Episodes

  • What Skateboarders Can Teach Salespeople About Mastering New Skills (Money Monday)

    What Skateboarders Can Teach Salespeople About Mastering New Skills (Money Monday)
    Jan 26 2026
    I’m not sure if you noticed this, but there is a massive gap between what salespeople and leaders know and what they actually do. I’ve written 18 books and trained hundreds of thousands of salespeople. I can’t tell you how many times someone comes up to me and says, “Jeb, I read Fanatical Prospecting. Great book. But that stuff doesn’t work for me.” Or they’ll say, “I tried that objection handling technique you taught, but it didn’t work, so I went back to what I was doing before.” Here’s what they don’t understand: The problem isn’t the technique. The problem is that they gave up too soon. The brutal truth is that most people fail to implement what they learn. The Skate Park Lesson A couple of weeks ago, I was traveling for business, working with one of my clients’ sales teams. One afternoon, I decided I needed some exercise, so I went for a walk. Along the way, I came across a skate park where kids were riding their skateboards and doing tricks. There was a bench nearby, so I sat down to watch for a while. Close to me was a group of young guys, probably 13 or 14 years old. They were huddled around a phone watching a YouTube video of someone doing a particular trick on their skateboard. They watched it, talked about it, and then one of them threw his skateboard down and attempted the trick. He immediately fell off and failed. The next kid tried, and he failed. Then the next one and the next one. All of them failed to do the trick. So what did they do? They went back and watched the YouTube video again. Then they threw down their boards and crashed and burned, but this time, slightly less dramatically than the first time. They repeated this process over and over. Watch the video. Try the trick. Fail. Watch again. Try again. Fail a little less badly. Until finally, one of them nailed it. When he landed the trick, they all erupted. Clapping, fist pumping, and cheering. And once one kid got it, the rest of them started getting it too. They practiced until they had the trick nailed down, then went back to YouTube to find another trick to learn. At that point, I got up and headed back to my hotel. But as I was walking, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d just witnessed. Too Often, We Give Up too Soon How often do we do the exact opposite in business and sales? We read a book, watch a video, listen to a podcast. We hear about a technique or concept that sounds really good. And we think, “Yeah, I’m going to try that.” So we give it one shot. Maybe two if we’re feeling ambitious. And when it doesn’t work perfectly the first time, we say, “Well, this doesn’t work for me,” and we give up and never try it again. Or worse, we read the book, feel really good about the concept, then put the book down and never even attempt it at all because we’ve already convinced ourselves it wouldn’t work for us before we even tried. But here’s the thing: Those kids at the skate park didn’t look at that trick and say, “This looks hard, it probably won’t work for me.” They looked at it and said, “We’re going to figure this out.” They understood something that most adults have forgotten: Just because you read about something or see someone else do it, doesn’t mean you’re going to master it on the first try. The Homemade Yogurt Failure Paradigm As I was walking back from the skate park, this lesson reminded me of something that had happened to me over the holidays. I’d seen something in my news feed about making homemade yogurt. It looked interesting, so I bought some milk, studied the recipe, and made an attempt. And I failed. My concoction didn’t turn into yogurt at all. My immediate reaction was, “Well, this isn’t going to work; it must be a bad recipe.” I gave up after one failed attempt. But after watching those kids at the skatepark, I realized the giving-up-too-soon trap I’d fallen into. So when I got home from my trip, I went back, reread the recipe, walked back through my steps to figure out what went wrong, and tried again. This time it worked, and I actually made yogurt. The recipe wasn’t the problem. My execution was the problem. And I only figured that out by trying again. The Human Overconfidence Fallacy Here’s the lesson: We are all susceptible to this human fallacy of believing that we can read something, watch something, or hear something once and then immediately do it perfectly. When it doesn’t work the first time (or even the second time), we conclude that the technique is flawed, or it won’t work for us, or our situation is unique and different. But the truth is, we gave up too soon, before we gave the technique a fair shot. That’s just being human. We’re wired for overconfidence, instant gratification, and immediate results. When we don’t get them, we move on. Why This Matters in Sales Let me bring this back to sales, because this pattern will absolutely kill your results. You read a book on ...
