The year was 1938. Families across America gathered, listening during the golden age of radio. On the eve of Halloween, a broadcast interrupted their evening: A live report claimed Martian cylinders had landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Within minutes, panic erupted as citizens fled their homes, convinced Earth was under alien attack.

The entire event was fake. It was a perfectly executed radio drama by 23-year-old Orson Welles.

Here's the sales lesson tucked into The War of the Worlds sci-fi scare: Welles wasn’t just reading a script. He was executing a masterful lesson in emotional engagement. He had listeners hooked, buying into his story emotionally before their brains had time to register, "Wait, this can't be real." 

That emotional buy-in is a core tenet of sales: People buy on emotion and then justify it with logic and facts.

If rational adults can flee their homes over a fictional Martian invasion, imagine the force of emotion you can unleash when you find your prospect's emotional trigger. Sharpen your emotional intelligence, and you deploy a powerful sales tool.
Emotion Gets the Attention, Data Seals the Deal
Welles sold tension, uncertainty, and gravity, not a product. His voice was calm yet urgent, delivered with the authority of a trusted news anchor. The audience felt an adrenaline surge—heartbeats rising, eyes widening—before they had time to check the facts.

This is the non-negotiable first step in sales. Your passionate storytelling creates the emotional charge. Your tone carries more weight than any spreadsheet full of ROI data. Emotion gets your buyer leaning in and invested in the outcome. The data you provide simply helps them sleep well at night after they’ve already made their decision.

If your message isn't landing, stop reviewing your product deck and start analyzing your delivery. Are you speaking with urgency, and are you connecting to their emotional state? Without that emotional resonance, even the best solution just adds to the noise.
Authority Isn't Arrogance, It's Command
Welles dressed his fictional story in familiar trappings like live news bulletins, eyewitness reports, and crackling radio static. Each detail made the unbelievable feel legitimate. He commanded belief by establishing immediate, undeniable authority.

Bring that same presence to your sales interactions. Authority isn’t arrogance; it’s commanding belief. Sound like someone who’s been there, knows the terrain, and has the solution. Communicate with unwavering authority, and you build trust before price discussions begin.

This is how you sell the experience. Prospects must believe in you and your company; belief in your product comes next. They buy the experience of working with you before seeing the product. If you sound uncertain, you’ll never build a foundation of trust.
Stay Steady to Control the Chaos
Welles predicted a strong reaction to his broadcast and stayed calm, controlled the narrative, and guided the audience through the panic he was creating.

In sales, moments of crisis or uncertainty test your professionalism. When a prospect goes cold, objections arise, or a competitor attacks, do not panic. Do not mirror their anxiety—it only feeds chaos and cedes control of the deal.

Control the process, control yourself, control the outcome. When deals wobble and emotions spike in your buyer, that is your moment to shine. Breathe, slow down, ask questions, and lead steadily.

AI in sales isn't coming soon. It's already here, and it's quietly separating the salespeople who will thrive from those who won't.

On the Sales Gravy Podcast, sales expert and author Victor Antonio shares this quote: "You won't lose your job to AI. You'll lose your job to people who are using AI." 

While everyone debates whether artificial intelligence will replace salespeople, the real shift is already happening. What you need to know is which parts of your job will still matter when a machine can do everything else.
The Trust Formula Still Requires Humans
Most people think AI in sales is about automation. It's not. It's about augmentation.

Yes, AI can write your emails. It can analyze your pipeline. It can schedule your meetings and generate your proposals. But it can’t build trust with a buyer who's about to make a six-figure decision they're terrified of getting wrong.

Trust in selling comes down to three things:

Understanding the buyer’s point of view
Demonstrating real expertise
Keeping the buyer’s best interest front and center

When a buyer is staring at a purchase order that could make or break their business, they don't want a chatbot. They want a human being who says, "I've got you. This is the right move."
Simple Sales No Longer Require a Sales Rep 
Transactional jobs are disappearing.

