara asked on a recent episode of Ask Jeb on The Sales Gravy Podcast, and it's one I hear constantly from SDRs, account executives, and even sales managers who've convinced themselves that cold calling is outdated. If you're nodding along thinking email is the future and cold calling is dead, you need to wake up. Email efficiency is going down without bound, and if you're not picking up the phone, you're leaving money on the table. The Hard Truth About Email Prospecting Let me be blunt: Your email isn't failing because the channel is broken. It's failing because what you're doing is terrible. Before you blame the medium, look in the mirror. Did people ignore your email because you sent them something genuinely personalized and valuable? Or did they ignore you because you followed up thirteen times in five days? Did they ghost you because your seven colleagues already called them that same day? The brutal reality is that most salespeople treat email like a spray-and-pray numbers game. They blast generic messages, add zero personalization, and then wonder why nobody responds. Meanwhile, they avoid the one thing that actually works: picking up the phone and having real conversations. Why Cold Calling Will Always Matter Cold calling isn't going anywhere. It never has been, and it never will be. You want to know why? Because sales is a human business. People buy from people they trust, and you can't build trust through automated emails that sound like they were written by AI. A phone call gives you something email never can: the ability to prove you're a real human being who's genuinely there to help, not just to pitch and sell. When you call someone and say, "Hey, I sent you an email last week with this case study because I saw you talked about this at the Outbound Conference," you're showing them you did your homework. You're not just another robot in their inbox. Here's a line I love: "Would I be the worst salesperson in the world if I didn't also try to call you?" It's honest, it's human, and it cuts through the noise. You Don't Know What to Say? Make the Calls The number one excuse I hear from salespeople: "I don't know what to say." Here's my advice: Make one hundred calls and talk to people. They'll teach you. You're going to learn what not to say. You're going to start seeing patterns in how your prospects think, what problems they face, and what language matters to them. This is how you develop business acumen that separates you from the pack. You can't learn it behind a keyboard. I was in an alignment call today with a new client, and they said, "You totally understand us." Why? Because last week I was with a business adjacent to their industry, learned their language, and pulled that knowledge into the next call. Use Tools to Compress Your Learning Curve Use tools like ZoomInfo to accelerate your learning curve. At Sales Gravy, we use it every day to find information about people, see what they're doing on our website, and get intent signals that build our lists automatically. You can use these tools to learn the language of industries you're breaking into. You can see company news, understand their challenges, and show up on calls sounding like you belong. But here's the key: The tool doesn't make the call for you. It gives you the ammunition. You still have to do the work. Be Strategic and Resourceful Here's a strategy most salespeople are too lazy to try: If you're having trouble getting through to a decision maker, call someone else in the company who'll actually talk to you. Selling HR services? Call a sales rep. They'll talk your ear off about the company and might even make an introduction. Try this: "Hey, I know you're in sales. I've been trying to get hold of Joseph for nine months. Is there any way you could help me out?" That's not being cheesy. That's being resourceful. But you have to be genuine. You can't just ask for something without building rapport. Your Action Plan If you're struggling with email effectiveness: Pick up the damn phone. Stop making excuses about why cold calling doesn't work. It works if you work it. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Introducing yourself to strangers will never be easy, but it's the price of admission for being great at sales. Use data strategically. Build sequences that interweave multiple channels over 30, 60, 90 days. Email, phone, LinkedIn, video. Give yourself the best odds. Don't oversell on the cold call. A little interest isn't an invitation to vomit your pitch. Your job is to earn the next conversation. Make one more call. At the end of the day when you're tired, make one more call. That's where discipline separates winners from everyone else. The Bottom Line Email isn't dead, but it's not a magic bullet. Cold calling isn't outdated. It's the foundation of everything we do in sales. Stop hiding behind your keyboard. Stop blaming the tools. Stop making excuses. The shortest path to a meeting is through a real conversation. That's how you build relationships, develop trust, and separate yourself from every other salesperson who's too afraid to dial. Get outside your skin. Be genuine. Be there to help. And pick up the phone. Ready to take your prospecting skills to the next level? Join us at one of our upcoming Sales Gravy LIVE events where you'll learn directly from top sales leaders and get hands-on coaching to transform your results.