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    13 mins
  • Coaching Sales Reps Who Think They Know Everything

    Coaching Sales Reps Who Think They Know Everything
    Jan 22 2026
    “That chip on my shoulder made me less empathetic, more rushed, too eager to solve things too fast, and less thoughtful. That chip built me, but then it started to tear me down.” I said that recently in a conversation with Harriet Mellor of Your Sales Co, and it captures something every sales leader needs to understand. I grew up in the sales training business. My dad literally wrote THE book on prospecting—several of them, actually. I worked at Paycom, Comcast, and various startups where I consistently crushed my numbers. But what I learned is that knowing the right techniques and getting your team to actually implement them are two completely different challenges. Sales training resistance is rarely about bad content. More often, it is about ego and pride standing in the way of growth. I had to recognize that in myself before I could address it in the people I lead. Why Your Top Performers Resist Training the Most When I was a rep, I was terrible at taking coaching. Not because I didn’t understand the concepts. I understood them better than most. But when someone tried to coach me, I tuned out. The problem was I’d already figured out a system that worked. I was hitting my numbers. Why would I mess with it? Think about learning golf. You chunk the ground twenty times, then suddenly you make contact. The ball doesn’t go straight or very far, but it goes. Someone tries to teach you proper form, your first thought is, “I already figured out how to hit the ball.” That’s where many top performers live. They’ve reached an equilibrium. Not peak performance, but functional competence. Training feels disruptive because it threatens what is currently working. They’re not resisting because they’re stubborn. They’re resisting because they have something to lose. What if they try something new and their numbers drop? They’d rather stay at 85% effectiveness than risk dropping to 60%, even if it means eventually reaching 120%. Two Ways Ego Hurts Performance Creates Rush Instead of Curiosity At Paycom, I carried a massive chip on my shoulder. I carried the same name as my dad. People knew who he was. I felt pressure to prove I belonged. So I rushed. I skipped discovery. I pushed toward proposals. I talked more than I listened. Every call felt like a test I needed to pass. You can hear this on your team’s calls. Reps who are trying to prove something move too fast. They stop asking questions. They perform instead of selling. That behavior is driven by ego, and it costs deals. Telling them to slow down will not fix it. You need to understand what they feel compelled to prove and why they associate speed with competence. Blocks From Actually Learning When I was carrying a quota, I thought I was a lifelong learner. I read every sales book. I listened to podcasts. I sat through hours of training sessions. But when it came to changing what I did on Monday morning, I defaulted right back to what I knew. I’d hear a new objection handling technique and think, “Yeah, I basically already do that.” I didn’t. But ego wouldn’t let me see the gap. Your salespeople are doing the same thing right now. They’re taking in your coaching but filtering it through their existing beliefs. They’re protecting the system that’s currently working. And they’re developing blind spots they can’t see. Watch for the reps who stop recording their calls because they “know what they sound like.” The ones who skip role play because it’s “not realistic.” The ones who tune out your coaching because you “don’t understand their territory.” Reps who do this aren’t trying to be difficult, but instead trying to protect their self-image instead of improving their performance. Why Your Team Listens to Outside Trainers But Not You One of the most frustrating parts of leadership is to preach a methodology for six months and nothing changes. Then an outside consultant shows up and says the exact same thing. Suddenly, everyone’s taking notes and engaged. I experienced this firsthand with my dad. He would offer advice, and I tuned out. Days later, I would hear the same message from someone else and think it was brilliant. It wasn’t about the message. It was about who was delivering it. When you try to coach your team, there’s history. There’s baggage. Maybe you’ve given conflicting directions before. Maybe they see you as “management” instead of someone who gets it. Maybe they just don’t like admitting to their boss that they need help. Outside trainers don’t carry that weight. They show up with a clean slate and credibility that’s granted just by being an outsider. The real question isn’t how to make your team listen to you. It is how to create an environment where learning feels safe, regardless of who delivers it. How to Break Through Sales Training Resistance Frame Training as Addition, Not Correction I stopped resisting coaching when my leaders stopped making me feel like ...
