Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount

On this episode of the Sales Gravy podcast Jeb Blount and Keith Lubner explore sales messaging tactics for closing bigger deals. From stories to images to stepping into your buyer's shoes, these tried and true techniques will help you both grab and hold your buyer's attention and rise above your competition. There is no doubt that developing powerful sales messaging is one of the most challenging skill sets for modern sales professionals. Jeb and Keith break the process of down in a way that makes it easy to begin crafting sales messages that resonate. We want to hear from you. Let us know what you think about this episode - we love your comments and questions. Just send Jeb a text message at 1-706-397-4599 or just CLICK HERE TO TEXT. Ps. You can access Sales Gravy University Here

How to celebrate success during the pandemic? Salespeople and their leaders are asking this question. This season, the pandemic has canceled President's Club and moved Sales Kickoffs from physical meetings to virtual. Its left many sales professionals feeling that the work they did to reach the top is anti-climatic and empty. In this Sales Gravy Podcast episode,  Jeb Blount and Victor Antonio discuss the keys to celebrating success and staying motivated this year and beyond. We want to hear from you. What are you doing this year to celebrate success, reward yourself, and stay motivated? Send Jeb a text message at 1-706-397-4599 or just CLICK HERE TO TEXT. Jeb: Celebrating Victories, Big and Small We are here in studio blue with the great Victor Antonio, who I believe is one of the greatest orators of our generation. His presence on stage excites me. It's incredible, it's engaging, and his stories are real. The path that Victor took to get to where he is today is inspiring. You came up from poverty and you've built an empire since then. I want to talk about some of the issues that people are dealing with today in that context. We're in the third wave of the pandemic right now, and I'm hearing stories of salespeople who just feel down. One of the people in my insider group sent me a text message and it broke my heart. She's like, “I worked all year long. I put everything into getting to President's Club, and then we had our virtual sales kick-off. I saw my name on a bullet point on a slide and it was just completely anti-climatic. How do I celebrate this? How do I tell my family and friends that I had this victory in my life?” It hurt me because I know how that feels. I loved to walk on stage and get a trophy, I lived for that as a salesperson. In fact, I told my sales manager, “I don't care about the money. I want to win. I want the trophy.” So in this world, I thought there was no better person than you to have a conversation with. What can salespeople do to celebrate their victories, both big and small? Victor: Don’t Let Others Determine Your Value It's interesting to me that people want that external validation. A trophy is an inanimate object, you know what I mean? The real victory comes from looking at everything you've done. Take a moment to reflect and say, “Look at what I did!” and walk on your own mental stage. We all want recognition. We all want our successes to be meaningful. But if I just nailed that year, my biggest trophy was always the check. That was my trophy. For people who need that external validation, why do you need it? Why depend on somebody else’s appreciation of you to determine your value? Appreciate it. Live in that space, man. Jeb: Trophies Are The Past, Live in The Present One of the things that I've always lived by is that when you're in second place, your job is to take first place. When you're in first place, you're competing with yourself. The problem with getting good is that you get in first place, you win the trophy, and you forget who you're competing with. You forget that your job is to put the accelerator on instead of getting complacent. Looking at your trophies is living in the past. There are basically three places that you can live at any given time. You can live in the past. You can live in the present. You can live in the future. The only place that's real is the present right now, the future hasn't been written, and the past doesn't exist anymore. It's just something that happened. One of the problems that we face when we’re struggling to motivate ourselves or feel that recognition is that we're living in the wrong place. We need to spend more time in the present than these other places. Victor: The Thrill of the Journey I want to challenge your perception of your success a little. I think your joy really comes in the process of getting to the next level. It has nothing to do with actually reaching the next level. Everything’s a game of inches, and you’re a guy who lives like that. “How do I make it a little better?” “How do I fix that?” That in itself is your thrill. You’re always thinking, “What else can we do?” And there's a joy in that. For us, the fun part of the journey is to see if I can take it to the next level. Some people see that as effort or work or almost fatiguing. The person who was disappointed in just having their name in a bullet point on a presentation is one of those people. What they're not looking at are all the things they probably did that year to adjust, to make it happen. Even if they hit the same number in a pandemic year, I think that's a win. Now, if you killed it, congratulations! Really celebrate. High five yourself! Jeb: Celebrate The Little Wins Along The Way If you are building anything, whether it's a sales pipeline, a sales year, or a business, it's long stretches of grind and suck interrupted by a few brief moments of elation. So when you get the elation, you have to be able to celebrate it. You can't celebrate too long, but I do think it's part of the journey. In many cases, people don't take the time to celebrate the little wins. You have to be in the moment, enjoy the journey and the small victories along the way. Long stretches of pain, long stretches of grind, and a few brief moments of elation. That’s the formula. It's not a lot of elation and a little bit of grind. It doesn't work that way. You've got to pay for success in advance with some pain. Victor: Little Celebrations Every Day I want to go back to the person with their name on a bullet point. They think, “I did all of this work. I expected something at the end and for somebody to give it to me.” And what you're saying is, why don't you just give it to yourself every day on a daily basis after you do something cool? I'd rather have a lot of small little celebrations over 365 days than wait for one big one at the end. A big one's always going to disappoint me, but man, if I can celebrate 365 wins, I'm good. Jeb: Changing Your Self-Talk An optimist says, “Hey, let me move to the next thing, move to the next thing, move to the next thing.” And I think that optimism also allows you to change your self-talk. And one of the things that I read recently is that the way that we talk to ourselves is much faster than the way that we speak normally. We're speaking up to 4,000 words per minute to ourselves in our head because we compress the way that we talk to ourselves in our brains. Let's say that you went to your sales kickoff and your name got up there, and then you felt like it was anti-climatic. If you're telling yourself that over and over and over again, when you leave, you're like, “Oh God, I didn't get what I needed.” And you become the victim, instead of saying, “My name was on the bullet point. I mean, there were a thousand other salespeople out there. None of the other people got recognized.” It’s all in the way you look at it and