Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount

Are your fitness goals realistic for the life of a busy sales professional? "I find that a lot of sales leaders I work with are operating at about 110% capacity. So when we're talking about tackling health and fitness, we have to really understand what is going to be the few habits that are really easy to do and have the biggest bang for buck." That's Josh Hulsebosch, a fitness coach who specializes in working with sales professionals, speaking on the Sales Gravy podcast. His observation cuts straight to the real reason most January fitness resolutions fail: they're trying to add...

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 event. Taylor works for Insperity (a fantastic company that handles all our HR and payroll at Sales Gravy, by the way), and she wanted to know how to establish her own brand while staying aligned with her employer. If you've ever felt this tension, you're not alone. The fear of conflicting with your company's brand holds too many salespeople back from building the authority they need...

This Money Monday Sales Gravy podcast episode is special because it kicks off our 20th season! It’s hard to believe that we’ve been producing the Sales Gravy continuously for 20 years. Over the last 20 years, thanks to you—our incredible audience—we’ve consistently ranked as the #1 most listened to sales podcast in markets all over the world. I remember my first podcast episode all those years ago, produced with a microphone I bought at Guitar Center and recorded under a blanket for sound suppression. Today, we produce our podcast in professional studios at Sales Gravy and have a full produ...

Do you plan to hit your sales goals, or just hope you will? You set goals in January. By March, they are forgotten. It's because most salespeople confuse wanting something with planning for it.  “I want to close more deals this year.” That is not a goal. That is a wish. “I want to be better at prospecting.” Still not a goal. Just a vague intention that leads nowhere. Real sales goals require a system. Not motivation. Not inspiration. A repeatable process that turns big numbers into daily actions you can actually execute. This four-step sales goal planning system turns annual qu...

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 by Brady from Arkansas. Brady's been getting legitimate job offers from recruiters, and he's wondering how to leverage these opportunities into better compensation at his current company without burning bridges or coming across as disloyal. If you've ever found yourself in this position, you know it's a delicate dance. You want to be paid what you're worth, but you also don't want to destroy the relationships...

Is your sales strategy built around how buyers should behave—or how they actually behave? Imagine walking into a store and seeing a shirt for $50. Fine. Unremarkable. You might buy it, you might not. Now imagine seeing that same shirt with a tag that reads: $100 NOW $50. Suddenly, you're interested. You found a deal. You beat the system. You're a hero. Same price. Same shirt. Completely different emotional response. That psychological gap between logic and emotion cost JCPenney roughly $1 billion and offers one of the most important lessons in sales psychology you'll ever learn: people don't buy with logic—they buy with...

How Do Top Performers Stay Motivated When Sales Gets Hard? You know the feeling when you close a big deal. The rush. The quiet satisfaction of updating your pipeline. Maybe a quick high-five with your manager. And then, almost immediately, it fades. You’re back to cold calls that go unanswered, emails that disappear into inboxes, and prospects who promised they were interested suddenly going silent. In sales, rejection isn’t a side effect of the job. It is the job. That reality is exactly why most people don’t last in sales. And it’s why the people who do last...

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...

While regret anchors you to past failures, reflection acts as a catalyst for future sales growth. This article and Sales Gravy Money Monday Podcast episode explores how to break the "if-only" loop and provides a step-by-step year-end debrief to help you extract lessons from your wins and losses, ensuring you start the new year with clarity and a proven system for success.   Explore: How to get out of your regret loop The power of reflection How reflection creates awareness A system for achieving your sales goals 7 Steps to year-end sales reflection Ways to Look Back at Your Sales Year For m...

Why Do So Many Mentorship Relationships Fail Before They Ever Work? “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 a simple statement that cuts through all the noise about mentorship and gets to the heart of why most mentoring relationships fail to deliver results. Sales professionals constantly talk about wanting mentors. They want access to someone who's been there, done that, and can show them the shortcuts. But when they get that access, they s...

Here's a truth that'll make you uncomfortable: Getting rejected isn't the real problem. The real problem is that you're not doing the work upfront to lower the probability of rejection in the first place. That's the insight that hit when 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, joined this week's episode about handling rejection on Ask Jeb on The Sales Gravy Podcast. After forty years in sales, I'v...

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 burden by investing in your product, service, or software in the final weeks of the year can give you the edge you need to get more sales closed. Business Owners are Motivated to Reduce Taxes 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...

Is Your LinkedIn Personal Branding Built for Buyers or Bystanders? "Respectfully, you are not my audience." Performance coach Giselle Ugarte said that on a recent episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast, and it might be the most liberating thing you'll hear about LinkedIn personal branding this year. Because somewhere between building your profile and hitting publish on that post, you've started making decisions based on what your college roommate might think. Or your former boss. Or yes, your mom. The hard truth? None of them are writing you commission checks. The Real Reason Your LinkedIn Personal Branding Falls Flat You've...

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...

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 of pins, the rumble of conversation, the squeak of shoes on the approach. But beneath all that noise is something far more serious: discipline, repetition, emotional control, and the relentless pursuit of mastery. That’s the real game. And it’s the exact game top performers play in sales. Selling rewards consistency, mental toughness, and the willingness to execute the fundamentals long after everyone else has ch...

