Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount

Is your sales strategy built around how buyers should behave—or how they actually behave? Imagine walking into a store and seeing a shirt for $50. Fine. Unremarkable. You might buy it, you might not. Now imagine seeing that same shirt with a tag that reads: $100 NOW $50. Suddenly, you're interested. You found a deal. You beat the system. You're a hero. Same price. Same shirt. Completely different emotional response. That psychological gap between logic and emotion cost JCPenney roughly $1 billion and offers one of the most important lessons in sales psychology you'll ever learn: people don't buy with logic—they buy with emotion and justify with logic later. The Fair and Square Disaster In 2012, JCPenney hired Ron Johnson as CEO. Johnson was a retail rock star, the architect behind Apple Store's legendary success. He walked into JCPenney and saw chaos: endless coupons, manufactured "original prices," and constant sales cycles. His solution? Kill it all. Johnson launched "Fair and Square"—a radically transparent pricing model. No games. No coupons. No inflated prices marked down. Just one everyday low price on everything. That $100 shirt marked down to $50? Now it was simply $50. Honest. Logical. Clean. The market's response was brutal. Within one year, sales dropped 25%. The company lost nearly $1 billion. Stock price went into freefall. Johnson was fired. What Johnson Got Wrong About Sales Psychology Johnson made a catastrophic assumption: he believed customers were rational economic actors who would reward transparency and honesty. He was dead wrong. For decades, JCPenney's customers had been playing a game. They clipped coupons, timed sales, scrutinized flyers, and planned shopping trips around promotions. The weekly coupon wasn't just a discount—it was a ritual. Their insider advantage, their badge of savvy shopping honor. Johnson stripped away their emotional satisfaction and replaced it with sterile efficiency. Without the "$100 now $50" comparison, the flat $50 price lost all psychological weight. No thrill. No victory. No story to share. Same price. Different feeling. The Sales Psychology Principle You're Ignoring Loss aversion is twice as powerful as gain motivation. Your prospects don't just want to gain something—they want to feel like they won, like they're in control, like they made a smart decision that will impress their boss. When you strip away their buying process, when you force them into your "more efficient" workflow without their input, they don't see the gain. They experience loss. You've taken away their control, their ritual, their power, their role as the hero. In sales, that feeling is deadly. Your Customers Have Rituals Too Think about your best accounts. What do they actually value? It's probably not your features or your ROI calculator. It's the rep they've worked with for years. It's the quarterly business review they rely on. It's the reporting cadence that makes them look good internally. It's the buying process that lets them feel competent and in control. That's their ritual. When you try to "streamline" their process, when you push them toward a different point of contact, when you change the reporting structure they trust—you're doing exactly what Ron Johnson did. You're selling logic when they're buying a feeling. Stop Leading With Features and Benefits Most salespeople lose deals before they even start because they lead with logical arguments: "Our platform reduces processing time by 40%." "We integrate with 200+ systems." "Our customer support response time is under 2 hours." All logical. All true. All useless if your buyer doesn't feel something first. Your prospect doesn't wake up excited about efficiency gains. They wake up stressed about looking good in front of their VP, avoiding mistakes, and maintaining control of their budget. Research is clear: emotional decisions get made first, then logic comes in to justify them. Your job isn't to build a logical case. Your job is to help your buyer feel like a hero, then give them the logical ammunition to defend that emotional decision internally. How to Apply This Starting Today Identify Their Rituals Watch how your customers actually operate. Do they need three stakeholders in every meeting? Do they always loop in procurement at a specific stage? Do they have a preferred communication cadence? Don't fight it. Work with it. Their process is their psychological anchor for stability. Frame the Win They Can Own Frame your solution so the customer feels in control and gets the credit. Instead of: "Our platform will solve your problem." Try: “This approach could help you demonstrate a 30% cost reduction in Q2—giving your team clear wins to share with leadership.” Make them the hero of their own story. Highlight Emotional Outcomes, Not Just Logical Ones Don't just talk about what your product does. Talk about how it makes them feel. "You'll have complete visibility so you're never caught off guard in executive meetings." "Your team will finally have the data they need to look proactive instead of reactive." "You'll be the person who solved the problem everyone else said was impossible." Guide, Don't Force Lead your prospects toward better outcomes without stripping away their sense of control. Instead of forcing a complete switch to your system, collaborate on how your solution enhances their existing trusted process. Make them feel like a collaborator, not a passenger. The Takeaway Ron Johnson wasn't wrong that consumers should prefer transparent, honest pricing. He wasn't wrong that the coupon game was exhausting and complicated. He was wrong about what people actually buy. They buy feelings. Control. Victory. Status. The story they tell themselves about being smart. Your prospects are no different. They're not buying your SaaS platform, your consulting services, or your enterprise solution. They're buying the feeling of being competent, in control, and successful. The difference between average salespeople and top performers isn't product knowledge or work ethic. It's understanding the sales psychology behind how buyers actually make decisions. When you appeal to emotion first and back it up with logic second, you stop losing deals to “no decision” and start winning consistently. Because at the end of the day, sales isn't about having the best product. It's about making your customer feel like they made the best decision. Ready to master buyer psychology and close more deals? Download the ACED Buyer Style Playbook and discover how to match your sales approach to the four core buyer personalities. Stop selling logic. Start selling the way your customers actually buy.

How Do Top Performers Stay Motivated When Sales Gets Hard? You know the feeling when you close a big deal. The rush. The quiet satisfaction of updating your pipeline. Maybe a quick high-five with your manager. And then, almost immediately, it fades. You’re back to cold calls that go unanswered, emails that disappear into inboxes, and prospects who promised they were interested suddenly going silent. In sales, rejection isn’t a side effect of the job. It is the job. That reality is exactly why most people don’t last in sales. And it’s why the people who do last tend to get paid very well. Over the past quarter, we talked with some of the most consistent sales leaders in the business. Here are four moments from the Sales Gravy Podcast that reveal how top performers stay motivated and close more deals, even when the work feels heavy. Find Your Carrot and Make It Specific Will Frattini, VP of Sales at ZoomInfo, keeps a small Christmas ornament on his desk. His daughter gave it to him when she was five. That ornament is his carrot. During a recent podcast conversation, Will explained that when sales gets hard, that ornament reminds him exactly why he keeps pushing. Not in an abstract or inspirational-poster way, but in a deeply personal one. It represents his family, his responsibility, and the future he’s building for them. That distinction matters. Many salespeople say they’re motivated by family, freedom, or financial security. Those values are real, but on their own, they’re often too broad to sustain sales motivation during a brutal stretch of rejection. When you’re fifty dials deep with no connects and another demo just canceled, vague motivation doesn’t hold up. Will doesn’t just think “my family.” He sees a moment, a memory, and a tangible reminder of what’s at stake. That specificity gives his motivation weight. Top performers anchor their sales motivation to something concrete and emotionally charged. A down payment they want to make by a certain date. A trip they want to take without checking their bank account. A milestone that matters beyond quota. The more specific the carrot, the more powerful it becomes when sales gets hard. How to define yours: Write down one specific outcome you want to achieve in the next six months. Not “hit quota,” but the real-world result that quota enables. A number. A purchase. An experience. Put it somewhere you’ll see it every day. Work With Customers Who Actually Value You One of the fastest ways to drain sales motivation is closing deals with customers who make you miserable. On an episode of Ask Jeb, Jeb broke down how companies grow faster by focusing on the right customers, not just more customers. When you’re behind on quota late in the year, it’s tempting to take anything that looks like revenue. Any company that shows interest. Any prospect willing to meet. You convince yourself that a deal is a deal. Then January arrives. That customer floods your team with support tickets, questions every invoice, demands exceptions, and slowly erodes the satisfaction of the win you celebrated just weeks earlier. Consistent performers learn to protect their energy. They get ruthless about fit. Not just company size or industry, but values. They ask questions like, “What do you value most in a partner?” and they listen carefully to the answer. Some buyers want constant responsiveness. Others value expert perspective and challenge. Some want efficiency and minimal interaction. None of those preferences are wrong. But only one aligns with how you actually sell. When sales gets hard, motivation comes easier when you’re pursuing customers who respect your approach instead of fighting it. How to clarify your ideal customer: Look at your three favorite customers. The ones your entire team enjoys working with. What do they share beyond surface-level traits? How did they behave during the buying process? Those patterns matter more than any firmographic filter. Slow Down Before You Create Your Own Problems When pressure builds, speed starts to feel productive. You rush contracts. You promise timelines without checking internally. You say yes to custom requirements because slowing down feels risky. On an episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount, Jr. shared one of the most painful stories we heard this year. A $1.4 million deal with a pediatrics practice unraveled after someone rushed the process and placed the client into an early adopter program without a test environment. The result was catastrophic. The client’s live system crashed, HIPAA was violated, and the company lost not only the deal but $600,000 in annual recurring revenue. Top performers understand something most reps learn the hard way: smooth is fast. They build guardrails around high-risk moments. Before sending a contract, they align internally. Before committing to timelines, they check with the people who actually do the work. Slowing down at the right moments builds trust. It prevents chaos. And it preserves sales motivation by keeping you from spending the next quarter cleaning up mistakes made under pressure. How to build a slowdown system: Identify the three points in your sales process where you tend to rush. Proposals, negotiations, technical commitments. Create a short checklist for each and make it mandatory. Use AI to Think Faster, Not to Stop Thinking Sales demands constant context switching. Pipeline reviews. Prospect research. Discovery prep. Follow-up. Objection handling. The mental load adds up quickly. Victor Antonio recently shared an example of a window company using vision AI to diagnose broken window seals from photos. Instead of sending a technician, customers submit an image. The system verifies the issue, checks inventory, confirms warranty status, and schedules service automatically. AI hasn’t changed what strong salespeople do. It’s changed how quickly they get to the work that actually matters. Top performers use AI to handle tasks that drain energy but don’t require judgment. Research summaries. Organizing notes. Drafting frameworks. That speed preserves mental bandwidth for conversations, strategy, and relationship building. Used correctly, AI supports sales motivation by reducing friction, not replacing effort. How to use AI without dulling your edge: List the tasks you repeat weekly that consume time but not insight. Let AI handle those. Keep anything involving trust, nuance, or decision-making firmly in your hands. Why This Matters for Sales Motivation Sales has always been hard. Cold calling was hard decades ago, and it’s still hard today. You still have to find people, start conversations, build trust, and ask for commitments. What separates average reps from consistent performers isn’t resilience alone. It’s structure. Top performers know exactly what they’re chasing and why it matters. They protect themselves from bad-fit customers. They slow down when it counts. And they use tools strategically to preserve energy for selling. They still get rejected. They still lose deals. They still have months where nothing goes right. But they don’t drift. They don’t panic. And they don’t quit when the work gets uncomfortable. That discipline is what sustains sales motivation long after the initial excitement wears off. If you want a clearer target to aim at when sales gets hard, download the FREE Sales Gravy Goal Guide. It will help you define the goals that actually keep you focused, disciplined, and motivated—especially when rejection starts piling up.

Here's a problem that'll make your head spin: What do you do when you can sell way more than your company can produce? That's the question posed by Dylan Noah from Toronto. Dylan sells craft cider to bars and restaurants across his territory. He's the only salesperson for a small producer, working with limited tools (no proper CRM), and here's the kicker: he could sell a million dollars' worth of product, but production isn't enough to meet that demand. If you're shaking your head thinking this is a champagne problem, you're half right. But for Dylan trying to hit his income goals through commissions, it's a real constraint that's costing him money every single day. The CRM Obsession Is a Distraction Let's tackle the first issue head on. Dylan is worried he doesn't have the right CRM tools to manage his accounts and hit his numbers. Here's the brutal truth: at one point in time, salespeople sold a lot of cider, beer, wine, liquor, and all kinds of other stuff without any CRM at all. They used index cards in a box. They had lists on paper. And they crushed it. You're a small business with one salesperson working with 3,000 to 7,000 potential accounts in your territory. The last thing you should worry about right now is a $40,000 CRM system. Could you use automation for email sequences and promotions? Absolutely. Should you eventually invest in something like HubSpot or Pipedrive? Yes. But right now, what you need is a simple system to identify your best accounts and focus your time there. You're not going to hit $1 million across 3,000 accounts. You're going to hit it across 500 accounts that are the biggest restaurants and bars, where they like you, their customers like cider, and where you can create events and experiences that spike sales. Use a spreadsheet. Use index cards. Use whatever basic tool you've got right now. Create a 30-60-90 day system where you know who you're calling on in the next 30 days, the next 60 days, and the next 90 days. Build a list of your top 250 accounts that buy the most from you. That's where you live. Stop obsessing over tools you don't have and start maximizing the opportunity in front of you. Scarcity Is Your Secret Weapon This brings us to the real issue: production capacity. Dylan can sell it, but his company can't make enough of it. The bourbon distillers in America are dealing with this exact problem right now. They ramped up production years ago based on projected demand, and now they're sitting on excess inventory that's aging out. It's a delicate balance, and if you make too much, it goes bad and you lose everything. Here's what most salespeople don't understand about scarcity: it's actually a competitive advantage if you manage it right. When you have limited product, you're always going to be in an ebb and flow situation. Sometimes you'll have an abundance of one product type. Sometimes you'll have high demand products in short supply. The key is building a system that lets you move fast when opportunity strikes. This is where building buying profiles for every single customer becomes essential. You need to know which accounts buy which types of products, what their purchase patterns look like, and what their potential is (high, medium, or low). Think about it like your account coverage pyramid. When you have product available, you start at the top with your highest value accounts and work your way down. You're not treating all 150 accounts the same. You're prioritizing based on potential. When you have an abundance of one product type, you go directly to the customers who buy that product and say, "Hey, I've got product right now. Do you want to buy?" You can run specials. You can offer incentives (within legal limits). You move it fast. When your high demand products come in, you call your best accounts first and say, "I've got ten cases of this. I'm calling you first. How many do you want?" Then you go down your list. Most of the time, you'll sell out before you even leave your office. But if you've got 150 accounts and you're treating them all the same, it gets overwhelming fast. Segment them. Prioritize them. Work them strategically. Making Your Number When You Can't Control Supply The income issue is where this gets really interesting. Dylan wants to double his sales and earn more commissions, but he can't because the company keeps running out of product. Here's my take: if you're supposed to sell $1.5 million but your company only produces $750,000 worth of product that you could sell, they should pay you for the $1.5 million. Production was the reason you couldn't make your number, not your sales ability. Now, I know there are people in operations reading this who are going to say I'm full of it. But from a sales standpoint, if you've sold out of everything available, you've done your job. The constraint isn't you, it's production capacity. That's a hard conversation to have with ownership, I get it. But here's how you make that case: sell out of the other stuff that people don't want as much. Figure out how to move all of it. Put yourself in a position where you own the moral high ground when it comes to sales performance. If you do that and they still can't or won't pay you for what you could have sold, then you've got a decision to make. But at least you'll have learned how to sell in a resource-constrained environment, how to build relationships, how to manage your territory, and how to work a manual system. Those are skills that transfer to any sales role, especially ones that give you all the bells and whistles and unlimited product to sell. The Power of Old School Discipline Let's go back to 1985 for a minute. In 1985, you would have had a Rolodex with tabs for H (high potential), M (medium potential), and L (low potential) accounts. When product came in, you'd open to H, pull out the cards, and start dialing. "I've got ten cases of your favorite cider. I'm calling you first. How many do you want?" If they don't want any, click. Next card. By the time you hit the tenth account, you're usually sold out. That's the power of segmentation combined with discipline. Systems beat moods. Sequence beats sporadic effort. Process creates momentum. You don't need fancy technology to do this. You need clear priorities, good segmentation, and the discipline to work your system consistently. The Bottom Line If you're in Dylan's situation with limited tools and limited product, here's your game plan: Stop worrying about what you don't have and focus on maximizing what you do have. Build a simple segmentation system using whatever tools are available. Create detailed buying profiles for all your accounts so you know exactly who to call when specific products become available. Work your account coverage pyramid from top to bottom, always prioritizing your highest value customers. Sell out of everything, even the less popular products, so you have leverage when talking to ownership about compensation. The reality is that most sales challenges aren't about having the perfect tools or unlimited resources. They're about having the discipline to work a proven system consistently, even when conditions aren't ideal. That's how you win in sales. That's how you hit your numbers. And that's how you build a foundation of skills that will serve you for your entire career, whether you stay in a resource constrained environment or move to a role where the sky's the limit. Ready to master the fundamentals of prospecting and account management? Check out Jeb Blount's latest book with Brynne Tillman, The LinkedIn Edge, and learn how to build systematic, relationship-driven sales processes that work in any environment.