how you talk to yourself. Jeb: Learn How To Fail Fast In this environment, you have to learn how to fail fast. When you're in a situation and you are trying new things, you have to always be iterating. I've probably got a hundred thousand dollars of studio equipment in a closet someplace because we tried them and they didn't work. So we said, “Let's do it again.” We didn't say we're never going to buy anything again. We said, “We still know what we want to accomplish. What we're looking for, this just isn't going to get us there. Let's do something else.” So we get better and better and better. I think this is also part of optimism. It’s looking around and every time you see something, explore it. You have to be present and say, "Look, this didn't work.” And instead of beating yourself up for it, say, “I learned that it didn't work. Let's try something else. Let's do something else." You have to keep trying. Do it again, do it again, do it again. Iterate, iterate, iterate. And I think that is a big part of me being in the present. I love iteration. I love doing something and finding out, “Okay. I can make it a little bit better. Let's do it again. I can make it a little bit better. I can get a little bit better at this.” Over time, that creates small victories. Victor: Just Be Better Than You Were Yesterday I think it's all momentum, isn't it? Just be better than who you were yesterday. That's all it is, right? That's your motivation to be better— who you were yesterday. That's the true competition because if you start looking at what other people are doing, you lose focus on what you should be doing and what is meaningful to you. When you look at what other people have, you start saying, “Why don't I have that? I should have that.” It really takes the focus off of what you really want. Your journey is your journey alone. It sounds so cliche, but the toughest road to success is the road back to you. It isn't until you figure out who you want to be, how you want to roll, that you're going to be happy. There is no external validation that can beat that. I don't know about you, but I have my own happy dance. I do a 30-second happy dance. And I do it at my desk. Nobody else sees it. Nobody else will ever see it. But it's my dance. I love that because it's my personal celebration moment. That's what matters.

Coronavirus is Testing Mental Resilience The Coronavirus third wave is putting a strain on the mental resilience of sales professionals and impacting performance. From New Possibilities to Managing Mental Resilience   The last time I came to you with the coronavirus talk was back in July. Back then we were talking about new possibilities— about how going through a crucible of adversity helps you lift the chains of limitations off of yourself so that you can see that anything is possible if you make the choice to persevere.  I come to you now in January, during the third wave of the coronavirus, because I’m noticing a big problem. Salespeople are beginning to wear out. In some cases, it's depression and loneliness. In other cases, it's waiting and hoping for this to all be over and constantly having your hopes dashed.  All of this stress and anxiety combine to put you in a situation where you just don't feel very good about life. In sales, if you don't feel good about life, it's going to be really, really hard to feel good about selling.  Mental and Physical Drain The net result is that many people just feel mentally and physically drained. In sales, you need a great deal of mental resilience because you often face so much rejection. The job is hard. And now, you have to work twice as hard to accomplish your sales goals.  In this environment, you need a great deal of intellectual acuity in order to outwit your competitors. Mental acuity requires a great deal of physical stamina. Likewise, mental resilience is directly impacted by physical resilience.  If you're allowing those days when you just feel depressed to take you down with them, then it's going to be a lot harder to to to gain the physical stamina that you need.  A Challenge to Focus on You So my challenge to you on this Coronavirus Talk is to go look in the mirror: Are you taking care of yourself? Drinking too much? Eating too much or the wrong things? Getting enough exercise? Are you doing things to your body that make it harder for you to recover mentally?  If the answer is yes, resolve to make changes. Reach deep down inside of yourself and find the discipline. Before I made these changes, I didn't feel good, didn't really look good, and I wasn't performing at my very best. Flip forward a couple of months, with a real focus and discipline on taking care of my physical health, and I'm in a much better place. I've got so much more energy and feel much more equipped to handle the disappointments, stress, and anxiety that come along with this horrible pandemic.  Take Action So take action now. Start eating right, getting enough sleep, and exercising. Do this and I promise you that you will not only get through this, but you'll also put yourself in a position to win on the other side.  I want to hear from you. What are you doing to keep yourself mentally and physically fit during this pandemic? Send me a text message at 1-706-397-4599 or just CLICK HERE TO TEXT. More Coronavirus Talk Episodes: Prospecting Coronavirus Talk #1 Excuses Coronavirus Talk #2 The Gift of Time Coronavirus Talk #3 Confusion Coronavirus Talk #4 Fear and Worry Coronavirus Talk #5 On Mourning Coronavirus Talk #6 Gratitude Coronavirus Talk #7 On New Possibilities #8

On this episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount (Virtual Selling) and Matthew Pollard (The Introverts Edge to Networking) take on networking for introverts. One of the biggest myths about networking is that to be an effective networker you need to have the “gift-of-gab" and be an outgoing self-promoter. The truth is, it's just the opposite. In fact, introverts often make the best networkers. You just need a plan, system, and authenticity. On this paradigm-shifting podcast episode, you learn tips and tactics for leveraging your innate introvert superpowers to target prospects and influencers, engage in networking conversations, and turn networking into a repeatable system that helps you build your business and pipeline. Join Jeb Blount's Insider Group. Text "insider" to 1-706-397-4599 or HERE Matthew: The Inspiration Behind The Introvert’s Edge to Networking A lot of people don't like networking and I think it's because they don't understand what networking really is. They go to networking events and they see these people that do transactional networking. They have these surface-level conversations with people and they walk out with all these business cards without having a real conversation with anyone. The cards sit on their desk and they think, “If they call me, then I'll work with them.” And of course, they never do. So they had this mindset that networking just doesn't work. People need to be more strategic when they’re networking. Secondly, networking doesn't just take place in a networking room. People assume you have to be face to face because it doesn't work virtually. And now people are realizing they can actually sell more if they stay at home. Networking is the same way. Most people don't even know how to articulate the value of what they offer in three minutes when someone is politely listening. What chance do they have when someone gives them half a second online? Jeb: What to Do With That Stack of Business Cards I was working with a group of CPAs who were going to networking events, but they weren't really getting anything out of them. When I asked about their process, they said, “We