Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount

Will AI steal your sales team's jobs? It's the question haunting every sales floor conversation and keeping leaders up at night. But here's the crucial insight: The biggest threat to your team’s sales careers lies in misinterpreting AI's role. While the debate rages over robots replacing salespeople, forward-thinking organizations are already embracing "Agentic AI." This isn't your typical automation that just speeds up email sequences. It's a completely different approach that turns AI into your sales team's secret weapon, not their replacement. The companies getting this right aren't asking "How do we cut costs with AI?" They're asking, "How do we make our best salespeople unstoppable?" The answer is reshaping the entire profession, and it's happening faster than you think. Agentic AI is Far From Old-School Automation Most sales leaders think AI is about efficiency, and they’re wrong. They think teams will only send more emails, make more calls, and process more leads. That's old-school automation thinki

How can one comp plan mistake sabotage your sales team before they even start?  That's the challenge facing Adam and Laura from the Rossen Law Firm in Florida. After attending one of our Dallas workshops, they made the bold decision to transition to a non-attorney sales team. Six weeks later, they're all in on the strategy but hitting a wall on one critical issue: compensation structure. The problem? Like most law firms making this transition, they're stuck in the traditional legal mindset when it comes to paying salespeople. They can't pay direct commissions because of fee-splitting regulations, but they're struggling to create a compensation plan that motivates high performance. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. This is the No. 1 stumbling block I see when law firms try to build professional sales teams, and it's costing them their best talent before they even get started. The Legal Industry's Compensation Conundrum Most law firms approach sales compensation like they're hiring ano

How many times do you actually attempt to reach out to a prospect before you give up? On the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jessica Stokes calls out a common sales reality when prospecting: “We all know the average salesperson typically stops after three, maybe four attempts before moving on. We assume they're not interested. We want to find a juicier lead.” This common behavior defines The 3-Call Fallacy—the flawed belief that if someone doesn’t respond after a few tries, they’re not interested. It’s where you probably tap out and tell yourself you’ve done enough. You haven’t. Persistence is key.  Why Salespeople Quit Prospecting Too Early The premature retreat from prospecting isn't about laziness; it's rooted in fundamental misconceptions and fear. The Fear of Being Annoying The most common excuse? “I don’t want to be a pest.”  You leave a voicemail, send an email, maybe try LinkedIn, and then you back off. You tell yourself you’re giving them space. But your prospect doesn't remember you. When you're looking

Here's the brutal truth about social media for sales: You're already behind, and it's going to be a grind. That's the reality Margarita from Dallas discovered when she called into our podcast. She's a seasoned realtor with 20+ years of experience, built her entire business on referrals and warm market relationships, and suddenly realized she needs to master social media to stay competitive. Sound familiar? You're not alone if you're staring at this digital mountain wondering how the hell you're going to climb it. But what makes Margarita's situation even more challenging and why her story matters to every sales professional reading is this: She's trying to compress 20 years of relationship building into a social media strategy that can compete with people who've been doing this for decades. The Tom Cruise Problem: Building Your Social Media Presence Takes Time Remember the first time you saw Tom Cruise in a movie? For me, it was Risky Business, some kid dancing around in his underwear. He wasn't the "last

You think you're being helpful. Your clients think you're being annoying. Early in his career, Justin Goldstein learned this lesson the hard way. He admits, "I thought that picking up the phone and calling a client to talk about almost everything was the right way to go. I personally hate communicating over email. I'd rather just talk to you and figure it out."  The reality hit hard: clients viewed his frequent outreach as a burden rather than a benefit. Weekly update calls meant to show dedication became time-wasters in clients' minds. Daily email updates intended to demonstrate thoroughness turned into inbox clutter. This scenario plays out in sales organizations everywhere. Well-meaning professionals mistake quantity for quality, frequency for value, and availability for service excellence. Why Your Communication Style is Pushing Prospects Away The key to avoiding this trap isn't about reading minds; it's about understanding communication preferences. As Justin puts it, "You really have to understand wh