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    51 mins
  • How to Save Neglected Accounts Before They Disappear (Ask Jeb)

    How to Save Neglected Accounts Before They Disappear (Ask Jeb)
    Jan 20 2026
    Here’s a question that’ll make your head spin: You just inherited 50 neglected accounts, and your customers feel taken for granted. How do you reposition yourself as a high-value partner instead of just another transactional vendor who’s about to disappoint them? That’s the question posed by Scott Northway, and it’s one of the most common challenges I see in sales today. A new account manager takes over, inherits a book of business that’s been ignored, and now has to figure out how to rebuild relationships with customers who’ve been collecting dust. If you’re nodding your head right now, you’re not alone. Poor account management is quietly bleeding companies dry, and most leaders have no idea how much revenue they’re leaving on the table. The Brutal Truth About Why Customers Leave When we survey customers through our consulting projects with clients who are hemorrhaging accounts, here’s what we find: About 70 percent of the time, customers don’t leave because of price. They don’t leave because of product quality or service issues. They leave because they feel taken for granted. Let me give you a real example. I pay six figures annually for a software program that’s critical to my business. Every time my contract comes up for renewal, it’s like a circus. They fly people in. They wine and dine me. They promise the moon about how they’re going to support us and be our partner. Then once the contract is signed? Crickets. My account manager disappears for three years. If I don’t call them, they don’t call me. And here’s the thing: I actually like my account manager. I genuinely want to work with them. There are products I could buy, optimizations we could make, but I have to do all the work to make it happen. This is insane. And it’s costing companies millions. What Won’t Work: The Rookie Mistakes So you’ve inherited these neglected accounts. Here’s what you absolutely cannot do: Show up on their doorstep apropos of nothing and try to sell them something. If I’m an existing customer doing business with your company, and you show up trying to pitch me without acknowledging the elephant in the room, we’re probably done. It’s rude. It’s bad behavior. And it tells me you’re just like every other transactional vendor who doesn’t actually care about my business. The second mistake is spreading yourself too thin across all 50 accounts without any strategy. You’ll burn out, deliver mediocre service to everyone, and end up losing accounts you could have saved. The Human-to-Human Approach That Actually Works Here’s what does work: Be honest. Be human. Name the problem. Pick up the phone and say something like this: “Hey, I’m your new account manager. I recognize that no one’s contacted you in a while, and I’m sorry about that. I apologize. I’d like to do a fresh start. Would you give me the opportunity to get to know you better and learn about what’s important to you?” That’s it. Simple. Direct. Human. Now here’s the hard part: When you have that conversation, some customers are going to unload on you. If they really have felt taken for granted, they’re going to say some nasty things. They might complain about the last account manager. They might air grievances about problems that have been festering for months. And the most important thing you can do in that moment is shut up and listen. Don’t try to defend the past. Don’t talk over them. Don’t promise you’re going to be so much better than the last person. Just let them get it all off their chest. Let them talk it out, because people like people who listen to them. Then, if there’s something specific you can help them with, don’t make promises you can’t keep. Commit to one thing. Take care of that commitment. Honor it. Build trust slowly. That’s how you become a high-value partner through fanatical prospecting discipline applied to account management. The Smart Way to Triage 50 Accounts You can’t effectively manage 50 accounts with equal attention, so you need to segment fast. Use a simple A, B, C ranking by revenue and risk: A Accounts: Your largest customers or those at highest risk of churn. These get weekly or bi-weekly touchpoints. B Accounts: Solid mid-tier customers with growth potential. These get monthly check-ins. C Accounts: Smaller accounts that are stable. These get quarterly touchpoints. But here’s the secret weapon most account managers miss: Use AI and your CRM data to find the low-hanging fruit. Look for patterns like former buyers who’ve moved to new companies in your territory, customers who mentioned specific challenges in past conversations, or accounts showing signs of expansion readiness. One of the smartest things you can do is ask your AI tools: “Did anyone on this account ever mention their favorite sports team? Do they like to cook? What matters to them personally?” Those human details are gold for building real relationships in ...