Why Cold Calling Will Never Die (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a question that hits every sales professional right in the gut: What do you do when your email prospecting tanks and you’re staring at response rates that are circling the drain? That’s the

Read the full article »

We’re just a little more than 30 days away from our new year intentions, resolutions, and goals. A month ago, we set out into the new year with hope and ambition that this year would be our best ever and that we’d make positive lasting changes in our lives. Listen to the Sales Gravy Podcast with Jeb Blount. The Number one sales training podcast.

First Month Sales Results Gut Check (Money Monday)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

On this first Monday of the second month of the year, it’s time for a gut check. First, we need to check where we are against our new year goals. Next, we need to

Read the full article »

Why Founder-Led Sales Teams Struggle to Scale

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

“Buyers want a machine, a sales machine, not a mystery. If the sales machine only works because of the founder, it’s not that valuable. It’s actually quite risky.” Chris Spratling, founder of Chalkhill Blue

Read the full article »

Jeb Blount shares his 3 non-negotiables for modern sales success on the Sales Gravy Podcast Ask Jeb segment. This image provides a framework for sales professionals to maintain high-performance standards and execution discipline in a competitive market.

Jeb Blount’s 3 Non-Negotiables for Modern Sales Success (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a question that’ll change how you think about this profession forever: What’s the one moment that reveals you’re built for sales success? For most people, that moment never comes. They stumble into sales,

Read the full article »

Jeb Blount on the Money Monday Sales Gravy Podcast discussing how to master new sales skills through the lens of skateboarder discipline. This image highlights the importance of sales persistence and why reps give up on sales techniques too soon before they see results.

What Skateboarders Can Teach Salespeople About Mastering New Skills (Money Monday)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

I’m not sure if you noticed this, but there is a massive gap between what salespeople and leaders know and what they actually do. I’ve written 18 books and trained hundreds of thousands of

Read the full article »

