Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount

• Why Customer Experience Beats Price in Automotive Sales (Ask Jeb)

  Here’s a truth most car dealerships don’t want to admit: people don’t hate buying cars. They hate buying cars from salespeople who make the customer experience painful. That’s the challenge Brendan Carlington from Mount Pleasant, Michigan brought to me on a recent episode of Ask Jeb. Brendan jumped back into auto sales this year after spending time in other industries and he noticed something big. Traditional sales positions are disappearing. Customers can research everything online, get quotes instantly, and even start negotiations with a click. What’s missing is training that teaches sales pros how to create an experience people actually enjoy. The vehicle isn’t the differentiator. The experience is. Why the Experience Matters More Than the Product I told Brendan something I have felt for a long time. Customers already know what they want before they walk into the dealership. They have seen every trim, every feature, every price point. What they do not know is whether they will enjoy the buying process. That is where you, the salesperson, become the product. Your job is not just to sell the car. Your job is to guide your customer through the process, reduce friction, build trust, and make them feel confident that they are making the right decision. When I buy a car, I already know what I want. If the experience is miserable, I put it off. If I know it will be smooth, engaging, and human, I buy immediately. Modern buyers are craving a guide, not a grinder. The Power of Frameworks Brendan had a simple but powerful philosophy. He said there are three conditions to win: sell a car, give the customer a great experience, and make as much money as possible without compromising those things. That mindset is exactly what great sales frameworks are built on. A framework gives you rails to run on while keeping you flexible in the conversation. It is not a script. It is a repeatable system that lets you adapt to the customer while staying disciplined. When you take complex sales processes and make them simple and repeatable, you create reliability and confidence. That principle is at the heart of fanatical prospecting and objection handling. Learning to simplify complex ideas into actionable steps separates average salespeople from top performers. How to Become the Trusted Guide If you are in car sales or any sales role where buyers can research online, here is the playbook: Unpack your customer’s fears. They walk in with emotional baggage from past experiences. Acknowledge it. Ask better questions. The more they talk, the better they feel. When the customer does most of the talking, they have a good experience. Create a VIP moment. Buying a car is a milestone, not a transaction. Build a repeatable system. Know your greeting, discovery questions, and closing flow cold and practice it until it is second nature. Using systems that focus on outcomes, such as first-time appointments, conversion rates, and pipeline velocity, makes the difference between a salesperson who spins their wheels and one who consistently drives results. Practicing this every day builds the kind of discipline that leads to consistent performance and customer loyalty. Making It Fun Again Brendan shared something I loved. Before car sales, he worked in the Vegas nightlife industry and he asked, “Why can’t buying a car be fun?” That is the kind of thinking that transforms an industry. Fun does not mean loud music or strobe lights. It means energy, curiosity, and enthusiasm. When people enjoy buying from you, they tell everyone they know. If your dealership or team has lost that spark, it is time to rebuild your sales culture. Focus on making the customer experience unforgettable. Strong sales leadership and coaching techniques help teams focus on guiding the buyer through the process instead of just pushing products. Developing those skills consistently pays huge dividends in customer retention and referrals.

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• 5 Keys to Outselling the Holidays (Money Monday)