talk to people, collect their business cards, and then we come back and wait for them to call us.” I asked why they don’t call them, and they said, “Well, we do call them, but sometimes we'll call them like three or four weeks later. We don’t want to bother them right after the networking event.” This is not hard. Why don't you try calling them 24 hours after the networking event? Because they're probably going to remember you right away. They won’t remember you in a month from now. The advice I gave them was this: The next networking event you go to, when you get their business card, write down something about the person on the back of the business card. As I walk away, I go to my LinkedIn app on my phone and I send them a connection request. The probability that they accept my request goes up exponentially. They also gave me a business card that usually has their cell phone number on it. So I send them a text message that says, “It was so nice meeting you, thank you so much for the conversation. I'll give you a call tomorrow.” And then I call them the next day. If you do that, appointments go up exponentially. We followed up with this group a couple of weeks later, and sure enough, it was working for them. Suddenly they were meeting people, calling them, and getting meetings. What’s your take on starting conversations, following up, and making connections online? Matthew: Follow-Up Doesn’t Have To Be Awkward If I take a sales mindset, maybe with people on social media, after I walking out of the room means that we are starting to foster that relationship. I'll connect with them on LinkedIn. Depending on your relationship, why not connect with them on Facebook? Check them out on Instagram. One of the things I tell people is to look people up on LinkedIn beforehand who you know will be there. Instead of all these unfamiliar faces, you actually have a bunch of people you've already connected with before you go. It shouldn't be a bunch of preplanned conversations, but tell them, “I look forward to speaking with you tomorrow.” You should never stop a conversation without a plan for your next follow-up. The problem is when you introduce yourself incorrectly, it leads to this kind of awkward conversation where you say, “Oh, I'm in insurance.” They’ll say something like, “I've already got insurance. Thanks.” Now you have an awkward exchange before you have to ask them what they do and then the conversation's over. Change the Dynamic of Networking Conversations My suggestion is to change the dynamic altogether. I had this guy come to me and he said, “I love selling insurance. But when I go to networking events and tell people I sell insurance, I watch their eyes scream. They're like, ‘How do I get out of this conversation in less than three minutes? Can I go to the bathroom? Can I go to the bar?’” So he explains to people what he does, but he already knows what they’re going to say. And then he feels obligated to ask them. Now he’s just wasted the money and the time of going. It's stressful. If you're commoditizing yourself and saying, “I fit in this category,” I already know from the moment I speak to you, I can disqualify you or say I don’t need it. That's what most people do in the numbers game of transactional sales networks. You want to introduce yourself differently, but to do that, I need to know why you actually care about this product. If you don't care about the product or service that you're selling and you don't think it adds value, find something else. What I find is that most people gravitate to the products and services that they are connected with in some way, shape, or form. Why Are You Passionate About What You Sell? I asked him why he was passionate about selling insurance, and he said he likes to help people. I told him it needs to get deeper than that. Between a person that earns $50k a year versus somebody that earns $250k, which one do you care about helping most? He said he would pick the person who makes $250k because he can sell them more stuff. I told him that's not really where we want to go with this. What about a guy that hustles to get into a Harvard degree and got into a C-level executive role where he makes $250k, versus someone that started their own business out of nothing, hired on a bunch of people, and now they make $250k. Which one of those do you care about helping most? And he said, “Obviously the small business owner. I just feel like they deserve more help because my grandfather got a business, owned a farm, and hired all these people. Then he got sick and ended up having to sell it. I just watched him wither away and die for 10 years in front of the TV in this little apartment, because that's what he could afford.” Story Matters So I said, “Here’s what I want you to think about instead of going in and introducing yourself as an insurance salesperson. Why not introduce yourself as the 'hustle lifeguard'? When people ask what that is, you then talk about your passion and mission, helping the hustlers of this world, the people who create something out of nothing. You'll find that people will gravitate to you.” What was funny is that the small business owners that heard that, they're like, “I need that. You're right. I'm not prioritizing, I don't want to end up like your grandfather.” But people who aren’t small business owners almost never seem passionate about what they do, so they hear his story and they want to extend his passion into what they do. They're like, “I'm not in a small business, but could I work with you too?” It transformed everything. He went from an employee to starting his own business, and his business exploded. Matthew: Get Them Talking First One of the introvert’s strengths is our ability to be empathetic, ask great questions, and really listen to what the answers are. An extrovert often wants to talk about themselves. Extroverts can learn how to actively listen and empathize, but introverts believe they can't learn to do those other behaviors, and the key isn't about being more extroverted. That's a true recipe for failure and feeling inauthentic. You have to learn a system that channels your introverted strengths. The thing that I will tell you though, is absolutely like when you go and speak to someone for the first time, it's about being interested, not interesting. A lot of people get worried that they've got nothing to add. The person that's networking wants to talk about themselves. So if you ask, “What brought you to this networking event?” something will come up. Or, “What's going on in your life at the moment?” Maybe they’ll say, “Oh, I just got promoted.” Be genuinely excited for them. Or if they say, “Oh, no, I always didn't get here because something's going on at the office,” ask them questions about it. Empathize with them. Offer assistance or advice. Somebody will say, “Oh my gosh, I can't believe I haven't even asked you what it is that you do!” And then you get permission to answer. Networking In Everyday Situations I like to travel economy sometimes, because going on a short flight, I find that a lot of people these days don't want to spend the extra money on first-class for a short flight. So I'll sit down and I'll have a conversation where the first thing I'll say is, “Are you going home, or are you heading out for a meeting?” And a lot of times they'll say, “Oh, I'm heading out to a meeting,” especially if it's the morning. And we'll then have a dialogue. I'll joke about the fact that I won't pay for first-class for short rides to create this dialogue. Now we're having a dialogue about all the people that are in first class. There's a story in the book actually about one of the best relationships I created was literally at an airport.