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 you humble—and that gap may be costing you more than you realize. Nicolas Restrepo, Senior Vice President of Sales at World Emblem, shared on a recent Sales Gravy Podcast episode: “What advice would I give myself ten years ago? Be humble. There’s a difference between being coachable and being humble.” Most sales leaders assume coachability covers everything. If you’re open to learning, you...

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...

Your prospects know when you're waiting for your turn to talk. They can feel when you're performing instead of partnering. And the moment they sense you're treating them like a transaction, you've already lost the sale, or at least the loyalty that comes after it. The difference between good salespeople and unforgettable ones isn't about closing techniques or fancy proposals. It's about becoming the trusted sales advisor your buyers can't imagine doing business without. It's about evolving from vendor to linchpin—the person who holds everything together. What Does It Mean to Be a Linchpin? A linchpin is the small pi...

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 top performer, or the corporate recognition program where nobody actually feels valued. These things look like recognition, but your people know the truth: leadership is outsourcing one of the most human tasks—seeing the people who show up every day and make things happen. And your teams feel the disconnect. As Jeb Blount Jr. recently said on the Sales Gravy Podcast: "Don't make your appreciation to custom...

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 brought to a recent Ask Jeb episode. Five months into his role at Cantara Networks, a fiber-backed internet provider, Michael was supposed to spend three minutes researching each prospect. Instead, he found himself spending 15 to 30 minutes per call, terrified he'd miss the one critical insight that would unlock the door. Sound familiar? If you're nodding right now, you're not alone. This "research paralysis" is one of...

This is a very special Monday because it's Thanksgiving week here in the United States. This is the week we pause to express gratitude for the people in our lives, for what we've been given, and for what we've accomplished. But gratitude isn't just a feel-good emotion reserved for the holidays. It's also a performance- and life-enhancing routine that can give you sales superpowers. Gratitude Builds a Strong Mindset Sales is a mental game. Your mindset, attitude, and beliefs have more impact on your sales outcomes and ultimate success than any technique, script, or strategy ever will. This isn't soft...

Most new account executives stare at their territory list and feel the weight of it immediately. Fifty accounts. A hundred accounts. Sometimes more. Each one needs research, a plan, and outreach that doesn't sound like every other cold email clogging their prospect's inbox.  Jake McOsker, an account executive at Forrester Research, found himself facing exactly this problem when he moved from BDR to AE. He cracked it by changing how he used AI for account planning.  "Rather than taking 10 to 15 minutes to get an account plan out or understand who the notable stakeholders and the decision makers that I need to...

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 brand new again? That's the situation Dwayne Malmberg from Sugar Land, Texas found himself in. He'd been crushing it in inside sales and appointment setting since the 90s. He was good at it. Really good. But after taking just over two years away from the phones, a new opportunity came along and suddenly he was facing something he didn't expect. The call reluctance. The trepidation. The...

A few years ago, I was on a desperate search for a dining table. My favorite from my old place was a gorgeous, single-piece antique that mathematically wouldn’t fit in my new home. I loved that table, and losing it felt like losing a member of the family. So I started the hunt for a replacement, a piece worthy of its memory. I found a potential candidate at a high-end furniture store: a stunning cherry table.  I ran my hand along its smooth, cool surface, picturing it loaded with platters of food, surrounded by the people I love. But the...

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 three: Cracks appear. Rejections pile up. But they hang in. Month four: Burnout. The dials drop. The energy’s gone. That superstar you hired 90 days ago is updating their LinkedIn profile—and you know exactly what that means. Now you’re back in hiring mode, your team’s pipeline is slipping, and your recruiting budget just took another hit. But it’s not that the...

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...

We are moving into the most dangerous time of year for sales professionals . . . the holidays.  From now until the first week of January, you're going to face a perfect storm of distractions, excuses, and temptations that can absolutely destroy your year-end number and your first-quarter production next year. Sadly, most salespeople don't even see it coming. It’s not until the end of December that they realize they’re in trouble, but by then, it’s too late.  The Trouble With the Holidays The trouble typically starts Thanksgiving week in the United States and continues as we move into the first we...

Every salesperson knows that feeling, the one right before the big meeting when confidence wavers and doubt creeps in. Alex Weber knows it, too. He’s one of the few people to go from hosting American Ninja Warrior to competing on the show. When I asked him what separates winners from everyone else on an episode of The Sales Gravy Podcast, he said: “Winners believe they're going to win. You’re not going to win every deal. But even as I say that, I’m never going to let myself actually believe that.” This is a masterclass in sales mindset—the mental t...

Here's a question that'll mess with your head: What do you do when you're making seven figures in sales, crushing every goal, and suddenly … you just don't feel the same motivation anymore? That's the question Matthew Feit from Toms River, New Jersey, posed on an Ask Jeb episode. Matthew's living the dream that most salespeople chase their entire careers. He's at the top of his game financially. He's proven everything he set out to prove. And now he's stuck in this weird limbo where the fire that got him there has gone cold. If you're shaking your head right now, th...

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 hit larger quotas. What's the first line item to feel the squeeze? Training and development. It is often incorrectly labeled a 'want' and not a 'need.' We hear leaders say, "It can wait until next quarter," or, "Once we stabilize revenue, we'll invest in the team."  This short-sighted thinking doesn’t save money. Instead, it's costing organizations a significant, quantifiable amount of revenue and talent. Whe...

