Episodios

  • Why Commoditized Selling Builds Better Salespeople

    Why Commoditized Selling Builds Better Salespeople
    Feb 19 2026
    If you've only sold sexy products with cool demos and unique features, you're probably missing the fundamentals that separate good salespeople from great ones. Marcus Chan, CEO of Venli Consulting and recent guest on the Sales Gravy podcast, learned to sell in the trenches of commoditized selling: uniforms, facility services, telecom. Industries where you're locked in multi-year contract cycles, competing against five other vendors who offer the exact same thing, and selling at two to three times the market price. "In order to get really, really good at selling in the commoditized market, where price seems to be the only factor... you have to learn how to get really good at the sales process," Chan explains. "You have to be able to take someone who has what I call a latent pain—pain they don't realize—get them to active and create urgency to move." No flash. No sizzle. Just selling. And that's exactly why it works. The First-to-Market Delusion Chan was talking with a client recently. They've closed $5 million in revenue in 12 months. Apple, Fortune 500 companies, massive wins. They're first to market in a brand new category. Zero competitors. Their sales team is flying high. "That's fantastic," he told them. "Now what's your plan for when competitors show up in three years?" Silence. Here's what happens: you get drunk on the product. You don't have to build real sales skills because the product does the heavy lifting. Then the market matures. Competitors launch. Your "unique" features become nothing new. Most teams operate under the belief that they're different. They talk about their proprietary technology, their best-in-class service, and their innovative approach. Meanwhile, buyers are looking at five vendors saying the exact same things. This isn't just true for uniforms and telecom. It's true for SaaS, consulting, financial services. Any market that's been around longer than 18 months gets commoditized fast. The question isn't whether you're in a commoditized market. The question is whether you know how to sell when you are. What Commoditized Selling Actually Teaches You When Chan was selling uniforms at three times the competitor's price to buyers locked into five-year contracts with other vendors, he had nothing to lean on except process. He couldn't say, "Look at this cool new feature." The uniforms were uniforms. Same fabric. Same colors. Same everything. He had to learn three skills most salespeople never develop: Moving buyers from latent pain to active pain. Most buyers don't think they have a problem. They're comfortable. They're "fine" with their current vendor. Your job is to help them realize what they're losing by staying put, and make it real enough that they care. Creating urgency when the status quo is locked in. When a buyer is in year three of a five-year contract, there's zero natural urgency. You have to create it. You have to make the pain of waiting worse than the pain of switching. Navigating complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles without a product demo to fall back on. You need the operations manager, the finance team, and the C-suite to all agree that switching vendors is worth the headache. And you need to do it without any bells and whistles to distract them from the hard questions. The Hidden Advantage Nobody Talks About Mastering commoditized selling makes everything else easier. Learn to sell uniforms at a premium price, and differentiated products become simple. The hard skills transfer—objection handling, stakeholder navigation, urgency creation. But the real value is that your process becomes your product. In commoditized markets, you compete on how you sell. Your discovery process. Your ability to diagnose the real problem. Your consultative approach. The way you make the buyer feel heard and understood. That's what buyers remember and what separates you from the five other vendors in their inbox. Stop Hiding Behind Your Product Chan sees it all the time with sales teams from "sexy" industries. They lead with features because they can. They lean on their demo because it works. They let the product do the selling. Until it doesn't. Because eventually, every market commoditizes. Your competitor launches the same feature. Buyers stop caring about your "innovative solution" and start asking about price. The salespeople who win in commoditized markets win because of process, not product. They've mastered diagnosis, urgency, and navigating complexity when there's nothing shiny to distract the buyer. A Commoditized Market Is the Best Sales Training Ground If you're selling in a commoditized market right now, congratulations. You're getting an education most salespeople never get—how to compete when you're "just another vendor," how to create value when the product doesn't, how to win on process instead of features. Sell commodities at premium prices to buyers locked into competitor contracts, and you can sell anything. Master the fundamentals where there are no ...
