Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount

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 the door or dial their number, you’re the only conversation they’re having with your company today. Elite salespeople know emotional consistency separates closers from pretenders. Think of it like a pro golfer staying calm and cruising forward regardless of what happened on the last hole. As Jeb Blount explains: How your customer feels about you is more predictive of outcome than any other variable. They buy you first, and then they buy your product. They buy you because they feel safe, heard, and confident you will deliver. This means you have to compartmentalize every interaction. Your fifth appointment of the day deserves the same intensity and professionalism as your first. When you show up desperate, prospects sense it immediately. When you rush through discovery, they feel undervalued. Jeb emphasizes this critical point: Buying a house, car, or service is deeply emotional for the customer. Before every interaction, take sixty seconds to reset. Acknowledge whatever is bothering you, mentally file it away, then walk in focused entirely on their world and their goals. 2. Commit to the Day One Follow-Up Mindset Ask yourself: How many times do you attempt to reach a prospect before quitting? If you answered three or four, you are leaving money on the table. Most reps quit after just three or four attempts, and sometimes without ever hearing a ‘No.’ They just stop and let leads rot in the CRM instead of risking rejection. As Jessica Stokes reminds us, top producers understand this: While you are tracking your sixth or seventh outreach attempt, for the prospect, every touchpoint feels like day one. They are busy running their business—not waiting for your call. The problem is not just the number of attempts; it is the spacing. When you leave a voicemail and wait a month to "give them space," you lose momentum and start from scratch every time. The winning sales strategy is persistence with velocity. That means touching base every few days or weekly. When you maintain momentum, prospects remember you. The real failure is letting quality leads die because you are afraid to pick up the phone and risk hearing "No." 3. Turn Your Empathy Into a Weapon, Not a Weakness If you have ever hesitated before making a cold call because you thought, "I don't want to bother them," you are dealing with what Jeb Blount calls projection, and it is costing you deals. Projection happens when you assume prospects hate being interrupted as much as you do. You start deciding for them before you’ve even made the call. Successful salespeople recognize interruption is a professional necessity. Your job requires it; your income depends on it. Letting empathy paralyze your prospecting is dangerous. The internal conflict is real: You want to be an empathetic person, but you also have to be an interrupter. The mindset shift: Understand that projecting is the most dangerous thing in sales because you are deciding for your customer in advance what they want or need. Real empathy means showing up, asking sharp questions, and letting them tell you what they need. You cannot solve problems you never discover because you were too afraid to start the conversation. 4. Build a Velvet Rope Around Your Business What if your clients felt less like transactions and ...

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 who do? They've figured out the secret. Find Your Carrot My friend Will Fratini from ZoomInfo nailed it when he talked about what motivates him, or what his carrot is. His five-year-old daughter once bought him a carrot Christmas ornament, and he carries it with him everywhere as a reminder of why he shows up every day. Here's what matters: Your carrot needs to be specific and tangible. Not some vague "I want to be successful" nonsense. I'm talking about something real. A commission check of X dollars. A boat. Generational wealth through real estate. A college fund for your kids. Think of it like an old-time horse and carriage. You put a carrot on a stick in front of a stubborn horse, and suddenly it'll go forward even when it wouldn't before. That's what your carrot does for you when everyone else is giving up. Your carrot is what pushes you past the point where giving up would be completely justified. It's what separates the best from the rest. The Hard Truth About Sales Discipline Let's be clear about what sales discipline actually means. You have to show up every day and do a certain number of activities. Every. Single. Day. And to do those hard things consistently, you need that carrot. It's about sacrificing what you want now (which is easy) for what you want most (which requires doing hard things). I want to do things that are easy. But to get what I want most, I've got to do things that are hard. That's the entire game. The Scottie Scheffler Example Look at Scottie Scheffler, the PGA golfer. When he makes a bogey, he bounces back with a birdie or better 62 percent of the time. The rest of the field? Less than 18 percent. Why? Because Scheffler is crystal clear about what's important to him. He knows his carrot. He understands what fulfillment means. When something goes wrong, there's no cascade of "everything is wrong." His ego doesn't take a hit because he's focused on what matters most. He picks himself back up, brushes himself off, and keeps moving. What most people don't know is that it wasn't always this way. When he first brought on his caddie, Ted Scott, Ted told him straight up: "I'm not working for you unless you get the attitude, temper, and anger under control." Think about that. The caddie refused to work with him unless he fixed his mindset first. That's how important mindset in sales really is. Everything else comes after. Your Visual Cue Go get yourself a carrot ornament. Seriously. Find one on Amazon, hang it in your office, and use it as your visual cue for what matters most. When you're sitting at your desk in the morning trying to get started, or when something has gone wrong and you're trying to bounce back, that carrot will remind you why you chose this soul-sapping profession in the first place. Because maybe the only thing harder than sales is golf. But you chose it. Now own it. The Secret Superpower Here's the bonus that Will dropped that's pure gold: Sometimes your carrot isn't even about you. Sometimes the ultimate sales superpower is genuinely helping someone else be the star of the show. The best sellers in the world don't care about how great their product is. They care about making their customer the hero. If you genuinely believe you're there to help someone else's day get better, you're going to come through. And when you have that extra little carrot hanging there (that house,

