Here’s a question that should stop you in your tracks: What do you do when you’re booking meetings but prospects keep ghosting you?

That was the challenge posed by Brittany, a sales rep watching her show rates crater quarter after quarter, on this week’s episode of Ask Jeb on The Sales Gravy Podcast featuring Will Frattini. Brittany was putting in the work, getting prospects to say yes on the phone, and then sitting alone on Zoom watching the clock tick. If you’ve been there, you know how demoralizing that is.

The first thing you need to understand is the math. The best show rate you can hope for on first-time appointments is about fifty percent. If you’re above that, keep riding it. But fifty percent is the benchmark. That means for every ten meetings you book, expect five no-shows. The fix isn’t magic. The fix is volume and process.

Stop Pushing People Into Meetings They Don’t Want

Before you even think about your confirmation sequence, go back and listen to your prospecting calls. Ask yourself honestly: did that prospect agree to meet because they were genuinely interested, or because you wore them down and they said yes to get off the phone?

If you’re so good at closing for the meeting that you’re talking people into it rather than compelling them, you’ve already lost. That’s not a show rate problem. That’s a buyer’s remorse problem. The prospect hangs up, questions their decision, and when Thursday rolls around they’ve convinced themselves they never really needed to meet in the first place. Strengthening your prospecting approach so that prospects are genuinely curious when they agree is the only real fix for that.

The Confirmation Process That Actually Works

Assuming you have a real reason to meet, the work doesn’t stop when they say yes. Here’s what actually stops prospects from ghosting.

Before you get off the phone, confirm the meeting out loud. Say it. “I’m looking forward to seeing you Thursday at two.” Get that verbal confirmation back. Then ask for their email address on the spot and send the calendar invite immediately. Do not wait. And when you title that invite, don’t put “Meeting with Will.” Put your name, your company, their name, their company, and what you’re meeting about. A prospect who sees a generic calendar placeholder will delete it without a second thought. A specific, descriptive invite looks like real business and that’s exactly the psychological signal you need to send.

The ten-and-two rule is worth using when you’re booking the meeting. Give two time options, not an open-ended “what works for you.” Something like: “I have Tuesday between ten and ten-thirty or Thursday around two. Does Thursday at two work?” Give a choice, take one away, let them pick. It creates agency and it creates commitment.

Stay Visible, Stay Relevant

Between the booking and the meeting, do not disappear. Send a short personalized video or email mid-week that reinforces why the meeting is worth their time. “I looked into your organization and I’m looking forward to learning more.” That’s it. No pitch. No agenda. Just warmth and presence. What you’re doing is building what I call the guilt asset. You’ve shown up. You’ve done the work. For most people, not showing up now would feel rude. You’ve made it harder for them to ghost you.

For high-stakes meetings, large accounts, or anything where you’re bringing additional executives, confirm directly. Call or email. The calculus changes when the cost of a no-show is high. But for a standard first-time appointment with a single stakeholder, skip the confirmation call because it hands them an easy exit. Instead, if you have their office number, call the night before after hours and leave a voicemail. Let them know you’re looking forward to it and you’ll see them tomorrow. Now they have to do the work to cancel, and most people simply won’t.

Keeping your pipeline full of qualified first-time appointments is the foundation. But turning booked meetings into actual conversations is where the money lives.

When They Still Don’t Show

You did everything right. They still ghosted. Now what?

Here’s the message: “Hey, I hope everything’s okay. I was on the meeting for about seven minutes. I’ve got time reserved Thursday and Friday morning between nine and ten. Just let me know if you’re okay, and if you don’t want to meet, I have really thick skin.” Keep it human. Keep it short.

Then, if they’re a real account worth pursuing, reach out to reschedule by suggesting the same time on the same day of the following week. They agreed to that slot once, which means it was likely open. Don’t make them think about a new time. Just reset the existing appointment.

Here’s the principle behind all of this: when you do the work, you own the moral high ground. And when you own the moral high ground, your prospect feels like they owe you. That means a higher probability they reset the meeting, and a much higher probability they actually show up next time. Treat them like a transaction and they’ll treat you the same way.

This is the system, the discipline, and the follow-through necessary to win. Not just activity for activity’s sake, but deliberate execution at every step of the process.

The Bottom Line

Stop blaming prospects ghosting you on bad luck. Most of the time it comes down to one of three things: you pushed someone into a meeting they weren’t sold on, you didn’t build enough relevance and visibility between the booking and the meeting, or you let the confirmation process fall apart. Fix those three things and your show rates will improve. Not to one hundred percent, because that’s not real life. But to a level where your pipeline starts working for you instead of against you.

Jeb and Will go even deeper on getting past the people standing between you and the deal. Watch their Reach Decision Makers Faster: Beating AI & Human Gatekeepers webinar and put these tactics to work today.

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Have you ever had a moment where the answer you were looking for was right in front of you? I’m talking about a giant neon sign moment where you realize that a strategy is working, and the proof is undeniable.

Today, I want to share a quick story about an unexpected moment of validation that I recently had, and the valuable lesson that every top sales producer needs to keep front of mind.

The Annual Sales Summit That Changed Everything

I have a client that I’ve worked with for several years now. Each month, I deliver virtual training workshops focused on different areas of sales. Some months our topic will be on prospecting best practices, and other months we may focus on things like sales negotiation skills or how to advance deals in the pipeline. These workshops are optional for the sales team to attend at this particular company.

So recently, I was invited to attend their annual sales summit. It was the first time that I’d be putting faces to names and shaking hands with the people who showed up to my sessions, month after month. It was a pretty big event. There were hundreds of members of the sales team from around the US.

After grabbing my badge at the registration desk, I walked towards the main event space, and the sound of hundreds of conversations filled the room. It was that feeling of energy and the buzz of excitement when you’re surrounded by people who are having fun together.

As I walked through the mingling crowds, I saw it. There was a giant board, I’m guessing about five feet tall, and at the top it read “Top Producers of the Year.”

Now, if you’re in sales, you know what these boards represent. It’s the ultimate recognition and a testament to your consistency, grit, and incredibly hard work.

I found myself looking through the photos and the names. These were my clients’ top producers, the ones who really earned their spot. And as I looked at each photo, a pattern started to emerge. I noticed a face that I recognized and then another. And then another.

I couldn’t help but start to smile as I kept scrolling through this list of the fifteen names on the wall. All but one of them were people who were showing up to the monthly workshops month after month. I was shocked. Not just proud, but genuinely humbled.

Now, I’d like to believe that our training played a part in their success. But the truth is, they earned it. Their spot on that board, their results, their massive recognition—it was a direct reflection of the continuous investments that they had been making in themselves. They didn’t wait to be great. They were proactively working on stepping up their skills one month at a time.

What You Need to Remember

Now, if you take one thing from this article, let it be this: top producers don’t wait for success. They prepare for it.

That board wasn’t just a list of the most talented sales reps. It was also a list of the most intentional. It was a direct consequence of four behaviors that they had displayed:

1. Showed up to the monthly workshops even though they were optional.
2. Asked hard questions in these workshops.
3. Applied new techniques and tools and put them into action immediately.
4. Treated sharpening their skills as a non-negotiable.

Here’s the truth: the person who dedicates one hour a week to getting better will always beat the person who’s naturally gifted but a little lazy. Intention beats talent every single time.

6 Best Practices to Inject Intention Into Your Week

So how do you inject that kind of intention into your own week? Here are six best practices to help you:

Show Up Before You Need To

These top sales reps on the board didn’t wait for their production to dip before they started investing in training. They were already winning, and they still kept showing up. Skill building is like compounding interest. Small, consistent investments create exponential returns.

Treat Sales Training Like a Workout

You don’t go to the gym once and expect to be in shape. You show up three times a week for a year. That’s how you need to approach your professional development. Consistency is greater than intensity. Every session you attend adds a new tool, a perspective, or an edge to sharpen your game.

Decide That You Are Always a Learner

The reps who excelled weren’t afraid to ask questions that other people might consider basic. They were seeking clarity, not just validation. Remember, ego is expensive. Curiosity is profitable. Never stop being the most curious person in the room.

Don’t Confuse Activity for Growth

Many sales reps are busy; they’re active. But how many are truly intentional about growth? Top producers set aside uninterrupted time for professional development even when their schedule is getting full. So block out time to get better, not just to do more.

Implement One Thing Immediately

After attending a workshop or even listening to a podcast episode, challenge yourself to pick one tactic to put into action within twenty-four hours. Knowledge is power. Implementation is what turns that knowledge into results.

Surround Yourself with Other Top Performers

It’s easy in sales to get frustrated when we lose a deal or when things are not going our way. By surrounding yourself with other top performers, you’re going to help lift yourself up in those moments when you need a little extra support and motivation.

Why This Moment Mattered

Seeing that board of top performers, that physical printed validation, it really struck me—the emotion of realizing that the reps who had quietly and consistently invested in themselves all year long, had literally risen to the top. It was a powerful moment and reminded me why not only I do the work that I do, but it also absolutely confirmed that top performers are the ones disciplined enough to invest in themselves.

I encourage you to commit to just one of these six tips that I shared today. Write it down and put it into action within twenty-four hours. Momentum doesn’t come from waiting. It comes from action.

—

The top performers on that board didn’t wait—they invested in training that got results. Explore my courses on Sales Gravy University and get the same strategies they used to reach the top.

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One of the most vivid memories from my childhood was the day I was bucked off my pony, Macaroni. I was only six years old. We were in an arena where my mother was giving me my very first riding lessons. 

Macaroni was stung by a bee, and she reacted by bucking. I couldn’t hang on, and I landed hard on my back. It knocked the breath out of me. I gasped for air. Then, as I finally caught my breath, I started bawling at the shock of being involuntarily dismounted. 

My mom caught the pony, led her back over to me, and gently told me to dust myself off and get back on. But by this time, I was sobbing the way kids do when they’ve cried so hard that they can’t stop. 

Failure is Just a Bruise

I shook my head and refused to get back on the pony. My mother tried her best to calm me down and reason with me, but I still refused to get back on. 

Then she took a different tactic and got tough. Her stern, direct tone of voice made it clear that she was not asking me to get back on the pony—she was telling me. That’s what I remember the most because my mom had never talked to me like that before and has rarely ever used that tone and directness since. 

“Get up, and get back on that pony now!” she admonished. 

She was unmovable. Like Teflon. My tears and pleading made no difference. I knew I had no choice, so I stood up, shaking. Still trying to catch my breath, she helped me get back on the pony. 

Right there in the riding ring, at six years old, I experienced one of the most pivotal lessons of my life. My mother taught me that failure is just a bruise, not a tattoo. 

She wasn’t being cruel; she was being protective—protective of my future self, the one who might otherwise have carried an irrational fear of horses, or an ingrained habit of backing down at the first taste of adversity into the rest of my life.

She knew that if she had let me off the hook and let me walk away from that pony, there was a good chance that I’d never get back on again. That the fear I felt when I landed on my back in the sand would grow and gain a life of its own. That I would vow to never let the pain and embarrassment of falling off happen to me again, and with that, my brush with failure would become permanent. 

Failure Can’t Really Bite You

The truth is, failure is usually a short-lived event. Yes, it’s jarring, unexpected, and can momentarily knock the breath out of you. But it doesn’t have to be the defining chapter of your story. 

That’s what my mother understood so well in that riding ring. She insisted that I face my fear, effectively telling me, “Hey, the worst part’s over. Now that you’ve experienced fear and failure, get back on and prove to yourself you can handle it.” 

Because once you push through that initial sting, you discover that the fear can’t really bite you unless you give it teeth in your own mind. 

When Failure Becomes Permanent

For far too many people, though, the pain of failure does become permanent. Instead of allowing themselves a moment to dust off and try again, they walk away in defeat—often without fully grasping the long-term impact of that decision. 

Rather than letting the bruise fade, they opt to memorialize failure in their minds, assigning it more meaning than it deserves. They replay the embarrassment and pain over and over, until it becomes an unspoken vow: “Never again.” 

And in that single choice, a brief setback can morph into a defining moment in which they forfeit the chance to learn, grow, and eventually experience the sweetness of victory.

Think about how this scenario plays out in everyday life. Maybe you dream of learning a new skill—painting, playing guitar, writing a book, starting a podcast—but in your first attempt, you falter or feel foolish. Rather than chalking it up to “beginner’s missteps,” you decide: “I’m terrible at this; I’ll never try again.”

And that small bruise becomes a tattoo right there, on the spot. You miss out on the personal growth, the fun, and potentially incredible experiences you would have discovered if you’d simply dusted yourself off and tried again.

Sales is a Tapestry of Failure

In sales, this avoidance of failure is just as prevalent, if not more so, because the stakes often involve your income or your reputation at work. 

One day, you run a sales call that goes terribly off the rails—the prospect is disinterested, you get flustered, or you stumble on a key question. You come away feeling embarrassed, incompetent, maybe even humiliated if it happened in front of your sales manager. 

That single negative experience can color your perception of future calls. You avoid that type of call, that kind of prospect, or that particular approach. You remember that unpleasant feeling so vividly that you decide it’s “safer” never to try again. 

So many sales reps finally gain the courage to cold call a C-level executive at a high-value prospect. Then freeze when they get a hard objection, leaving them feeling small and insecure. Instead of analyzing what went wrong, adjusting their approach, and trying again, they vow, “I’m never calling anyone that high up again.” 

And while that might spare them from momentary embarrassment and discomfort, the long-term consequences are enormous. Their pipeline shrinks and income tanks because they’re playing it safe. And, ultimately, their career crashes because they’re afraid to push outside of their comfort zone.

Sales Failure: Where the Bruise Can Really Hurt

Sales can be bruising. Each rejection takes a piece out of you and can feel like a blow to your self-worth. It’s easy to internalize it. Over time, a string of “no’s” can erode your confidence, making the idea of picking up the phone and calling prospects feel daunting.

Our minds can often be drama queens. When something painful happens, we cling to that memory and replay it, each time piling on new layers of negativity—“I can’t believe I said that,” “What was I thinking,” “I’m so stupid.” In reality, the prospect might barely remember it or might even respect your courage. But to you, it’s all-consuming.

But remember, a “no” in sales is rarely personal. Often, it’s circumstantial—maybe the prospect is having a bad day, or their budget cycle doesn’t align with your proposal, or they had a negative experience with a different vendor and brought that baggage with them into your presentation. 

The more you detach your self-worth from the outcome, the less likely you are to see these “no’s” as permanent markers of failure. Instead, you’ll shift your mindset. You begin to view failure as data that you can use to gain insight into how to improve. You start to treat each rejection as a chance to refine your approach.

Success Stories are Forged in Failure

The true success stories in sales almost always come from people who learned to pick themselves up, analyze the failure, and adapt. They didn’t let the fear of failure overshadow their potential for greatness.  

The best salespeople—and frankly, the happiest people—know that failure is inevitable. Rather than avoiding it, they embrace it. They feel the pain just like anyone else, but recognize that bruises eventually fade. You just have to keep moving forward in order to heal.

At the end of the day, resilience in the face of failure is a choice. It doesn’t always feel like one, especially in the raw moments right after you’ve messed up, taken a big hit, or find yourself on your back in the dirt. 

But as soon as you reclaim your power to stand up, brush off the dust, and climb back on—whether it’s a literal or figurative pony—you’ll find your perspective shifting. Failure no longer holds you hostage. It becomes a footnote in a broader story of your determination and personal growth.

Failure is Only Final If You Make That Choice

So, the next time you bomb a sales call, lose a deal you thought was a lock, get yelled at on a cold call, or face an embarrassing situation in front of your peers, remember: you get to choose. Will this be just a bruise, or will you sear it into your psyche, turning it into a tattoo of permanent self-doubt? 

My challenge to you this week is when things go wrong, to look up and get up. Get back on the phone. Set another meeting. Propose the next big idea. Trust yourself to learn, adapt, and keep going. Will yourself to stop and make one more call. 

Because failure is only final if you decide to never get back on that pony again.

If you haven’t grabbed our FREE guide, 25 Ways to Ask for an Appointment on a Cold Call, download it now at salesgravy.com/cold-calling-guide/.

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Here’s the hard 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 reading is this: She’s trying to compress 20 years of relationship building into a social media strategy that can compete with people who’ve been doing this for decades.

The Tom Cruise Problem: Building Your Social Media Presence Takes Time

Remember the first time you saw Tom Cruise in a movie? For me, it was Risky Business, some kid dancing around in his underwear. He wasn’t the “last movie star” then. He was just another actor trying to make it.

But here’s the thing: Today, if you saw Tom Cruise walking down the street, you’d lose your mind. You’d want selfies, autographs, the whole nine yards. Why? Because over decades, he created millions of micro-interactions that built trust, familiarity, and fandom.

That’s exactly what you need to do on social media. You need to create fans of YOU.

The problem is that most sales professionals want to skip the relationship-building phase and jump straight to the closing phase. They want to post a few listing videos and magically generate leads. That’s not how it works.

The Algorithm Rewards Consistency, Not Perfection

Here’s the part that’s going to hurt: You need to post every single day. Not when you feel like it. Not when you have something “good” to share. Every. Single. Day.

When you first start, your content is going to suck. Your first TikTok video? Three people will watch it. Your first Instagram post? Crickets. Your first LinkedIn article? Your mom and your real estate buddy will like it.

I know because I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. The algorithms don’t care about your feelings—they care about consistency.

Think about it this way: You’re not just competing with other sales professionals for attention. You’re competing with Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, and every other form of entertainment for your prospects’ eyeballs. The only way to win that battle is to show up relentlessly until people start recognizing your name and face.

The Two-Bucket Strategy: Marketing vs. Lead Generation

When you think about social media as a sales professional, you need to separate it into two distinct buckets:

Bucket 1: Marketing and Brand Building This is about name recognition, familiarity, and staying top-of-mind. When people in your market are ready to buy or sell, your name should be the first one they think of. This bucket is about volume, consistency, and building your personal brand.

Bucket 2: Direct Lead Generation This is about watching what prospects are doing, engaging with them directly, and converting social interactions into sales conversations. This bucket is about quality, relationship building, and moving people from digital relationships to actual appointments.

Most people focus entirely on Bucket 1 and wonder why they’re not getting leads. Others focus only on Bucket 2 and wonder why their content isn’t reaching anyone. You need both working in harmony.

Your 3-Pillar Content Strategy System

Here’s what you need to post consistently:

Original Content: This is your unique perspective, your experience, your stories. If you’re a 20-year veteran like Margarita, you have war stories that new agents don’t. You’ve survived market crashes, interest rate spikes, and industry changes. Share that wisdom.

Curated Content: Find industry articles, market reports, and news relevant to your prospects. But don’t just share them—add your own insight. Become an expert by building on other people’s content.

Engagement Content: This is where most people fail. They post and ghost. They put content out there and disappear. Social media is called “social” for a reason. When people comment, respond. When they share, acknowledge it. When they ask questions, answer them.

The magic happens in the comments section, not in the original post.

Why This Feels Impossible (And How to Do It Anyway)

Let me be straight with you: Social media for sales professionals is a freaking grind. It’s hard. It’s exhausting. Every day you’re trying to figure out what to post, how to engage, what to say.

You can use AI to help generate ideas and even draft content, but you still need to show up, be authentic, and put in the work. There’s no shortcut, no hack, no magic bullet.

But here’s the good news: If you’re established in your field like Margarita, you have a massive advantage. You already know how to build relationships, ask questions, and solve problems. You already understand your clients’ pain points and concerns.

Social media is just a new channel for doing what you already do well.

The 6-Month Reality Check

Don’t expect miracles in the first month. Or the second. Or even the third.

You’re looking at 6 to 18 months of consistent effort before you see real traction. That’s not because social media doesn’t work. It’s because trust takes time to build, and the algorithms need time to understand who you are and who your content should reach.

During those first six months, you’re going to want to quit. You’re going to post something you think is brilliant and get zero engagement. You’re going to see competitors getting more likes and followers and wonder what you’re doing wrong.

That’s normal. That’s the price of admission. That’s what separates the professionals from the wannabes.

Building Your Digital Prospecting System

Here’s where social media integrates with everything else you’re already doing. Remember, nothing is dead in sales. Cold calling works, door knocking works, referrals work, and social media works. The key is building a complete system where all these channels work together.

Your social media presence should feed your email newsletter, which should drive people to your website, which should capture leads for your CRM, which should trigger your follow-up sequences. It’s all connected.

If you’re not already building an email list from your social media followers, you’re missing a huge opportunity. Social media platforms come and go, but your email list is an asset you own forever.

The Anti-Vanity Metric Approach

Don’t get caught up in follower counts and likes. Those are vanity metrics that make you feel good but don’t necessarily drive revenue.

Instead, focus on:

• Engagement Rate: Are people actually interacting with your content?
• Direct Messages: Are prospects reaching out to you directly?
• Appointment Requests: Are social interactions converting to sales conversations?
• Email Signups: Are people joining your newsletter or downloading your resources?

Remember: You don’t need thousands of followers to build a successful business. You need the right followers who are actually in your market and ready to buy or sell.

Your Next Steps: Making the Shift

If you’re ready to build your social media presence, here’s your action plan:

Week 1-2: Choose your platforms. Don’t try to be everywhere. Pick 2-3 platforms where your ideal clients actually spend time.

Week 3-4: Create your content calendar. Plan 30 days of posts mixing original content, curated content, and engagement prompts.

Month 2: Start posting consistently. Track your engagement and adjust your strategy based on what resonates.

Month 3-6: Double down on what works. Analyze your top-performing content and create more of it.

Throughout this process, remember that your goal isn’t to become an influencer. You want to become the go-to expert in your market. Focus on providing value, answering questions, and building relationships one post at a time.

The Integration Strategy: Social + Traditional

Here’s what I love about professionals like Margarita: They understand that social media isn’t replacing traditional prospecting—it’s enhancing it.

Cold calling isn’t dead. Door knocking isn’t dead. Referrals aren’t dead. But social media allows you to warm up cold prospects, stay connected with past clients, and build relationships at scale.

The most successful sales professionals I know use social media as part of their complete prospecting system. They’re not abandoning what works. They’re just adding new tools to their toolkit.

The Bottom Line: No Shortcuts, Just Systems

Social media success in sales isn’t about going viral or becoming internet famous. It’s about building a systematic approach to digital relationship building that compounds over time.

It’s about showing up consistently, providing value relentlessly, and converting digital interactions into real conversations that lead to closed deals.

The professionals who understand that social media should be treated like the long-term relationship-building tool it is will have a massive competitive advantage over those who are still trying to figure out how to “hack” the algorithms.

There are no shortcuts. There are no hacks. There’s just showing up, every single day, and doing the work.

The question is: Are you ready to start grinding?

Want to dive deeper into using social media specifically for real estate sales? Check out How to Sell Real Estate (and Almost Anything Else) with TikTok & Instagram at Sales Gravy University—the exact course mentioned in this episode that teaches you how to leverage social platforms for real estate success.

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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 inbox clutter.

This scenario plays out in sales organizations everywhere. Well-meaning professionals mistake quantity for quality, frequency for value, and availability for service excellence.

Why Your Communication Style is Pushing Prospects Away

The key to avoiding this trap isn’t about reading minds; it’s about understanding communication preferences. As Justin puts it, “You really have to understand what makes your clients tick, and you have to understand the nuances of how they work.”

This means recognizing that being understanding matters more than simply being helpful. Your client might prefer monthly check-ins over weekly ones, or end-of-week summaries instead of daily updates. They might prefer text over calls, or structured emails over casual conversations.

The biggest mistake most sales professionals make is assuming their communication style is universal. It isn’t. Effective communication emphasizes understanding and adapting to individual client needs.

Reading the Room (and the Inbox)

Here are the warning signs your communication style might be pushing prospects away:

• Response Time Changes: If a prospect who used to respond quickly starts taking longer or giving shorter replies, you might be overwhelming them.
• Meeting Resistance: Clients rescheduling frequently or suggesting less frequent meetings signal communication fatigue.
• Email Behavior: Prospects responding to every third email instead of each one indicates your messages lack sufficient value or arrive too frequently.
• Energy Shifts: Noticeably decreased enthusiasm in client responses means it’s time to reassess your approach immediately.

The Professional Sales Communication Framework

Instead of guessing what works, use this framework to optimize your communication:

1. Ask Direct Questions Early

During your initial meetings, ask prospects about their preferred communication style:

• “What’s the best way to keep you updated on progress?”
• “How often would you like to connect during this process?”
• “Do you prefer calls, emails, or something else for routine updates?”

1. Start Conservative, Then Adjust

It’s easier to increase communication frequency than to dial it back after you’ve been labeled “high maintenance.” Begin with less frequent touchpoints and let the client guide you toward more contact if they want it. 

1. Make Every Interaction Count

When you reach out, ensure it delivers value. Random check-ins and meaningless updates train clients to ignore your communications. Each email, call, or message should serve a clear purpose and advance the relationship or project.

Focus on quality over quantity. One valuable update weekly beats five pointless check-ins that add no value to the client relationship.

1. Establish Communication Boundaries

Be explicit about when you’ll reach out proactively versus when they should contact you. For example: “I’ll send you a brief update every Friday afternoon, but please reach out immediately if any urgent questions come up.” 

Clear boundaries create mutual respect and prevent communication chaos that frustrates both parties.

The Business Impact of Getting It Right

Getting client communication right builds trust. When clients see that you respect their time and communication preferences, they’re more likely to:

• Respond quickly when you do reach out because they know it matters.
• Refer you to other prospects.
• Renew or expand their relationship with you.
• Give you honest feedback when issues arise.

These outcomes directly impact your bottom line and long-term career success.

Adapting to Different Client Types

Successful sales professionals recognize that communication preferences vary dramatically across client types:

• Busy Executives managing multiple initiatives don’t want weekly strategy calls. They prefer concise summaries and action-oriented updates that respect their limited time.
• Detail-Oriented Managers might appreciate more frequent updates but want structured, organized information that helps them track progress systematically.
• Entrepreneurs often prefer everything condensed into single weekly summaries that cover all relevant points without requiring multiple interactions.

The key is matching your communication style to their working style, not your personal preferences.

Building Long-Term Sales Success Through Smart Communication

As Justin learned, dialing back communication frequency doesn’t mean caring less about clients. It means caring enough to communicate in ways that work best for them, not you.

Start by auditing your current communication patterns. Are you adding value with each interaction, or just maintaining visibility? 

Master this balance, and you’ll discover that less truly can be more—more trust, more engagement, and ultimately, more closed deals.

Download this FREE A.C.E.D. Buyer Style Playbook to help you build deeper emotional connections when you interact with buyers and stakeholders based on who they are–not who you are.

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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 show up at the door and be that consultant… and not just kind of be desperate because I had a few bad calls?”

If you’re nodding your head right now, you’re not alone. Emotional inconsistency is the silent killer of sales careers, and it’s costing top performers millions in lost revenue.

The Hidden Performance Killer: Your Emotional State

Most sales training focuses on techniques, scripts, and closing strategies. But here’s the brutal truth: Your emotional state in the moment of truth determines your success more than any other factor.

Think about it. You can have the perfect pitch, flawless product knowledge, and ironclad objection handling skills, but if you walk into that appointment carrying the baggage from your last three rejections, you’re dead in the water before you even ring the doorbell.

Your prospects don’t know about your bad morning. They don’t care that the last homeowner beat you up on price or that your competitor just undercut you again. All they know is the energy you bring to their front door—and that energy determines whether they trust you enough to invite you in.

The Compartmentalization Imperative

The first skill every elite salesperson must master is emotional compartmentalization. Here’s how to think about it:

That homeowner you’re about to meet? This is the only conversation they’re having with your company today. They don’t know about your other appointments, your wins, your losses, or your quota pressure. To them, you represent their entire experience with your organization.

More importantly, their home is their biggest asset—the most valuable thing in their life. When they’re considering a roof replacement or new windows, they’re not just buying a product; they’re making an emotional decision about protecting what matters most to them.

Their emotional experience with you is more predictive of the outcome than any other variable. People buy you first, then they buy your product. They buy you because they feel like you care about them, that you listen to them, that you understand them, and that they can trust you.

That doesn’t happen if you show up desperate, distracted, or carrying emotional baggage from previous calls.

Process Goals vs. Outcome Goals: The Mental Reset

The difference between average performers and elite closers comes down to one thing: focus.

Average performers obsess over outcome goals. They walk up to the door thinking, “I need to close this deal.” When they’ve had a few bad calls, they skip the relationship-building and go straight to pitch mode because they’re desperate for a win.

Elite performers focus on process goals. They have a systematic approach: “I’m going to greet them this way, connect like this, ask these discovery questions, present like this, and ask for the business using this method.” They trust the process because they know it works.

When you focus on running your process perfectly, you give yourself the highest probability of getting the desired outcome. Sometimes the putts go in, sometimes they don’t—but you ran the process every time.

As one wise salesperson once said: “If you try to control the outcome, you’re not going to get the outcome you’re looking for. If you trust the process and trust yourself, you’re typically going to get the outcome you’re looking for.”

Your Mobile Reset Strategy

Here’s a practical question: What’s coming out of the speakers in your truck between appointments?

If you’re listening to the news, you’re filling your mind with negativity. If you’re listening to sports radio while thinking about your next call, your focus is scattered. But if you’re listening to sales training content, motivational audiobooks, or fanatical prospecting techniques, you’re programming your mind for success.

Your drive time between appointments is prime real estate for mental conditioning. Use it to stay focused, positive, and sharp.

The Power of Self-Talk

The conversation happening in your head determines everything. When you mess up a call or get rejected, what are you saying to yourself?

Most salespeople spiral into negative self-talk: “I’m terrible at this. I can’t close anything. This customer was never going to buy anyway. Maybe I’m not cut out for sales.”

Elite performers catch themselves in that spiral and flip the script: “I can do this. I’m getting better every day. That last call was just practice for this next one. I’m going to slow down, stick to my process, and deliver value.”

It sounds simple, but changing your internal dialogue is one of the most powerful performance improvements you can make. Your mind believes what you tell it—so tell it something that serves your success.

Building Your Support System

When all else fails, phone a friend. Having teammates you can call between appointments to reset your mindset isn’t weakness—it’s professional. The best sales organizations create cultures where reps lift each other up instead of competing against each other.

Build relationships with colleagues who can talk you off the ledge when you’re spiraling. Sometimes all it takes is hearing someone say, “You’ve got this. That last call doesn’t define you. Go show them what you’re made of.”

The Scottie Scheffler Standard

Your goal is to become the Scottie Scheffler of your industry—calm, cool, and consistent regardless of what’s happening around you. That doesn’t mean you don’t feel emotions; it means you don’t let those emotions dictate your performance.

Every appointment is a fresh start. Every prospect deserves your best self. Every interaction is an opportunity to demonstrate the professionalism and expertise that separates you from your competition.

When you master emotional consistency, everything else becomes easier. Your objection handling improves because you’re not defensive. Your closing gets stronger because you’re confident rather than desperate. Your relationships deepen because you’re genuinely focused on serving your prospect rather than serving your quota.

Your Action Plan

If you’re ready to stop letting your emotions sabotage your sales performance:

Develop your reset routine. What will you do between every call to clear your head and refocus? Make it systematic and stick to it religiously.

Master compartmentalization. Each prospect gets a fresh, fully-engaged version of you. Their experience with you is their entire experience with your company.

Focus on process, not outcomes. Perfect your sales methodology and trust it to deliver results over time.

Control your inputs. What you listen to, read, and consume between calls directly impacts your mindset and performance.

Build your support network. Identify colleagues who can help you reset when you’re struggling.

Monitor your self-talk. Catch negative spirals early and redirect them toward confidence and competence.

The Bottom Line

Your technical skills might get you in the door, but your emotional state determines whether you walk out with a signed contract.

Master your inner game, and your outer results will follow. Stay emotionally consistent, trust your process, and watch your closing ratio soar.

That’s how you build a championship sales career. That’s how you dominate your market. And that’s how you turn emotional intelligence into competitive advantage.

Jeb Blount’s bestselling book Sales EQ: How Ultra High Performers Leverage Sales-Specific Emotional Intelligence to Close the Complex Deal helps guide salespeople through the many hurdles that many struggle with in building authentic relationships with prospects. Download our free Sales EQ Book Club Guide HERE.

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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.”

Her approach is deceptively simple but incredibly powerful:

• Time block your prospecting activities (she does 9 AM to 12 PM daily).
• Set a timer and don’t stop until the time is complete.
• Focus on controlling what you can control—the work itself.
• Trust that results will follow consistent activity.

This eliminates the emotional rollercoaster of good days and bad days. When you focus on process over outcomes, you build the discipline that creates sustainable success.

2. Get a ‘No’ Then Aim for a ‘Yes’

The Problem: Most salespeople chase prospects desperately, making them less attractive.

The Solution: Mike Maples Jr., a Silicon Valley VC and former software entrepreneur, uses a counterintuitive approach to actively trying to disqualify prospects.

The “go for the no” technique works like this:

• Start conversations by suggesting you might not be the right fit
• Use body language that shows you’re willing to walk away
• Make prospects convince you they need your solution
• Qualify out aggressively those who don’t value your advantage

This approach leverages the psychological principle that people want what they can’t have. When you’re not desperate, you become magnetic. 