While regret anchors you to past failures, reflection acts as a catalyst for future sales growth. This article and Sales Gravy Money Monday Podcast episode explores how to break the "if-only" loop and provides a step-by-step year-end debrief to help you extract lessons from your wins and losses, ensuring you start the new year with clarity and a proven system for success.   Explore: How to get out of your regret loop The power of reflection How reflection creates awareness A system for achieving your sales goals 7 Steps to year-end sales reflection Ways to Look Back at Your Sales Year For me, the last two weeks of the year have always been the chance to pause, take a break from the grind of selling, and really think about what happened over the past year—the good, the bad, and the ugly. If you are anything like me and do the same, there are two ways to look back on your last twelve months. You can do so with regret or reflection. These two opposing lenses are vastly different in the way they affect your view of where you’ve been and where you are going. The Trouble With Regret Let’s start by unpacking regret. Some of you are already feeling regret about goals you missed, deals you lost, opportunities that slipped through your fingers, or the people in your life you may have let down. Regret is that feeling you get when you look back on something you did (or didn’t do) and wish you could change it. In many ways, regret is similar to worry, except it’s focused on the past instead of the future. Worry is about what might happen; regret is about what already happened. That’s a big distinction. Although you can turn worry into action and change the future, you cannot rewrite the past. No amount of regret changes history. All it does is create a feedback loop in your mind where you keep reliving your mistakes, misses, and failures over and over again. Why Sales Professionals Get Stuck in a Regret Loop I’ve observed so many people get stuck in this endless loop of regret. They keep lamenting, "If only I had . . ." "made that call.” “handled that prospect differently.” “taken that chance.” “been there or done that.” Those “if onlys” can paralyze you. They sap your energy, crush your confidence, and keep you from moving forward. On one hand, regret can push you to change—you don’t want to feel that kind of pain again, so you work hard to avoid repeating the same mistakes. On the other hand, regret can become a debilitating emotion that drags you into an exhausting and useless mental loop of “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.” But no matter how many times you complete that loop, it doesn’t change the outcome. It becomes an emotional anchor that weighs you down as you start the new year. The Power of Reflection Reflection, on the other hand, is entirely different—and far more productive. When you reflect, you detach from your emotions with objectivity to look at your entire body of work from the past year. You’re asking the questions, “What went well? What didn’t go so well? What did I learn?” You consider the wins that made you proud and the moments you’d rather forget. You figure out why you won so you can repeat those winning behaviors. You extract value from the lessons of failure. Reflection isn’t about punishing yourself for what went wrong. It’s about gaining clarity on why it went wrong—and what you can do about it next time. How Reflection Creates Awareness Reflection also helps you find gratitude in unexpected places. Maybe there’s a hidden lesson in overcoming an obstacle, or perhaps you gained a new perspective because a challenging person came into your life. It’s important to realize that each decision you made over the past year shaped your present circumstances. But you are not defined by these circumstances, only by how you respond to them. Reflection creates awareness. Where there is awareness, there is the potential for change. Awareness is like the sun; anything it touches has a tendency to transform. The bottom line is that reflection is about learning, growing, and transforming. Regret is stagnation. Why Reflection Matters at Year-End The reason I’m talking about the impact of reflection as we close out this year is because, for most of us, the slate really does feel clean come January 1st. In the sales world, we get a brand-new quota and brand-new targets. There’s an air of possibility as we think: “This year is going to be different. “This year, I’m going to crush my numbers.” “Hit my income targets.” “Make it to President’s club.” “Get a promotion.” “Finally, close that dream account I’ve been chasing.” But if you don’t take a moment to reflect on what worked and what didn’t, you’re likely to find yourself repeating the same missteps. Reflection is like an internal debrief—a chance to say, “Here’s what happened, here’s why, and here’s how I’m going to fix it.” Why Clarity Arises From Reflection Let me give you a personal example. A the beginning of last year, I set a goal for my sales training company, Sales Gravy. This was a big, bold, visionary goal that would transform our organization and ultimately double our sales. I proudly and confidently told my team that it was going to happen. And then, in an embarrassing crash and burn, I failed miserably. Certainly, I could have stewed in regret, beating myself up and allowing my self-talk to run wild about how I fell short. But that would have been a waste of time and energy. Instead, I chose reflection. I asked myself, “What happened and why didn’t I achieve this goal?” As I mulled over those questions, the answers came more clearly than I expected. One of the biggest insights I gained was that I'd set this big goal, but didn’t establish a system or plan to make it happen. You see, a goal without a system is basically just a wish—as they say, “hope is not a strategy.” Build a System that Supports Your Goals If, for example, you set a goal to prospect a hundred potential customers per week, but you haven’t built a disciplined daily routine, built targeted lists, set aside specific times for calls, and created accountability checkpoints, it’s not going to stick. Life will get in the way. Sooner or later, your big, bold goal gets overshadowed by a million other tasks. Without a system for achieving the goal, you quickly succumb to discipline fatigue. This is exactly why reflection can be your best friend at year's end. It allows you to own your failures without letting them define you, and it helps you leverage your successes by pinpointing what you did right. Regret says: “You messed up. You’ll never fix this. It’s too late.” Reflection says: “You messed up. Now let’s find out why, learn from it, and do better next time.” How to Conduct a Year-End Sales Reflection To turn past performance into future growth, follow this 7-step systematic reflection process: Seek Silence: Carve out 30 minutes in a quiet environment without digital distractions to ensure deep focus. Audit the Timeline: Mentally journey through the year, month-by-month, starting from January, to recall specific goals and market conditions. Celebrate Wins: Identify specific deals and relationships that succeeded. Recognize the personal milestones that boosted your confidence. Isolate Winning Behaviors: Determine the exact habits and mindsets that led to your successes so you can turn them into repeatable systems. Analyze Failures Objectively: Pinpoint the goals that stayed out of reach. Ask "Why?" to uncover the root cause of the miss without self-judgment. Build Systems, Not Just Goals: Replace "hope-based" strategies with disciplined routines, targeted lists, and accountability checkpoints. Practice Gratitude: Identify the "silver linings" and lessons learned from challenges to maintain an optimistic outlook for the new sales season. Here’s the big takeaway: Regret is the enemy of progress; Reflection is the catalyst for growth. Get your New Year off to a winning start with Jeb Blount's popular on-demand course: The Essentials of Setting Winning Goals

Why Do So Many Mentorship Relationships Fail Before They Ever Work? “You can't be more committed to somebody’s success than they are.” That insight comes from Colleen Stanley, author of Be the Mentor Who Mattered, during a recent conversation on the Sales Gravy Podcast. It's a simple statement that cuts through all the noise about mentorship and gets to the heart of why most mentoring relationships fail to deliver results. Sales professionals constantly talk about wanting mentors. They want access to someone who's been there, done that, and can show them the shortcuts. But when they get that access, they squander it. They show up unprepared. They argue with advice. They never implement what they learn. On the flip side, experienced sales leaders say they want to give back and mentor the next generation. But they get burned out after investing time in people who don't follow through. So they stop offering help altogether. The problem isn't a lack of willing mentors or eager mentees. The problem is that nobody understands their role in making mentorship work. What Mentees Get Wrong About Mentorship Most people treat mentorship like a magic pill, assuming that simply being near someone successful will transfer that success to them. It doesn’t work that way. Getting real value from a mentor requires more than just showing up. You need to actively do the work that makes their guidance worthwhile. Start by focusing on these key actions: Ask Directly The biggest barrier to mentorship isn’t that successful people won’t help you. It’s that you never ask. You assume they’re too busy, too important, or too far removed from your situation to care. You’re wrong on all three counts. Successful people got where they are because someone helped them along the way. Most of them want to pay that forward. But they’re not mind readers. If you want help, ask for it directly. Respect Their Time When you do ask, come prepared. Don’t ask for “15 minutes to pick your brain.” That’s code for “I haven’t thought about what I actually need, so I’m going to waste your time figuring it out.” Instead, be specific. “I’m struggling with qualifying early in the sales process. Could you share how you approach qualification conversations?” Specific questions get specific answers. Vague requests get vague responses—or none at all. Do What They Tell You to Do This is where most mentoring relationships die. You ask for advice. You get great guidance. Then you come back with a list of reasons why it won’t work for your situation. Stop that. If you’re going to ask someone for their expertise, try their approach before explaining why your situation is different. You’re there because they know more than you do. Acting like you know better defeats the entire purpose. Your mentor’s reward isn’t money or recognition. It’s watching you take their advice and succeed because of it. When you implement what they teach and come back with results, they’ll invest even more in your development. When you make excuses, they’ll move on. Take Tough Feedback Without Getting Defensive Not every mentor has read the latest book on constructive feedback. Some of them are direct or blunt. Take it anyway. When someone cares enough about your success to tell you the truth—even when it’s uncomfortable—that’s a gift. Don’t reject it because it wasn’t wrapped perfectly. The best mentors don’t sugarcoat feedback because they respect you enough to be honest. They see potential in you that you can’t see yet, and they’re not going to let you waste it by staying comfortable. What Mentors Get Wrong About Mentorship If you’re in a position to mentor others, you already know the frustration of investing in someone who doesn’t follow through. It’s exhausting. Eventually, you start to wonder if it’s worth your time at all. Before you close yourself off completely, it’s important to understand the common patterns that cause mentoring relationships to stall. Waiting for the Perfect Mentee There is no perfect mentee. Everyone who asks for your help is going to be rough around the edges. They’ll make mistakes. They might waste some of your time. That’s the cost of mentoring. The real question isn’t whether someone is polished. It’s whether they’re committed. Are they showing up prepared? Are they implementing what you teach? Are they making progress, even if it’s slow? If the answer is yes, keep investing. If it’s no, redirect your energy elsewhere. Just don’t let one bad experience make you cynical about everyone. Trying to Control Their Path Your job as a mentor isn’t to create a clone of yourself. It’s to help someone develop their own approach using the principles that made you successful. They might take your advice and apply it differently. They might adapt it to their personality, their market, or their selling style. That’s not wrong. That’s the point. Stay unattached to the outcome. You can’t be more invested in their success than they are. Give them your best insights, support their growth, and let them own the results. Mentoring the Wrong People Not everyone needs your specific expertise. Some people need tactical help with prospecting. Some need strategic guidance. Others need coaching on emotional intelligence. Look for the multipliers. Mentor people who will take what you teach them and use it to help others. When someone you mentor goes on to mentor others, your impact grows far beyond what you could achieve alone. That doesn’t mean only mentoring future executives. It means finding people who are genuinely committed to growth and generous enough to share what they learn. The Real Value of Mentorship Mentorship isn’t a transaction. It’s not about what you can get from someone more successful or what you owe someone less experienced. It’s about creating a community where people help each other get better. Where progress matters more than perfection. Where tough feedback is welcomed because everyone knows it comes from a place of care. Having someone in your corner who believes in your potential—even when you don’t—can be the difference between quitting and breaking through. But that only works if both sides understand their role. Mentees must show up ready to learn and willing to act. Mentors must show up ready to tell the truth and willing to invest. Find the mentors who will challenge you. Be the mentor who changes someone else’s trajectory. Ready to take the next step in your development? Finding the right mentor or coach can transform your sales career—if you know what to look for. Learn how to identify the coach who’s right for you with our FREE How to Find the Right Coach for You Guide.