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 noisy world in which those same prospects are being inundated with prospecting messages from dozens of other salespeople who are also attempting to get their attention.  So, if you don’t stand out, you lose.  But I doubt I’m telling you anything that you don’t already know. It’s freaking hard to get attention when prospecting, and it's not getting easier. There are days when it feels like you could be jumping up and down in front of your prospect in a pink bunny suit while throwing hundred-dollar bills in the air, and they’d still ignore you.  The Sledgehammer Approach Is Dead One of the key reasons so many salespeople fail to break through is that their entire prospecting strategy is pounding away at prospects through a single communication channel—typically a series of automated emails sent through a sales engagement platform like Outreach or SalesLoft.  Sadly, this sledgehammer approach just doesn’t work anymore. Recent data reveals that salespeople are sending as many as eight times more emails today than they did five years ago and getting just a tenth of the results.  A big reason prospects are tuning out is that AI-powered sales automation tools have scaled email prospecting activity to an extraordinary level.  In the past, writing a prospecting email involved strategic thought and taking time to craft a message that was unique to each prospect. It was a slow process, which meant salespeople sent fewer but better prospecting emails. Today, AI engines can pump out hundreds of cold email variations in seconds with shallow, and often cringeworthy, personalization that, more often than not, turns prospects off. And as AI-generated prospecting emails flood inboxes, the sheer volume of this outreach has eroded any impact from the improved efficiency.  Constant exposure to this irrelevant, repetitive AI-generated crap has left business executives exasperated. They are overwhelmed and have tuned out, turned off, and are ignoring all prospecting messages—good or bad, human or AI-generated. Break Through the Noise Most sales professionals today are desperate to find new techniques to help them break through the noise and get attention when prospecting so that they can engage in more meaningful conversations.  Most salespeople want a bigger, stronger pipeline filled with qualified opportunities. Yet many overlook one of the most powerful prospecting tools right at their fingertips: LinkedIn. Why LinkedIn, Why Now It can be argued that the moment the sales profession changed forever and the door opened to modern selling as we know it was when Alexander Graham Bell said on the very first telephone call, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” The telephone's impact on the sales profession was profound and lasting. Then, as now, the phone remains the most efficient and effective means for conducting real-time, synchronous human-to-human conversations with prospects. Bell made his call to Mr. Watson 150 years ago. Since then, only a handful of pivotal technologies have advanced the sales profession with such impact: The automobile gave sellers the freedom to cover wider regional territories more efficiently. Air travel literally gave sales professionals wings, expanding their reach nationally and globally. The internet put unimaginable data at the fingertips of both sales professionals and buyers.

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 certainly not as bad as getting a concussion or a broken nose again." That perspective shift, understanding what actually constitutes a threat, changes everything about how you approach cold calling. It goes beyond being tougher or having thicker skin. Your Fear Isn't About the Call Most sales professionals will do anything to avoid call blocks. They'll update their CRM. Reorganize their pipeline. Respond to emails that could wait three days. Anything but pick up the phone. The problem isn't the person on the other end of the line. You don't want to be the one who fumbles, doesn't have the right answer, or proves you don't belong in that conversation. Imposter syndrome thrives in sales because every call is another opportunity to prosecute yourself. Every objection becomes evidence that you're not cut out for this. Every hang-up confirms what you secretly suspected: You're bothering people who have better things to do. That internal narrative is all in your head, and it's costing you deals. Get Your Mind Right First You can't make effective cold calls when you're living in your head. Anxiety, overthinking, or trying to sound perfect makes every conversation feel forced. Nothing bad actually happens on a sales call. Your life isn’t in danger, and a hung-up phone or curt “not interested” barely registers as a problem. The best cold callers aren't fearless. They're prepared mentally before they start dialing. Find what gets you into the right frame of mind: review recent wins, remind yourself that you’re solving real problems, or call a colleague for perspective. The goal is connecting with another human, not executing a perfect pitch. People can tell the difference. Separate Message From Delivery When someone says "we're all set" and hangs up, they're not making a judgment about your worth as a salesperson or a human being. They're communicating one thing: They're not interested right now. The delivery might feel harsh, and the tone might sound dismissive. But the message is simple and impersonal. Athletes learn this early. Coaches scream. Teammates criticize. Opponents talk trash. If you react emotionally to how something is said rather than hearing what's actually being communicated, you become ineffective. In sales, the same principle applies. When you stop taking the delivery personally, you can actually hear what's being said. Sometimes what sounds like a hard no is actually "you haven't given me a reason to care yet" or "call me back in six months." You Don’t Need to Know Everything One of the biggest barriers to cold calling is the belief you must have all the answers. You hesitate because you think, "What if they ask something I don't know? I'll look like a fool." Here's what that thinking misses: You have a team. No salesperson operates in a vacuum. You've got service teams, technical experts, partners, and colleagues who collectively know far more than you do individually. The expectation that you should show up with encyclopedic knowledge is self-imposed and unrealistic. What matters on a cold call isn't demonstrating expertise. It's demonstrating curiosity and commitment.  When you release yourself from the pressure to be perfect, cold calling becomes about investigation rather than performance.  Ask Questions Nobody Else Does Most salespeople treat cold calls like a race to present their solution.

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 successful sales teams were built from exactly this position, and there's a proven playbook for making it work. The Hook Is Everything When Will Frattini joined his boss Jane in Austin back in 2011, they had zero presence in the market. No reputation, no established relationships, no fancy tech stack. Just two people and a mission to build from scratch. The first lesson? Your job isn't to reinvent the wheel or create some elaborate sales process. Your job is to figure out what hook the founder used to close their first deals, then ruthlessly replicate it. This means getting the founder to show you exactly how they won business. Listen to their calls. Shadow their meetings. Mirror their approach. Don't try to be clever or add your own spin yet. Just learn what actually works. Here's the critical part: You need the founder to be completely honest with you about your early meetings. Will's boss had the right to refuse any meeting he set. If it didn't qualify, she'd tell him exactly why. That feedback loop is gold because it teaches you the difference between a meeting that sounds good and a meeting that actually advances the sale. Master the fundamentals before you try to optimize. The Metrics That Actually Matter Forget about creating a complex sales process with seventeen KPIs. In the beginning, you need exactly one metric that matters: qualified meetings that convert to next steps. Will's early goal was 20 to 30 worthwhile meetings per month. Eventually they scaled that to 60 per rep. But notice the word "worthwhile." These weren't just any meetings. They were conversations with real potential that the founder or sales leader validated. The qualifier matters because it forces you to get better at targeting and messaging, not just activity for activity's sake. You can't game this system by booking junk meetings. Victoria Walker asked how long it takes to build metrics in a niche market, and the answer is simple: You'll have metrics after day one. How many calls did you make? How many connections? How many appointments set? But most new outbound teams trip up because they expect instant results, don't see them, and quit before the cumulative impact kicks in. The 30-Day Rule Changes Everything The prospecting you do today pays off in the next 90 days. This is the rule of cumulative impact, and it's why most outbound efforts fail. Companies start strong, don't see immediate results, and abandon ship. Then they restart six months later with different reps, different messaging, and the cycle repeats. This is death by fits and starts. Your commitment has to be ironclad: We're doing this every single day for at least 90 to 120 days before we make major changes. You'll make small tweaks to messaging and targeting along the way, but you don't stop the engine. Think of it like an elite sports team watching game film. You're looking for incremental improvements. Last month you closed five good deals. This month you're aiming for six. You're not rebuilding the entire playbook every two weeks because the metrics look scary. Handling the "How'd You Get My Number?" Objection D'elvis Huerta raised a challenge every salesperson faces: Prospects who are surprised or even concerned when you call their personal cell phone. They ask how you got their information, and it throws you off your game.