  We are moving into the most dangerous time of year for sales professionals . . . the holidays.  From now until the first week of January, you're going to face a perfect storm of distractions, excuses, and temptations that can absolutely destroy your year end number and your first quarter production next year. Sadly, most salespeople don't even see it coming. It’s not until the end of December that they realize they’re in trouble, but by then, it’s too late.  The Trouble With the Holidays The trouble typically starts Thanksgiving week in the United States and continues as we move into the first week of December. That's when distractions start flooding in. You've got company parties, family obligations, shopping to do. All of which knock you off of your routine causing your daily prospecting and follow up activities to drop. And let’s be honest, you’ve been grinding hard for the entire year and you’re ready to let your guard down and coast a bit before the end of the year.  By the second and third week of December many of the opportunities in your pipeline that you were counting on closing start to ghost you or tell you that their pushing decisions off to next year. And by now you’re so mentally checked out that you're barely doing any prospecting at all.  Once we move into the Christmas and New Years weeks your office is a ghost town, the phones are silent, your pipeline is stalled, you’ve missed your forecast and you convince yourself there's no point in even trying.  And just like that, you've lost an entire month of selling.   My book The LinkedIn Edge gives you the master blueprint for turning LinkedIn into an optimized, revenue-generating sales engine—whether you're deploying Sales Navigator or not. Learn to work LinkedIn like a professional with step-by-step, immediately actionable tactics that supercharge your presence on the world's largest networking platform. Get it today wherever books are sold.       Holiday Sales Math But here's the brutal truth: You didn't just lose a month. You lost three months. Because all of those prospects that pushed off decisions until the new year are not coming back; and that empty pipeline you're staring at, as you move into January, is going to haunt you through March and potentially, through the entire year.  Your average sales cycle is probably 60-90 days. That means deals you put into the pipeline over the next two to three weeks are crucial for a good January. Likewise, the ones you add in December are the key to delivering a solid February and March.  But if you allow the Holidays to take you off of your game, you might not recover until April or May. Your entire first quarter is shot.  This is the killer and how so many promising sales careers end prematurely. I've witnessed far too many salespeople get fired in March for pipeline problems that started in November when they let their discipline slip during the holidays. Do Not Allow Active Deals Stall and Die The deals currently in your pipeline are more vulnerable right now than at any other time of year. Your prospects have the perfect excuse to push decisions.  When deals sit idle for a month, bad things happen. Stakeholders change. Budgets get reallocated. Priorities shift. Your champion gets distracted by seventeen other initiatives. Your competitors slip in while you're eating fruitcake and drinking eggnog. I've watched salespeople lose six-figure deals that they thought were "locked up" in November, simply because they took their foot off the gas during the holidays.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Pipeline opportunities that push into the new year are not coming back. Do not count on them. Do not allow yourself to be delusional about them. If you don’t get forecasted opportunities closed by the end of the year, consider them dead! For this reason, you must be vigilant with follow up, assertive with your communication and do whatever it t...

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• The Sales Mindset Lessons from an American Ninja Warrior

  Every salesperson knows that feeling, the one right before the big meeting when confidence wavers and doubt creeps in. Alex Weber knows it, too. He’s one of the few people to go from hosting American Ninja Warrior to competing on the show. When I asked him what separates winners from everyone else on an episode of The Sales Gravy Podcast, he said: “Winners believe they're going to win. You’re not going to win every deal. But even as I say that, I’m never going to let myself actually believe that.” This is a masterclass in sales mindset—the mental toughness every top salesperson needs. The difference between a competitor who freezes and one who performs is simple: The winner chooses belief over hesitation, every single time.  Stop Managing Doubt, Start Dictating Belief The average salesperson walks into a deal trying to manage their doubt. They worry about the competition, they worry about the price, and they worry about rejection. That hesitation bleeds through every presentation, email, and follow-up. The average rep tells themselves, "I hope I get this deal." Winners decide before the phone rings that they are the best solution, they deserve the business, and they are going to win. That mindset is the foundation of high-performance selling. The moment you let the "what if I lose?" question become dominant, you pull back. You ask soft closing questions. You accept the first objection. Top salespeople know that a soft sales mindset guarantees a hard loss. You must carry the confidence of a winner, even when the odds are stacked against you. Failure is Feedback: Burn the Ship and Move On In high-stakes competitive environments, you can’t dwell on failure. If a Ninja Warrior misses a jump, they can't afford to spend five minutes replaying the error in their head; they are already in the water. In sales, the deep end is rejection. Too many salespeople treat a "no" like a personal failure instead of professional feedback. They let one bad call destroy their attitude for the entire week. This is why their sales mindset is fragile. Winners understand that every loss is simply data to be analyzed. What did the client object to? Where did you lose control? What did the competitor do better? Process it immediately, then move on. When you fail, you need to "burn the ship." You acknowledge the loss, extract the lesson, and sever the emotional attachment. The inability to recover fast is the #1 killer of a sales mindset. You are guaranteeing an underperforming pipeline if you can't reset your mental state between calls. Commit to the next interaction, not the last one. Build Your Muscle Memory for Pressure You can't expect to be calm and collected during a high-pressure, high-dollar negotiation if you haven't trained for it. Elite competitors don't rely on game-day adrenaline. They rely on muscle memory built through intentional practice under pressure. Practice is how you develop the sales mindset that never wavers. Identify the parts of the sales cycle that make you uncomfortable. If handling tough objections is your weakness, practice them relentlessly until your response is automatic. If you freeze up when cold calling top-tier decision-makers, role-play the opening three minutes of that call until you can deliver it with confidence. Your pipeline grows on competence, not hope.  Stop Waiting for Motivation: Execute on Discipline The worst lie in sales is the idea that you have to feel motivated to prospect. Motivation is an emotion. It comes and goes. Discipline is a decision. The champion's sales mindset relies on routine and process. You don't need to feel excited to make that fifth cold call or send that critical follow-up. You just need to execute your process. If you let your feelings dictate your schedule, you will only prospect when the conditions are perfect. That is an amateur move. Winners know the work is non-negotiable. Discipline is showing up every day, executing the critical,