3. Align Your Entire Organization’s Message

The Problem: Five sales reps with five different value propositions confuse customers and create internal friction. They need to be unified.

The Solution: Lisa Dennis discusses that messaging alignment must extend beyond just the sales team to the entire organization.

Her process includes:

• Involving the whole company in messaging rollouts, not just sales
• Ensuring customer success and support teams understand the same value propositions
• Providing discovery questions and conversation frameworks to salespeople
• Creating organizational congruence from marketing through delivery

When everyone in your organization tells the same story, customers experience consistency at every touchpoint. This builds trust and reduces friction throughout the customer journey.

4. Trust Commands a 30% Premium

The Problem: Salespeople focus on features and benefits while underestimating the value of trust.

The Solution: Yoram Solomon’s research that people will pay an average of 29.6% more to buy from someone they trust versus someone they don’t know (not someone they distrust—just someone neutral).

The trust-building behaviors that matter most:

• Listening instead of pitching
• Showing genuine care for the customer’s situation
• Being attentive and present during conversations
• Making and keeping promises consistently

Trust is worth dollars.

5. Get Your Math Right

The Problem: Most businesses stay stuck in six figures because they’re fundamentally undercharging for their service.

The Solution: David Neagle, who has helped countless entrepreneurs break through seven figures, says the issue is usually mathematical, not motivational.

His tips for confidently pricing right:

• Stop comparing yourself to the average—compare to the top performers
• Charge based on results delivered, not time spent
• Ask yourself: “If they get the same result, why can’t I charge the same price?”
• Actually ask for the sale at your true value

As David puts it: “It’s hard to do $50,000 a month if you’re selling your service for $1,000 a pop.” You can’t hustle your way to seven figures if you’re selling dollars for fifty cents.

The Bottom Line

These insights are practical strategies being used by top performers right now. The difference between successful salespeople and everyone else isn’t talent or luck. It’s implementing systems that work consistently.

Pick one of these strategies and commit to implementing it this week. Maybe it’s time-blocking your prospecting like Cynthia, practicing the takeaway technique like Mike, or finally having that pricing conversation like David suggests.

Remember: people pay more for trust, and the harder you work, the luckier you get. When you’re tired and ready to go home, make one more call.

For more spot-on sales insights, listen to the Sales Gravy Podcast, Ask Jeb, and Money Monday, every week on SalesGravy.com.

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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 on surface-level qualification instead of true deal engagement is one of the most backward approaches to pipeline management I see today, and it’s costing companies millions in missed forecasts.

The Qualification Theater Problem: When Frameworks Become Fantasy

Remember when everyone thought MEDIC and BANT were the holy grail of qualification? Sales leaders everywhere started drilling reps on budgets, authority, need, and timing like they were conducting a police interrogation.

But here’s what actually happens: Reps learn to check the boxes without understanding whether they have a real deal.

They’ll tell you they’ve qualified the budget, but they’re talking to someone who has to “go talk to the boss.” They’ll say there’s urgency and timing, but the prospect is waiting to hire an executive in a completely different department before making a decision.

Traditional qualification frameworks are the opposite of real pipeline inspection. They’re vanity metrics disguised as sales rigor.

Here’s the brutal truth: You can have a deal that checks every qualification box and still have a 2% chance of closing. Meanwhile, a deal that looks “unqualified” on paper might be ready to close tomorrow because the right stakeholders are engaged and moving forward.

Why Most Pipeline Reviews Are Theater, Not Strategy

The reason most sales leaders run terrible pipeline reviews is because it’s easy. It requires zero investment in actual deal coaching, stakeholder analysis, or strategic thinking.

Think about it: It’s much easier to ask, “What’s the budget?” than it is to dig into whether the decision-maker actually sees value in solving this problem.

But here’s what happens when you manage this way: You end up with pipelines full of zombie deals that look good on paper but will never close.

Your reps get comfortable keeping deals in the pipeline because they’ve “qualified” them. Your forecasts become fiction because you’re counting revenue from prospects who aren’t actually buying.

What Actually Matters: The One Question That Reveals Everything

Instead of obsessing over qualification checklists, elite sales leaders focus on the one metric that actually predicts deal success: What’s the next step?

This isn’t just another question—it’s the ultimate deal quality detector. Here’s why:

1. Dead deals have no next steps. When a rep says, “They’re going on vacation, so I’ll call them in a few weeks,” that deal is dead. When they say, “They told me to call back in a month,” that’s not a pipeline deal—that’s a prospect.
2. Real deals have committed next steps. When a rep says, “We’re doing a technical demo with their IT team on Friday, and the CFO specifically asked to see ROI projections by Tuesday,” that’s a deal with momentum.
3. Engaged prospects match your effort. If you’re doing all the work—sending proposals, scheduling calls, following up—while they’re giving you vague responses, you don’t have a deal. You have a prospect who’s being polite.

The Three-Question Pipeline Inspection System

When I’m inspecting pipeline quality, I use a simple three-question framework that reveals everything:

1. What’s the Next Step?

This is the deal-killer question. If there’s no specific, committed next step with a date and stakeholders involved, the deal is stalled or dead. Period.

2. Who Are You Actually Talking To?

In my experience selling sales training, if I’m talking to an influencer instead of the person with the money, the probability of closing is about 2%. The person with the budget doesn’t see training as valuable unless it was their idea.

This applies to every industry. You need to know: Are you talking to someone who can say yes, or someone who can only say no?

3. Are They Matching Your Efforts?

Real buyers show up to demos. They bring their team to meetings. They respond to your emails. They give you the information you need to build proposals.

If you’re doing all the heavy lifting while they’re giving you crickets, you’re not in a sales process—you’re in a procurement process where you’re getting used for free consulting.

The Probability Revolution: Moving Beyond Stage-Based Forecasting

Here’s where most companies completely lose the plot: They forecast based on sales stages instead of actual deal probability.

They say if you’re in discovery, it’s 40% probable. If you’re doing a demo, it’s 60% probable. This is pure fantasy.

Just because you’re 60% of the way through your sales process doesn’t mean there’s a 60% chance the deal will close in this quarter. It might mean you’re 60% of the way to getting rejected.

Real probability is collaborative. After inspecting next steps, stakeholder engagement, and competitive positioning, you sit down with your rep and ask: “Based on everything we know, what’s the real probability this closes in the next 90 days?”

Maybe it’s 80% because all the stakeholders are engaged and there’s a signed agreement on next steps. Maybe it’s 10% because they’re not returning calls and keep pushing meetings.

The key is that it’s based on deal reality, not process stages.

The Pipeline Discipline That Changes Everything

This approach requires one thing most sales leaders aren’t willing to give: actual leadership.

You can’t just look at dashboards and ask surface-level questions. You have to:

1. Run regular pipeline reviews where you dig into deal strategy, not just deal status.
2. Coach on next steps constantly—not just in formal meetings, but in hallway conversations and phone call debriefs.
3. Push deals forward or pull them back based on real engagement, not wishful thinking.
4. Force decisions on dead deals. Sometimes you have to tell your rep: “Take this out of the pipeline. Turn it into a prospect. Come back to it later. But stop using this as an excuse not to go find real deals.”

The Bottom Line: Stop Managing Hope, Start Managing Reality

The best sales organizations don’t manage hope—they manage reality.

They know the difference between a qualified prospect and an engaged buyer. They measure deal momentum, not process completion. They forecast based on stakeholder commitment, not stage progression.

That’s how you build accurate forecasts. That’s how you develop elite sales judgment. And that’s how you stop wasting time on deals that were never going to close in the first place.

Your pipeline isn’t a parking lot for prospects who might buy someday. It’s a commitment engine for deals that are moving toward a close.

Start inspecting what actually matters, and watch your forecast accuracy—and your revenue—transform.

Learn how to ensure that you have enough pipe to make your number with this simple sales pipeline reality check technique in this microbite course: How to Give Your Pipeline a Reality Check.

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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 they win, they’re on top of the world. When they lose, they’re devastated.

But top performers? They think completely differently. They’re not obsessed with any single deal. They’re obsessed with the process that creates consistent results over time.

This mindset shift is the difference between feast-or-famine selling and predictable, sustainable success.

The Downside of Outcome Based Sales Goals

Here’s what happens when you’re obsessed with outcomes instead of process:

Every deal, every month, every quarter becomes life or death. You put all your emotional energy into individual prospects and hitting numbers, which clouds your judgment and makes you act desperate.

You take rejection personally. When someone says no, it’s not just a business decision – it feels like a personal attack on your worth as a salesperson.

You make poor decisions under pressure. When you need a deal to close to hit your number, you start discounting too early, chasing bad prospects, or making promises you can’t keep.

Your performance becomes inconsistent. You have great months followed by terrible months because you’re riding the emotional roller coaster of individual wins and losses.

You burn out faster. The constant emotional highs and lows are exhausting and unsustainable.

Shift to Process Goals

Process goals are different. They focus on the activities and behaviors you can directly control, not the outcomes that depend on factors outside your influence.

Instead of “I need to close three deals this month,” a process goal is “I will make 50 prospecting calls every day.”

Instead of “I have to win the Johnson account,” it’s “I will have four meaningful touch points with stakeholders at Johnson this week.”

Instead of “I need to hit 120% of quota,” it’s “I will follow my proven sales methodology on every single opportunity.”

Process goals put you in control. You can’t control whether a prospect buys, but you can control how many prospects you contact, how well you qualify them, and how consistently you follow your process.

Why Top Performers Love Process Goals

Create predictable results. When you focus on the right activities consistently, the outcomes take care of themselves. It’s like compound interest – small, consistent actions create massive results over time.

Reduce emotional volatility. You’re not devastated by individual losses because you know that if you stick to your process, the wins will come.

Improve decision-making. When you’re not desperate for any particular deal, you make better strategic decisions about where to invest your time and energy.

Build confidence. Every day you hit your process goals, you build momentum and confidence, regardless of whether deals close that day.

Create sustainable habits. Process goals turn success behaviors into automatic habits rather than things you do when you feel motivated.

The Mathematics of Sales Process Goals

Here’s why process goals work: Sales is a numbers game, but most people focus on the wrong numbers.

Average performers focus on:

• How many deals they close
• The size of individual deals
• Their closing percentage on active opportunities

Top performers focus on:

• How many new prospects they contact daily
• How many discovery calls they conduct weekly
• How many proposals they deliver monthly
• How consistently they follow up with existing prospects

The difference is control. You can’t control whether someone buys today, but you can control how many people you talk to today.

Examples of Effective Sales Process Goals

Notice how none of these process goals depend on prospects saying yes. They’re all activities you can control through discipline and effort.

Daily Process Goals:

• Make 30 prospecting calls before 10 AM
• Send 15 personalized LinkedIn messages
• Follow up with 10 existing prospects
• Update CRM for every interaction

Weekly Process Goals:

• Conduct 8 discovery calls
• Deliver 3 proposals or presentations
• Schedule 5 demos or next-step meetings
• Have 2 conversations with existing customers

Monthly Process Goals:

• Add 50 new qualified prospects to pipeline
• Complete needs analysis on 20 opportunities
• Present to 10 decision-making teams
• Ask for referrals from 15 customers

Leveraging the Compound Effect

When you focus on process goals consistently, something magical happens: the compound effect kicks in.

If you make 30 prospecting calls every day, that’s 150 calls per week, 600 per month, 7,200 per year. Even with low conversion rates, that volume creates massive pipeline.

When you follow up consistently with every prospect using a proven sequence, your closing percentage improves dramatically over time.

By asking every customer for referrals using a systematic approach, your prospecting gets easier and more effective.

Process goals create a flywheel effect where each activity makes the next activity more effective.

Yes, Outcomes Still Matter

This doesn’t mean outcomes don’t matter. Of course they do. You still need to hit your quota and close deals.

But here’s the key: When you focus obsessively on the right processes, the outcomes become predictable byproducts rather than uncertain hopes.

Top performers track outcomes to measure the effectiveness of their process, not to determine their self-worth or emotional state.

If outcomes aren’t meeting expectations, they adjust their process, not their emotional investment in individual deals.

Process Goals Create Emotional Freedom

One of the biggest benefits of process goals is the emotional freedom they create.

When your identity and confidence are tied to activities you control rather than outcomes you don’t, rejection stops hurting. “No” becomes another data point that helps you improve your process.

You can walk away from bad deals because you’re not desperate for any individual outcome. Your pipeline is constantly full because you’re always feeding it.

You sleep better at night because you know that if you executed your process well today, you’re moving toward your goals regardless of what happened in any specific conversation.

Playing the Long Game

Process goals require patience and faith. You might make 30 calls today and not close anything. But if you make 30 calls every day for six months, you will close deals.

Average performers want immediate gratification. They want every call to turn into a meeting, every meeting to turn into a proposal, every proposal to turn into a close.

Top performers understand that sales is a long-term game where consistent process execution creates inevitable success.

Your brain will resist process goals because they’re not as emotionally exciting as big outcome goals. Closing a million-dollar deal feels better than making 30 prospecting calls.

But remember: The calls create the deals. The process creates the outcomes. The activities create the results.

Top performers get excited about process goals because they understand that controlling the process is how you control your destiny in sales.

The Bottom Line

The next time you catch yourself getting emotionally invested in whether a particular prospect buys or not, stop and redirect your focus to your process.

Ask yourself: “Did I execute my process perfectly with this prospect? Did I ask the right questions, follow the right methodology, and advance the opportunity appropriately?”

If the answer is yes, then you’ve succeeded regardless of the outcome. If the answer is no, then you have something specific to improve for next time.

Your job isn’t to close every deal. Your job is to execute your process so well and so consistently that closing deals becomes an inevitable byproduct.

As the great Ben Hogan said, focus on the cause and the results will follow. 

And remember, when it’s time to go home, always make one more call. Because that one more call is a process goal you can control, and it might just be the one that changes everything.

What if you could reduce cold calling while increasing your pipeline? What if you could become a lead magnet that compelled more prospects to reach out to you? What if you could leverage AI + LinkedIn to sell more than you’ve ever imagined possible?

Well, “what if” is here in my brand new book: The LinkedIn Edge: New Sales Strategies for Unleashing the Power of LinkedIn + AI to Cold Call Less and Sell More

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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 puts it: “Building relationships takes time and sales, teams need desperately to get off of this short-term win dynamic. The goal is long-term revenue for your company, lifetime value for the end user.” 

Focusing solely on the quick sale burns through pipeline leads faster than you can replace them, leaving you on a perpetual hamster wheel of prospecting just to stay afloat. It’s time to talk about the long game, because building real relationships is where sustainable revenue lives.

Why Churn Is Killing Your Commissions

Let’s talk numbers. According to SimplicityDX, customer acquisition costs have increased by 222% over the last eight years, while customer lifetime value has remained flat. It’s getting harder and more expensive to find new customers, making the ones you have incredibly valuable.

Yet most salespeople treat customers like one-time transactions. They close the deal, celebrate briefly, then immediately move on to the next prospect. This approach is financial suicide.

Customers who feel rushed through the buying process rarely become loyal advocates. When a customer feels pressured into a decision or perceives the sale as purely transactional, their loyalty is paper-thin. They’re constantly looking for better deals, questioning their purchase decision, and jumping ship when problems arise.

When a customer churns, you lose all potential referrals, upsells, and cross-sells they could have generated. You’re back to square one, hunting for new prospects to replace the revenue you just lost, all while acquisition costs keep climbing.

The Trust Equation That Changes Everything

Most salespeople think selling is about convincing, but selling is about connecting.

When you rush a prospect, you’re telling them their decision-making process doesn’t matter. You’re saying your timeline is more important than their comfort level. 

Real relationships are built on trust, and trust takes time. Think about your personal life. Your closest friends aren’t the people who tried to fast-track the process. They’re the ones who showed up consistently, listened without an agenda, and proved their reliability over time.

The same principle applies in sales. The prospects who become your biggest advocates aren’t the ones you pressured into a quick yes. They’re the ones who felt heard, understood, and genuinely cared for throughout the entire process.

The Compound Effect of Relationship Selling

Consider Mary, a software sales rep who was in competition with 2 other software vendors for a deal with a manufacturing company. Mary’s competitors immediately launched into aggressive pitches and discount offers to David, the CFO, hoping to close the deal quickly.

Mary took a different approach. Instead of pitching, she spent two months understanding David’s cash flow challenges and upcoming board presentation needs. She shared relevant case studies, introduced him to a supply chain consultant, and helped him think through his decision criteria. She never once mentioned her software.

When David’s team raised concerns about implementation timelines during their evaluation, Mary’s competitors pushed back, insisting their solution was simple to deploy. Mary listened, then connected David with a similar CFO who had successfully managed a comparable rollout. That conversation addressed David’s real concerns and kept Mary’s solution in contention.

Eight months later, David bought Mary’s $180,000 three-year contract. More importantly, he became her biggest advocate, introducing her to his former colleague, his brother-in-law in logistics, and even bringing her to present at his industry association.

That single relationship has now generated millions in revenue across multiple deals—all because Mary chose to consult rather than convince.

While her competitors chased quick wins, Mary built a referral engine that continues to compound. The consultative approach saved her from losing the deal and created a decade of sustainable revenue.

In sales, the fastest way to lose a deal is to act desperate to win it. When you focus on serving the customer’s needs rather than your own quota, you increase your chances of closing that deal and build the foundation for a referral-driven career.

Your 30-Day Relationship-Building Challenge

Ready to make the shift? Here’s your roadmap:

Week 1: Audit your current pipeline. Identify five prospects you’ve been pushing too hard. Reach out with something valuable, but send it with no pitch attached. Just help them solve a problem.

Week 2: Research 10 prospects you want to target. Find three meaningful insights about each company. Reach out with personalized messages that reference these insights.

Week 3: Set up “no-ask” meetings with existing prospects. Your only agenda is understanding their business better. Come prepared with thoughtful questions, not sales materials.

Week 4: Create a follow-up system for staying in touch with prospects who aren’t ready to buy. Send monthly check-ins with industry insights, relevant articles, or useful introductions.

The Bottom Line

In a world where everyone is trying to close faster, your competitive advantage lies in slowing down. While your competitors are burning through leads with aggressive tactics, you’ll be building a sustainable pipeline of high-value, long-term relationships.

Your prospects remember the rep who listened. Who showed up with solutions, not pitches. Who cared about their success, not commission checks.

Be the rep who gets the referrals, the repeat business, and the career everyone envies.

Tap into the secrets of becoming a client’s trusted advisor with this Sales Gravy University course.

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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 Robots Try to Sell It’s Not Authentic

Remember when email prospecting worked? When a well-crafted subject line could get you a meeting, and personalization meant more than just mail-merging someone’s first name?

Those days are over, and AI killed them in about nine months.

Here’s what happened: Marketing departments discovered they could use AI to blast out thousands of “personalized” emails that sounded human but weren’t. They could fake voicemails using voice cloning technology. They could create sales sequences that felt authentic but were completely artificial.

The result? Complete market saturation with fake outreach that destroyed trust across every communication channel.

Humans Have a BS Detector for Fakeness

Here’s what these AI-obsessed companies don’t understand: People have an incredibly sophisticated BS detector. We can sense inauthenticity from a mile away, even when the technology is nearly perfect.

When you receive an email that sounds too polished, too perfect, or follows a pattern you’ve seen before, your brain immediately flags it as fake. When you hear a voicemail that sounds just slightly off—even if you can’t pinpoint why—you delete it.

But here’s the real killer: Once people realize you were too lazy to write your own email or leave your own voicemail, they lose all respect for you. They think, “If this salesperson can’t be bothered to put in the effort to reach out to me personally, then why would I want to do business with them?”

The One Thing AI Can Never Do

This is where the magic happens, and it’s where your competitive edge lies.

AI can write emails. It can analyze data. It can even fake phone calls (poorly). But it cannot engage in real-time, empathetic, synchronous conversation with another human being.

It can’t read micro-expressions during a video call. It can’t pick up on the subtle hesitation in someone’s voice that signals an unspoken objection. It can’t pivot in real-time when the conversation takes an unexpected turn.

Most importantly, it can’t build the kind of authentic human connection that makes people want to buy from you instead of your competitor.

The AI + Human Intelligence Formula

Smart salespeople aren’t running from AI—they’re running toward it—but they’re using it as a tool to make themselves better, faster, and stronger, not as a replacement for actual selling skills.

Here’s where AI excels in sales:

1. Research and Preparation: AI can analyze a prospect’s 10-K filing, research their competitors, and create discovery questions in minutes instead of hours. It can build detailed company profiles and identify potential pain points before you ever pick up the phone.
2. Data Organization and Analysis: That timeline your manager needs for a customer service issue? AI can pull data from your CRM, email, and support tickets to create a comprehensive summary in seconds instead of the hours it would take you to compile it manually.
3. Writing Enhancement: Most salespeople aren’t great writers. Don’t shoot the messenger. AI can help you craft better emails, proposals, and follow-up messages, but only if you edit them, personalize them, and make them authentically yours.
4. The Holy Grail: Intelligent Prospecting Lists: The biggest opportunity is using AI to build high-quality prospecting lists.

Imagine walking into the office and having AI present you with a list of prospects who are in a buying window. They’re not random companies that fit your ICP, but organizations where multiple signals indicate they’re ready to buy what you’re selling.

AI can analyze intent data, website traffic, job postings, financial reports, and social media activity to identify these opportunities. It can cross-reference all this disparate information and say, “Here are the 20 people you need to call today, because they have the highest probability of converting to pipeline.”

The Art of Sales Conversation Matters

When AI handles the research, data analysis, and list building, you’re free to focus on having meaningful conversations that create value and build relationships.

This means mastering:

• Discovery skills that uncover real business problems
• Listening techniques that make prospects feel heard and understood
• Questioning frameworks that advance the sales process
• Objection handling that addresses concerns without being pushy
• Closing skills that create urgency and commitment

These are the skills that will separate top performers from everyone else in an AI-dominated world.

Embrace AI Without Losing Your Soul If you’re a sales leader:

• Stop buying into the “AI will replace salespeople” hype from software vendors trying to sell you their latest bot.
• Invest in AI tools that enhance your team’s capabilities rather than replace their human interactions.
• Focus on training your reps to have better conversations, not just more conversations.
• Use AI for research and organization, but never for actual prospect outreach.

If you’re a salesperson:

• Learn to use AI as your research assistant and writing coach, not your replacement.
• Never let AI write emails or make calls on your behalf. People will know, and they’ll hate it.
• Double down on developing your conversation skills, empathy, and relationship-building abilities.
• Remember the Golden Rule: Never trust, always verify. AI will lie to you, so double check everything.

The Bottom Line

In a world where everything can be faked, the only thing that’s real is authentic human conversation. It’s your competitive edge, your job security, and how you win in the age of AI.

The future belongs to salespeople who can leverage artificial intelligence to become more effective while never losing the human touch that makes people want to buy from them.

That’s how you build relationships that last. That’s how you create value that can’t be commoditized. And that’s how you ensure AI works for you instead of against you.

Want to learn more about how AI can lift you over your competition? Read Jeb Blount’s The AI Edge for more tools and tips.

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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 school. One day though, my Dad, who had been watching me, said, “Why don’t we just go play real golf?”

My dad didn’t know anything about golf. He didn’t grow up playing. But we went down to Walmart, bought some cheap golf clubs, and started chasing little white balls. 

We played at a legendary course in Augusta called The Patch—a municipal course with hard dirt fairways and patchy greens but a super fun place to learn the game. Our game was terrible, and we never practiced or took a lesson. But I loved going out with my dad to the course, and we had fun!

In high school, I started playing on the golf team. That might have been a turning point for my game if we’d had a real coach, but instead we had a math teacher who did not play golf assigned to babysit us. So, we were on our own, but we had fun. Those years playing on my high school golf team were a blast!

In college, I continued to play golf for recreation—usually with my fraternity brothers. Golf was about going out, telling jokes, and drinking a lot of beer. I have so many fun memories from those days.  

The Myth of Natural Talent Stole My Joy

After getting out of college, I continued to play—mostly in business situations—and that’s when golf stopped being fun. I would golf with clients and peers who were so much better than me. It didn’t make sense that they could hit the ball so well and I could not. 

I would go out to the range and practice until my arms hurt, but I never got any better. It never occurred to me to take a lesson. 

By my mid-30s I was so frustrated with golf that I started to believe something that would haunt me for the next 20 years: I convinced myself that people who could play golf well were just naturally gifted. And because I wasn’t naturally gifted, I would never be good at golf.

So I quit.

For two decades, I didn’t pick up a golf club.

A Massive Mindset Shift Leads to a Comeback

If you have read my books and listened to my podcasts you know that I’m a big horse person. I’ve been involved in equestrian sports since I was a kid. I’ve had formal coaching and training with horses. On horseback, I thought I was naturally gifted. I believed it was something that God had imbued in me. So I forgot about golf and poured my time and energy into horses.

Eventually, though, my son got older and started playing golf. And being an equestrian at my age became more and more dangerous. A bad day on a horse means you’re in the hospital in traction. A bad day on the golf course means you go to soothe your wounds with a cold beer in the clubhouse.

So I picked up the sticks again.

But this time, I sought out a golf coach. A pro who could help me learn how to play the game. 

Starting over has been hard. It is difficult to learn new skills. But with lessons, I’ve gotten better. In fact, last week I shot my lowest score ever.

Over the past two years of working on my golf game, I’ve come to realize how much the story that I kept telling myself about not being naturally talented hurt me and how much it stole from my life. That story cost me 20 years of enjoyment of a game I loved.

The difference between my success with horses and my failure with golf wasn’t natural talent. It was coaching and instruction. 

The Power of an Open vs Closed Mindset

Once you stop believing that you have to be naturally gifted in order to do anything well, you open your mind to new possibilities and amazing things happen for you. 

For example, a couple of weeks ago, my good friend Mike Weinberg sent me a book called Putting Out of Your Mind. I read it and started putting those lessons into practice on the green.

Over the next round that I played, I took 10 putts off my game. Ten putts! Just from the lessons I learned in that book.

I’ve gotten better because I have a different mindset. I changed the way I look at the game because I changed the way I look at myself. Rather than believing I’m not naturally gifted, I started to believe that through coaching, reading, training, learning, and focus, I could get better. And I have. 

Sales Professionals are Made, Not Born

The irony of all of this is that I’m a sales trainer and coach who for years has said emphatically that salespeople are not born, they are made. 

I’ve written 17 books on the subject including my latest book The LinkedIn Edge. People who read my books, attend Sales Gravy training, and put the techniques they learn into practice get better and sell more.  

Yet it’s not uncommon for me to be working with leaders who hire a young rep, stick them in the field or put them on the phones, and then when this inexperienced rep somehow doesn’t display natural intuition or natural ability to sell, they begin doubting whether this person is a good fit for their team.

When I sit down with these leaders, I ask them: “How would the rep know what they’re doing wrong if you never taught them how to do it right? How are they going to change what they cannot see if you don’t provide any coaching or feedback?”

Just yesterday, as an illustration, I was out at the range working on my swing. The PGA professional I take lessons from stopped by where I was hitting. He gave me one small tip about where my club face was on the swing plane, and I immediately started hitting better. 

That had nothing to do with natural ability and everything to do with someone teaching me technique. I couldn’t see what I was doing wrong. But with a coach holding a mirror up to my swing, I could. 

Breaking the Myth of Natural Sales Talent

Here’s the truth: There is no such thing as natural sales talent. 

What we call “natural talent” is usually just someone who had good coaching, learned the right techniques, or developed good habits through trial and error. But none of it is innate. None of it is genetic. None of it is a gift from above.

Earlier in my sales career, I had great training and a coach who invested in me. I read every sales book I could get my hands on and listened to sales training programs in my car. I ran the sales process and leveraged the techniques I was taught. That’s how I became the top sales rep in my company and was always at the top of the leader board. It had nothing to do with natural talent. 

If you are a leader who believes that somehow people are naturally gifted to sell, then you’re always going to have lower-performing salespeople because you will not invest in training and coaching them. 

Should you believe this as a salesperson, you’re never going to focus on making yourself better because why do so when you think you don’t have natural sales talent.

But the truth is, you can learn how to sell. Everybody can.

You can learn the skills and exactly how to run the sales process. If you come to a Fanatical Prospecting Bootcamp with me, I can teach you how to make a cold call that will get you results – how to ask better questions, overcome objections, present, close and negotiate. 

Being great at sales has nothing to do with “natural sales talent,” whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, or whether you have “the gift of gab.” It has everything to do with mastering techniques and process.

The Learnable Components of Sales Success

Just like golf, sales success comes down to several learnable components:

Fundamentals: In golf, it’s your grip, stance, swing mechanics, and course management. In sales, it’s your prospecting discipline, discovery and communication skills, closing techniques and sales strategy. 

Mental Game: In golf, it’s focus, staying calm under pressure. In sales, it’s managing rejection, maintaining confidence, and staying true to the process.

Practice: In golf, it’s hours on the range and playing rounds. In sales, it’s role-playing, getting reps on sales calls, and continuously honing your skills.

Coaching: In golf, it’s working with a pro who can see what you can’t see. In sales, it’s having mentors, managers, and trainers who can guide your development.

Continuous Learning: In golf, it’s studying the game, reading books, and learning from better players. In sales, it’s consuming sales content, attending training, and learning from top performers.

None of these components require natural sales talent. They all require commitment, practice, and the right instruction.

You Don’t Have to Be Naturally Talented to Pursue Your Goals

The belief in natural talent is not just wrong. It holds people from reaching their potential, pursuing their goals, and doing things that give them joy. 

You don’t have to be naturally gifted to be great at sales. Rather, you need to be willing to learn, practice, and get better every day.

Looking back now, having re-discovered my love for golf and that I can actually improve, I have deep regret for all those years I could have been playing a game that brings me so much joy because I believed I didn’t have the natural talent.

Don’t let the same thing happen to you. Do not allow limiting beliefs prevent you from achieving the success you’re capable of or waste years believing you’re not cut out for golf, sales or anything else in life when all you really need is proper coaching and training.

If you are finally ready to break through and get better Sales Gravy has a plan for you. Start learning new skills on Sales Gravy University or working one to one with a master 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 school. One day though, my Dad, who had been watching me, said, “Why don’t we just go play real golf?”

My dad didn’t know anything about golf. He didn’t grow up playing. But we went down to Walmart, bought some cheap golf clubs, and started chasing little white balls. 

We played at a legendary course in Augusta called The Patch—a municipal course with hard dirt fairways and patchy greens but a super fun place to learn the game. Our game was terrible, and we never practiced or took a lesson. But I loved going out with my dad to the course, and we had fun!

In high school, I started playing on the golf team. That might have been a turning point for my game if we’d had a real coach, but instead we had a math teacher who did not play golf assigned to babysit us. So, we were on our own, but we had fun. Those years playing on my high school golf team were a blast!

In college, I continued to play golf for recreation—usually with my fraternity brothers. Golf was about going out, telling jokes, and drinking a lot of beer. I have so many fun memories from those days.  

The Myth of Natural Talent Stole My Joy

After getting out of college, I continued to play—mostly in business situations—and that’s when golf stopped being fun. I would golf with clients and peers who were so much better than me. It didn’t make sense that they could hit the ball so well and I could not. 

I would go out to the range and practice until my arms hurt, but I never got any better. It never occurred to me to take a lesson. 

By my mid-30s I was so frustrated with golf that I started to believe something that would haunt me for the next 20 years: I convinced myself that people who could play golf well were just naturally gifted. And because I wasn’t naturally gifted, I would never be good at golf.

So I quit.

For two decades, I didn’t pick up a golf club.

A Massive Mindset Shift Leads to a Comeback

If you have read my books and listened to my podcasts you know that I’m a big horse person. I’ve been involved in equestrian sports since I was a kid. I’ve had formal coaching and training with horses. On horseback, I thought I was naturally gifted. I believed it was something that God had imbued in me. So I forgot about golf and poured my time and energy into horses.

Eventually, though, my son got older and started playing golf. And being an equestrian at my age became more and more dangerous. A bad day on a horse means you’re in the hospital in traction. A bad day on the golf course means you go to soothe your wounds with a cold beer in the clubhouse.

So I picked up the sticks again.

But this time, I sought out a golf coach. A pro who could help me learn how to play the game. 

Starting over has been hard. It is difficult to learn new skills. But with lessons, I’ve gotten better. In fact, last week I shot my lowest score ever.

Over the past two years of working on my golf game, I’ve come to realize how much the story that I kept telling myself about not being naturally talented hurt me and how much it stole from my life. That story cost me 20 years of enjoyment of a game I loved.

The difference between my success with horses and my failure with golf wasn’t natural talent. It was coaching and instruction. 

The Power of an Open vs Closed Mindset

Once you stop believing that you have to be naturally gifted in order to do anything well, you open your mind to new possibilities and amazing things happen for you. 

For example, a couple of weeks ago, my good friend Mike Weinberg sent me a book called Putting Out of Your Mind. I read it and started putting those lessons into practice on the green.