You declined another prospecting block today, didn't you? That internal meeting popped up. Someone needed "just five minutes." Your CRM screamed for attention. Before you knew it, another day passed without a single cold call, without one new connection request, without moving the needle on your pipeline. But hey, at least your calendar looked impressively full. Here's what nobody wants to admit: your jam-packed calendar isn't proof that you're too busy to prospect. It's proof you've made prospecting optional. And optional activities don't close deals or pay commissions. The Meeting Excuse Is Killing Your Pipeline Sales professionals love to point at their calendars as evidence of why they can't prospect. Look at all these internal meetings. See how packed my schedule is. How could I possibly find time for outbound activity? The real question is: when did you last decline an internal meeting to protect your prospecting time? Most salespeople never have. They treat every meeting invitation as a welcome escape from the discomfort of cold outreach. It's the perfect alibi when your manager asks about pipeline activity. But your calendar tells the truth about your priorities. If time blocking for prospecting isn't on it, prospecting isn't actually a priority. And if prospecting isn't a priority, why exactly are you in sales? You Don't Need Hours—You Need 15 Minutes The biggest lie salespeople tell themselves is that prospecting requires massive blocks of uninterrupted time. Two hours minimum. Otherwise, why bother starting? This is the same mental trap that keeps people from reading, exercising, or learning new skills. They convince themselves that 15 minutes isn't enough to matter, so they do nothing instead. Consider this: reading for 15 minutes daily gets you through 20-25 books per year. Walking for 15 minutes adds nearly a mile to your day. Fifteen minutes of focused prospecting can generate six to ten cold calls, dozens of personalized connection requests, or several high-impact video messages to ghosting prospects. The power isn't in the duration, but in consistent, focused execution of time blocking for sales activities. The 15-Minute Power Block Rules These 3 rules are requirements if you want your time blocking strategy to actually work. Rule 1: Single-task only. Your 15-minute prospecting block is for prospecting. Not prospecting while monitoring email. Not prospecting between Slack messages. Just prospecting. If you spend three minutes calling and twelve minutes scrolling Instagram, you didn't prospect for 15 minutes. Rule 2: Everything else can wait. Yes, that includes your boss. You will not lose a customer or your job because you ignored email for 15 minutes. Responding at the end of your block is still professional. Think about it—if you were sitting face-to-face with your top client, would you stop mid-conversation to check email? Treat your power blocks with the same respect. Rule 3: Protect the block like your commission depends on it. Because it does. Top performers don't ask permission to prospect. They schedule it, block it, and defend it against every interruption. The coworker who needs "just a minute" can wait sixteen minutes. What Actually Happens in 15 Minutes Specificity kills procrastination. You're more likely to execute when you know exactly what you're doing during your time blocking windows. Eight to fifteen cold calls fit comfortably in 15 minutes. That's enough to connect with two or three decision-makers if you're efficient. Send ten to fifteen LinkedIn connection requests to stakeholders outside your network. Write and mail three handwritten notes to accounts you closed this month. Record personalized video messages for three prospects who've gone dark. None of these activities requires elaborate preparation or perfect conditions. They require you to show up for 15 minutes and do the work. That's it. Schedule Your Priorities or Someone Else Will Stephen Covey said the key isn't prioritizing your schedule, but scheduling your priorities. Most salespeople do the opposite—they let their calendars fill with whatever lands there first, then wonder why revenue-generating work never happens. Your calendar should reflect your income goals. If hitting quota requires consistent prospecting, your calendar should show consistent prospecting blocks. If building relationships with key accounts matters, those touchpoints should be scheduled. When you schedule your sales priorities first, everything else fits around them. When you don't, everything else crowds them out entirely. Look at your calendar right now. How many prospecting blocks do you see this week? If the answer is zero, you've just identified why your pipeline feels thin. How to Apply Time Blocking Starting Now Open your calendar and block three 15-minute windows for prospecting tomorrow. Morning, midday, and late afternoon. Label them "Prospecting Power Block" and set them as busy. Before each block, decide on one specific activity: cold calls, LinkedIn outreach, video messages, or handwritten notes. Don't try to do multiple things. Pick one and execute for the full 15 minutes. Close your email, silence your phone. For 15 minutes, nothing else exists except the activity you committed to. When the timer ends, return to everything else. Track your blocks for one week. Count how many you actually protected versus how many got sacrificed to "urgent" requests. This data will reveal whether you're serious about prospecting or just pretending to be. Make Time or Make Excuses—You Can't Do Both Top performers don't wait for the perfect time to prospect. They don't need two-hour windows or complete silence or ideal conditions. They make the time, even when it's just 15 minutes. Especially when it's just 15 minutes. That 15-minute window you're dismissing as too small? It could be the first conversation with your biggest account next quarter. It could be the connection that leads to your highest commission check. It could be the breakthrough that turns a struggling month into a record-breaker. But only if you actually protect it. Only if you treat time blocking for prospecting as non-negotiable. Only if you stop letting your calendar lie to you about why you're not doing the work. Your pipeline doesn't care how busy you looked today. It cares about the calls you made, the emails you sent, and the relationships you built. Fifteen focused minutes at a time. Stop letting busy work crowd out revenue-generating activities. Download our free Time Audit Log to identify exactly where your selling time is going and reclaim hours each week for actual prospecting. Track your activities for just three days and discover what's really eating your calendar.

Your Calendar Is Lying About Why You’re Not Prospecting (Money Monday)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

You declined another prospecting block today, didn’t you? That internal meeting popped up. Someone needed “just five minutes.” Your CRM screamed for attention. Before you knew it, another day passed without a single cold

Read the full article »

Build Your Personal Brand Without Conflicting With Your Company (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a question that keeps salespeople up at night: How do you build a powerful personal brand without stepping on your company’s toes? That’s the question Taylor Deadrick asked me during a recent live

Read the full article »