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    15 mins
  • Where Confidence Comes From and Why it Matters in Sales

    Where Confidence Comes From and Why it Matters in Sales
    Jan 19 2026
    Have you ever gone into a closing meeting, a sales presentation, or even a prospecting call with total confidence? That mindset and feeling that everything's going to go your way, that nothing can go wrong, that you're absolutely going to win? I've been there. I know you have too. It's one of the greatest feelings ever. But let's juxtapose that against going into a meeting feeling insecure, where your focus is on everything that could go wrong versus everything that could go right. And then, as soon as something does go wrong, everything starts to spiral downward. There is absolutely nothing that can make or break a deal like confidence. In this Sales Gravy podcast episode, we're going to explore exactly where confidence comes from, why it matters so much in sales, and most importantly, what you can do to build the unshakeable confidence that closes deals. The Insecurity Death Spiral Recently, I learned a profound lesson about confidence. I was invited to play golf with a group of business people in Florida. Beautiful day, sunshine, great course. It should have been perfect. Except I'm not a very good golfer. And these guys? They were good. Really good. The kind of golfers who carry single-digit handicaps and talk about their swing plane like it's a science project. So I'm standing on the first tee, watching them stripe their drives straight down the middle, and I can feel it happening. That little voice in my head starts whispering: "You don't belong here. You're going to embarrass yourself. Everyone's going to see how bad you are." I started strong enough. Made it through the first couple of holes without humiliating myself. But then I hit a bad shot. Then another. And instead of shaking it off like I normally would, I started fixating on those bad shots. That's when the downward spiral began. Every swing became an exercise in anxiety. I was so focused on not messing up that I couldn't help but mess up. My mechanics fell apart. My rhythm disappeared. By the end of the round, I had played one of the worst games of golf in my life. Not because I suddenly forgot how to swing a club, but because I let insecurity take over. Now, I managed to keep a smile on my face. We were playing golf in the Florida sunshine, after all. But inside, I was frustrated because I knew what had happened. I let my insecurity about being the weakest player in the group sabotage my entire game. And here's what hit me on the plane home: That's exactly what I see happen in sales all the time. One moment of uncertainty, one unexpected challenge, and suddenly a salesperson who is perfectly capable starts spiraling. Their confidence evaporates. And with it goes their ability to perform. Why Confidence Matters in Sales In sales, there is nothing that sells like confidence. Nothing. Buyers lean into confidence. They're attracted to it. They trust it. And because of emotional contagion—your ability to transfer your emotions to another person—you basically take your confidence and hand it to the buyer, who then gains more confidence in you. Think about it. When you walk into a meeting radiating confidence, the buyer thinks, "This person knows what they're doing. They believe in what they're selling. I can trust them." But when you walk in feeling insecure, the buyer picks up on that too. They start thinking, "Why is this person nervous? What aren't they telling me? Maybe this isn't the right solution." In sales, because we can't always control the playing field and because we don't always feel like we should be where we are—especially when we're dealing with the C-suite or high-level decision makers, when we're in super competitive situations, or when we don't really know what we're talking about—one thing that goes wrong can create a cascade of other problems, creating a downward insecurity spiral that is real and deadly. The Ultimate Source of Confidence So the question is: Where does confidence come from? Where do you get it? Well, confidence by its very nature comes from the inside. It's a mindset. It's something that you believe, just like insecurity is a mindset that comes from the inside. Confidence is mostly created by certainty. When you feel certain that you can control the outcome, you feel more confident. When you're in situations that feel familiar or you're talking about a product, your service, or some part of your offering that you totally understand, you feel more confident. When you've executed the sales process perfectly and built deep relationships with your customers, you feel more confident they're going to buy from you. When you've practiced your presentation multiple times and know it rote, you feel more confident. By the way, the same thing works in reverse. Uncertainty begets insecurity. When you walk into a situation and you feel uncertain—and this happens to a lot of brand-new salespeople who don't know what to say or feel like they don't really understand the product offering, their industry, or ...