Here's a truth that'll make you uncomfortable: Getting rejected isn't the real problem. The real problem is that you're not doing the work upfront to lower the probability of rejection in the first place. That's the insight that hit when Wendy Ramirez, a leading Mexican sales expert and author of Lo que nadie habla de las ventas: Estrategias para no ser llamarada de petate or What Nobody Talks About in Sales: Strategies to Avoid Being a Flash in the Pan, joined this week's episode about handling rejection on Ask Jeb on The Sales Gravy Podcast. After forty years in sales, I've been rejected yesterday, I'll get rejected tomorrow, and I've been rejected so many times that I almost don't even feel it anymore. But that doesn't mean you can just "let it roll off your back" like some sales trainers tell you. If you're struggling with rejection, you're not alone. And more importantly, you're not broken. There's a biological reason it hurts so badly, and there are concrete techniques you can use to handle it. The Biology of Rejection: Why Your Brain Is Working Against You Here's what most sales trainers won't tell you: Rejection is supposed to hurt. It's baked into your DNA. Forty thousand years ago, human beings lived in small groups around campfires. If you got kicked out of the group and walked away from that campfire into the dark, you were in danger. You were part of the food chain. There were things out there hunting you, rival tribes fighting over scarce resources, and being alone meant you probably weren't going to pass on your genes. So human beings who avoided rejection were more likely to survive. This fear of rejection became an evolutionary advantage, and it's still with us today. That's why selling is so hard. It's why most people don't want to go into sales. Walk into the accounting department and ask if anyone wants to make cold calls with you. They're going to look at you like you've got four heads because nobody wants to be in a profession where you have to do something that unnatural. This avoidance of rejection serves us really well in most of our life. You need to get along with your family, your coworkers, other people in the world. Knowing where the line is that would get you rejected is super important to being able to work as a team. But in sales? It's killing your performance. The Truth About Objections: You're Creating Them When people reject you or give you an objection, what they're expressing is their fear. They're expressing their fear of moving forward, their fear of change, their fear about whether or not you'll do what you say you're going to do. And here's the brutal part: Most of the time, you created that fear. The easiest way to deal with an objection is to do good discovery and do a good job in the selling process. When salespeople make the mistake of not doing any discovery, they don't have any ammunition. So the rejection sounds like this: "Your price is too high." That's the only way a person really knows how to explain it. If they don't like you, they'll say, "We need to go think about this." Think about it this way. If you do a great job of building the relationship, asking questions, listening, getting all of their pain and aspirations on the table, and then telling their story back to them in the context of how you can help them solve their problems, then you've earned the right to ask them. When you ask and they give you an objection, you know what to do because you already have that information. You're just bringing back and putting on the table the things that they already told you. The worst rejections I've gotten? They're usually when I lost a deal because I didn't do discovery. And then I found out after the fact that I missed something I shouldn't have missed. It's not so much the rejection that hurts. It's the shame and the gut punch that I didn't do my job as a salesperson, and therefore I created the environment that made that objection so big that I couldn't get past it because I had no information to work with. The Ledge Technique: Your Magic Quarter Second Let's get practical. You're on a prospecting call, you're engaging another person, and they hit you with an objection which feels like rejection. What do you do? Use a technique called the ledge. Neuroscientists would call it the magic quarter second that allows your executive brain (your prefrontal cortex) to get in control of your emotional brain (your limbic system) and that little structure inside your brain called the amygdala that triggers the fight or flight response. The ledge is just something you've memorized that you say automatically whenever you get that particular objection. The thing about prospecting objections is that we know every potential one. They're not surprising. People are going to say, "I don't have any time," "I'm not interested," "I'm already working with someone," "Your prices are too high," "This is not a good time for me," "I'm not the right person." So if someone says, "I'm too busy right now," I just say, "I figured you would be. And that's exactly why I called." That's all I say. The reason I have that memorized is because when they say that, rather than getting consumed by the fight or flight response, I know exactly what to say. In that magic quarter second, my brain that's smart takes over and says, "This is not a threat. This is just a person who says they don't have enough time right now, and you know exactly how to handle it." Relating: The Slower Form of the Ledge If you're in a slower type of objection (let's say you're asking someone to buy from you), use a form of the ledge by relating with them. When someone gives you an objection, they're expecting conflict because we're just human beings. If I tell you no, I'm expecting you to come back at me. So they give you the objection and they're ready for it. If you punch back, they're going to punch back. Everybody loses. But instead, if you relate to them, you lower the temperature. You get on their side of the table. You show empathy without agreeing with them. Here's what that sounds like in practice: Someone says, "This is more than I wanted to pay." You could say, "Well, look, it's really not that expensive and you're going to get so much out of it." Or you could say, "I totally get where you're coming from. It sounds to me like you're someone who makes really good decisions with their money." You're not agreeing that the price is too high. You're agreeing that they're a person who makes good decisions with their money. You're lowering the conflict level and increasing the collaborative level. You're diffusing them and breaking their pattern. Then you can go into, "When you say it's a little bit more than you wanted to pay, how do you mean? What does that mean to you?" But you always start with relating to them. The One Basic Truth About Objections Here's something you need to understand: In every sales conversation, while facing every objection, it is the human being that has the greatest emotional discipline that is most likely to have control over the conversation. And if you control the conversation, you can handle the objection. This is called relaxed assertive confidence. When you demonstrate this behavior, it almost acts like a magnet. People lean into you. And emotionally (because emotions are contagious), it causes them to respond in kind. When you come off as relaxed and confident, suddenly they lower their conflict level and they become more confident in you as well. There's nothing that handles objections better than pure old confidence. Persistence Always Finds a Way to Win Let me leave you with this: Persistence always finds a way to win. Always. In the US, 44 percent of salespeople only face rejection once before they give up. 78 percent give up after asking twice. 91 percent give up after asking only four times. But on average, it takes eight asks to get someone to say yes to you. So think about that. The statistics are in your favor. The more you're persistent, the more you keep asking, the more likely you're going to get what you want. The more you face rejection, the more likely you're going to get what you want. The inspirational part? Doing that is really hard. It takes discipline, and discipline is defined as sacrificing what you want now for what you want most. The easiest, fastest way to put on that emotional armor and dive into objections and rejections is to know exactly what it is that you want. So that in that moment when your brain is saying to you, "Run, don't do this, don't face it," you remember that on the other side of that rejection is the one thing that you want more than anything else in the world. And you're willing to go through it, around it, under it. No matter what it takes. You're willing to do whatever it takes to get that thing that you want. That's when rejection stops being the problem and starts being just another step in your process. Ready to transform your prospecting approach and fill your pipeline? Grab a copy of The LinkedIn Edge, Jeb’s latest book on combining LinkedIn, AI, and proven outbound strategies to sell more and close bigger deals.

If you’ve been looking for a way to hit or exceed your annual quota, qualify for President's Club, or simply earn a bigger paycheck or bonus, focusing on helping business owners reduce their tax burden by investing in your product, service, or software in the final weeks of the year can give you the edge you need to get more sales closed. Business Owners are Motivated to Reduce Taxes In the United States, there are millions of SMBs, and the vast majority of these businesses are what we call pass-through organizations for tax purposes. This means that the owners or partners in these businesses report the profits on their personal tax filings. Unlike big companies, small companies don’t have the luxury of rolling profits over to the next year. So whatever they made this year, they have to pay taxes on. As the calendar winds down, business owners are often motivated to invest in products, services, and software solutions in order to reduce taxable income. In other words, if a business has shown strong profits throughout the year, its owners might be keen to spend some of that money on improving their operations, expanding their capabilities, or streamlining their processes—right now—rather than hand over a large chunk of their profits to Uncle Sam come tax season. Business Owners Hate Paying Taxes To understand why this year-end period is so critical, let’s get into the mindset of a small or medium-sized business owner. Unlike large enterprises with multiple departments and complex accounting strategies, SMB owners are often personally invested in the company’s financial results because those results are essentially their income. It’s how they pay their mortgage and put food on the table. For this reason, they watch their revenue and expenses closely. As the year comes to an end, they’re looking at their bottom line and thinking about the upcoming tax bill. For many of these business owners, profit is a double-edged sword. Don’t get me wrong, they want to make a profit. But at some point, too much profit triggers a much higher tax bill. If there is one thing I know about small and medium-sized business owners, it's that they hate taxes. They are always looking for ways to legally minimize their tax liability. One easy and productive way to do this is to make fully or partially depreciable investments in the business before December 31st. That could mean buying new equipment, software, training packages, or services that will not only improve the business long-term but also reduce taxable income for the current year. An Urgent Need to Spend As a salesperson, the key takeaway here is that your prospects have a natural, time-bound incentive to spend. If you can position your product or service as the right investment at the right time, you might find it easier to close those deals that seemed just out of reach during the rest of the year. And by the way, if you are dealing with decision-makers who are pushing off decisions to next year, this is a great way to get past that objection. Framing Your Business Case I want to be clear, though, that most businesses are not going to spend money for the sake of spending money. Savvy business owners want to reduce taxes and do the right thing for their company. Therefore, you can’t just be transactional. You still must follow the sales process and build a bridge to the value of tax savings AND business improvement when making your business case. It’s all about framing your product or service as a strategic investment rather than a mere expense. For example: If you sell software tools that improve operational efficiency, make the case for how your solution will help them save on labor costs, reduce errors, and streamline workflows. If you’re selling advertising, highlight how a year-end launch of a new campaign will lead to immediate results that set the stage for a strong Q1. If you sell capital equipment, walk them through how the new equipment will make them more productive and help them expand their business in the new year. The key is to connect the value of your offering directly to the timing. Consider messaging like: “This is an opportune moment to upgrade your systems, so you’ll enter the new year with a competitive edge and potentially lower your tax liabilities this season.” “By getting your campaign locked in before the year closes, you can reap immediate tax benefits while ensuring your advertising starts generating leads in January when you need them the most.” "If we get the equipment ordered now, it will be delivered in Q1, giving you plenty of time to get a high ROI next year." When you can tie the ROI of your product to both tangible improvements and the financial perks of year-end spending, the business case becomes much more compelling, and you will sell more. Tailor Your Approach While the end-of-year tax incentive is a common denominator, not every SMB is identical. Some might be profitable but cash-constrained, while others have capital burning a hole in their pockets. Some may be in sectors that had a booming year, while others are just recovering from a difficult market. The more you understand the unique challenges and goals of each prospect you’re targeting, the better you can tailor your approach. Before you pick up the phone, walk through their door, or send an email, do some research. Check out their recent announcements, whether they’re hiring or expanding. Look into trends in their industry. Understanding these nuances will help you fine-tune your messaging. If you know a business is tight on cash, emphasize flexible payment plans or financing options. If the business is flush with profit, reinforce the immediate tax advantage and the strategic value of reinvesting those funds. Empathy and relevance are your allies here. Show that you understand their position and that your solution aligns perfectly with their current goals. That personal touch, combined with the natural urgency of year-end, is a powerful recipe for closing the deal. Lead With Urgency: Clear, Direct, Compelling I don’t want to sweep under the rug how important timing and urgency are with this tactic. While you don’t want to be completely transactional, you do want to be direct. As we approach the end of the year, many SMB owners have a long to-do list: Finalizing paperwork, inventory checks, reviewing vendor contracts, preparing for holiday promotions, and on and on. They’re busy. They have limited time to spend on sales pitches. This means your outreach needs to be respectful of their schedule and also clear, direct, and compelling. Say right away: “I’m reaching out before the year ends because I have a solution that can help you maximize your tax benefits this year and help you grow your business next year." Being direct and to the point respects their time and sets the context immediately. If you need more help with direct and to-the-point messaging, grab your copy of my book, Fanatical Prospecting, and review Because Statements. It’s crucial that you create and maintain a sense of urgency. Not the aggressive, pushy kind, but a natural urgency rooted in a real calendar event: The year-end. The clock is ticking, and if they don’t make their purchase by December 31st, they will miss out on the potential tax advantages. This deadline isn’t artificial—it’s a reality. Use it to frame your conversations. Urgency helps prospects prioritize your offer over other distractions in their busy schedule. Handling Objections You might encounter objections like: “We’re too busy to consider new solutions right now,” or “We don’t have enough budget.” In these cases, it’s wise to highlight the cost-saving and tax benefits again. Stress that investing now can actually put them in a better position financially. Remind them that waiting until next year could mean missing out on an opportunity to reduce this year’s taxable income. If time is an issue, propose a quick and efficient implementation plan. Show them that you can be agile and help them integrate the solution without massive downtime. If budget is a concern, consider promotions, discounts, or favorable financing terms. Sometimes, offering a small year-end incentive can tip the scales in your favor. The Five Keys to Selling More to SMBs at the End of the Year SMBs have a natural incentive to invest before year-end: They want to reduce their taxable income and set themselves up for a strong next year. Frame your product as a strategic investment: Highlight the value, ROI, and tax benefits that come with a year-end purchase. Avoid being transactional: Follow the sales process and position yourself as a partner who can help them navigate this critical period. Tailor your approach to each SMB’s situation: Research their needs and adjust your prospecting message accordingly, showing empathy and relevance. Create urgency with a real deadline: The calendar itself is your ally; emphasize that the benefits come from acting before December 31st. Here's the deal, though: Do not wait. Start this process now. The low-hanging fruit is out there, but it will rot on the vine if you fail to pick before the sand runs out of the hourglass this year. Check out the BRAND NEW Jeb Blount Ultimate Sales Success Box Set. It's the perfect gift for the sales professional in your life!