Here's a problem that'll make your head spin: What do you do when you can sell way more than your company can produce? That's the question posed by Dylan Noah from Toronto. Dylan sells craft cider to bars and restaurants across his territory. He's the only salesperson for a small producer, working with limited tools (no proper CRM), and here's the kicker: he could sell a million dollars' worth of product, but production isn't enough to meet that demand. If you're shaking your head thinking this is a champagne problem, you're half right. But for Dylan trying to hit his income goals through commissions, it's a real constraint that's costing him money every single day. Stop worrying about what you don't have and focus on maximizing what you do have. Build a simple segmentation system using whatever tools are available. Create detailed buying profiles for all your accounts so you know exactly who to call when specific products become available. Work your account coverage pyramid from top to bottom, always prioritizing your highest value customers. Sell out of everything, even the less popular products, so you have leverage when talking to ownership about compensation. The reality is that most sales challenges aren't about having the perfect tools or unlimited resources. They're about having the discipline to work a proven system consistently, even when conditions aren't ideal. That's how you win in sales. That's how you hit your numbers. And that's how you build a foundation of skills that will serve you for your entire career, whether you stay in a resource constrained environment or move to a role where the sky's the limit. Ready to master the fundamentals of prospecting and account management? Check out Jeb Blount's latest book with Brynne Tillman, The LinkedIn Edge, and learn how to build systematic, relationship-driven sales processes that work in any environment. Sales Gravy is the number one sales training company

How to Hit Your Number When Production Can’t Keep Up (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a problem that’ll make your head spin: What do you do when you can sell way more than your company can produce? That’s the question posed by Dylan Noah from Toronto. Dylan sells

Read the full article »

Here's the scenario that's playing out in sales organizations everywhere right now: Your team fought through a brutal first half of the year, rallied momentum in the second half, crushed their numbers, and now they're ready to coast through December. That's the exact situation Kyle Begbie, a regional sales director at Fuse HR Solutions in Ontario, Canada, brought to this week's Ask Jeb. His team overcame massive market disruption, economic headwinds, and buyer hesitation to finish the year strong. Now he's facing the most dangerous challenge of all: keeping that momentum alive through the holidays and into January. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. This is the point in the year where sales teams either set themselves up for a championship quarter or dig themselves into a hole that takes months to climb out of. The last piece of maintaining momentum is taking time to celebrate what your team accomplished. Sit down with your team and tell them the story of what they did this year. Make sure they understand the lesson: When they shifted their mindset, they changed their game. That's what happened. Tell them they did a great job. Make sure they're taking time for their family and having fun. Help them manage their time so they can do both. But fill up their hearts with confidence and belief that they can do anything. Because here's the truth: Nothing changed this year except for them. And if that's true, then nothing can stop them next year either. It doesn't matter what happens in the marketplace. Even if we go into a recession, people are still hiring. The money is still there. It's just that more people are chasing it. Teach your team that it doesn't make a difference what happens. The economy can fall apart, but they're good enough to go find where the money is and take it. Because while everyone else is sitting around telling themselves what they can't do, your team is telling themselves what they can do. That's how you carry momentum. That's how you avoid the January hole. And that's how you build a championship sales team. Sales Gravy Podcast with Jeb Blount

How to Carry Sales Momentum Through the Holidays and Into the New Year (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s the scenario that’s playing out in sales organizations everywhere right now: Your team fought through a brutal first half of the year, rallied momentum in the second half, crushed their numbers, and now

Read the full article »

Here's a question that'll stop you in your tracks: Would you let someone walk up to you, take your wallet, empty out all your cash and credit cards, and leave your family with nothing? Of course not. That's insane. But if you're in sales and you let rejection stop you from making calls, booking appointments, and closing deals, that's exactly what you're doing. You're handing over your commission check to fear. That was the powerful insight from Wendy Ramirez, a leading Mexican sales expert and author of Lo que nadie habla de las ventas: Estrategias para no ser llamarada de petate or What Nobody Talks About in Sales: Strategies to Avoid Being a Flash in the Pan, on a recent episode of Ask Jeb the Sales Gravy Podcast. When you give rejection the power to stop you, you're literally taking money away from your family. Let that sink in. Listen more on the Sales Gravy Podcast, the number one sales training company

Are You Letting Rejection Control Your Sales Career? (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a question that’ll stop you in your tracks: Would you let someone walk up to you, take your wallet, empty out all your cash and credit cards, and leave your family with nothing?