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    14 mins
  • Turn Boring Sales Pitches Into Conversations That Close

    Turn Boring Sales Pitches Into Conversations That Close
    Jan 15 2026
    You are on slide 34 when the CFO’s phone buzzes. She glances down. The VP to her left is nodding, but you can tell he checked out ten minutes ago. You know this pitch cold. You have rehearsed it. You built the deck. You covered every feature, every capability, every objection. And still, you are dying up there. You spent weeks on this presentation. None of it matters because everyone in that room has already sat through the same pitch from three other vendors this month. “Pitching sucks,” says Danny Fontaine, author of Pitch, on an episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast. “It sucks for the people doing it because we get so stressed out, and we spend weeks doing mountains of work. Meanwhile, there is a whole audience who has just as bad of a time as us because they have to sit through an hour of 100 PowerPoint slides and they’re bored.” He is right. The audience suffers just as much. They sit through identical presentations, back to back, trying to remember which vendor said what. Both sides leave exhausted. No one wins. There is a better way. Effective sales pitch techniques don’t rely on slides. They create engagement, tell stories, and turn monologues into conversations that actually move deals forward. Why Traditional Pitches Fail The standard pitch follows the same predictable pattern. Company overview. Capabilities. Case studies. Pricing. Questions at the end. Every competitor uses the same structure. That means you are asking your prospect to choose between nearly identical presentations. When everything looks the same, decision makers default to price or familiarity. Your carefully crafted message gets lost in the noise. You are treating the pitch like a presentation when it should be a conversation. You are trying to inform when you should be persuading. Experience Beats Information In 1979, a small advertising agency called Allen Brady and Marsh (ABM) competed against industry giant Saatchi & Saatchi for the British Rail account. ABM’s founder, Peter Marsh, knew he couldn’t win by playing it safe. When the British Rail executives arrived for the pitch, no one answered the door. They rang the buzzer three times before it finally opened, with no one behind it. The receptionist ignored them while filing her nails. The waiting area was filthy. After a while of being dismissed, the chairman stood up to leave. That is when Marsh burst through the doors and said, “Gentlemen, you have just experienced what your customers go through every single day. Shall we see what we can do to put it right?” ABM won the account. And it worked because the executives didn’t just understand the problem. They felt it. Most sales pitches fail because they ask buyers to care before they are emotionally engaged. Information alone doesn’t create urgency—experience does. Start With Them, Not You Pitches always start the same: ‘Thanks for your time. Here’s our agenda. Let me tell you about our company.’ Your prospect stops listening after the first sentence. If you want engagement, start with a question. Ask what matters to them. Ask what would make the time valuable. Ask what problem they are trying to solve. Before you show a single slide, say something like, “Before we start, what would make this conversation worth your time today?” Or, “What is the biggest challenge you are facing with this right now?” Those questions do three things immediately. They show respect. They give you intelligence. And they turn the pitch into a conversation from the first minute. This works even better over Zoom, where attention is fragile and distractions are everywhere. When you ask early questions, you pull people in instead of competing with their inbox. Stories Create Memory The most powerful stories aren’t pulled from case studies. They come from real life. Every meaningful achievement involves obstacles. Those obstacles contain lessons. Those lessons connect directly to the challenges your prospects are facing. A story without relevance is just noise. A story with a clear lesson becomes a lever. A consultant once shared a story about buying a secondhand Lego set. She started building it, only to discover key pieces were missing. After hours of searching for replacements, she had to start over. When pitching a complex implementation, she said, “That taught me something. At the beginning of any project, we have to make sure all the pieces are in the bag.” That story worked because it made preparation tangible. It made risk visible. It connected emotionally and logically. If the story does not clearly support the point you are making, don’t tell it. Ask Before You Lose Them Most salespeople cling to their script even when they can see the room drifting away. They are afraid of losing control, so they keep talking. That is how you lose the deal. Don’t wait until the Q&A to ask questions. Sprinkle them throughout your pitch to keep your audience engaged and the conversation alive. Ask if you’...
