Show Notes
When every product in your market looks the same, the only way you win is for your competitor to lose. In this episode of Ask Jeb on the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount takes a question from Jen, a 20-year sales veteran who moved from TV into digital advertising and has watched three deals in a row end with the prospect sticking with their current provider. Jeb’s advice starts with the sales process. The buyer’s emotional experience is the most consistent predictor of whether you win, so stop fixating on the close and look at how you run discovery, how many commitments you ask for, and whether you can drive a wedge between the prospect and the incumbent. Sometimes the right move is to walk away before you hand your competitor your proposal. If you sell in a crowded market and keep losing to the incumbent, this episode will help you lay the groundwork for competitive displacement. What You’ll Learn: Why prospects stick with the status quo and what to do when you keep losing deals to no decision How to compete in a commoditized market where every company and product looks the same The five decisions buyers make before they choose to work with you Why past customers, including accounts other reps once handled, are the best place to start prospecting How adding steps to your sales process builds buyer commitment through the investment effect Why sending your detailed proposal too early can give the incumbent vendor everything they need to keep the account How to find out if a prospect is willing to change How to ask discovery questions that help prospects realize their current vendor is taking them for granted When to walk away from a deal and focus your pipeline on high-probability opportunities - Submit your question: salesgravy.com/ask Purchase People Buy You by Jeb Blount: https://a.co/d/0eETyHhc Grab your tickets for OutBound Conference Follow Jeb Blount on LinkedIn
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More from Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount
Your CRM was already a mess. Now every tool in your stack wants to switch on its own AI agent, and all of them are running on bad data. Jeb Blount Jr. sits down with Jayant Umrani and Steve Keck of Bolt.today to break down what CRM optimization looks like when AI moves this fast, and why the fix starts with the reps who actually use the system.
Your stalled deals are still alive. When the buying window opens, the buyer calls the salesperson they remember. Sales Gravy Master Sales Trainer Duff Tucker breaks down top-of-mind selling: why “just checking in” drains your value, how every touch becomes a deposit or withdrawal in the buyer’s memory bank, the five types of touches that keep you relevant, and the VALUE framework for deciding what’s worth sending.
Ask a prospect about their challenges and you’ll get the same answer every other seller heard that week. Marcus Chan, Founder of Venli Consulting, joins Jeb Blount Jr. to break down the questions elite reps ask instead, the ones that tie a problem to real consequences and lead buyers to discover latent pain on their own. Marcus walks through an oil change story every rep will recognize and explains how this shift helped his SMB team grow average deal size roughly fourfold.
If you can’t figure out who makes the buying decision, every cold call starts with a guess. In this episode of Ask Jeb on the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount answers a question from David, a business development rep making a high volume of cold calls daily into a highly technical market. His challenge: how much research is enough before you dial, and how do you find the right contact when the decision maker could be an engineer, a project manager, or the CEO? Jeb’s answer starts with a mindset shift. Prospecting and research are separate jobs, so block time for each and never do both at once. He then walks David through an ABCD list system that moves every lead toward fully qualified, so your first call block goes to appointment-ready prospects and the rest of the day builds tomorrow’s list. What You’ll Learn: How to find the decision maker when job titles don’t tell you who buys How to get the gatekeeper to give you the contact you need within the organization Why separating prospecting time from research time protects your call blocks How to sort prospects into A, B, C, and D lists so every call has a clear goal How to build qualifiers that tell you when a lead is ready for an appointment Why multithreading matters in complex sales How to use AI tools to help you build a local prospecting list in minutes How to build an ideal customer profile with your team to stop setting unqualified appointments Why every new piece of information counts as a win for SDRs and BDRs - Submit your question: salesgravy.com/ask Purchase Jeb Blount's new book: 90 Days to Level Up Your Sales Skills Grab your tickets for OutBound Conference Follow Jeb Blount on LinkedIn
Homeowners decide within seconds whether to trust the person on their porch. Jessica Stokes shares nine door-to-door prospecting tips to make those seconds count, from the because statement that turns a pitch into a conversation to handling objections without arguing and turning a quick doorstep chat into a scheduled follow-up.