Over the next round that I played, I took 10 putts off my game. Ten putts! Just from the lessons I learned in that book.

I’ve gotten better because I have a different mindset. I changed the way I look at the game because I changed the way I look at myself. Rather than believing I’m not naturally gifted, I started to believe that through coaching, reading, training, learning, and focus, I could get better. And I have. 

Sales Professionals are Made, Not Born

The irony of all of this is that I’m a sales trainer and coach who for years has said emphatically that salespeople are not born, they are made. 

I’ve written 17 books on the subject including my latest book The LinkedIn Edge. People who read my books, attend Sales Gravy training, and put the techniques they learn into practice get better and sell more.  

Yet it’s not uncommon for me to be working with leaders who hire a young rep, stick them in the field or put them on the phones, and then when this inexperienced rep somehow doesn’t display natural intuition or natural ability to sell, they begin doubting whether this person is a good fit for their team.

When I sit down with these leaders, I ask them: “How would the rep know what they’re doing wrong if you never taught them how to do it right? How are they going to change what they cannot see if you don’t provide any coaching or feedback?”

Just yesterday, as an illustration, I was out at the range working on my swing. The PGA professional I take lessons from stopped by where I was hitting. He gave me one small tip about where my club face was on the swing plane, and I immediately started hitting better. 

That had nothing to do with natural ability and everything to do with someone teaching me technique. I couldn’t see what I was doing wrong. But with a coach holding a mirror up to my swing, I could. 

Breaking the Myth of Natural Sales Talent

Here’s the truth: There is no such thing as natural sales talent. 

What we call “natural talent” is usually just someone who had good coaching, learned the right techniques, or developed good habits through trial and error. But none of it is innate. None of it is genetic. None of it is a gift from above.

Earlier in my sales career, I had great training and a coach who invested in me. I read every sales book I could get my hands on and listened to sales training programs in my car. I ran the sales process and leveraged the techniques I was taught. That’s how I became the top sales rep in my company and was always at the top of the leader board. It had nothing to do with natural talent. 

If you are a leader who believes that somehow people are naturally gifted to sell, then you’re always going to have lower-performing salespeople because you will not invest in training and coaching them. 

Should you believe this as a salesperson, you’re never going to focus on making yourself better because why do so when you think you don’t have natural sales talent.

But the truth is, you can learn how to sell. Everybody can.

You can learn the skills and exactly how to run the sales process. If you come to a Fanatical Prospecting Bootcamp with me, I can teach you how to make a cold call that will get you results – how to ask better questions, overcome objections, present, close and negotiate. 

Being great at sales has nothing to do with “natural sales talent,” whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, or whether you have “the gift of gab.” It has everything to do with mastering techniques and process.

The Learnable Components of Sales Success

Just like golf, sales success comes down to several learnable components:

Fundamentals: In golf, it’s your grip, stance, swing mechanics, and course management. In sales, it’s your prospecting discipline, discovery and communication skills, closing techniques and sales strategy. 

Mental Game: In golf, it’s focus, staying calm under pressure. In sales, it’s managing rejection, maintaining confidence, and staying true to the process.

Practice: In golf, it’s hours on the range and playing rounds. In sales, it’s role-playing, getting reps on sales calls, and continuously honing your skills.

Coaching: In golf, it’s working with a pro who can see what you can’t see. In sales, it’s having mentors, managers, and trainers who can guide your development.

Continuous Learning: In golf, it’s studying the game, reading books, and learning from better players. In sales, it’s consuming sales content, attending training, and learning from top performers.

None of these components require natural sales talent. They all require commitment, practice, and the right instruction.

You Don’t Have to Be Naturally Talented to Pursue Your Goals

The belief in natural talent is not just wrong. It holds people from reaching their potential, pursuing their goals, and doing things that give them joy. 

You don’t have to be naturally gifted to be great at sales. Rather, you need to be willing to learn, practice, and get better every day.

Looking back now, having re-discovered my love for golf and that I can actually improve, I have deep regret for all those years I could have been playing a game that brings me so much joy because I believed I didn’t have the natural talent.

Don’t let the same thing happen to you. Do not allow limiting beliefs prevent you from achieving the success you’re capable of or waste years believing you’re not cut out for golf, sales or anything else in life when all you really need is proper coaching and training.

If you are finally ready to break through and get better, Sales Gravy has a plan for you. Start learning new skills on Sales Gravy University or working one to one with a master Sales Gravy Coach.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

“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 words: “I don’t think I could ever do that.” His response was four words that initially sounded absurd.

 “Then don’t be you.”

When Richard Fenton, co-author of “Go for No!,” first heard this concept, he had two immediate reactions: “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” followed quickly by “That’s the most profound thing I’ve ever heard.”

Think about it. When someone says they can’t speak in front of a thousand people, what’s the typical advice? “Just be natural. Just be yourself.” But if they’re someone who freezes up in front of crowds, why would they want to be that person in that moment?

Although you can’t magically become a new person, you do have the power to choose which aspect of yourself shows up in any given situation.

The Alter Ego Advantage of Top Performers

Elite athletes and performers often adopt different personas to enhance their performance.

When the game was on the line, Kobe Bryant would mentally shift into his Black Mamba persona, accessing a level of confidence and killer instinct that separated him from other players. 

“The Black Mamba is something I created to get through the lowest points,” Bryant explained. “It’s a mindset, a way of approaching challenges.”

Beyoncé morphs into “Sasha Fierce” on stage—a fearless, magnetic performer—but off stage, Beyoncé describes herself as naturally shy and introverted.

Strategic identity shifting is the ability to step into a role that’s equipped for the task at hand. 

Your 3-Step Transformation Process

Ready to make it happen? Here’s your simple framework:

1. Identify Your Limitation

What specific sales activity makes you feel uncomfortable or incapable? Be precise. Instead of “I’m bad at sales,” identify exactly when you struggle: “I freeze up when asking for referrals from satisfied customers.”

1. Design Your Persona

Who would you need to be to excel in that situation? Create a specific identity, such as The Referral Request Professional, who understands that satisfied customers want to help others access the same value they received.

1. Make the Switch

Before entering a sales situation that makes you nervous, consciously transition into your character. Use mental preparation (visualizing success), physical cues (changing your posture, adjusting your voice), or even simple props (a specific piece of clothing or accessory).

Creating Sales Identities That Perform

The beauty of the “don’t be you” approach is that you’re not manufacturing a fake personality. You’re accessing different facets of who you already are or who you can become. 

Here are some examples of identities to cultivate in sales:

The Cold Calling Champion

When you need to make prospecting calls, don’t be the version of you who worries about interrupting people or who fears rejection. Instead, become the professional who understands that you’re offering solutions to real problems. Lead with confident conviction—like you’re doing them a favor by calling. Channel the mindset of a sales rep who is genuinely excited about helping prospects discover opportunities they didn’t know existed.

Before each calling session, take just two minutes. Visualize this persona. How do they talk? What’s their vibe? How do they sit? Then step into that identity.

The Confident Closer

When it’s time to close the deal, don’t get stuck in the part of you that feels pushy or uncomfortable with money conversations. Become the trusted advisor who recognizes that not asking for commitment is failing your prospect. This persona understands closing is the natural conclusion of a value-driven conversation.

Next time you go to close, adopt the stance of someone who never apologizes for requesting a decision.

The Networking Navigator

At industry events or sales conferences, don’t be the version of you who feels intimidated by successful executives or worried about seeming too eager. Transform into the business professional who understands that networking is about mutual value creation, not self-promotion.

Adopt a persona who approaches high-level contacts with genuine curiosity about their challenges and an authentic interest in how you might collaborate or assist them.

The Science Behind the Shift

When you consciously adopt a different persona, you’re permitting yourself to act outside your typical behavioral patterns. 

This phenomenon works because your brain doesn’t distinguish between “real” confidence and “performed” confidence in the moment. When you act confidently, your nervous system responds as if you are actually confident, helping you navigate difficult moments.

Adopting an alter ego is a practice backed by research. Columbia Business School studies suggest that people who adopt professional personas report higher confidence levels and better performance outcomes in challenging situations.

The Compound Effect of Not Being You

Each successful interaction while in your sales persona creates a feedback loop of confidence. When you close a deal you thought was out of reach or handle an objection with unexpected finesse, your brain files away these experiences as evidence of your capabilities. 

The impostor syndrome that once whispered “you’re not cut out for this” gets quieter with every win.

Over time, the gap between your “regular” self and your “performance” self narrows. The behaviors, thought patterns, and confidence levels that once felt like acting become easier to access. 

Be the Sales Rep You Need to Be

The next time you catch yourself saying “I can’t do that,” remember Steve Chandler’s four-word revolution: “Then don’t be you.”

The most successful salespeople refuse to let their insecurities drive them. They step into whoever they need to be, make the call, close the deal, and prove that their current limitations don’t define their future possibilities.

The world doesn’t need another hesitant sales rep. It needs the best version of you. That confident sales professional already exists inside you. It’s time to transform.

Find more ways to improve your sales process and crush your quota at Sales Gravy University.

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If you’ve only sold sexy products with cool demos and unique features, you’re probably missing the fundamentals that separate good salespeople from great ones.

Marcus Chan, CEO of Venli Consulting and recent guest on the Sales Gravy podcast, learned to sell in the trenches of commoditized selling: uniforms, facility services, telecom. Industries where you’re locked in multi-year contract cycles, competing against five other vendors who offer the exact same thing, and selling at two to three times the market price.

“In order to get really, really good at selling in the commoditized market, where price seems to be the only factor… you have to learn how to get really good at the sales process,” Chan explains. “You have to be able to take someone who has what I call a latent pain—pain they don’t realize—get them to active and create urgency to move.”

No flash. No sizzle. Just selling.

And that’s exactly why it works.

The First-to-Market Delusion

Chan was talking with a client recently. They’ve closed $5 million in revenue in 12 months. Apple, Fortune 500 companies, massive wins. They’re first to market in a brand new category. Zero competitors.

Their sales team is flying high.

“That’s fantastic,” he told them. “Now what’s your plan for when competitors show up in three years?”

Silence.

Here’s what happens: you get drunk on the product. You don’t have to build real sales skills because the product does the heavy lifting. Then the market matures. Competitors launch. Your “unique” features become nothing new.

Most teams operate under the belief that they’re different. They talk about their proprietary technology, their best-in-class service, and their innovative approach. Meanwhile, buyers are looking at five vendors saying the exact same things.

This isn’t just true for uniforms and telecom. It’s true for SaaS, consulting, financial services. Any market that’s been around longer than 18 months gets commoditized fast.

The question isn’t whether you’re in a commoditized market. The question is whether you know how to sell when you are.

What Commoditized Selling Actually Teaches You

When Chan was selling uniforms at three times the competitor’s price to buyers locked into five-year contracts with other vendors, he had nothing to lean on except process.

He couldn’t say, “Look at this cool new feature.” The uniforms were uniforms. Same fabric. Same colors. Same everything.

He had to learn three skills most salespeople never develop:

1. Moving buyers from latent pain to active pain. Most buyers don’t think they have a problem. They’re comfortable. They’re “fine” with their current vendor. Your job is to help them realize what they’re losing by staying put, and make it real enough that they care.
2. Creating urgency when the status quo is locked in. When a buyer is in year three of a five-year contract, there’s zero natural urgency. You have to create it. You have to make the pain of waiting worse than the pain of switching.
3. Navigating complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles without a product demo to fall back on. You need the operations manager, the finance team, and the C-suite to all agree that switching vendors is worth the headache. And you need to do it without any bells and whistles to distract them from the hard questions.

The Hidden Advantage Nobody Talks About

Mastering commoditized selling makes everything else easier.

Learn to sell uniforms at a premium price, and differentiated products become simple. The hard skills transfer—objection handling, stakeholder navigation, urgency creation.

But the real value is that your process becomes your product.

In commoditized markets, you compete on how you sell. Your discovery process. Your ability to diagnose the real problem. Your consultative approach. The way you make the buyer feel heard and understood.

That’s what buyers remember and what separates you from the five other vendors in their inbox.

Stop Hiding Behind Your Product

Chan sees it all the time with sales teams from “sexy” industries. They lead with features because they can. They lean on their demo because it works. They let the product do the selling.

Until it doesn’t.

Because eventually, every market commoditizes. Your competitor launches the same feature. Buyers stop caring about your “innovative solution” and start asking about price.

The salespeople who win in commoditized markets win because of process, not product. They’ve mastered diagnosis, urgency, and navigating complexity when there’s nothing shiny to distract the buyer.

A Commoditized Market Is the Best Sales Training Ground

If you’re selling in a commoditized market right now, congratulations. You’re getting an education most salespeople never get—how to compete when you’re “just another vendor,” how to create value when the product doesn’t, how to win on process instead of features.

Sell commodities at premium prices to buyers locked into competitor contracts, and you can sell anything. Master the fundamentals where there are no shortcuts, and those fundamentals become automatic.

Move to a market with actual differentiation, and you don’t just have a good product—you have a good product and the skills to sell it.

Winning in Commoditized Selling

The best training ground for sales isn’t the hottest SaaS company or the coolest startup. It’s the “boring,” commoditized industries where the product doesn’t do the work for you. Where you have to diagnose the problem, create urgency, and navigate complexity without flash to hide behind.

The skills you build when nothing else can save you? Those are the skills that make you unstoppable everywhere else.

—

If you want to sharpen the fundamentals that win in any market, start with prospecting. Download the free Seven Steps Prospecting Sequence Guide and build a process that creates urgency and fills your pipeline on purpose.

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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 it’s time we had an honest conversation about what actually drives predictable revenue.

The Pipeline Myth That’s Killing Your Forecast

Most sales teams are drowning in fake pipeline, and it’s destroying their ability to forecast accurately. Leadership teams, especially in tech companies, consistently miss their numbers quarter after quarter because they’re obsessed with one question: “How much pipeline do we have?”

The real question should be: “How clean is our pipeline?”

Would you rather have 11X pipeline filled with lottery tickets, or 2X pipeline packed with qualified buyers? The answer should be obvious, but somehow we keep chasing vanity metrics instead of focusing on what converts.

Here’s the brutal truth: All pipeline opportunities are not equal.

Two Approaches to Pipeline Creation

There are two ways to approach pipeline creation, and only one of them actually works consistently.

Approach #1: Maximum Daily Prospecting (The Proven Method)

Don’t worry about how big your pipeline is. Worry about how much prospecting you’re doing, and run on a daily cadence of prospecting that maxes out the time you can spend every single day.

Prospect every day, every day, every day.

I have a block of time every morning for prospecting. Then I’m prospecting during any gap during the day. If there’s time between meetings, I’m doing outreach. Every single day I’m prospecting to the very max that I have time to prospect.

When you do this, you don’t have to worry about pipeline size because it takes care of itself. You never get on the desperation roller coaster because you never stop feeding the machine.

Approach #2: Pipeline Multiplier Obsession (The Broken Method)

This is where leadership teams fixate on having “5X pipeline” or “11X pipeline” because they think more is better. The problem? As soon as reps think they have “enough” pipeline, they quit prospecting. Then reality hits when half those opportunities were pipe dreams.

The Science of Pipeline: The Law of Replacement

If you want to look at pipeline like science rather than hope, you need to understand the Law of Replacement: You need to replace opportunities in your pipeline at a rate that is equal to or greater than your closing ratio.

Let me give you a real example of how this works. In a previous role, I had my numbers dialed in perfectly:

• I knew I needed 10 first-time appointments every week
• About 50% would move to follow-up appointments (5 deals)
• I’d close about 20% of those follow-ups (1 deal per week)
• It took me about 20 prospecting touches to generate 2 first-time appointments

Working backwards from one closed deal per week, I knew exactly what I needed to produce in terms of prospecting activity and first-time appointments to feed my pipeline consistently.

If I didn’t replace the deals that fell out every single week, I’d eventually end up with nothing.

What Makes a Real Pipeline Opportunity

Here’s where most organizations get it completely wrong. They’re stuffing their CRM with anything that moves and calling it “pipeline.”

A real pipeline opportunity requires a conversation. It’s not a form fill or a marketing lead or something someone else talked to and dumped in your CRM. You need to have qualified it yourself and made a decision that it belongs in your pipeline.

At Sales Gravy, we generate more than a thousand leads per month. Most of those don’t go directly into the pipe because nobody had a conversation with them. They go to the sales team for vetting and qualifying first.

The only leads that go straight into the pipeline are our “hot” leads. People who come in saying, “I have 30 salespeople and I need Fanatical Prospecting training right now.” Those people have pre-qualified themselves, and we close about 90% of them.

The Win Rate Reality Check

If you’re running win rates against junk that marketing stuffed into your pipeline, those numbers are meaningless. Your win rate should be calculated against deals you sent written offers to buy.

Here’s how I define a real win rate: Number of deals closed divided by number of proposals given.

Until you give someone a proposal, you haven’t asked them to buy. Everything before that is just conversation.

How to Build Predictable Pipeline

When you’re ready to get scientific about your pipeline, here’s the formula:

1. Define Your Time Period

Look at your pipeline on a 60-90 day rolling period, depending on your sales cycle. Don’t try to forecast a year out if your deals close in 60 days.

2. Assign Real Revenue Numbers

Every opportunity needs an accurate revenue number. Don’t inflate deals to hit your multiplier target—that’s just lying to yourself.

3. Calculate Probability by Deal, Not by Stage

Your CRM stages are fiction. A deal in “discovery” isn’t automatically 50% likely to close. Look at the evidence for each individual deal and assign probability based on what you actually know about their buying process, budget, and timeline.

4. Do the Math

Take your pipeline revenue and multiply by the probability of each deal closing. That’s your real forecast for the period.

Get disciplined about this process, and you’ll find you can predict your results with scary accuracy.

The Daily Discipline That Changes Everything

Here’s what separates elite performers like Maryellen from everyone else: They maximize their prospecting time every single day, regardless of how their pipeline looks.

When you hit 134% of quota, nobody cares what your pipeline multiplier was. They care about results.

The most effective approach is simple:

• Block time every morning for prospecting.
• Fill gaps throughout the day with outreach.
• Follow your proven process religiously.
• Never stop feeding the machine.

Stop Playing Pipeline Games

Most sales teams are playing games with their pipeline instead of focusing on what actually matters. They’re:

• Stuffing CRMs with unqualified leads to hit multiplier targets
• Chasing deals that were never real opportunities
• “Checking in” on pipe dreams instead of prospecting for new business
• Missing forecasts because their pipeline was built on hope, not evidence

Your Action Plan

If you’re a sales rep:

1. Maximize daily prospecting time regardless of current pipeline size.
2. Know your real closing ratios based on actual proposals, not marketing leads.
3. Be ruthless about qualification before putting deals in your pipeline.
4. Track what matters: first-time appointments, conversion rates, and revenue per proposal.

If you’re a sales leader:

1. Stop obsessing over pipeline multipliers and start focusing on pipeline quality.
2. Don’t let marketing stuff your CRM with unqualified leads that skew your metrics.
3. Coach reps on qualification standards rather than just demanding more pipeline.
4. Measure probability by deal evidence, not by arbitrary stage percentages.

The Bottom Line

Pipeline multipliers are vanity metrics that create false confidence and poor forecasting. Clean pipeline built through daily prospecting discipline and rigorous qualification creates predictable revenue.

The Law of Replacement isn’t just a concept—it’s your lifeline. Master it, and you’ll never worry about pipeline size again. Ignore it, and you’ll ride the desperation roller coaster every quarter.

Your commission check doesn’t care about your pipeline multiplier. It only cares about one thing: Did you close the deal or didn’t you?

The next time someone asks about your pipeline, don’t tell them how big it is. Tell them how clean it is. Because clean pipelines close deals, and dirty pipelines just create false hope.

Learn the keys to developing a Fanatical Prospecting Mindset in Jeb Blount’s course: Fanatical Prospecting Essentials

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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 weren’t going to close the deal. But you kept working on it anyway. You rode that puppy to the ocean floor like the Titanic that it was.

If you’ve done this, and I know you have, take heart because we’ve all been there. We’ve all had these situations, and we’ve later regretted them. 

Top Sales Pros are Quick to Walk Away From Bad Deals 

One of the traits of Ultra-High Performers that has always been true is that they’re very quick to walk away from a deal they can’t close—a deal where they’ve concluded that the probability of winning is so low it doesn’t meet their threshold.

The reason Ultra-High Performers walk away from deals like this is simple: They know that the greatest waste of their time is investing it with the wrong prospect. The time they invest in a prospect that’s not going to close is money down the drain, because it’s time they can’t focus on a deal that will close.

But average salespeople? They hang on—hoping against hope that somehow, miraculously, things will turn around.

In sales, awareness matters. You must always know where the exit is.

There are two primary reasons why salespeople work on deals that are never going to close. Understanding these reasons is the first step to avoiding the trap.

Reason #1: The Failure to Qualify Properly

Too often, qualifying is treated like a one-and-done activity. We qualify the opportunity against our ICP. We qualify the numbers, budget, timing, urgency, and whether we’re talking to a decision-maker with buying authority. 

These are all quantifiable metrics that we can measure and check off our list. 

But Ultra-High Performers take qualifying to the next level. Rather than making it a quick process, they understand that qualifying is never done. It’s an ongoing process of awareness that keeps you tethered to reality in every deal.

And their top qualifier, once they’ve checked off the must-haves, is engagement.

Are the stakeholders engaged? Are they leaning in? Are they matching your effort, answering questions, and working collaboratively with you?

It’s okay that there are some stakeholders who may be naysayers. That’s normal in complex deals. But if you’ve got stakeholders who are enemies—people who are actively working against you—then your deal might be a bridge too far. 

Engagement is my No. 1 qualifier. I’m constantly asking questions and giving stakeholders things to do to see whether or not they’re engaged. If they’re not engaged, I walk away because lack of engagement is a clear signal that you are not going to close the deal. 

Reason #2: An Empty Pipeline

This brings us to the second reason salespeople stay in bad deals—desperation born from an empty pipeline.

On Friday, Dennis J. Walker, who is a benefits consultant with USI, posted something on LinkedIn that perfectly captures this dynamic. Here’s exactly what he wrote:

Jeb Blount regularly states that you can’t be delusional about your pipe, your prospects, your efforts, etc and be successful as a salesperson.

This week one of the larger deals in my pipe definitely didn’t progress the way I wanted- and it turns out one of the executives is what I call a “deal enemy” – he was actively working against me and my team.

The last two meetings I’ve had with him tipped me off this could be the case; this week we had an incident that indicated he was actively working against us.

Because my pipe is full?

I can walk away from this (probably very bad) deal at a dysfunctional company and not worry about hitting my sales goal.

With their current leadership, they’ll be a terrible client.

Helping them will be painful.

And I know I can help them with creativity, doing things differently, and giving them a lot of what they want and have at better pricing and higher quality.

But I’m not freaking out.

Because I have 15 other prospects, three that are advancing well, and about a dozen additional companies with buying windows later this year or early next.

The Psychology of Pipeline Abundance

When your pipeline is thin, every prospect feels like life or death, leading to poor decisions and desperate behavior. You cling to bad deals because they’re all you have.

When you’re desperate, you get delusional. And when you get delusional, you lose perspective. You become unable to see the truth, so you keep working on a deal that’s never going to close—even though your intuition and everyone around one are telling you to walk away. 

The Power to Walk Away from Bad Deals

What strikes me most about Dennis’ story is the psychological shift that happens when you’re selling from a position of abundance versus scarcity.

A robust sales pipeline is about more than numbers—it’s about the freedom to make better decisions. 

When you invest in building a pipeline, if you’re prospecting every single day, if you’re out there talking with people—knocking on doors, picking up the phone, working LinkedIn, doing the hard work of filling your funnel—then when you get that Spidey sense that you should be walking away from a deal, it’s a lot easier to find the exit.

It’s a lot easier to pull out of that deal because you know you have lots of other options. You gain clarity. You can see the situation for what it really is instead of what you desperately need it to be.

How many of us have stayed in toxic sales situations simply because we didn’t have better options lined up? Whether you’re in sales, consulting, or running your own business, this principle applies universally.

A strong pipeline helps you maintain your standards and allows you to focus on clients who truly value what you bring to the table.

How to Recognize Bad Deal Warning Signs

So what are the warning signs that you should be looking for? When should your internal alarm bells start going off?

Lack of Engagement: Stakeholders aren’t returning calls promptly, they’re not asking questions, they’re not doing the homework you give them. They’re treating you like a vendor, not a partner.

Internal Politics: You discover there are significant internal battles you weren’t aware of, or you realize you’re being used as leverage against an incumbent or preferred vendor.

Moving Goalposts: Requirements keep changing, timelines keep shifting, and new stakeholders keep appearing who weren’t a part of the original process.

Budget Issues: The budget that was “approved” suddenly needs “additional review,” or you’re being asked to match prices that seem unrealistically low.

Decision-Making Dysfunction: The decision-making process is unclear, constantly changing, or involves people who refuse to meet with you.

Your Gut: Sometimes you just know. That intuition, that Spidey sense—don’t ignore it. Your subconscious is picking up on signals your conscious mind hasn’t fully processed yet.

Situational Awareness Matters in Sales

Take a look at the deals you’re working on right now. If you’re working on an opportunity that everything inside you says is not going to close, if the people around you are telling you it’s not going to close, maybe it’s time to pick up your sticks and walk away.

And if you don’t feel like you have the ability to walk away, perhaps it’s time to take a deeper, harder look at your pipeline and decide whether prospecting is your issue—not the fact that you’ve got bad deals in your pipe.

Remember, in complex deals, situation awareness matters. You must always know where the exit is. And the best exit strategy is having so many options that walking away from bad deals becomes easy.

Top sales pros don’t just know where the exit is, and they’re not afraid to use it.

Hear more about how Ultra-High Performers sniff out bad deals on the Sales Gravy Podcast.

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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 each other.

Clashing Departments Can Crash Your Bottom Line

The consequences of misalignment between sales and marketing are significant. One common side effect is sales teams complaining about the quality of leads generated by marketing, often dismissing them as “bad leads.” 

Another issue is messaging. Marketing can be blind to the value propositions that are working for sales if they do not understand the sellers’ pitches and approach to closing deals. Their messaging is stale and ineffectual, completely disconnected from where sellers are finding success.

When marketing and sales have different metrics or goals, it leads to a breakdown in communication and a lack of shared understanding. That misalignment hampers productivity, damaging morale and impacting your bottom line.

Start With the Customer Journey

The most important aspect that sales and marketing need to align on is the customer journey. This involves mapping out every touchpoint—from initial awareness to final purchase to customer retention. 

Map the customer journey together—then act on it. This shared blueprint reveals exactly when prospects are ready for direct outreach versus when they need more nurturing.

The payoff is immediate: Marketing delivers leads at peak readiness, while sales focuses their time on prospects most likely to convert. When both teams operate from the same customer journey map, handoffs become seamless and conversion rates climb.

Tackle Sales Objections Together

Every sales professional understands that the path to a closed deal is rarely a straight line. It’s often a zig-zag through questions, doubts, and hesitations from prospects.

Marketing’s role is to help develop messaging and collateral assets that help the sales team deal with these objections. This includes essential resources like case studies, white papers, product demonstrations, and ROI calculators. With the support of marketing materials, sellers have the resources to back up their pitch, highlight benefits, and keep buyers engaged.

Most teams fail to communicate. Marketing creates polished but generic materials that sales doesn’t know exist. Sales knows which objections are the hardest to overcome but doesn’t have specific collateral to counter them.

The winning approach: Sales documents the top 5 objections that derail deals, complete with context about when and why they surface. Marketing then builds laser-focused tools to address these concerns. Think comparison sheets for “your competitor is cheaper,” implementation timelines for “this seems too complex,” or peer testimonials for “we’re not sure this works in our industry.”

Close the loop: Sales reports back on which materials move deals forward and which fall flat. Marketing iterates based on real-world results. This feedback cycle shifts objection-handling from guesswork into a refined system that consistently converts hesitation into confidence.

Get Sales and Marketing Aligned Now

How can businesses foster a stronger cohesion between sales and marketing? Here are six key strategies:

Establish Shared Goals and Metrics

Sales and marketing should work together to define common objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs). 

Action item: Schedule a joint planning session within the next 2 weeks to agree on 3-5 shared KPIs, such as the conversion rate from marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to sales qualified leads (SQLs).

Foster Open Communication

Regular communication is essential. Sales and marketing teams should meet frequently to share insights, discuss challenges, and provide feedback. 

Action item: Institute weekly 30-minute alignment calls where sales shares feedback on lead quality and marketing reports on campaign performance.

Develop a Unified Customer Journey Map

Sales and marketing must collaborate to create a comprehensive map that outlines every touchpoint and identifies opportunities for engagement. 

Action item: Schedule monthly journey-mapping sessions where both teams review touchpoint data, identify gaps, and agree on lead scoring criteria. 

Create Consensus On Responsibilities

Define the expectations and responsibilities of both sales and marketing. Outline lead qualification criteria, follow-up procedures, and other key processes to ensure clarity and accountability. 

Action item: Document and get both teams to agree on what constitutes a qualified lead, response timeframes, and follow-up requirements.

Embrace a Customer-Centric Approach

When sales and marketing think alike, they can work together to deliver a seamless and consistent journey, building trust and loyalty. 

Action item: Implement a monthly “customer journey audit” where one team member from sales and one from marketing jointly follow up with 3 customers who purchased in the last 90 days to identify friction points, unexpected value drivers, and missed opportunities in their buying experience, then present joint recommendations.

Make the Choice to Change

Start today with building the roadmap: shared goals, open communication, unified customer journeys, and collaborative objection-handling.

The choice is clear. Continue operating with sales and marketing working separately or unite them into a revenue-generating machine.

Learn more about uniting sales and marking, tackling objections, and skyrocketing your revenue by taking sales training courses through Sales Gravy University.

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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, you’re not alone. Obsessing over the talk time KPI rather than actual sales outcomes is one of the most backward approaches to sales management I see today, and it’s costing companies their best talent.

The Moneyball Problem: When Metrics Become Religion

Remember the movie Moneyball? Billy Beane revolutionized baseball by focusing on on-base percentage instead of traditional stats that looked impressive but didn’t correlate with winning games. He found a metric that predicted success.

Talk time is the opposite of Moneyball. It’s a vanity metric that makes leaders feel like they’re managing performance when all they are really doing is measuring noise.

Here’s the brutal truth: Talk time means absolutely nothing if it doesn’t drive revenue. It means nothing if the conversations are shallow, non-productive, or a poor buying experience.

You can have reps talking for 4 hours a day who are dead last on your ranking report, while someone like Josh is closing deals left and right with only 2.5 hours of phone time. Which one would you rather have on your team?

Why Talk Time Is a Lazy Leader’s Crutch

The reason companies fixate on vanity metrics like talk time is because it’s easy. It requires zero investment in actual coaching, observation, or skill development.

Think about it: It’s much easier to look at a dashboard and say, “You need to talk more,” than it is to actually listen to calls, analyze technique, and provide meaningful feedback on discovery questions, objection handling, or closing skills.

But here’s what happens when you manage this way: You drive away your best performers and enable your worst ones.

Your top performers get frustrated because they’re being penalized for efficiency. Your bottom performers get comfortable because they can hit their talk time numbers while producing nothing of value.

What Actually Matters: KPIs That Move the Needle

Instead of obsessing over how long reps are talking, and other vanity KPIs, smart sales leaders focus on outcome-driven metrics that actually correlate with sales performance and closing deals.

First-Time Appointments

How many new conversations is each rep having? In sales, FTAs are your Moneyball. If a rep isn’t setting enough first-time appointments, they are sub-optimizing their sales potential.

Next Step Conversion Rates

What percentage of first-time appointments convert to second appointments? This tells you everything about relationship building, discovery skills, and value articulation. If Josh is converting at a higher rate with less talk time, he’s simply more effective per conversation.

Show Rates

How many scheduled appointments actually happen? This reveals qualification skills, the ability to create urgency and commitment, and the quality of prospecting conversations.

Pipeline Velocity

How quickly are deals moving through your sales process? This shows you who’s truly building momentum versus who’s just having long conversations that stall deals in the pipeline.

Revenue Per Hour

The ultimate sales efficiency KPI is who is generating the most revenue per hour of phone time.

Stop Obsessing Over the KPI and Start Coaching

When you shift your focus to outcome metrics, everything changes. Instead of telling reps to “talk more,” you can provide specific, actionable coaching:

For the rep who has great first-time appointment numbers but poor conversion rates: Focus on discovery questions, relationship building, and value articulation.

For the rep with high talk time but low revenue: They’re probably becoming friends instead of salespeople. Coach them on advancing the sale and creating urgency.

For the efficient closer like Josh: Analyze their process and see where small improvements could yield massive results. Maybe 10 more minutes per call to deepen discovery could move them from 18th to No. 1.

The Process Makes the Difference

Here’s what I loved about Josh’s situation: His mentor noted that Josh “literally follows the script” and holds up the paper saying, “It says it right here, so I do it.”

That’s the power of a repeatable, proven process. While other reps with more talk time were struggling because they didn’t follow the system, Josh was winning because he had the discipline to execute consistently.