On this episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast Jeb Blount (People Follow You) and Kristie Jones discuss the trials and tribulations of building and sustaining a sales accountability culture. You'll learn that without accountability your sales team will generate inconsistent results and devolve into the wild, wild west. Kristie: How I Developed My Passion for Creating a Sales Accountability Culture I actually started in SaaS sales leadership back in 2000. As I progressed through my career, I started to work for some VC-backed companies, and I got that VC-backed startup bug. Accountability is so critical when you're dealing with people who have given you money and expect a return on the investment. Early-stage startups and fast-growing startups are all about urgency and results. I was working as a VP of Sales and it was clear that those environments needed to have a sales accountability culture. We needed to create and maintain one. In about 2016, I left the W2 world and started my own sales consultancy. I'm passionate about helping early-stage tech startups build their sales teams and formalize their process. I spend a ton of time doing executive coaching on accountability culture. I'm still walking into companies and talking to them about accountability culture after really not seeing it. That includes everything from not having firm quotas, to not dealing with “accountability dodgers”. Jeb: Too Much Money, Not Enough Leadership In some cases, there’s zero leadership, too much money, and people run wild. In other cases, you've just got a founder who is trying to put everything together. There's an inflection point where if you don't create some accountability, it's a disaster. What advice do you have for a business, no matter where they fit on that spectrum, for sales leaders or executives, to shift into an accountability culture? Kristie: Expectations Are The Foundation Of A Sales Accountability Culture It starts with setting expectations and putting those in writing. In the middle of this pandemic, it’s more important than ever. There's more uncertainty than ever before, which also means that sales reps need accountability more than ever before. They need to understand: “What will cause me to lose my job?” Everybody's worried about that. They need to understand the circumstances around that. A sales accountability culture starts during the interview process. During the interview process, I'm already starting to set expectations just by the behavioral-based interview questions that I'm asking to ensure that people will walk their talk and that people will fall on the sword when they need to. During the start of COVID-19, I went back to all of my clients and former clients and wrote a little how-to menu and said, “You have to create accountability around the work schedule because the work schedule is not eight-to-five anymore. You have to understand what you can expect from them, even from a work schedule standpoint.” Also, expectations are a two-way street. As a leader, I can't just sit down with you and say, "Here are my expectations, let’s negotiate them and put them in writing." I also need to say, “Here's what you can expect from me.” And then, at the end of our expectations meeting, I ask, “What do you want me to do if you don't hold up your end of the bargain?” I let them set their own consequences. Why would I wait until it's gone south on me, just to go back to fix it in a way that may not work for the rep? I hear everything from, “I need a gentle reminder,” to, “I need you to take me out to lunch, clearly something's going on and I need some one-on-one attention.” I hear a lot of different answers to that question, but I write those down on the document, too. And so it's so much easier for me to go to a rep who's not walking their talk and say, “We had this conversation and this is what we discussed. This is what you told me to do if you weren’t holding yourself accountable. I think we're at that place, so now we can have that conversation.” Kristie: Don't Wait For A Crisis To Have Clear Communication I let the conversation happen a couple of different ways. So I want that first conversation to happen in the first one or two weeks of onboarding. I spend a lot of time helping my founders onboard new reps, and I build that in. I create an hour-by-hour, day-by-day, formal onboarding plan for the first two weeks for my founders, including a two-hour expectations conversation. If I worked with the founder before, they can run through that themselves. I want them to understand not only expectations but also communication. For example, how does the employee want to be communicated with? We're dealing with a lot of Gen Y and Gen Z, right? So they like having conversations over Slack. And I always say to people, when my door is open, you're welcome to come in. But I run a very tight schedule. I say to them, if it's a 911, you better text me. If you need an answer in 24 hours, email me. Those are expectation conversations, too, that people just don't think about. Business is shifting so quickly that you really need quarterly expectations conversations. You can't just set expectations in week two and expect them to not change by month nine. So we need to sit down quarterly as a team. What are the expectations of the team, as well as individual expectations? We're going to have these conversations upfront so we don't have to have a very awkward conversation in the middle of a crisis. Jeb: Why Expectations Matter That expectation meeting matters, because when I look back on the early stages of our company, our biggest mistake was not having those conversations. So when there was a crisis, it was pretty easy for the employee to look at me and say, "You didn't tell me what to do." And there is a truth in the fact that if people think they're doing the right thing, it didn't even occur to them to do anything else. Kristie: A Rep's Failure Is Also The Leader's Failure You've got to go in with that attitude. I assume everyone is doing the best they can. Sometimes the best they can do is subpar, but only because I failed them as the leader. When executive coaching, I’m teaching them how to do this because my clients can not afford to make hiring mistakes. They can't afford to let people go because they didn't know they should have had these conversations. And now things are so left of center that there's no coming back to the center. I think one of the harder things for people who are the hiring manager, whether that be the founder, whether that be HR, whether it be the VP of sales, is that you might’ve mis-hired. That's accountability for yourself. That's saying, "I made a bad hire. I've got to fix my own problem." And again, it's not the employee's fault. I always take full responsibility for bad hires because I should know better. We had a mis-hire that happened, and I consulted with the founder and said, "This person is not qualified for this job. You're going to set them up to fail, and it's never going to be their fault." And now seven months later, after two of the four sales reps quit, now we've got ourselves a problem. Now we have to make the decision we should've made if we were disciplined during the hiring process. But the other thing that people don't realize is the morale problem that it causes. When I terminate a rep for accountability issues or non-performance and another rep walks in my office and closes the door and says, "We weren't sure how long it was going to take you," it's embarrassing. The managers always are the last to know, right? We're not living amongst the gossip and we're not going out for a beer afterward with the employees, but I've had that happen to me two or three times over 20 years. And it is embarrassing and humiliating that your team was waiting patiently for you to get rid of the bad apple so we