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 predict. The moment you sat in your car afterward in complete silence, questioning every decision that led you to this career. These moments feel intensely personal and isolating. But the truth is, every rep who’s lasted in this profession has been there. On an episode of The Sales Gravy Podcast, Ashley Blount and I collected nightmare sales stories from our years in the automotive and te...

Here's a problem that'll tie you in knots: You've got a killer software solution that saves companies massive amounts of money on employee benefits. You know exactly who needs it: Fortune 1000 companies with self-insured health plans. But you can't get a single meeting with the people who matter. That's the situation Peter Kleinman from Provo, Utah, finds himself in. As the sales and marketing guy for his dad's startup, he's tasked with landing enterprise clients while juggling full-time classes at BYU. He has LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, and a burning desire to make it work. He also has virtually no chance...

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 Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Within minutes, panic erupted as citizens fled their homes, convinced Earth was under alien attack. The entire event was fake. It was a perfectly executed radio drama by 23-year-old Orson Welles. Here's the sales lesson tucked into The War of the Worlds sci-fi scare: Welles wasn’t just reading a script. He was executing a masterful lesson in emotional engagement. He had listeners ho...

AI in sales isn't coming soon. It's already here, and it's quietly separating the salespeople who will thrive from those who won't. On the Sales Gravy Podcast, sales expert and author Victor Antonio shares this quote: "You won't lose your job to AI. You'll lose your job to people who are using AI."  While everyone debates whether artificial intelligence will replace salespeople, the real shift is already happening. What you need to know is which parts of your job will still matter when a machine can do everything else. The Trust Formula Still Requires Humans Most people think AI in s...

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? That's the challenge facing Greg Hirschi from Colorado. He's the new executive leader of an 18-year-old company selling ethics assessment services to professional licensing boards. They've expanded from an entrepreneurial model to a small team with one salesperson and one customer service representative. The goal is aggressive growth, and Greg needs to know where to focus his limited resources to get the biggest bang for his buck. If...

I've been intrigued by all of the LinkedIn posts lately from sales professionals, leaders, and experts proclaiming the phone is back! Even the “phone-is-dead” evangelists seem to have had a change of heart and are encouraging salespeople to “phone a customer.”  My favorite posts are from salespeople who took this advice, called a customer, and were surprised—even stunned—to discover that their customer actually wanted to talk. It’s more proof that buyers are starving for real, authentic, human-to-human conversations with their sales reps and account managers.  When Sellers Make Their First Call in Years I saw one post yesterday from a...

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 before joining our training team at Sales Gravy. His answer to this question cuts through the usual explanations about territory problems or skill gaps. The real issue? Most sales leaders are managing activity instead of developing people. They're applying pressure instead of addressing the mental blocks that sabotage performance before reps ever pick up the phone. The Real Problem Holding Back Sales Teams Walk into any sales...

Here's a question that'll make your head spin: How do you train MLM recruits who have zero sales experience to actually sell instead of just posting on social media and hoping for the best? That's the question Andrew Osborne from Pittsburgh brought to me. Andrew works in direct selling and network marketing, specifically health and wellness nutrition supplements. Like most MLM leaders, he's frustrated watching new recruits default to the guru-approved strategy of posting on Instagram and waiting for the magic to happen. Spoiler alert: The magic never happens. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. The "...

You’ve probably heard it a hundred times lately—AI is coming for your job. Every week, there’s a new headline about another role being automated, another company replacing people with bots, another “AI agent” that can do the work of ten humans in half the time. And if you spend too much time reading those headlines, it’s easy to start wondering, What happens to me? What happens to salespeople like us in a world where machines can do almost everything we used to do? AI is Here to Stay You can't escape the truth. AI is going to change ev...

The gap between average salespeople and elite performers lies in process. While most reps chase quick wins and hope something sticks, top producers follow proven sales strategies that consistently deliver results. They've mastered the fundamentals that turn prospects into customers and customers into advocates. If you’re ready to finish the year strong and blow past your quota, these five battle-tested sales strategies from previous podcasts will transform how you sell. 1. Deliver an Unforgettable Customer Experience by Mastering Your Emotions Your prospect doesn't care about your bad morning or the three deals that fell through yesterday. When you walk through th...

How do you prepare your mindset and create the discipline to be effective every single day? That's what Jeff Vellas asked on a recent Ask Jeb episode, and it's the question that separates the pros from the amateurs in sales. Sales is the hardest profession in business. It's the only job where you have to go out and find rejection and bring it home every single day. Every ask you make carries the potential to be rejected at a deep, painful level. That's why we get paid so well. And that's why most people can't hack it. But the ones...

Here is an undeniable truth: The No. 1 reason for failure in sales is an empty pipeline, and the No. 1 reason you have an empty pipeline is that you are not doing enough prospecting. In sales, everything rests on putting qualified opportunities in your pipeline. Prospecting is the beginning and the end, alpha and omega. If you don't prospect, you will fail. That is a guaranteed truth. Each and every sales day, you must connect with prospects, engage them in meaningful conversations, and convert them into pipeline opportunities.  It’s a Noisy World The problem is that we live in a nois...

Cold calling terrifies most salespeople more than losing their biggest account. The rejection. The hang-ups. The voice telling you that you're bothering people who don't want to hear from you. Before transitioning into sales, Steve Munn spent nine years as a professional hockey defenseman. As a hockey player, his job was to make life difficult for the other team and absorb whatever they dished back.  "Part of it was getting punched in the face," he said on a recent episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast. "If I get a no from a prospect, that's maybe a bad day, but it's c...