Read the full article »

Research isn't prospecting. Learn when to stop preparing and start dialing to book more meetings. Jeb Blount shares the framework on the Sales Gravy Podcast, the number one sales training podcast

How Much Research Should You Do Before a Cold Call (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a question that’ll expose one of the most common productivity killers in sales: How much research should you do before making a cold call? That’s the challenge Michael Bricker from West Monroe, Louisiana,

Read the full article »

If picking up the phone feels tough again, start here. Learn how to make that first call, rebuild confidence, and get back to consistent prospecting that wins. Ask Jeb Blount on the Sales Gravy Podcast

Beat Sales Call Reluctance and Get Back to Fanatical Prospecting (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a question that hits closer to home than most sales reps want to admit: What do you do when you’ve been away from prospecting for a while and suddenly the call reluctance feels

Read the full article »

How to Negotiate Sales Compensation Without Burning Bridges (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a question that keeps salespeople up at night: How do you ask for more compensation when you’re getting competitive external job offers without sounding like you’re issuing an ultimatum? That’s the question posed

Read the full article »

How to Conduct a Year-End Sales Reflection To turn past performance into future growth, follow this 7-step systematic reflection process: Seek Silence: Carve out 30 minutes in a quiet environment without digital distractions to ensure deep focus. Audit the Timeline: Mentally journey through the year, month-by-month, starting from January, to recall specific goals and market conditions. Celebrate Wins: Identify specific deals and relationships that succeeded. Recognize the personal milestones that boosted your confidence. Isolate Winning Behaviors: Determine the exact habits and mindsets that led to your successes so you can turn them into repeatable systems. Analyze Failures Objectively: Pinpoint the goals that stayed out of reach. Ask "Why?" to uncover the root cause of the miss without self-judgment. Build Systems, Not Just Goals: Replace "hope-based" strategies with disciplined routines, targeted lists, and accountability checkpoints. Practice Gratitude: Identify the "silver linings" and lessons learned from challenges to maintain an optimistic outlook for the new sales season. Here’s the big takeaway: Regret is the enemy of progress; Reflection is the catalyst for growth. Get your New Year off to a winning start with Jeb Blount's popular on-demand course: The Essentials of Setting Winning Goals. Watch it now on Sales Gravy University, the top sales learning and training platform for businesses

How to Move from Regret to Reflection: A Year-End Sales Debrief (Money Monday)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Ways to Look Back at Your Sales Year For me, the last two weeks of the year have always been the chance to pause, take a break from the grind of selling, and really

Read the full article »

In the United States, there are millions of SMBs, and the vast majority of these businesses are what we call pass-through organizations for tax purposes. This means that the owners or partners in these businesses report the profits on their personal tax filings. Unlike big companies, small companies don’t have the luxury of rolling profits over to the next year. So whatever they made this year, they have to pay taxes on. As the calendar winds down, business owners are often motivated to invest in products, services, and software solutions in order to reduce taxable income. In other words, if a business has shown strong profits throughout the year, its owners might be keen to spend some of that money on improving their operations, expanding their capabilities, or streamlining their processes—right now—rather than hand over a large chunk of their profits to Uncle Sam come tax season. The Five Keys to Selling More to SMBs at the End of the Year SMBs have a natural incentive to invest before year-end: They want to reduce their taxable income and set themselves up for a strong next year. Frame your product as a strategic investment: Highlight the value, ROI, and tax benefits that come with a year-end purchase. Avoid being transactional: Follow the sales process and position yourself as a partner who can help them navigate this critical period. Tailor your approach to each SMB’s situation: Research their needs and adjust your prospecting message accordingly, showing empathy and relevance. Create urgency with a real deadline: The calendar itself is your ally; emphasize that the benefits come from acting before December 31st. Here's the deal, though: Do not wait. Start this process now. The low-hanging fruit is out there, but it will rot on the vine if you fail to pick before the sand runs out of the hourglass this year. Sales Gravy is the number one sales training organization

How to Sell More to Small Businesses Before Year-End: The Tax Strategy Salespeople Miss (Money Monday)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