AI sales agents can already handle simple sales from start to finish. A customer calls about a broken window seal. The AI analyzes the image, checks inventory, schedules a technician, verifies the warranty, and puts the appointment on the calendar. No human required.

This isn't science fiction. These systems exist today.

AI handles simple tasks easily, but complex sales still require humans. Everything on the straightforward end—cold outreach, basic prospecting, routine follow-ups—is getting automated fast.

But complex B2B sales are different. When deals involve multiple stakeholders, custom solutions, and high-stakes decisions, buyers still need salespeople. Humans don't trust machines with decisions that keep them up at night.

Your job security lives in complexity. If you're selling simple products with simple processes, you need to start adding value now. 
What You Should Be Doing Right Now
Most salespeople are waiting while AI transforms the industry. Don’t make that mistake.

Here’s how to start experimenting with AI today:

Use ChatGPT, Google's Notebook LM, or your AI of choice to digest long articles and research reports in minutes instead of hours.
Feed it information about your products and competitors to create your own custom knowledge base.
Role-play objection handling by assigning it different buyer personas and practicing your responses.
Ask it to critique your proposals before you send them to catch weak points you might miss.

These tools aren't perfect. They'll feel clunky at first. But you're not trying to master AI today. You're building comfort with technology that will be 100 times more powerful in just a few years.

The salespeople who are experimenting now will be the ones who know how to use AI when it really matters. The ones waiting for their leaders to force them to adopt AI will scramble to catch up.
The Skills That Survive AI
So what actually matters when AI handles the busywork?

The biggest obstacle in complex sales isn't convincing buyers that your solution wo...

Here's a question that'll keep you up at night: How do you take a company from $300K in annual revenue to $1.5 million in 18 months, then scale to $3-5 million within five years?
That's the challenge facing Greg Hirschi from Colorado. He's the new executive leader of an 18-year-old company selling ethics assessment services to professional licensing boards. They've expanded from an entrepreneurial model to a small team with one salesperson and one customer service person. The goal is aggressive growth, and Greg needs to know where to focus his limited resources to get the biggest bang for his buck.
If you're nodding your head right now because you're in a similar situation, pay attention. Because the mistakes you make at $300K will haunt you at $3 million.

The Resource Reality Check
Let's be brutally honest about what a $300K revenue company means: You have no money. You have a razor-thin budget. You have one salesperson and one leader trying to do everything.
At this stage, you have exactly one priority: REVENUE.
You don't have the luxury of fixing operations, perfecting your tech stack, or building elaborate systems. You need to sell. Period.
But here's where most small companies screw this up. They think selling means taking anything with a pulse. If it can fog a mirror, they'll do business with it. That's a death spiral disguised as growth.

The Operator's Dilemma
Greg comes from an operations background. He's analytical, process-driven, and systematic. Those traits are incredible assets for building a business, especially when the goal is to scale fast. But they can also be a liability when managing salespeople.
Here's what happens: Operators think in systems and logic. Salespeople think in relationships and emotion. Operators want everything organized and predictable. Salespeople throw deals on the table that are messy and unpredictable.
If you're an operator trying to lead sales, you need to understand this fundamental tension. Your salesperson is out there getting hammered with objections every single day, building narratives in their head about why people won't buy. You're thinking, "Just brush it off and do it again. What's wrong with you?" They're thinking, "You have no idea what it's like out here."
This is why reading New Sales Simplified by Mike Weinberg is non-negotiable if you're an operator managing sales. You need to learn how salespeople think, how they operate, and how to lead them effectively without losing your mind.