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 front of screens—but rarely thinking.  We've created a culture where being busy equals being productive. Most salespeople spend their days reacting to emails, to phone calls, to urgent requests, to the latest fire that needs to be put out. We are always responding, never reflecting. Always moving, never thinking strategically about where we are going. Noise Kills Your Ability to Think William Penn wrote, "True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment." Think about that for a moment. You wouldn't dream of going weeks without sleep because you know your body would break down. But you regularly go weeks, maybe months, without giving your mind the silence and space it needs to just think and function at its highest level. We live in the age of noise. Constant noise. Digital noise, physical noise, mental noise. Your phone is buzzing with notifications. Your email is pinging every few minutes. Your CRM is demanding updates. Your manager wants reports. Your prospects are texting. Your colleagues and customers are interrupting.  We have so many things going on at once and so much noise in our lives that it has become almost impossible to think. All of this noise is killing your ability to think clearly, to make good decisions, to see the big picture, to be the creative and thoughtful professional you were meant to be.  Schedule Thinking Time That's exactly why scheduling thinking time is so important. Most people don’t take the time to think because they don’t feel like they can afford to. Sitting quietly and thinking doesn't feel like work. It feels like you're being lazy. Our culture has programmed us to believe that if we're not visibly doing something, we're not being productive. Likewise, constant stimulation has become a drug. Silence feels uncomfortable because we've forgotten how to be alone with our thoughts. I passionately believe that we must schedule, on our calendars, time for thinking. No distractions, no music, no TV, no laptop, no phone—just you and your thoughts, alone. Notice I said "schedule" it. If you don't put it on your calendar, it won't happen. You'll always find something more "urgent" to do. Thinking Time Taking time to just think is powerful. It slows you down, helps you relax, and frequently generates incredible ideas and inspiration.  Thinking time isn't meditation, though it shares some similarities. It's not prayer, though some people find it spiritual. It's simply dedicated time for your mind to process, reflect, and contemplate. The beauty of thinking time is that it can take many forms.  The Quiet Corner Think  Find a quiet space like your office with the door closed, a park bench, your car in an empty parking lot, or a corner of your home. The location doesn't matter as much as the lack of distractions. Start with just 15 minutes. Don't try to go for an hour right away. Build the habit first, then extend the time. The Walk and Think This is my personal favorite. Take a long walk alone, without music, podcasts, or phone calls. There's something about the rhythm of walking that unlocks creative thinking. Steve Jobs was famous for his thinking walks. Many of his best ideas came while walking around Apple's campus or through his neig...

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 end. But that's not where the opportunities are. The opportunities to win more deals start in that first meeting." The Sales Meeting Problem Hiding in Plain Sight Ask any salesperson: "If a prospect agrees to meet with you, what do they get out of it?" The response is usually stunned silence. That silence reveals the problem. Too many sales professionals approach the first sales meeting with an extraction mindset, focused on what they can learn instead of what they can give. Think about how you prepare. Do you make a list of questions to gather information? Do you pull together slides about your company, products, and clients? That might feel productive, but here’s what it communicates: This meeting is about me. When prospects can’t see immediate value in the conversation, they resist. They may decline the meeting altogether, or worse—they show up already skeptical, arms crossed, counting down the minutes until they can escape. Why Traditional Discovery Is Failing You Sales training has conditioned reps to believe that discovery meetings are the foundation of the sales process. In theory, this makes sense: You need information to qualify opportunities. But here’s the problem—buyers don’t experience value when they educate you. They already have suppliers, vendors, and service providers. Another salesperson asking them to “tell me about your challenges” just feels like more work. Worse, traditional discovery feels like an interrogation. You’re pulling data without leaving anything behind. And prospects are savvy enough to sense when you’re there to take rather than give. The Emotion Gap in Every Sales Meeting You already know people buy on emotion and justify with logic. You’ve heard it in every sales book, every training, every keynote. Walk into the average first meeting, and you’ll see the same setup: a rep armed with facts, features, processes, and pricing structures. All logic, zero emotion. The result? Buyers nod politely, take notes, and then ghost you. Not because your product isn’t good enough, but because you failed to make them feel anything. Your competitors who are consistently winning aren’t necessarily better at selling features. They’re better at weaving emotional connection into the very fabric of their meetings. They create trust, credibility, and resonance in the first 15 minutes. The Three Non-Negotiables of Every Winning Sales Meeting High-performing sales professionals understand that every first meeting must accomplish three core objectives: Meaningful Qualification: Determine whether this opportunity aligns with your ideal customer profile while also helping prospects better understand their situation.  Clear Differentiation: Prospects need to understand what makes your approach unique, but not through feature comparisons. Real differentiation comes from your methodology, philosophy, and approach. Show them how you think about solving problems, not just what you sell. Emotional Foundation: Establish the connection that energizes deals. This involves demonstrating genuine interest in their success while positioning yourself as a trusted advisor rather than just another vendor. How to Prepare for Sales Meeting Success The outcome of the meeting is decided long before you show up. Top performers treat preparation like a competitive advantage.

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 like it's some mystical oracle they need to appease with the perfect question. They think there's some secret prompt that will unlock AI's full potential, like finding the right combination to a safe. They're wrong. There is no perfect first question for AI. The real problem isn't what to ask—it's how you're thinking about the problem. Instead of asking "What should I ask AI?" you need to flip the script entirely. The Mental Shift That Changes Everything Twenty minutes before recording our latest Ask Jeb episode, I was working on a new training program for Sales Gravy University. I had a slide deck and workbook that needed proofreading, and my first instinct was to think, "Who can I get to proofread this thing?" That's how most of us think: "How can someone else do this?" or "How can I get this done?" But I caught myself and asked a different question: "How can AI do this?" I uploaded the slide deck to AI and asked it to proofread for me. Fifteen seconds later, I had a response—not perfect, but a starting point. I refined my prompt, asking for typos organized slide by slide, and boom—seven minutes later, the entire deck was cleaned up. What would have taken me 45 minutes and still resulted in missed errors was done in minutes, with better accuracy than I could achieve manually. Why You're Already Qualified to Use AI Will Frattini from ZoomInfo pointed out that "You already know how to use AI. You've been doing it for years." If you've ever asked Siri for directions, told Alexa to turn up the music, or typed a question into Google—congratulations, you've been using AI. The only difference now is the sophistication and power of what's available. The barrier isn't technical competency. It's the mental block of overthinking it. You don't need to understand large language models or machine learning algorithms. You just need to ask a question and hit enter. That's it. That's the profound simplicity everyone's missing. Think Like a Conductor, Not a Solo Act Stop thinking of yourself as someone who needs to learn AI. Start thinking of yourself as a conductor standing in front of a symphony orchestra. You've got Claude for certain tasks, ChatGPT for others, ZoomInfo Copilot for prospecting intelligence, Gemini for research—each AI is like a different instrument in your orchestra. Your job isn't to play every instrument; it's to conduct them all to create something beautiful. The apex predators in sales aren't going to be the people who master one AI tool. They're going to be the conductors who know when to use which AI for maximum impact, iterating and refining until they get exactly what they need. This means developing your prospecting methodology becomes even more critical. You need to know what outcome you're trying to achieve before you can direct your AI orchestra to help you get there. Your Practical Starting Point Stop overthinking this. Here's your action plan: Step 1: Pick one AI tool you have access to right now. Your company probably already provides something. If not, start with ChatGPT, Claude, or any of the major platforms. Step 2: Identify one recurring task that eats up your time. Email templates, research, call preparation—anything that's necessary but not your highest value activity. Step 3: Ask the AI how it can help with that specific task.