Is Your LinkedIn Personal Branding Built for Buyers or Bystanders? "Respectfully, you are not my audience." Performance coach Giselle Ugarte said that on a recent episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast, and it might be the most liberating thing you'll hear about LinkedIn personal branding this year. Because somewhere between building your profile and hitting publish on that post, you've started making decisions based on what your college roommate might think. Or your former boss. Or yes, your mom. The hard truth? None of them are writing you commission checks. The Real Reason Your LinkedIn Personal Branding Falls Flat You've heard "be authentic" and "show up as yourself" so often that the advice has lost all meaning. So you end up in a strange middle ground where you’re not polished enough to impress executives and not human enough to connect with actual buyers. Your LinkedIn personal branding suffers because you're creating content for ghosts. People who will never hire you, never refer you, never sign a contract. You're worried about the wrong audience, and that hesitation shows up in every word you type. Think about the last post you almost published but didn't. What stopped you? Probably not a legitimate business concern. More likely, you had a flash of "what will people think?" and that voice didn't belong to your ideal client. It belonged to someone in your network who wouldn't buy from you if you were the last salesperson on earth. Who Your LinkedIn Content Is Really For Your LinkedIn personal branding should speak to three groups:  Current clients  Prospective clients  People who can refer you to clients That’s it. Everyone else is background noise. When you post about closing a tough deal, your brother who works in IT might think you're bragging. Your client, who fought through the same challenge, is nodding in agreement. When you share a lesson from a deal that went sideways, your high school friend might wonder why you're airing dirty laundry. Your prospect is realizing you understand their world. The disconnect happens because you're trying to serve two masters. You want to build real relationships with buyers while also maintaining some imaginary professional image for people who have zero impact on your business. The Transform 20: LinkedIn Personal Branding That Actually Works If you're going to shift your LinkedIn personal branding from performative to productive, you need a system. Not another "post three times a week" generic advice pile, but something that forces you to focus on real humans instead of vanity metrics. Giselle’s practical framework, Transform 20, breaks down into four daily actions, each designed to build actual relationships: Connect with 5 new people. Not random connections. People you met this week, people on your calendar, people who recognize your face. Every request should feel familiar to them. Send 5 meaningful messages. Check in. Reference something personal. End with a question. “Let me know” is where leads go to die. Meaningful DMs teach the algorithm who matters to you — and who should see your content. Leave 5 meaningful comments. Two to three sentences. Add context. Reintroduce yourself if needed. A thoughtful comment builds more trust than another like or emoji ever will. Record 5 one-to-one videos. Sixty seconds or less. “Hey, I was thinking about you because…” It’s a pattern interrupt in an inbox full of text and one of the fastest ways to stand out. This is where confidence compounds. Twenty actions. Most people won't do it because it feels like work. But if you woke up to 20 qualified leads tomorrow, would that change your business? That's what you're building here. What Your LinkedIn Profile Should Actually Show Buyers want to know you’re a real person. That you have a family, hobbies, interests, failures, and lessons. That you care about something besides your quota. If you blur your Zoom background because you think it’s more professional, you’re missing an opportunity. Let them see the bookshelf, the Peloton, the framed photo. These details give people something to ask about and a reason to remember you. The same goes for your LinkedIn headline. Yes, include your title. But also include the detail that creates connection. "Mom of four," or "Proud Michigan alum," or whatever matters to you and might matter to them. Make it easier for people to find common ground with you. Stop Creating Content for People Who Will Never Buy You already know who matters: current clients, prospective clients, and people who can refer you to clients. Your former colleague who always has something snarky to say about your posts? They've never sent you a referral. Your friend from college who thinks sales is beneath them? They're not signing contracts. Your family member who wants you to be more buttoned up? They're not in your market. Have the clarity to know that you can't build an effective LinkedIn personal branding presence while trying to please everyone. You'll end up pleasing no one, least of all the people who could actually benefit from working with you. You cannot build effective LinkedIn personal branding while trying to please people who don’t impact your business. Before you write that post or record that video, remind yourself: someone would be lucky to hear from me today. You have something valuable to offer — and the courage to show up as a real human. The salespeople winning on LinkedIn aren’t the most polished. They’re the most human. They make it easier for the right people to decide they want to work with them. Send the videos. Start the conversations. Show up as the person your clients actually want to buy from. That’s how you win on LinkedIn — and everywhere else. Want the full LinkedIn playbook? Buy The LinkedIn Edge by Jeb Blount and Brynne Tillman. It’s packed with non-negotiables that will turn your profile into a pipeline-building machine.

Here's the scenario that's playing out in sales organizations everywhere right now: Your team fought through a brutal first half of the year, rallied momentum in the second half, crushed their numbers, and now they're ready to coast through December. That's the exact situation Kyle Begbie, a regional sales director at Fuse HR Solutions in Ontario, Canada, brought to this week's Ask Jeb. His team overcame massive market disruption, economic headwinds, and buyer hesitation to finish the year strong. Now he's facing the most dangerous challenge of all: keeping that momentum alive through the holidays and into January. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. This is the point in the year where sales teams either set themselves up for a championship quarter or dig themselves into a hole that takes months to climb out of. The Holiday Momentum Trap Here's what happened to Kyle's team, and it's probably happening to yours too: They worked incredibly hard through disruption and uncertainty. They pushed through discouragement when buyers were putting deals on hold. They ground it out for months to get back on track. And now they're exhausted. The holidays are here. Christmas music is playing. Everyone wants to take their foot off the accelerator and coast a little bit. This is why December and January are the most dangerous months for sales professionals. Here's the deal: Nothing really changed in the market from the first half of the year to the second half. Kyle's team faced the exact same headwinds, the same economic conditions, the same buyer concerns. The only thing that changed was what they believed. Once they believed they could win, they kept winning. And once buyers realized nothing was going to change and all of this was permanent, they got on with business. But here's the problem: If you take your foot off the accelerator now, you're going to pay for it in January and February. That's not motivation speak. That's math. The 30-Day Rule Will Make or Break Your Q1 The 30-day rule is simple: The prospecting you do in any given 30-day period pays off over the next 90 days. This is especially true in industries like staffing, but it applies to every sales role. If your team takes December off and doesn't prospect, you're going to have a catastrophic January and February. It's that simple. So the number one thing you need to do as a sales leader right now is get structure around prospecting. Every morning, your team needs to run their call blocks. They need to run their sequences. They need to go through the entire process, and that cannot stop. The only way you're going to lead this is from the front. Whether your team is dispersed or in the office, you need to be running prospecting blocks with them every single day all the way through the holidays. If you do that, you're going to be golden. Close What's Closable Before January 1 The second critical action is closing every deal in your pipeline that's actually closable right now. Your customers are thinking they have time. Your salespeople are thinking they have time. Nobody's pushing anybody. But here's the reality: If those deals roll over past Christmas into the New Year, the likelihood of closing them is almost zero. You're essentially starting all over again. Sit down with all your salespeople right now and walk through their pipeline. Identify every single deal where everything is lined up. Fit, budget, need, authority. Everything's qualified. The only thing keeping you from closing is they haven't said yes yet. Get in the middle of those deals and find a way to get them closed. That gives you momentum going into the new year. December feels great. And in staffing or any service business, those December closes become revenue in January, February, and March, which takes massive pressure off your team. Set Your Team Up for Success in January This is a critical time to start thinking about setting yourself up for success in the new year. While everyone else is checking out, you should be: Building targeted prospect lists for Q1. Identify your ideal prospects for January, February, and March right now so you can hit the ground running. Cleaning up your CRM. Get your data organized. Update records. Remove garbage. Make sure your team has clean, actionable information when they come back. Revisiting close-lost deals from earlier in the year. Especially deals from the first half of 2025 where buyers were hesitating or went with a competitor. Maybe the grass wasn't greener. Maybe they still have the same problems. Build those lists now so you can attack them hard in January. Following up on qualified leads that stalled. There are good leads sitting in your system that were qualified but couldn't move because of timing or market conditions. Gather those up and get lists together for your team. What you're doing here is acting like a coach getting your players in position to win. Because here's what happens if you don't: You come off the holidays, get into the first part of the year, and watch your sales team waste the first two weeks of January walking around in a daze, not knowing what to do. You want to make sure that the first Monday of the new year, you're running prospecting blocks, talking to customers, and working deals. Not figuring out what you should be doing. The Power of Celebration and Storytelling The last piece of maintaining momentum is taking time to celebrate what your team accomplished. Sit down with your team and tell them the story of what they did this year. Make sure they understand the lesson: When they shifted their mindset, they changed their game. That's what happened. Tell them they did a great job. Make sure they're taking time for their family and having fun. Help them manage their time so they can do both. But fill up their hearts with confidence and belief that they can do anything. Because here's the truth: Nothing changed this year except for them. And if that's true, then nothing can stop them next year either. It doesn't matter what happens in the marketplace. Even if we go into a recession, people are still hiring. The money is still there. It's just that more people are chasing it. Teach your team that it doesn't make a difference what happens. The economy can fall apart, but they're good enough to go find where the money is and take it. Because while everyone else is sitting around telling themselves what they can't do, your team is telling themselves what they can do. That's how you carry momentum. That's how you avoid the January hole. And that's how you build a championship sales team. Ready to take your sales game to the next level? Check out The LinkedIn Edge to learn how to leverage the world’s most powerful B2B social selling platform to fill your pipeline, build relationships, and close more deals.

What Does a Perfect Bowling Game Have in Common With Top-Performing Sales Reps? Walk into a bowling alley on a Friday night, and you’ll see a scene that looks like pure recreation. The crash of pins, the rumble of conversation, the squeak of shoes on the approach. But beneath all that noise is something far more serious: discipline, repetition, emotional control, and the relentless pursuit of mastery. That’s the real game. And it’s the exact game top performers play in sales. Selling rewards consistency, mental toughness, and the willingness to execute the fundamentals long after everyone else has checked out. When you break the sport of bowling down frame by frame, it mirrors what we teach every day at Sales Gravy. Fanatical Prospecting. Emotional control. Owning your process. Staying steady under pressure. Winning one shot at a time. Each frame reveals a truth about the way elite sellers think and operate. Frame 1: The Approach — Fanatical Prospecting In bowling, the shot starts before the ball ever moves. The routine is deliberate: same steps, same breath, same commitment. That’s where consistency begins. In sales, your approach is prospecting. It’s the moment you decide whether you’re a professional or a hobbyist. Pros don’t wait for a pipeline crisis. They build a non-negotiable daily rhythm of fanatical prospecting, exactly the way Jeb teaches it. “One more call. One more conversation. One more connection.” That mindset is your approach. That’s the discipline that separates a bowler stepping onto the lane with purpose from the one sitting at the bar making excuses. You pick a target, commit, and move. Frame 2: The Lane — Owning Your Sales Process A lane looks the same every time, but it rarely plays the same. Oil patterns shift. Friction changes. Conditions evolve. Your sales process is no different. You can’t control a buyer’s internal politics or shifting priorities, but you can control how you move through your process. You can control your cadence, your discovery, your follow-up, and your commitment to advancing every opportunity with intention. Average sellers blame the lane. Pros read it. They ask better questions. They recognize where deals stall. They adjust without abandoning the fundamentals. The arrows exist to guide the ball; your process exists to guide you. Ignore it, and you drift straight into the gutter. Frame 3: The Ball — Your Message and the Triangle of Trust A bowler’s ball is drilled to fit their hand, weighted for their style, and chosen for the conditions. Your ball is your message—your story, your questions, your ability to connect what you sell to what the buyer actually cares about. When you balance logic, emotion, and values, the ball rolls true. Most sellers throw the same generic pitch at every buyer. Pros tune their message. They refine their openings. They speak the buyer’s language. Hit with too much emotion and no substance, you lose credibility. Hit with pure logic and no emotional relevance, you miss the pocket of influence. The goal is simple: strike emotion first, let logic clean up the rest. Frame 4: The Pins — Prospects, Objections, and Physics Pins obey physics. They aren’t out to get you. Prospects are the same. Some fall quickly. Some require finesse. Some need a second shot. This is where many sellers unravel emotionally. They take objections personally. They turn one “no” into a story about themselves. Objections aren’t judgment. They’re feedback. “We’re happy with our current vendor.” “Call me next quarter.” Objections are indicators, and tell you where your angle is off. Pros adjust. Ask a different question. Reframe the problem. Bring a story that hits harder. Then take another shot. The frame isn’t over until you quit. Frame 5: The Shoes — Mindset and Emotional Control No one bowls in street shoes. You’ll slip, lose balance, and go down hard. Your mindset is your pair of bowling shoes. Without emotional control, every call feels unstable. Every objection knocks you off center. Every tough moment spirals. Pros prepare their mind before they prepare their day. They visualize tough conversations. They decide how they’ll respond to setbacks before they happen. They choose composure over reaction. A confident mind produces a confident delivery. Buyers feel both. Frame 6: The Equipment — Tech as an Amplifier, Not a Crutch Pros carry multiple balls, tape, tools—gear that helps them adjust and stay consistent. None of it bowls for them. Sales is full of tools too: CRMs, AI, sequencing engines, dialers. But tools only multiply effort. They never replace it. Weak sellers hide behind technology. Pros use it to increase conversations and stay organized. Tools help you understand the “oil pattern” of your territory. But at the end of the day, it’s still you, a buyer, and a conversation. No technology closes deals for you. Frame 7: The Team — Culture and Accountability Bowling looks individual, but leagues win seasons. Behind every high average is a team pushing each other, challenging complacency, and celebrating progress. Sales is the same. Great cultures are built around coaching, accountability, and emotional safety. Teams share insights, review calls, and collaborate on tough deals. When someone hits a strike, everyone feels the lift. When someone struggles, the team rallies. You’re competing, but you’re not competing against each other. You’re competing against your potential. Frame 8: The Scoreboard — Metrics and Truth The scoreboard doesn’t lie. It doesn’t care how busy you felt. It only reflects execution. Your sales scoreboard measures the same: dials, conversations, opportunities created, conversion rates. These numbers are feedback tools. High performers study them. They adjust mechanics, behavior, and cadence based on the data. You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Frame 9: The Follow-Through — Closing with Composure A bowler’s follow-through is controlled and deliberate. The ball is gone, but the motion stays disciplined. Closing requires the same composure. Many sellers execute well early in the cycle. Then, at the moment of truth, they flinch. They rush. They soften.  Pros stay steady. They recap value clearly. They ask directly and confidently. They handle final concerns without panic. Closing is the natural output of a disciplined process. Frame 10: The Final Frame — Finishing Strong with Follow-Up The tenth frame separates casual bowlers from champions. Tired, under pressure, and out of margin for error, pros sharpen their focus. In sales, the tenth frame is follow-up. It’s the week after the demo. The stalled proposal. The buyer who goes quiet. Most sellers mentally check out and tell themselves the wrong story: “If they wanted it, they’d call me.” Pros don’t buy that lie. Deals are won in the follow-up—professional, relevant, value-driven persistence. That’s where reliability is proven. The Game That Never Ends Sales doesn’t have a perfect 300 game every time. Some days everything strikes clean. Some days you grind for spares. Some days the ball finds the gutter no matter how good your form feels. The separator is what you do next. Pros study the lane. They adjust their feet. They breathe. They get back on the approach and commit to the next shot with the same intensity as the first. So as you head into your day, think like a bowler playing the long game. Lace up your mindset. Respect your process. Choose your message with intention. Read your buyers the way pros read the lanes. Lean on your team. Track your scoreboard. And never cheat the follow-through. The pins are set. The lane is open. You’ve always got one more frame. Step up with purpose. Roll with confidence. And when in doubt, make one more call. Ready to take your sales game to the next frame? Build discipline, track your process, and crush your goals with the FREE Sales Gravy Goal Guide. Start mastering your results today.