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    43 mins
  • Why Great Salespeople Are Great Listeners (Ask Jeb)

    Why Great Salespeople Are Great Listeners (Ask Jeb)
    Jan 13 2026
    Here's a question I get asked all the time: What's the single biggest misconception holding salespeople back? That question came from a room full of college students at BYU-Idaho, ages 19 to 24, all exploring sales careers. And my answer is the same whether you're just starting out or you've been in the game for decades. The biggest lie about selling is this: Good salespeople have the gift of gab. You know the stereotype. The smooth talker. The fast-talking closer. The person who can talk their way into or out of anything. We've all seen it in movies, TV shows, and plays like Death of a Salesman. It's been around for a century, and it's completely wrong. The Truth Top Performers Know Here's what the best salespeople actually do: They listen. The greatest salespeople aren't the best talkers. They're the best listeners. They're individuals who know how to ask the right questions and know how to ask questions in a way that create these aha moments for prospects and customers. They understand something fundamental that average performers miss: Closing happens in the discovery process, not at some magical point where you lay the hammer down and ask for a sale. Think about that for a second. The deal isn't won when you deliver your polished presentation. It's not won when you overcome the final objection. It's won in those early conversations when you're asking questions, uncovering pain, and building relationships. Why the Stereotype Persists The negative stereotype of salespeople has been pervasive in society for generations. Part of it's because no one really likes to be sold. And there are salespeople who are bad. They talk at people instead of actually taking the time to listen. But here's the reality: Lots of professions have negative stereotypes. Lawyers. Politicians. Salespeople aren't the worst of them. And here's the good side of that negative stereotype: Nobody wants to be in sales. So if you're in sales, you're making a whole lot more money than anybody else. That's a good thing. The people who look at the profession of selling and say "I could never do that" or "I could never interrupt people or take that type of rejection" are the same people who will never experience the income, freedom, and impact that comes with being great at sales. The Power of Questions When you shift your mindset from talking to listening, everything changes. Instead of thinking about what you're going to say next, you're focused on what your prospect is telling you. You're asking questions like: What's driving this decision right now? What happens if you don't solve this problem? Who else is involved in this decision? What does success look like for you? These aren't manipulative tricks. They're genuine attempts to understand your prospect's world, their challenges, and their goals. And when you do that well, you create trust. You build relationships. You position yourself as a partner, not a vendor. The discovery questions you ask matter more than any pitch you could ever deliver. Handling objections starts with asking the right questions early in the process. Who's Really in Control Here's the truth: The person in control of the conversation is rarely the talker. In fact, it's almost always the listener. If you want to move deals, stop performing and start discovering. Build your calls around three things: smart opening questions, deep follow-ups, and crisp advances to the next step. You'll gain insights, not just air time. And insights are what close deals. Success in sales isn't about being the loudest voice in the room. It's about being the most curious, the most engaged, and the most intentional about moving the sale forward. What You Need to Unlearn Right Now If you've been operating under the assumption that you need to be a great talker to succeed in sales, unlearn that immediately. Replace it with this truth: You need to be a great asker and an even better listener. Your job isn't to convince people. Your job is to help people convince themselves by asking questions that lead them to their own conclusions. When prospects discover the solution themselves through your questioning, they own it. They believe it. And they buy. That's the relationship you build through asking questions. That matters the most. The Bottom Line Stop trying to out-talk your prospects. Stop preparing 47-slide presentations. Stop thinking that your job is to educate and inform. Your job is to discover. To listen. To understand. To ask the questions that help your prospects see clearly what they need to do next. The best salespeople aren't the smooth talkers. They're the smart listeners who know that the power of the sale is in the questions they ask, not the words they say. If you master this one fundamental truth, you'll close more deals than all the gift-of-gab salespeople combined. And you'll build a career based on relationships, trust, and value instead of pressure, manipulation, and empty talk. That's how you win in sales. That's ...