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. Do not rest on your laurels and coast. Grind it out and build a massive pipeline for next year. If you're on track, this is your time to accelerate, finish strong, and propel yourself into the President's Club.  If you're behind, this is the time to shift from being defense to offense. Most salespeople who are going to miss their annual quota already know it by now. They can feel it. See it in their pipeline. Sense it in their gut. But what separates winners from losers is that winners use this moment as a wake-up call, not a death sentence.  Stop making excuses about market conditions, difficult prospects, or bad luck. Start taking complete ownership of your results and your future. Stop thinking like someone who's behind. Start thinking like someone who's about to write their own sales comeback story.  Your energy and confidence level will directly impact your results during Grind Season. If you show up defeated and desperate, prospects will sense it. If you show up confident and focused, prospects will respond in kind, and you will sell more. But whatever your situation, this is not the time to coast. This is the time to get serious about finishing the year strong. The Grind Season Mindset "Grind Season" is more than just a motivational catchphrase—it's a winning mindset grounded in the unglamorous, but essential, embrace of this crucial period with intense focus, hard work, discipline, and consistent, intentional activity.  It’s about ignoring distractions, drowning out the noise, being stingy with your time, and using every moment of your sales day to identify new opportunities and actively advance those deals through the pipeline. This isn't about activity for the sake of activity. It’s about deliberately and proactively getting back to the basics and fundamentals of prospecting and sales at a time in the sales year when it matters.  Your Pipeline Reality Check Here's the key gut-check question you must look into the mirror and answer right now: Where do you stand relative to your year-end number, and based on that answer, what will be your next move? To fully answer that question, begin with a pipeline reality check. Your current quota attainment tells you where you've been. Your pipeline tells you where you're going. Far too many sales professionals look at their pipeline and see what they want to see, not what's actually there. This is especially true at this time of year when we allow baggage from the first half of the year to remain in our pipeline, hoping that somehow we might close it. But here’s the deal, during Grind Season, hope is not a strategy.  The truth is, those deals have been dead for a long time. The stakeholders are ghosting you; they never commit to next steps, and most haven't returned your calls in months. In the words of Sales Gravy University trainer and author Kristie K. Jones, “stalled” is not a step in the sales process.  So start by getting brutally honest and ruthless with your current pipeline. First, clean house. Go through every opportunity and ask yourself: "If I had to bet my own money on whether this deal will close by the end of the year, would I take that bet?" If the answer is no, move it out of your active pipeline and replace it with something else. Stop lying to yourself and counting on it for this year's numbers. Second,

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 in sales. Why Untapped Markets Are Goldmines The best markets are often the ones no one is talking about. When the crowd decides a territory is “too small,” “too tough,” or “not worth the time,” they leave the door wide open. That’s where the opportunity lives. And let’s be clear: An untapped market doesn’t have to mean a new zip code. It could be a niche industry your competitors dismiss, a customer population they ignore, or a vertical nobody’s paying attention to yet. If you don’t know much about a market, chances are your competitors don’t either. That ignorance is your advantage—if you’re willing to dig in. The Data-Driven Discovery Method Most salespeople gamble on gut instinct when picking new markets. That’s why they waste time chasing “big name” logos that never buy, or avoiding prospects who look difficult but actually have massive potential. Top performers take a different path. They go where the data points. Before committing to a market, study the numbers your competition ignores: Industry growth rates – Expanding sectors often fly under the radar. Investment flows – Follow where capital is going before sales catch up. Labor market trends – Job growth exposes emerging business needs. Government spending – Public dollars usually spark private demand. Data doesn’t close deals. But it stacks the odds in your favor and ensures you’re hunting where opportunity actually exists. The 100-Conversation Rule Numbers tell you where to look. Conversations tell you what’s real. Don't just study demographics—talk to 100 people tied to the market. Customers. Ex-customers. Prospects who should buy from you but don’t. Even suppliers and partners. Ask them about their challenges, their frustrations, and the gaps they see. Don’t pitch—listen. By the time you’ve had 100 conversations, you’ll know more about that market than your competitors ever will. And you’ll have built a network of early relationships that pay off down the line. Look for Adjacent Opportunities The breakthrough comes when you stop looking for completely new industries and start examining adjacencies. Instead of jumping into foreign markets, identify prospects that connect to your existing expertise. If you sell to manufacturing, explore adjacent industries like logistics or supply chain management. If you work in healthcare, consider medical device companies or pharmaceutical services. Adjacent markets let you leverage existing knowledge while expanding into less competitive territory. The Focus Formula  Most market expansion strategies fall apart because of a lack of focus. Salespeople chase every shiny opportunity and end up spread too thin. The result? Lots of motion, zero momentum. Domination beats diversification. Pick three or four high-potential segments and go all-in. Pour your time, energy, and relationship capital into saturating those markets. That density builds brand recognition, referrals, and trust. Scattershot prospecting creates exhaustion. Focused prospecting creates dominance. Building on Legacy Assets: The Hidden Accelerator Don't ignore what already exists—leverage it. The most counterintuitive insight about untapped markets is that the best ones build on foundations you already have. Your "legacy assets" might include:

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 biggest challenges facing modern sales professionals, and getting it wrong costs you deals—both now and in the future. The "Buy or Die" Misconception That's Killing Your Pipeline Most salespeople completely misunderstand what "buy or die" actually means. They think it's about hammering prospects until they crack, but that's not persistence—that's harassment. Real "buy or die" mentality recognizes that the prospect is never not a prospect, but sometimes now is not the right time. The key is knowing when to push and when to pull back. Your sequence length and touch frequency should be driven by one critical factor: deal complexity and account size. Short Cycle Sales Need Short, Aggressive Sequences Run 10-14 touch sequences over 10-30 days with touchpoints every 2-3 days. These prospects have buying windows that are typically always open, and the stakes are relatively low. Complex Accounts Require Long-Term Relationship Building For massive, high-value accounts, you could run sequences that extend up to two years. Touch them monthly or quarterly to stay top of mind, waiting for the right opportunity window to open. The magic happens when you track meaningful engagement. In any properly executed sequence, 30-50% of prospects will give you some form of signal—yes, no, or even "go away." All of these responses give you something to work with. But here's the critical part: When you get complete radio silence from the other 50%, you stop. Pull them out of your sequence, slot in fresh prospects, and circle back in 90 days or six months. You have infinite time to go after them—use it strategically. Why Generic Messages Get You Blocked Every Time This brings us to the second major challenge facing modern salespeople: crafting relevant messages that resonate with busy prospects. James Baldwin perfectly captured this struggle when he asked about leveraging tools like ZoomInfo to create relevant messaging. He sees tons of information but doesn't know what to use or how to use it effectively. This is where most reps completely miss the mark, and it's costing them relationships. The Research Failure That Destroys Credibility Want to know the fastest way to get permanently blocked? Send a message that screams "I know nothing about you or your business." This happened to me recently with a rep from a major software company. They did everything technically right—multi-channel approach, proper timing, professional voicemails—but they failed at the most critical element: relevance. They prospected Sales Gravy without doing even basic research. My LinkedIn profile was right there. My content was everywhere. I've literally said thousands of times that if you mention my books when prospecting me, I'll almost always respond. But they were too lazy to look. That's not persistence; that's sales malpractice. How to Turn Data Overload Into Relevant Conversations The problem isn't lack of information—it's information overwhelm. Modern tools give you access to massive amounts of data, but most reps freeze up trying to figure out what matters. The solution is asking better questions of your data. Instead of just building lists, use AI-powered tools to ask specific questions: "What are three conversation starters that would make this CEO interested in talking with us?" or "Based on recent hiring signals and earnin...

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 for no other reason than someone disagreed with him. After learning about the assassination, I found myself incredibly disturbed that a person in the public square could just be shot and killed like that—murdered right in front of everyone. So I did what I always do when I want to understand something: I started learning. I watched hours and hours, dozens and dozens of Charlie Kirk's videos to learn more about the man, his message, and why someone would think it would be okay to assassinate him. I still haven't found the answer to that last question. This Isn't About Politics Before I go any further, let me be crystal clear: This is not a political message. This is not a religious message. It is about how we treat each other as human beings. If you know me, if you've been to my events or training, you know I never talk about politics or religion. If you look at my social media feeds on any channel, you won't find much that would help you understand what my politics or religion are. Do I have convictions? Yes. Do I believe certain things? Yes. But they're my beliefs, and I keep them to myself because my job is to train salespeople. I'm a sales author, trainer, expert, and consultant. That's my lane. I train salespeople no matter what they believe. I train salespeople no matter what their religion. I train salespeople and help salespeople no matter where they're from or what their walk of life is. I don't care where you come from because my entire purpose, my reason for being on earth, is to help you sell more, help you gain confidence, and to help you with your biggest sales questions and challenges. What Charlie Kirk's Example Taught Me What I discovered in watching those videos was something that transcends political beliefs. Charlie Kirk's example was his willingness to go sit down face-to-face with people who disagreed with him, sometimes vehemently, and just have a conversation. And do it respectfully. I noticed something remarkable in his videos: More than once, he said, "You know what, I stand corrected." Someone would come to him with a different set of facts, and he would say, "Okay, that sounds right. I agree with you." In many cases, he would shake the person's hand after a debate. He was respectful. It was never about the person. It wasn't personal. He didn't hate the person. He had conversations about their ideas. How Charlie Kirk disagreed mattered. That is what we need to get back to. Not someplace in the future—today, right now. The Human Cost I watched his wife's, Erica's, message to the world, and I found myself on an airplane as a grown man with tears streaming down my face, trying not to let everyone see that I was crying. It was heartbreaking watching her pain. She has two kids; they are one- and three-years-old. That assassin changed their lives forever. I can't imagine when one of them gets older and either finds the video of their daddy getting assassinated or someone puts it in front of them. If you step into that frame for just a moment with your human empathy, it will make you hurt. Charlie's children will be raised with stories instead of memories, photographs instead of laughter, and silence where their father's voice should have guided and loved them. The Conflict We All Face Everywhere in our lives with other people, we have disagreement. Everywhere in our lives,

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. Lorenzo Bizzi joined The Sales Gravy Podcast and revealed a simple truth: Buyer uncertainty kills deals. Traditional sales discovery often increases that uncertainty. Rigid qualifying questions, seller-centric agendas, and shallow data gathering make buyers feel misunderstood and cautious. When you approach discovery this way, you’re eroding trust. Sure, buyers are evaluating your product—but they’re also evaluating whether you understand their world. And if you can’t help them gain clarity, even the best solution won’t move the deal forward. The Science of Deep Sales Discovery The most effective influence tactic isn't charm, rapport, or even product demos. It's clearly displaying the arguments and reasons why your solution works for their specific situation. But you can't build rational arguments until you truly understand the problem. And you can't understand the problem until you master deep discovery. Deep discovery operates on two levels: The Organizational Level: What metrics matter to the company? What are the measurable business outcomes they're trying to achieve? What's the cost of inaction? The Individual Level: What's at stake for each stakeholder personally? How will this decision impact their performance review, their standing with leadership, and their career trajectory? Remember: Organizations don't make decisions. People do. The Power of One Question The most powerful discovery conversations start with one well-crafted, open-ended question that invites the buyer to tell their story—not your story about how great your product is.  The question I used—"Tell me what's going on with your team?"—worked because it was: Open-ended, with no leading assumptions. Centered on their world, not my product. Neutral, without judgment or bias. Broad enough to go anywhere. When you ask the right question and then listen, the buyer starts convincing themselves. They begin connecting the dots between their current situation and what they need to change.  And here's the key: If the buyer says it, it's the truth. If you say it, you're just another salesperson spinning a pitch. Cognitive Empathy Is The Difference Maker Dr. Lorenzo Bizzi defines several types of empathy. But for salespeople, the distinction that matters is simple: affective empathy pulls you off course, while cognitive empathy keeps you sharp, connected, and in control. Affective empathy—actually feeling what your buyers feel—will drain your energy and cloud your judgment. When they're frustrated, you get frustrated. When they're uncertain, you become uncertain. Cognitive empathy is different. It’s the ability to recognize and understand what your buyer is feeling without taking it on yourself. You stay clear-headed and outcome-focused, while still connecting deeply with their situation.  In discovery, cognitive empathy shows up in the emotional nuance most salespeople miss—a pause before they answer, a change in tone, or hesitation in their voice. That’s your cue to lean in, ask a clarifying question, and uncover what’s really driving their hesitation. "You paused when I asked about your current system. What's on your mind?" "I heard some frustration in your voice when you mentioned the timeline. Help me understand what's driving that." Deals get won in the emotional subtleties that surface-level discovery never uncovers.