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    35 m
  • How to Use the Ledge Technique for Sales Objection Handling (Ask Jeb)

    How to Use the Ledge Technique for Sales Objection Handling (Ask Jeb)
    Feb 17 2026
    Here's a question that'll make every salesperson's blood pressure spike: What do you do when your cold call gets an objection in the first five seconds because prospects immediately stereotype you as something you're not? That's the challenge facing Rick VanNess from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rick co-founded a company that helps healthcare providers collect on older insurance claims (the ones sitting out 45-90 days that billing departments struggle to get paid). His team augments existing billing operations rather than replacing them. But here's the problem: The second Rick mentions what he does, billing directors immediately think "outsourcing" and shut down the conversation. They've either had bad experiences with outsourcing or they're terrified of losing their jobs to a vendor that promises to do it all. If you've ever been stereotyped, dismissed, or written off before you could even explain what you actually do, you know exactly how frustrating this is. And it's costing you deals. The Fatal Mistake: Arguing Instead of Agreeing When a prospect says "We already have billing" or "We don't outsource," most salespeople instinctively go into argument mode. They try to explain how they're different, how they're not really outsourcing, how their service is special. This is exactly the wrong move. Here's the brutal truth: When you argue with a prospect's reflexive response, you're fighting against their primary concern. For a billing director, that concern isn't whether you can help them. It's whether you're going to cost them their job. Think about that for a second. You're calling someone whose entire world revolves around protecting their position, especially in an age where AI and automation are threatening white-collar jobs left and right. Their antenna is already up. They're listening for any reason to say no. So when you argue with their objection, you're actually validating their fear. You're making them dig in deeper. The Power of the Ledge-Disrupt-Ask Framework Instead of arguing, try this: Agree with them. When Rick hears "We already do billing" or "We don't outsource," here's what I told him to say: "That's perfect, because none of my customers do outsourcing. They all have internal billing departments. What we do is complement what they're already doing by picking up the really hard things like collecting on insurance claims that have been sitting for 45 to 90 days and getting them paid faster." Notice what's happening here? You're using the Ledge framework that top performers use to handle objections: Ledge: A simple statement that settles your brain and lowers tension ("That's perfect...") Disrupt: Pattern interrupt that reframes the conversation ("...because none of my customers do outsourcing") Ask: Move toward a meeting ("Wouldn't it make sense for us to take a few minutes to see if this could help you?") You're not fighting them. You're joining them on their side of the table, then pivoting to the real problem you solve. Lead With the Problem, Not Your Solution Here's another critical mistake Rick was making: He was leading with his pricing model ("no risk to you, you don't pay until we collect"). While this might sound like a great selling point to you, to a prospect it sounds like every other too-good-to-be-true pitch they've heard. It creates skepticism rather than interest. Instead, focus obsessively on the problem you solve. For Rick's business, that's the money sitting in accounts receivable that billing departments are too busy to collect. According to industry data, many practices have millions sitting out there at 45+ days. That's pure profit that's not in the business. That's real money being left on the table. When you frame your prospecting messaging around the problem rather than your solution mechanics, you create curiosity and urgency. Save the pricing conversation for when you're actually negotiating an agreement. The Multi-Level Prospecting Strategy One of the most powerful insights from my conversation with Rick was this: Don't limit yourself to just one contact at the organization. Rick was focusing solely on billing directors and managers because they'd at least give him 15 seconds. But there's a better approach. Go bottom-up and top-down simultaneously: Bottom-up: Call claims adjusters and billing clerks. They don't care what you're selling. But they'll tell you exactly what's broken in their organization. Ask questions like "How much money do you have sitting out there over 45 days that you're struggling to collect?" These narrators give you the stories and data points you need. Top-down: Use that intelligence to reach the CFO. Now you're not pitching a service. You're providing insight about their business: "I spoke with your team and discovered you have $5 million in receivables sitting at 45+ days. Here's how we help organizations like yours collect 80% of that money 40% faster." Middle-out: Armed with data from below and endorsement from above, the billing ...