You’re Coachable, But Are You Truly Humble? You’ve been coachable your entire career. You take feedback, adjust your approach, read books, listen to podcasts, and implement what works. Yet being coachable doesn’t automatically make you humble—and that gap may be costing you more than you realize. Nicolas Restrepo, Senior Vice President of Sales at World Emblem, shared on a recent Sales Gravy Podcast episode: “What advice would I give myself ten years ago? Be humble. There’s a difference between being coachable and being humble.” Most sales leaders assume coachability covers everything. If you’re open to learning, you’re set—right? Not quite. The best sales leadership is built not only on willingness to learn, but on recognizing that your success was never yours alone. What Being Coachable Actually Means A coachable leader stays receptive. Feedback isn’t a threat. Adjustments aren’t a burden. You ask questions, try new techniques, and pivot when something stops working. Coachable leaders attend training sessions and apply what they learn. They don’t cling to “the way we’ve always done it” when the market shifts. Adaptability is their baseline. But it’s only half the picture. What Being Humble Actually Means Humility isn’t self-deprecation. It’s acknowledging the full story behind every win. Humble leaders recognize the customer service rep who handled tough calls, the operations team that pulled off a miracle to meet a deadline, and the mentor who guided them through a high-stakes negotiation. Humility shows up when leaders look at a win and say “we did that” instead of “I did that.” It changes the way you speak, how you coach, and how your team shows up around you. Why Sales Leaders Confuse the Two It’s easy to blur the lines. Coachability requires some humility. You have to acknowledge you don’t know everything. But it’s possible to be coachable and still operate from ego. Some leaders take feedback on their discovery process while taking full credit for the deal. They embrace a new objection-handling framework but never acknowledge the people who supported the outcome. They accept coaching but keep score of how often they were right. Coachability grows your skills. Humility grows your people. The Risks of Only Having One Coachability without humility burns teams out. You may improve individually, but hoarding credit discourages collaboration. When that happens, reps start withholding help because they know their contribution won’t be recognized. They stop sharing insights. They stop going the extra mile. Coachable-but-not-humble leaders also tend to ask for help too late. They’ll accept advice when it arrives but rarely seek it out until they’re underwater. Humility without coachability leads to stagnation. You may share credit generously and build strong relationships, but if you refuse to learn hard truths about your blind spots, your team stalls with you. Some leaders disguise resistance to growth as modesty, deflecting responsibility rather than owning the need for improvement. You need both. Where These Traits Show Up in Real Leadership Consider how coachability and humility show up in everyday situations: After a big win: Coachable leaders debrief to find the repeatable actions. Humble leaders publicly recognize who made the win possible. When something fails: Coachable leaders ask what they could have done differently. Humble leaders avoid placing blame on the team. During onboarding: Coachable leaders stay open to feedback from new hires about broken processes. Humble leaders acknowledge when a new rep brings a skill they don’t have. In pipeline reviews: Coachable leaders adjust their forecast based on data. Humble leaders give credit to the rep who spotted a risk early. Why This Matters for Long-Term Sales Leadership Sales leadership is a long game. You’re not just managing this quarter’s number. You’re shaping the culture that determines whether top performers stay or bolt. Coachability keeps you sharp. Humility keeps your team aligned. When both traits are active, people share ideas more freely because they know you’ll listen. They fight for deals because their effort is seen. They stay through hard quarters because they trust you’re not in it for personal glory. How to Develop Both Traits To strengthen coachability: Ask your team for feedback on your leadership and apply it. Work with a peer or mentor who will challenge you. Notice when you resist feedback and explore why. Read one sales leadership book per quarter and implement one idea. To strengthen humility: When talking about a win, name three people who contributed. Ask for help early instead of waiting until you’re stuck. Start meetings by recognizing someone else’s win. Pay attention to how often you use “I” versus “we.” Questions to challenge yourself: When I talk about a win, who gets credit? Do reps bring me ideas, or wait to be told what to do? Am I more focused on being right or being effective? When was the last time I publicly recognized someone? The Bottom Line Being coachable gets you in the room. Being humble keeps you there. You can study every methodology, attend every training session, and absorb every leadership book. But if the goal is proving how great you are instead of elevating how great your team can become, you’re building on sand. The sales leaders who last, who build high-performing cultures and develop reps who grow into leaders, all understand one truth: success was never a solo act. Stay coachable so you keep growing. Stay humble so your team grows with you. Your people will feel the difference. So will your results. Being coachable and humble is just the start. Learn how to inspire your team, earn trust, and create a culture that drives results. Grab your free chapter of People Follow You and discover the leadership strategies top sales leaders use every day.

Here's a question that'll stop you in your tracks: Would you let someone walk up to you, take your wallet, empty out all your cash and credit cards, and leave your family with nothing? Of course not. That's insane. But if you're in sales and you let rejection stop you from making calls, booking appointments, and closing deals, that's exactly what you're doing. You're handing over your commission check to fear. That was the powerful insight from Wendy Ramirez, a leading Mexican sales expert and author of Lo que nadie habla de las ventas: Estrategias para no ser llamarada de petate or What Nobody Talks About in Sales: Strategies to Avoid Being a Flash in the Pan, on a recent episode of Ask Jeb the Sales Gravy Podcast. When you give rejection the power to stop you, you're literally taking money away from your family. Let that sink in. The Science of Why Rejection Hurts Let's get one thing straight right now: I'm not going to sit here and glorify rejection. Nobody wants to be rejected. Unless you're a pure sociopath who feels nothing (and there aren't many of those in sales), rejection is going to hurt you. It doesn't matter if you're highly outcome-driven like me or highly empathetic. Rejection hurts everyone in different degrees, but it hurts. Period. Here's what's actually happening inside your body when you get rejected: Your brain treats rejection like a physical threat. Fight or flight kicks in. It's a neurophysical response that dumps adrenaline into your bloodstream, makes your heart race, and creates this overwhelming urge to either run away or fight back. That uncomfortable feeling? That's not weakness. That's just science. The Problem: Sales Is a Rejection-Dense Profession Here's the brutal reality about selling: If you don't face rejection, you're going to fail. Sales is what I call a rejection-dense profession. When you hit rejection in sales, you don't have the option of going backwards. You can go over it, through it, around it, or dig under it. But your job is literally to go out into the world, find rejection, and bring it home. That's the job description. That's what we signed up for. Think about it like this: A few years back, I got invited to jump out of an airplane with the Golden Knights, the U.S. Army's elite parachute team. I'm not a skydiver (just like I'm not a Spanish speaker), but what an honor to jump with probably the best parachute team worldwide. I asked the guy I was tandem jumping with how many times he'd jumped. Ten thousand times, he said. So I asked him, "Do you ever get afraid?" His answer changed everything for me: "Of course I get afraid. I'm jumping out of an airplane. Your body is going to get afraid. I've just done it so many times that I know exactly what the process is. I'm able to get myself to jump even though my brain says this is the wrong thing to do." That's exactly what you have to do in sales. Building Obstacle Immunity In my book Objections, I talk about something called obstacle immunity. It's the process human beings go through of facing something that feels really big and uncomfortable, but doing it enough times that we lower the size of that obstacle. The fear of being rejected never fully goes away. But you can lower that fear. Here's how you do it: Develop the Ledge Technique The ledge technique allows you to interrupt or break the pattern you feel in fight or flight when you get rejected. It helps you regain your poise and confidence so you know what to say next. It's about taking control of the conversation when someone gives you an objection. Understand the Difference Between Objections and Rejection An objection isn't the same as a rejection, even though they feel essentially the same in your body. When someone objects, they're giving you information. When someone rejects you, they're saying no. Learn to tell the difference. Focus on Emotional Discipline In emotionally tense situations, you've got to be emotionally disciplined. You've got to gain control, gain poise, and handle those objections in a way that allows you to achieve your desired outcome. The Mindset Makes All the Difference Sales is a skill position. There are particular skills, techniques, and tools you need to deploy to be good at the craft. But the thing that makes all the difference is what's in your head. This is no different than athletics. Elite athletes all operate at similar skill and talent levels. They'll tell you that winning or losing happens between the ears. I'm a big golfer. The difference between me having a really good game or a really bad game is one hundred percent what's in my head. My body knows what to do. I know how to swing the club. The mental game is everything. If you don't fix your mindset, you're not going to get the results you're expecting. People think they're stuck and can't move forward. But it's just about moving your mindset. Get more information. Learn something new. Apply what you learn. That's how you increase your mindset and get better results. Stop Giving Away Your Power When Wendy said, "When you give to the clients, when you give to the people that rejected you, the power to stop you, that's what exactly you do," it hit me like a freight train. You wouldn't let someone take your wallet. You wouldn't let someone steal from your family. So why would you let rejection steal your future? The next time you feel that uncomfortable feeling in your chest after getting rejected, remember this: That feeling is just your body doing what it's supposed to do. It's not telling you to quit. It's telling you that you're doing something hard, something that matters, something that will pay off. Face your fear. Make the next call. The difference between average salespeople and elite performers isn't talent. It's the willingness to go through rejection instead of around it. That's how you win. Ready to take your sales game to the next level? Check out The LinkedIn Edge to learn how to leverage the world's most powerful B2B social selling platform to fill your pipeline, build relationships, and close more deals.

Your prospects know when you're waiting for your turn to talk. They can feel when you're performing instead of partnering. And the moment they sense you're treating them like a transaction, you've already lost the sale, or at least the loyalty that comes after it. The difference between good salespeople and unforgettable ones isn't about closing techniques or fancy proposals. It's about becoming the trusted sales advisor your buyers can't imagine doing business without. It's about evolving from vendor to linchpin—the person who holds everything together. What Does It Mean to Be a Linchpin? A linchpin is the small pin that holds a wheel on its axle. Remove it, and everything falls apart. In sales, being a linchpin means you're more than someone who takes orders or delivers quotes. You're the trusted sales advisor buyers turn to for guidance, validation, and expertise. They don't just buy from you; they believe in you. They want your opinion. They rely on your consistency. And when things get messy, they know you'll help them make sense of it all. But most salespeople never reach linchpin status. They stay stuck in the vendor zone: quoting, pitching, following up, moving on. It's safe. It hits metrics. But safety doesn't create loyalty. Why Most Sellers Stay Vendors The vendor zone is comfortable. You know what to do. You have a process. You check boxes. But here's the problem: your prospect can feel when you're focused on yourself instead of them. They know when you're running through a script or waiting to launch into your pitch. And that feeling—that sense of being just another number—kills trust before it ever has a chance to grow. Being a trusted sales advisor requires something different. It requires you to slow down, tune in, and genuinely care about the person across from you. That's where the magic happens. Build Emotional Connection Through Reading the Room The best salespeople don't take behavior at face value. They interpret it. When a buyer seems distracted or cold, linchpin sellers pause and ask themselves: What's really happening here? Is this person overwhelmed? Skeptical because of a bad past experience? Or just thinking deeply because they need time to process? Here's how to sharpen your ability to read buyer emotions: Match and mirror. Notice their pace, tone, and energy, then subtly align with it. People feel safer with people who move at a similar rhythm. Say what you're thinking. Use your inside voice as your outside voice. Try: "It sounds like this project has a lot of pressure behind it" or "You seem hesitant—can I ask what's causing that?" Naming emotions and behaviors politely opens doors. Embrace the silence. Silence doesn't mean rejection. It means your buyer is thinking, absorbing, processing. This is where most salespeople blow it. They open their mouths too soon because they can't handle the quiet. Five extra minutes of patience is often what stands between winning and losing a deal. Reading people is empathy in motion. But it takes work. And most salespeople don't take the time. Lead With Curiosity Curiosity is the trait that rarely gets enough attention in sales training. But when you're genuinely curious about what makes your buyers tick—what drives their decisions, what matters most to them, what keeps them up at night—you move past small talk and into real conversations. When you show up to serve instead of showing up to sell, curiosity becomes natural. You ask questions to understand what your customers actually need. You build solutions together. And that's the moment you become essential to solving their problems. Here's how to leverage curiosity as a trusted sales advisor: Ask one more question. When your buyer answers, don't jump into your pitch. Say, "Tell me more about that" or "What else is behind that concern?" That extra question is where the truth often lives. Replace judgment with wonder. When a prospect makes an odd request, don't think "That's ridiculous." Think "I wonder what's driving that?" That mindset shift changes your energy completely—and they can feel it. Prep curiosity prompts before each meeting. Write down three open-ended questions that start with "how" or "what." Questions like "How will this impact your team's workload?" or "What happens if nothing changes?" uncover real motivation. The phrase "I'm so curious about..." has become a game-changer in discovery calls. It opens doors to deeper conversations. Most buyers will jump right in, and the conversation flows naturally. Your job is to listen, take notes, and get even more curious as they open up. Evolve Into an Indispensable Consultant Most salespeople understand the concept of being consultative: asking questions, offering insights, guiding decisions. But the best take it further. They become so valuable that their clients' success feels harder to imagine without them. When you become indispensable, things don't function properly without you. People need you, not just want you. You bring unique value that can't easily be replaced, because nobody is you. Here's how to go beyond helpful and become essential: Diagnose before you recommend. Don't rush to fix. Take time to fully understand the client's situation. Ask deeper questions. Look for patterns. Confirm what really matters before offering solutions. You'll gain trust faster through understanding than urgency. Teach through insight. Help your clients see their business from a new angle. Bring context, data, or perspective they haven't considered. When they walk away from a meeting thinking differently because of you, you're no longer just a vendor—you're a resource. Lead with consistency and integrity. Show up when it's easy, but also show up when it's not. Be steady, dependable, and transparent, especially when outcomes are uncertain. Indispensable consultants don't disappear when things get complicated. They stay close, communicate clearly, and make it easier for clients to move forward with confidence. When you understand deeply, teach clearly, and lead consistently, you become more than a salesperson. You become part of your clients' strategy. You become the trusted sales advisor they call first. People Buy You First Being a linchpin isn't about what you sell. It's about how you show up for the buyer. When markets shift or leadership changes, your product might change—but your presence shouldn't. People will always buy you first. Show up curious. Listen for meaning, not just for answers. Teach what you know. Stay steady when others panic. This approach moves you from being one of many to being the one they call first. That's how you go from vendor to linchpin. Ready to master the techniques that turn you into the trusted sales advisor your buyers can't live without? Download the FREE Sales Gravy Book of Play by Gina Trimarco and get the tools, tactics, and techniques to become a more effective and agile communicator in spontaneous sales conversations.