Start With Your ICP or Die Trying
The single most important thing Greg needs to do right now to scale is get laser-focused on his Ideal Customer Profile.
Not kind of focused. Not "we have a general idea." I mean obsessively, precisely, ridiculously dialed in on exactly who they should be selling to.
Here's why this matters so much at $300K: Greg's salesperson has a $600K pipeline and will close 50% of it. Sounds great, right? But if half those customers churn because they're the wrong fit, requiring constant re-education and hand-holding, Greg's salesperson will get stuck in account management mode. They'll stop prospecting for new business because they're too busy re-selling existing accounts.
That's how you stay stuck at $300K forever.
Your ICP drives everything. It determines your messaging, your marketing, your presentation materials, and which stakeholders you need to reach inside target organizations. It helps you build relevant social proof stories. It allows you to coach your salesperson on handling specific objections instead of generic brush-offs.
Most importantly, it gives you guardrails.

I've been intrigued by all of the LinkedIn posts lately from sales professionals, leaders, and experts proclaimings the phone is back! Even the “phone-is-dead” evangelists seem to have had a change of heart and are encouraging salespeople to “phone a customer.” 

My favorite posts are from salespeople who took this advice, called a customer, and were surprised—even stunned—to discover that their customer actually wanted to talk. It’s more proof that buyers are starving for real, authentic, human-to-human conversations with their sales reps and account managers. 
When Sellers Make Their First Call in Years
I saw one post yesterday from an account manager who said that, for the first time in years, he had picked up the phone and called a customer. In his post, he described how rewarding it was to have a real, live conversation—as if this was some new revelation. He said that even though the phone was “old school,” he had given it a try because his customers weren’t responding to his emails anymore. 

Although I'm super pleased to see that salespeople are rediscovering the power of the humble phone, I was bothered by this particular post because it is an indictment of just how far the sales profession has fallen over the past few years.

It also exposes the malpractice of this guy’s leadership team. Seriously, how is it possible that his leaders and company allowed him to avoid having actual conversations with his customers for years? 
Pick Up the Phone and Talk to Your Customers
Account managers who are not talking with their customers, the ones who keep their customers at digital arm's length and send random “just checking in emails,” are swinging the door open and inviting competitors in.

When you fail to proactively manage relationships—when you don’t talk with your customers—those customers end up talking to your competitors and considering other options.

Nearly 70 percent of customers are lost due to neglect. Not prices, not products, not the economy, not aggressive competitors.

Neglect! They feel the sting of being taken for granted. If you've ever been taken for granted (and I bet you have), you know that it makes you feel unimportant, small, and resentful, which can lead to the feeling of contempt.

Resentment and contempt are the two most powerful negative emotions in the pantheon of human emotions. They are the gangrene of relationships, festering below the surface, slowly rotting away the connections that bind people together until the relationship is destroyed.

The good news is the secret to defending accounts is completely in your control. It’s simple. Pay attention to your customers.

And guess what? A simple, regular  phone call can make all the difference. Just pick up the phone, dial their number, and ask or say:

How are you doing?


What can I do to help you?


I have an idea for you.  


Have a great weekend.


Thank you for your business.

Regular telephone contact ensures that you are top of mind with customers. Hearing your voice lets them know that you care. It doesn’t need to be anything particularly special.

Your sales team has the tools. They know the pitch. The CRM is full of leads. So why are half your reps still missing quota?

Randy Wilinski spent 15 years building high-performance sales teams before joining our training team at Sales Gravy. His answer to this question cuts through the usual explanations about territory problems or skill gaps. The real issue? Most sales leaders are managing activity instead of developing people. They're applying pressure instead of addressing the mental blocks that sabotage performance before reps ever pick up the phone.
The Real Problem Holding Back Sales Teams
Walk into any sales bullpen and you’ll hear the same beliefs on repeat:

“I’m not good at cold calling.”

“Nobody wants to hear from me.”

“I don’t know if I can hit these numbers.”

Most leaders dismiss this as an attitude problem or lack of confidence. So they fire up the team with a motivational speech, send everyone back to their desks—and nothing changes.

Here’s what’s being missed: These aren’t attitude problems. They’re belief systems that determine behavior. And behavior determines results.