Here's a question that keeps startup founders up at night: How does a first sales hire build pipeline and prospect effectively when there's zero technology, no tools, and absolutely no data resources available? That's the challenge Matthew Russell brought to the table, and it's a scenario that's far more common than you'd think. Companies transitioning from founder-led sales often throw their first sales hire into the deep end with nothing but a laptop and a "good luck" pat on the back. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. But here's the good news: Some of the most...

Cicero once said, "Cultivation of the mind is as necessary as food to the body." Sales is fundamentally a mental game. Your capacity for understanding your prospects at a deeper level and developing creative solutions that solve their problems—that's your winning edge. In a profession where you need to outwit and out maneuver your competitors to win, your ability to think, to truly contemplate and reflect, might be the most underutilized competitive advantage in your sales arsenal. Always Responding. Never Reflecting. Yet most salespeople these days are starving their minds. They're constantly in motion, constantly busy, constantly doing, constantly in...

Most salespeople lose a sales meeting before they ever open their mouth. They show up with decks of slides, lists of discovery questions, or AI-generated talking points, thinking preparation is about having more material.  But while they’re busy organizing, their prospects are mentally checking out—and the meeting hasn’t even started. Lee Salz, bestselling author and founder of Sales Architects, has observed this pattern for decades. "If you want to win more deals at the prices you want, you need a better first meeting strategy. Everyone says I want to win more deals, so they focus on closing at the...

You know AI is transforming sales, everyone's talking about it, but you're still staring at ChatGPT like it's some mysterious black box, wondering what magical question you should type in first. That's the reality for most salespeople even now. They know they need to embrace AI, they've heard the success stories, but they're paralyzed by the complexity and overwhelmed by the options. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. The biggest barrier to AI adoption isn't technical—it's mental. Salespeople are asking the wrong question entirely. The Wrong Question That's Keeping You Stuck Most people approach AI li...

Welcome to Grind Season. This week, we enter the most pivotal period of your entire sales year. From now until mid-December, how you choose to invest your limited time will determine whether you end your year strong, hit your income goals, make it to the winner's circle at President's Club, and start next year with a full pipeline OR wallow in mediocrity, miss your number, and damage your career.  Write Your Sales Comeback Story If you're ahead of your goals, this is your time to build an insurmountable lead and give yourself an unfair advantage as you enter next year. D...

Most salespeople waste their careers fighting over the same crowded prospects. Meanwhile, untapped markets are sitting in plain sight. These are the industries, segments, and territories your competitors don’t take seriously—or don’t even notice. They’re wide open, and they reward the salespeople willing to do the work. On the Sales Gravy Podcast, I spoke with Nicholas Lalla, an economic development expert who helped bring more than $200 million of investment into a market everyone else had written off. His blueprint for revitalizing a forgotten city is the same framework you can use to uncover and dominate untapped markets...

Here's a question that'll keep you up at night: What do you do when you believe in "buy or die" but you're terrified of ruining future opportunities with annoying prospecting sequences? That's exactly what Angie Anderson asked during a recent Ask Jeb session, and it's a problem that's plaguing salespeople everywhere. Angie subscribes to the "buy or die" mentality but doesn't want to destroy her odds of winning in the future by becoming the prospect's worst nightmare. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. The tension between persistent prospecting and respectful relationship building is one of the...

I had intended for this Money Monday to be something powerful, a new message that would get you fired up for this week and this season. But last week, while delivering training to an amazing group of young salespeople with wide-open minds, I learned that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated. It disturbed me deeply and I feel compelled to deliver this message. The Assassination That Shook America On Sept. 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while addressing an audience at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. A young man, thirty-one years old with his whole life ahead of him, was killed...

What if one simple discovery question could close your next big deal? Here’s the one I used: “Tell me what’s going on with your team?” Then I shut up and listened. The buying committee talked, debated, and worked their way toward their own clarity. By the end of the call, they had essentially closed the deal for me. I barely said a word. That’s not a fairy tale—it happened. And it proves why most sales discovery fails: reps focus on their checklist and pitch instead of helping the buyer gain clarity. The Certainty Crisis Killing Your Deals Dr. Lo...

Here's a question that'll make you rethink everything about sales performance: What happens when your team has all the skills, tools, and training they need, but they're still underperforming because they can't regulate their emotions under pressure? That's exactly what Natalie Brooks from Charlotte discovered when she noticed how drastically emotions were impacting her team's performance during tough selling days. Meanwhile, salespeople like Jordan from San Diego are making decisions they later regret—pushing forward on deals they know are wrong just because they look good on paper. If you're nodding your head right now, you're witnessing one of the mo...

While your competitors are stuck in voicemail purgatory, a small group of top performers has unlocked a secret pipeline of qualified sales leads. They've discovered how to stop chasing and start attracting, all by generating warm leads through podcast interviews. Not by starting their own shows, but by treating every podcast appearance as a lead generation machine built on conversation and credibility. As Molly Ruland, CEO of Heartcast Media, puts it, "You don't need a hundred new clients tomorrow. Two people who really like you and understand your business talking about you in rooms you're not in can change your...