could change the culture on the sales floor. Jeb: Leaders Must Be Accountable To Themselves That is one of the keys to creating a sales accountability culture. You've got to recognize that people who aren't accountable pull down and hold back the very best of the best salespeople. They are lifted up when they're surrounded by people who are accountable to the mission, accountable to the numbers, and accountable to integrity. I think sales is a competitive environment where everybody is working to get to the top of the leaderboard. There can't be backbiting and people doing side deals behind your back. And I've had that happen in my own business and people didn't tell me, so I found out later on. It pulls the entire organization down. Even if they are your top salesperson, it pulls everybody down around them. That’s just a key part of building that accountability. One of my early leaders and mentors, Mary Gardner, who in my early twenties taught me how to be a sales leader, said to me: If you have to fire somebody, the first thing you do is go into the restroom, look in the mirror, look yourself in the eye, and you say, “This is my fault. It is my fault that I have to fire this person. I own this, I'm accountable for this.” Then you go fire them. It sounds weird on the outside, but it was a really important lesson. I'll have leaders even say to me, “Well, I didn't hire that person.” But they don’t get a free pass on that, either. You’re firing this person and it's your fault because you couldn't coach them. It's your fault because you couldn't make them better, and it’s usually your fault because you hired them in the first place. You did it too quickly and you didn't ask the right questions. I think that as leaders, if we're accountable to ourselves, then it's easier for us to lead from a place where we're saying that this is a place where we're all going to be accountable for the things we've promised the organization. Kristie: How To Begin Creating A Sales Accountability Culture Don't forget that it's a two-way street.

On this inspiring episode of the Sales Gravy podcast, Jeb Blount (Virtual Selling) talks to Brian Knox, owner and founder of B Knox Photography. This young entrepreneur leveraged Fanatical Prospecting to quickly ramp up his successful and fast-growing photography business that he started this year. This conversation about sales and entrepreneurship is both educational and inspirational. Sales and the things that we do in sales matter, wherever we are in life. And we can all chase and achieve our dreams if we just make the decision to take action.     Listen all Sales Gravy Podcast episodes here. Brian: Why I Started My Business I was in corporate life from the time I graduated college in 2000, all the way up until 2020, and the last four jobs that I had in the corporate world were inside sales and customer service. Then between 2013 and 2015, I moved into more of a pure sales role where I was cold calling.  Our training was basically watching a guy do it for two days. Then they hand you a computer and a phone and you're kind of on your own. There wasn't a lot of sales training. That was when I first found your material, because I was honestly trying to ease the pain of, “How do I sit here for eight hours a day and drum up business?” I was averse to it. Then, I moved into a sales coaching role with a local plumbing, air, and electric company where I was teaching their technicians some of the basics of sales psychology, and going out in the field, and helping them with their sales process. After that, I was in development at Habitat for Humanity of Greenville, which was essentially a sales role. That's where I put into practice what I had learned in those first few years, and what I was teaching the guys on the field, in order to bring in donations for Habitat for Humanity. I finally left that job to start the photography business full-time in February of this year. Brian: What Photography Means to Me I got my first digital camera in 2004 or 2005. My dad was into photography. He didn't train me, but I was at least exposed to him having a camera. When I got my own digital camera, that kind of launched it for me. It was very simple to make art by just going out and clicking a shutter. I did it as a hobby and on the side. I started picking up initial gigs, which were typically family. I chugged along making a little money for about ten years. But then I began to apply sales techniques to what was my side hustle, at that point. I started to get traction with that and then I went through six months of wrestling with the question, "Do I quit and go full time with this, or do I just kind of keep it as a side thing?" I felt that it was more of a contribution to society and to the world to take my skill and talent and give that in the form of photography, as opposed to being in the sales trenches.  Jeb: On Entrepreneurial Journeys I remember when I first started Sales Gravy 13 years ago, we were in the middle of the Great Recession and I had to make a pivot in my career. I decided that at that point in my life, I was either going to be an entrepreneur, or not. I always wanted to run my own business. Because I was good at selling and great in the corporate world, there wasn't a lot of incentive until I found myself on the street trying to figure out what I was going to do. But for about three years, I was constantly terrified that I was going to fail. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Like, am I going to make it, am I going to have to crawl back and beg for a job? What was it like when you first started? And are you still in that place of, "Do I let go of what I'm used to"? Brian: If You Try, You Can't Fail It's gone really well this year, but I definitely have those same concerns. I also remember waking up in the middle of the night and wrestling with things like, "Well, what if it rains that whole next day? Then I can't do the outdoor construction shoot, so I don't make any money." Your brain just goes to all of these irrational places about why you're going to fail. Someone told me to remember that it's reversible. If at some point it's not going well, you can turn around and go back and get a day job or a W2 job. You also hear people say to burn the boats and don't give yourself an opportunity to go back, then you'll drive yourself to success. I was in that first group that was like, I'm going to go try this. I'll regret it if I don't. And if all else fails, then I can go back and get a regular job. The stakes were higher because I had the Habitat job, which was the best job that I ever had. Those are the best people. It was the best mission. It was my favorite job. I felt like if I failed, I'd have to go back to something that just wasn't as great. But if you go out and try, I don't see it as a failure. If you don't have great success, and you do have to turn around, I think the credit still goes to the person in the arena, the person who goes out and tries their hand at their dream.  Jeb: Attracting Customers in A Competitive Industry I think there's a lot to be said about how your belief system and your attitude attract people and opportunities into your life. I believe that about prospecting as well. I think the salespeople who are prospecting get lucky. It's not always a direct, "I talked to this person, therefore I get", but more like, "I talked to this person, they told somebody that links with somebody else, my phone rings."And sometimes we don't put all those dots together, but I do believe that's true.  Photography is one of those professions where people have that dream and then they get into it and they don't realize how insanely competitive it is. Everybody wants to be a photographer. Many people get into photography and very quickly exit because they find it hard to make a living. I think this is important for salespeople as well. They're out there thinking, "Man, my competitors, they got lower prices, they got this, they're beating me up, blah, blah, blah." You jumped into one of the most competitive industries in the world and tried to make a living in it. Talk to me about that.  