This is pure Fanatical Prospecting in action: Success isn’t about working harder or longer—it’s about working the system with precision and discipline.

The Balance Between Quality and Quantity

Don’t misunderstand me—quality conversations absolutely matter. You don’t want reps burning through leads with transactional, 2-minute calls. But you also can’t let “quality” become an excuse for inefficiency.

The sweet spot is having enough conversations to fill your pipeline while making each conversation count. Use talk time as one data point among many, not as your primary success metric.

If someone has extremely low talk time (say, 1 hour per day) and poor conversion rates, they’re probably rushing through calls. If someone has extremely high talk time but poor results, they’re probably avoiding the hard parts of selling—like asking for the appointment or creating urgency.

Your Action Plan: Making the Shift

If you’re a sales leader:

1. Audit your current metrics. What are you measuring, and does it correlate with revenue?
2. Implement outcome-based KPIs. Track first-time appointments, conversion rates, and show rates alongside talk time.
3. Invest in call coaching. Listen to your reps’ calls and provide specific feedback on technique, not just effort.
4. Stop penalizing efficiency. If someone is hitting their numbers with less talk time, study their process instead of criticizing their hours.

If you’re a sales rep:

1. Self-coach relentlessly. Track your own ratios and identify where small improvements could yield big results.
2. Follow your process religiously. Like Josh, have the discipline to execute your proven system consistently.
3. Focus on effectiveness, not activity. Your job isn’t to clock hours—it’s to move deals forward with purpose.

The Bottom Line

Stop being a slave to lazy metrics. Talk time might feel like objective measurement, but it’s actually just noise disguised as data.

The best sales organizations measure what matters: conversations that convert, relationships that advance, and revenue that compounds.

That’s how you build a championship sales team. That’s how you develop elite performers. And that’s how you stop losing your best people to companies that understand what really drives results.

Learn how to boost performance and retain top talent with practical strength-based coaching strategies.

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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 social media. Going out and knocking on doors has become an easier way to connect with people, build relationships, and open up opportunities in your pipeline. 

And the good news, at least for now, is that prospects are happy to see field sales pros and inviting them in to their businesses and homes. 

But with the resurgence of outside sales comes an age-old problem: Field salespeople have got to travel to get to customers. And here’s the brutal reality—the single greatest waste of time for field sales professionals is staring at a windshield.

On this Money Monday segment of the Sales Gravy Podcast I’m going to teach you exactly how to minimize windshield time and maximize face time. Because at the end of the day, you don’t get paid to drive. You get paid to sell.

The Windshield Time Delusion

Too many reps delude themselves into believing that driving from one place to another is “working.”

Let’s get something straight: Driving is not an accomplishment. I don’t care if you put 100 miles on your vehicle in a day. That doesn’t mean you accomplished anything meaningful. It just means you drove from one place to the next, burning dinosaurs and wasting time.

I see this all the time. Reps will drive to one customer, then drive all the way across their territory to another customer, instead of concentrating their work in a single geographic area. 

They’ll dead-head out to an appointment, then drive all the way back to the office, passing up dozens of prospects they could have walked into along the way.

Don’t confuse activity with productivity.  Just because you drove all over creation, that doesn’t mean you had a productive day. 

Your job is to be in front of customers, not behind a steering wheel. Every minute you spend staring at your windshield is a minute you’re not building relationships, solving problems, putting new opportunities in the pipe or closing deals.

The Mathematics of Effective Field Sales Territory Management 

Let me put this in perspective with some simple math that will blow your mind.

Let’s say you’re a typical field sales rep working in a moderate-sized territory. You make 5 customer visits per day, and between poor route planning and territory management, you spend an average of 45 minutes driving between each appointment. That’s 3 hours and 45 minutes of windshield time daily.

Over a 5-day work week, that’s 18 hours and 45 minutes of non-productive driving time. That’s nearly half of your work week spent accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Now, let’s say you tighten up your territory management and reduce that drive time to 20 minutes between appointments through better planning. You’re now down to 1 hour and 40 minutes of windshield time daily, or 8 hours and 20 minutes weekly.

You just freed up more than 10 hours per week. That’s enough time for 15 to 20 additional customer visits or prospect calls. Over a month, that’s 60-80 more customer touchpoints. Over a year, that’s 720-960 additional opportunities to build relationships and generate revenue.

The reps who figure out how to minimize windshield time don’t just have better work-life balance—they absolutely dominate their territories and blow past their quotas while their competitors are still driving around wastefully.

Map Your Territory Into Quadrants

This is why the first rule of field sales is getting your territory mapped, segmented, and planned to reduce drive time. 

I remember when I started out in field sales that the first thing my sales manager, a guy named Bob Blackwell, did was sit down with me and help me map my territory into daily quadrants where I’d be working on specific days of the week. 

He said if it’s Monday and you are in your Thursday quadrant, you better have a damn good reason. 

At the time, I didn’t understand exactly what we were doing but soon it made sense. By concentrating my focus each day in a tighter geographic area I wasted less time and made a lot more money. It was a lesson I never forgot. 

Start by printing out a map and grabbing a sharpie. 

Monday might be the northeast quadrant. Tuesday, the southeast. Wednesday, the southwest. Thursday, the northwest. Friday could be your flex day for special situations or your highest-priority accounts regardless of location.

Keep that map visible where you can see it. 

The tighter your route planning, the more selling time you create and the less windshield time you waste.

Yes, you will get off track from time to time. That’s the real world. But because you have built a set of tracks, when you get off, you’ll know where to get back on. 

The Hub-and-Spoke Model

Then use the hub-and-spoke model to maximize your time in each geographic area.

It works like this: Once you have an appointment booked on your calendar, use your CRM and mapping tools to pre-plan and route five additional drop-ins or door swings around that appointment. 

This will both increase the number of prospecting calls you make each day, and help you avoid the temptation to just head back to the office after your appointment.  

The T-Calling Technique to Boost Prospecting Activity

You’ll increase your productivity further with the practice of T-Calling. 

As you walk into or out of those pre-planned prospecting calls, look to your left, look to your right, and look behind you, then knock on those doors, too. 

Walk in. Introduce yourself. Build relationships. You’re already ther—you’ve already invested the windshield time to get to that location. Maximize your return on that investment.

Think about it, with this methodology you can easily make an additional 10 to 15 additional prospecting touches after each scheduled appointment. It’s how you squeeze every ounce of productivity out of your sales day. 

Stay on Track With Better Decisions

Territory planning also helps you make better decisions about responding to customer requests. 

If a customer calls on Tuesday needing help, rather than dropping everything and driving all the way to their location, assess whether it’s truly an emergency or if it can wait until you’re in that part of your territory on Thursday.

Learn to say, “I’ll be in your area Thursday morning. Can I schedule some time with you then?” Most requests that feel urgent really aren’t. Don’t let poor planning by others derail your territory strategy.

When you do need to leave one part of your territory to handle a high-priority customer, don’t dead-head straight back to your office or home base. Look left, look right, and look behind you to make additional calls in that immediate area before you leave.

Make Drive Time Learning Time 

No matter how well you plan, you’re still going to spend time behind the wheel. So here’s the critical question: When you’re driving between accounts, what’s coming through your speakers?

Is it lifting you up, making you better, helping you make more money—or is it tearing you down?

Top performers attend  Automobile University. Instead of listening to news or sports radio that usually puts you in a negative mindset, they’re listening to audiobooks, training courses, and business podcasts.

The compound effect of consistently investing in yourself during windshield time is enormous. 

If you spend just 60 minutes a day listening to educational content in your car while you are driving , that’s 5 hours per week, 20 hours per month, 240 hours per year of professional development. 

That’s the equivalent of 6 full work weeks of training annually—just from your drive time. 

When you’re always learning, you improve your skills, build stronger business acumen, stay current with industry trends, and develop a competitive edge over reps who waste their windshield time listening to talk radio.

Most importantly, consistent learning maintains a stronger belief system and winning attitude. You arrive at each appointment energized and confident, instead of drained and negative.

Territory Action Plan

Here’s what I want you to do this week to transform your territory productivity:

Step 1: Audit Your Current Windshield Time: For the next week, track exactly how much time you spend driving. Calculate the total hours you spend behind the wheel. I guarantee the number will shock you.

Step 2: Map Your Territory into Quadrants: Get out a map or use Google Maps to divide your territory into logical geographic sections. Assign each section to specific days of the week and commit to staying in your designated areas except when absolutely necessary.

Step 3: Plan Routes in Advance: Every evening or first thing each morning, use your CRM and mapping tools to plan your most efficient route through your designated quadrant. No more winging it.

Step 4: Implement Hub and Spoke Planning: For every scheduled appointment, pre-plan five additional stops in that immediate area. Turn single appointments into territory blitzes.

Step 5: Create Your Learning Playlist: Download 3 audiobooks, subscribe to 5 relevant podcasts, and enroll in at least 1 audio training course. Build your Automobile University curriculum. By the way, the new re-mastered audiobook version of my international best selling book Sales EQ was just released, so perhaps that might be one of your first choices. 

Step 6: Track Your Progress Keep a log of time saved by staying in quadrants, what you’re learning during drive time, and how it’s impacting your performance. When you get off track—and you will—commit to getting right back on your plan.

In Field Sales, Time is Money

Remember, in field sales, time is literally money. Every minute you waste staring at your windshield is money out of your pocket. But every minute you invest in smart territory planning and continuous learning is an investment in your success.

The field sales professionals who master territory management don’t just sell more—they work smarter, reduce stress, and create more time for the things that matter outside of work.

Stop staring at your windshield and start looking into your customers’ eyes. That’s where the money is.

And remember, when you’ve been out in the field all day, knocking on doors, and you are ready to quit and go home, always stop and make one more call. 

Maximize drive time for learning by listening to Sales Gravy Audio Courses.

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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 time you burn on necessary tasks that don’t drive revenue, like data entry and research. That’s where AI shines. It handles the repetitive work faster and more accurately than you ever could. Feed it your ideal customer profile, and  you can have a filtered list of prospects before you even finish your coffee.

AI can analyze thousands of LinkedIn profiles in minutes to identify prospects who match your best customers’ characteristics. It can scrape company websites, news articles, and financial reports to give you conversation starters that actually matter. While you’re having one discovery call, AI can prep intel for your next five meetings.

Consider email outreach. Instead of sending generic templates, AI can help personalize messages at scale using real company data—recent funding rounds, leadership changes, and industry challenges. All this results in open rates that don’t make you cringe and response rates that actually justify your time investment.

Be Smart About How You Integrate

The mistake most sales reps make is thinking AI means “set it and forget it.” That’s plain wrong. The winners are using AI as a research assistant, not a replacement for judgment. They’re feeding it context, reviewing its output, and adding the human insight that turns data into deals.

The best use AI to identify patterns in their closed-won deals, then apply those insights to current opportunities. They analyze which messaging resonates with different buyer personas, then craft more targeted outreach. They’re not working harder; they’re leveraging better intelligence.

Take objection handling. AI can analyze your call recordings to identify the most common pushback you’re getting, then help you develop stronger responses. It can even suggest which case studies or references would be most compelling for specific prospect types. It’s taking your experience and making it work for you at warp speed.

What’s Coming Next for AI

Wait until you see what’s on the docket for AI advancements: AI agents that anticipate what you need before you even ask. 

What if your follow-up email was already drafted after a call, incorporating specific points from the conversation? Your proposal includes ROI calculations tailored to their business model, all generated from publicly available data about their company.

AI will soon do more than respond to prompts; it will proactively support your sales process. It’ll flag when a deal is stalling based on engagement patterns. It’ll suggest the optimal time to follow up based on the prospect’s communication preferences. It’ll even coach you on your delivery by analyzing successful calls from top performers.

That’s why the time to adopt is now. Don’t let AI’s growth outpace your own knowledge of how to use it. Stay on top of new systems and improvements.

The Human Element Remains King

But here’s what AI will never recognize: the moment in a sale when a prospect’s voice changes and you know they’re really interested. It doesn’t have the ability to read between the lines of what someone isn’t saying. It lacks the intuition that tells you to pivot your pitch mid-conversation because you’ve spotted a better angle.

AI can’t build genuine rapport. It can’t adapt to the subtle cues that tell you someone’s ready to buy or needs more nurturing. It can’t handle the complex, nuanced objections that require empathy and creative problem-solving. These uniquely human skills become more valuable, not less, in an AI-enhanced world.

The most successful salespeople will be those who use AI to eliminate the mundane so they can focus entirely on these high-value human interactions. They’ll show up to every conversation better prepared, with more relevant insights, and more time to actually listen.

The Bottom Line

Look, change is uncomfortable. You might be hesitant to shift your workflow, adopt new tools, or rethink how you sell. But the market won’t wait for you to feel ready. The time to start is now.

Start small. Pick one area where you’re spending too much time on low-value tasks. Find an AI tool that addresses that specific area and test it for a month.

Don’t let AI make you less human. AI can’t replace emotional intelligence, creativity, or the gut instinct you’ve developed from years in the field. But it can help you perform at your peak. It can make you faster, more focused, and more effective.

So don’t fear it. Use it. Make AI your co-pilot. Let it handle the grunt work while you focus on the thing that actually closes deals: building genuine relationships. Stay curious; start experimenting. Keep the heart of your sales process with you, exactly where it belongs.

Want to learn more about how AI can lift you over your competition? Read Jeb Blount’s The AI Edge for more tools and tips.

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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 YOU, the field rep, to take control of your own success.

Let me tell you how to turn those frustrating hours in traffic into your secret weapon.

Driving Isn’t an Accomplishment

First, let’s get something straight: Driving is not an accomplishment. I don’t care if you put 200 miles on your car today—that doesn’t mean you accomplished anything meaningful for your business.

Too many field reps confuse activity with productivity. They think that because they drove all over creation, they had a productive day. Wrong.

The goal is to minimize your windshield time and maximize your face-to-face time. But when you ARE stuck in traffic, you better make damn sure you’re using that time to get better.

Smart Territory Management Saves Windshield Time

Before we talk about maximizing windshield time, let’s talk about minimizing it through smart territory planning.

Map your territory into quadrants: Monday territory, Tuesday territory, Wednesday territory, Thursday territory, and Friday territory. If you’re supposed to be in your Monday quadrant but you’re driving to your Friday area, you better have a damn good reason.

When you’re planning your field time:

• Group your appointments geographically: Don’t hopscotch all over your territory in one day.
• Plan your route in advance: Use your CRM to map out the most efficient route.
• Use the T-calling technique: When you arrive somewhere for an appointment, look left, look right, look behind you—can you make additional calls in that immediate area?

The tighter your route planning, the more selling time you create and the less windshield time you waste.

Prospecting from the Road (Safely)

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. That windshield time can actually become prospecting time—if you do it safely and legally.

There are apps and dialers that let you load phone numbers and dial hands-free while you’re stuck in traffic. You can also set up your phone so contact numbers are easily accessible with voice commands.

Safety first: Only do this when you’re completely stopped in traffic or pulled over. Never compromise safety for a sales call.

Hands-free follow-up calls: Use voice-to-text features to send follow-up messages to prospects or customers.

Planning calls: Call ahead to confirm appointments or reschedule meetings.

Customer check-ins: Those relationship-building calls that keep you top-of-mind with existing customers.

The key is preparation. Have your call lists ready, know who you’re calling and why, and keep it simple and safe.

Voice Technology Is Your Friend

Today’s smartphones have incredible voice capabilities that field reps should be leveraging:

• Voice-to-text for quick CRM updates
• Voice memos to capture important thoughts or follow-up reminders
• Hands-free scheduling and calendar management
• Voice-activated research on prospects or companies

Learn to use these tools, and you’ll be amazed how much more productive your windshield time becomes.

Welcome to Automobile University

The number one thing you should be doing while stuck in traffic is attending what the great Zig Ziglar called “Automobile University.”

When you’re sitting in your car, staring at brake lights, what’s coming through your speakers? Is it the news (which will just make you angry)? Music (which won’t make you any money)? Or are you investing in content that makes you better at your job?

Here’s your Automobile University curriculum:

Sales audiobooks: There are hundreds of excellent sales books available in audio format. Start with the classics and work your way through modern sales methodology.

Podcasts: The Sales Gravy podcast runs three days a week. That’s hours of free sales training every week. But don’t stop there—find other quality sales and business podcasts that challenge your thinking.

Audio courses: We’ve created specific audio courses on Sales Gravy University designed for people exactly like you who spend time in their cars. Push a button and learn while you drive.

Industry-specific content: Listen to podcasts and audiobooks specific to your industry. The more you understand your prospects’ world, the better conversations you’ll have.

The Compound Effect of Automobile University

Here’s what most reps don’t understand: The compound effect of consistently investing in yourself during windshield time is enormous.

If you spend just 30 minutes a day listening to sales training content, that’s 2.5 hours per week, 10 hours per month, 120 hours per year of professional development. That’s the equivalent of three full work weeks of training annually—just from your commute time.

Elite athletes in the business world constantly invest in themselves. We’re in skill positions. The better your skills, the better your results. When you’re always learning, you:

• Have better conversations with prospects
• Ask more insightful questions
• Think more strategically about your territory
• Stay current with industry trends
• Develop a competitive edge over reps who waste their windshield time

Make It a Non-Negotiable Habit

The difference between successful field reps and mediocre ones often comes down to how they use their “dead time.”

Traffic jams are going to happen. Construction zones are unavoidable. Rush hour is inevitable. You can either let these situations frustrate you, or you can turn them into opportunities to get better.

Make Automobile University a non-negotiable part of your daily routine. Every time you get in your car, something educational should be playing through those speakers.

Your Windshield Time Action Plan

Starting tomorrow:

1. Audit your current windshield time habits: What are you listening to right now? Is it making you better or just killing time?
2. Create your learning playlist: Download sales audiobooks, subscribe to relevant podcasts, sign up for audio courses.
3. Plan your territory more efficiently: Map out your weekly quadrants and commit to staying in your designated areas.
4. Set up hands-free prospecting tools: Research safe, legal ways to make calls from the road.
5. Track your progress: Keep a log of what you’re learning and how it’s impacting your performance.

Your competition is sitting in the same traffic you are, listening to music or complaining about their day. While they’re wasting time, you’ll be getting better, smarter, and more prepared for every sales conversation.

Turn that windshield time into your competitive advantage. Your future self—and your bank account—will thank you.

Ready to maximize your learning time? Check out Sales Gravy University for audio courses designed specifically for reps on the road.

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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 you.

“We’re the industry leader with cutting-edge technology and award-winning customer service that delivers best-in-class solutions…”

Blah, blah, blah. 

Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of your prospect mentally checking out.

Here’s a hard truth about human nature: Nobody cares about you. They care about themselves.

Every buyer wants to talk about their problems, their challenges, their goals, and their pain points.

When you launch into your pitch about incredible features and market-leading capabilities, your buyer is silently thinking, “What does this mean for me?” And if you don’t answer that question immediately, you’ve lost them.

Your value proposition isn’t a corporate brochure. It’s not a marketing slick. It’s the value-bridge between what you do and what they need. 

If it’s a monologue about you, your company, and your product features you’ve lost the game before kickoff.

What to do instead: Make your value proposition a laser-focused spotlight on them. Start with their problem, not your solution. Lead with their pain, not your product.

Reason #2: You’re Using Generic, Meaningless Buzzwords

Most value propositions include phrases like “industry leader,” “best-in-class,” “cutting-edge,” or “world-class customer service.”

“We’re a one-stop shop with purpose-built solutions that increase efficiency and decrease costs.”

Really? And I suppose your competitors specialize in decreasing efficiency and increasing costs?

These phrases and buzzwords make you sound exactly like every other salesperson who’s ever walked through your prospect’s door: boring. 

Here’s the brutal truth: If your competitor could copy and paste your value proposition and use it for their company, it’s not a value proposition—it’s forgettable noise.

What to do instead: Get specific. Use numbers. Use their language, not yours. Instead of “increase efficiency,” say “reduce your monthly reporting time from 40 hours to 4 hours.” Instead of “industry leader,” show them exactly how you’re different and why that difference matters to them.

Reason #3: You Haven’t Done Your Homework

Most salespeople build their value propositions standing in their own shoes rather than those of their buyers.

If you don’t know what keeps your prospects awake at 3 AM, if you don’t understand their specific challenges, and if you haven’t talked to real customers about why they bought from you (or didn’t), then your value proposition is built on sand. Guesswork rather than research.

What to do instead: Talk to three groups of people and gain insight through their lens.

• Your Lovers: These are your raving fans. What do they say about you when you’re not in the room? What specific problem did you solve that made them heroes in their organization?
• Your Likers: These are satisfied customers who aren’t writing love letters about you. What almost made them choose your competitor? What reservations did they have?
• Your Haters: These are the tough conversations. The prospects who chose someone else or the customers who fired you. Why? What did they feel you were missing?

This insight helps you shape your messaging so that it connects with the buying motivators of potential customers.

How to Build a Value Prop That Actually Works

Now that we’ve covered why most value propositions fail, let’s talk about how to build one that wins deals.

Step 1: Start With Their Problem, Not Your Product

Your value proposition should begin with their problem, not your product. 

Here’s the formula:

“For [specific type of customer] who [specific problem/challenge], [your company] provides [specific solution] that [specific, measurable benefit].”

Step 2: Get Brutally Specific

Vague value propositions are worthless. Don’t say you “increase efficiency”—say you “reduce month-end close time from 15 days to 3 days.” Don’t claim you’re the “industry leader”—prove it with specific, verifiable metrics.

Step 3: Use Their Language

Stop using your internal jargon and corporate-speak. Use the exact words your prospects use to describe their problems. If they say they’re “drowning in manual processes,” don’t translate that to “seeking automation solutions.” Use their words.

Step 4: Prove It

Every claim in your value proposition should be provable. Can a third party verify what you’re saying? Do you have case studies, testimonials, or data to back it up? If not, cut it out.

Step 5: Make It Human

People buy from people. Your value proposition can’t be purely clinical and business-focused. Acknowledge the human element. What does success look like for the individual making this decision? How will solving this problem make their life better?

What Your Differentiators Should Actually Differentiate

Your differentiators are proof points that you’re uniquely qualified to solve your prospect’s specific problem.

Ask yourself:

• What can we do that competitors literally cannot do?
• Where are we measurably better than alternatives?
• What gaps do we fill that others leave open?

If your “differentiator” could apply to any company in your industry, it’s table stakes rather than a true competitive edge.

The Bottom Line

Building an effective value proposition isn’t about clever wordsmithing or marketing magic. It’s about doing the hard work of truly understanding your buyers and then articulating—in their language—exactly how you solve their unique challenges better than anyone else.

Most salespeople won’t do this work because it’s difficult and uncomfortable. They’d rather stick with generic, safe language that offends no one and excites no one.

But if you’re willing to have the tough conversations, do the real research, and build a value proposition that’s genuinely focused on your buyers’ needs, you’ll gain a massive competitive advantage.

Because while your competitors are still talking about their “industry-leading, best-in-class solutions,” you’ll be speaking your prospect’s language with a value proposition that compels them to engage and buy.

Learn how to build buyer-centric value propositions that resonate, differentiate, and drive sales, using Lisa Dennis’ proven framework that transforms your messaging into a deal-winning asset. Check out her sales training course Value Propositions That Sell

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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, yet it’s the activity most salespeople hate and avoid. This creates a dangerous pattern I call the “desperation rollercoaster”—a cycle that wreaks havoc on your results, your mental health, and ultimately your career.

Here’s how it works: You prospect hard for a while, fill your pipeline, and start closing deals. Life is good. Then you get busy servicing those new clients and tell yourself you’ve “earned a break” from prospecting. Your prospecting activity slows down or stops entirely.

Fast forward 30-90 days, and suddenly your pipeline is dry. Panic sets in. Your manager is breathing down your neck. Your commission checks shrink. Only then do you rediscover your “motivation” to prospect.

And the cycle repeats. Up and down. Feast and famine. This isn’t a strategy; it’s a recipe for burnout and inconsistent performance.

The Hidden Costs of Inconsistent Prospecting

The desperation rollercoaster creates damage far beyond just an empty pipeline. When you’re desperate for deals, everything about your sales approach deteriorates:

• You become pushy and pitchy instead of consultative
• You come across as desperate and insecure
• You focus exclusively on what YOU need, not what the PROSPECT needs
• Your discovery questions become shallow
• You skip crucial steps in your sales process
• You discount aggressively because you have no leverage
• Your negotiation and closing skills deteriorate

In short, when you’re desperate for deals, you sell terribly. Inconsistent prospecting doesn’t just hurt your pipeline—it undermines your entire sales approach.

The 30-Day Rule: Why Consistency Matters More Than Intensity

In Fanatical Prospecting, I discuss the “30-Day Rule”: The prospecting you do in this 30-day period will pay off in the next 90 days.

This rule explains why inconsistent prospecting is so dangerous. When you take even a single day off from prospecting, it creates a hole in your pipeline 30-90 days from now. Take a week off, and you create a significant gap. Take a month off, and you essentially guarantee a sales crisis in your near future.

Understanding this principle makes it crystal clear why consistency trumps intensity every time. I’d rather see you make 20 prospecting calls every day for a month than 100 calls in a single day and nothing for the rest of the month.

The Pain and Pull Method for Maintaining Motivation

So how do you maintain your prospecting discipline when motivation inevitably fades? I use the “Pain and Pull” method.

The Pain: Visualize the Consequences

When I don’t feel like prospecting (and yes, even after decades in sales, I still have those days), I vividly picture what will happen if I skip it:

• The stress of an empty pipeline 60 days from now
• The uncomfortable conversation with my team
• The hit to my income and reputation
• The desperation that will undermine my sales approach

By focusing on the pain I’ll experience in the future if I skip prospecting today, I create immediate motivation to pick up the phone.

The Pull: Connect to Your Why

My friend Victor Antonio calls this “the big pull,” connecting your daily prospecting discipline to your most important goals and aspirations.

Nobody wakes up excited to make cold calls. But many people wake up excited about buying their dream home, sending their kids to college, or achieving financial independence.

When prospecting feels hard, don’t focus on the calls. Focus on what those calls will create in your life. What’s on the other side of those dials that makes them worth doing?

• Is it the vacation you’re saving for?
• The home you want to buy?
• The financial security you’re building?
• The career advancement you’re pursuing?

As I often say, the only thing that matters in prospecting is how bad you want it. Not how bad you want to prospect (no one wants that), but how bad you want what prospecting will give you.

Building an Identity-Based Prospecting Habit

Beyond motivation, the ultimate solution is to make prospecting a non-negotiable habit—something you do automatically without requiring willpower or motivation.

James Clear’s excellent book Atomic Habits provides a framework for this approach. The key is shifting from outcome-based habits (“I need to make 20 calls today.”) to identity-based habits (“I am the kind of salesperson who prospects every day, no matter what”).

When prospecting becomes part of your identity—something you simply do because it’s who you are—consistency becomes much easier to maintain.

Here are some practical steps to build this habit:

1. Schedule prospecting blocks early in your day – before distractions and fatigue set in
2. Make it ridiculously easy to start – commit to just 5 calls to overcome initial resistance
3. Create an environment that eliminates distractions – turn off notifications, close unnecessary tabs
4. Track your activity religiously – what gets measured gets managed
5. Celebrate small wins – reward yourself for consistency, not just outcomes

The Bottom Line

Prospecting is like rent; it’s due every single day. Your income, your confidence, and your future pipeline are paid for in advance with consistent daily activity.

The next time you feel like skipping your call block, remember this: The salespeople who win are the ones who prospect when it’s inconvenient, when it’s uncomfortable, and when no one is watching.

When you’re tired, when you’ve given everything you’ve got, and when you’re tempted to call it a day, make one more call. That’s where the difference between average and extraordinary happens.

Because in the end, your success in sales isn’t determined by what you do occasionally. It’s determined by what you do consistently.

Learn the keys to developing a Fanatical Prospecting Mindset in Jeb Blount’s course: Fanatical Prospecting Essentials

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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—this course has teeth. It chewed up and spit out many of the world’s best golfers without an ounce of remorse.

Just ask Bryson DeChambeau, who on Saturday watched his lead evaporate on the “Green Mile” – the brutal final three holes of the course. Or ask Jon Rahm, who briefly held the lead on Sunday before plummeting to eighth place after getting absolutely bitten by those same closing holes.

If you just looked at Scheffler’s final score, you’d think he cruised through effortlessly. But that’s not even close to what happened. It was a grind—every single hole, every single shot.

Scheffler came into Sunday with a five-stroke cushion, but by the front nine, he had completely lost that lead. Let that sink in for a second. The world’s best golfer, playing his best golf all season, watched his commanding lead completely vanish.

For most players, that would have been it. Game over. The spiral begins. The tournament slips away.

But not for Scottie Scheffler.

Bounce Back Percentage – The Key to Winning

There’s one statistic from the tournament that explains everything – and it’s a metric that should become your new obsession as a sales professional. It’s called the “bounce-back percentage.”

The bounce-back percentage measures how often a player makes a birdie or better immediately following a bogey or worse. In other words, how often do you recover from failure and immediately create success?

For the entire field at Quail Hollow, the average bounce-back percentage was 17.4%.

For Scottie Scheffler? An astonishing 62.5%.

Think about what this means. When the average player faced adversity, they bounced back less than one time in five. But Scheffler? He transformed failure into immediate success more than three out of every five times.

That is massive mental resilience. It’s the difference between holding a trophy and watching someone else hold it. It’s the difference between being number one in the world and being just another talented pro. And it’s absolutely the difference between sales mediocrity and sales excellence.

Bounce-Back Matters in Sales

So why am I talking about golf statistics on a sales podcast? Because the bounce-back percentage is the perfect analogy for what makes or breaks a sales career.

I’ve got news for you—bad stuff is going to happen in your sales career. You’re going to fail, lose, and face adversity. That’s not a possibility—it’s a guarantee.

You’re going to have situations where everything seemed perfect, and then the deal falls apart. Sometimes it’s your fault. Sometimes it’s not.

Maybe the champion of your deal suddenly gets fired or leaves the company. Maybe a competitor swoops in at the last minute with a ridiculous offer. Maybe your prospect ghosts you after six months of work.

Each day you’re going to run into situations when you’re prospecting where someone slams the phone in your ear, and then you’ve got to immediately turn around and make the next call. There will be days where nothing goes right and everyone says no.

Your ability to bounce back doesn’t just influence your success – it defines who you are as a sales professional. It is the key to winning. Full stop.

The Goldfish Paradigm 

When I’m hiring salespeople, one of the things I’m measuring for is optimism. It’s essentially Ted Lasso’s goldfish paradigm—the ability to forget fast.

On the show, Lasso asks his players:“You know what the happiest animal on Earth is? It’s a goldfish. You know why? It’s got a 10-second memory. Be a goldfish.”

Being a “goldfish” is about letting go of mistakes, setbacks, or negative moments quickly—just like a goldfish forgets almost instantly.

What You Think is What You Become

If something bad happens to a pessimistic person, rather than forgetting, they believe something bad is going to happen again. Their mind starts spinning a story: “This always happens to me.” “I knew this wouldn’t work out.” “Nobody wants to talk to me today.”

What you think is often what you become. When you dwell on negative outcomes, you invite more of them into your life. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that crushes your results.

But optimistic people? They forget fast. They get a “no” and immediately think, “Great! My next ‘yes’ must be right around the corner.” That’s the definition of optimism in sales—the unshakable belief that success is just one more attempt away.

Competitiveness is a Key Component of Bouncing Back

Competitiveness is equally crucial. When competitors get knocked down, they don’t stay down. They get back up, and when they do, they’re not defeated—they’re fired up. They use that emotion, that drive, to propel themselves to win the next time.

I see too many salespeople these days start a downward spiral after a single setback. It’s no different than what happens to amateur golfers on the course. You have one bad shot, which leads to another bad shot, which leads to a bad decision, which leads to another bad shot. Pretty soon, you’re ready to throw your clubs in the pond and call it a day.

That spiral will kill your sales career faster than any market downturn or tough competitor ever could.

How to Build Your Bounce Back Muscle

So how do you build this mental resilience? How do you develop your bounce back muscle? I’ve got several strategies that have worked for me and for the top-performing sales professionals I’ve coached.

1. Create a Bounce-Back Routine

The first key is having a specific bounce-back routine—a set of actions you take immediately after facing rejection or adversity.

My sales bounce-back routine is different from my golf bounce-back routine. In sales, when something knocks me back, I often step away briefly and read a passage from a book I keep nearby. I deliberately put something positive into my mind to redirect my thinking. Sometimes it’s listening to a specific podcast or audio clip that I know will shift my mindset.

The key is that I don’t leave my mental recovery to chance. I have a deliberate, planned response to adversity that I’ve practiced so many times it becomes automatic.

What’s your bounce-back routine? If you don’t have one, create one today. Maybe it’s taking three deep breaths, saying a specific affirmation, or reviewing your biggest sales wins. Whatever it is, make it concrete and practice it until it becomes second nature.

2. Stay in the Present Moment

One of the biggest killers of bounce-back ability is letting your mind drift away from the present moment. When something goes wrong, most people immediately do one of two things—they dwell on the past or they worry about the future.