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• What to Do When You Lose Your Sales Motivation After Success (Ask Jeb)

  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.

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• Why Your Rivals Pray You Cut Training—And Why You Shouldn’t (Money Monday)

  This time of year is critical. As sales leaders map out their budgets for the new year, the conversation always centers on a core conflict: How to cut expenses and, simultaneously, motivate teams to hit larger quotas. What's the first line item to feel the squeeze? Training and development. It is often incorrectly labeled a 'want' and not a 'need.' We hear leaders say, "It can wait until next quarter," or, "Once we stabilize revenue, we'll invest in the team."  This short-sighted thinking doesn’t save money. Instead, it's costing organizations a significant, quantifiable amount of revenue and talent. When professional development is treated like a luxury, we undermine the foundational ability of our teams to perform consistently at a high level. Training is the Foundational Requirement for Peak Performance Sales leaders should consider peak performance in any high-stakes environment. In the military, or in elite professional sports, ongoing training is not a choice—it is a non-negotiable, daily priority.  So why is it that, in Sales, we view continuous development as optional or too expensive? The simple truth is that lack of training is the most expensive mistake you can make. Think about the rate of technological change. Most of us have upgraded our cell phones in the last three to five years because the old ones simply couldn't keep up.  The same principle applies to your sales team’s skill set. If your representatives are still relying on techniques learned 5, 10, or 15 years ago, then they are operating at a competitive disadvantage. They will be outmaneuvered and outperformed by competitors who are strategically investing in modern sales frameworks every time. Henry Ford’s famous quote still holds true: "The only thing worse than training employees and losing them is to not train them and keep them." If you believe training is expensive, you must take a moment to calculate the monumental loss of reps consistently missing their quotas. The True Cost of Inconsistency and Turnover Look at the numbers. Assume three of your representatives are consistently missing quota by just 20%. That deficit is lost revenue—but it also represents wasted leads, missed opportunities, and the corrosive ripple effect of deals that never even make it into your pipeline. The amount of potential revenue lost due to underperformance is often far greater than the entire annual budget you would allocate to comprehensive sales training. Action Plan for Sales Leaders & Managers To reverse this loss, you must treat coaching as a continuous operational requirement, not a perk. Calculate the 'Cost of Inaction' to Justify Budget: Reframe thinking of training as an expense and start focusing on the cost of the status quo. Calculate the annualized revenue loss from your bottom 20% of underperforming reps (e.g., missed quota * average deal size). Use that concrete number to justify and secure a budget for development, proving that not training is your biggest liability. Implement a Continuous Coaching Framework: Don't rely on annual training events. Transform your managers into daily coaches by mandating 30 minutes of structured, one-on-one coaching per week focused on skill development. This reinforcement is what locks in new behaviors and prevents the initial energy gained in training from fading. The Hidden Expense of Disengagement Talent turnover is another critical cost of lack of training that is often overlooked. A representative who feels unsupported, or who consistently misses quota because they don’t have the necessary tools and coaching, is highly likely to seek opportunities elsewhere.  The cost of recruiting, onboarding, and ramping a replacement—which includes the loss of established customer relationships and the disruption to team morale—significantly outweighs the expense of proactive investment. How to Take a Struggling Rep From Liability to Asset

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