Brian: People Buy You I think people buy you. I really believe that. The marketplace is super crowded. There are a hundred other photographers that can come and take your real estate listing photos, your headshot photos, your company's website photos, and do it well. You really end up, especially as an entrepreneur, selling yourself, your vision, your passion, your process, how you go through homework before the shoot, your personality, and how you respond to texts and emails. Jumping into a crowded marketplace is daunting, but in another way, it really lets you express yourself fully and be who you are. By being a little different, by being unique in some way, you can separate yourself from the competition. I just started to sell myself. I shared my life and my photos on social media, and that started to attract what I've been able to build into a pipeline.  Jeb: Real World Applications — Clients in Real Estate The more people you talk with, the more pictures you take, the more clients you have, the more opportunities that come in. Let’s break down the real estate example. If you're working with a couple of brokers and they're listing houses, what they really want is they want to trust that you're going to pick up the phone when they call. You're going to go get the job done. You're going to go get the photos that they want because you've taken time to understand them. And then you're going to get it up and running for them fast on Zillow so that they don't have to think about it, so they can go focus on real estate. They could probably go take the pictures themselves, right? But they want to go knock on another door and get another listing.  Brian: Time is Money Exactly. I'm not selling just a well-exposed bedroom photograph, I'm selling that real estate agent their time back. I was able to understand the value of sales. I started to see it in my own journey, my own life. The realtors are selling their butts off every day. They can have another meeting, another coffee, get another contract. That's what's paying their bills. Shooting photos is a very low-value activity for them. That's what I would put right in the copy I would send to real estate agents. I'm not saying my photos are tremendously better than anyone else's, but you can trust me and rely on me to operate efficiently so that you can move on to a higher leverage activity, like getting the next lead into your pipeline.  Jeb: Problem Solvers Are The Champions of The World Problem solvers are the champions of the world. Photographers, they're pitching pictures, but you're pitching what your pictures solve. It's the service. It's peace of mind. For example, if you're taking pictures of a wedding or of someone's family pictures, there's a lot of emotion involved. What I’ve found with those types of relationships is that it's the photographer that sits down and creates the entire experience. It's not just that they're snapping photos, but they're sitting down and talking with us and asking us, what do you want? And what's important to you? What do you want to capture? What are you looking for? What are your family values? And by listening to us and making us feel like we're part of the process. Then there's the artwork on the back end to make them look the way that you want them to look. But it’s still the same thing. It's not about the picture, it's about the emotion that we feel while we're working with that individual person. And it's that emotion that causes us to tell other people. Your buyer's emotional experience while they're working with you is a more consistent predictor of outcome than any other variable. You said this, people buy you, right? But you have to talk to people.  As an entrepreneur,

Sales Myth: You Have to Sell Yourself Most of us, at one time or another in our careers, have heard some trainer or manager exclaim, “You have to sell yourself.” “If you want to get that job, son, you have to sell yourself.” “The real key to sales is your ability to sell yourself.” “If you want others to like you, you’ll have to sell yourself.” The Sell Yourself Cliche This philosophy is prevalent in business culture. A while back, I was at an Ivy League University for a speech by a successful businessman to a group of MBA students from the top business schools in the world. The speaker was so well respected that when he walked into the room there was a hush. The audience members were on the edge of their seats in anticipation. And what was the message? What was the secret of success that this revered businessman offered? “Never forget how important it is in business to first sell yourself.” The entire audience nodded in unison. For this wise man and many others, the phrase sell yourself  has become an easy-to-use cliche´. It just rolls off the tongue. Like the audience at the speech I attended, most people will nod their heads in agreement to the statement as if some prophet on a hill had just read it from stone tablets. People Buy You for Their Reasons, Not Yours Sales expert and bestselling author Jeffrey Gitomer teaches a simple philosophy, “People love to buy but they hate to be sold.” In other words, most people prefer to buy on their terms. They do not want or appreciate a hard pitch or a features dump. They buy for their reasons not yours. Yet daily salespeople across the globe, on the phone, video calls, email, social media, and in person, sell to their customers by dumping data, pushing their position, or simply trying to talk their way into a sale. They sell themselves to anyone else they can get to stand still for more than five minutes. But it does not work, because people like to buy, they don’t like to be sold. When You Try to Sell Yourself You Push People Away The harder you try to sell yourself to others, the more you push them away. A conversation where the other person tells you all about themselves, their accomplishments, and how great they are is a turnoff. It is a features dump. Think about it, the most unlikeable human in the world is the person standing in front of you talking about themself. You don’t walk away from that conversation thinking how much you would like to spend more time with them. Instead you think, “What a jerk,” or “How boring,” or “Wow,  that guy is full of himself.” We Love to Talk About Our Favorite Person Still, we do love the opportunity to sell ourselves. Most of us, if given the opportunity, will talk for hours about our favorite person, oblivious to the negative impact it has on how we are viewed by others. When pressed, experts who are quick to tell you to sell yourself, are unable to explain exactly how to do it. Sure, they will offer tips, but it's mostly hyperbole. Here is the brutal truth: You cannot sell yourself to others; you have to get others to buy you on their terms. You're Talking, They Aren't Buying Even if you are preceded by a great reputation and others are anticipating meeting you, your attempts to sell yourself can backfire. I learned this lesson at a speech I gave to a large dinner group. One of the audience members was such a big fan of one of my books, that he lobbied the meeting organizer to be seated right next to me. During dinner he asked me questions, and I talked and talked and talked—about me. A few days after the speech, I called the meeting organizer to follow up and offer my thanks. I thanked him for seating Daniel next to me and asked him if Daniel had had a good time. He hesitated for a moment and finally said, “I’m telling you this because I like you; but Daniel did not come away with a very good opinion of you.” It was like being punched in the gut! I responded that I thought that we had a great conversation and asked what went wrong. The meeting planner explained that Daniel felt that all I did was talk about myself. The truth hurts. I sold, but Daniel did not buy. Stop Trying to Sell Yourself, and Step Into The Other Person's Shoes People buy you for their reasons, not for your reasons. So, when we sell people on why they should like us or buy from us, it backfires. However, when step into their shoes, truly listen, and build bridges to what is important to them, it creates a powerful connection that makes almost anything possible. Learn how to gain influence through Effective Listening Skills