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 most overlooked aspects of sales performance: emotional regulation. And it's costing you deals, talent, and revenue. The Dysregulation Problem: When Emotions Hijack Performance Here's the brutal truth: When you're emotionally dysregulated or your nervous system is hijacked by stress, focusing on anything becomes nearly impossible. Your best discovery questions go out the window. Your qualifying discipline disappears. Your prospecting consistency evaporates. Think about it. You can have the perfect sales process, but if your rep is in fight-or-flight mode from a string of rejections, they're not executing that process effectively. They're just going through the motions while their emotional state sabotages their performance. This isn't just about "feeling better." This is about creating the mental and emotional foundation that allows elite sales performance to happen consistently. Why Most Sales Leaders Miss This Completely The reason most sales organizations ignore emotional regulation is the same reason they obsess over talk time metrics—it's easier to focus on activities than outcomes. It's much simpler to say "make more calls" than to create an environment where your team feels safe enough to regulate their emotions and perform at their peak. But here's what happens when you ignore the emotional component of sales: Your reps start making fear-based decisions. They chase deals they know are wrong fits because they're afraid of having an empty pipeline. They avoid difficult conversations because rejection feels personal. They burn out because they're running on adrenaline instead of sustainable energy. Meanwhile, your top performers aren't just skilled, they've learned to manage their emotional state in a way that supports peak performance. The Three Pillars of Emotional Regulation in Sales Personal Regulation: The Foundation Everything starts with personal habits that support emotional stability. Your "why" becomes your anchor during tough moments. When you're tired, exhausted, or questioning what you're doing, that purpose pulls you through. But purpose alone isn't enough. Your daily habits outside of work create the foundation for emotional regulation at work. Sleep, nutrition, exercise, stress management—these aren't "nice to haves." They're the infrastructure that supports your ability to stay sharp and focused when deals get challenging. Team Regulation: Creating Safety As a leader, you have a responsibility to create psychological safety where your team can regulate together. This might look like mid-day resets where everyone takes a few deep breaths or does a quick activity to release tension from difficult calls. The key is consistency. When emotional regulation becomes part of your team culture—not just something you talk about during tough times—it shows that peak performance includes emotional wellness. Process Regulation: Trusting Your System Here's where emotional regulation meets sales discipline. When you have clear qualifying standards and you trust your process, you don't have to make emotional decisions about which deals to pursue. Ultra-high performing salespeople show discipline by recognizing that they only have so many hours in the day. They create rules they can live by rather than relying on gut feelings in the moment.

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 pipeline."  This mindset shift transforms how you approach every conversation so that it compounds into trust, referrals, and revenue. The Real Problem with Your Pipeline You’re sending out hundreds of emails, making dozens of cold calls, and hoping something sticks. It’s exhausting—and it rarely produces the kind of relationships that lead to real opportunities. Your prospects don't want to be sold to. They're sick of transactional relationships. They want genuine conversations and solutions from people they trust. This is where most salespeople fail to find a qualified sales lead. They're focused on the sale, not the connection.  So what’s the alternative? It’s learning to treat every podcast appearance as more than just an interview. Done right, podcasts become a warm stage where you can demonstrate expertise, build credibility, and start relationships that turn into pipeline. To make this work, you need a simple, repeatable system—a four-step process that transforms a single podcast conversation into a flow of qualified leads. Step 1: Finding the Right Stage The process is about being smart, not getting famous. You don’t need to get on the biggest podcast in the world. You need to get on the right podcast. The right podcast is where your ideal customer profile (ICP) is already gathered, listening, and learning. A show with 50 listeners who are all in your target market is a thousand times more valuable than a show with 50,000 listeners who will never buy from you. How do you find the right podcasts?  Ask your best clients what they listen to.  Research key influencers in your space.  Look for shows that specifically address the problems you solve.  Your goal is simple: Find and get on shows hosted by industry connectors, aggregators, and experts who have already earned the trust of your prospects. This allows you to skip the cold outreach and get a warm introduction to your next qualified sales lead. Step 2: The Introduction That Doesn’t Sound Like a Pitch Once you’ve identified your target shows, the next step is getting invited. This is a crucial moment. A generic email won’t cut it. You have to craft a message that offers value, not asks for a favor. Your outreach needs to be personalized and direct. Don’t talk about how great you are. Talk about the host’s audience. Explain why your expertise, insights, or unique perspective will provide undeniable value to their listeners. Reference a specific episode or a past guest to prove you’ve done your homework. And don’t limit yourself to email. LinkedIn is one of the most effective platforms for securing podcast invitations. Sending a thoughtful, personalized LinkedIn message—paired with a strong profile that showcases your expertise—positions you as a credible guest. When a host sees you consistently sharing relevant insights on LinkedIn, your ask feels natural instead of opportunistic. When you offer to help them provide a great episode, you position yourself as a partner. You’re not begging for airtime. You’re offering a valuable conversation. This approach immediately sets you apart and begins the relationship-building process that is essential to finding a qualified sales lead. Step 3: Mastering the Conversation The interview itself is not a sales call. Your goal is to be a helpful,