The automated "Great job, team!" email blasted to 47 people at 4:37 PM on a Friday isn’t authentic appreciation. Neither is the generic gift basket ordered by someone in HR who’s never met your top performer, or the corporate recognition program where nobody actually feels valued. These things look like recognition, but your people know the truth: leadership is outsourcing one of the most human tasks—seeing the people who show up every day and make things happen. And your teams feel the disconnect. As Jeb Blount Jr. recently said on the Sales Gravy Podcast: "Don't make your appreciation to customers, to your team, to yourself a completely outsourced behavior. It will be cheap, and everyone will know it." Authentic appreciation can’t be delegated to your human resources team or automated through your CRM. And that's exactly why it works. Where Sales Leaders Go Wrong with Recognition Most sales leaders fall into one of two camps. Camp one believes they don't have time for appreciation because they're focused on results. The numbers are what matter. Recognition is soft skills territory—nice to have, but not essential. Camp two wants to show appreciation but defaults to the path of least resistance. They sign the company card. Approve the budget for the year-end gift. Forward the congratulatory email from the VP. Box checked. Both camps are missing what actually moves people. Recognition that matters requires you to see the work that often goes unseen. It demands that you pause long enough to notice not just the outcome, but the effort behind it. That's not something you can outsource. Why Small Moments Compound Into Big Results There’s a concept in professional development about making 1% improvements every single day. Over 365 days, those tiny adjustments compound into exponential growth. Authentic appreciation works the same way. You don’t need a massive recognition program. You don’t need elaborate gestures or expensive rewards. You need consistency in the small moments that tell your team: I see you, and what you are doing matters. Consider the sales rep who stays late to prep for tomorrow’s presentation. The account manager who defuses a client issue before it reaches your desk. The teammate who mentors the new hire without being asked. These moments happen every day, and most leaders miss them entirely because they’re scanning for the big wins. But your team isn’t just looking for recognition when they close the monster deal. They’re looking for it on Tuesday afternoon when they’re grinding through their 50th prospecting call. They’re looking for it when they’ve had a brutal week and still show up ready to perform. Small acts of authentic appreciation in these moments build trust faster than any annual award ceremony ever will. 3 Elements of Authentic Appreciation Authentic appreciation has three non-negotiable elements. Specific means recognizing exactly what someone did and why it mattered. Not "great work on that account," but "the way you handled that objection about pricing showed real creativity—you reframed value instead of dropping price, and that's exactly the approach we need more of." Timely means you don’t wait for the quarterly review or the annual celebration. You recognize the effort when it happens, while it’s still fresh and meaningful. Personal means you deliver it in a way that resonates with that individual. Some people want public recognition. Others prefer a quiet conversation. Some treasure a handwritten note. Others just want to hear it directly from you in the moment. Here’s what this looks like in real leadership: One sales leader makes it a practice to handwrite notes to team members. Not emails. Not Slack messages. Actual pen-on-paper notes. Some are two sentences. Some are three paragraphs. But everyone is specific to something that person did and why it mattered to the team. Is it efficient? No. Does it scale? Not really. But those notes end up on office walls, in desk drawers, and tucked into planners. Years later, people still have them. That’s the difference between authentic and outsourced. Integrate Authentic Appreciation Into How You Already Work Most sales leaders know they should show more appreciation. They feel guilty about it. They add it to their to-do list. And then the day gets away from them. The problem is treating appreciation as an extra task instead of integrating it into what you’re already doing. You’re already having one-on-ones. Reviewing deals. Walking the floor or jumping on calls. The question isn’t whether you have time—it’s whether you’re paying attention in those moments. When reviewing pipeline, don’t just look at the numbers. Notice the effort. "I see you’ve been hitting activity goals consistently for six weeks straight. That discipline is setting you up for a strong Q1." When someone sends an update email, reply with more than “thanks.” Take 30 seconds to acknowledge what they did: "This breakdown made my job easier. I didn’t have to dig for answers. That kind of communication makes our team more efficient." These aren’t grand gestures. They’re small moments of paying attention and responding like a human being who notices when people do good work. Building a Culture Where Authentic Appreciation Flows Both Ways The best team cultures don’t just flow from leader to team member; they flow in every direction. When you model authentic appreciation, your team starts doing it for each other. They notice the work that happens behind the scenes. They start going the extra mile. The culture shifts from everyone waiting for the leader’s approval to everyone building each other up. One practice that works: create space in team meetings for peer recognition. Not forced or formal—just an open moment where anyone can call out something they appreciated from a teammate that week. Keep it optional. Keep it genuine. You’ll be surprised how quickly it becomes part of your team’s rhythm. Additionally, most high performers are terrible at acknowledging their own progress. They hit a goal and immediately move to the next one without pausing to appreciate what they just accomplished. In coaching sessions, start by asking: “What’s a win from this week?” Make them say it out loud. Make them acknowledge their own growth. That internal recognition builds resilience and momentum that external praise alone can’t create. What Happens When You Get This Right When you stop outsourcing appreciation and start building it into your leadership, everything shifts. Retention improves. People stay where they feel seen and valued. They leave when they feel invisible. Team energy changes. Appreciated people bring more to the table. They take ownership. They go the extra mile because they want to. Difficult conversations get easier. When someone knows you genuinely care about their success, they’re more open to feedback and coaching. Culture becomes magnetic. Top performers want to work on teams where their contributions matter. They can feel the difference between authentic and transactional leadership from a mile away. Take Action This Week Stop waiting for the perfect appreciation program or the right company initiative. Start with what you can control right now. This week: Write one handwritten note to someone on your team. Be specific about what they did and why it mattered. In your next one-on-one, ask “What’s a win from this week?” and let them acknowledge their own progress. Catch someone doing something right—however small—and tell them in the moment. End your next team meeting with clear recognition for one person. Not generic praise, tell them exactly what you noticed and why it mattered. This month: Create a recognition moment in every team meeting. Make it specific, not generic. Ask yourself: What recognition do I wish I were receiving? Then give that to someone else. When reviewing pipeline or performance, comment on the effort, not just the outcome. Stop Outsourcing What Should Be Human The work you do as a sales leader matters. The people on your team matter. And the small moments where you choose to show up and recognize their effort—those matter most of all. Your team isn’t waiting for the next corporate initiative or the annual awards ceremony. They’re waiting for you to notice. They’re waiting for you to care enough to say something about the work they’re doing right now. Stop outsourcing what should be human. Lead with authentic appreciation today, and watch your team thrive.  Want to turn recognition into motivation that sticks? Our Sales Gravy University course, 4 Keys to Keeping Your Sales Team Motivated When Everything Hits the Fan, gives you the proven framework to transform appreciation into performance. Learn how to build a sales culture where people feel seen, valued, and driven — even in hard times.

Here's a question that'll expose one of the most common productivity killers in sales: How much research should you do before making a cold call? That's the challenge Michael Bricker from West Monroe, Louisiana brought to a recent Ask Jeb episode. Five months into his role at Cantara Networks, a fiber-backed internet provider, Michael was supposed to spend three minutes researching each prospect. Instead, he found himself spending 15 to 30 minutes per call, terrified he'd miss the one critical insight that would unlock the door. Sound familiar? If you're nodding right now, you're not alone. This "research paralysis" is one of the most insidious productivity traps in modern sales, and it's killing your pipeline velocity. The Big Lie Your Brain Tells You Let's get one thing straight: Research is not prospecting. Research is research. Every minute you spend digging through a prospect's LinkedIn profile, reading their latest press release, or analyzing their org chart is a minute you're not actually doing any prospecting activity. You're not talking to anyone. You're not having conversations. You're not moving deals forward. But here's where it gets dangerous. When you add in the basic human fear that comes with making cold calls, research becomes an emotional crutch. Your brain lies to you and whispers, "If I just know all this information, it'll be so much better." So you spend 15 minutes researching, make the call, and it goes to voicemail. You make 12 calls a day. Everyone goes to voicemail. All that research, and you didn't get anywhere. How Much Do You Actually Need to Know? Michael had a breakthrough realization that changed everything: "I'm not looking to make a sale on that initial cold call. I'm looking to make a connection." That's the insight that separates efficient prospectors from research addicts. On your first cold call, you're not selling them anything. You're trying to set an appointment so you can ask questions and figure out whether it makes sense to keep talking. That's it. So how much do you really need to know to set that appointment? The answer is not a lot. Think about it this way: The more you get to know your customers, your business, and your industry, the more business acumen you gain. Over time, you'll talk to ten businesses just like the one you're about to call. You'll recognize patterns. You'll see that companies in a certain sector or geographic area all face the same three challenges. You don't need 15 minutes of research to recognize those patterns. You just need to build a message around them. When Research Actually Matters Now, before you throw all research out the window, let me be clear about when it does matter. If you're sending a prospecting email, do some research. You're putting something in writing, so you better have some insight that's not AI-generated garbage. If you make a call, get a hard no from the CEO, and want to try again with a different message, do the research before you call back. You've hit a wall. Now you need ammunition. If you've had a first meeting and you're going into discovery, absolutely do deep research. You're walking in armed because you know they'll be there waiting. All that effort will pay off. But for that first cold call? Stop overthinking it. The Batching Solution If you feel like you absolutely need to do research (and I get it, some people do), here's the fix: Schedule time before your call block for research. Do all your three-minute lookups in one batch. Write your notes next to each name. Then go make the calls. Why does this work? Because you're going to hit voicemail a lot anyway. But at least you'll have the research done and maintain your call momentum. Let's say you run a call block on 25 cold leads. You talk to five people. Those five give you information like "I'm not the right person" or "We don't have that problem." Now you know something. Now go back and do deeper research on those five so you can come back with a better message. That's efficiency. That's strategy. That's how you maximize your prospecting time. The Power of Targeted Messaging Here's what really unlocks productivity: Creating targeted messages for roles or industries instead of personalizing every single call. If you're calling 25 CIOs in the healthcare sector, you and I could sit down and quickly identify what they're dealing with. What issues are they facing? What do they want from their business? How could you help them? We could build one or two messages that'll connect with most people on that list without researching every single prospect. Then you make 25 calls in an hour instead of researching five people and making five cold calls in three hours. Which approach do you think sets more appointments? Every Meeting Has One Job Michael asked about moving deals forward after discovery, and here's the framework that keeps everything simple: The entire purpose of a prospecting cold call is to get the first meeting. The entire purpose of the first meeting is to get the next meeting. Everything else is academic. Each step in your sales process exists to advance to the next step with a committed micro-commitment. When deals stall, it's almost always because you didn't nail down that next step or you didn't test stakeholder engagement. If a prospect says "I'll get you that information next week" and next week comes and goes, what are they telling you? They're not that into this. It's not a priority. Keep deals moving by driving momentum through committed next steps. The Bottom Line Stop letting research become a productivity trap. The goal isn't to know everything before you make a call. The goal is to have enough conversations to fill your pipeline while making each one count. Be confident in your ability to get someone on the phone and convert them into an appointment. If you hit a wall and get valuable information, then go back and research for your next attempt. But if you're researching every prospect before every cold call, you're lying to yourself about productivity. You're avoiding the hard work of actually prospecting. Batch your research. Build targeted messages. Focus on conversations that convert. That's how you build a pipeline that actually moves. Want to transform your approach to prospecting and turn LinkedIn into your ultimate lead generation machine? Check out The LinkedIn Edge and learn how to leverage the world's most powerful B2B platform to fill your pipeline with qualified opportunities.