Nobody was born knowing how to sell. Your top performer didn’t start with the ability to handle objections or close deals. They learned it. But the reps who believe they can’t learn it won’t put in the work to improve. They’ll make half the calls, avoid the hard conversations, and prove themselves right.

The real work of building elite performers is getting inside your reps’ heads and rooting out the thought processes that are killing their performance. That’s where true coaching separates managers from leaders.
Why One-on-One Coaching Unlocks Growth
Group training builds skill, but addressing mental blocks requires one-on-one coaching—where you can dig into patterns, ask uncomfortable questions, and challenge unhelpful thinking.

Why does this rep always sabotage themselves right before closing a big deal? Where did this idea that "people don't like being sold to" come from? What past failure is creating this blind spot?

Good coaches shine a light on the patterns that people fail to recognize or flat-out avoid. They name the behavior that’s been there all along, but no one wanted to confront.

Awareness alone doesn't create change. Your rep can have that breakthrough moment where they realize they are the problem, and still fall back into the same habits.

Real coaching means holding people accountable to the change they commit to making. It means checking in, following up, and not letting them slide back into old patterns when things get uncomfortable. That’s the difference between feel-good conversations and actual performance improvement.
The Coaching Gap in Sales Leadership
Most sales leaders don't actually coach. They manage activity, review numbers, and deliver pep talks. But managing metrics does not build high-performance sales teams. Developing people does.

Coaching starts with curiosity. It means sitting down one-on-one and asking questions that uncover what is really holding a rep back. Not "why didn’t you make enough calls?" but "what made those calls hard to make?"

Sometimes the barrier is a belief. Other times, it is a communication issue between the rep and the leader. If you do not understand how each person communicates and processes feedback, you will keep missing the mark.

When you tailor your coaching to match how a rep thinks and responds,

Here's a question that'll make your head spin: How do you train MLM recruits who have zero sales experience to actually sell instead of just posting on social media and hoping for the best?
That's the question Andrew Osborne from Pittsburgh brought to me. Andrew works in direct selling and network marketing, specifically health and wellness nutrition supplements. Like most MLM leaders, he's frustrated watching new recruits default to the guru-approved strategy of posting on Instagram and waiting for the magic to happen.
Spoiler alert: The magic never happens.
If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. The "social media is the new cold calling" myth is one of the most damaging lies being sold to new direct sales representatives today, and it's costing MLM organizations their best potential talent.

The Social Media Trap: When Easy Becomes Impossible
Remember that story in Fanatical Prospecting where I went head-to-head with someone who swore their social media guru had all the answers? I said, "Great, you do yours for a week, I'll do mine for a week, and we'll test it out."
Guess who won?
Here's the brutal truth: Posting on social media feels easy because it lets you keep people at arm's length. You don't have to face rejection. You don't have to interrupt strangers. You don't have to have uncomfortable conversations.
But here's what actually happens. After two months of posting videos that get one view each and zero sales, your recruits quit. They're demoralized, broke, and convinced MLM doesn't work.
The real problem? They were never taught how to actually sell.

Why MLM Sales Training Is Harder Than You Think
When Andrew recruits someone into his network marketing organization, they're making two types of sales: selling the product and recruiting new team members. Most of these people have never sold anything in their lives.
They came from every background imaginable except sales. Something happened in their life that made them say, "I want more." That motivation is critical, but motivation without skill is just frustration wrapped in hope.
The things they need to do are really hard. Nothing in their life has prepared them for what sales prospecting actually requires. They have to sacrifice what they want now (ease and comfort) for what they want most (their goals).
That's why the first question I ask every new recruit is this: What are your top five goals in the next twelve months?
Not company goals. Not team goals. Their goals. Because if they don't want something bad enough to go through the pain of rejection, nothing else matters.