A day in the life of a rep heading toward sales burnout: You wake up ready to crush your sales goals, skip breakfast to get an early jump on calls, grab fast food between appointments, and by 2 p.m., you're mentally checked out, struggling to focus on that critical prospect meeting.  That's the reality facing Angela Mendez from Austin and Marcus Taylor from Denver. Angela's crashing every afternoon when she skips meals or eats on the go. Marcus is burning out fast, juggling a packed pipeline and back-to-back Zoom meetings. If you're nodding your head right now, this article is y...

Leadership is the single most important factor in a sales team’s success. You can have talented reps, strong products, and a solid sales process, but without effective leadership, performance stalls. As Duff Tucker, Sales Trainer, puts it on this episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast: "You have to model the behaviors that you want your team to live out. When you model those, you get a lot of credibility. You have respect. You have influence.” In today's hyper-competitive sales environment, your team has choices. Top performers can work anywhere. Average reps will coast if you let them. But the team...

Here's a question about sales territory disputes that'll make your head spin: What do you do when overlapping territories and shared relationships turn your sales team into a collection of lone wolves fighting over who owns what? That's the exact predicament faced by Kayla Lujan, VP of Sales at Down to Earth Landscape and Irrigation, in Orlando, Florida. Her team manages defined territories, but their business model creates inevitable crossover with HOA managers who oversee multiple properties spanning across different reps' territories. As she put it: "I've really seen the team kind of lose focus on working as one or...

Sales activity is the lifeblood of your career. But for too many salespeople, it’s the very thing holding them back. You’re generating a ton of activity, your calendar is packed, your inbox is overflowing, and by the end of the day, you’re drained.  But your numbers aren’t moving. You’re not gaining ground; you’re just driving in circles. As Ron Karr, author of Velocity Mindset, says, the difference between amateurs and top performers isn’t how fast they move, but whether they’re moving with a clear, defined direction. The problem isn’t laziness. It’s that you’re mistaki...

Here's a question that'll flip your understanding of cultural intelligence in sales upside down: How do you win over a room full of skeptical Spanish teenagers when you're the obvious American outsider who barely speaks their language? That's exactly what Spencer Birmingham from Arkansas faced when he called into Ask Jeb. Fresh out of college with a marketing degree and an internship at International Paper under his belt, Spencer was heading to Spain for eight months as a language teaching assistant. His challenge? Figure out how to connect with Spanish students and "sell" them on American culture and the English...

In today's economy, being the account manager who keeps clients happy and renewals steady simply isn’t enough. Every budget line item is under the microscope. Customers want proof of ROI, so you have to show measurable value while driving growth. Reva Pellerin, the #1 enterprise account manager at Vidyard, puts it bluntly: "If you simply renew your book of business at 100%, that's not your target. Your target is to grow the customer base." The best account managers aren't just order-takers. They're hunters—finding new opportunities, building pipeline, and actively selling within their own territory. They expand their influence before competitors slip...

Overcoming call reluctance starts with understanding why even seasoned sales pros freeze up when it's time to pick up the phone. They're paralyzed by one simple fear: interrupting a prospect's day. That's exactly what Kirk Roberts from Richmond, Virginia, brought to the table. Kirk's problem wasn't about not knowing what to say or how to pitch—it was the mental block around the very idea of interruption. He hated being interrupted by low-quality sales calls himself. And even though 99% of the time prospects were receptive to his message, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being pushy just by di...

In 1960, two brothers scraped together $900 and bought a failing pizzeria in Michigan, launching what would become a cautionary tale about sales incentive programs gone wrong. Within months, one brother traded his half of the business for a beat-up Volkswagen, leaving Tom Monaghan alone with his ambitions. By 1965, with three stores under his belt, Tom faced a naming crisis. He couldn't legally keep using the original name, DomiNick's, so an employee suggested "Domino's." The logo? Three dots, one for each store. Tom figured he'd add a new dot for every location. After opening store number five, he wisely reconsidered that plan. ...

The transition from closer to coach is where most new sales leaders struggle. You've put in the work, made the calls, and closed the deals. Your numbers speak for themselves. You were the rainmaker. The top dog. The one everyone pointed to as the example of what a salesperson should be. Finally, you’ve earned the promotion you've been chasing: Sales Manager. The very habits that made you successful as a top-performing rep (moving fast, working independently, and ignoring administrative tasks) can work against you in a leadership role. Your win column is no longer personal; it’s team-wide. As Kyle...

Here's a question that'll drive you absolutely crazy: How do you sell professional services without giving away everything for free? That's the burning question from Laura and Adam, attorneys who are struggling with the classic professional services dilemma. Their intake team and attorneys want to showcase their expertise by giving away everything for free during sales conversations. Meanwhile, they're also trying to figure out what kind of salesperson they need to hire to sell high-value legal services effectively. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. This is the most common trap I see professional service providers fall...

If you're only showing up in one place, you're not showing up at all, which is why top sales reps are making multi-channel prospecting a priority and leveraging LinkedIn to get ahead.  "The reality of buying and selling is that everyone has different preferences, and as a salesperson, we need to use as many tools as possible. If you are only making calls or sending emails, you’re missing [prospects] that don’t answer calls or reply to emails," says Daniel Disney, one of the world's leading social selling experts and founder of The Daily Sales. In today's sales landscape, under...

