What should you say on a cold call to book the appointment?

In this episode of Ask Jeb on the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount takes a question from Ryan, a real estate agent in Brooklyn, New York, who prospects expired listings and FSBOs and wants to know how to structure his because statement to land more meetings.

Jeb’s advice is to get direct. An expired listing came off the market because it didn’t sell, so call it like it is, lead with the value you bring, and ask for the meeting with a specific time. When getting in front of the seller wins you the listing most of the time, the call has one job: book that meeting.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to write a because statement that books appointments on cold calls
• Why passive openers and permission-based questions invite objections
• How to use the prospecting pyramid to organize your call list
• Why FSBO prospecting is a relationship you nurture until the seller is ready
• Why in-person meetings convert better than phone conversations
• How to ask for the appointment assumptively

-

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

Colonel Sanders heard no more than a thousand times while sleeping in his car. Stephen King needed a spike to hold all his rejection letters. Steve Jobs got fired from his own company. Jeb Blount breaks down what salespeople can learn from people who got rejected more than anyone, and why the reps who make the most money are the ones willing to hear no the most.

👉 Download Our Free Playbook for Selling to the Four Types of Buyers

📖 Purchase Jeb Blount's new book, 90 Days to Level Up Your Sales Skills

🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn!

Featured Sponsor

*If you're ready to upgrade your listening experience, go to go.fitnexa.com/gravy and use code GRAVY for $10 off your order.

Your reps sit through coaching, agree with the feedback, then make the same mistakes on their next call. Jonny Holsten saw this at a company that graded every call on a 27-point sales call scorecard. Every criterion was valid, but the list was too long to remember, so the coaching never stuck. Jonny, founder and CEO of BridgeSelling and author of Fix Your Broken Sales Calls, joins Jeb Blount Jr. to break down how to rebuild the scorecard from your own calls. The moves that close deals are already in your best reps’ calls, waiting to be written down.

👉 Download the free 7 Steps to Building Effective Prospecting Sequences

📚 Learn how Sales Gravy can transform your sales organization

🔗 Watch the full video on YouTube

Starting a sales career is hard, and the first year will test your confidence before it rewards your effort.

In this episode of Ask Jeb on the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount answers a question from Calee, a former high school teacher and assistant principal who is seven weeks into her first sales role with a $1.1 million quota and a pipeline she calls a disaster. Her question: if Jeb could do year one of his sales career over again, what would he tell himself?

His answer is simple, but not easy: stop worrying about outcomes and just work the process. Jeb explains why it takes most new reps months for sales to click, why pressure only exists in the future you imagine, and how process goals keep you focused on the work that builds pipeline today.

What You'll Learn:

• What to focus on in your first year in sales to avoid early burnout
• Why it takes months for a new sales rep to see results
• How to set process goals that keep you focused on daily prospecting activity instead of quota anxiety
• How to manage sales pressure by focusing on what you can control: your actions, your responses, and your mindset
• Why career changers need to stop projecting past experience onto a new sales role
• How to build a sales pipeline one meaningful conversation at a time
• What golf legend Ben Hogan's advice on process over outcome teaches salespeople
• Why following your sales manager's system pays off even when your instincts push back

-

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

Some mornings you wake up ready to prospect. Most mornings you'd rather do anything else. Duff Tucker, filling in for Jeb Blount, explains why that feeling is exactly where freedom starts, and how top performers turn discipline into a pipeline full of options. It all comes back to a core principle: sacrifice what you want now for what you want most.

👉 Download our Free Fanatical Prospecting Call Tracking Sheet

📖 Purchase Jeb Blount's book, 90 Days to Level Up Your Sales Skills

💻 Check out Duff Tucker's courses on Sales Gravy University

🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn!

Your best rep is sitting at 130% of quota, and every instinct says it's time to hire. So you start writing the job description for another hire, bracing for three to six months of ramp time right when you need momentum most. Kyle Willis, VP of Growth at BELAY, thinks most sales leaders are betting on the wrong rep. Jeb Blount Jr. sits down with Kyle to break down what happens when a top performer gets a virtual sales assistant and wins back 5 to 10 hours a week. One rep pushed past 150% of quota, and her self-sourced pipeline grew enough that marketing could spend less. The difference came down to which work she handed off and which old leads she went back after.

👉 Download Belay's Free "5 Reasons You Aren't Hitting Quota" Guide

🎤 Get your ticket to the OutBound Conference

📖 Purchase Jeb Blount's book, 90 Days to Level Up Your Sales Skills

When prospects won't share their pain, pushing harder only raises the wall.

In this episode of Ask Jeb on the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount answers a question from Laura, who sells advertising in a crowded local market. Jeb explains why pain-focused discovery sounds self-serving and walks through the five decisions buyers make before they give you money.

What You'll Learn:

• Why pain point questions make prospects hold back
• The real reasons people buy, from aspiration to ego to brand awareness
• The five decisions buyers make before they do business with you
• Why first impressions are not the final word on likability
• Why listening is the fastest way to become likable
• How to ask about a prospect's world and let them tell their story
• How giving your time and attention makes buyers feel important
• How value bridging connects a buyer's goals to your solution
• How micro stories help you sell intangibles through other clients' results
• Why earning trust turns one-time buyers into repeat customers

-

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

Featured Sponsor

*If you're ready to upgrade your listening experience, go to go.fitnexa.com/gravy and use code GRAVY for $10 off your order.

Red herring objections are a buyer’s emotional self-protection and can derail a sales call fast. But you can break through them with the right approach. Jeb Blount shares a firsthand example from a software demo his own executive team sat through, showing exactly how a rep got baited into a defensive spiral that killed the deal. Jeb explains that most red herrings are built from a lifetime of bad experiences with salespeople and don’t always signal a deal-breaker. He lays out the discipline required to acknowledge these objections calmly, hold the agenda, and keep the sales conversation moving toward its actual objective.

📖 Purchase Jeb Blount's book, Objections: The Ultimate Guide for Mastering the Art and Science of Getting Past No

👉 Download the free Objections Book Club Guide for Sales Teams

🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn!

Featured Sponsor

*If you're ready to upgrade your listening experience, go to go.fitnexa.com/gravy and use code GRAVY for $10 off your order.