The Only Formula That Actually Works
In MLM, there's one simple formula that works every single time: Go talk with people.
The more people you talk with, the more you recruit. The more product you sell. It's that simple.
Think about it this way. If you had a marketing strategy that could create all your product sales and recruiting automatically, you wouldn't need an MLM. You'd just have an e-commerce business. The reason network marketing exists is because a network of people can spread the word and sell better than online ads.
But here's the problem. Talking with people means getting past your discomfort. It means interrupting a stranger in line at Walmart. It means seeing someone at church who mentions financial problems and saying, "Hey, what if I had a way to help you out?"
Most people would rather post on TikTok than have that conversation.

What to Teach Your MLM Team

You’ve probably heard it a hundred times lately—AI is coming for your job.

Every week, there’s a new headline about another role being automated, another company replacing people with bots, another “AI agent” that can do the work of ten humans in half the time.

And if you spend too much time reading those headlines, it’s easy to start wondering, What happens to me? What happens to salespeople like us in a world where machines can do almost everything we used to do?
AI is Here to Stay
You can't escape the truth. AI is going to change everything and impact almost every part of our lives. The train has left the station, and it will not be turning back.

AI is going to displace a lot of people and jobs, but it’s not going to replace everyone.

Because no matter how smart machines get, they can’t feel or connect the way you and I can. Sales is, and always will be, the ultimate human profession. It’s the one job built entirely on human emotion, human judgment, and human connection.
What You Can Do That AI Can't
Just think about it:

* AI can write words. But it can’t create belief.
* It can predict who might buy. But it can’t build trust.
* It can score a lead. But it can’t lead a human being through uncertainty, fear and doubt while giving them confidence to make the right decision in complex situations. 

That’s what you do. That’s what we do. That’s what salespeople have always done—long before there was technology, long before there was AI, and long before algorithms tried to simulate emotion.

In sales, it’s not about the product. It’s about the person. People buy you. What you sell might get you to the door, but it is how you sell that determines whether they let you in.  

Every sale is a transfer of emotion from one human being to another. It’s the transfer of  belief and confidence and trust.

When a customer says “Yes,” they’re not just saying yes to a proposal or a price. They’re saying 'Yes' to you. No matter how powerful technology becomes, that moment—that human moment—will never be replaced by a line of code.

As modern sellers, what we need to understand is that AI isn’t the end of selling. It’s just the next leap forward in our incredibly resilient profession. 
Keeping it Real
AI will replace some salespeople, so we need to keep it real.

There are reps who are lazy, transactional, and just go through the motions and never bother to think, adapt, or grow. Those reps will get left behind.

So AI will not make sales professionals less valuable, but it will absolutely make the gap between poor and exceptional salespeople wider and more pronounced. 

But the top performers—the ones who combine human empathy with AI-powered insight—will be unstoppable. Because when you merge the intelligence of machines with the intuition of a human being, it becomes a force multiplier. 
How to Become Irreplaceable with AI
Right this moment, top sales professionals and high-earners are elevating their performance with AI tools that do the grunt work. It’ll build your lists, do your research, automate your follow-ups, and write every sort of draft. 

It will give you more time for human-to-human connections: to listen, discover, develop creative solutions, persuade, and see the emotional context behind the data.

The question isn’t whether AI will replace you. The question is whether you’ll use AI to become irreplaceable.

It's simple. AI can give you the right words to say. But only you can make someone feel something when you say it.

AI can pull the data,

The gap between average salespeople and elite performers lies in process. While most reps chase quick wins and hope something sticks, top producers follow proven sales strategies that consistently deliver results. They've mastered the fundamentals that turn prospects into customers and customers into advocates.

If you’re ready to finish the year strong and blow past your quota, these five battle-tested sales strategies from previous podcasts will transform how you sell.
1. Deliver an Unforgettable Customer Experience by Mastering Your Emotions
Your prospect doesn't care about your bad morning or the three deals that fell through yesterday. When you walk through the door or dial their number, you’re the only conversation they’re having with your company today.