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    17 m
  • Main Character Syndrome: Why Prospects Tune You Out (Money Monday)

    Main Character Syndrome: Why Prospects Tune You Out (Money Monday)
    Feb 16 2026
    You're at a networking event and someone corners you. For the next ten minutes, they talk nonstop about their vacation, their dog, their new car. You're not having a conversation. You're trapped in their monologue. You're annoyed. You tune out. You start looking for the exit. That's exactly how your prospects feel when you make yourself the star of the conversation. What Is Sales Main Character Syndrome? Sales main character syndrome is when you position yourself as the hero instead of your prospect. You see it everywhere: On the phone: You launch into a five-minute pitch about your company history before asking a single question. In email: You send giant blocks of text about features without mentioning their actual problems. On LinkedIn: Your connect request immediately hits them with "Here's my product, here's my calendar link, let's meet." No matter the channel, it all leads back to the same place: your product, your company, your agenda. Prospects don't care about your product yet. They care about their problems, their goals, and what’s at stake in their world. When you make it all about you, you trigger resistance. Buyers feel sold to instead of collaborated with. And that leads to ghosting, objections, and stalled deals. Nobody wants to sit through a feature dump. People need relevance. They want to feel heard and know you actually get them. The Real Cost of Sales Main Character Syndrome Sales main character syndrome has consequences that will wreck your quota. Prospects disengage. When you focus on yourself and your product instead of the buyer and their needs, they tune out. Calls feel like lectures. Emails read like brochures. Messages get deleted without a response. Lose their attention, and you've lost your shot. You miss the real opportunities. By making the interaction about yourself, you fail to ask the right questions. You don't hear what's actually going on in their world. You can't identify the true pain points, the real goals, or what's actually motivating them. So you pitch solutions that don't align with what they need. You waste discovery time chasing the wrong problems. Destroy trust before it’s built. Your prospects stop seeing you as a helpful guide. Instead, you're just another salesperson pushing a product. Without trust, everything gets harder and long-term relationships become impossible. The cost is too high. So how do you flip the script? The Mindset Shift: From Hero to Trusted Guide Your job is to be a trusted guide, not the hero. Think Yoda, not Luke Skywalker. Your prospect is the hero of their own story. They're the ones facing the challenge, making the decision, and living with the outcome. When prospects feel like the main character, they engage more. They open up. They trust you. And trust moves deals forward. Here's a simple three-step framework you can use in every conversation. Step #1: Change Your "I" to "Why" Stop starting conversations with: "I want to show you..." "I'd love to introduce..." "I think you'll like..." Your buyers don't care about your "I." They care about their “why.” Why should this matter to them? Why is it relevant right now? Why does it solve a problem they're actually facing? Lead with "why," and the focus shifts from your agenda to their reality. You'll stop sounding like a salesperson and start being seen as someone who understands their world. Before: "I'd love to show you our new platform and walk you through all the features we've built." After: “Companies in your industry are losing 20% of their pipeline to manual data entry errors. Here's how to fix that." One is about you. The other is about them. Step #2: Define What You Solve, Not What You Sell Most salespeople can rattle off what they sell. A platform. A service. A software solution. That's not what your buyer cares about. Buyers don't wake up thinking, "I need a new vendor today." They wake up thinking, "I need to fix this problem that's making my life harder." When you define the problem you solve instead of the product you sell, you build immediate value. You position yourself as a partner in their success, not just another pitch in their inbox. Product-focused: "We're a sales engagement platform with email sequencing, call tracking, and analytics." Problem-focused: "We help sales teams stop losing deals to slow follow-up and inconsistent outreach." Stop leading with what you sell and start leading with what you solve. Conversations convert faster when prospects see themselves in the problem you're addressing. Step #3: Listen to Hear, Not to Respond The biggest mistake in sales? Listening just long enough to jump in with your answer. Most reps wait for their turn to talk. They're mentally preparing the pitch while the buyer is still speaking. It feels efficient. It's actually ineffective. Listening to hear means shutting up long enough to understand. You catch the nuance. You pick up on the emotion. You uncover the hidden pain points that competitors miss because ...