Dwelling on the past is pointless. You can’t change what’s already happened. Getting caught up in replaying the failure, the rejection, or the mistake only ensures you’ll bring that negative energy into your next interaction.

Equally dangerous is projecting into the future, worrying about what might happen. “What if I never close another deal this month?” “What if my pipeline dries up?” “What if I miss quota again?”

The only thing that’s real is the present moment. The only thing you can control is your next action.

When I’m on the golf course and hit a bad shot, I remind myself to stay present. “This shot. This moment.” Then I refocus and execute. The same principle applies perfectly to sales.

After a tough call, don’t ruminate. Reset. Focus only on the next call, the next conversation, the next opportunity. Nothing else matters.

3. Build Obstacle Immunity Through Exposure

This is counterintuitive for many people, but the more adversity you face, the better you get at handling it. I call this “obstacle immunity.”

Top performers don’t avoid difficult situations; they seek them out, knowing that each challenge strengthens their resilience muscle. Think of it like weight training. The resistance isn’t your enemy; it’s the very thing making you stronger.

Make more prospecting calls than required. Have the tough conversations others avoid. Pursue the challenging deals others shy away from. Each time you face resistance and push through, you’re building your bounce-back capability.

The salespeople who avoid discomfort to protect their egos are the same ones who crumble when inevitable challenges arise. They haven’t built their obstacle immunity.

Scottie Scheffler hasn’t won all those tournaments because he’s never faced adversity. He’s won because he’s faced so much adversity that he’s developed immunity to its effects.

4. Master Your Self-Talk

You’re talking to yourself all day long. The question is: What are you saying?

Are you telling yourself you’re going to win or you’re going to lose? Are you feeding yourself excuses or solutions? Are you reinforcing resilience or fragility?

If you watched coverage of the PGA Championship, you saw plenty of players have emotional meltdowns after bad shots. Remember Shane Lowry’s explosion? Those emotional outbursts might feel cathartic in the moment, but they rarely improve performance.

Notice that Scheffler doesn’t have those explosions. He stays remarkably calm, even when things aren’t going his way. He’s mastered his self-talk.

After a setback, he doesn’t tell himself a story about how unfair it is or how he’s losing his edge. He tells himself he has the ability to bounce back. He teaches his mind to believe it, and then he actualizes it.

Your self-talk creates your reality in sales. Monitor it ruthlessly. Replace destructive narratives with empowering ones. Tell yourself you’re the kind of person who thrives under pressure and bounces back stronger after rejection.

The Most Important Sales Metric That You’re Not Tracking

At the end of the day, Scottie Scheffler is the PGA Champion and the number one golfer in the world not because he never faces adversity, but because he’s mastered the art of bouncing back from it.

He’s a walking example of how to manage disruptive emotions, control your actions and reactions, maintain a winning mindset, and transform setbacks into comebacks.

The sales profession will test your resilience every single day. There’s no escaping the challenges, the rejection, the unexpected obstacles. But like Scheffler, you can develop the mental toughness to not just survive those challenges, but to use them as fuel for your success.

Your bounce-back percentage might be the most important sales metric you’re not tracking. Start today. Build that mental resilience. Watch your results transform.

Remember, in both golf and sales, it’s not about avoiding the rough patches—it’s about how quickly and effectively you play your way out of them.

Want more help to build your bounce back muscle and mental resilience? Check out Perform on the X. This brilliant on-demand course, from former Navy Seal Stephen Drum, teaches you Navy Seal tactics for performing at your best, in high-stakes situations, when everything is on the line.

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Here’s a question that’ll make every salesperson’s blood pressure spike: What do you do when your cold call gets an objection in the first five seconds because prospects immediately stereotype you as something you’re not?

That’s the challenge facing Rick VanNess from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rick co-founded a company that helps healthcare providers collect on older insurance claims (the ones sitting out 45-90 days that billing departments struggle to get paid). His team augments existing billing operations rather than replacing them.

But here’s the problem: The second Rick mentions what he does, billing directors immediately think “outsourcing” and shut down the conversation. They’ve either had bad experiences with outsourcing or they’re terrified of losing their jobs to a vendor that promises to do it all.

If you’ve ever been stereotyped, dismissed, or written off before you could even explain what you actually do, you know exactly how frustrating this is. And it’s costing you deals.

The Fatal Mistake: Arguing Instead of Agreeing

When a prospect says “We already have billing” or “We don’t outsource,” most salespeople instinctively go into argument mode. They try to explain how they’re different, how they’re not really outsourcing, how their service is special.

This is exactly the wrong move.

Here’s the brutal truth: When you argue with a prospect’s reflexive response, you’re fighting against their primary concern. For a billing director, that concern isn’t whether you can help them. It’s whether you’re going to cost them their job.

Think about that for a second. You’re calling someone whose entire world revolves around protecting their position, especially in an age where AI and automation are threatening white-collar jobs left and right. Their antenna is already up. They’re listening for any reason to say no.

So when you argue with their objection, you’re actually validating their fear. You’re making them dig in deeper.

The Power of the Ledge-Disrupt-Ask Framework

Instead of arguing, try this: Agree with them.

When Rick hears “We already do billing” or “We don’t outsource,” here’s what I told him to say:

“That’s perfect, because none of my customers do outsourcing. They all have internal billing departments. What we do is complement what they’re already doing by picking up the really hard things like collecting on insurance claims that have been sitting for 45 to 90 days and getting them paid faster.”

Notice what’s happening here? You’re using the Ledge framework that top performers use to handle objections:

Ledge: A simple statement that settles your brain and lowers tension (“That’s perfect…”)

Disrupt: Pattern interrupt that reframes the conversation (“…because none of my customers do outsourcing”)

Ask: Move toward a meeting (“Wouldn’t it make sense for us to take a few minutes to see if this could help you?”)

You’re not fighting them. You’re joining them on their side of the table, then pivoting to the real problem you solve.

Lead With the Problem, Not Your Solution

Here’s another critical mistake Rick was making: He was leading with his pricing model (“no risk to you, you don’t pay until we collect”).

While this might sound like a great selling point to you, to a prospect it sounds like every other too-good-to-be-true pitch they’ve heard. It creates skepticism rather than interest.

Instead, focus obsessively on the problem you solve. For Rick’s business, that’s the money sitting in accounts receivable that billing departments are too busy to collect. According to industry data, many practices have millions sitting out there at 45+ days.

That’s pure profit that’s not in the business. That’s real money being left on the table.

When you frame your prospecting messaging around the problem rather than your solution mechanics, you create curiosity and urgency. Save the pricing conversation for when you’re actually negotiating an agreement.

The Multi-Level Prospecting Strategy

One of the most powerful insights from my conversation with Rick was this: Don’t limit yourself to just one contact at the organization.

Rick was focusing solely on billing directors and managers because they’d at least give him 15 seconds. But there’s a better approach.

Go bottom-up and top-down simultaneously:

Bottom-up: Call claims adjusters and billing clerks. They don’t care what you’re selling. But they’ll tell you exactly what’s broken in their organization. Ask questions like “How much money do you have sitting out there over 45 days that you’re struggling to collect?” These narrators give you the stories and data points you need.

Top-down: Use that intelligence to reach the CFO. Now you’re not pitching a service. You’re providing insight about their business: “I spoke with your team and discovered you have $5 million in receivables sitting at 45+ days. Here’s how we help organizations like yours collect 80% of that money 40% faster.”

Middle-out: Armed with data from below and endorsement from above, the billing director conversation becomes completely different. You’re not a threat. You’re a resource.

This is straight from the Sales EQ playbook: Read the room, understand everyone’s motivations, and position yourself as the person who makes everyone’s life better, not worse.

Stand in Their Shoes

The breakthrough moment in any prospecting challenge comes when you stop thinking about your message from your perspective and start viewing the world through your prospect’s lens.

When you call a billing director, their number one job is to protect their position. When you call a CFO, their primary concern is whether this conversation is worth their time. When you call someone lower in the organization, they’re just trying to get through their day without more headaches.

Your job isn’t to convince them you’re different. Your job is to meet them where they are, validate their concerns, and then show them how what you do makes their specific situation better.

That’s how you stop getting objections and start closing.

The Bottom Line

Stop fighting your prospects’ reflexive objections. When they say “We already have that” or “We don’t need outsourcing,” the worst thing you can do is argue with them.

Instead, agree with them. Everyone you work with already has that. Then pivot to the gap you fill and the problem you solve.

Save your solution mechanics for later. Lead with problems, not pricing. And remember: The best salespeople aren’t the ones who argue the hardest. They’re the ones who listen the deepest and position themselves on the same side of the table as their prospects.

That’s how you break through buyer resistance. That’s how you build trust. And that’s how you win deals others walk away from.

Want to master the art of breaking through buyer resistance? Join us at Outbound 2026 in Las Vegas this November, where we’ll be diving deep into strategies for overcoming objections, building rapport, and closing more deals. Learn more and grab your ticket at salesgravy.com/live.

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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 split second when you hesitate to ask for the close.

Top performers don’t have fewer fears—they just trust themselves to push through them. They build self-trust the hard way: doing the reps, facing objections, pushing through rejection until they’re bulletproof.

Self-trust isn’t optional. It’s the launchpad for everything else you do.

Trust in Your Product

If you don’t believe in what you’re selling, neither will your prospect.

Prospects can smell when you’re bluffing. They pick up on the hesitations, the weasel words, the way you tiptoe around weaknesses instead of confronting them head-on.

When you know your product solves real problems—and you’ve seen it do so again and again—you sell with conviction. You don’t overpromise. You stop folding under pressure, and stop chasing price shoppers. 

Trust in your product doesn’t mean it’s perfect. It means you know where it fits, what it does well, and who it helps—and you’re not afraid to walk away when it’s not the right match.

Your Process is Your Competitive Edge

Amateurs wing it. Top performers trust their process. 

A rock-solid sales process is your roadmap to predictable success. It’s the framework that turns chaos into control. When you trust your process, you stop second-guessing yourself. You know exactly what to do next, even when prospects throw curveballs. 

Your process should cover all parts of the sales cycle: prospecting, qualifying, handling objections, closing, and follow-up. Each step should be intentional and refined through experience. 

Trust in your process gives you the courage to disqualify bad fits and the discipline to execute consistently. 

Building Trust with Prospects: Where Deals Live or Die

Prospects don’t buy from people they don’t trust. They buy from people who understand them, demonstrate competence, and follow through on every promise. 

The 7 Trust Accelerators That Actually Work

1. Prepare Like Your Career Depends On It: Before every interaction, know their business, industry challenges, and recent news. When you reference their Q3 earnings call or their CEO’s LinkedIn post, you show respect for their time and business.
2. Lead with Insight, Not Pitches: Share something valuable they don’t know about their market, competitors, or opportunities. “I noticed companies in your space are struggling with X. Here’s what the successful ones are doing differently…”
3. Ask Questions That Make Them Think: Skip the basic discovery questions. Ask: “If you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing about your current process, what would it be?” or “What’s the real cost of not solving this problem?”
4. Admit What You Don’t Know: When stumped, say: “That’s a great question. I don’t have the answer right now, but I’ll find out and get back to you by tomorrow.” Then actually do it.
5. Tell Them When You’re NOT a Fit: Nothing builds trust faster than saying: “Based on what you’ve told me, I don’t think we’re the right solution for you. Here’s who might be better…” They’ll remember your honesty.
6. Share the Whole Truth About Implementation: Don’t sugarcoat. Tell them: “Here’s where clients typically hit speedbumps. Here’s how long it really takes. Here’s what you’ll need to invest beyond the price tag.”
7. Follow Up with Value, Not Just “Checking In”: Every touch should add value. Send industry reports, introduce them to potential partners, share competitive intelligence. Make them glad they took your call.

The Trust Killers to Avoid

• Talking Too Much: When you dominate the conversation, trust dies
• Rushing the Process: Pushing for a close before earning the right
• Breaking Small Promises: Missing a callback destroys credibility
• Faking Knowledge: Pretending to know something you don’t
• Being Unavailable After the Sale: Ghosting kills referrals

How AI Influences Trust in Modern Sales

Here’s the paradox: In an AI-powered sales world, your humanity becomes your biggest competitive advantage. Used strategically, it amplifies trust. Used carelessly, it destroys it. 

AI as a Trust Builder

• Intelligent Research: AI helps you research prospects and tailor your approach. When you understand their specific challenges before the first call, you demonstrate preparation and respect.
• Consistent Follow-Through: AI ensures nothing falls through the cracks. Automated reminders, follow-up sequences, and activity tracking help you keep every promise.
• More Time for Relationships: By automating routine tasks, AI frees you to focus on meaningful conversations and strategic thinking.

AI as a Trust Destroyer

• The Automation Trap: When every touchpoint feels robotic, relationships die. Use AI to enhance personalization, not replace it.
• Losing the Human Touch: When you let AI do all the talking, you become irrelevant. AI should amplify your voice, not replace it.

Trust More, Sell More

In a world of infinite options and instant information, trust becomes your only true differentiator. It’s the foundation of your career and the legacy you leave behind.

Stop treating trust as a nice-to-have. Start treating it as your most valuable asset.

Because people don’t buy what you sell. They buy who you are and how much they trust you to deliver.

Do your customers trust you? In this 2-minute micro-bite, Cheryl Parks reveals the signs that your customer views you as a trusted advisor. 

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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 what the hell happened.

In this Ask Jeb episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast, I’m going to teach you how to prevent it.

You Gave Away Your Leverage for Free

During our conversation, I asked Brian to consider what he’d do if I offered him $100 to go get me a Big Mac. He wasn’t interested. When I upped it to $200, he started considering it. At $500, he was ready to make the trip.

Why? Because at $500, the value exchange made sense to him.

Your sales information works exactly the same way. Your pricing, specs, and solutions have real value. When you hand them over without getting anything in return—especially before completing your sales process—you’re essentially giving away hundred-dollar bills for free.

And once you give away all your value, the prospect has no more reason to talk to you.

Understanding Power and Leverage in Sales

In most sales situations, your prospect has more power than you do because they have more alternatives than you. They can choose your competitors or simply decide to do nothing.

The only way to level the playing field is through leverage—something you have that they want because it provides value to them.

It’s like that hurricane example I gave Brian: If there’s a hurricane in Miami, all the power is out, and you’re the only person selling ice, you have all the power because there are no other options. But in normal business situations, your prospect has plenty of options, which gives them power.

Your information is the leverage that gets prospects to “dance to your tune.” Once you give that away without getting anything in return, you’ve surrendered all your power.

Your Sales Process Should Be a Value Exchange

Here’s what your sales process should look like instead:

1. Use discovery calls to build value: Ask questions that help prospects think differently about their problems. Create insights they can’t get elsewhere.
2. Meet multiple stakeholders: Insist on speaking with everyone involved in the decision. This builds relationships across the organization and prevents ghosting.
3. Present your proposal in person: NEVER email a proposal. Your proposal meeting should be a closing meeting where you’re getting a yes or no.
4. Look for engagement at every step: If prospects aren’t willing to invest time and effort in your process, they’re showing you they aren’t serious.

Each step of your process should involve the prospect giving something (usually time and information) to get something from you. This creates what psychologists call the “investment effect”—the more effort people put into something, the more they value it.

The RFP Trap

The clearest example of giving away leverage is responding to RFPs without conditions. When you fill out all that information and send it without meeting the decision-makers, you’ll rarely hear back.

My approach? “I’m not filling out all that information until you meet with me.” If they want your solution badly enough, they’ll meet. If they don’t, you’ve saved yourself hours of wasted time.

I practice what I preach, but I’m not perfect. Just last November, I spent 12 hours on a proposal I knew had little chance of closing because I’d skipped steps in my own process. I gave away my leverage for free, and they ghosted me—exactly as I predicted they would.

I have to relearn this lesson once or twice a year. Maybe you do too.=

You Need the Power to Walk Away

For this approach to work, you need a full pipeline. Because a full pipeline gives you more alternatives allowing you to walk away from prospects who won’t engage in your process.

This is precisely why I’m so fanatical about prospecting. When your pipeline is full, you have options. You can afford to lose deals that were never going to close anyway. You can sell without selling.

Look for the Warning Signs

As you engage with prospects, watch for these warning signs of future ghosting:

• Unwillingness to introduce you to other stakeholders
• Reluctance to share budgets or timelines
• Resistance to following your sales process
• Lack of engagement in discovery conversations
• Pushing for pricing or proposals too early

When you see these signs, address them directly: “I notice you’re hesitant to introduce me to your team. For us to create the right solution, I need to understand all stakeholders’ needs. Is there a reason you’re uncomfortable with that?”

The Bottom Line on Ghosting

Prospects ghost you when they’ve gotten what they wanted without having to commit to anything. The solution is simple but requires discipline:

1. Don’t give away valuable information for free
2. Insist that prospects follow your sales process
3. Look for reciprocal investment at every stage
4. Be willing to walk away when prospects won’t engage
5. Keep your pipeline full so you can afford to lose bad deals

Remember: What are prospects willing to do for your information? Hold the line on that question, and you’ll dramatically reduce the number of people who ghost you and disappear into the “witness protection program.”

To learn more about how to avoid being ghosted take Jeb Blount’s course on Sales Gravy University: The Real Secrets to Avoiding Stalled Deals and Prospects Who Ghost You

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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:

• Decision-makers take vacations.
• Buying committees become fragmented with staggered time off.
• Business momentum slows as organizations shift to a summer mindset.
• And you are distracted with the pool, the beach, your kids, and fun travel. 

Salespeople Wait Until it is Too Late

That’s reality. Now, here’s the brutal truth. Each summer salespeople make the same bad mistake—they wait until they’re already in the summer slump to try to climb out of it. By the time they realize their pipeline is drying up in late June, it’s already too late to course-correct, leading to stress and anxiety as their sales numbers and income drop as the temperature rises.

If you are not focused on building your summer pipeline now, you are in big damn trouble.

First, your prospects become harder to reach, which means your connection rates drop. With lower connection rates, you get fewer meetings. Fewer meetings lead to fewer opportunities entering your pipeline. Meanwhile, your existing pipeline is moving slower than normal due to vacation schedules.

These factors don’t just add up—they multiply. 

And here’s the kicker—while you’re experiencing this slowdown, your quota isn’t taking a vacation. Your revenue targets remain unchanged. In fact, for many organizations, Q3 is when quota ramps up higher and the pressure really starts to build to hit annual targets.

The Sales Psychology of Going Into Summer Prepared to Make Quota

Beyond the pure mathematics of pipeline building, there’s a psychological advantage to preparing now. When you’re proactively filling your pipeline ahead of the summer slowdown, you operate from a position of confidence and abundance.

Sales professionals who hit the summer slump with a thin pipeline typically find themselves in panic mode. When you’re in panic mode, prospects can sense it. Your conversations become more about your needs than theirs and your willingness to discount increases. These behaviors ultimately reduce deal profitability and your income, and damage your relationships with potential customers.

Contrast this with the sales professional who’s already built a healthy summer pipeline. They can approach each conversation with genuine curiosity and patience. They can focus on value creation rather than transaction acceleration. They can maintain price integrity because they’re not desperate for the deal. And they can actually have summer fun rather than summer stress. 

Double Down on Prospecting Now

The simple reality is that connecting with prospects will get harder during summer. So you need to double your outreach volume now. If you normally make 30 prospecting calls daily, bump that to 60 for the next six weeks.

The 30-Day Rule states that the prospecting you do in this 30-day period will pay off for the next 90 days. In other words, the seeds you plant today will determine your harvest in July and August.

• Knowing your pipeline is healthy going into summer allows you to enjoy any vacation time you take without constantly checking emails.
• When you’re not scrambling for deals, you can be more selective about which opportunities you pursue, focusing on ideal customer profiles rather than anyone with a pulse.
• A well-built summer pipeline might actually allow you periods of lower activity that you can use for skill development, process refinement, or strategic planning.
• While your competitors are experiencing the summer slump, you’ll be maintaining momentum—potentially winning deals with less competitive pressure.

Take Proactive Action Now to Protect Your Summer  Quota

Summer sales slowdowns are predictable and, with the right preparation, entirely manageable. The key is taking proactive action now.

Remember these three principles:

• The best time to build your summer pipeline was last month. The second-best time is today.
• Your quota doesn’t take a summer vacation, so your pipeline-building efforts can’t afford to either.
• The confidence that comes from preparation will be evident in every customer interaction, creating a virtuous cycle that boosts your win-rate.

I challenge you to block time on your calendar today—not tomorrow, not next week, but today—to double down on prospecting. And remember, when at the end of each of those blocks, always make one more call. 

Want to make more prospecting touches, in less time, with better outcomes? Then learn Jeb Blount’s H.I.P.S. Prospecting Method. It could change everything for you.

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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 just run your territory, these lessons from a successful entrepreneur will harden your mindset and help you sell with more purpose, more urgency, and more grit.

Making Money Isn’t Hard.

You need to come around to a simple idea: Making money isn’t the hard part. Getting over your mental baggage about making money is infinitely more difficult.

Most salespeople riding the feast-or-famine rollercoaster find themselves desperate more often than not. When that happens, they unconsciously sabotage themselves. They discount too quickly, hesitate to ask for the sale, or talk themselves out of big goals.

Here’s the truth: Money is everywhere, and opportunity is endless. But if you believe sales is a grind and success is for “those people,” you’ll work three times harder for half the reward. Don’t undersell yourself.

Entrepreneurs don’t apologize for making money—they design their lives around it. If you want to earn like a business owner, stop treating money like a taboo topic. Start treating it like a scoreboard you want to climb.

Stop Caring What People Think (Especially About You Winning)

The moment you start succeeding—wildly succeeding—is the moment people will have opinions about it.

You close a big deal or hit the top of the leaderboard? Somebody will whisper. Someone else will be resentful. That’s not your problem. It’s theirs.

You’ll never hit your peak if you can’t stomach a little hate from the nay-sayers.

Entrepreneurs learn early that approval won’t pay your bills. If you want to win in sales, stop seeking validation from people who aren’t playing game at your level.

You can’t serve your buyer and care what others think at the same time. Choose your future over fitting in.

Believe You’re Worth the Win

Most reps think their biggest problem is weak leads or tight markets. It’s not. It’s that they don’t believe they’re worthy of success.

They don’t think they deserve the close, the commission, or the praise. Instead of swinging for the fences or building consistency, they settle for mediocre wins some of the time. Instead of dealing with confidence, they let insecurity take over.

Business owners don’t have that luxury. Their livelihood depends on selling themselves—and believing in what they offer. The same should go for you.

When you believe you’re worth the success, your tone changes. Your body language shifts. Your presence becomes undeniable—and buyers feel it.

Push past doubt by honing your skills through practice and reviewing past successes. You deserve everything you’ve worked hard to gain.

Sales Isn’t About Getting—It’s About Giving

A lot of people treat sales like they’re trying to take something. That’s why they feel pushy, needy, or “icky.”

But the best sellers think like business owners—and owners know they’re in the business of solving problems. They’re giving value, outcomes, and transformation.

If your mindset is “I need to get this deal,” your buyer will feel that. But if you shift to “I’ve got something that can truly help them,” everything changes. You show up with confidence, not desperation; with curiosity, not pressure.

Sales isn’t just hunting. It’s serving. And your commission is just the reward for solving someone else’s problem.

Start thinking like a consultative seller. Listen closely to your prospect’s needs and position yourself as a trusted advisor who has the answers to their specific challenges.

You Can’t Do It All Yourself

This one hits especially hard for both entrepreneurs and lone-wolf reps: If you try to do everything on your own, you’ll burn out or stagnate.

Business owners grow when they learn to delegate. Sales pros grow when they learn to lean on their team—mentors, coaches, marketing, support, and systems.

You don’t have to be good at everything. You just have to be great at the one thing that moves the needle: selling.

Protect your time. Focus on high-value activities. Trust your support system to help you execute faster and smarter.

Think Like a CEO

You don’t need a corner office. You just need to take ownership of your attitude, activity, and outcomes.

Entrepreneurs don’t wait for permission, and neither should you. They don’t second-guess their worth, apologize for winning, or try to do it all alone—and if you want to level up your sales game, you shouldn’t either.

Own your number like it’s your business. Sell like you mean it. And remember: You are not just in sales—you are the CEO of your results.

Don’t just think like a C-suite level exec, act like a CEO.  Download our Small Business Owner’s Guide to Sales Training here.

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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: Both extremes are problematic. You need a pipeline that gives you meaningful data. Here’s how we handle this at Sales Gravy:

For Inbound Leads:

We categorize inbound leads into three distinct groups:

1. List Leads
These are people who sign up for our newsletter or download basic resources where we only ask for a name and email address. They’re joining our community, and while some might become customers down the road, they’re not pipeline opportunities yet.

2. MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads)
These folks have given us more detailed information through webinars or content downloads. They’ve provided their phone number, email address, company, role, etc. There’s an implicit understanding that we might reach out, but they haven’t expressed a direct interest in buying. I don’t want these in my pipeline just yet.

3. Hot Leads
These people come to us with their hands up, saying things like: “We’ve got a team of nine and want to do sales training” or “Our SKO is in February, and we want to hire Jeb. How much does he cost?” These leads have an open buying window and go straight into the pipeline. We’ll close 95% of these because they’ve already self-identified as buyers.

For Outbound Prospecting:

When prospecting outbound we only put opportunities into the pipeline after the prospect has agreed to a first-time appointment (FTA).

Here’s why: First-time appointments are your Money Ball metric—they indicate the health of your prospecting efforts. When an FTA is in your pipeline, you can measure critical data points like:

• Show/no-show rates by rep
• Advancement rates from FTA to next stages
• Conversion rates from FTA to closed business

If I have a rep setting tons of FTAs with only a 10% show rate, I need to diagnose that problem. If another rep is advancing 50% of their FTAs to the next stage, that tells me something completely different.

The qualification point is simple: Both parties have agreed to step into the sales process. That’s when it becomes a pipeline opportunity.

Some organizations resist this approach because they only want “fully qualified“ opportunities in their pipeline. I get it, but you’re missing valuable data if you wait too long.

Consider this example: If you work in an industry where everyone’s under contract, and you know contract expiration dates, you might be tempted to automatically add prospects to your pipeline as their contract end dates approach. I wouldn’t do that. Wait until you’ve had a conversation where they agree to meet with you to discuss options. That agreement to step into the process is your trigger.

If you’re putting everything into your pipeline, you’re diluting your data. If you’re waiting until deals are practically closed, why even have a pipeline? The sweet spot is somewhere in between—and for most B2B sales organizations, it’s at the first-time appointment stage.

Maximizing Prospecting Efficiency: How We Make So Many Calls

Tyler also asked about those “crazy” prospecting numbers I mention in my books. How do my teams make hundreds of calls during designated call blocks? The answer boils down to three key principles:

1. Separate List Building from Prospecting

Research and building lists is NOT prospecting. When we’re prospecting, we’re just chopping wood. We have our lists ready in advance, and when it’s time to prospect, that’s all we do.

Too many salespeople mix research and prospecting, which kills efficiency. They take 12 minutes between calls, check email, watch cat videos, and then wonder why they can’t get anything done.

2. Use High-Intensity Prospecting Sprints

In our Fanatical Prospecting Boot Camps, we run high-intensity prospecting sprints. If I give you 15 minutes to make calls with the goal of setting one appointment, most salespeople will make at least 10 calls.

Run four of these sprints, and you’ve made 40 calls minimum. Do that three times, and you’ve made 120 calls in just three hours.

This isn’t theory. We run these events for clients all over the country. Sales teams are consistently stunned by how many calls they can make when properly focused.

3. Create the Right Conditions

The key is setting the right conditions. Use a simple dialer that lets you click and move to the next call quickly. Have your list ready. Eliminate distractions. Focus solely on making calls during your designated block.

The Hard Truth About Prospecting

Most B2B salespeople don’t need to make hundreds of cold calls daily. With one solid hour of focused prospecting every day, most will set all the meetings they need.

But here’s the kicker—almost no one actually does this. They don’t set the conditions for success. They don’t separate list building from calling. They don’t eliminate distractions. They don’t create a cadence.

Everyone is capable of hitting extraordinary prospecting numbers. They just need to decide to do it. Most people don’t make that decision.

Putting It All Together

So, when should you create a deal? When both you and the prospect agree to step into the sales process, which is typically at the first-time appointment stage.

And how do you hit those crazy prospecting numbers? By separating list building from calling, running high-intensity sprints, and creating the right conditions for success.

The beauty of these approaches is that they’re simple. No fancy technology or complex methodologies required. Just disciplined execution of the fundamentals.

What I’ve learned over decades in sales is that success isn’t about finding the magic bullet—it’s about consistently executing the basics better than everyone else. Whether that’s knowing exactly when to create a deal or understanding how to maximize your prospecting efficiency, the fundamentals will always drive results.

Got a sales question or tough challenge and need answers? Then go to https://salesgravy.com/ask and Ask Jeb!

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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 you want to accomplish life—whether it’s playing golf, the piano, selling, investing, or mastering AI. If you want to be elite, you have to do a lot of repetitions of the same thing to reach the top. 

Adopt The Mamba Mentality

You’ve got to practice constantly. And this is what a lot of people miss. See, the truth is you can have anything in life you want—pretty much within reason—as long as you’re willing to do the boring work.

You know what separates Warren Buffett, the greatest investor of our generation, from other investors? He’s read over 100,000 financial statements in his lifetime. Think about that. 100,000 financial statements. That’s not exciting work. That’s not sexy. It is sitting alone, poring over numbers, analyzing balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, day after day, year after year, decade after decade. But that boring work made him one of the richest people on the planet.

Or look at Kobe Bryant. Kobe was famous for his “Mamba Mentality” which meant showing up at 4 AM to practice, hours before his teammates. It meant shooting thousands of the same shots over and over. His trainer once said Kobe would practice one simple move 700-800 times in a single session. Not 10 times, not 50 times. 700-800 times. The same move, over and over and over again. That’s the boring work that made him a legend.

Going out to the driving range and hitting a thousand balls with your seven iron is one of the most boring things you can possibly do. Crap, hitting 50 balls with your seven iron is boring. But that’s what separates the top performers from the low performers—they’re willing to do the boring things.

Top Performers are Always Working at It

In sales, top performers are constantly studying. I meet them all the time. They show up in my seminars, read my books and listen to my podcasts. They’re taking courses on Sales Gravy University. They invest in learning and practicing every single day. 

When we run role plays, they jump right in. They recognize that, yeah, that’s boring work. But you’ve got to do the boring things, the repetitive things, to get what you want. 

Be Careful What You Wish For

So the questions you have to ask yourself when you make that wish for what you want or set a goal is:

• How bad do you want it?
• Are you willing to do the work? 
• Are you willing to make the sacrifice? 
• Are you willing to grind day in and day out? 
• Are you willing to do all of boring reps that nobody ever sees in order to reach the very top? 

Success is Paid for In Advance With Boring Work

You can accomplish anything once you accept that the price for success is paid for in advance. The price of admission to the elite levels of any profession is doing the boring work that most people aren’t willing to do. Let me give you an example from my own life.

Years ago, when I was starting out in my sales career, I made a commitment to make 100 cold calls every single day no matter what. Rain or shine. Good mood or bad mood. Whether I felt like it or not. You know first hand that cold calling is not exciting work. It’s tedious, repetitive, and rejection dense. Honestly, most people—including my boss—thought I was nuts. 

But those 100 calls a day allowed me to out perform and out earn all of my peers. It made me the top sales rep in my fortune 200 company. It bought houses, made me wealthy, and eventually gave me the platform to write books, speak on stages and build Sales Gravy.

The Michelangelo Principle 

I like to think about it as the Michelangelo Principle. You know the story—someone once asked Michelangelo how he created his masterpiece David from a block of marble. And he replied, “I just chipped away everything that didn’t look like David.”

Excellence works the same way. You chip away at your limitations through practice and repetition. Every cold call you make chips away at your fear of rejection. Every role play you participate in chips away at your awkwardness around handling objections. Every book you read chips away at your ignorance about your industry or your craft.

The Invisible Work Nobody Every Sees

It’s not glamorous. Nobody’s going to film you making your hundredth cold call of the week and post it on social media. Nobody’s going to celebrate you for doing pre-call planning on a Sunday evening. You are not going to give you a standing ovation for waking up an hour early to invest in professional development before work.

This is the invisible work that no one ever sees. The small, seemingly insignificant actions, performed consistently over time, yield massive results. This is the Law of Cumulative Impact.

Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time with 28 medals, trained for 5 straight years without missing a single day—even on Christmas, even on his birthdays. His coach said that by training 365 days a year, Phelps gained a 52-day advantage over competitors who took Sundays off. Those single days compounded into the most dominant swimming career in history.

The problem is, most people quit before the compound effect kicks in. They do the boring work for a week, maybe a month, don’t see immediate results, and give up. They never experience the exponential growth that comes from consistent, boring effort applied over years.

Embrace Discomfort

Look at Tom Brady. For 23 seasons, he was typically the first player to arrive at the facility and the last to leave. At 44 years old, he was still doing the same boring drills he did as a rookie. 