Here's a question that'll keep you up at night: What do you do when your emotions are sabotaging your sales performance? That's the exact challenge posed by Kurt O'Donnell and the sales team from Joyland Roofing in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They're crushing it—doing $10 million in revenue with individual reps generating $2 million each—but they identified a critical weakness that could derail their ambitious goal of hitting $100 million in 10 years. Kurt put it perfectly: "We need to actually learn how to read ourselves better and just be consistent. Emotionally consistent, even when everything else can heave around us. How do I show up at the door and be that consultant... and not just kind of be desperate because I had a few bad calls?" If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. Emotional inconsistency is the silent killer of sales careers, and it's costing top performers millions in lost revenue. The Hidden Performance Killer: Your Emotional State Most sales training focuses on techn

The second quarter of 2025 delivered some incredible conversations on the Sales Gravy podcast. From discipline strategies that separate winners from wannabes to the psychology of selling that most reps completely miss, here are the five most powerful insights that can transform your sales results immediately. 1. Focus on Activity, Not Outcomes The Problem: Most sales reps get discouraged when they don't book meetings, causing them to change their approach daily. The Solution: Cynthia Handal, who runs high-performing BDR teams, revealed her game-changing mindset shift: "The outcome isn't to book a meeting. The outcome is to do the three hours of work." Her approach is deceptively simple but incredibly powerful: Time block your prospecting activities (she does 9 AM to 12 PM daily). Set a timer and don't stop until the time is complete. Focus on controlling what you can control—the work itself. Trust that results will follow consistent activity. This eliminates the emotional rollercoaster of good day

Here's a question that'll make your blood boil: Why do most sales leaders spend their pipeline reviews asking about dollar amounts and close dates while completely ignoring whether their reps actually have real deals? That's the brutal reality I see in sales organizations every single day. Leaders are obsessing over MEDIC, BANT, and other qualification frameworks while their pipelines are stuffed with dead deals that will never close. Meanwhile, their forecasts are consistently wrong, deals keep getting pushed, and reps are burning time on opportunities that died months ago. If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. Focusing on surface-level qualification instead of true deal engagement is one of the most backward approaches to pipeline management I see today, and it's costing companies millions in missed forecasts. The Qualification Theater Problem: When Frameworks Become Fantasy Remember when everyone thought MEDIC and BANT were the holy grail of qualification? Sales leaders everywhere start

Ben Hogan, who was arguably the greatest ball striker the game of golf has ever known, taught that if you wanted to improve your swing you should focus on the cause rather than the result.  This was good advice for golfers and brilliant advice for sales professionals. Because in sales, if you want to sell more it pays to become obsessed over your behaviors, techniques and processes rather than your outcomes.  Most Sellers Obsess Over Outcomes Most salespeople are focused on winning or losing individual deals. They get emotionally wrapped up in every prospect, every conversation, every close attempt. When they win, they're on top of the world. When they lose, they're devastated. But top performers? They think completely differently. They're not obsessed with any single deal. They're obsessed with the process that creates consistent results over time. This mindset shift is the difference between feast-or-famine selling and predictable, sustainable success. The Downside of Outcome Based Sales Goals Here's wha

You know the drill. The quota clock is ticking, the pressure is mounting, and there's that relentless urge for a quick win. Every sales professional has felt that impulse to rush the process, to push for the immediate "yes," because, well, the numbers demand it. But here's the tough question you need to ask yourself: What if that very pressure is actively sabotaging your long-term success? What if chasing the fast buck is actually costing you the lucrative, lasting relationships that define an elite sales career and build a lasting book of business? As Sales Gravy Podcast guest Steve Pyfrom puts it: “Building relationships takes time and sales, teams need desperately to get off of this short-term win dynamic. The goal is long-term revenue for your company, lifetime value for the end user.”  Focusing solely on the quick sale burns through pipeline leads faster than you can replace them, leaving you on a perpetual hamster wheel of prospecting just to stay afloat. It's time to talk about the long game, becaus