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 your wake-up call. Because the energy crisis and burnout epidemic in sales isn't just about being tired—it's costing you deals, destroying your performance, and stealing your edge when you need it most. Why Sales Reps Experience Afternoon Energy Crashes and How to Fix Them Let's start with the key facts of energy management: Your brain is an engine, and like any engine, it needs the right fuel to perform. When you skip meals or grab whatever's convenient, you're essentially putting sugar water in a Ferrari and wondering why it's sputtering. Here's what happens when you don't fuel properly: Your blood sugar crashes, your focus evaporates, and your personality literally changes. You become irritable, indecisive, and ineffective—exactly when you need to be sharp, confident, and persuasive. The solution isn't complicated, but it requires preparation and discipline. Start with breakfast—period. This isn't negotiable. You need something that gives you a slow burn: oatmeal with fruit, protein like eggs, something that keeps you steady until lunch. If you don't eat protein in the morning, you'll be hungry by 10 a.m. and making poor food choices. Pack your day the night before. Get a cooler. Fill it with real food: apples and almond butter, walnuts, dried fruits without added sugar, vegetables and hummus. Keep fresh fruit and vegetable juices without added sugar in small bottles. This isn't about being a health fanatic—it's about maintaining peak performance when deals are on the line. Here's the game-changer: Don't wait for fatigue or extreme hunger. Stay ahead of it. The moment you feel your energy dipping, that's too late. You should be fueling consistently throughout the day, not rescuing yourself from a crash. And here's a pro tip that might sound simple but works: Carry apples everywhere. When you start getting hungry and your personality begins to shift, an apple gives you just enough sugar and energy without the crash that comes from processed snacks. It's your emergency reset button. How Back-to-Back Meetings Create Sales Burnout and What to Do Instead Now let's talk about Marcus's burnout problem, because this one hits close to home for every salesperson drowning in Zoom fatigue and calendar chaos. Being on camera wears you out way faster than face-to-face meetings. If you're scheduling yourself back-to-back-to-back without recovery time, you're your own worst enemy. There's no formula that's going to solve the problem of walking from one meeting directly into the next meeting into the next meeting. Your brain can't handle it, and your performance will suffer. Take control of your calendar. I know this sounds obvious, but how much of your scheduling nightmare did you do to yourself? How often do you say yes when you should say no? How many meetings do you accept because of FOMO—fear of missing out—when the meeting is actually superfluous? Audit your last 30 days of meetings. Really look at them. How many could you have declined? How many were necessary for moving deals forward versus just making you feel busy and important? Here's what's really happening: You're filling your calendar to prove your value and demonstrate how busy you are. But a packed calendar isn't a badge of honor—it's a recipe for burnout and poor performance. It takes confidence and self-ownership to say,

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 teams that consistently crush quotas, retain top talent, and create cultures where everyone wants to win all have one thing in common: a leader who has mastered the fundamental skills that turn potential into performance. Here are five leadership skills every sales manager must master to drive their team to the next level.  1. Clear Communication: No Confusion, No Excuses Sales teams don’t fail because of a lack of talent—they fail because of unclear expectations. Leadership starts with communication. If your reps don’t know exactly what you expect, how you measure success, or where they’re falling short, you’re setting them up to miss the mark. Clarity means: Defining priorities: What activities matter most (calls, meetings, proposals) and why. Eliminating ambiguity: No mixed signals, no “read between the lines.” Giving feedback in real time: Don’t wait for quarterly reviews to correct course. Practical tip: After every meeting, send a short recap of agreed actions and timelines. It reinforces expectations and removes excuses. Vague leadership creates vague results. 2. Goal Setting & Vision: Building Direction, Not Just Numbers A sales leader isn’t just a scoreboard watcher. Your job is to give your team something bigger to aim at than just “hitting quota.” Without a clear vision, teams drift into reactive mode and lack initiative. People perform better when they’re chasing a clear, meaningful vision.  Effective goal setting requires more than revenue targets. It’s about: Tying team goals to organizational strategy. Breaking big objectives into manageable activity benchmarks. Painting a picture of what winning looks like so reps can see themselves in it. Practical tip: Start every month by walking your team through why their goals matter and how success impacts the company, the customer, and their own careers. When reps buy into the vision, they push harder to achieve it. 3. Coaching: From Boss to Builder Micromanagers kill momentum. Coaches create it. Leadership in sales means shifting from telling people what to do to building people who can do it themselves. Great sales coaching involves: Observation: Ride-alongs, call reviews, pipeline inspections. Targeted feedback: Specific, actionable, focused on behaviors, not personality. Development mindset: Every interaction is a teaching moment. Practical tip: Block weekly one-on-one coaching sessions that focus on skills and pipeline health. Ask questions that uncover roadblocks instead of delivering lectures. Consistently coached reps outperform those left to figure it out alone. 4. Adaptability: Leading Through Change Markets shift, customers evolve, and strategies that worked yesterday won’t guarantee tomorrow’s success. The best leaders view challenges as opportunities. Adaptability looks like: Adjusting sales strategies with confidence. Staying ahead of industry trends, not reacting late. Modeling resilience when things don’t go according to plan. Practical tip: Hold monthly “market pulse” sessions where you and your team discuss shifts in buyer behavior, competitor activity, and emerging tools. This keeps your team agile and ready to move, rather than stuck waiting for direction. 5. Accountability & Recognition: The Performance Balance Leadership is about balance, not being a cheerleader or tyrant.

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 team selling and more of … a what's mine versus working together." If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. Territory disputes are one of the most destructive forces in sales organizations, and they're costing companies their collaborative culture and their best deals. The Psychology Behind Sales Territory Wars Salespeople are wired to win. And when territories overlap, that competitive drive turns inward, creating internal battles that hurt everyone. I learned this lesson the hard way when I was a VP of sales managing local and regional account executives. We had big regional accounts sitting in local territories, and the fighting was relentless. Local reps would work around the system, hide opportunities, and go through back doors to protect "their" accounts. The result? We lost major deals because the wrong person with insufficient skills was working them solo, or we'd win the business only to have explosive commission disputes after the fact. But here's what shocked me most: When we gave people the choice between money or credit on the ranking report, they fought harder over the credit than the commission. They'd forgo 100% money but wage war over who got recognition for closing the deal. That tells you everything you need to know about sales psychology. It's not just about money—it's about winning, recognition, and status. The Real Cost of Territorial Thinking Territory disputes create uncomfortable team meetings and destroy your sales effectiveness in three critical ways: Lost Deal Value: When the wrong rep works a deal alone because they're protecting their turf, you lose the collective expertise that could close bigger opportunities. Relationship Damage: Customers get confused when multiple reps approach them without coordination, making your organization look disorganized and unprofessional. Top Performer Exodus: Your best salespeople get frustrated with the politics and infighting, leading them to seek opportunities at companies with better team cultures. The companies that figure this out win big. The ones that don't hemorrhage talent and revenue to organizations that actually know how to build high-performing sales teams. The Solution: Strategic Commission Pools and Clear Ownership For Kayla's HOA challenge—and similar overlapping territory situations—here's the framework that actually works: Assign Relationship Ownership: The rep with the core relationship (the HOA headquarters contact) owns account retention and expansion. They're responsible for keeping that account long-term and get compensated accordingly. Create Local Opportunity Roles: Local reps in each territory focus on building relationships with on-site contacts—facility managers, groundskeepers, community center staff. They get compensated for new project acquisition and spot opportunities within their geographic area. Implement Commission Pools: Instead of fighting over who gets what percentage, create a commission pool for each major account. The pool gets divided based on roles and contributions, not territorial claims. Force Up-Front Agreements: Here's the crucial part: Make involved parties agree on commission splits before any work begins. Post-deal disputes are exponentially harder to resolve than pre-deal agreements. The Leadership Mindset Shift