Should you use sales scripts to close more deals? That's the question I get from salespeople who are struggling to hit their numbers and looking for that magic bullet that'll transform their results overnight. They want to know if there's a perfect set of words that'll make prospects say yes every time. Here's my answer: No. Not just no, but hell no. If you're using scripts, you're using a crutch that's actually crippling your ability to build the one thing that closes deals: trust. And worse, you're hiding behind that crutch instead of developing the real skills that separate elite...

You know the feeling. You're mid-pitch, and you watch your prospect's eyes glaze over—their mind somewhere else entirely. It's exhausting, demoralizing, and it's killing your close rate. But what if you didn’t have to push so hard? What if you could create the kind of pull where prospects actually leaned in and said, “How do I get started?” In this episode of the Sales Gravy podcast, high-performance coach Kristin Andree shared her perspective: "If we put ourselves out there and let people know who we're looking for and be excited about it and excited about helping them, we attract...

Here's a scenario that'll hit close to home: What do you do when you were crushing your numbers just months ago, but now you can't seem to close anything and your confidence is in the gutter? That's exactly what happened to Dhruv, a business development rep from Saint Louis. After figuring out his rhythm in Q1 and hitting strong performance numbers, he found himself in a two-month slump with low attainment and shattered confidence. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. Every sales professional faces these valleys, and how you respond determines whether you bounce back stronger...

Will AI steal your sales team's jobs? It's the question haunting every sales floor conversation and keeping leaders up at night. But here's the crucial insight: The biggest threat to your team’s sales careers lies in misinterpreting AI's role. While the debate rages over robots replacing salespeople, forward-thinking organizations are already embracing "Agentic AI." This isn't your typical automation that just speeds up email sequences. It's a completely different approach that turns AI into your sales team's secret weapon, not their replacement. The companies getting this right aren't asking "How do we cut costs with AI?" They're asking, "How do...

How can one comp plan mistake sabotage your sales team before they even start?  That's the challenge facing Adam and Laura from the Rossen Law Firm in Florida. After attending one of our Dallas workshops, they made the bold decision to transition to a non-attorney sales team. Six weeks later, they're all in on the strategy but hitting a wall on one critical issue: compensation structure. The problem? Like most law firms making this transition, they're stuck in the traditional legal mindset when it comes to paying salespeople. They can't pay direct commissions because of fee-splitting regulations, but they're struggling t...

How many times do you actually attempt to reach out to a prospect before you give up? On the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jessica Stokes calls out a common sales reality when prospecting: “We all know the average salesperson typically stops after three, maybe four attempts before moving on. We assume they're not interested. We want to find a juicier lead.” This common behavior defines The 3-Call Fallacy—the flawed belief that if someone doesn’t respond after a few tries, they’re not interested. It’s where you probably tap out and tell yourself you’ve done enough. You haven’t. Persistence i...

Here's the brutal truth about social media for sales: You're already behind, and it's going to be a grind. That's the reality Margarita from Dallas discovered when she called into our podcast. She's a seasoned realtor with 20+ years of experience, built her entire business on referrals and warm market relationships, and suddenly realized she needs to master social media to stay competitive. Sound familiar? You're not alone if you're staring at this digital mountain wondering how the hell you're going to climb it. But what makes Margarita's situation even more challenging and why her story matters to every sales professional...

You think you're being helpful. Your clients think you're being annoying. Early in his career, Justin Goldstein learned this lesson the hard way. He admits, "I thought that picking up the phone and calling a client to talk about almost everything was the right way to go. I personally hate communicating over email. I'd rather just talk to you and figure it out."  The reality hit hard: clients viewed his frequent outreach as a burden rather than a benefit. Weekly update calls meant to show dedication became time-wasters in clients' minds. Daily email updates intended to demonstrate thoroughness turned into i...

Here's a question that'll keep you up at night: What do you do when your emotions are sabotaging your sales performance? That's the exact challenge posed by Kurt O'Donnell and the sales team from Joyland Roofing in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They're crushing it—doing $10 million in revenue with individual reps generating $2 million each—but they identified a critical weakness that could derail their ambitious goal of hitting $100 million in 10 years. Kurt put it perfectly: "We need to actually learn how to read ourselves better and just be consistent. Emotionally consistent, even when everything else can heave around us. How do I sh...

The second quarter of 2025 delivered some incredible conversations on the Sales Gravy podcast. From discipline strategies that separate winners from wannabes to the psychology of selling that most reps completely miss, here are the five most powerful insights that can transform your sales results immediately. 1. Focus on Activity, Not Outcomes The Problem: Most sales reps get discouraged when they don't book meetings, causing them to change their approach daily. The Solution: Cynthia Handal, who runs high-performing BDR teams, revealed her game-changing mindset shift: "The outcome isn't to book a meeting. The outcome is to do the three hours of work." ...

Here's a question that'll make your blood boil: Why do most sales leaders spend their pipeline reviews asking about dollar amounts and close dates while completely ignoring whether their reps actually have real deals? That's the brutal reality I see in sales organizations every single day. Leaders are obsessing over MEDIC, BANT, and other qualification frameworks while their pipelines are stuffed with dead deals that will never close. Meanwhile, their forecasts are consistently wrong, deals keep getting pushed, and reps are burning time on opportunities that died months ago. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. Focusing...