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    5 mins
  • Your Calendar Is Lying About Why You’re Not Prospecting (Money Monday)

    Your Calendar Is Lying About Why You’re Not Prospecting (Money Monday)
    Jan 12 2026
    You declined another prospecting block today, didn't you? That internal meeting popped up. Someone needed "just five minutes." Your CRM screamed for attention. Before you knew it, another day passed without a single cold call, without one new connection request, without moving the needle on your pipeline. But hey, at least your calendar looked impressively full. Here's what nobody wants to admit: your jam-packed calendar isn't proof that you're too busy to prospect. It's proof you've made prospecting optional. And optional activities don't close deals or pay commissions. The Meeting Excuse Is Killing Your Pipeline Sales professionals love to point at their calendars as evidence of why they can't prospect. Look at all these internal meetings. See how packed my schedule is. How could I possibly find time for outbound activity? The real question is: when did you last decline an internal meeting to protect your prospecting time? Most salespeople never have. They treat every meeting invitation as a welcome escape from the discomfort of cold outreach. It's the perfect alibi when your manager asks about pipeline activity. But your calendar tells the truth about your priorities. If time blocking for prospecting isn't on it, prospecting isn't actually a priority. And if prospecting isn't a priority, why exactly are you in sales? You Don't Need Hours—You Need 15 Minutes The biggest lie salespeople tell themselves is that prospecting requires massive blocks of uninterrupted time. Two hours minimum. Otherwise, why bother starting? This is the same mental trap that keeps people from reading, exercising, or learning new skills. They convince themselves that 15 minutes isn't enough to matter, so they do nothing instead. Consider this: reading for 15 minutes daily gets you through 20-25 books per year. Walking for 15 minutes adds nearly a mile to your day. Fifteen minutes of focused prospecting can generate six to ten cold calls, dozens of personalized connection requests, or several high-impact video messages to ghosting prospects. The power isn't in the duration, but in consistent, focused execution of time blocking for sales activities. The 15-Minute Power Block Rules These 3 rules are requirements if you want your time blocking strategy to actually work. Rule 1: Single-task only. Your 15-minute prospecting block is for prospecting. Not prospecting while monitoring email. Not prospecting between Slack messages. Just prospecting. If you spend three minutes calling and twelve minutes scrolling Instagram, you didn't prospect for 15 minutes. Rule 2: Everything else can wait. Yes, that includes your boss. You will not lose a customer or your job because you ignored email for 15 minutes. Responding at the end of your block is still professional. Think about it—if you were sitting face-to-face with your top client, would you stop mid-conversation to check email? Treat your power blocks with the same respect. Rule 3: Protect the block like your commission depends on it. Because it does. Top performers don't ask permission to prospect. They schedule it, block it, and defend it against every interruption. The coworker who needs "just a minute" can wait sixteen minutes. What Actually Happens in 15 Minutes Specificity kills procrastination. You're more likely to execute when you know exactly what you're doing during your time blocking windows. Eight to fifteen cold calls fit comfortably in 15 minutes. That's enough to connect with two or three decision-makers if you're efficient. Send ten to fifteen LinkedIn connection requests to stakeholders outside your network. Write and mail three handwritten notes to accounts you closed this month. Record personalized video messages for three prospects who've gone dark. None of these activities requires elaborate preparation or perfect conditions. They require you to show up for 15 minutes and do the work. That's it. Schedule Your Priorities or Someone Else Will Stephen Covey said the key isn't prioritizing your schedule, but scheduling your priorities. Most salespeople do the opposite—they let their calendars fill with whatever lands there first, then wonder why revenue-generating work never happens. Your calendar should reflect your income goals. If hitting quota requires consistent prospecting, your calendar should show consistent prospecting blocks. If building relationships with key accounts matters, those touchpoints should be scheduled. When you schedule your sales priorities first, everything else fits around them. When you don't, everything else crowds them out entirely. Look at your calendar right now. How many prospecting blocks do you see this week? If the answer is zero, you've just identified why your pipeline feels thin. How to Apply Time Blocking Starting Now Open your calendar and block three 15-minute windows for prospecting tomorrow. Morning, midday, and late afternoon. Label them "Prospecting Power Block" and set them as busy. Before each block, decide on one ...