His former teammate once said that Brady would spend hours studying game film that most quarterbacks would skip over. While other players were enjoying their off-seasons, Brady was working with his receivers on timing routes. While they were taking vacation, he was perfecting his footwork. That commitment to uncomfortable, boring work is why he has seven Super Bowl rings.

But that discomfort? That’s where growth happens. It’s like working out. If you’ve ever done any serious physical training, you know that muscle growth happens when you push past comfort. When your muscles burn, when you feel like you can’t do one more rep—that’s precisely when you need to do one more.

Sales excellence works the same way. When you’re tired of practicing your pitch, do it five more times. When you’re dreading making another cold call, make ten more. When you think you think you’ve prepared enough, do more.

Get into the habit of Eating the Frog. “Do the thing you least want to do first thing in the morning.” That thing you’re avoiding is exactly what you need to do to move your career and income forward.

Tedious Discipline is Your Competitive Edge

Recently I was working with a sales team.There was this one rep, Mike. He was middle of the pack—not terrible, but not stellar either.

During our training, I emphasized the importance of research and reading to develop industry knowledge. Most of the team nodded along, but Mike took it to heart. He committed to spending 15 minutes each morning specifically to gain a better understanding of his industry and grow his business acumen. 

Six months later, I got an email from Mike’s sales manager. Mike was now the top performer on the team. His close rate had doubled. His average deal size had increased by 40%. All from a simple, boring discipline of spending 15 minutes learning about his industry. .

When I called Mike to congratulate him, he made a confession. He said, “Jeb, to be honest, I hated doing the research at first. It was boring and felt like a waste of time. But after about two months, I started noticing patterns and understanding my customers better. Discovery calls went deeper. I saw opportunities to help them that I would have missed before. My customers gave me a seat at the table because they viewed me as an expert.”

That’s how the boring work transforms. What starts as tedious discipline eventually becomes your competitive edge.

There is No Such Thing as Natural Talent

Before going any further, let’s address the myth of natural talent. I hear it all the time: “Oh, she’s just a natural salesperson.” “He is a born closer.” It’s pure BS. I’ve coached plenty of “naturals” who failed because they relied on charm instead of working to master the craft. 

True sales excellence isn’t about what you were born with—it’s about process and skills. And skills are built through the discipline to do the boring, repetitive work.

Take Jerry Rice, widely considered the greatest wide receiver in NFL history. Was he the most naturally gifted athlete? No. He wasn’t the fastest, strongest or the tallest. But his work ethic was legendary.

His off-season hill training program was so grueling that teammates who tried to join him would literally vomit. He would run the same routes thousands of times until they were perfect. He would catch hundreds of balls after practice when everyone else had gone home.

That’s not natural talent—that’s an unnatural commitment to doing the boring work. The truth is that repetition is the mother of skill. 

Greatness Has a Price

Before the Beatles became famous, they played over 1,200 live shows in Hamburg, Germany. They would play eight hours a night, seven days a week. That’s over 10,000 hours of practice in just a few years. That’s what made them the Beatles—not just natural musical ability, but thousands of hours of repetitive performance when nobody knew who they were.

So here’s the bottom line: Greatness has a price. And that price is paid in advance through boring, repetitive, often uncomfortable work. If you want to be elite—whether in sales, sports, music, leadership, or any other field—you must embrace the boring work. You must fall in love with the process. You must find joy in the small improvements, the tiny victories, the gradual mastery that comes from doing the same things over and over again, but doing them better each time.

There are no shortcuts. There are no hacks. There is only dedicated focus and putting in the work. 

So when it’s the end of the day and everyone else around you is packing up and going home, when that little voice inside your head tells you it’s ok to quit, shake it off and make one more call because that is the price of greatness. 

Learn how to master LinkedIn for prospecting sequences and pipeline building in Jeb’s brand new book: The LinkedIn Edge

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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 they should pause

This isn’t just a skill gap—it’s a blind spot. When you don’t know how best to connect with your prospect because you’re not listening—that’s a dangerous place to sell from.

Self-awareness is your internal compass. Without it, you can’t navigate objections, establish trust, or conduct a real discovery conversation. You can’t be 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.

The Ego Trap: Overconfidence Kills Awareness

It might seem counterintuitive, but your biggest blind spot in sales might be your own ego.

Close a few deals, and suddenly you stop prepping, shortcut discovery, and assume you know the buyer. That’s when self-awareness can tank.

Confidence is good until it turns into arrogance. When you stop reflecting, stop asking questions, and stop listening, you lose your edge. Sales is a what ’s-happening-today game. Yesterday’s win doesn’t guarantee today’s deal.

Top sellers stay humble enough to ask:

•  “Did I connect, or just perform?”
•  “Am I guiding, or just trying to sound impressive?”
• “Does my solution fit their problem, or am I just trying to land a quick deal?”

The most crucial part of self-awareness? Checking your mindset—and your overconfidence—before it derails a lucrative deal.

Ego says you’ve got it handled. Self-awareness asks if that’s really true.

Only one of those gets you to President’s Club.

The Two Lanes of Emotionally Intelligent Awareness

Awareness in sales isn’t just about having “emotional intelligence” and keeping arrogance in check. It’s about two critical lanes:

1. Seller Self-Awareness

You must know how your tone, presence, and mindset affect the buyer. That means recognizing when:

• You’re chasing approval instead of guiding decisions
• You’re hesitating out of fear of rejection
• You’re overexplaining because you’re insecure
• You’re emotionally reacting instead of staying neutral

Top sellers audit themselves for these moments constantly. They ask: 

• “Was I too defensive there?”
•  “Did I listen or just wait to talk?” 
• “Am I showing up with certainty or neediness?”

A self-inventory is no picnic. But this self-audit allows the elite to stay composed, curious, and in control—especially when things get tense.

2. Buyer’s State Awareness

A self-aware seller is tuned in. They’re not just listening to what is said, but why it’s being said, and what isn’t being said at all.

Consultative selling is all about sensing, so it’s:

• Knowing when a buyer’s guard is up
• Being alert to when they’re overwhelmed
• Learning when they’re intrigued but afraid to say yes
• Watching the micro-expressions
• Noticing the shift in tone

The best lead by aligning with the buyer’s state. By understanding the buyer’s motivations, emotional triggers, and decision-making pace, self-aware sellers engage in deal-making, not manipulation. 

Self-Awareness Might Be New to You

So there’s no doubt self-awareness nets meetings and closes deals. But here’s the problem: Most sellers have never been coached to insightfully reflect. 

They’re trained on scripts, not self-regulation. They’re told to “just make the calls,” but not how to manage the emotions that come with rejection, hesitation, or being ghosted.

It’s easy to understand the challenges. Not everyone is naturally wired to be self-reflective. Many think confidence means speaking first, talking fast, and sounding “impressive.” But what buyers respond to—what makes real deals happen—is slowing down, paying attention, and showing up with awareness instead of ego.

Want to change? Practice more, seek more feedback, and become coachable. Spend time reflecting on past sales and buyer needs. Most importantly, listen—to buyers, mentors, and yourself.

How to Build Awareness (Because It’s Not Optional Anymore)

If you want to become more self-aware in sales, start with these actionable items:

1. Record Your Calls – Listen back not to critique performance, but to observe how you show up. Were you tense? Rushed? Defensive? Detached?
2. Ask for Feedback Often – From your coach, your peers, even your buyers. How do people feel when they interact with you?
3. Track Emotional Triggers – What rattles you in a sales conversation? Is it a certain objection? A tone of voice? A personality type?
4. Practice Presence – Before each call, take 60 seconds to breathe and ground yourself. Think: Where are my feet? What am I doing right now? How can I be more present for my buyer?

Rainmakers are Masters of Self

The best sellers aren’t just good at tactics. They’re masters of self. They can read the room, check their own ego, and adapt in real time, because they’re paying attention to what actually matters. They’re watching their buyer, keying into clues about their mindset, and putting the prospect’s needs first.

If you want to become a consultative, trusted advisor—and sell with ethics, excellence, and compassion—start by turning inward. That’s where the real work begins.

And the best part? Self-awareness is a skill. That means it’s trainable. It simply demands intention.

So look honestly into the mirror and start turning your self-awareness blind spot into an asset.

Ready to double-down on your self-awareness and set a goal to become a more consultative seller? Download our FREE Sales Gravy Goal Planning Guide here.

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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 the middle of an important meeting, they typically don’t answer calls from unknown numbers. The fact that they picked up your call suggests they might not be as unavailable as they claim.

That said, they might be between meetings, heading into a meeting, or simply using this as a brush-off technique. Regardless of their true situation, you need an objection handling strategy.

Based on my conversation with Paul, here are three effective approaches to handle this common situation:

Approach #1: The Quick Pitch Strategy

This is what Paul has been doing: When he gets someone on the phone who says they’re in a meeting, he delivers his DMX (Decision Maker Express) pitch as quickly as possible, then tries to secure a meeting.

Paul mentioned this sometimes works for him. He gets the meeting scheduled, then works hard to ensure they show up by engaging with them on LinkedIn, sending follow-up emails, and basically “surrounding” them with touch points.

The upside: You’ve got them on the line, so why not take your shot? The downside: Rushing through your pitch can make you sound desperate and reduce your effectiveness.

When to use it: If you have a high-energy personality and can deliver a compelling, concise pitch without sounding rushed, this approach can work. It’s especially effective if you have a solid follow-up strategy to ensure they show up to the meeting.

Approach #2: The Acknowledge and Pivot Strategy

Instead of trying to pitch someone who’s claimed to be busy, simply acknowledge their situation and pivot directly to scheduling:

“I totally expected you to be in a meeting and not able to talk. That’s exactly why I called—to find a time that’s more convenient for you. Why don’t I send you a meeting invite for Thursday at 2:00, and then we can get together when you do have time to talk?”

This approach demonstrates respect for their time while simultaneously accomplishing your objective of setting an appointment.

What happens next reveals a lot:

• If they agree to the meeting, you’ve accomplished your goal without the rushed pitch.
• If they ask, “Who are you again?” they’re actually signaling they have more time than they initially let on.
• If they say they’re not available Thursday, they’re engaging in a scheduling conversation—which means they’re interested enough to find an alternative time.

When to use it: This works particularly well when you sense the prospect is genuinely busy, but they might be interested with the right approach. It’s respectful, professional, and surprisingly effective.

Approach #3: The Non-Complementary Behavior Strategy

This is my personal favorite because it uses psychology to your advantage.

When the prospect answers with high energy, saying they’re busy or in a meeting, don’t match their energy. Instead, deliberately slow down and use a calm, relaxed tone:

“Totally get that. I figured you would be busy. Look, I only have two questions.”

Then—and this is critical—be quiet. Let the silence do the work.

If they truly have no time, they’ll hang up. But most won’t. Instead, they’ll likely say something like, “Okay, but go fast.”

Now you need to ask a question that gets them engaged—something they can easily answer that reveals qualification information:

“How many data points are you connected to in your current configuration?”

The magic happens in what follows:

• If they answer quickly and try to end the call, say: “That’s exactly why we need to get together. Let me send you a meeting invite for Thursday at 2:00.”
• If they slow down and give you detailed information, you’ve got them talking. Ask another question and build momentum.

The key to this approach is using non-complementary behavior—when they speed up, you slow down. This pattern interrupt makes you stand out from every other salesperson they’ve encountered.

When to use it: This approach works best when you sense the prospect isn’t actually as busy as they claim, but is using “I’m in a meeting” as a reflexive defense mechanism.

Reading the Situation Matters

Regardless of which approach you choose, pay close attention to how they respond to your first question:

• If they answer slowly and thoughtfully, they likely have more time than they initially claimed
• If they’re genuinely rushing, respect that and pivot to scheduling
• If they hang up immediately, you’ve lost nothing—they weren’t going to talk anyway

The best strategy depends on several factors:

1. Your personal style: Paul has a high-energy, engaging personality that makes the quick pitch approach viable for him. Know your strengths.
2. Your results: As I told Paul, if what you’re doing is working, keep doing it. If your show rate for meetings is poor, try a different approach.
3. The prospect’s tone: Listen carefully to how they say “I’m in a meeting.” Sometimes their tone will tell you which approach is most likely to succeed.
4. Test and measure: Try all three approaches with different prospects and track your results. The data will tell you which method works best for your specific situation.

How you handle this moment separates average salespeople from top performers. The best reps have multiple strategies ready and know when to deploy each one.

Remember, in sales, objections aren’t roadblocks—they’re detours that lead to the same destination. Master these three approaches to the “I’m in a meeting” objection, and you’ll turn what most salespeople see as a dead end into a pathway to more meetings and more deals.

Want more sales tips and strategies for overcoming prospecting objections? Download Jeb Blount’s FREE Objections Book Club Guide

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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 brilliance and disaster. Allow the wrong thoughts to creep in and before you know it you’ve shanked your shot into a water hazard. 

You Become What You Think

In golf and in sales, you cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought. 

Self-talk is crazy powerful. You become what you think. When you expect to win, you’ll win far more often than the person who believes they are going to lose. When you learn how to block out negative thoughts and inputs and remain focused on your process you’ll consistently out perform those who don’t. 

Understanding this is crucial in these crazy times full of volatility, uncertainty, negativity and divisiveness. In this environment where everything can hit the fan in an instant on any given day, it is super easy to become mired in stinking thinking. 

Beware of Stinking Thinking

Stinking thinking is the toxic inner soundtrack that loops in your head after a bad conversation with your boss, seeing a negative story on the news or social media, a lost deal, a bad quarter, or hitting five straight voicemails on cold calls. It’s every “Nobody answers the phone anymore,” “No one’s buying in this economy,” or “I’m just not cut out for sales.”line you feed yourself. It’s catastrophizing. It’s victim-talk.

Imagine the impact on your mindset when your internal conversation is constantly filled with negativity. It’s the mental equivalent of leaving a half-eaten tuna sandwich in your backpack for a week—eventually the smell becomes unbearable.

Mindset drives attitude, attitude drives behavior, and behavior drives outcomes. When stinking thinking settles in:

• Your Reticular Activating System—the brain’s spam filter—starts looking for evidence you’re doomed, and sure enough, you find it.
• Call reluctance skyrockets. You protect your fragile ego instead of filling the pipe and asking confidently for the sale.
• Every “maybe” sounds like a “no,” every objection feels personal, and every tiny setback reinforces the lie that you’re stuck.

Left unchecked, that negative monologue becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your pipeline shrinks, numbers dip, confidence tanks, and pretty soon you’re blaming the market instead of owning the mirror.

Thoughts are Just Choices

The good news is that thoughts are just choices. You control your mindset. You have the ability to flip the switch from victim to driver. From rain barrel to rainmaker. 

What you must never forget is that momentum follows mindset, not the other way around. Manage your self-talk and the results follow suit. 

When your self-talk turns negative, take control and change it. Learn to replace negative self-talk with positive affirmations and statements. Get in the habit of looking in the mirror and answering the question: “What can I control right now?” Focus on that. 

Knowing vs Doing

Now, here’s the rub, everybody knows self-talk matters. Socrates hammered on it. Marcus Aurelius journaled about it. Your grandmother probably told you to “stop being so negative.” The concept of mental discipline isn’t new, it’s universal.

But intellectual agreement and day-to-day execution are two very different zip codes. You can post quotes from every Stoic on LinkedIn and still spend the morning telling yourself, “I’ll never hit quota in this economy.” Knowledge without application is just trivia.

So flip the switch from knowing to doing. The instant a negative phrase spins in your head—“This deal is DOA,” “The client hates our price,” “I’m terrible at cold calls”—pause and label it: stinking thinking. Then replace that rotten thinking with a power statement tied to action. “I’m terrible with cold calls.” becomes “Each dial sharpens my skills and makes me stronger.”

Be ruthless about this exercise. Set an hourly chime on your phone if you have to. Negative thoughts are squatters; the longer they occupy space, the harder they are to evict. Kick them out in real time and your attitude will gain altitude.

The Trouble With Doom Scrolling 

One of the challenges you face in today’s environment is that you’re under a constant barrage of negativity from external forces on social media, in your news feed, on coming through the speakers of your car. When you are reading, watching, listening to, and scrolling through negativity it will shape your mindset and self-talk

Attention is currency. News organizations and social media platforms make money by selling your attention to advertisers. They know that the easiest way to grab your attention is with bad news. Their entire apparatus is set up to take advantage of the way your brain works. 

In the mornings you wake up and, like a moth to a flame, you are drawn to your phone. You roll over and open your news app or social media app. Instantly you are immersed in negativity. As you watch news, scroll through your news apps, and follow the chatter on social media you feel panic and fear. Your mind turns to the worst-case scenarios. Rather than focusing on what you can control, you dwell on doom and gloom.  

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of modern society is the news. Disaster is always the story of the day. As they say: “If it bleeds it leads.” Spending an hour watching a cable news channel or scrolling through a social media feed will leave you in need of an antidepressant and a therapist. And the more you watch, the more addictive it becomes. 

So stop. Turn it off. Put your phone down. Right now. Putting an end to this destructive and negative input will have an immediate, positive impact on your attitude. You will feel better and your belief system will strengthen.

8 Ways to Improve Your Mindset Right Now

Focus on what you can control. Here are eight things you can do right now to mind your mindset. 

1. Block at least 15 minutes on your calendar every day for professional reading.
2. Listen to an audiobook while you take a walk or exercise. 
3. Take an online course on Sales Gravy University.
4. Listen to motivational and professional podcasts. Podcasts are free and the content is amazing. 
5. Spend 10 minutes each day in silence for spiritual contemplation or prayer. Get focused and anchor your mindset.
6. Exercise a minimum of 30 minutes every day. It doesn’t matter what you do. Just get up, get moving, and break a sweat.
7. Eat a well-balanced diet and never skip breakfast.
8. Go to bed early and get enough sleep.

Posture is a Shortcut to Mindset

One of the fastest attitude-adjustment hacks on the planet sits right on top of your spine. Stand up and roll those shoulders back. Plant your feet like you own the ground beneath them. Lift your chin so your eyes are on the horizon, not the floor. 

Do that and—bang—your biochemistry follows orders. Cortisol (the stress hormone) drops, testosterone edges up, and your brain gets a fresh hit of confidence. Harvard research calls it “power posing.” I call it common sense. You can’t slouch like a question mark and expect to sell like an exclamation point.

The next time you’re about to dial a prospect, step out from behind the desk, stand tall, and smile so wide you can feel it in your ears. Your voice will warm up, your pace will steady, and the person on the other end will hear a pro who believes in their own value. Same thing before a big presentation or a tough negotiation—straighten up, breathe from the diaphragm, and let your body tell your mind, “We’ve got this.” Your prospects will feel the difference, and so will you.

Misery Wants You to Join the Team

It’s also crucial that you understand that misery loves company, and it desperately wants you to join the team.

Picture a lone crabber easing across the bay at dawn. He hauls up a wire trap, shakes the catch into a five-gallon bucket, and keeps working his line.

Before long, one ambitious crustacean decides he’s not sticking around for the boiling pot. Claw over claw, he inches up the plastic wall—almost free. But every time he reaches the rim, the other crabs latch on and drag him back to the bottom. No escape. No hope. Everyone loses.

These days there is plenty of misery to go around. Miserable people whine about the economy, inflation, prospects, customers, too-few leads, and that no one is buying. They complain about the company, the commission plan, and the boss. 

Negative, miserable people grab you with their claws and pull you down into the bucket with them. Pretty soon the words coming out of your mouth are negative too. You’ll start to believe that you are stuck in that bucket and there is no way out. You’ll begin to feel contempt for your company, customers, and boss. 

Proximity is Power

You and your mindset are a composite of the people you spend the most time with. Hang out with people who have a negative mindset, and they’ll destroy yours. 

Start by excusing yourself from negative conversations. Just walk away. Seek out people who build you up rather than tear you down. Connect with people who see opportunity in adversity. 

Stick close to peers who bang out their call blocks every morning, the ones that consistently hit their number, the rainmakers who accept no excuses and believe that they alone control their destiny. Their pace becomes your pace. Their standards become your standards. Your mindset will quickly shift from impossible to possible. 

Mindset and momentum have a tendency to rub off. Remember, you don’t rise to the level of your aspirations, you fall to the level of the company you keep. Proximity is power.

Stop Looking for the Easy Way

Selling during the economic uncertainty we are facing at this moment is brutal. You are going to face setbacks, frustration, failure, unending rejection, panicked customers, unscrupulous competitors, unrelenting pressure to perform, along with the massive stress that comes from worrying about your family and finances. 

It is critical that you awaken from the delusion that somehow you are going to find a way to make this easy. You are not. 

These days, nothing is easy. You’ve got to get your ass up and go out there and make it rain yourself. Don’t count on easy leads, any help or for anyone to pick up your slack. There are no days off. No lunch breaks. It’s just damn hard work. The highest earning sales professionals are skipping meals and doing deals. Which is why they win in any environment. 

So focus relentlessly on the only three things you can control. Your actions, reactions, and mindset. 

And remember, when you’ve spent your entire day grinding and your mind is telling you to pack up and go home, always make one more call because this is your way to telling the world, I am here, I am resilient, and no matter what you throw at me, I will always find a way to win!

In volatile times, it is hard to sell. Yet, you are still under the same pressure to make your sales number. In my FREE Selling in a Crisis Workbook, you’ll gain the confidence and tactics you need to win when everyone else is losing. Download Here.

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Let’s kill the myth: sales coaching isn’t just for newbies or underperformers. 

It’s for closers, leaders, and the ones who want more—more pipeline, more wins, more control over their career. If you’re in sales, you need coaching. Period.

This isn’t feel-good fluff. Sales is a performance sport. Every high-performance athlete has a coach, and every inspiring performer has a mentor for a reason.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs a coach. From the elite to the desperate, everyone can benefit from guidance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCOY793fA5E 1. The Desperate: The Bottom 20%

You know who you are. You’re missing quota—again. Every call feels heavier, your confidence is tanking, and you’re out of answers.

Here’s the truth: you don’t need more time—you need better habits, tighter processes, and someone to call out your excuses. You need guidance.

Sales coaching forces you to stop guessing and start fixing. A good coach will rip the blinders off: Are you dodging the phones? Are you hesitating at the close? Are you talking too much and listening too little?

You’re not going to claw your way out of the bottom 20% by working harder. You get out by working smarter, with someone who’s done it before and won’t let you off the hook.

Find yourself a coach—do it now—before the hole you’ve dug gets any deeper.

2. The Mediocre Middle

You’re not bottom of the pack, but you’re not standing out either. You’re just … fine. Quietly average. Here you are, coasting on a couple of decent months, dodging attention, not making waves, paying your bills but treading water accomplishment-wise.

And that should scare you. This is not where you want to be.

This is where most reps stay stuck—not because they don’t care, but because they don’t change. Coaching breaks the cycle of complacency. It’s the flashlight in the dark that shows you exactly what’s holding you back. Weak discovery? Inconsistent follow-ups? Soft closes?

You don’t need a miracle. You need fresh eyes and someone who pushes you past the edge of “fine.”

Seek out a coach who’s been there and knows how to break through the ceiling you’re trapped under.

3. The Ultra High Performer

You’re already top tier. You’ve pushed your way into the 5%. President’s Club. You’ve got the trophies, the income, and the T-shirt to prove it.

So why do you need coaching?

Because the best never stop training. They don’t rest on wins—they refine, seek out marginal gains, and build muscle when others relax. Coaching helps you identify the 2mm adjustments that turn a winner into a legend.

The ultra-high performers I’ve seen who get coaching consistently shorten deal cycles, multiply referrals, and close with precision. The ego stays in check, the mindset stays sharp, and the momentum stays up. They’re breaking into enterprise-level sales on the regular.

The moment you stop chasing growth is the moment someone else starts catching up.

Your ideal coach has climbed to the top of the mountain themselves and is willing to help you scale it, too.

4. The Solopreneur

You’re running a business, selling the service, delivering the product, and following up with the clients. You’re building the plane mid-air.

But let’s be real—most solopreneurs need some help to truly master sales. With your passion, you’re the best sales rep for your product you’ll ever have—but right now, you’re winging it.

“Coaching helps you build a real sales process—consistent outreach, confident pricing, and predictable revenue. 

You can’t afford wasted time or wasted energy. A coach helps you cut distractions, stop chasing bad-fit leads, and finally build the kind of pipeline that scales with you.

If you want to play a bigger game, you’ve got to start selling like a pro—not an amateur.

Go land a coach who’s as committed to making you a top-tier sales rep as you are to your business.

5. The Sales Leader

You coach your team, run the numbers, and lead the meetings. You’re trying to hit your own number while calling all the plays. So who’s coaching you?

Sales leaders need a different kind of pressure. A coach helps you rise above the daily chaos and lead with vision. They help you recognize your blind spots, develop your people faster, and build a culture where coaching is the norm, not a rescue mission.

If you’re not growing, your team won’t grow. If you’re not learning, they’re not learning. You can’t preach growth if you’re not showing it—and that includes being coachable.

You want your reps to invest in themselves? Start by investing in yourself first.

Sales Coaching is Absolutely Necessary

If you’re in sales and you’re not getting coached, you’re leaving deals, dollars, and development on the table. Coaching is the edge that keeps you ahead—not the crutch you reach for when you’re behind.

It builds skill, confidence, and the consistency that separates the average from the elite.

If you’re still thinking, “Do I really need coaching?”—you’re already answering your own question.

You don’t need to wait until you’re struggling. You need to decide you’re worth it—because staying the same is the most expensive decision you can make.

Ready to stop winging it and start winning it? Get a coach. Get serious. Download our FREE How to Find the Right Coach guide.

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You’re at a networking event and someone corners you. For the next ten minutes, they talk nonstop about their vacation, their dog, their new car. You’re not having a conversation. You’re trapped in their monologue. You’re annoyed. You tune out. You start looking for the exit.

That’s exactly how your prospects feel when you make yourself the star of the conversation.

What Is Sales Main Character Syndrome?

Sales main character syndrome is when you position yourself as the hero instead of your prospect. You see it everywhere:

On the phone: You launch into a five-minute pitch about your company history before asking a single question.

In email: You send giant blocks of text about features without mentioning their actual problems.

On LinkedIn: Your connect request immediately hits them with “Here’s my product, here’s my calendar link, let’s meet.”

No matter the channel, it all leads back to the same place: your product, your company, your agenda.

Prospects don’t care about your product yet. They care about their problems, their goals, and what’s at stake in their world. When you make it all about you, you trigger resistance. Buyers feel sold to instead of collaborated with. And that leads to ghosting, objections, and stalled deals.

Nobody wants to sit through a feature dump. People need relevance. They want to feel heard and know you actually get them.

The Real Cost of Sales Main Character Syndrome

Sales main character syndrome has consequences that will wreck your quota.

1. Prospects disengage. When you focus on yourself and your product instead of the buyer and their needs, they tune out. Calls feel like lectures. Emails read like brochures. Messages get deleted without a response. Lose their attention, and you’ve lost your shot.
2. You miss the real opportunities. By making the interaction about yourself, you fail to ask the right questions. You don’t hear what’s actually going on in their world. You can’t identify the true pain points, the real goals, or what’s actually motivating them. So you pitch solutions that don’t align with what they need. You waste discovery time chasing the wrong problems.
3. Destroy trust before it’s built. Your prospects stop seeing you as a helpful guide. Instead, you’re just another salesperson pushing a product. Without trust, everything gets harder and long-term relationships become impossible.

The cost is too high. So how do you flip the script?

The Mindset Shift: From Hero to Trusted Guide

Your job is to be a trusted guide, not the hero. Think Yoda, not Luke Skywalker.

Your prospect is the hero of their own story. They’re the ones facing the challenge, making the decision, and living with the outcome. 

When prospects feel like the main character, they engage more. They open up. They trust you. And trust moves deals forward.

Here’s a simple three-step framework you can use in every conversation.

Step #1: Change Your “I” to “Why”

Stop starting conversations with:

• “I want to show you…”
• “I’d love to introduce…”
• “I think you’ll like…”

Your buyers don’t care about your “I.” They care about their “why.”

Why should this matter to them? Why is it relevant right now? Why does it solve a problem they’re actually facing?

Lead with “why,” and the focus shifts from your agenda to their reality. You’ll stop sounding like a salesperson and start being seen as someone who understands their world.

Before: “I’d love to show you our new platform and walk you through all the features we’ve built.”

After: “Companies in your industry are losing 20% of their pipeline to manual data entry errors. Here’s how to fix that.”

One is about you. The other is about them.

Step #2: Define What You Solve, Not What You Sell

Most salespeople can rattle off what they sell. A platform. A service. A software solution. That’s not what your buyer cares about.

Buyers don’t wake up thinking, “I need a new vendor today.” They wake up thinking, “I need to fix this problem that’s making my life harder.”

When you define the problem you solve instead of the product you sell, you build immediate value. You position yourself as a partner in their success, not just another pitch in their inbox.

Product-focused: “We’re a sales engagement platform with email sequencing, call tracking, and analytics.”

Problem-focused: “We help sales teams stop losing deals to slow follow-up and inconsistent outreach.”

Stop leading with what you sell and start leading with what you solve. Conversations convert faster when prospects see themselves in the problem you’re addressing.

Step #3: Listen to Hear, Not to Respond

The biggest mistake in sales? Listening just long enough to jump in with your answer.

Most reps wait for their turn to talk. They’re mentally preparing the pitch while the buyer is still speaking. It feels efficient. It’s actually ineffective.

Listening to hear means shutting up long enough to understand. You catch the nuance. You pick up on the emotion. You uncover the hidden pain points that competitors miss because they’re too busy pitching.

Slow down. Tune in. Let your buyer feel heard. That’s when trust starts to build and when real opportunity opens up.

Your Challenge: Put It Into Practice This Week

The shift from sales main character syndrome to trusted guide isn’t complicated. But it does require awareness and intention. You have to catch yourself when you’re about to launch into your standard pitch. Pause and ask, “Am I making this about me or about them?”

Your prospect is the hero. Your job is to guide them to success. Make it about them. Lead with relevance. Listen deeply. Watch what happens when you get this right.

Because the most successful salespeople aren’t trying to be impressive. They’re trying to be useful.

Make your prospect the main character in every conversation. Do it consistently, and you won’t have to chase attention. You’ll earn it.

—

Stop getting tuned out. Download the Free ACED Buyer Style Playbook and learn how to speak your buyer’s language.

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Kyle, a field sales rep from British Columbia, is struggling with a common prospecting challenge: how to consistently prospect when you’re constantly on the move.

Kyle’s situation likely resonates with many of you in outside sales. He described his typical day—starting at job sites at 7:30 AM, running between appointments, sending proposals from his truck, and working from Starbucks in between meetings. Sound familiar?

He had read my book, Fanatical Prospecting, where I advocate for dedicated time blocks for prospecting. But Kyle’s reality made traditional time blocking nearly impossible. So what’s a field rep to do?

What follows is the advice I gave Kyle, cleaned up and expanded so every field seller, territory manager, and outside sales road warrior can put it to work—right now.

Focus on Activity Count, Not Time Blocks

If you’re in Kyle’s shoes (or truck), here’s my advice: Stop obsessing over time and start focusing on activity counts.

Instead of trying to carve out a rigid one- or two-hour block, set a daily activity goal. For someone in Kyle’s position, committing to 30 quality outbound touches per day is likely sufficient. In my early days, I personally made 100 dials daily, no matter what—but you need to find your number.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish in small pockets of time. Got 10 minutes between appointments? You can make 10 dials. These micro-prospecting sessions add up throughout your day.

Instead of asking, “How do I find two uninterrupted hours?” ask, “How many outbound touches do I need to hit my pipeline goal?”

• Reverse-engineer your math. If 30 dials typically create two meetings—and two meetings a day keep your funnel fat—commit to 30 dials, period.
• Activity over chronology. Whether you burn those calls in one block or in six five-minute bursts between site visits doesn’t matter. Hitting the activity target does.

Prospecting is like push-ups: the muscle only cares that you completed the reps, not whether you did them all at once.

Practical Fanatical Prospecting Implementation for Field Reps

Here’s how to make this work in the field:

1. Set up your list the night before: Don’t waste precious morning energy building your call list. Have everything ready to go when you start your day. A pre-built list eliminates the mental drag of figuring out who to call while you’re juggling mud, invoices, and traffic.
2. Use the gaps: Those small windows between appointments are prospecting gold. Five minutes here, ten minutes there—use them.
3. Capture information efficiently: Most calls will go to voicemail. For the ones who answer, quickly note any important information to input into your CRM later. Don’t try to update your CRM in real-time between every call.
4. Be safe: Obviously, don’t text and drive. Pull over if you need to take notes or send follow-up messages.

What Kyle is experiencing is common for outside sales professionals. You can’t prospect the same way as an inside sales rep with a dedicated desk and phone. Your office is your vehicle. Your desk is wherever you can find a flat surface. Your schedule is dictated by customers and job sites.

Create a Mobile Prospecting Kit

Salesforce is great—when you have stable Wi-Fi and two hands on a keyboard. Field reps need something that works when the LTE bars dip to one.