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    8 m
  • Stone Tablets, Trade Shows, and Telephones: 4,000 Years of Sales History

    Stone Tablets, Trade Shows, and Telephones: 4,000 Years of Sales History
    Feb 12 2026
    Imagine that you're so angry about a business deal gone wrong that you grab a chisel, find a slab of stone, and spend hours carving your complaint. That's exactly what a Mesopotamian merchant did in 1750 and made sales history. The merchant was furious because he'd been promised high-grade copper, but the final product was subpar. That angry customer complaint is now sitting in the British Museum, 4,000 years later. The tablet reads: "What do you take me for? That you treat someone like me with such contempt?" If you think dealing with issues in the sales process is a modern problem, you're off by about four millennia. Sales Hustle Is Ancient We talk about sales like it's a modern corporate invention. CRMs and automated sequences are new, but the art of the deal and dealing with angry customers? That’s been around since humans started trading. The copper merchant in 1750 BCE wasn't just selling copper. He was managing client expectations, handling logistics, and clearly failing at quality control. The core practices of B2B sales—promise, delivery, and relationship management—haven't changed. 1600s: Sales Becomes a Profession Fast forward to 1600, and you see the founding of the East India Trading Companies. They were some of the first corporations that allowed people to buy shares in a business. One of the East India Trading Companies was owned by "the 17 gentlemen"—a group of wealthy investors who funded global trade expeditions. They kept spices like nutmeg, pepper, and cinnamon flowing across continents. The spices were so valuable that they were practically currency. This was B2B sales at scale. Shareholders' expected returns. Merchants negotiated deals across continents. The stakes were massive, and so were the profits. This era established something critical to modern sellers: the separation between ownership and operation. The 17 gentlemen didn't sail the ships or negotiate every spice deal. They hired people to do it. Sales stopped being a personal trade and became a repeatable profession with accountability structures built in. 1851: Visibility and Competition Arrive The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 was the world's first massive B2B trade show in sales history. Thousands of exhibitors. Hundreds of thousands of attendees. A giant glass building called the Crystal Palace. Nearly 200 years later, sales pros still pack convention centers, set up booths, and fight to stand out in a sea of competitors. This is where B2B sales became visible. You weren't just competing against one or two local merchants anymore. You were standing next to dozens of alternatives, all promising similar value. Differentiation became mandatory. Following up meant writing a letter and waiting weeks for a response. Today, if you're not following up within 24 hours, you're losing to competitors who are. 1957: Reach and Leverage Scale Up The first inside sales team was formed at a company called Dial America in 1957. Before that, if you wanted to sell, you hit the road. Door-to-door, city-to-city, face-to-face. Every single deal required physical presence. The telephone changed everything. Suddenly, salespeople could work virtually, reach more prospects, and close deals without leaving the office. One seller could now have 20 conversations in a day instead of three. The math of sales productivity fundamentally shifted. Fast forward to today, and inside sales is the dominant model. The tools have evolved—Zoom calls, screen shares, digital demos—but the core principle remains: you don't need to be in the same room to build trust and close deals. From Stone Tablets to Instant Messages: Why Speed Matters Now Think about the effort that the merchant put into carving his complaint into stone. He didn't fire off a quick email. He didn't leave a one-star Google review. He created a permanent record that would outlive both him and the seller by thousands of years. Today, complaints are easy. Maybe too easy. A customer can blast you on LinkedIn, tank your review scores, or CC your entire executive team on an email thread—all before lunch. Every major shift in B2B sales increased speed. Trade shows multiplied visibility. Telephones let sellers reach 20 prospects a day instead of three. Email collapsed follow-up from weeks to hours. Social media made reputation instant and permanent. In 1750 BCE, you had time to respond. Now, you have hours—maybe minutes. Each acceleration rewarded the sellers who could execute fast without sacrificing quality. The ones who couldn't keep up disappeared. Why This Timeline Matters More Than You Think We’re in another massive shift in sales history. AI, automation, predictive analytics—the pace is relentless. It’s easy to think everything has changed. Zoom out 4,000 years, and the pattern emerges: speed accelerates, but the core practices stay the same. So the next time you get a harsh email from a customer, remember that stone tablet. You don’t have to worry about your ...