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 mistaking motion for momentum. And that’s why you feel stuck. The Problem: Sales Activity Without Purpose Most salespeople today are trapped in a cycle of sales activity that leads nowhere. Instead of pursuing long-term, meaningful outcomes, they chase short-term wins: a quick meeting booked, a proposal sent, a Request for Proposal (RFP) answered. But those wins don’t move the needle. They pull you onto a field controlled by competitors. You’re responding to bids, filling out forms, and competing on price. That’s not selling—it’s order-taking. And order-taking will keep you broke no matter how much activity you pile on. The Real Cost of “Busyness” Busyness isn’t just about wasted time. It’s about emotional avoidance. The reason you bury yourself in low-value sales activity is that it feels safe. These tasks create the illusion of productivity while shielding you from what you’re really afraid of: rejection. Instead of calling the prospect who’s gone cold, you refresh your CRM. Rather then reaching out to the big account you’ve been circling, you tidy your inbox. Instead of pushing into a tough conversation, you polish the proposal one more time. You’re not lazy. You’re working hard. But effort without purpose is like a car spinning its wheels in the mud. Lots of noise, lots of energy, but no forward motion.  The Solution: High-Leverage Sales Activity Not all sales activity is created equal. Some actions produce a 10x return. Others are pure waste. Top performers know the difference—and ruthlessly prioritize the former. Here are three high-leverage sales activities that separate pros from amateurs: Proactive Prospecting Your sales pipeline is the fuel tank for your career. If it’s empty, you’re not going anywhere. Prospecting isn’t a side task you do when you have extra time. It is the job. That means making outbound calls, sending personalized emails, and using LinkedIn to connect with people who aren’t already in your orbit. Stop waiting for the phone to ring. Go make it ring. Meaningful Conversations Once you get a prospect’s attention, the goal isn’t to rattle off product features. It’s to have a value-driven conversation. That means asking discovery questions that uncover their goals, their pain points, and their motivations. It means showing up as an expert and positioning yourself as a trusted advisor, not another vendor. When you consistently create conversations that center around the customer’s needs, you become indispensable. Prospects should feel like they’d be foolish not to work with you. The Power of “No” Not every opportunity deserves your time. Amateurs say yes to every opportunity and demo request. Top performers say no. Qualify hard; disqualify fast. The hours you spend chasing a dead deal are hours you could invest in finding a stronger one. Being busy with the wrong opportunities makes you broke. Saying no to the wrong leads frees you up to say yes to the right ones. Your Action Plan To Go From “Just Busy” To Productive Breaking the cycle of wasted sales activity requires intention and discipline. Here’s how to start: Step 1: The Activity Audit For one week, track everything you do—calls, emails, meetings, busywork. At the end of the week, review your log and ask: Which of these activities directly moved a deal forward or created new pipeline? Most of what you thought was productive won’t make the cu...

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 language. What started as a simple question about gaining cultural perspective turned into a must-listen discussion of the universal principles of influence—principles that work whether you're closing deals in boardrooms or winning over teenagers in Spanish classrooms. The Universal Language of Human Connection Spencer had already absorbed one of the key lessons from Sales EQ—the brown paper bag of bread story about understanding what matters to your prospect. But he was struggling to see how those principles would translate across cultural and language barriers. Here's the breakthrough: The five core decisions people make before they buy into you—Do I like you? Do you listen to me? Do you make me feel important? Do you get me? Do I trust and believe you?—are universal. They transcend language, culture, and geography. Whether you're selling software to executives in Atlanta or teaching English to teenagers in Madrid, every human being makes these same emotional decisions before they'll open their hearts and minds to your message. The Listening Advantage That Trumps Language Barriers Most teachers (and salespeople) make the same fatal mistake: They walk in talking. They assume their job is to deliver information, share knowledge, and demonstrate expertise. Wrong approach. The secret weapon that works in every culture? Start by listening. Instead of walking into that Spanish classroom and immediately launching into English lessons, what if Spencer started by asking questions: "Tell me something about yourself that not many people know. What are your biggest challenges with English? Why do you want to learn this language?" This approach leverages what we know about human psychology in complex sales: When you listen first, you accomplish three critical things simultaneously. First, you demonstrate likability through genuine interest. Second, you prove you're actually listening—the foundation of all trust. Third, you make people feel important, which is the most insatiable human need. Speaking Their Language (Even When You Don't) Here's where it gets fascinating. Spencer worried about the language barrier, but that's actually his biggest opportunity. The language that matters most isn't Spanish or English—it's the language of being a teenager in Spain. It's the language of their challenges, their dreams, their world. When Spencer takes what they share about themselves and incorporates it into his lessons, suddenly he's not the outsider trying to force American culture on them. He becomes the person who gets them. "Remember when you told me about your soccer tournament? Let's practice describing that experience in English." Suddenly, English isn't a foreign concept—it's a tool for expressing what matters to them. This mirrors exactly what happens in complex sales. The most successful salespeople don't speak the language of their product features—they speak the language of their prospect's business challenges, industry pressures, and personal goals. The Power of Making People Feel Heard There's a reason why building trust through active listening is foundational to every sales methodology: It's the fastest way to move from outsider to trusted advisor. Spanish teenagers, like buyers everywhere, are drowning in noise. Everyone's talking at them—parents, teachers, social media.