1. Print or export your list with phone numbers and a skinny note column.
2. Hyperlink mobile numbers in a notes app so a single tap dials the next contact—no scrolling, no fumbling.
3. Use a hands-free auto-dial app (tons exist) if local regulations allow. Safety first; quotas second.
4. Capture notes on paper or dictate voice memos. At day’s end, batch-enter critical intel into your CRM. Perfect data hygiene is optional; capturing deal-moving facts is mandatory.

Rule of thumb: Log information, not activity. Managers love call-count metrics, but conversations and follow-up triggers win deals.

Prospect in the Micro-Moments

I built my career on a simple principle: five dials fit in five minutes.

• Waiting for the site supervisor? Dial.
• Stuck at a railroad crossing? Dial.
• Early for lunch with a GC? Dial.

If you rinse and repeat ten times a day, that’s 50 dials—without ever blocking a formal hour. Your smartphone is a Swiss Army knife; flip out the prospecting blade at every lull.

Respect the Platinum Hours—But Redefine Them

Kyle also asked about “platinum hours” for prospecting in the construction world. This is where understanding your market’s rhythm becomes crucial.

Kyle noted that contractors and builders are easier to reach in the morning, while homeowners are more accessible in the afternoon. This creates a “sandwich” with potentially lighter activity in the middle of the day.

This midday lull is your opportunity. Use this time to build lists, handle admin work, and prepare proposals. Unlike the evening when you’re exhausted from a full day in the field, these midday hours could be your most productive for planning and organizing your prospecting efforts.

Another strategy: dedicate time on Sunday evenings to build your entire week’s prospecting list. Create a master list of 100 names and work through it all week, making adjustments as needed when new leads come in.

Creating a Predictable Pipeline

Consistent prospecting—even in small chunks—creates a predictable pipeline. For field reps, this approach is actually more sustainable than trying to force traditional time blocks into an already chaotic schedule.

When you hit your daily outbound touch goal consistently, you create a steady stream of new opportunities flowing into your pipeline. This prevents the feast-or-famine cycle that plagues so many field sales professionals.

Remember, it’s not about how much time you spend prospecting—it’s about how many quality touches you make each day. Set your number, stick to it religiously, and watch your pipeline grow.

Prospect the Way Your Territory Demands

Kyle’s biggest burden wasn’t time—it was guilt. He felt like a prospecting slacker because he wasn’t doing textbook blocks. Let me settle it:

• If your role is to be on-site talking to buyers, that is high-value selling time.
• The goal of prospecting is pipeline, not calendar purity.
• Flexible, numbers-driven activity beats rigid, time-driven blocks every day of the week.

Give yourself permission to sell the way your territory demands. Outside sales is messy, chaotic, and wildly fun. You’ll spill coffee on contracts, burn through playlists, and hunt for cell service in cornfields—but none of that excuses an empty pipeline.

If you’re like Kyle—constantly on the move but committed to growth—focus on activity goals rather than time blocks. Your truck becomes your prospecting command center, and those small gaps in your day become opportunities to move your business forward.

Keep hustling. Keep prospecting. And at the end of the day, when it is time to go home, always make one more call.

Want to set more appointments from the road? Download our FREE guide 25 Ways to Ask For the Appointment on a Cold Call

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On this Money Monday, we’re going back to Augusta where Rory McIlroy finally won The Masters and in doing so gave us 5 lessons for chasing and achieving dreams. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t clean. It was gritty, emotional, and one of the most unforgettable moments in sports history. 

Rory stepped onto the first tee looking calm, focused. Like a man who’d been here before, and this time, was ready to finish it. He was 12-under. Two shots clear. It was his tournament to lose.

Then it unraveled almost immediately. A loose drive. Bad bounce. Scrambled recovery. Double bogey. That kind of start can break a player, especially at Augusta National, especially when the stakes are this high. But this year would be different.

Here are five lessons we can learn from Rory Mcllroy’s journey to immortality at the Masters:

Lesson #1: Pressure Doesn’t Break You—It Reveals You

That double bogey on the first hole could’ve crushed him. It has crushed players before. It’s crushed him before. But this time, Rory leaned into the moment.

In sales, the pressure hits you just as fast. A lost deal, a missed number, or an impossible quarter. You don’t get to run from it. You fail to the level of your habits, your mindset, and your preparation. What shows up when you’re squeezed is your true game.

Lesson #2: Respect the Long Game

Rory didn’t panic; he recalibrated. He birdied 3, then 4. No showboating. No hero shots. Just control. He played tight through the front 9. His game wasn’t flashy—just steady. He didn’t chase. He didn’t press. Rory played smart. He trusted the process and took what the course gave him. He didn’t win with a miracle chip. He won with patience. Tempo. Smart decisions. He trusted the process.

That’s how deals close. That’s how pipeline builds. You qualify. You follow up. You show up again. And you earn the right to close when the buyer’s ready—not when you’re desperate to sell. Trust the process, be consistent, and believe in your system.

Lesson #3: How You Lose Matters More Than How You Win

But the Augusta National did what the Augusta National always does—it tightened its grip.

The 11th is long, brutal, and unforgiving. His approach caught the small bumpy hills that line the green side fairway and scuttled left. The ball screamed toward the left pond and stopped just short. Rory was able to make the save for bogey.

“Amen Corner,” he must have whispered to himself, exasperated. Rae’s Creek was, again, waiting on 13—and it got him. His 89-yard chip landed short and skipped into the water. Another bogey.

He was slipping. You could see it in his face. The sweat. The searching for focus. The doubt that has haunted his Masters’ history creeping in around the edges. The crowd got quiet. Could it be another collapse.

On the 15th, after his tee shot put him left of the fairway blocked by three Georgia Pines, Rory stood at the top of the hill—one of the last true scoring chances on the course.

He pulled a 7-iron for 220 yards. A high, arching draw that tracked perfectly, landing soft on the right side of the green and rolling to within five feet of the pin. Rory bounced down the fairway to the green, walking on clouds. The crowd enveloped him in a unified chant.

Then he landed another birdie on 17. Suddenly, he was back to 11-under—tied with Justin Rose, who was charging from behind with a 66 and had the crowd buzzing.

18 was Rory’s chance to seal it. But his second shot found the bunker. The blast out was clean, but the putt too strong. He missed. The gallery groaned. Another Masters heartbreak? Was this all too much to fight in one day? Did he have one more, two more, three more holes? 

But Rory didn’t show frustration or melt down. He reset and walked back to the tee box for the playoff with Rose. For years, Rory has taken losses on the chin. No excuses. No drama. Just class.

Grace matters. Your mindset matters. Clients see that in sales. They notice how you act when the deal doesn’t go your way. They remember how you lose. That memory could be the reason they give you another shot later.

Lesson #4: The Loudest Cheers Come From the Longest Roads

Playoff. 18, Holly. One more time. Rose struck first—a solid approach to 10 feet. Then Rory stepped up—and he flushed it. The ball hit the backstop behind the pin, checked, and rolled to four feet.

And then he made the putt! Years of pressure came off his shoulders. Sure he had won, but in that second, it felt like we all had won.

After fifteen tries, finally, Rory McIlroy was wearing the Green Jacket. Not gifted—earned. The patrons at the Augusta National erupted.

They weren’t just cheering a shot. They were releasing years of tension, releasing heartbreak, waiting and what-ifs. They’d been on this ride with him.

If you want that kind of response in sales—loyalty, referrals, reputation—you have to let people see your journey. Let them see the hard stuff: the missed quotas, the tough quarters, the grind, and they way you pick yourself up and dust yourself off when you lose. Then, when you finally win, they’ll cheer.

Lesson #5: Legacy is Earned Over Time

Rory didn’t become great on Sunday. He became great over years of showing up—through doubt, defeat, and disappointment. Sunday was just the moment that made it official.

In sales, legacy isn’t built on one quarter. It’s built on how you carry yourself through a hundred difficult conversations. It’s built on follow-ups, follow-through, late nights, and early mornings. Lean into grind and do the work. And when your moment comes it won’t feel like luck. It’ll feel like validation.

Final Thoughts

I saw Rory win The Masters. But what I really saw was what greatness looks like when it refuses to quit. You just have to keep showing up.

Now go take your swing. And remember, when you’ve been taking punches all day. When you’re tired, worn out and ready to pack it in. Pick yourself up and will yourself to make one more call, because that’s how champions win.

Every dream needs a plan. Get yours started on the right path with our FREE Goal Planning Guide.

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You crushed your quota. Commission check hits the account. 

Your first instinct? Celebrate! You earned it, right?

Not quite. You’ve earned a reward, sure. But if every check disappears faster than a cold call prospect can hang up the phone, then you’re just renting a lifestyle.

Here’s the truth: Top sales pros don’t just sell like professionals—they manage their money like professionals. They know the high of a commission check can’t replace long-term financial freedom.

I’ve got the financial low-down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Da7U2PviPI 1. Don’t Spend It All in One Place—Or All at Once

When a big check hits, it’s tempting to splurge. New watch. Fancy dinner. Extra drinks on you.

But here’s the catch: commission highs come and go. Quarters fluctuate. Markets shift. Now more than ever, you can’t treat every paycheck like a lottery win.

Try this instead:

• Split your check. A solid money rule: 50% to lifestyle, 30% to savings/investments, 20% to debt.
• Set auto-transfers. Remove temptation. Have a percentage automatically move to savings or investments the minute you get paid.

Living below your means is how you avoid feeling broke—even during dry spells.

2. Build the “Oh Crap” Fund

Sales is high-risk, high-reward. One quarter, you’re crushing it, the next you’re staring down a dry pipeline and a mortgage payment.

Enter your emergency fund.

This isn’t optional—it’s survival. Ideally, you want 3–6 months of living expenses saved in a separate account, untouched unless it’s a true money emergency.

Having this cushion keeps you from making desperate decisions when things get tight—and keeps your mind clear to prospect fanatically.

3. Debt Doesn’t Care About Your Commission

Credit cards. Car payments. Student loans.

Debt is a silent killer of long-term wealth. And the more you make, the more it sneaks in. Why? Because it’s easy to think, “I’ll just pay it off with my next check.”

Then the check comes. And goes.

Start taking control:

• List your debts. Highest interest first.
• Choose a strategy. Snowball (smallest balance first) or Avalanche (highest interest first). Stick to it.
• Automate payments. No missed due dates. No excuses.
• Pay with cash. And stick to it. If you can’t afford to pay for it all now. You can’t afford it, period.

Freedom means having money that belongs to you—not a credit card company.

4. Your Future Self is Counting on You

It’s easy to feel invincible when you’re 25, 30, 35—closing deals, stacking checks.

But time moves fast. And if you don’t start investing for the long haul, future-you will be making cold calls at 70.

Start with your 401(k) if your company offers one—especially if there’s a match (that’s free money). If not, look into IRAs or Roth IRAs. Even small monthly contributions grow massively over time thanks to compounding interest.

The earlier you start, the easier it is. The later you start, the harder it gets.

5. Plan, Don’t Wing It

You wouldn’t wing a sales call with a high-value prospect, right? The same goes for your finances.

You need a plan.

• Set financial goals. Pay off $10K in debt. Save $20K this year. Max out your Roth IRA.
• Track your spending. Use an app or spreadsheet. Know where every dollar goes.
• Meet with a financial advisor. Let a pro help map the path.

Sales success without financial structure is just noise. You work too hard to have nothing to show for it in the end.

6. Discipline is Freedom

This isn’t about deprivation. It’s about choice.

When your money’s right, you can:

• Stop chasing bad deals.
• Invest in coaching, property, or your own business.
• Sleep well, knowing you’re not one missed quota away from panic.

The people who look rich often aren’t. The people who stay rich? They play the long game.

Protect the Bank Account

You already know how to grind. You already know how to win.

Now it’s time to build a life where that effort creates lasting freedom—not just fleeting dopamine hits. Take control of your finances like you take control of your pipeline.

Don’t just close deals—build wealth.

Make your financial goals part of your sales goals. If you don’t know where to start, download our FREE Goal Planning Guide!

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Ross from Houston faces a common challenge in channel sales: how do you create brand preference for your product when you’re selling through distributors who carry multiple competing lines and competitors who undercut your price?

His company builds industrial dust-collection equipment and ducting, but they don’t sell direct—meaning they rely heavily on distributors, contractors, and engineers to choose their brand over cheaper alternatives.

Below, you’ll find key insights on how to drive more “pull-through” sales to your channel partners and convince every stakeholder—from designers to installers—to pick your product.

Why Pull-Through in Channel Sales Matters

When you sell through distribution, you lose a lot of direct control. Your product is on the shelf (literally or figuratively) alongside competitors, and the distributor or contractor can often steer buyers toward any brand they choose. Pull-through happens when the end user, contractor, or engineer specifically requests your brand—making your distributor the middleman who fulfills the preference you created.

Educate & Collaborate With Specifiers

Ross’ sales team already does lunch-and-learn sessions with engineering firms. Those engineers create the specs that contractors must follow, so if your product is “baked in” early, that’s a massive advantage later when the contractor goes shopping. But the real test comes when the contractor or installer sees a cheaper alternative on the distributor’s line card.

Key Steps:

• Educate engineers on the deeper value and functionality of your product, so they’ll insist on it in their specs.
• Collaborate with contractors. Even if they’re not the final decision-maker, they can heavily influence whether your premium line or a cheaper knockoff is chosen.

Brand Preference vs. Price Objections

The toughest hurdle for a premium brand is the classic price objection. If the competitor’s line undercuts you, how do you prove your extra value?

• Unearth the Real Cost of Going Cheap. Show specifiers and end users the Total Cost of Ownership—that cheaper or less-robust solutions can lead to higher maintenance, safety issues, or inefficiencies down the line.
• Highlight Success Stories. Gather testimonials or case studies from buyers who saved time, boosted reliability, or lowered total cost of ownership by choosing your brand.
• Create Tools and Guides. Develop clear documentation or ROI calculators that help buyers see beyond sticker price—especially useful if the distributor’s rep isn’t fully equipped to present your value.

Dealing with the Distributor as a Gatekeeper

You can do all the contractor or engineer training you want, but if the distributor’s inside salesperson steers a buyer to a cheaper product, you still lose. That’s why building the distributor relationship is non-negotiable.

Action Items:

• Train the Distributor’s Sales Reps. Show them exactly how to pitch your brand’s advantages, from installation ease to long-term reliability.
• Reward Them for Advocacy. If possible, offer spiffs or incentives when they successfully sell your line. In some cases, highlight how your product can reduce their support headaches and returns, making their life easier.
• Co-Sell on Big Deals. Bring major opportunities to the distributor, or volunteer to go on key calls together. When you help them close deals, they become more loyal to you.

Get Proactive and Strategic

One pitfall in channel sales is that your rep can become just a “help desk” for the distributor—always fixing problems instead of actively driving new deals. But a proactive approach can turn that support into a competitive edge:

• Offer On-Site or Virtual Coaching. Whenever the distributor or contractor hits a snag, your rep steps in, demonstrating expertise. This builds trust and brand loyalty.
• Balance Support with Hunting. While your reps should help, they also need time to create demand among engineers, contractors, and end users. If their entire day is spent resolving small issues, they’ll miss bigger opportunities.

Combine Marketing and Sales Efforts

To truly differentiate your product, marketing must work hand-in-hand with sales. You need targeted content—white papers, case studies, videos, ROI calculators—that highlight your product’s unique benefits. Ensure your sellers share these assets during lunch-and-learns, in prospecting emails, or at trade shows.

Possible Tactics:

•  Webinars. Showcase how your product solves real problems more effectively than DIY or cheaper alternatives.
• Distributor Portal. Provide easily accessible resources (FAQ sheets, training modules) that help the distributor’s reps pitch your product with confidence.
• Customer Spotlight Videos. Interview customers who switched from cheaper knockoffs to your premium brand—and never looked back.

Putting It All Together

Ultimately, it’s about controlling the narrative and making sure every stakeholder sees the bigger picture. You’ve got to hammer home: “Sure, there’s a cheaper widget over there. But ours wins on performance and total cost of ownership.” If you can get that message across in channel sales early—before anyone starts price shopping—then you’ll have a far easier time at the final point of sale.

Building pull-through demand in a channel sales environment requires a multi-pronged approach. You must:

• Educate so your product is specified from the start.
• Convince users that your brand is worth the investment and eliminates future headaches.
• Equip distributors with simple, persuasive messaging that helps them advocate for you over the competition.
• Demonstrate unwavering support and expertise whenever they need it.

When done right, this synergy creates a ripple effect. Engineers specify your line, contractors request it by name, and distributors become your ambassadors. Follow this playbook consistently, and watch how quickly “we’ll consider your product” turns into “that’s the only product we’ll consider.”

If you’re facing a sales or leadership problem and have a question for me, head over to to salesgravy.com/ask and we’ll get you on the show.

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There is a big challenge in today’s marketplace that’s popping up left and right for sales professionals—Decision Deferment Objections.

If you’re running into stakeholders who say, “Let’s just hold off a bit,” “We need more time,” or “We want to wait until the market settles,” then we’re going to dive into why this is happening and, more importantly, how you can handle these sales objections with confidence and skill.

Turbulent Times Breed Buyer Fear

The market is swinging like a pendulum on steroids, and it’s making everyone skittish. You’ve got tariffs, trade wars, and a spike in economic uncertainty.

Buyers read The Wall Street Journal or check their news feeds, and the headlines scream “Turmoil!” They panic. So they defer decisions, walk away from deals, or play the “wait and see” game.

Decision deferment objections are a natural consequence of fear. People want to avoid making the wrong move. It’s easier to hit the pause button than to commit to something they’re not 100% sure about. That fear, in many ways, is irrational. But it’s a brick wall that will shut down your deal if you let it.

So how do you avoid letting hesitation, stalling, and decision deferment kill your deals during market uncertainty?

It starts with a fundamental truth: to succeed in this environment, you must sell better. Because when people are fearful, indecisive, or uncertain, how you sell matters far more than what you sell.

Why Buyers Pull Back and Defer Decisions

In uncertain and volatile times, mistakes come with severe penalties. A stakeholder who chooses the wrong vendor, invests in the wrong technology, or commits resources too soon might put their entire business or career at risk.

So they freeze. They put it off. They say, “We’ll need a little more time to think about it,” or “We need to run the numbers again,” or “Let me talk to my boss.”

If you haven’t uncovered real fears, addressed them, and methodically advanced the deal, you’ll hit a wall of deferment decision objections at maximum force. That’s why I often sound like a broken record—but repetition is the mother of skill. The basic steps to closing in an uncertain market are fundamental:

1. Execute your sales process flawlessly
2. Consistently ask for micro-commitments to advance the sale
3. Present a compelling, airtight case for change
4. Ask your stakeholders to make a decision confidently and without hesitation
5. Handle objections with empathy

Closing Is Not a Single Moment in Time

A lot of sales reps treat the close as one magic moment—like flicking a switch. But in reality, closing is a series of micro-commitments that happen throughout the sales process. Every time you get a commitment to a next step, your buyer to leans in just a bit more, and you set the stage for a final “yes.”

When times are normal, a halfway-decent rep can skip a few steps and still get deals across the finish line. But in a crisis or uncertain market, that sloppy approach falls apart.

You must consistently get micro-commitments and keep advancing—because if you let the ball drop even once, you’ll give your stakeholders an opening to stall or back out with objections like “We going to hold off,”  or “We’re just going to stick with what we have until the economy gets better.”

Tough Objections? Check Your Upstream Sales Process

For this reason, if you are getting hammered at the close with brutal objections, it usually means you made mistakes earlier in the process.

So instead of obsessing over how to wordsmith your objection rebuttals, you might need to re-examine how you qualified and sold from the get-go. Tough objections at the 11th hour are typically a symptom of an earlier problem.

So, what do you do?

1. Qualify better upfront—Are these the right prospects? Are you sure they have a budget, authority, need, and timeline? Is there a compelling reason for them to change?
2. Ensure you’re dealing with real decision makers—If you’re stuck with “influencers” who keep punting it up the chain, guess what? You’re in for a bumpy ride.
3. Surface concerns early—If you wait until the end to discover that your buyer has major financial fears, you’ve already lost.

Get the Truth on the Table Early

That brings us to one of the most important sales tactics in uncertain times like these. It is absolutely crucial that you get buyer worries, fears, and potential objections out in the open and on the table as soon as possible. That means you need deeper discovery and the courage to ask tough questions like:

• “What are you most afraid of?”
• “How do you see the current market volatility impacting your decisions?”
• “What’s your biggest concern about moving forward right now?”
• “If you don’t address this problem soon, what do you think might happen?”

It takes confidence and tact to get your stakeholders talking openly about concerns—and yes, you’ll risk hearing truths that might scare you or them. But the alternative is to bury your head in the sand and get blindsided at the last minute when they say, “We’re gonna wait till next quarter.”

The Emotional Barrier: Fear of Conflict and Rejection

Asking the hard questions is where many reps falter. Let’s be honest: nobody likes conflict. And direct questions can feel confrontational. We worry, “What if they shut me down or I push them away?” So we back off, we tiptoe around real issues, we avoid pressing them on timelines or next steps. That might keep the conversation calm, but it sets you up for a big heartbreak later.

The biggest agony in sales is pouring time, energy, and emotion into a deal—only to lose it at the finish line when a stakeholder reveals an objection that, had you known about it weeks ago, you could have handled.

This is why you must push through your own discomfort and bring hidden fears to the surface early. It’s infinitely less painful to deal with them upfront than to discover them at the worst possible moment.

Deal With Sales Objections Head On

There’s a quote I love from philosopher Julian Baggini: “If you believe you are right, then you should believe that you can make the case that you’re right. This requires you to deal with serious objections properly.”

I can’t think of a better summary of what it takes to handle decision deferment objections. If you truly believe your offering is the best path forward, it’s your duty to address your buyer’s fears, hesitations, and perceived alternatives.

You’ve got to want them to put every worry on the table so you can tackle it head-on. Sure, you’ll get your nose bloodied sometimes. But if you’re truly confident in your solution, you’ll find a way to show your buyer why moving forward makes sense—even in choppy waters.

Common Decision Deferment Objections

Most of the objections you’ll face during times of uncertainty are decision deferment objections like:

• “Give us a few days to consider your proposal.”
• “We’d like to run this by the entire team before we commit.”
• “We’re going to hold off for a month and see what happens with the economy.”
• “We want to compare a few other vendors before making a decision.”
• “We’re just not ready to make a long-term commitment right now.”
• “We decided to give our current vendor one last chance.”

The reality is that they are afraid so they’re stalling. They’re not saying “no” outright; they’re saying “maybe,” “later,” or “we’ll see.” And that’s the tricky part. Because “maybe” can feel like a small open door, but it’s actually a massive speed bump that can drag your deal out indefinitely if you accept it and walk away.

5 Steps to Overcome Decision Deferment Objections

That’s why when buyers hit you with decision deferment objections, you need a systematic approach to help them break through their fear. Use this five-step framework:

Relate

Start with empathy. This isn’t about agreeing with their reasons, but acknowledging them as a human. “I get where you’re coming from, and it’s smart to be cautious.” That’s it. No discounting their worry, no jumping into a debate. Just letting them know you’re listening.

Why? Because they’re braced for you to argue or push. By empathizing, you lower their guard and show you’re on their side. It also buys you a moment to compose yourself and think strategically before responding.

Isolate

You want to make sure there aren’t multiple hidden objections. If they say, “Let us think about it,” is that the only issue, or are they also worried about budget, timelines, or a preference for a competitor? Gently probe: “Aside from needing more time, is there anything else holding you back?” The last thing you want is to solve one problem only to be ambushed by a bigger one later.

Clarify

Never assume you know exactly what they mean. Always take a moment to clarify their objection.  When they say: “We need to run the numbers.” Maybe they really do need a cost breakdown, maybe they doubt the ROI, or maybe they’re afraid of something else. Ask open-ended questions: “When you say you need to review the math, how do you mean?” Good clarifying questions unearth the real meaning behind the words.

Minimize

Now that you know the real deal, you want to minimize their fear by reconnecting them to their desired outcomes. Remind them of the pains they wanted solved, the benefits they hoped to gain, and how your solution addresses that. Show them the math if needed, demonstrate ROI, and paint the brighter future. By focusing on what they stand to gain—and the cost of doing nothing—you shrink the size of their fear while maximizing the benefit of moving forward.

Ask

Finally, ask again. Your buyer won’t do the job for you. The key is asking with relaxed, assertive confidence because your confidence gives them confidence to push past their fear and make the right decision.

Buyers are Jumpy, Be Ready For It

Look, times are unstable. Buyers are jumpy. They’d rather punt than make a risky call. But you’re a sales professional, and that means you stand in the gap—helping them navigate doubt and find a solution that actually benefits them. Don’t shy away from the “We need more time” or “We’re going to hold off.” Expect it, be ready for it, and use it as an opening to get real issues on the table.

In volatile times, it is hard to sell. Yet, you are still under the same pressure to make your sales number. This is why you’ll want to download our FREE Selling in a Crisis workbook today.

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Everybody wants the hacks.

The quick fix. The shiny new tool. The LinkedIn post that magically draws leads like moths to a flame.

But let me give it to you straight: Sales isn’t won with hacks. It’s won with habits. And the habits that win are the ones most reps abandon the minute things get uncomfortable or boring.

If you’re not hitting your number, it’s probably not because you need better leads, better tech, or better timing.

It’s because you’ve drifted from the basics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omnoVAopK8U The Fancy Stuff Is Failing You

We see it all the time—salespeople hiding behind automation tools, social selling gimmicks, and relationship-building fluff. They talk a big game on Zoom, but when it’s time to dial the phone or ask for the sale, they freeze like a deer in headlights.

Let’s call this what it is: avoidance.

You’re avoiding real sales conversations because they’re uncomfortable. You’re hoping your sequence will “nurture” your prospect into buying without you having to actually sell. But automation doesn’t close deals. YOU do.

The truth? Most salespeople would rather look productive than be productive. Fancy decks, CRM tagging, and custom email flows feel like progress—but they don’t get the contract signed.

Top producers know: The tools support the basics. They don’t replace them.

What Actually Wins: The Fundamentals

If you want to win more, stop searching for better tactics and start doing the boring stuff better. Because these five basics are still undefeated:

1. Phone Calls

Cold calls. Warm calls. Follow-up calls. Call blocks. Whatever the flavor, the phone remains your fastest path to building pipeline. And yet it’s the most avoided.

Most reps send five emails and give up. Not top performers. They make the call. Because conversations close deals—period.

2. Discovery Questions

Stop pitching. Start digging. The best reps are curious, not convincing. They lead with questions that uncover pain, urgency, and decision dynamics. And they clam up long enough to actually listen.

You don’t earn trust by explaining. You earn it by understanding.

3. Objection Handling

If objections scare you, it’s because you don’t practice. It’s because you haven’t made a habit of practicing.

Objections aren’t stop signs—they’re buying signals. But if you’re caught off guard every time someone says, “I need to think about it,” you’re not preparing. You’re winging it. And amateurs who wing it get smoked.

4. Follow-Up

Here’s the truth: the sale is almost never made on the first call. Or the second. Or even the fifth. 80% of sales happen after the 5th touch, but most reps quit after two. Why? Emotion.

They feel rejected. Embarrassed. “I don’t want to bother them.” Bother them? You’re solving a problem they can’t fix alone. Follow up until they buy or you find them a better solution.

5. Asking for the Sale

Most reps are afraid to ask. Why? 

Because they’re afraid of hearing no. But here’s the thing: no is part of the process. If you’re not hearing no, you’re not asking enough.

You’re a consultant. You’re a closer. Your job isn’t to make the prospect feel warm and fuzzy—it’s to guide them to a decision. And that means asking with courage and confidence.

Why Reps Quit the Basics

Three big reasons:

1. Ego. “I’ve been selling for years—I don’t need to practice this stuff.” Wrong. The minute you think you’re too good for the basics is the minute your numbers start tanking.
2. Fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of sounding pushy. Fear of failing. So instead of doing the work, you procrastinate with busywork.
3. Laziness. The basics aren’t sexy. They’re repetitive. They take discipline. So most reps quit—and that’s why most reps are average.

Want to stand out? Don’t be like most reps.

Go Pro or Go Home

Top athletes don’t get bored of running drills. They know repetition sharpens instinct. They know that under pressure, you don’t rise to the occasion—you fall to your level of training.

Same with sales.

• You don’t magically handle objections—you drill them.
• You don’t get confident on the phone—you rehearse.
• You don’t close deals consistently—you follow a process that’s been forged by reps, failure, and grit.

Pros don’t “kind of” practice. They live in the fundamentals. Over and over. Because muscle memory wins when pressure hits.

If you want to be great in sales, stop trying to be creative. Start being consistent.

Back to Basics, Back to Winning

Let’s be real—if your pipeline’s dry, your quota’s slipping, or you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, the answer isn’t out there. It’s in your calendar.

It’s in your call blocks. Your follow-ups. Your prospecting power hours. Those script reps. The boring, brutal, beautiful habits that build champions.

Because when you do the basics better than anyone else, you don’t have to be flashy. You just win.

Here’s your challenge:What habits have you been avoiding lately? Make it your priority today. Practice it. Drill it. Master it.

Because sales success isn’t about finding something new.

It’s about doing what works—relentlessly.

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Steve from Portland, Oregon, faces and an all-too-common consultative selling dilemma: how to sell to prospects who claim they already know everything, have already “done the research” and question what value he can bring. In this Ask Jeb episode we break down what true consultative selling entails, how to detach from “always be closing,” and why being a genuine expert is more vital now than ever.

From Information Scarcity to Information Overload

Not long ago, salespeople had the upper hand simply by having more data or insight than their prospects. Today, everyone has a blog, video, or TikTok to help them “figure it out.” This can leave a buyer believing, “I know just as much as you—so why should I trust your approach?” That’s where consultative selling comes in, but only if you do it right.

Consultative selling isn’t about showing off your expertise. It’s about guiding the customer to understand the real nature of their problem—often one they didn’t fully realize or that’s more complex than they initially thought.

What True Consultative Selling Looks Like

Consultants by definition don’t barge in declaring, “Here’s the solution.” They start by asking informed, open-ended questions and listening for patterns. They bring a sense of curiosity—an acknowledgment that they can’t help until they deeply understand the client’s unique environment.

Four Steps of a Consultative Approach

1. Assess and Analyze: Listen, observe, and probe with specific questions. Gain clarity on how the business operates and where potential issues lie.
2. Design or Develop Solutions: Tailor ideas or strategies based on the actual problems your client is facing. No cookie-cutter templates here.
3. Integrate and Implement:Work with the client to fold your solution into their workflows. Show them the path forward, not just a list of theoretical bullet points.
4. Optimize and Operationalize: Stay engaged. Help the client refine and sustain the changes for long-term success.

The Power of Detaching from the Outcome

When you’re obsessed with “the close,” you risk pushing your own agenda rather than uncovering the client’s real challenges. Buyers can smell desperation a mile away. Detachment works with consultative selling because:

• It builds trust. You’re not rushing to pitch; you’re learning and diagnosing first.
• It reveals the real issues. Prospects open up more when they sense you’re genuinely trying to see if you can help, not just bulldoze them into a sale.
• It prevents the “sleazy” vibe. Instead of coming off like yet another sales rep bragging about your knowledge, you show you’re a collaborator ready to craft a solution if—and only if—it fits.

Being the Expert Without Acting Like a Know-It-All

In today’s age of surplus information, it isn’t enough just to learn a skill once. You have to remain curious and update your knowledge constantly. That’s especially true in fields like digital marketing, sales tech, or AI—areas that can evolve daily. You’ll be more credible when you

• Commit to ongoing learning. Read, watch, and listen to everything you can, including contrary opinions.
• Embrace nuance. Real expertise means recognizing that not every trend or hack will work for every client.
• Use informed questions. The best proof of your knowledge is the quality of the questions you ask. Clients can tell when your questions hit the root of their problem.

Addressing Distrust in Competitive Industries

In spaces like digital marketing, where so many agencies promise miracles, skepticism runs high. By entering a conversation with a consultative mindset, you set yourself apart from the noise:

• Focus on your prospect’s specific context. Don’t lump them into one-size-fits-all solutions.
• Acknowledge the client’s prior experiences. They may have been burned by poor service or overhyped promises. Show empathy for their concerns.
• Offer to walk away if it’s not the right fit. This willingness to say “no” boosts your authenticity tenfold.

When They Already “Know It All”

If a buyer has read every blog post or watched every video, your role isn’t to arm-wrestle over knowledge. Instead, demonstrate the value of personalized guidance that no quick Google search can replicate.

AI-driven search might be the buzz, but how does that apply to a real, live company’s marketing funnel? That’s where your on-the-ground insight matters. If you’ve tracked trends across dozens of client accounts, you can spot patterns or pitfalls a do-it-yourselfer misses.

The Full Pipeline Advantage

None of this is easy if your pipeline is empty. Desperation kills consultative selling because you can’t afford to walk away from a deal that isn’t a good match. That’s all the more reason to stay on top of your prospecting game—so you can approach each interaction with calm, genuine curiosity.