The Fine Art of Blending Text Messaging Into Your Account Management Process I love blending text messaging into my account management process. As a communication tool, it’s fast, efficient, less formal than email, and allows for arm’s-length, nonintrusive, synchronous communication that still feels personal.  There are two reasons why blending text messaging into your account management process works: It’s mobile. Text messaging is integrated into the mobile and wearable devices that are attached to us 24/7. These are the primary communications devices in our lives and businesses. Everyone has a mobile phone, and for Apple users, text is integrated across all devices and desktops.   It’s treated as a priority. One of the key reasons why text messages work so well is that most people feel compelled to read and/or respond to them immediately.   Text is a Versatile For Account Management Text messaging is extremely versatile virtual communication channel. You can attach videos, images, voice messages, and links to articles and resources. And, when the person you are texting is not available, texting shifts from synchronous to asynchronous communication.  For account management and communicating with customers text messaging is a tremendous tool. It helps you nurture and maintain relationships, keeps customers updated, and allows you to quickly respond to concerns from anywhere.  It's for these reasons that text messaging is the perfect virtual communication channel to blend into your account management system and process. Text messages are an easy way to:  Check the pulse of your accounts Show appreciation Send account updates and data. Send insight and educational resources. Keep key contacts apprised of shipments and order information. Be proactive with solving issues. Send offers and specials. The real key to blending text into your account management process is ensuring that your text messages are intentional, systematic, and part of an account management plan The Truth About Why You Really Lose Accounts A brutal truth is that most customers are lost because of neglect. Not prices, not products, not the economy, not aggressive competitors. Neglect! Neglect happens slowly. It creeps up on customer relationships.  Salespeople delude themselves into believing that if their customers are not complaining, they must be happy. So, they spend all of their time putting out fires and dealing with squeaky wheels, all the while ignoring accounts that that don’t raise their hand.  Wrapped up in this warm blanket of delusion, salespeople swing the door open and invite competitors in. Assume Every Account is At Risk Aggressive competitors don’t miss an opportunity to displace salespeople who neglect their customers. When you fail to proactively anchor your customer relationships, those competitors slip through and encourage buyers to consider other options.  This is exactly why you must never lose sight of the long-term consequences of neglecting accounts.  Relationships matter and must be protected against an onslaught of competitors. You must not take any relationship for granted. Assume that every customer and every relationship is at risk.  I’m not saying this is easy. One of the hardest things to do is keep your fingers on the pulse of your customer base.  Quarterly business reviews and other formal meeting are time consuming. You probably have a large account base and you can’t possibly meet with everyone. Every single day you are putting out fires and dealing with immediate customer service issues.  Pay Attention to Your Accounts The good news is the one secret to defending your accounts is completely in your control. Pay attention to them.   A simple, regular, inexpensive check-in by text message can make all the difference. It doesn’t need to be anything particularly special. You don’t need a reason to tell your customers that you appreciate them. How are you doing?  What can I do to help you?  I have an idea for you. I thought you might like to read this article. Here is a link to a resource that I thought you might find valuable.    Have a great weekend. Thank you for your business.  Staying in regular contact with your accounts ensures that you are top of mind with customers. It lets them know that you care.  Just remember,  it doesn’t cost a thing to pay attention to your customers.  The Dark Side of Text Messaging and Account Management Even though text messaging is a quick and convenient channel for communicating with your accounts, you must not allow text messaging to become a substitute for meeting with you customers by phone, video, and in-person.  I recently ended a several-year relationship with one of my vendors because my account manager was just “texting it in.” We’d always used text as a way to stay in touch. I appreciated being able to communicate with him and quickly get questions asked or problems solved. I’d even made several purchases after he sent me special offers in text messages.  A year earlier, though, text became his primary channel. Where we used to talk, now he never called. He was no longer blending texting into his account management process; texting had become his account management process.  If he had an upsell or special offer, he sent it via text. When it was time to restock, he sent a text. Soon, I started to feel that he was taking me for granted, like he felt he no longer needed to make an effort in order to keep my business.  This is the dark side of text messaging. It’s fast and easy, but it is not a substitute for talking with people and investing in relationships.  Sadly, for my account manager, one of his competitors called me. She invested in the relationship. I gave her a little of my business and she did a great job. As the business relationship bloomed, I gave her more and more of my business. Soon, she had it all.  And my old account manager? He has still not called. But I did get a text message from him this morning asking how I was doing. All I can do is SMH. Take a moment now and do two things: Send a text message to a customer just to say that you appreciate them. Consider how you might begin blending text messaging into your account management process. Direct messaging is a SALES MEGA-TREND. More than four billion people communicate on mobile messaging tools each day. Learn how to gain a massive competitive edge with strategies, tactics, techniques, and tips for leveraging text & direct messaging for prospecting, sales, and account management in our course: The NEW Essentials of Text & Direct Messaging

Sales Follow Up Superpowers On this Sales Gravy Podcast episode Jeb Blount (Virtual Selling) and Jeff Shore (Follow Up and Close the Sale) discuss the two sales follow up superpowers: Speed and Personalization. The brutal truth is that salespeople have a big problem with follow up and it is holding them back. The good news, is this is a problem that is easy to fix. On this episode you'll actionable tips and tactics that will instantly improve your sales follow up skills. BONUS: Download our FREE How to Manage Your B2B Sales Team From Home guide to get the scoop on how top sales leaders are getting more productivity from their remote sales teams.