Ben Hogan, who was arguably the greatest ball striker the game of golf has ever known, taught that if you wanted to improve your swing you should focus on the cause rather than the result.  This was good advice for golfers and brilliant advice for sales professionals. Because in sales, if you want to sell more it pays to become obsessed over your behaviors, techniques and processes rather than your outcomes.  Most Sellers Obsess Over Outcomes Most salespeople are focused on winning or losing individual deals. They get emotionally wrapped up in every prospect, every conversation, every close attempt. When th...

You know the drill. The quota clock is ticking, the pressure is mounting, and there's that relentless urge for a quick win. Every sales professional has felt that impulse to rush the process, to push for the immediate "yes," because, well, the numbers demand it. But here's the tough question you need to ask yourself: What if that very pressure is actively sabotaging your long-term success? What if chasing the fast buck is actually costing you the lucrative, lasting relationships that define an elite sales career and build a lasting book of business? As Sales Gravy Podcast guest Steve Pyfrom...

That's the question every sales leader, CEO, and HR department is wrestling with as AI tools flood the market with promises to automate everything from prospecting to closing deals. Meanwhile, salespeople are panicking, wondering if their jobs are about to disappear to some algorithm that can write emails faster than they can type "Dear Valued Customer." If you're losing sleep over this, take a deep breath. The fear is real, but it's also completely misplaced. Here's the brutal truth: AI isn't going to replace you. But salespeople who understand how to leverage AI absolutely will replace those who don't. When...

Is there such a thing as natural sales talent? Are top-level sales professionals born that way? Do they possess a gift from God that powers their ability to close sales? On this Money Monday, I answer these age-old questions. For the Love of the Game When I was 9 years old, after going to the Masters tournament with my Dad, I cut a limb that was shaped like a golf club from a tree, dug holes all over our backyard, and started playing “backyard golf” with a wiffle ball.  I loved my little backyard golf course and played every day after schoo...

"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 be asking for the close with a high-value prospect.  If you say 'I can't do that,' guess what? You're absolutely right. You won't. But here's what’s surprising: The solution is simpler than you think.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddjRyIHq6LA The Wisdom That Sounds Ridiculous (Until It Changes Everything) Thirty years ago, sales coach Steve Chandler heard a client say those familiar word...

Here's a question that exposes one of the most dangerous myths in modern sales: How do you set the right pipeline creation target to consistently hit quota? That's exactly what Maryellen Soriano from New Jersey asked when she called into Ask Jeb. After crushing 134% of quota in her first year selling EdTech solutions—transitioning from owning her own childcare center to selling back into that same industry—she was being told she needed 11X pipeline to maintain her success. If that number made you cringe, you're not alone. The obsession with pipeline multipliers is creating more problems than it's solving, and...

Have you ever been working on a deal where you had this feeling, this intuition, this Spidey sense—something in the back of your mind telling you that this wasn't going to close? That you were going to waste your time? Maybe you had one of the stakeholders who was against you—an enemy. There was a naysayer who kept calling you out. Perhaps the stakeholders weren't engaged, or the incumbent vendor was so integrated into the organization that it would be very difficult to displace them. Whatever the case, you knew in the back of your mind that you were...

Your sales team just closed a $50K deal. Marketing takes credit because the prospect downloaded three whitepapers. Sales takes credit because they nurtured the relationship for six months. Meanwhile, you're wondering why this kind of success feels so random—and why similar prospects are slipping away. Companies with misaligned sales and marketing teams waste more leads and see annual revenue decline. But businesses that achieve true alignment? They close more deals and grow revenue faster year-over-year. The difference isn't talent, budget, or market conditions. It's whether your marketing and sales teams are pulling in the same direction or accidentally sabotaging ea...

Here's a question that'll make your head spin: What do you do when your top performer is crushing quota but not hitting a required talk time KPI? That's the question posed by Josh Robich and Josh Nelson from Nashville. Josh Nelson ranked 18th out of 130 reps in his first full year at a new company, but he was consistently falling short of the company's sacred talk time metric of 3 hours per day, averaging only 2.5 hours instead. Meanwhile, his company is obsessed with using talk time as its primary KPI to measure sales effectiveness. If you're shaking your head right now...

If you are spending more time staring at your windshield instead of looking into your customers' eyes, you are doing field sales wrong.  Over the past couple of years, there's been a resurgence in field sales. Businesses everywhere are adding field salespeople and sending representatives out into the territory to meet with customers face-to-face.  And for good reason—human beings buy from human beings. The most powerful way to anchor relationships, solve problems, and sell more is to get in front of your customers. With AI creating so much noise in the system, it's getting harder to prospect via email and s...

AI isn't here to replace you; it's here to boost your game. Used wisely, AI can be your secret weapon. AI is everywhere: in social selling, content creation, automation, to say the least. Here's the double-edged sword: If you're trying to outsource everything to AI, you won't last. If you're stuck in the old ways, refusing to adapt, you'll get left behind. Top performers are integrating AI into their workflows to make their human skills even sharper. They know AI is the edge they need to rise above the competition. Where AI Actually Delivers Value Think about how much sales...

If you're in field sales, you know the reality: You spend hours every week sitting behind the windshield, staring at traffic that's moving at the speed of molasses. Whether you're dealing with Atlanta's notorious I-285 parking lot or any other major city's rush hour nightmare, that windshield time is either making you better or making you bitter. Recently on the Ask Jeb segment of the Sales Gravy podcast, Jacob Kimrey asked about helping his field sales team maximize their productivity while stuck in traffic. But here's the thing—this advice isn't just for managers to give their reps. It's for YO...