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    43 m
  • How Do You Stop Prospects From No-Showing Virtual Appointments (Ask Jeb)

    How Do You Stop Prospects From No-Showing Virtual Appointments (Ask Jeb)
    Feb 10 2026
    Here's a question that'll frustrate every salesperson reading this: What do you do when you prospect, set the meeting, block the time on your calendar, and then... your prospect no-shows? That's the challenge Emily Weissmueller faces every single day. Emily is a former elementary school teacher who pivoted into K-12 edtech sales eleven years ago. She works with special education administrators, and like so many salespeople in 2026, her meetings are primarily virtual. She's doing everything right: prospecting consistently, securing appointments, sending calendar invites. But when it's time for the meeting? Hit or miss. Sometimes they show up. Sometimes she's sitting there waiting while nobody logs on. If you've ever stared at a Zoom room alone wondering if your prospect forgot about you, you know exactly how this feels. And if you're wondering whether confirmation emails help or hurt, you're asking the wrong question entirely. The Virtual Meeting Paradox Let's be honest about something: Virtual meetings are throwaway appointments for both sides. When you had to drive four hours to meet someone in person, both parties had serious skin in the game. You invested time, gas money, and effort. Your prospect blocked their calendar knowing you were making the trip. Neither of you would casually blow that off. But virtual meetings? They're low commitment on both ends. No one's driving anywhere. It's just a calendar block that can easily get bumped by the next urgent thing that pops up. And when you're selling into education like Emily is, where everything moves infinitely slow and decision-makers are incredibly risk-averse, you've got even more working against you. The question isn't whether to send a confirmation email. The real question is: How do you stack the deck so heavily in your favor that prospects feel obligated to show up? The Commitment and Consistency Framework There's a principle in human behavior called commitment and consistency. When people commit to something, they typically feel compelled to follow through. Otherwise, they feel guilty. And guilt is actually useful because you can leverage it to reschedule when someone doesn't show. But the goal isn't to make prospects feel guilty after they no-show. The goal is to engineer so many small commitments throughout the process that they show up in the first place. Here's the system that works: Step 1: Confirm Verbally When You Set the Meeting When your prospect agrees to meet, always repeat it back: "Okay, so I've got you on Thursday, January 26th at 2:00 PM. Did I get that right?" When they say yes, that's commitment number one. You're putting it in their brain. You're making it real. Then say this: "Let me grab your email and I'll send you a meeting invite for your calendar just to make it convenient for you." This does two things. First, it confirms you have the right email. Second, it gets another yes. That's commitment number two. Step 2: Send a Meeting Invite That Actually Helps Most meeting invites are useless. They say "Meeting with Jeb Blount" or "Sales Call" and include seventeen different international dial-in numbers that nobody needs. Here's what your meeting invite should look like: Title: Emily Weissmueller (Company Name) + Prospect Name (School Name) - Why We're Meeting Location: Virtual Meeting (then paste the meeting link, nothing else) Notes: Keep it simple. Here's the meeting link. If it's a phone option, include just that number. Then add: "If anything changes, here's my direct number and email." When your prospect looks at their calendar the morning of the meeting and sees this, they know exactly who you are, why you're meeting, and how to join. You own the moral high ground. Step 3: Send a Video (This Is Non-Negotiable) The next morning after you set the meeting, pull out your phone and record a 20-30 second video. Look at the camera. Smile. Sound excited. "Emily, this is Jeb at Sales Gravy. Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me. I'm so excited to spend time learning about you and your mission for helping these kids. Just want to confirm our meeting is on January 26th at 2:00 PM. The invite is on your calendar. I can't wait to see you." Send that via email. Now think about what you've just done. You've made it personal. You've shown effort. You've demonstrated that you actually care about this conversation. It's exponentially harder for them to no-show because they can see you're a real human who invested time in this relationship. This philosophy is about going the extra mile to demonstrate that you're different, that you care, and that this matters. Step 4: Leave a Voicemail the Day Before The afternoon before your meeting, when you know your prospect is likely gone for the day, call and leave a voicemail. "Hey Emily, this is Jeb. I'm so excited to meet with you tomorrow. I've been thinking about your school and the ways we might be able to help. I can't wait to learn more about what you're trying to accomplish for...