If you’ve been looking for a way to hit or exceed your annual quota, qualify for President’s Club, or simply earn a bigger paycheck or bonus, focusing on helping business owners reduce their tax

Read the full article »

Sales doesn’t have a perfect 300 game every time. Some days everything strikes clean. Some days you grind for spares. Some days the ball finds the gutter no matter how good your form feels. The separator is what you do next. Pros study the lane. They adjust their feet. They breathe. They get back on the approach and commit to the next shot with the same intensity as the first. So as you head into your day, think like a bowler playing the long game. Lace up your mindset. Respect your process. Choose your message with intention. Read your buyers the way pros read the lanes. Lean on your team. Track your scoreboard. And never cheat the follow-through. The pins are set. The lane is open. You’ve always got one more frame. Step up with purpose. Roll with confidence. And when in doubt, make one more call. Listen to the full Sales Gravy Podcast episode. Sales Gravy is the number one sales training platform founded by Jeb Blount

What Bowling Reveals About Staying Consistent in Sales (Money Monday)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

What Does a Perfect Bowling Game Have in Common With Top-Performing Sales Reps? Walk into a bowling alley on a Friday night, and you’ll see a scene that looks like pure recreation. The crash

Read the full article »

Ask Jeb What do Sales Customers Really Want Here’s a truth most car dealerships don’t want to admit: people don’t hate buying cars. They hate buying cars from salespeople who make the customer experience painful. That’s the challenge Brendan Carlington from Mount Pleasant, Michigan brought to me on a recent episode of Ask Jeb. Brendan jumped back into auto sales this year after spending time in other industries and he noticed something big. Traditional sales positions are disappearing. Customers can research everything online, get quotes instantly, and even start negotiations with a click. What’s missing is training that teaches sales pros how to create an experience people actually enjoy. The vehicle isn’t the differentiator. The experience is.

Why Customer Experience Beats Price in Auto Sales (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a truth most car dealerships don’t want to admit: people don’t hate buying cars. They hate buying cars from salespeople who make the customer experience painful. That’s the challenge Brendan Carlington from Mount

Read the full article »

Winning in Sales with a Dinner Table MBA

It isn’t everyone who can say they got an education in sales at the dinner table, but for my brother and I, that’s exactly where our education—and our love of sales—began. My father was

Read the full article »

16 Sales Horror Stories That Prove You’re Not Alone

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Every sales professional has a horror story that still makes them break out in a cold sweat years later. The deal that imploded spectacularly. The customer interaction that went sideways in ways you couldn’t

Read the full article »

How to Turn Panic Into Profit (Money Monday)

How to Turn the Panic Button into a Profit Engine

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

The year was 1938. Families across America gathered, listening during the golden age of radio. On the eve of Halloween, a broadcast interrupted their evening: A live report claimed Martian cylinders had landed in

Read the full article »

Sales Gravy Podcast episode with Jeb Blount, Jr. and Harriet Mellor discussing how to coach uncoachable sales reps and manage top performers with large egos. This featured image highlights sales leadership strategies for improving team performance and behavioral change.

Coaching Sales Reps Who Think They Know Everything

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

“That chip on my shoulder made me less empathetic, more rushed, too eager to solve things too fast, and less thoughtful. That chip built me, but then it started to tear me down.” I

Read the full article »

Jeb Blount and Colleen Stanley on the Sales Gravy Podcast. Sales Gravy is the number one sales training organization. Mentorship isn’t a transaction. It’s not about what you can get from someone more successful or what you owe someone less experienced. It’s about creating a community where people help each other get better. Where progress matters more than perfection. Where tough feedback is welcomed because everyone knows it comes from a place of care. Having someone in your corner who believes in your potential—even when you don’t—can be the difference between quitting and breaking through. But that only works if both sides understand their role. Mentees must show up ready to learn and willing to act. Mentors must show up ready to tell the truth and willing to invest. Find the mentors who will challenge you. Be the mentor who changes someone else’s trajectory.

