Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount Podcast Por Jeb Blount arte de portada

Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount

Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount

De: Jeb Blount
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From the author of Fanatical Prospecting and the company that re-invented sales training, the Sales Gravy Podcast helps you win bigger, sell better, elevate your game, and make more money fast.2025 Jeb Blount, All Rights Reserved Economía Exito Profesional Gestión y Liderazgo Liderazgo Marketing Marketing y Ventas
Episodios
  • Desperate for Attention in a Noisy Prospecting World

    Desperate for Attention in a Noisy Prospecting World
    Oct 6 2025
    Here is a brutal and undeniable truth: The number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipeline, and the number one reason you have an empty pipeline is that you are not doing enough prospecting. In sales, everything rests on putting qualified opportunities in your pipeline. Prospecting is the beginning and the end, alpha and omega. If you don't prospect, you will fail. That is a guaranteed truth. Each and every sales day, you must connect with prospects, engage them in meaningful conversations, and convert them into pipeline opportunities. It’s a Noisy World The problem is that we live in a noisy world in which those same prospects are being inundated with prospecting messages from dozens of other salespeople who are also attempting to get their attention. So, if you don’t stand out, you lose. But I doubt I’m telling you anything that you don’t already know. It’s freaking hard to get attention when prospecting, and it's not getting easier. There are days when it feels like you could be jumping up and down in front of your prospect in a pink bunny suit while throwing hundred-dollar bills in the air, and they’d still ignore you. The Sledgehammer Approach Is Dead One of the key reasons so many salespeople fail to break through is that their entire prospecting strategy is pounding away at prospects through a single communication channel—typically a series of automated emails sent through a sales engagement platform like Outreach or SalesLoft. Sadly, this sledgehammer approach just doesn’t work anymore. Recent data reveals that salespeople are sending as many as eight times more emails today than they did five years ago and getting just a tenth of the results. A big reason prospects are tuning out is that AI-powered sales automation tools have scaled email prospecting activity to an extraordinary level. In the past, writing a prospecting email involved strategic thought and taking time to craft a message that was unique to each prospect. It was a slow process which meant salespeople sent fewer but better prospecting emails. Today, AI engines can pump out hundreds of cold email variations in seconds with shallow, and often cringe-worthy, personalization that, more often than not, turn prospects off. And as AI-generated prospecting emails flood inboxes, the volume of this outreach has eroded any impact from the improved efficiency. Constant exposure to this irrelevant, repetitive AI-generated crap has left business executives exasperated. They are overwhelmed and have tuned out, turned off, and are ignoring all prospecting messages - good or bad, human or AI generated. Breakthrough the Noise Most sales professionals today are desperate to find new techniques to help them break through the noise and get attention when prospecting so that they can engage in more and more meaningful conversations. Most salespeople want a bigger pipeline filled with qualified opportunities; and most salespeople want to sell more. Yet most salespeople overlook or underutilize one of the most powerful prospecting tools that is right at their finger tips: LinkedIn. Why LinkedIn, Why Now It can be argued that the moment that the sales profession changed forever and the door opened to modern selling as we know it was when Alexander Graham Bell said on the very first telephone call, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” The telephone's impact on the sales profession was profound and lasting. Then, as now, the phone remains the most efficient and effective means for conducting real time, synchronous human-to-human conversations with prospects. Bell made his call to Mr. Watson 150 years ago. Since then only a handful of pivotal technologies have advanced the sales profession with such impact: The automobile gave sellers the freedom to cover wider regional territories more efficiently. Air travel literally gave sales professionals wings, expanding their reach nationally and globally.
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    11 m
  • I Got Punched for a Living: Why Cold Calling Isn’t Scary