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    13 m
  • Single-Contact Selling is Killing 34% of Your Deals (Money Monday)

    Single-Contact Selling is Killing 34% of Your Deals (Money Monday)
    Feb 8 2026
    You've got a champion. Someone inside the account who gets it. They love your solution, they're fighting for your proposal, and they're feeding you intelligence about the decision-making process. So you're golden, right? Wrong. One reorganization, one promotion, one departure, and your deal could vanish overnight. Research from LinkedIn Sales Solutions analyzed thousands of enterprise deals and found something most salespeople refuse to believe: sales teams that build relationships with multiple stakeholders inside an account are 34% more likely to win. That's the difference between hitting quota and missing it. Between a banner year and a brutal one. Why Single-Threaded Deals Die On average, 4-7 people influence a complex B2B buying decision. Even if you nail the pitch, you're still just one voice in a conversation happening behind closed doors. A conversation where people you've never met are raising objections you'll never hear. Where priorities you don't know about are shifting the criteria. Your champion can be dismissed as "the person who likes that vendor." But when you've got three advocates from different departments? Consensus wins deals. Your Champion Won't Stick Around One in five of the people you're counting on right now won't be in their role twelve months from now. They'll get promoted, reassigned, poached by a competitor, or laid off in the next restructuring. When that happens to your sole contact, your deal doesn't just stall. It dies. The new person in that role has zero relationship with you, zero context on your solution, and zero incentive to champion something their predecessor started. But if you've built what top performers call "account insulation"—relationships with two, three, or four people across different departments and levels—the web flexes when someone leaves. It doesn't break. Weak Ties Matter More Than You Think We're trained to go deep with our primary contact. Build trust. Understand their pain points. Tailor every message to their specific needs. That's not wrong. It's just incomplete. In complex selling scenarios, influence often spreads through what researchers call weak ties—the casual, adjacent connections that link clusters of strong relationships. These are your amplifiers. A brief introduction. A shared article. A helpful insight that makes someone in operations remember your name when your solution comes up in a meeting you're not in. These loose connections become the difference between a deal that stalls and one that scales. Think about how deals from referrals close. They close twice as fast as deals that start cold. Accounts with multiple contacts grow larger, stay longer, and refer more business. The pattern is clear. Get enough internal referrals, and you stop being the vendor someone works with. You become the partner everyone trusts. Five Mistakes That Keep You Single-Threaded Account multithreading fails most often before it ever really begins. Not because it is hard, but because salespeople sabotage it with impatience, poor judgment, or misplaced effort. If you recognize any of these behaviors, they are costing you leverage inside the account. Trying to build fifty superficial relationships instead of multiple deep, meaningful connections. Spray and pray doesn't work in prospecting, and it doesn't work in account multithreading. Asking for referrals before you've built credibility. You can't extract value before you've created it. Failing to nurture the relationships you've already initiated. You can't plant seeds and never water them. Ignoring the law of reciprocity. If you don't offer value first—business insights, useful data, relevant introductions—people won't feel any obligation to help you. You'll burn through goodwill and get nothing back. Wearing out your welcome. If you've reached out multiple times with relevant insights and gotten silence, that's a signal. Move on. How to Build Your Account Web With Multi-Threading Start by mapping the web of people connected to your account. Decision makers, influencers, skeptics, the quiet analysts whose opinions shape what the decision makers think. Write it down. Visualize the relationships you have, the ones you need, and the blank spaces in between. Then ask questions that open doors and show you recognize the decision is bigger than one person. "Who else on your team would have a point of view on this?" "Would it be helpful if I shared what other departments are doing with similar tools?" "Is there someone else who should see this?" Or use my favorite: "I need your advice on this." That phrase invokes reciprocity and dramatically increases the probability they'll give you the referral. When trust is formed, asking for a direct referral becomes an act of generosity rather than an intrusion. Frame it around value, not obligation. "Would you be willing to introduce me to your colleague in operations? I think she'd have an interesting take on what we're talking about." "If anyone ...