This is a very special Monday because it's Thanksgiving week here in the United States. This is the week we pause to express gratitude for the people in our lives, for what we've been given, and for what we've accomplished. But gratitude isn't just a feel-good emotion reserved for the holidays. It's also a performance- and life-enhancing routine that can give you sales superpowers. Gratitude Builds a Strong Mindset Sales is a mental game. Your mindset, attitude, and beliefs have more impact on your sales outcomes and ultimate success than any technique, script, or strategy ever will. This isn't soft psychology. This is neuroscience. Gratitude activates the parts of your brain associated with reward and emotional regulation. It releases dopamine and serotonin, neurotransmitters that make you feel good, leading to increased happiness and decreased anxiety and stress. Your confidence rises, your mind clears, you gain emotional control, and you make wiser decisions. Gratitude fundamentally rewires how your brain processes the world around you. When you practice gratitude consistently, your brain shifts from focusing on what could go wrong and starts seeing what could go right. Gratitude and insidious self-pity cannot coexist. Instead of dwelling on the deal you lost, the prospect that rejected you, or the leads you don’t have, you appreciate the lessons you’ve learned and the opportunities still in front of you. But it goes deeper than just feeling better. Gratitude Builds Resilience In sales, you face rejection constantly. Bad weeks, tough months, prospects who ghost you after months of work, and deals that fall apart at the last minute, even though you did everything right. In this brutal profession, the salespeople who survive and thrive are the ones who bounce back faster from these inevitable setbacks. One of the key traits of highly successful people is an enduring belief that everything happens for a reason. When you can find something to appreciate even in difficult situations, you maintain your emotional stability. You don't spiral into negativity. You don't let one bad call ruin your entire day. Instead, you process the setback, learn from it, and move forward. Abundance vs Scarcity Thinking When you focus on what you do have—your skills, your relationships, your opportunities, your resources—you shift from scarcity thinking to abundance thinking. Scarcity thinking is the mother of negativity. It says: "I don't have enough leads. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough support. I'm going to miss my number." Abundance thinking is a mindset of opportunity and potential. It says: "Look at the skills I've developed. Look at the customers who trust me. Look at the opportunities in my pipeline. Look at what's possible." When you operate from gratitude and abundance, you become more creative, more energetic, more persistent. You stop fixating on limitations and start exploring possibilities. You show up differently. You bring positive energy. And people feel it. They want to work with people who are confident, positive, and focused on what's possible rather than what's impossible. Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude But here’s the thing. You don't wait to feel grateful. You choose to practice gratitude. The feelings follow. Every morning, you are empowered to make a conscious choice about where to focus your attention. You can focus on what's missing, what's wrong, who’s against you, and what's hard. Or you can focus on what's present, what's working, what's possible. Both perspectives contain truth. But only one moves you forward toward the success and happiness you are seeking. Here are some practical ways to build gratitude into your daily routine: Keep a gratitude journal. Every morning or evening, write down three things you're grateful for. My friend Eric, who suffered from a severe brain injury, does this, and the impact it has had on his recovery is nothing short of a miracle. Thank someone every day. Send a text, an email, or better yet, make a phone call. Thank a customer. Thank a colleague. Thank a team member. Express genuine appreciation for something specific they've done. People naturally gravitate toward those who express genuine appreciation. When you thank a customer for their business, when you acknowledge a colleague's help, when you recognize someone's support, you strengthen those relationships. It makes you someone people want to work with, buy from, and help succeed. Mentally acknowledge the good. During your day, when something positive happens, pause for just a moment and mentally acknowledge it or say a prayer of thanks. Don't let it pass by unnoticed. Reframe challenges. When something goes wrong, ask yourself: "What can I learn from this? What opportunity might this create? What's the hidden gift in this situation?" This isn't about pretending problems don't exist. It's about looking for the lessons and possibilities within them. Start your week with gratitude. Every Monday, give thanks for the week ahead and the opportunity you’ve been given to make a difference in your life, for your family, company, and customers. The beautiful thing about gratitude is that it is like a muscle; it gets stronger with exercise. My Gratitude to You Before wrapping up, I want to take this opportunity to pause and express my gratitude to you. I'm grateful to you for listening to the Sales Gravy podcast. My team and I pour our hearts into producing this show, and your support means everything to us. Your comments, your reviews, your messages telling us how the podcast has helped you, fuels us. I'm thankful for the fans of my books. Writing is one of my greatest joys in life, and you make that possible. Every time someone tells me that "Fanatical Prospecting," or "Sales EQ," or "The LinkedIn Edge" changed their career, it reminds me why I do this work. I'm grateful for the companies around the world that trust Sales Gravy to train their teams. You let us into your organizations, trust us with your people, and give us the opportunity to make a real difference. That's a privilege we never take for granted. I'm grateful for the sales professionals who invest in themselves through Sales Gravy University. Your commitment to getting better inspires us to keep creating better content. And most of all, I'm grateful for the amazing people who choose to work at Sales Gravy. We are blessed with an incredible team that wakes up every morning focused on serving you and making a difference. They're the reason we can do what we do. Thank you for allowing us to be part of your professional journey. Reflecting on Gratitude So as we head into Thanksgiving week, I’ll leave you with this simple reflection: Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire. If you did, there would be nothing left to reach for, no reason to dream, no horizon pulling you forward. Be thankful that you don't know everything. It means life still has mysteries to reveal and lessons waiting to shape you. Be thankful for the difficult times. It's in these seasons that you grow stronger, wiser, and more resilient. Be thankful for your limitations. They remind you that there is still room to stretch, improve, and become more than you are today. Be thankful for challenges and obstacles. They forge your strength, your courage, and your character. These are the things that truly endure. Be thankful for your mistakes, because each one is a teacher guiding you toward better choices and deeper understanding. Be thankful for what you've been given. Every gift is proof that someone cares, someone believes in you, someone has invested in your journey. Be thankful for the people who push you, support you, frustrate you, and inspire you. Each one plays a role in shaping the person you are becoming. Be thankful for beginnings, endings, and every transition in between. They are the chapters and seasons of a life story still being written. Be thankful for Monday, because Monday brings new possibilities. And at the end of the day, when you are tired and weary, when you’ve stopped and made one more call, be thankful because it means you've made a difference. An attitude of gratitude changes how you approach your day—and your prospects. My new book, The LinkedIn Edge, shows you how to leverage that mindset to build genuine connections, engage with your network, and create opportunities that actually convert.

Most new account executives stare at their territory list and feel the weight of it immediately. Fifty accounts. A hundred accounts. Sometimes more. Each one needs research, a plan, and outreach that doesn't sound like every other cold email clogging their prospect's inbox.  Jake McOsker, an account executive at Forrester Research, found himself facing exactly this problem when he moved from BDR to AE. He cracked it by changing how he used AI for account planning.  "Rather than taking 10 to 15 minutes to get an account plan out or understand who the notable stakeholders and the decision makers that I need to go with," he explained, "it's a 2 to 3 minute process to go through each one of these accounts." The traditional approach to AI account planning doesn't solve the territory problem. You ask ChatGPT or Claude for company information, and you get Wikipedia summaries. Founded in 1987. Headquartered in Dallas. 15,000 employees. The chief sales officer you're calling doesn't care about any of that, and showing up with generic facts makes you look lazy, not prepared. When you're new to the role, you don't have years of pattern recognition to fall back on. You don't know what good account planning looks like yet. You just know you need to get meetings with people who have better things to do than talk to a rep they've never heard of. The solution isn't using AI as a search engine. It's using it as a sales assistant with a specific job to do. The Problem With How Most Reps Use AI for Account Planning Here's what usually happens. A rep needs to prepare for a call with a VP of Marketing at a healthcare company. They open their AI tool of choice and type: "Tell me about [Company Name]." The AI spits back: Company history Product offerings Recent press releases Maybe some executive names The rep skims it, copies a few bullet points into their CRM, and calls it account planning. Then they get on the call and realize they have no idea what this VP is actually trying to accomplish this quarter. They ask surface-level questions. The prospect checks out. The meeting goes nowhere. This happens because most reps are using AI like a faster Google. They're asking for information instead of asking for intelligence. AI account planning only works when you give the AI a role and a specific outcome to deliver. Not "tell me about this company." Instead, "You're an account executive trying to book a meeting with this company's CMO in the next two weeks. Based on their recent announcements and what their executives are posting on LinkedIn, what initiatives are they likely prioritizing right now?" How to Set Up AI Agents for Account Planning The difference between a basic AI chat and an AI agent is memory and context. When you create an agent, you're teaching it what kind of output you need every single time. You're not starting from scratch with every account. Here's the framework that works: Step 1: Give Your AI Agent a Clear Role Don't just ask questions. Set up the scenario with urgency and context. For example: "You are an account executive at [Your Company]. You've been tasked with bringing in [Target Company] as a new customer within the next 90 days. Your first call is with their [specific role, like Chief Sales Officer]. Based on the materials I'm providing, what are the top three business initiatives this person is likely focused on right now?" This does two things. First, it forces the AI to think from your perspective instead of just summarizing data. Second, it prioritizes current, actionable information over historical background. Step 2: Feed It the Right Source Material Wikipedia summaries don't help you. But these sources do: Recent press releases about new initiatives or leadership changes LinkedIn posts from executives at the company (especially the person you're calling) Company blog posts about their strategic direction Industry news articles mentioning the company Their "About Us" or "Newsroom" page for current priorities Analyst reports or industry trend pieces relevant to their sector If you're selling to publicly traded companies, earnings call transcripts and annual reports (10-Ks) are gold mines. But most new AEs aren't calling on Fortune 500 companies. The good news is that smaller companies often share more on LinkedIn and their blogs because they're trying to build their brand. Upload PDFs or paste content directly into your AI tool. Then let it analyze the content through the lens of the role you gave it. The output will focus on strategic priorities, not corporate history. Step 3: Ask Follow-Up Questions Based on Persona If you're calling into marketing, tech, security, or customer experience, the priorities are different. Your AI agent should help you understand how company-wide initiatives affect the specific person you're talking to. After the initial analysis, ask: "How would these initiatives specifically impact the VP of Marketing's goals this quarter?" Now you have talking points that matter to the person on the other end of the call. Step 4: Validate With Human Intelligence AI gets you 80% of the way there in three minutes instead of fifteen. But you still need to cross-check. Look at LinkedIn. Check recent news. If you have access to account managers or customer success reps who work with similar companies, ask them if the trends you're seeing match reality. AI account planning is a tool, not a replacement for critical thinking. If the output feels off, it probably is. Trust your gut and adjust. How to Turn Research Into Value Messages The goal of account planning isn't to memorize facts about a company. It's to walk into a conversation with an informed hypothesis about what they're trying to accomplish. When you do this right, your opening changes. Instead of starting cold with "Tell me about your role," you can say: "I saw your CEO recently posted about accelerating your digital customer experience, and I'm assuming that's putting some pressure on your team to modernize how you're approaching customer engagement. But I could be completely wrong. What's actually taking up most of your time right now?" Here’s how you’ve impacted your prospect: First, it proves you did real research. Second, it gives the prospect something specific to react to instead of making them explain their entire world from scratch. Third, and this is critical, it still leaves room for discovery. You're not skipping the "What are your biggest challenges?" question. You're earning the right to ask them by showing you've already thought about their business. When prospects talk about their challenges in their own language, you learn how they frame problems, what matters to them, and where your solution might actually fit. Even if your hypothesis is wrong, you've separated yourself from the 90% of reps who show up with nothing. And when you're right, you skip past the surface-level conversation and get straight into the dialogue that matters. That's how you earn credibility as a new account executive, even when you don't have ten years of experience to lean on. Building a Repeatable AI Account Planning Workflow This only scales if you systematize it. You can't rely on remembering the perfect prompt every time or recreating your process from scratch for every account. Create separate agents for different use cases. One for account planning. One for prospecting outreach. One for call preparation. Train each agent for the output you need so you aren’t constantly course-correcting. Save your account plans in a central location. The information changes, so plan to refresh your research quarterly. What mattered in Q2 might not matter in Q4, and your account planning needs to reflect that. The key is building a system that you can repeat across your entire territory without burning out. Two to three minutes per account. Not fifteen. Not thirty. That's how you research 50 accounts in a week instead of just five. What This Actually Looks Like in Practice Let's say you're targeting a mid-market software company. You start by checking their LinkedIn. The CEO posted last week about expanding into healthcare verticals. You pull up their blog and find three recent posts about compliance challenges in healthcare tech. You upload screenshots or copy the text into your AI agent and give it the prompt: "You're an AE trying to close this software company in 90 days. The first meeting is with their Chief Revenue Officer. What are the top three priorities they're likely focused on, and how do those connect to the company's broader goals?" The AI analyzes the content and tells you: They're investing heavily in healthcare vertical expansion, but facing longer sales cycles due to compliance requirements They're dealing with the need to build credibility fast in a regulated industry Their CEO has committed to proving ROI in healthcare within two quarters Now you have a hypothesis. The CRO is probably under pressure to close healthcare deals faster while managing a team that doesn't have deep healthcare expertise. That's your angle. You cross-check this with LinkedIn and see that the CRO has been engaging with posts about sales enablement in complex verticals. You look at recent news and find they just hired a VP of Healthcare Sales. Everything lines up. Your outreach message writes itself. You're not pitching. You're acknowledging what they're working on and offering a perspective on how companies in similar situations have approached the same problem. What to Do After the Meeting Your AI workflow doesn't end when the call does. This is where most reps leave value on the table. After your meeting, take the transcript from your call recording tool (Fathom, Gong, Chorus, whatever you use) and upload it to your AI agent. Then ask specific questions:

Here's a question that hits closer to home than most sales reps want to admit: What do you do when you've been away from prospecting for a while and suddenly the call reluctance feels brand new again? That's the situation Dwayne Malmberg from Sugar Land, Texas found himself in. He'd been crushing it in inside sales and appointment setting since the 90s. He was good at it. Really good. But after taking just over two years away from the phones, a new opportunity came along and suddenly he was facing something he didn't expect. The call reluctance. The trepidation. The mental resistance to picking up that phone and dialing invisible strangers. If you've ever taken time away from prospecting and felt that same knot in your stomach when it's time to get back on the phones, you're not alone. And more importantly, there's a systematic way to rebuild that muscle and get back to crushing it. The Raw Truth About Cold Calling Fear Let's get brutally honest: Cold calling creates emotional angst. Period. I've made tens of thousands of cold calls. I make them with my clients during training sessions. I'll make them tomorrow morning. And I still feel that trepidation on the first couple of calls of the day. It's just human. It's natural. It never completely goes away. Think about it like jumping out of an airplane. A few years ago, I got the chance to jump with the United States Army Golden Knights. I was terrified. My heart was pounding. A sergeant even asked if I was okay because apparently I looked frightened. When we got strapped in, I turned to the Golden Knight I was jumping with and asked, "Do you ever get scared?" His answer was revealing: "Yeah, of course I do. My heart's beating a little bit because it's an airplane and I don't know what's going to happen. But I've done it so many times and I've got a routine." That's the key. The routine. The process. The mental preparation that gets you past the fear and into action. The Big Pull: Why You Need Something Worth Fighting For Here's the problem with facing fear: If you don't have something pulling you forward that's bigger than the discomfort you're feeling right now, you'll procrastinate forever. The discipline to run a prospecting block and do your prospecting is the discipline to sacrifice what you want now for what you want most. So before you even think about picking up the phone, sit down and write out what you want. Why are you doing this? What's the goal? Is it a paycheck? A promotion? Financial freedom? Providing for your family? That's your big pull. That's what you focus on when you start your day, not whatever might happen on the call. Because when you're thinking about something as scary as facing rejection, if you don't have a big pull driving you, you'll end up avoiding the work that matters most. For Dwayne, part of his why was clear: He's a caregiver for his disabled wife and needs the flexibility to work from home while still providing for his family. That's a powerful pull. That's something worth pushing through fear for. Building the Muscle: You Can't Bench Press 250 on Day One Let's say you were a bodybuilder in your 30s. You were strong, lifting heavy, crushing it in the gym. Then life happened. Kids came along. Your career took off. You quit working out. Now you decide it's time to get back in shape. What happens if you walk into the gym and try to bench press 250 pounds on day one? You're going to hurt yourself. Maybe badly. The same principle applies to prospecting after time away. You already know how to do it. You've got the muscle memory. Everything inside you is saying, "I got this." But you can't expect to jump back in at the same intensity level you had before. You have to rebuild the muscle gradually. Start with the equivalent of those 20-pound dumbbells and work your way back up. The High-Intensity Sprint Strategy When I found myself in a similar situation years ago, uncomfortable and fearful about making calls, I developed a strategy that I now call high-intensity prospecting sprints. Here's how it works: Break your prospecting into very small, short blocks. Sometimes just five minutes. Make five calls in five minutes. Or ten minutes. Or fifteen minutes. The key is this: Make it so small and manageable that your brain can't talk you out of it. If I tell you to make cold calls all day long, that feels overwhelming. But if I ask you to knock out just five calls, you can do that. Then here's the critical part: Follow each sprint with something inspiring. Read a chapter from Fanatical Prospecting. Listen to a segment of your favorite sales podcast. Watch a training video. Put good stuff in your ears and in front of your eyes that builds your courage and strengthens your heart. Then do another sprint. More inspiration. Another sprint. Repeat. What happens is two things: First, by actually doing it instead of thinking about it, you get better at doing it. You get what I call sales endorphins. You feel good about yourself because you realize, "Hey, I can do this. Everything's okay." Second, by backing up each sprint with inspirational content, you're feeding your mindset. You're building back that mental muscle alongside the practical muscle. The Time Management Factor for Busy Sales Professionals If you're like Dwayne and have a lot of responsibilities outside of sales, time management becomes critical. You can't afford to waste time or dilute your prospecting efforts. The solution is ruthless prioritization and time blocking. Start your day with your most important, highest priority sales activity. Get your prospecting done first thing in the morning when your willpower is strongest and your emotional energy is highest. Here's why this matters: When you've got a lot going on and you're also doing the hardest job in sales (making outbound calls), by the time you get later into your day, you're worn out. Your willpower is depleted. It's going to be exponentially harder to find the motivation to interrupt strangers. But first thing in the morning? You're fresh. You're ready. You can knock out that prospecting block and then ride that momentum through the rest of your day. Block your calendar in core chunks for everything you need to do. If you have an appointment at 3 PM that'll take three hours, fine. But that first hour of your day? That's sacred prospecting time. Nothing else touches it. The Mindset Foundation: Feed Your Mind Daily The first section of Fanatical Prospecting focuses on mindset because that's where everything begins. If your mindset isn't right, technique doesn't matter. Scripts don't matter. Nothing matters because you won't execute. Feed your mind daily with content that builds you up. Listen to a sales podcast three days a week. Read sales books. Watch training videos. Surround yourself with messages that reinforce the behaviors you want to develop. When you're in a situation where you feel fear or emotional angst, putting good stuff in your ears and eyes has a tendency to make your heart stronger and build your courage. This isn't fluffy motivation. This is practical psychology. You're literally rewiring your brain to associate prospecting with positive emotions instead of fear and anxiety. The Bottom Line Getting back in the prospecting game after time away isn't about summoning superhuman courage or pretending the fear doesn't exist. It's about acknowledging the fear, building a routine to work through it, and gradually rebuilding the muscle you once had. You already know how to do this. You've done it before. You just need to give yourself permission to start small, build consistently, and focus on progress over perfection. Start with your why. Build your prospecting sprints. Front-load your day. Feed your mind with the right content. And remember: The first call is always the hardest because you're lifting that 10,000-pound weight. But once you make it, the momentum starts building. You've got this. Now go pick up the phone and prove it to yourself. Want to learn how to leverage LinkedIn to fill your pipeline and never run out of opportunities? Check out Jeb Blount's latest book with Brynne Tillman, The LinkedIn Edge, and discover how to turn social selling into your secret weapon.