That's the question every sales leader, CEO, and HR department is wrestling with as AI tools flood the market with promises to automate everything from prospecting to closing deals. Meanwhile, salespeople are panicking, wondering if their jobs are about to disappear to some algorithm that can write emails faster than they can type "Dear Valued Customer." If you're losing sleep over this, take a deep breath. The fear is real, but it's also completely misplaced. Here's the brutal truth: AI isn't going to replace you. But salespeople who understand how to leverage AI absolutely will replace those who don't. When Robots Try to Sell It's Not Authentic Remember when email prospecting worked? When a well-crafted subject line could get you a meeting, and personalization meant more than just mail-merging someone's first name? Those days are over, and AI killed them in about nine months. Here's what happened: Marketing departments discovered they could use AI to blast out thousands of "personalized" emails that sounde

Is there such a thing as natural sales talent? Are top-level sales professionals born that way? Do they possess a gift from God that powers their ability to close sales? On this Money Monday, I answer these age-old questions. For the Love of the Game When I was 9 years old, after going to the Masters tournament with my Dad, I cut a limb that was shaped like a golf club from a tree, dug holes all over our backyard, and started playing “backyard golf” with a wiffle ball.  I loved my little backyard golf course and played every day after school. One day though, my Dad, who had been watching me, said, "Why don't we just go play real golf?" My dad didn't know anything about golf. He didn’t grow up playing. But we went down to Walmart, bought some cheap golf clubs, and started chasing little white balls.  We played at a legendary course in Augusta called The Patch—a municipal course with hard dirt fairways and patchy greens but a super fun place to learn the game. Our game was terrible, and we never practiced or

"I can't do that." How many times have you said those four words when facing a challenging sales situation? It could be picking up the phone to make that intimidating cold call. It could be asking for the close with a high-value prospect.  If you say 'I can't do that,' guess what? You're absolutely right. You won't. But here's what’s surprising: The solution is simpler than you think.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddjRyIHq6LA The Wisdom That Sounds Ridiculous (Until It Changes Everything) Thirty years ago, sales coach Steve Chandler heard a client say those familiar words: "I don't think I could ever do that." His response was four words that initially sounded absurd.  "Then don't be you." When Richard Fenton, co-author of "Go for No!," first heard this concept, he had two immediate reactions: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," followed quickly by "That's the most profound thing I've ever heard." Think about it. When someone says they can't speak in front of a thousand people, what's the ty

Here's a question that exposes one of the most dangerous myths in modern sales: How do you set the right pipeline creation target to consistently hit quota? That's exactly what Maryellen Soriano from New Jersey asked when she called into Ask Jeb. After crushing 134% of quota in her first year selling EdTech solutions—transitioning from owning her own childcare center to selling back into that same industry—she was being told she needed 11X pipeline to maintain her success. If that number made you cringe, you're not alone. The obsession with pipeline multipliers is creating more problems than it's solving, and it's time we had an honest conversation about what actually drives predictable revenue. The Pipeline Myth That's Killing Your Forecast Most sales teams are drowning in fake pipeline, and it's destroying their ability to forecast accurately. Leadership teams, especially in tech companies, consistently miss their numbers quarter after quarter because they're obsessed with one question: "How much pipeline

Have you ever been working on a deal where you had this feeling, this intuition, this Spidey sense—something in the back of your mind telling you that this wasn't going to close? That you were going to waste your time? Maybe you had one of the stakeholders who was against you—an enemy. There was a naysayer who kept calling you out. Perhaps the stakeholders weren't engaged, or the incumbent vendor was so integrated into the organization that it would be very difficult to displace them. Whatever the case, you knew in the back of your mind that you weren't going to close the deal. But you kept working on it anyway. You rode that puppy to the ocean floor like the Titanic that it was. If you’ve done this, and I know you have, take heart because we've all been there. We've all had these situations, and we've later regretted them.  Top Sales Pros are Quick to Walk Away From Bad Deals  One of the traits of Ultra-High Performers that has always been true is that they're very quick to walk away from a deal they can'