Key Takeaways

• Stop trying to prove you’re the expert. Prove you’re the right person to uncover their unique issues.
• Detach from the outcome. Your job is to see if you can help, not to force a close at any cost.
• Ask better questions. Use your ongoing research and pattern recognition to frame questions that reveal real pain points.
• Stay curious. The information age isn’t slowing down, so never settle for “I’m already up to speed.”
• Aim for trust, not just data. Even if a prospect has all the facts, they still need someone to interpret and guide them effectively.

Consultative selling in an information-saturated world requires humility, expertise, and the courage to say, “Maybe this isn’t right for you.” Yet when it does match, the value you provide extends far beyond what any self-guided research can deliver. If you’re ready to transform how you engage clients, let consultative selling lead the way—stepping in with curiosity, listening intently, and building solutions that align with real problems.

Got a question or challenge for me? Head over to salesgravy.com/ask to share what’s on your mind. We might feature your question next and help you refine your approach to sales—consultative or otherwise.

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We are coming off of a week that can only be described as a stock market bloodbath—amping up uncertainty and making selling even harder. 

As the new tariffs imposed by the US government were announced, kicking off what is expected to devolve into a global trade war, the Dow Jones plunged by over 2,200 points, the S&P 500 lost more than 10%, the Nasdaq entered into a bear market and more than $6.6 trillion dollars were wiped from the US stock market in two days. These losses compounded in markets all across the globe.

If you were brave enough to take a peek at your 401k, I have no doubt that you felt this pain and at least a twinge of the fear that raced through business communities across the globe. 

Uncertainty and a Stream of Bad News

In an instant, everything changed.

Starting today, selling just got even harder. Your buyers are facing uncertainty and a relentless stream of bad news; and where there is uncertainty, your prospects and customers will put off making decisions and doing anything that they perceive as risky.  

The penalties for making mistakes can be severe. Mistakes can put their business, company, career, finances, or family at risk. This is why, for buyers, doing nothing–making no decision–is often the emotionally safe choice, even when staying put is illogical.

In Uncertainty Buyers Start Scrutinizing Your Sales Behaviors

In an environment of uncertainty, when buyers feel even the tiniest bit of unease about you, they will not buy from you. 

This is the human negativity bias: Negative perceptions have a greater impact than positive perceptions when it comes to decision making. 

Buyers will be scrutinizing your every behavior, word, and action. They will not be looking for what you are doing right, they will only see what you do wrong. Anything negative will stick out like a sore thumb. 

Their negative perceptions about you cause distrust. Your good intentions don’t matter because buyers are judging you based on their intentions, not yours. If they don’t trust you, they will not buy from you. 

You Must Sell Better During Times of Uncertainty

To win consistently, during times of uncertainty you must sell better. You need to bring your A-Game into every sales conversation. 

You must commit to executing the sales process as perfectly and faithfully as humanly possible. No mistakes. No shortcuts. No mediocrity. 

You must sell as if there is no margin for error. When the stakes were lower, buyers may have given you the benefit of the doubt and agreed to move forward even when they are still unsure. But not now. To close the sale, you must be perfect. 

There is No Sales Easy Button

Of course, with the suddenness of this massive economic disruption it is human nature to seek out Jedi mind tricks to make things easier.

I’ve got some harsh news for you. There isn’t anything easy about selling in a crisis of uncertainty. Nor are there mystical Jedi mind tricks that will help you set appointments on prospecting calls, handle objections, or close the deal in this environment. 

If that’s not what you wanted to hear, I’m sorry. Money Monday is a no-pander zone. Here you’ll only hear the brutal truth. 

And the truth is that no technique, no move, no play, no gambit will save you from failure should you get lax with the basics and fundamentals of selling. 

When you show up and throw up, rush headlong into sales calls without planning, pitch rather than discover, challenge before understanding, fail to build emotional connections with stakeholders, and ask for the sale without earning the right, you’ll hit the brick wall of objections at maximum force–and people will not buy from you. 

If you take shortcuts in the sales process, you will experience stalled deals, prospects will ghost you, and competitors will eat your lunch. Your income will drop along with your reputation which can put your career at risk when the stakes for failing are highest. 

Execute the Sales Process Perfectly

Sales outcomes in this environment are predictable based on how you leverage, execute, and advance opportunities through the sales process. 

When you faithfully execute each step of the sales process, you create certainty for your buyer, lower the risk of moving forward, set yourself apart from competitors and bend win probability in your favor. You will close more deals, make more money, and succeed in this uncertain economic environment. It’s the truth, and it’s a guarantee.

Read or Listen to Selling in a Crisis

Jon Kabat-Zinn once said, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

What I want you to do right now is read my book Selling in a Crisis. It is available in hardback, kindle, and audio. I wrote and recorded this book to be your companion and help you stay motivated and sell more in moments like this.

Selling in a Crisis gives you 55 short, easy to consume lessons that will help you will find the inspiration and confidence to rise above all of this negativity, catch your wave, and take control.

Remember that no matter what’s happening in the economy you are always in control of your actions, re-actions, and mindset.

After you purchase your book, download the FREE Selling in a Crisis Workbook. It will help you navigate the lessons and put them into action.

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All’s fair in love and war—and sales.

At the end of the day, what really matters is whether the deal closed or if you were left holding the bag. 

Did you make quota this quarter? Did you crush your numbers? Or did you fall short?

If you missed quota, chances are you played it too safe. You followed the so-called ‘best practices’—the ones that average reps cling to.

Top performers don’t just follow the playbook. They know when to bend the rules, take calculated risks, and do what it takes to win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDTi-bw6wtU Be a Pattern Breaker

The greatest don’t stick to rules and expectations. They forge their own path in a sea of conformity.

They constantly reinvent themselves and their practices to push boundaries and find new ways to win.

What you won’t see is an elite sales rep following the same script day after day and struggling to escape mediocrity.

As venture capitalist Mike Maples Jr. put it on this week’s Sales Gravy Podcast, “People who are winning are the ones who change the rules and tell people how to think about it.”

Now’s the time to shake up your own sales routine and adopt the practices of Ultra High Performers.

Fanatically Prospect

You don’t have an option—prospect every day, or get left behind. The pipe is life. If you’re not feeding it, you’re starving.

Fanatical prospectors don’t just carve out time—they demand it. Every single day. You make calls, period. Distractions? They don’t exist. 

But too many sales reps think they need to follow traditional suggestions: Prioritize research over calls; call when you think your prospects will be available; warm leads up with social touches and emails.

These “rules” are screaming to be broken.

There’s no room in sales to avoid cold calling. The telephone is still the single most powerful weapon you have when it comes to selling.

Sure, the norm is to hate cold calling, avoid the phone, and send out dozens of emails because it’s easy. Rule breakers don’t do easy—they’re on the phone every day.

The best reps value prospecting and know that—even when they’re closing deals—they need to be watching out for tomorrow. Mediocre reps make fewer calls, qualify fewer prospects, and close fewer deals.

Don’t be mediocre. 

Ruthlessly Disqualify; Pursue Those Who Will Buy

Never waste your time on a prospect who simply won’t pull the trigger. There are lots of tire kickers out there who will intentionally or unintentionally waste your time.

Recognize early the deals that will never be done.

Most sales reps chase every lead because they’re told to ‘always be closing.’ The best reps break that rule by disqualifying early.

Be intentional in your discovery; ask all pertinent questions before spending precious time wooing a lead. 

You don’t have time to find out weeks down the road that your prospect wasn’t the decision maker or that there’s no budget for the deal.

You can even disqualify before you start prospecting.

When generating cold calling lists, zero in on a subset of your market that is most likely to buy—don’t squander energy parsing through every single business simply to tell your boss you called everyone. 

Jerome, a media rep in Texas, covered all of Austin. Instead of cold calling tens of thousands of businesses, he zeroed in on the ones most likely to be in the market for his services and who could afford them.

He weaned out businesses that weren’t strictly his target demographic and saved himself thousands of useless calls. 

Break the norm by cutting deadweight fast.

Play the Long Game 

Mediocre reps make useless calls and let the fear of annoying prospects sabotage their follow up game. 

Forget the outdated advice about not being ‘too persistent.’ Elite pros break that rule and keep showing up until they hear ‘yes’ or ‘no.’

They bend the rules of social niceties (i.e. don’t annoy your prospect) and keep calling, no matter how long it takes. Xant found that 50% of sales happen after the 5th follow-up, but most reps stop at 2. 

But it can take 20+ touches to engage a cold prospect. And great reps don’t stop there.

While most sales reps give up after a few attempts, rule breakers defy conventional wisdom by relentlessly pursuing prospects, knowing that success often comes after many touches.

I once picked up a call from a rep on the 73rd time he called. I admired the persistence. Had he stopped at 72, all he would have gotten was my voicemail and a missed opportunity for my business.

The lesson? Don’t let the rules of polite society stand in your way when prospecting or following up. Be the interrupter that you are and keep interrupting until you get in front of or back in front of your lead.

Don’t limit yourself to only calling either. 

Break out your social prospecting skills with LinkedIn connections, comments and notes. Send emails. Send snail mail. 

Find your way to a conversation—and potentially a deal.

Be Willing to Walk Away

Prospects can smell your misery. And they won’t respond when you’re overly eager, pushy or driving the deal too fast.

Top reps master the ‘takeaway,’ knowing when to make it seem like the deal might no longer be available. It’s about leveraging the fear of loss to make the prospect more eager to move forward.

If you approach a deal knowing you’re behind on your quota and lagging at the end of the quarter, you’re doomed because desperation stinks.

Sometimes ‘never take no for an answer’ and ‘always be closing’ just won’t work—rule breakers know when to execute the takeaway, forcing the prospect to make a decision and potentially flipping the deal in their favor.

Rule breakers won’t push endlessly for a deal with someone who can’t make a decision. They’ll walk away knowing it will force a choice that could land in their favor.

Strikeouts Don’t Matter

Rule breakers aren’t concerned with closing every deal. Sure, that’s the ideal. But the best reps know that strikeouts don’t matter.

You’re going to swing and miss the majority of the time in sales. That’s a fact. The best reps close just 15%-20% of the time.

It’s the grand slams that really count.

Most reps play it safe, always sticking to small deals and quota-chasing. But rule-breakers hit singles and doubles week in and week out—and go after whales.

Winners know not to let a big deal slip by just because it’s hard, going to take extra time, or might not pan out. 

Elite sales reps know when to go big at the bat. You should, too.

Keep swinging until you knock one out of the park.

Break the Rules. Win More Deals.

Sales isn’t about playing it safe—it’s about playing to win. The best reps break the rules that hold them back and push past the limits of “how it’s always been done.”.

They prospect fanatically, refuse to waste time on dead-end leads, and chase big deals without fear of striking out. They don’t let outdated processes or hesitation slow them down.

At the end of the day, the scoreboard doesn’t care how well you followed the rules—it only cares about results. So step up, take bold swings, and keep breaking the norms that don’t serve you.

There’s still time to work on your Q2 goals. Check out our Goal Planning Guide for tips on how to crush your numbers this quarter.

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Dennis from Chesterfield, Missouri, wants to know if sales coaching truly moves the performance needle, especially when shifting from transactional approaches to more consultative selling.

Below are the key insights from our conversation on why coaching matters, how it boosts sales and culture, and what leaders should do right now to make it happen.

Why Sales Coaching Is Essential

Sales is a skill position. Even the best reps lose their edge if they’re left on their own for too long.

Much like elite athletes, sales professionals need ongoing input to fine-tune their mechanics, recharge their motivation, and keep small errors from turning into big problems.

Coaching can be the difference between a rep who has plateaued and one who keeps climbing—because it provides immediate, personalized feedback when it counts most.

From Knowledge Acquisition to Knowledge Application

Training is vital for learning new strategies, product details, and selling techniques, but it doesn’t guarantee that anyone will actually use those ideas. That’s where coaching comes in.

A coach helps each individual absorb and adapt those lessons to their unique style, role, or territory. Research shows that simply sending people to training without one-on-one follow-up leads to a big dip in retention and performance. But when coaching supports training, skill application soars—along with results.

Leading, Managing, and Coaching: The Three Pillars of Leadership

Sales leadership has three core pillars.

• Leading sets the emotional vision of where the team is headed. It’s getting people emotionally connected to a future state.
• Managing is driving the step by step processes that execute strategy.
• Coaching is developing your people to execute at a high level. It is the force that keeps every member of the rowing in the right direction.

Think about it this way. 90% of strategy (leading) is execution (managing) AND 90% of execution is people (coaching). Everything depends on people which is why you can’t afford not to coach.

Sales Leadership and Coaching Priorities

Leaders who prioritized weekly one-on-ones, real-time one-to-one coaching, and rigorous sales pipeline reviews consistently deliver better results and productivity.

One of my top clients reconfigured its leadership approach with inside sales reps, focusing on call-by-call coaching in real time. While the broader industry shrank, this company grew by over 20%.

The common thread? Leaders were present. They weren’t waiting for problems to surface; they intervened early and often, guiding reps through each challenge.

Why Simply Showing Up Makes a Difference

Leaders sometimes fear that sitting with their reps will feel intrusive, yet just being there raises performance.

When a coach or manager listens in on a sales call or rides along on an outside sales appointment, reps immediately sharpen their focus. They’re more likely to use proven techniques and avoid shortcuts.

Even better is when the leader offers coaching in the moment—helping the rep pivot if the call starts going sideways. Catching issues before they snowball is how reps maintain a consistently high standard of performance.

The Power of Being Side by Side

One sales organization I work with discovered, after a big dip in sales productivity, that none of its sales managers were spending time on the floor. Rather than spending time on the sales floor coaching, the leaders were in their offices, behind closed doors grading calls.

As soon as the managers started actively coaching—right next to their people, live—the entire team’s win-rates rose sharply. True coaching works best in real time, because your rep can implement what they just learned to get better on the next call.

The Culture Shift from Transactional to Consultative

When a coach is on the floor or in the car, they can see how a rep handles difficult questions, responds to objections, or frames value to a hesitant buyer. This immediate feedback helps sellers move beyond rote “scripts” to deeper conversations about the client’s real needs.

Over time, that consultative style becomes the team’s default approach. The rep’s confidence grows and the client feels genuinely heard leading to higher win-rates and a better buying experience. That shift can’t be taught in a one-off session; it must be nurtured call after call, meeting after meeting.

Effective Sales Coaching is Personalized

Ongoing coaching is the lever that prevents skills from slipping and helps each rep adopt best practices in a way that feels authentic.

Like a golf pro practicing with a swing coach at the range before a major tournament, a dedicated sales leader who invests in day-to-day coaching can bring out the absolute best in each team member—and transform the entire organization’s culture in the process.

1. Make time for real-time coaching. Recorded reviews are helpful, but nothing beats observing and intervening on the spot.
2. Remember that your physical presence boosts performance. Your reps behave differently just by knowing you’re there to guide and support them.
3. Treat each rep’s challenges as unique. Coaching is a customized process that addresses individual gaps in skill, mindset, or strategy.
4. Embed coaching into your culture with weekly one-on-ones, pipeline reviews, field visits, or inside call monitoring. Whatever your model, consistency is everything.

When you, as a leader, close your computer and get away from the dashboards and reports to spend time on the sales floor or out in the field with your people, you’re showing them that you care about them and value their growth as much as you value hitting the numbers. 

And that belief, investment, and attention, tends to come back around in the form of higher motivation, better relationships, and more wins.

Coaching also turns mistakes into momentum. You catch a slip in the moment, you fix it, and—boom—your rep is back on track for the rest of the day.  Without coaching, a single bad call or awkward client meeting can spiral into a week of self-doubt. 

So if there’s one takeaway I hope you’ll remember, it’s this: Your direct presence and real-time feedback are the secret sauce that keeps your sales engine humming, your people engaged, and your culture thriving.

If you have a question for me or want help working through a challenge or roadblock head to salesgravy.com/ask

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Imagine that you’re so angry about a business deal gone wrong that you grab a chisel, find a slab of stone, and spend hours carving your complaint. That’s exactly what a Mesopotamian merchant did in 1750 and made sales history. 

The merchant was furious because he’d been promised high-grade copper, but the final product was subpar. That angry customer complaint is now sitting in the British Museum, 4,000 years later. The tablet reads: “What do you take me for? That you treat someone like me with such contempt?”

If you think dealing with issues in the sales process is a modern problem, you’re off by about four millennia.

Sales Hustle Is Ancient

We talk about sales like it’s a modern corporate invention. CRMs and automated sequences are new, but the art of the deal and dealing with angry customers? That’s been around since humans started trading.

The copper merchant in 1750 BCE wasn’t just selling copper. He was managing client expectations, handling logistics, and clearly failing at quality control. The core practices of B2B sales—promise, delivery, and relationship management—haven’t changed.

1600s: Sales Becomes a Profession

Fast forward to 1600, and you see the founding of the East India Trading Companies. They were some of the first corporations that allowed people to buy shares in a business.

One of the East India Trading Companies was owned by “the 17 gentlemen”—a group of wealthy investors who funded global trade expeditions. They kept spices like nutmeg, pepper, and cinnamon flowing across continents. The spices were so valuable that they were practically currency.

This was B2B sales at scale. Shareholders’ expected returns. Merchants negotiated deals across continents. The stakes were massive, and so were the profits.

This era established something critical to modern sellers: the separation between ownership and operation. The 17 gentlemen didn’t sail the ships or negotiate every spice deal. They hired people to do it. Sales stopped being a personal trade and became a repeatable profession with accountability structures built in.

1851: Visibility and Competition Arrive

The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 was the world’s first massive B2B trade show in sales history. Thousands of exhibitors. Hundreds of thousands of attendees. A giant glass building called the Crystal Palace.

Nearly 200 years later, sales pros still pack convention centers, set up booths, and fight to stand out in a sea of competitors.

This is where B2B sales became visible. You weren’t just competing against one or two local merchants anymore. You were standing next to dozens of alternatives, all promising similar value. Differentiation became mandatory.

Following up meant writing a letter and waiting weeks for a response. Today, if you’re not following up within 24 hours, you’re losing to competitors who are.

1957: Reach and Leverage Scale Up

The first inside sales team was formed at a company called Dial America in 1957. Before that, if you wanted to sell, you hit the road. Door-to-door, city-to-city, face-to-face. Every single deal required physical presence.

The telephone changed everything. Suddenly, salespeople could work virtually, reach more prospects, and close deals without leaving the office. One seller could now have 20 conversations in a day instead of three. The math of sales productivity fundamentally shifted.

Fast forward to today, and inside sales is the dominant model. The tools have evolved—Zoom calls, screen shares, digital demos—but the core principle remains: you don’t need to be in the same room to build trust and close deals.

From Stone Tablets to Instant Messages: Why Speed Matters Now

Think about the effort that the merchant put into carving his complaint into stone. He didn’t fire off a quick email. He didn’t leave a one-star Google review. He created a permanent record that would outlive both him and the seller by thousands of years.

Today, complaints are easy. Maybe too easy. A customer can blast you on LinkedIn, tank your review scores, or CC your entire executive team on an email thread—all before lunch. 

Every major shift in B2B sales increased speed. Trade shows multiplied visibility. Telephones let sellers reach 20 prospects a day instead of three. Email collapsed follow-up from weeks to hours. Social media made reputation instant and permanent.

In 1750 BCE, you had time to respond. Now, you have hours—maybe minutes. Each acceleration rewarded the sellers who could execute fast without sacrificing quality. The ones who couldn’t keep up disappeared.

Why This Timeline Matters More Than You Think

We’re in another massive shift in sales history. AI, automation, predictive analytics—the pace is relentless. It’s easy to think everything has changed. Zoom out 4,000 years, and the pattern emerges: speed accelerates, but the core practices stay the same.

So the next time you get a harsh email from a customer, remember that stone tablet. You don’t have to worry about your failure being displayed in a museum 4,000 years from now. But you do have to worry about your reputation spreading across the internet in hours.

The tools change, the pace accelerates, but the rule is simple: earn trust, deliver value, and handle problems before they handle you.

You just saw how history teaches that speed and execution have always mattered — and now AI is the biggest shift we’ve seen yet. If you want to turn the disruption into an advantage, download The FREE AI Edge Book Club Guide.

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This is a very important Monday because this is the first Monday of the second quarter, and it’s time for a major gut check and assessment of where you are against your number coming out of Q1, and what you need to adjust and think about as we move into Q2.

Start with setting aside a dedicated, focused time block of one to two hours for reviewing your:

• Q1 Results
• Current state of your pipeline
• 2025 goals & personal business plan

Evaluate Your Q1 Performance Against Your Sales Goals

Begin with an honest evaluation of your Q1 sales performance. It’s likely that your performance falls into one of three scenarios: 

• You Crushed It – You had a killer quarter, blew away your goals, and you are walking on cloud nine. 
• You Hit Quota – You’re on track and right where you are supposed to be against your number
• You are in trouble – You missed your number, are behind quota, and are feeling the pressure.

Incredible Quarter. Crushing It!

If You Crushed It, and you’re on the top of the ranking report: Congratulations, this is exactly where you want to be at the end of Q1. Being ahead of your number now is an insurance policy against unforeseen setbacks in the future. 

It also can make life much easier if your sales plan and quota gets bigger in the back half of the year as many do. 

The most important thing you can do right now is conduct a deep dive analysis of your pipeline. It’s not unusual to work hard to close so many deals at the end of the quarter that you start off in a weak position at the beginning of the quarter. 

Get your calculator out and do the math on how much you need in your pipeline to crush your Q2 number. Then get to work immediately building the pipe you need to hit that goal. 

Do not wait to do this. With a great quarter behind you, the temptation will be there to take a breather and take your foot off of the accelerator. After all, you deserve it. But be very careful because if your pipeline needs work, the failure to take immediate action will come back to bite you. 

If you feel a bit burned out from working so hard to deliver such a great quarter, it might make sense to take a few days off to rest, recover, and recommit to your goals or raise the bar with stretch goals.

You’ve set the foundation for what could be a massive year and a trip to the President’s Club. Take advantage of what you accomplished in Q1 to get even better in Q2.

On Quota. On Track.

If you hit your quota in Q1 and ended up right where you should be: Nice job! Quota isn’t easy to achieve. You’ve executed and done exactly what your company asked you to do. You’ve kept your promise. 

Your biggest challenge now is that it’s not going to get any easier as the year progresses. You’ll need to keep executing and keep grinding. 

For you, this is a good time to step back and take a look at what is working well for you, where you can improve, and where you might have gotten off track. It’s a good time to reacquaint yourself with the basics and fundamentals that create success in both sales and your industry. 

Of course, after battling it out in Q1 you may need to refill your tank. This is the perfect time to double down on investing in yourself. With so much volatility in the market place at the moment, I highly recommend listening to my book Selling in a Crisis on Audible or Spotify or taking my courses on Selling During Uncertainty on Sales Gravy University. 

I’ve always found that investing in myself and learning gives me a boost of energy and motivation when I need it the most.  

Bad Quarter, In Trouble

If you had a bad Q1 and you are behind your number, then you are likely in trouble and are feeling the pressure. You might already have been put on a plan, which is not fun. The good news is that this is survivable, if you choose to survive.

I know this isn’t where you want to be. No one tanks their sales number on purpose. But where you are now is almost always a result of small slips in discipline that added up over the course of the quarter and led to the hole you are in now. And the first rule of holes is when you are in one, stop digging. 

Take Control of Your Time & Priorities

If you are honest with yourself, over the past three months, you haven’t managed your time well or focused on the right priorities. So if you want to survive the predicament you are in, this is exactly where you want to start. 

Success in sales comes from a relentless focus on putting new opportunities into your pipeline and advancing them through it. Everything else is academic. Sadly, when salespeople get behind the eight ball, it is almost always because they are spending their time on everything else. 

Therefore, if you want to make a comeback in Q2, you need to sit down with your calendar right now. Start with creating non-negotiable time blocks on your calendar at the beginning and end of the day during which you will dedicate focus to prospecting. Every single day. 

Then continue blocking time so that every moment of your prime selling time (golden hours) is dedicated to activity that is either adding new deals to your pipeline or moving them through your pipeline. Nothing else matters. Anything else needs to be removed from your calendar or done before or after the golden hours. 

The process of re-prioritizing your calendar, day, and activities can be very challenging—especially when you are under pressure. If you struggle with this, ask your sales leader for help or seek out a coach. If you don’t have a coach, my coaches are standing by to give you a hand. Just go to SalesGravy.com/coach to schedule a free assessment and consultation. 

Avoid Shortcutting the Sales Process

As you work to pull yourself out of your hole, it is crucial that you avoid taking short cuts and skipping steps in the sales process. When you are under pressure it is natural to want to speed up and get a win. In this emotional state you come off as pushy, pitchy, insecure, and desperate to buyers—rather than relaxed and confident. 

People don’t buy from desperate salespeople. Therefore, no matter how impatient you feel, slow down and execute each step of the sales process. That’s the real key to improving your win-rate. 

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Great advice is everywhere, but most of it is fluff. In sales, you don’t need clichés—you need real strategies that help you win more deals.

We’ve pulled together five of the biggest game-changing sales tips from the Sales Gravy Podcast so far this year. 

These are proven tactics from top sales pros who know what it takes to close deals, stay sharp, and dominate the competition.

If you want to crush your numbers, start here. 

https://youtu.be/gmf7YzzlPkQ?feature=shared The Grind Gets You Gold

You won’t become a sales expert overnight. 

But you can practice your way to excellence and then—one day—reach elite levels of selling.

As sales guru Tony Morris said, “You get out what you put in. … You don’t have to be the greatest; you’ve got to be the hardest [worker].”

In other words, be ready to roll up your sleeves and get in the trenches.

Everyone sees the skills of great athletes, but not everyone considers all the consistent work it took to hit that home run or make that perfect golf swing. Sales success is no different—it’s the result of countless daily reps, not just the big wins.

Top performers make it all look fluid—like a dance that should be easy to learn. But it’s not. Developing sales acumen takes time and massive effort, plus dedication to the grind.

You have to dedicate time every day to getting better—no matter what. Practice is an integral part of the grind. Drill your frameworks. Roleplay with mentors. Ask for feedback.

You have to pick up the phone and make calls no one else will—that’s how you win.

Don’t give up before you see results. 

You Must Learn to Sell

Once you’ve learned the basics, the grind perfects them. But you better start with some solid foundational skills.

Sales strategist Dawnna St. Louis puts it this way: “The first thing you need to do is learn to sell.”

Because trying to sell without knowing how to sell is an uphill climb that most never finish.

Learn to sell, or risk losing everything. It’s an ultimatum that no sales rep can afford to ignore.

Even the best subject matter experts fail without sales skills. 

Take courses and identify a mentor—a seasoned veteran who can provide feedback on your calls and negotiation techniques. Find a personal sales coach to teach you the ropes. 

Perfect Your Digital Profile

Stick to the simple; nix the jargon. As Breaking B2B Founder Sam Dunning says, “Does it pass the Caveman Grunt test?” 

Given a few seconds, could a caveman successfully grunt what you do based on your website—or your social media presence—alone?

If not, you’re in trouble. No one is going to buy from you if they don’t understand what you do or your expertise. 

A website is the online lobby of a business—the introduction to your service or product for potential digital customers. 

But take Dunning’s advice one step further and apply it to your Linkedin profile and social media accounts that are your lobby to your potential customers.

Lean into the basics: Who are you? What do you do? Why should a customer pick you?

The quality of your messaging can encourage prospects to reach out to you or establish you as a trustworthy source of business.

Create content that positions you as a thought leader and advisor. 

Otherwise? Your social presence is useless.

Wasted Time is the Enemy

Time is the one commodity that you can’t replenish. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

That’s why you must dedicate time to filling your pipeline every week. Protect your Golden Hours at all costs and then use that time wisely to make as many calls as you can.

Whether you’re in the same building or your team includes remote workers, pick a mutual time and start dialing numbers.

As best-selling author and sales expert Jeb Blount put it in a recent Ask Jeb, “Pick a period of time and say ‘We’re going to run call blocks.’ … Be ready with your list and we’re going to chop wood.” 

Eat the frog—carve out specific time to focus on your hardest task of the day. Pull out your pre-prepared call sheet and run it through without distractions. 

And always, commit to one more call.

Sell Hard—Step On Some Toes

KaTom Executive Sales Leader Charley Bible put it best: “If you’re not stepping on each other’s toes occasionally, then y’all aren’t dancing hard enough.”

Territory and prospect disputes among sales reps will happen—if you’re doing your job right.

Don’t miss out on opportunities by being too much of a stickler for territorial details. 

Sure, a rep is covering one market, but that shouldn’t stop inbound prospects from connecting with the first salesperson in line.

Healthy competition drives performance and prevents complacency. It’s the best way to stay sharp and motivated. 

If a prospect reaches out, engage immediately rather than worrying about boundaries. Challenge your teammates, but never at the expense of the customer‘s experience. 

Push harder, be more present, and win the business.

Hard Work Pays Off in Deals

Success in sales isn’t about luck—it’s about execution. 

The reps who commit to the grind, sharpen their skills, and stay disciplined will always outperform those who wing it.

If you’re not refining your approach, protecting your time, and pushing yourself to improve, someone else will—and they’ll win the deals you should have closed.

It’s time to get crystal clear on your messaging, commit to learning (and keep learning), put in the work, and go all in.

And of course, keep listening to The Sales Gravy Podcast!

The sales game rewards those who play to win.

Map out your quarter’s next steps with our FREE Goal Planning Guide 

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Wes from Flower Mound, Texas, has a familiar challenge: how to attract more qualified B2B leads and convert them before they slip away. He’s already tried a variety of channels, including inside sales, social media, and email, but is struggling to ramp up both volume and quality.

Below are the key insights from our conversation, along with practical strategies to multiply your lead count and build a system that secures face-to-face meetings with the right buyers.

Why a Multi-Channel Strategy Matters

There’s rarely a single magic trick that opens the floodgates of perfect leads. In B2B lead gen often requires multiple touch points before prospects even see why they need to talk to you. A blend of outbound prospecting, inbound content marketing, and nurturing activities generally works best. The sum of these efforts can accelerate your pipeline more effectively than leaning on one channel alone.

Lead with Pain-Focused Messaging

If you expect busy decision-makers to respond, talk about their pain—not your credentials. It’s easier to draw someone in by asking a question they can’t ignore: “Is high turnover costing you millions in lost productivity?” or “Has rapid growth left your culture in shambles?” The goal is to make them nod in agreement before they realize they’re reading a marketing pitch. That’s when they self-select into your funnel and become receptive to a follow-up call.

Close the Speed-to-Lead Gap

Wes wanted advice on better leads, but high-quality leads can still go cold if your response lags. Once someone opts in or fills out a form, you have a limited window to capitalize on that interest. Even a 30-minute delay can drop contact rates dramatically.

• Set strict targets for response time and measure them.
• Make phone calls the first touch whenever possible, not a generic email.
• Remind them that prospects seeking help have a pressing trigger event—act fast, or they’ll move on.

Enhance Leads With Thought Leadership Touches

Because B2B solutions aren’t often top-of-mind until there’s an obvious buying window, thought leadership and content marketing are critical. Position your business as a problem-solver. Short webinars, white papers, or case studies can showcase real transformations you’ve facilitated.

• Offer timely webinars on pain points you see trending in your market.
• Gate them with a simple registration form to capture new leads.
• Follow up quickly, ideally within hours, to schedule a deeper conversation.

Stay Narrow on Your Ideal Customer Profile

Wes asked whether to target a handful of organizations deeply or go wide. In B2B, sales randomness is the enemy of effectiveness. Identify the types of companies—size, leadership style, growth trajectory—that consistently need your help. Zero in on those decision-makers who likely hold budget authority, whether that’s a CEO, COO, or line-of-business leader. Aim higher first and multi-thread down later, if needed.

Ace the Last Mile

It’s one thing to get leads in the door and another to turn them into appointments. That “last mile” is where your marketing spend either pays off or gets wasted. By the time leads get to you, they’re often aware of a problem. Your job is to connect that problem to a tangible path forward:

• Coach reps to identify the pain, clarify it, and propose a next step.
• Track and revisit call recordings or email exchanges to spot recurring objections.
• If you see a pattern—like pricing concerns—equip your team with a fast, concise way to handle it without sinking the opportunity.

Keep Tweaking and Testing

Even the most robust strategy will fade if you aren’t iterating. Launch new ad campaigns in short sprints, measure cost per lead, and pivot quickly if the numbers don’t add up. Tweak email subject lines and social copy. Identify high-potential communities (like certain LinkedIn groups or niche events) where your target ICP congregates. Expect to experiment regularly to keep your funnel active.

Generating better B2B leads means speaking directly to your prospects’ pain, providing a fast path to get help, and ensuring your team engages the moment an opportunity appears. Avoid random broad strokes—focus on the segment where you repeatedly succeed. Combine outbound and inbound activities for maximum coverage. Most importantly, never let leads linger. Speed and empathy on the first call often mean the difference between closing a 90% prospect and watching them vanish.

If you have a question for me, head to salesgravy.com/ask and let me know what’s on your mind.

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