A few years ago, I was on a desperate search for a dining table. My favorite from my old place was a gorgeous, single-piece antique that mathematically wouldn’t fit in my new home. I loved that table, and losing it felt like losing a member of the family. So I started the hunt for a replacement, a piece worthy of its memory. I found a potential candidate at a high-end furniture store: a stunning cherry table.  I ran my hand along its smooth, cool surface, picturing it loaded with platters of food, surrounded by the people I love. But then I saw the price tag. It was prohibitively expensive. My wallet slammed shut. I knew it was perfect, but I just couldn’t bring myself to pay for it. I walked out, resigning myself to a life of settling. In the end, I found a mass-produced, joined-piece from a department store. And for the next six months, I was miserable. My kitchen table was just … a table. It was functional, but it had no soul. I griped about it constantly, and every time I looked at it, I was reminded of what I'd given up. Discovering Sweat Equity Finally, out of options and patience, I took the advice of an antique store owner. "Go see a woodworker," she said.  I drove to the address, a dingy, dark garage on the southside of town that smelled of sawdust and varnish. Here, in this dusty, disorganized space, I found the most beautiful tables of every shape and size imaginable. A gruff man with calloused hands appeared. I told him about my predicament and my budget. He gave me a direct response: “I can’t build you a table for that price.” Just as I was giving him an obligatory thanks and turning to leave, he hit me with an unexpected question: “Are you interested in learning how to make one? It might cost you less than what I’ve already made.” He wasn’t selling me a table. He was selling me an experience. A partnership. Becoming a Co-Creator And so, we began. He showed me the design software. We walked through different scenarios, from Christmas dinner to my kids doing their homework. We chose the wood, figured out the curves for the legs, and decided on the thickness for the top. Every line was to my specifications. I was a co-creator, not a consumer. When he finally showed me the quote for materials and his lessons, it was 30% more than the expensive showroom table. And yet, the decision was simple. I looked at the plans, the time we’d invested in the design, the conversations we had shared, and I said, "Let's build this." I picked out the perfect piece of maple. He taught me how to cut it, sand it, and shape it. How to use a router to create decorative edges. How to apply gloss for a perfect shine. And when we were done, I paid that higher price gladly—despite all its imperfections (I am not a professional carpenter.). This was my table, built with my sweat, crafted with my hands. I’d earned it. One leg was a half-inch too short.  The decorative edges I’d spent hours on didn’t quite match. And the lacquer? Let’s just say it had a certain, unique texture. This table was, objectively, flawed. And yet, I loved it more than any piece of furniture I had ever owned. When I brought it home, I was so proud. I invited people over just so I could show it off. Every time I looked at it, I found myself thinking how perfect it was, even with its flaws. That slightly askew table wasn’t just furniture; it was a blinding flash of the obvious and a lesson in the concept called The IKEA Effect. Applying the Principle in Sales Not long after my dive into woodworking, I found myself in a similar situation with a prospect. We were selling a sales training program, and the decision-maker leveled with me in our proposal meeting: "I love what you're proposing, but your competitors are beating your price. We're on a budget." I was about to chalk the deal up to closed-lost when the memory of that woodworker's shop flashed through my mind. “How about this,” I said, "I know our price is higher, but I think we—you and I—can design something perfect for your team. What if we work together to craft a custom solution, one that covers all your needs and fits into your company culture?" He was skeptical, but he agreed. So we began our own version of a woodworking project. Instead of sawdust and maple, we worked with spreadsheets and shared documents. We spent hours in meetings, outlining their team's specific pain points, the obstacles they faced with pipeline hygiene, and the skills they were lacking. We designed a plan with the right workshops, the right coaching, and the right support for their specific problems. When I finally presented the final proposal, it included a fee that was 20% higher than the competition. But it wasn't a surprise. We had built it together, every step of the way. He saw not just a list of services, but a reflection of his own team's needs. He had invested time, effort, and insight, and had a sense of ownership. How Co-Creation Wins the Deal With our co-created plan in hand, the client happily paid our higher fee. We’d edged out the competition not because of our price, but because we had triggered The IKEA Effect. This behavioral economic principle states that people place a disproportionately higher value on things they have helped to create. Every frustrating moment, every small victory when we are building something creates what behavioral economists call "effort justification." Your brain can't accept that all that work you put in was for something ordinary, so it reframes the result as extraordinary. It's the same reason my handmade table, with its slight wobble and imperfect edges, felt more valuable to me than the flawless, expensive showroom piece. And it's exactly why that prospect was willing to pay a premium for our sales training. By involving him in crafting the solution—by making him a co-creator rather than just a buyer—we triggered the same psychological principle. He didn't just purchase a program; he helped design it. The Lesson: Ownership Matters When people build something—whether it's furniture, solutions, or relationships—they don't just create the thing itself. They create ownership. Here’s how you can apply this to your own sales process: Discovery is the new co-creation. Your discovery calls shouldn't be a simple Q&A. It should be a collaborative workshop. Use tools like a shared whiteboard or a live-edited document to build the solution with your prospect in real time. Frame it as, "Let's figure this out together." Your proposal is a project plan, not the final word. Think of your proposal as the culmination of shared work, not a final document you deliver. Refer to it as "our plan" or "the solution we designed." This language reinforces the joint effort. Make it their idea. The more effort your prospect invests in the process—even just by providing a little bit of input—the more they'll value the outcome. Ask open-ended questions that require them to provide genuine insight. Say things like, "Help me understand...," or "What would the ideal outcome look like for you?" When they tell you, it's their vision, and you're helping them bring it to life. The Big Takeaway The IKEA Effect is far more than a psychological quirk; it's a strategic weapon for every salesperson who wants to stop losing on price. The truth is, your customers aren’t buying a product or a service—they're buying the feeling of a win.  When you empower your prospects to become co-creators in the sales process, you don't just solve their problem; you make them the hero of their own story.  You don’t need to be the low-price leader to get the business. You just need to have the courage to ask them to build a solution with you. Hear more insights based on real-life business successes and flops on Jeb Blount Jr.’s podcast 30 Minutes or Less: How Flawed Sales Incentive Programs Cost Domino’s $78 Million, part of The Sales Gravy Podcast.

To a sales leader, it’s a familiar story. Month one: Your new SDR is on fire. Energy through the roof. They’re excited about cold calling. Month two: Still strong. Meetings are getting booked. Dashboard looks good. Month three: Cracks appear. Rejections pile up. But they hang in. Month four: Burnout. The dials drop. The energy’s gone. That superstar you hired 90 days ago is updating their LinkedIn profile—and you know exactly what that means. Now you’re back in hiring mode, your team’s pipeline is slipping, and your recruiting budget just took another hit. But it’s not that the SDR role is broken—the system is. Sales teams are great at starting fast and terrible at sustaining it. People get thrown in with a script and a quota, celebrate quick wins, then act surprised when burnout becomes inevitable. Tim Hester, VP of Sales Development at Alliance HCM, leads one of the fastest-promoting SDR teams in the industry. His team survives month four and keeps thriving. Some SDRs promote out in 60 days. Others stay because they’re growing, not just grinding. It’s a tactical framework that stops inefficiency. The Problem: You’re Forcing SDRs to Run Without a Finish Line When Tim inherited his SDR team, he saw the pattern immediately. One SDR position. No progression. No momentum. Just grind. Talented people hit quota, kept hitting quota, and then started asking themselves: Why am I still doing the exact same job six months later? “Just wait your turn” doesn’t cut it anymore. Maybe it never did. The wake-up call came when Tim realized something critical: The things that kill SDR motivation aren’t trainable. Work ethic. Mindset. How someone approaches their day and prospecting blocks. That’s character. You can’t coach it in a workshop. Tim tried way too many times before figuring that out. You can teach someone objection handling. You can show them how to use the CRM. But if there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, no amount of training fixes that. That’s on leadership, not the rep. The Solution: Build a Roadmap That Rewards Performance, Not Tenure Tim flipped the script on how SDR performance gets measured and rewarded. He created tiered SDR levels based purely on performance thresholds. Not tenure. Not politics. Not “when a spot opens up.” The roadmap has clear levels: from new SDR to quota-hitting SDR to exceeding SDR who now trains the team. Each level comes with a comp bump and more responsibility. Most importantly, it proves effort matters. This framework ensures that when your reps look at the dashboard, they see a clear, actionable path for progression. It’s the sales leader’s job to ensure that dashboard clarity is tied directly to the next level. The impact is immediate. Reps see exactly what they need to level up. There’s no waiting for someone to quit so that a spot opens. Those who want to move fast can; those who need more time have a clear path, too. This framework changed recruiting entirely. Tim could tell candidates on day one: People move up at their own rate; you control your trajectory at this company. Suddenly, the SDR role wasn’t a holding pattern. It was a launchpad. The Dashboard: Four Metrics That Actually Matter Metrics are your scoreboard. If your reps don’t trust the score, they stop playing hard. When Tim took over, the dashboard was a mess. Crowded with metrics nobody understood or trusted. Reps tuned it out because they didn’t know what half the numbers meant or how they connected to their success. Tim stripped it down to four metrics: Dials – Shows effort and how they’re working the database. Everyone can pick up the phone. Connections – Only counts conversations with decision-makers. Not gatekeepers. Not assistants. This shows outreach quality. Meetings Scheduled – The conversion from connection to meeting. This is where you see who’s actually selling. Meetings Ran – If they don’t show up, what’s the point? For Tim, the most important is the latter three because of their impact. He’s measuring what drives meetings and revenue. Simple. Clear. Actionable. No vanity metrics. The Training: Start with Mechanics. Most companies try to turn SDRs into product experts on day one. Tim does the opposite. He breaks training into three buckets: Mechanics – CRM management, using the dialer, and objection handling. These are fundamental basics that must be mastered before there can be further movement. Knowledge – Developing an ICP and persona basics. Narrow and focused. Build your knowledge on the people who matter. Art – The intangible skills that develop over time as reps sit in on meetings and watch demos. Setting that expectation allows reps to move fast. It might not be the straightest line, but they’re executing, gaining confidence, and booking meetings in week two instead of week eight. SDRs aren’t closing six-figure deals. They’re scheduling introductory meetings and bringing in the account executive who has the expertise to close. Expecting perfect performance on day one slows ramps and kills confidence. Employ mechanics first and let the art follow. The Mindset: Small Changes, Big Impact Before Tim was a leader, he spent too much time searching for the silver bullet. He’d toss the whole playbook after one bad call, desperately seeking the one "secret" that would make prospecting easy. His breakthrough was realizing his job as a leader wasn't to teach the art of the perfect call, but to build the system that rewarded consistent effort. Now, he drills this into his team: consistency. It's a direct result of the structure he built. Reps commit to consistency because they know the roadmap proves that their small daily progress will compound into a promotion. The commitment to consistency starts during onboarding. By clearly presenting the tiered performance levels and the four key metrics on day one, leadership sets the expectation that results are driven by process, not luck. When the path is clear, reps stop searching for a shortcut. Consistency beats flash every time. Average SDRs become consistent producers. Consistent producers become top performers. The system is the guarantee that their consistency will pay off. Month Four Doesn’t Have to Be the End The SDR graveyard isn’t full of lazy people; it's full of frustrated talent who were put on a treadmill when they needed a ladder. By month four, a high-performer has mastered the basics and is staring at the ceiling. Same script. Same job. Same quota. They burn out from futility, not from effort. Tim Hester's approach stops this cycle. He proves that the only way out is up. Clear metrics keep the focus sharp. Tiered levels create propulsion. A performance-driven roadmap ensures reps know they control their destiny. The question every sales leader must ask is: "What message does our system send on day one?" Empower your reps with a plan they can believe in, and your top talent will be busy working toward their next title, not updating their resume. Your roadmap gives your SDRs the path, but they still need the tactics to fill their calendar and earn that promotion. Download Sales Gravy's 25 Ways to Ask for the Appointment on a Cold Call guide.