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  • Why Your Sales Team is Underperforming — Patrick Lencioni on Working Genius

    Why Your Sales Team is Underperforming — Patrick Lencioni on Working Genius
    Feb 5 2026
    "You know, at the core of Working Genius, what it does is it allows us to avoid guilt and judgment—guilt about ourselves and judgment of others." That’s Patrick Lencioni, bestselling author and organizational health expert, talking about his breakthrough Working Genius productivity framework on the Sales Gravy podcast. If you’re leading a sales team, this explains why high performers thrive in some roles and burn out in others. Right now, you probably have high performers who are miserable, rockstars who’ve lost their spark, and top reps who suddenly can’t hit quota. And you’re wondering—did you hire wrong, did someone lose their edge, or do you need to have “the conversation”? What if the problem isn’t the person at all? The Real Reason Your Best People Are Struggling Not all work is created equal, and your sales reps aren’t wired to do all of it. Lencioni stumbled on this insight while reflecting on himself. He’d show up to work loving his job and the people he worked with, yet swing from energized to frustrated without understanding why. His colleague asked, “Why are you like that?” Over a few hours, Lencioni and his team pinpointed six distinct types of work. Depending on which type you’re doing, you’re either energized or drained. Five years later, over 1.5 million people have taken the Working Genius assessment. Why? Most organizations force talented people into work that drains them, then blame them when they struggle. Most sales leaders hire a closer for their ability to seal deals, then wonder why they can’t prospect. They promote a quota-crusher into management, then watch them implode under administrative responsibilities. Or move an account manager into new business development and act shocked when performance tanks. The talent was there all along, but their positioning was wrong. Six Types of Work—and Why Most People Only Excel at Two Patrick Lencioni identified six distinct types of work that exist in every organization: Wonder (W): Spotting opportunities, asking big-picture questions Invention (I): Creating new solutions, processes, or systems Discernment (D): Evaluating ideas, figuring out what will work Galvanizing (G): Rallying the team, getting people moving Enablement (E): Supporting others, clearing obstacles, making things happen Tenacity (T): Following through, finishing tasks, closing deals Here's what matters: most people are strong in two, competent in two, and are drained by the remaining two. And there are no good or bad geniuses. Your closer with natural Tenacity isn't more valuable than your strategic thinker with Wonder and Discernment. Your rep who rallies the team (Galvanizing) isn't better than the one who quietly enables everyone behind the scenes. Different geniuses are valuable in different ways. The goal is to build a team where all six are represented, and people work in their areas of strength. Force someone into work that drains them, and sales team performance tanks. Leave them in their genius zones, and energy and results skyrocket. Stop Judging Your People (And Yourself) You've probably got a rep right now who frustrates you. Maybe they're brilliant in client meetings but terrible at following up. Maybe they generate incredible account strategies, but can't stand the daily grind of outbound prospecting. Maybe they close deals but never update the CRM. Your first instinct is to judge them. "They're not coachable." "They don't care about the details." "They're lazy." Working Genius removes that judgment. It shows you that their struggle isn't about character—it's about wiring. A rep isn’t bad at follow-up because they don't care. They're bad at it because Tenacity isn't their genius. A rep isn’t a bad team player because they don’t remove obstacles for others. Enablement isn’t their strength. And here's the part most sales leaders miss: you need to stop judging yourself, too. You feel guilty that you hate certain parts of your job. You think you should be better at forecasting, or administrative work, or whatever drains you. But guilt about your own limitations makes you harder on your team. When you accept that you're not built to excel at everything, you can extend that same grace to others. You stop punishing people for being human and start positioning them for success. Start With Self-Reflection Which activities give you energy? Which leave you drained? I'll be honest about my own wake-up call. I travel over 300 nights a year, giving keynotes and working with clients. Last summer, I got to the point where I thought I was going to have a mental breakdown. Days stacked with short calls, client check-ins, alignment meetings, and podcasts. I was furious when I got to the office, and furious when I left because those days completely destroy my brain. I'm a wonderer and a thinker. I need space to ideate. Without that time, I can't function. So I implemented a new rule: no more than two meetings per day. I ...
