Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount What to Do When You Lose Your Sales Motivation After Success (Ask Jeb)
In this engaging discussion, high-performing salesperson Matthew Feit shares his experience of reaching seven-figure success, only to find himself lacking motivation. Jeb Blount dives into the psychological impact of achievement, telling the cautionary tale of a top seller who lost his drive. They explore how motivation evolves from financial gain to deeper purpose, highlighting the importance of setting new goals, such as writing and helping others. Jeb also offers actionable steps for recalibrating one's career and reigniting passion.
17:44
Harley Restored A Winner's Drive
- Jeb told the story of Jim, a top-performing rep who stopped selling after he'd won everything.
- Structuring a commission to buy Jim a Harley reignited his motivation and sales performance.
Discipline Dies Without A Clear Why
- Discipline in sales is sacrificing short-term comfort for long-term goals.
- When the 'what you want most' becomes vague, discipline evaporates and performance falls.
Time Outvalues Tangible Rewards
- Material goals lose power once achieved, and time becomes the new scarce resource.
- High achievers often crave meaning and time rather than more money or things.
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Intro
00:00 • 52sec
The Problem of Losing Drive After Success
00:52 • 3min
Identifying What You Really Want
03:46 • 2min
When Money Stops Motivating You
06:11 • 4min
Finding New Goals: Writing and Purpose
09:41 • 5min
Ad break
15:01 • 1min
Practical Steps to Recalibrate Your Next 20 Years
16:01 • 17sec
Outro
16:18 • 1min
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Jeb Blount Jr.
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Fanatical Prospecting
The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling
Jeb Blount Jr.
Fanatical Prospecting is a detailed guide that explains the importance and methods of prospecting in sales.
The book outlines innovative approaches to prospecting, including the use of social media, telephone, email, text messaging, and cold calling.
It emphasizes the need for a balanced prospecting methodology to avoid sales slumps and keep the pipeline full of qualified opportunities.
Key concepts include the 30-Day Rule, the Law of Replacement, the Law of Familiarity, the 5 C’s of Social Selling, and various frameworks for effective prospecting.
The book is designed to help salespeople, sales leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives improve their sales productivity and grow their income by consistently and effectively prospecting.
#819
• Mentioned in 36 episodes
Inked
The Ultimate Guide to Powerful Closing and Sales Negotiation Tactics that Unlock YES and Seal the Deal
Jeb Blount
INKED is a sales-specific negotiation primer that addresses the challenges faced by sales professionals in today's market.
The book provides strategies, tactics, techniques, and human-influence frameworks to level the playing field against savvy buyers.
It emphasizes the importance of emotional discipline, preparation, and understanding power, leverage, and motivation dynamics in negotiations.
The book includes actionable advice and real-world examples to help sales professionals improve their closing rates and negotiate more effectively.
#602
• Mentioned in 44 episodes
Sales EQ
How Ultra High Performers Leverage Sales-Specific Emotional Intelligence to Close the Complex Deal
Jeb Blount Jr.
In 'Sales EQ', Jeb Blount emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence in sales, highlighting that emotions play a crucial role in decision-making rather than just rational logic.
The book explains how top sales performers use four key pillars of Sales EQ: empathy, self-awareness, self-control, and sales drive.
It also discusses the alignment of sales, buying, and decision processes, the use of micro-commitments, and the answering of critical questions that stakeholders ask themselves during the sales process.
Blount provides practical advice on mastering the psychology of influence and managing emotions to achieve ultra-high sales performance.
Here's a question that'll mess with your head: What do you do when you're making seven figures in sales, crushing every goal, and suddenly … you just don't feel the same motivation anymore?
That's the question Matthew Feit from Toms River, New Jersey, posed on an Ask Jeb episode. Matthew's living the dream that most salespeople chase their entire careers. He's at the top of his game financially. He's proven everything he set out to prove. And now he's stuck in this weird limbo where the fire that got him there has gone cold.
If you're shaking your head right now, thinking this is a champagne problem, you're missing the point. This is one of the most dangerous positions a high achiever can find themselves in, and it's costing top performers their edge every single day.
The Jim Story: When Achievement Becomes Your Enemy
Let me tell you about Jim. Years ago, when I was living in Florida, I had this sales rep who was an absolute monster. Top of the ranking report. Presidents Club. Rolex on his wrist for winning. Then one day, his director of sales wanted to put him on a performance improvement plan. In sales, a PIP means you are a dead man walking.