On this episode of the Sales Gravy podcast,  Jeb Blount (Virtual Selling) and Alex Goldfayn (5 Minute Selling) discuss the massive impact of small actions, done a little bit, every day. Listen to the other episodes in the series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three Jeb – Does Faith Matter in Sales? Alex, I've got a question for you about faith. This is not a religious question. It's a faith question.   You are very convincing human being. You say that sales can be done in 5 minutes a day. Talk to people, call old customers, run the system. It works.  So, I do it one day. Nothing happens. Then do it the next day and nothing happens. I do it the next day and still nothing happens. Then by the 4th day I'm like, “Alex told me to do this stuff, and I made these phone calls, but I didn't sell anything. So, I’m going back to sending emails because that’s easier.”  How important is faith in the system, over a long period of time, to actualizing the five-minute selling process?  Alex – On Faith in Yourself Great question. Faith is a great word in sales.  Faith in the system is really about faith in yourself.   This is important because, in sales we deal with failure and overcoming failure is the key to success.  Faith is continuing to do the right things even when they're not working as well as you would like, because they are still the right things.    In the book I have a two-week challenge: Give me 5-minutes a day for two weeks - that's 50 minutes over 10 days. That is just five proactive outbound prospecting calls a day.   If you do that for two weeks, you will find more open opportunities and more close opportunities. It’s just two weeks of faith and here is no way that you won't improve your sales position.   Jeb– On The Cumulative Impact of Small Actions It's all about cumulative impact. The cumulative impact of small actions every day. Over time, these small actions add up to real numbers.   But this requires faith because you can't prospect for a day, you can't do follow up for a day, you can’t do anything for a day and expect everything to suddenly change. It just doesn't work that way. You've got to do a little bit every day and keep doing it over time.   Now let me give you the flip side of this question. What happens when it starts working?  Salespeople have a bad habit of quitting the things that are working. Let's just say that I give you the two weeks and then it starts working. Then suddenly my pipeline is a little bit bigger, the deals in my pipeline start to move. Suddenly people are actually spending time with me and we’re having conversations.   What happens then? I get busy and then I quit. How do I make sure that I don't stop doing what's working?  Alex – Staying On Track With Small Daily Actions You're totally right. Salespeople are busy. They're not sitting around. Therefore, the answer is you must schedule proactive, outbound sales calls into your day.   Mark Twain said, “if you're gonna eat a frog, you might as well eat it first thing in the morning 'cause it's not gonna taste any better later in the day.”   Firstly, do it first thing in the morning - at 8:00 or 8:30 or at 9:00. By 10:00 o'clock you want to be long done with this.   Second, what do you do if you miss a day? The next day you come back to it and you get right back on track.   It's like if you have a bad eating day. I've been trying to lose some weight. Yesterday was my wedding anniversary. My wife and I went out to eat and celebrate 19-years. We had a gigantic meal, and a huge dessert. I ate like a jerk, but it was awesome - a fabulous meal.   So, my weight loss effort over? Am I done? Am I just going to give up and go back to the to the chips and the and the Donuts? nNo, I woke this morning and got back in the saddle.  The easy way to do this is to use a timer. Set it for five minutes. When the Clock is running, you're doing your proactive work. You're making your calls. Then when it dings, your 5 minutes are up.   Jeb – On High-Intensity Activity Sprints I love the frog eating analogy.  There's a chapter in Fanatical Prospecting titled Eat the Frog. The point that I make in that chapter is that you should start your morning doing the hard stuff first because it's not going to get better for you the rest of the day.   The timer method is how my mother, who is the most productive human being on Earth, runs her entire day. She carries a little timer with her and breaks everything up into 15-minute blocks.   For example, she will be in the garden weeding. She sets the timer for 15-minutes and when 15-minutes is over she moves on to the next task in her day.    Three hours of gardening feels like it's a lot just like three hours of rejection is too much. But, 15-minutes or 5-minutes, that’s doable.   And, with just 15-minutes a day of effort, she has a pristine garden.  Jeb – On Why Cold Calling Days Don’t Work I had this client who was very serious about getting all of his salespeople in the office on Mondays for cold calling day. When I questioned him about it, he balked, “It’s very important for our company,” he said.   So, I said, "Here’s what we’re going to do. I'll come to your office and we’ll sit together and observed cold calling day so you can show me how it works."   At eight o'clock everyone came it, got coffee, and opened their laptops. At 8:30 a sales manager walks out onto the sales floor and says, “Everybody we need to get on the phones.” The salespeople slowly start calling. Satisfied, the sales manager goes back into her office where she resumes sending emails.  By 9:00 the salespeople are back up, walking around, getting coffee and talking to each other. The sales manager comes back out tells them to get on the phones.   This occurs several times. By 11:00, the sales manager has given up and the salespeople are roaming halls.   The senior leader I was sitting with was stunned. He truly believed that his salespeople were diligently spending 8-hours making cold calls. But this is not how humans work and it is certainly not how salespeople work.   This is why I'm all about high-intensity prospecting sprints, done a little bit, every day. It's not about prospecting day, it's prospecting every day.  Small actions add up.  Sequencing is the real secret to engaging hard to reach prospects. In our FREE guide Seven Steps to Building Effective Prospecting Sequences, we show you exactly how to build a sales prospecting system that works. Download it Free Now.