Most value propositions stink. They’re boring, generic, feature-heavy garbage that make buyers’ eyes glaze over. And the worst part? Most salespeople don’t even realize their value proposition messaging is hurting them. On this week’s Sales Gravy Podcast, Lisa Dennis breaks down her process for building value propositions that actually work—the kind that grab buyers by the heart and don’t let go. But before we get to the solution, let’s talk about why most value propositions fail miserably. Reason #1: You’re Talking About Yourself, Not Them Here’s the fundamental problem with 90% of value propositions: They’re all about...

Jon Buehler from Jacksonville asks: "How do you maintain the consistency and intensity with prospecting? I find myself doing these sprints to get momentum, but struggle to keep that momentum going for long, sustained periods of time." Jon's question gets to the heart of one of the most significant challenges in sales: maintaining disciplined, consistent, daily prospecting over the long haul. It's a challenge that plagues even experienced sales professionals. In this Ask Jeb article and Sales Gravy Podcast, I dig into why this happens and how to fix it. The Prospecting Paradox Prospecting is the lifeblood of sales success...

On Sunday, Scottie Scheffler won the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. Looking at the final scoreboard, his five-stroke victory seemed like total domination. But I was there on the ground, and what I saw wasn't domination. It was something far more valuable for you as a sales professional and has everything to do with success. What I witnessed was a master class in mental resilience. And in this Sales Gravy podcast and article, I'm going to break down exactly how Scheffler's approach to adversity can transform your sales results. The Brutal Grind Quail Hollow is beautiful, but make no mistake—th...

Sales is a trust game. Always has been; always will be.  It’s not about features, price points, or flashy presentations. It’s about conviction. And conviction is born from trust: deep, unshakable trust across four critical fronts.  Ignore even one, and you’re leaving deals on the table. The First Deal You Close Every Day is YOU Before you ever make a cold call, send an email, or walk into a meeting, you’ve got to sell you to you.  Self-doubt is a silent killer. It creeps in, erodes confidence, and betrays you in your voice, your body language, and that sp...

Brian Kemski wants to know how to stop prospects from ghosting him. He asks a question that plagues salespeople everywhere: "What can I do about prospects who go through the process, seem interested, and then disappear into the witness protection program after I give them my information?" If you've been in sales for more than a week, you know exactly what Brian is talking about. You have a great discovery call, you build rapport, you send over your proposal or pricing...and suddenly—radio silence. The prospect ghosts you, leaving you frantically checking your email every five minutes and wondering wh...

Your quota doesn't take a summer vacation, so your pipeline-building efforts can't afford to either. This is a reality check. Summer is coming fast, and if you don’t get your pipeline positioned for success now, you’ll be scrambling come mid-July. The summer sales slowdown is a documented phenomenon across almost every industry. According to data from HubSpot, prospecting response rates can drop by as much as 25% between June and August.  Appointment conversion rates decline by similar percentages. And overall deal velocity—how quickly opportunities move through your pipeline—slows dramatically during this period. Why does this happen? It's simple: ...

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 Neagle says: “You've got to see yourself above the place that you actually want to accomplish.” The highest-earning reps? They think like owners. They take responsibility for their number, their mindset, and their mission. They don’t wait for leads to be handed to them or settle for “good enough.” They build a pipeline like a business, because it is.  So whether you run a company or ju...

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 this podcast, I break down these answers in plain English. When to Create a Deal: Finding the Sweet Spot There's no shortage of opinions on when to create a deal in your CRM. Some sales leaders will tell you to create a deal before you even make the first call (ridiculous). Others won't let you create one until the contract is practically signed (equally absurd). Here's my take...

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 that!" The player walked over to the fan and said, tongue-in-cheek, "No, you don't." The fan looked confused. "What do you mean?" The player replied, "You don't want to hit a shot like that because that means hitting a thousand balls a day, every day, for the next 20 years. That's what it takes to hit a shot like that." And that's true for pretty much everything...

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 ethical, high-performance sellers from out-of-touch order takers. If you’re not self-aware, you’re leaving money on the table and damaging trust. Sales Without Self-Awareness is a Wrecking Ball Let’s get honest. Lack of self-awareness is a deal-killer. It’s what causes reps to: Over-talk and under-listen Project their objections onto the buyer Miss subtle cues because they’re too focused on a static script Push when...

If you're doing any kind of cold calling or prospecting, you'll eventually hear this objection: "I'm in a meeting right now." Paul Wise, a heavy cold caller from Normandy, France, targets product managers at software companies and says that nine times out of ten when he gets a decision-maker on the phone, they claim to be "in a meeting." Three Ways to Handle the "I'm in a Meeting" Prospecting Objection As I explained to Paul, how you respond in that moment can make or break your opportunity to move forward. First, let's acknowledge something important: If someone is genuinely in...

Self-talk, what you say to yourself internally, manifests itself in your outward attitude and actions. As any elite athlete will tell you, the mental games you play with yourself between your ears will make or break you. When all things are equal, mindset is one thing that separates winners and losers. This is one of the reasons that I love golf so much. Once you understand the basic mechanics of the golf swing the only thing that really matters is mindset. On every shot your ability to focus, calm your mind, and remain mentally disciplined is the thin line between...