I drove up to Jacksonville thinking there had to be some mistake. When I sat down with Jim, I realized the problem wasn't his ability. The guy was still incredibly talented. The problem was he'd won everything there was to win, and he just didn't have the next goal driving him anymore.
Here's what I learned: The things we do in sales are hard. They're repetitive. We deal with difficult people. It takes massive discipline, which is simply sacrificing what you want now for what you want most. But when you don't know what you want most anymore, that discipline evaporates.
Jim's answer surprised me. He wanted a Harley-Davidson, but his wife wouldn't let him buy it. So I worked out a way to structure his commissions so he could get his Harley while still bringing home the money his wife expected. Suddenly, his sales went through the roof again. He had something driving him.
The Cognitive Dissonance of High Achievement
Here's what's happening with guys like Matthew and what happened with Jim: They've got this level of cognitive dissonance. Part of them is a stone-cold high achiever who needs to be achieving. The other part is saying, "I don't feel it anymore. I don't have that juice."
When you're younger or earlier in your career, you're sketching out goals constantly. I remember having a goal book where I wrote down everything I wanted. One of my goals was a house on the inter-coastal waterway in South Florida. I achieved that goal. Then one day I'm sitting there going, "Well, what do I do now?"
It's easy to get comfortable when you don't know where to go next. But comfortable is the enemy of excellence in high-performance sales cultures.
What Do You Really Want?
I hit the same wall this year. Twenty years building this business, book number 17 coming out, and I'm asking myself the same question Matthew asked: "What now?"
I finally figured it out. My wants aren't things anymore. Maybe in my 20s and 30s it was about what I was going to own, but today it's different. It's about what I want to accomplish and who I want to work with.
I realized I want to work with people and companies I know I can help. That are a challenge for me. Where I can watch them grow and enjoy seeing them succeed. Who really want to work with me and see me as part of their organization, not as a vendor.
As a result, I've been rearranging my world so I can be very picky about what I'm going to do, who I'm going to work with, and who I'm going to speak to. I want to do things that give me joy and fulfill my purpose, which is to help people sell more. That's why I believe God put me here.
The Twenty Year Vision
When I was a little older than Matthew, I looked at my life and asked: "What are the next 20 years going to be like?"
I had won every award you could win in sales. I was operating at the top level of a Fortune 200 company. I had the accolades, the money, all of it. So I asked myself that simple question.
What happened over those 20 years completely changed my life. Everything shifted. I wrote my first book when I was 38. It wasn't great. But it was my story, and it was the beginning. I made a goal to write five books in five years. Twenty years later, The LinkedIn Edge is book is number 17.
Here's the thing: When I was 38, I didn't know exactly where I'd be at 58. I just knew I was going to make a massive impact over the next 20 years as I pursued my purpose. It was simply about helping people.
Stop Thinking, Start Doing
Matthew mentioned wanting to write a book about his journey and helping other people. That's a perfect path for someone at his level.
Here's my advice: Sit down and look ahead. If you were looking at yourself 20 years from now, what would you want that person to look like? It's not so much about what you want to achieve. It's about who you want to be.
Don't wait for the perfect vision. I didn't have some crystal clear picture of where I'd be today. I just knew I needed to change and make an impact. The journey gets you there, but you have to start moving.
For Matthew and for anyone else who's climbed every mountain in their current world: You have everything it takes to do whatever you want. You know that already. But if you get more time to just sit in your vacation home, you're going to go out of your mind in no time because you'll know you're not living up to your potential.
The question isn't whether you should keep pushing. The question is: What are you pushing toward? Answer that, and the fire comes back. Ignore it, and you'll keep wondering why success doesn't feel like it used to.
The best part? Once you reconnect with your purpose and set new goals that actually matter, you'll discover that all those skills that got you to seven figures become even sharper. You're not starting over. You're leveling up.
Jeb Blount is the author of 17 books including the groundbreaking classics Fanatical Prospecting, Sales EQ, Objections, and Inked. In The LinkedIn Edge, co-authored with Brynne Tillman, Jeb teaches sales professionals how to leverage LinkedIn to build their personal brand and fill their pipeline with qualified prospects.