How to Get More from a Sales Mentor—and Be One Who Matters

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

“You can’t be more committed to somebody’s success than they are.” That insight comes from Colleen Stanley, author of Be the Mentor Who Mattered, during a recent conversation on the Sales Gravy Podcast. It’s

Read the full article »

Being coachable gets you in the room. Being humble keeps you there. You can study every methodology, attend every training session, and absorb every leadership book. But if the goal is proving how great you are instead of elevating how great your team can become, you’re building on sand. The sales leaders who last, who build high-performing cultures and develop reps who grow into leaders, all understand one truth: success was never a solo act. Stay coachable so you keep growing. Stay humble so your team grows with you. Your people will feel the difference. So will your results. Listen to the full Episode on the Sales Gravy Podcast, the number one sales training podcast by Jeb Blount

Why Being Coachable Isn’t the Same as Being Humble in Sales

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

You’re Coachable, But Are You Truly Humble? You’ve been coachable your entire career. You take feedback, adjust your approach, read books, listen to podcasts, and implement what works. Yet being coachable doesn’t automatically make

Read the full article »

The work you do as a sales leader matters. The people on your team matter. And the small moments where you choose to show up and recognize their effort—those matter most of all. Your team isn’t waiting for the next corporate initiative or the annual awards ceremony. They’re waiting for you to notice. They’re waiting for you to care enough to say something about the work they’re doing right now. Stop outsourcing what should be human. Lead with authentic appreciation today, and watch your team thrive. Listen to the full episode on the Sales Gravy Podcast, the number one sales training platform

Using Authentic Appreciation to Drive Sales Team Success

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

The automated “Great job, team!” email blasted to 47 people at 4:37 PM on a Friday isn’t authentic appreciation. Neither is the generic gift basket ordered by someone in HR who’s never met your

Read the full article »

The SDR graveyard isn’t full of lazy people; it's full of frustrated talent who were put on a treadmill when they needed a ladder. By month four, a high-performer has mastered the basics and is staring at the ceiling. Same script. Same job. Same quota. They burn out from futility, not from effort. Tim Hester's approach stops this cycle. He proves that the only way out is up. Clear metrics keep the focus sharp. Tiered levels create propulsion. A performance-driven roadmap ensures reps know they control their destiny. The question every sales leader must ask is: "What message does our system send on day one?" Empower your reps with a plan they can believe in, and your top talent will be busy working toward their next title, not updating their resume. Your roadmap gives your SDRs the path, but they still need the tactics to fill their calendar and earn that promotion. Download Sales Gravy's 25 Ways to Ask for the Appointment on a Cold Call guide.

Why Your Best SDRs Burn Out by Month Four — And How to Stop It

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

To a sales leader, it’s a familiar story.Month one: Your new SDR is on fire. Energy through the roof. They’re excited about cold calling.Month two: Still strong. Meetings are getting booked. Dashboard looks good.Month

Read the full article »

Money Monday Reasons Not to Cut Sales Training Budgets

Why Your Rivals Pray You Cut Training (And Why You Shouldn’t)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

This time of year is critical. As sales leaders map out their budgets for the new year, the conversation always centers on a core conflict: How to cut expenses and, simultaneously, motivate teams to

Read the full article »

How to Scale a $300K Company to Multi-Million Dollar Revenue (Ask Jeb)

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Here’s a question that’ll keep you up at night: How do you take a company from $300K in annual revenue to $1.5 million in 18 months, then scale to $3-$5 million within five years?

Read the full article »

How to Build Sales Teams That Actually Want to Show Up, Sales Gravy

Building Sales Teams That Actually Want to Show Up

Podcast: Play in new window | Embed

Your sales team has the tools. They know the pitch. The CRM is full of leads. So why are half your reps still missing quota? Randy Wilinski spent 15 years building high-performance sales teams

Read the full article »

Stop Choosing Between Cold Calling and Social Selling

Walk into any sales conference, scroll through LinkedIn, or join a sales team meeting, and you’ll hear the same tired arguments: cold calling versus social selling, interruption versus relationship-building, quantity versus quality. The sales

Read the full article »

Free Resources

Featured Articles and Podcasts

Featured Free Resource

Featured Article

Featured Resource

Ask Jeb

Sales Training Articles & Podcasts