    I Got Punched for a Living: Why Cold Calling Isn’t Scary
    Oct 3 2025
    Cold calling terrifies most salespeople more than losing their biggest account. The rejection. The hang-ups. The voice telling you that you're bothering people who don't want to hear from you. Before transitioning into sales, Steve Munn spent nine years as a professional hockey defenseman. As a hockey player, his job was to make life difficult for the other team and absorb whatever they dished back. "Part of it was getting punched in the face," he said on a recent episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast. "If I get a no from a prospect, that's maybe a bad day, but it's certainly not as bad as getting a concussion or a broken nose again." That perspective shift, understanding what actually constitutes a threat, changes everything about how you approach cold calling. It goes beyond being tougher or having thicker skin. Your Fear Isn't About the Call Most sales professionals will do anything to avoid call blocks. They'll update their CRM. Reorganize their pipeline. Respond to emails that could wait three days. Anything but pick up the phone. The problem isn't the person on the other end of the line. You don't want to be the one who fumbles, doesn't have the right answer, or proves you don't belong in that conversation. Imposter syndrome thrives in sales because every call is another opportunity to prosecute yourself. Every objection becomes evidence that you're not cut out for this. Every hang-up confirms what you secretly suspected: You're bothering people who have better things to do. That internal narrative is all in your head, and it's costing you deals. Get Your Mind Right First You can't make effective cold calls when you're living in your head. Anxiety, overthinking, or trying to sound perfect makes every conversation feel forced. Nothing bad actually happens on a sales call. Your life isn’t in danger, and a hung-up phone or curt “not interested” barely registers as a problem. The best cold callers aren't fearless. They're prepared mentally before they start dialing. Find what gets you into the right frame of mind: review recent wins, remind yourself that you’re solving real problems, or call a colleague for perspective. The goal is connecting with another human, not executing a perfect pitch. People can tell the difference. Separate Message From Delivery When someone says "we're all set" and hangs up, they're not making a judgment about your worth as a salesperson or a human being. They're communicating one thing: They're not interested right now. The delivery might feel harsh, and the tone might sound dismissive. But the message is simple and impersonal. Athletes learn this early. Coaches scream. Teammates criticize. Opponents talk trash. If you react emotionally to how something is said rather than hearing what's actually being communicated, you become ineffective. In sales, the same principle applies. When you stop taking the delivery personally, you can actually hear what's being said. Sometimes what sounds like a hard no is actually "you haven't given me a reason to care yet" or "call me back in six months." You Don’t Need to Know Everything One of the biggest barriers to cold calling is the belief you must have all the answers. You hesitate because you think, "What if they ask something I don't know? I'll look like a fool." Here's what that thinking misses: You have a team. No salesperson operates in a vacuum. You've got service teams, technical experts, partners, and colleagues who collectively know far more than you do individually. The expectation that you should show up with encyclopedic knowledge is self-imposed and unrealistic. What matters on a cold call isn't demonstrating expertise. It's demonstrating curiosity and commitment. When you release yourself from the pressure to be perfect, cold calling becomes about investigation rather than performance. Ask Questions Nobody Else Does Most salespeople treat cold calls like a race to present their solution.
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    37 m
  • Building Pipeline From Zero as a First Time Sales Hire (Ask Jeb)

    Building Pipeline From Zero as a First Time Sales Hire (Ask Jeb)
    Sep 30 2025
    Here's a question that keeps startup founders up at night: How does a first sales hire build pipeline and prospect effectively when there's zero technology, no tools, and absolutely no data resources available? That's the challenge Matthew Russell brought to the table, and it's a scenario that's far more common than you'd think. Companies transitioning from founder-led sales often throw their first sales hire into the deep end with nothing but a laptop and a "good luck" pat on the back. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. But here's the good news: Some of the most successful sales teams were built from exactly this position, and there's a proven playbook for making it work. The Hook Is Everything When Will Frattini joined his boss Jane in Austin back in 2011, they had zero presence in the market. No reputation, no established relationships, no fancy tech stack. Just two people and a mission to build from scratch. The first lesson? Your job isn't to reinvent the wheel or create some elaborate sales process. Your job is to figure out what hook the founder used to close their first deals, then ruthlessly replicate it. This means getting the founder to show you exactly how they won business. Listen to their calls. Shadow their meetings. Mirror their approach. Don't try to be clever or add your own spin yet. Just learn what actually works. Here's the critical part: You need the founder to be completely honest with you about your early meetings. Will's boss had the right to refuse any meeting he set. If it didn't qualify, she'd tell him exactly why. That feedback loop is gold because it teaches you the difference between a meeting that sounds good and a meeting that actually advances the sale. Master the fundamentals before you try to optimize. The Metrics That Actually Matter Forget about creating a complex sales process with seventeen KPIs. In the beginning, you need exactly one metric that matters: qualified meetings that convert to next steps. Will's early goal was 20 to 30 worthwhile meetings per month. Eventually they scaled that to 60 per rep. But notice the word "worthwhile." These weren't just any meetings. They were conversations with real potential that the founder or sales leader validated. The qualifier matters because it forces you to get better at targeting and messaging, not just activity for activity's sake. You can't game this system by booking junk meetings. Victoria Walker asked how long it takes to build metrics in a niche market, and the answer is simple: You'll have metrics after day one. How many calls did you make? How many connections? How many appointments set? But most new outbound teams trip up because they expect instant results, don't see them, and quit before the cumulative impact kicks in. The 30-Day Rule Changes Everything The prospecting you do today pays off in the next 90 days. This is the rule of cumulative impact, and it's why most outbound efforts fail. Companies start strong, don't see immediate results, and abandon ship. Then they restart six months later with different reps, different messaging, and the cycle repeats. This is death by fits and starts. Your commitment has to be ironclad: We're doing this every single day for at least 90 to 120 days before we make major changes. You'll make small tweaks to messaging and targeting along the way, but you don't stop the engine. Think of it like an elite sports team watching game film. You're looking for incremental improvements. Last month you closed five good deals. This month you're aiming for six. You're not rebuilding the entire playbook every two weeks because the metrics look scary. Handling the "How'd You Get My Number?" Objection D'elvis Huerta raised a challenge every salesperson faces: Prospects who are surprised or even concerned when you call their personal cell phone. They ask how you got their information, and it throws you off your game.
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    16 m
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I listen to this everyday on the way to work. Most engaging sales podcast I’ve found to date. Lots of great material in here from experienced sales professionals that have also experienced the grind day in and day out. Pick up the phone!

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