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  • Why Cold Calling Will Never Die (Ask Jeb)

    Why Cold Calling Will Never Die (Ask Jeb)
    Feb 3 2026
    Here's a question that hits every sales professional right in the gut: What do you do when your email prospecting tanks and you're staring at response rates that are circling the drain? That's the question Tara asked on a recent episode of Ask Jeb on The Sales Gravy Podcast, and it's one I hear constantly from SDRs, account executives, and even sales managers who've convinced themselves that cold calling is outdated. If you're nodding along, thinking email is the future and cold calling is dead, you need to wake up. Email efficiency is going down without bounds, and if you're not picking up the phone, you're leaving money on the table. The Hard Truth About Email Prospecting Let me be blunt: Your email isn't failing because the channel is broken. It's failing because what you're doing is terrible. Before you blame the medium, look in the mirror. Did people ignore your email because you sent them something genuinely personalized and valuable? Or did they ignore you because you followed up thirteen times in five days? Did they ghost you because your seven colleagues already called them that same day? The brutal reality is that most salespeople treat email like a spray-and-pray numbers game. They blast generic messages, add zero personalization, and then wonder why nobody responds. Meanwhile, they avoid the one thing that actually works: picking up the phone and having real conversations. Why Cold Calling Will Always Matter Cold calling isn't going anywhere. It never has been, and it never will be. You want to know why? Because sales is a human business. People buy from people they trust, and you can't build trust through automated emails that sound like they were written by AI. A phone call gives you something email never can: the ability to prove you're a real human being who's genuinely there to help, not just to pitch and sell. When you call someone and say, "Hey, I sent you an email last week with this case study because I saw you talked about this at the Outbound Conference," you're showing them you did your homework. You're not just another robot in their inbox. Here's a line I love: "Would I be the worst salesperson in the world if I didn't also try to call you?" It's honest, it's human, and it cuts through the noise. You Don't Know What to Say? Make the Calls The number one excuse I hear from salespeople: "I don't know what to say." Here's my advice: Make one hundred calls and talk to people. They'll teach you. You're going to learn what not to say. You're going to start seeing patterns in how your prospects think, what problems they face, and what language matters to them. This is how you develop business acumen that separates you from the pack. You can't learn it behind a keyboard. I was in an alignment call today with a new client, and they said, "You totally understand us." Why? Last week, I was with a business adjacent to their industry, learned their language, and pulled that knowledge into the next call. Use Tools to Compress Your Learning Curve Use tools like ZoomInfo to accelerate your learning curve. At Sales Gravy, we use it every day to find information about people, see what they're doing on our website, and get intent signals that build our lists automatically. You can use these tools to learn the language of industries you're breaking into. You can see company news, understand their challenges, and show up on calls sounding like you belong. But here's the key: The tool doesn't make the call for you. It gives you the ammunition. You still have to do the work. Be Strategic and Resourceful Here's a strategy most salespeople are too lazy to try: If you're having trouble getting through to a decision maker, call someone else in the company who'll actually talk to you. Selling HR services? Call a sales rep. They'll talk your ear off about the company and might even make an introduction. Try this: "Hey, I know you're in sales. I've been trying to get hold of Joseph for nine months. Is there any way you could help me out?" That's not being cheesy. That's being resourceful. But you have to be genuine. You can't just ask for something without building rapport. Your Action Plan If you're struggling with email effectiveness: Pick up the damn phone. Stop making excuses about why cold calling doesn't work. It works if you work it. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Introducing yourself to strangers will never be easy, but it's the price of admission for being great at sales. Use data strategically. Build sequences that interweave multiple channels over 30, 60, 90 days. Email, phone, LinkedIn, video. Give yourself the best odds. Don't oversell on the cold call. A little interest isn't an invitation to vomit your pitch. Your job is to earn the next conversation. Make one more call. At the end of the day, when you're tired, make one more call. That's where discipline separates winners from everyone else. The Bottom Line Email isn't dead, but it's not a magic bullet. Cold calling isn't outdated. ...
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