Your sales team just closed a $50K deal. Marketing takes credit because the prospect downloaded three whitepapers. Sales takes credit because they nurtured the relationship for six months. Meanwhile, you're wondering why this kind of success feels so random—and why similar prospects are slipping away. Companies with misaligned sales and marketing teams waste more leads and see annual revenue decline. But businesses that achieve true alignment? They close more deals and grow revenue faster year-over-year. The difference isn't talent, budget, or market conditions. It's whether your marketing and sales teams are pulling in the same direction or accidentally sabotaging each other. Clashing Departments Can Crash Your Bottom Line The consequences of misalignment between sales and marketing are significant. One common side effect is sales teams complaining about the quality of leads generated by marketing, often dismissing them as "bad leads."  Another issue is messaging. Marketing can be blind to the value propo

Here's a question that'll make your head spin: What do you do when your top performer is crushing quota but not hitting a required talk time KPI? That's the question posed by Josh Robich and Josh Nelson from Nashville. Josh Nelson ranked 18th out of 130 reps in his first full year at a new company, but he was consistently falling short of the company's sacred talk time metric of 3 hours per day, averaging only 2.5 hours instead. Meanwhile, his company is obsessed with using talk time as its primary KPI to measure sales effectiveness. If you're shaking your head right now, you're not alone. Obsessing over the talk time KPI rather than actual sales outcomes is one of the most backward approaches to sales management I see today, and it's costing companies their best talent. The Moneyball Problem: When Metrics Become Religion Remember the movie Moneyball? Billy Beane revolutionized baseball by focusing on on-base percentage instead of traditional stats that looked impressive but didn't correlate with winning g

If you are spending more time staring at your windshield instead of looking into your customers' eyes, you are doing field sales wrong.  Over the past couple of years, there's been a resurgence in field sales. Businesses everywhere are adding field salespeople and sending representatives out into the territory to meet with customers face-to-face.  And for good reason—human beings buy from human beings. The most powerful way to anchor relationships, solve problems, and sell more is to get in front of your customers. With AI creating so much noise in the system, it's getting harder to prospect via email and social media. Going out and knocking on doors has become an easier way to connect with people, build relationships, and open up opportunities in your pipeline.  And the good news, at least for now, is that prospects are happy to see field sales pros and inviting them in to their businesses and homes.  But with the resurgence of outside sales comes an age-old problem: Field salespeople have got to travel

AI isn't here to replace you; it's here to boost your game. Used wisely, AI can be your secret weapon. AI is everywhere: in social selling, content creation, automation, to say the least. Here's the double-edged sword: If you're trying to outsource everything to AI, you won't last. If you're stuck in the old ways, refusing to adapt, you'll get left behind. Top performers are integrating AI into their workflows to make their human skills even sharper. They know AI is the edge they need to rise above the competition. Where AI Actually Delivers Value Think about how much sales time you burn on necessary tasks that don't drive revenue, like data entry and research. That's where AI shines. It handles the repetitive work faster and more accurately than you ever could. Feed it your ideal customer profile, and  you can have a filtered list of prospects before you even finish your coffee. AI can analyze thousands of LinkedIn profiles in minutes to identify prospects who match your best customers' characteristics. I

If you're in field sales, you know the reality: You spend hours every week sitting behind the windshield, staring at traffic that's moving at the speed of molasses. Whether you're dealing with Atlanta's notorious I-285 parking lot or any other major city's rush hour nightmare, that windshield time is either making you better or making you bitter. Recently on the Ask Jeb segment of the Sales Gravy podcast, Jacob Kimrey asked about helping his field sales team maximize their productivity while stuck in traffic. But here's the thing—this advice isn't just for managers to give their reps. It's for YOU, the field rep, to take control of your own success. Let me tell you how to turn those frustrating hours in traffic into your secret weapon. Driving Isn't an Accomplishment First, let's get something straight: Driving is not an accomplishment. I don't care if you put 200 miles on your car today—that doesn't mean you accomplished anything meaningful for your business. Too many field reps confuse activity with produc