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    9 mins
  • Why Sales Professionals Fail at New Year’s Fitness Goals (And How to Actually Succeed)

    Why Sales Professionals Fail at New Year’s Fitness Goals (And How to Actually Succeed)
    Jan 8 2026
    Are your fitness goals realistic for the life of a busy sales professional? "I find that a lot of sales leaders I work with are operating at about 110% capacity. So when we're talking about tackling health and fitness, we have to really understand what is going to be the few habits that are really easy to do and have the biggest bang for buck." That's Josh Hulsebosch, a fitness coach who specializes in working with sales professionals, speaking on the Sales Gravy podcast. His observation cuts straight to the real reason most January fitness resolutions fail: they're trying to add more to an already overflowing plate. The typical sales professional is already drowning in competing priorities while operating at maximum capacity. When New Year’s hits, the instinct is to overhaul everything at once. New diet. New workout plan. New morning routine. That approach might work for people with open calendars and low pressure. For salespeople pushing through Q1 kickoffs, territory planning, and quota pressure, it is a fast track to burnout. The All-or-Nothing Trap Meet Steve. He's an individual contributor who decided January 1st would mark his transformation. No more coffee. Five-mile runs every morning. Intermittent fasting. Four hours of cold calling daily because he just finished reading Fanatical Prospecting. Ten days in, Steve slept through his alarm, missed his workout, and ordered a triple-shot latte on the way to work. That emotional crash bled into his work. His prospecting activity dropped. His confidence dipped. His motivation evaporated under the weight of his own perfectionism. Steve's mistake wasn't lack of commitment. He turned ambitious goals into self-sabotage by refusing to acknowledge a simple truth: sustainable change requires starting where you are, not where you wish you were. Most sales professionals approach fitness goals like they approach pipeline building—more activity equals better results. But health doesn't work like prospecting. You can't brute force your way into better sleep or lower stress. The body requires a different strategy. The 110% Capacity Problem Sales is a cognitively demanding profession. You're the quarterback of the business. Every day requires strategic thinking, relationship management, objection handling, and staying mentally sharp through rejection. When you're already operating at 110% capacity, adding extreme fitness commitments creates another obligation you can't meet, another source of stress, another thing to feel guilty about when you inevitably miss a workout or eat fast food between calls. The sales professionals who successfully improve their health identify which habits will support their performance, then build them into their existing routine. They do not chase trends. They focus on fundamentals. The Four Pillars of Health for Sales Professionals Fitness and health goals for sales professionals need to be realistic for people working at maximum capacity. You can't afford to waste energy on complicated protocols or fitness fads. You need the fundamentals: exercise, nutrition, sleep, and stress management. When these four pillars are strong, everything else becomes easier. Pillar One: Exercise The fitness industry wants you to believe you need intense workouts, complicated programs, and hours at the gym. For sales professionals, the single most effective exercise habit is walking 8,000 steps daily. This number is achievable for most people regardless of fitness level. It builds momentum without requiring a complete schedule overhaul. When you consistently hit 8,000 steps, you prove to yourself that you can follow through on a commitment without sacrificing your work performance. Movement improves cognitive function, reduces stress hormones, and helps with sleep quality—all critical for sales performance. Make it automatic. Take calls while walking. Park farther away from the office. Walk to get coffee instead of ordering delivery. Use a standing desk and pace during internal meetings. Build movement into what you are already doing rather than treating it as another task. Once 8,000 steps become effortless, you can layer in strength training or other activities. But walking is the foundation. It's the one exercise habit that compounds without breaking you. Pillar Two: Nutrition Sales professionals tend to fall into two nutrition traps. The first is eating like garbage because they're too busy to care. The second is attempting some extreme diet overhaul that lasts nine days before they're back to their old patterns. The solution isn't meal plans or macro tracking or cutting entire food groups. It's having a system that works when you're slammed. Start here: don't skip meals. When you're running between meetings and surviving on coffee, your blood sugar crashes. That kills your cognitive performance and drives you toward quick fixes that leave you feeling worse an hour later. Keep protein-rich foods accessible. Greek yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, ...
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    34 mins