Elite salespeople know emotional consistency separates closers from pretenders. Think of it like a pro golfer staying calm and cruising forward regardless of what happened on the last hole.

As Jeb Blount explains: How your customer feels about you is more predictive of outcome than any other variable. They buy you first, and then they buy your product. They buy you because they feel safe, heard, and confident you will deliver.

This means you have to compartmentalize every interaction. Your fifth appointment of the day deserves the same intensity and professionalism as your first. When you show up desperate, prospects sense it immediately. When you rush through discovery, they feel undervalued.

Jeb emphasizes this critical point: Buying a house, car, or service is deeply emotional for the customer. Before every interaction, take sixty seconds to reset. Acknowledge whatever is bothering you, mentally file it away, then walk in focused entirely on their world and their goals.
2. Commit to the Day One Follow-Up Mindset
Ask yourself: How many times do you attempt to reach a prospect before quitting?

If you answered three or four, you are leaving money on the table. Most reps quit after just three or four attempts, and sometimes without ever hearing a ‘No.’ They just stop and let leads rot in the CRM instead of risking rejection.

As Jessica Stokes reminds us, top producers understand this: While you are tracking your sixth or seventh outreach attempt, for the prospect, every touchpoint feels like day one. They are busy running their business—not waiting for your call.

The problem is not just the number of attempts; it is the spacing. When you leave a voicemail and wait a month to "give them space," you lose momentum and start from scratch every time.

The winning sales strategy is persistence with velocity. That means touching base every few days or weekly. When you maintain momentum, prospects remember you. The real failure is letting quality leads die because you are afraid to pick up the phone and risk hearing "No."
3. Turn Your Empathy Into a Weapon, Not a Weakness
If you have ever hesitated before making a cold call because you thought, "I don't want to bother them," you are dealing with what Jeb Blount calls projection, and it is costing you deals.

Projection happens when you assume prospects hate being interrupted as much as you do. You start deciding for them before you’ve even made the call.

Successful salespeople recognize interruption is a professional necessity. Your job requires it; your income depends on it.

Letting empathy paralyze your prospecting is dangerous. The internal conflict is real: You want to be an...

How do you prepare your mindset and create the discipline to be effective every single day?

That's what Jeff Velez asked on a recent Ask Jeb episode, and it's the question that separates the pros from the amateurs in sales.

Sales is the hardest profession in business. It's the only job where you have to go out and find rejection and bring it home every single day. Every ask you make carries the potential to be rejected at a deep, painful level.

That's why we get paid so well. And that's why most people can't hack it.

But the ones who do? They've figured out the secret.
Find Your Carrot
My friend Will Fratini from ZoomInfo nailed it when he talked about what motivates him, or his carrot. His five-year-old daughter once bought him a carrot Christmas ornament, and he carries it with him everywhere as a reminder of why he shows up every day.

But here's what matters: Your carrot needs to be specific and tangible. Not some vague "I want to be successful" nonsense. I'm talking about something real. A commission check of X dollars. A boat. Generational wealth through real estate. A college fund for your kids.

Think of it like an old-time horse and carriage. You put a carrot on a stick in front of a stubborn horse, and suddenly it'll go forward even when it thinks it can't. That's what your carrot does for you when everyone else is giving up.

Your carrot is what pushes you past the point where giving up would be completely justified. It's what separates the best from the rest.
The Hard Truth About Sales Discipline
Let's be clear about what sales discipline actually means. You have to show up every day and do a certain number of activities. Every. Single. Day. Consistently.

And in order to do those hard things consistently, you need that carrot.

It's about sacrificing what you want now (which is easy) for what you want most (which requires doing hard things). I want to do things that are easy. But in order to get what I want most, I've got to do things that are hard.

That's the entire game.
The Scottie Scheffler Example
Look at Scottie Scheffler, the PGA golfer. When he makes a bogey, he bounces back with a birdie or better 62 percent of the time. The rest of the field? Less than 18 percent.

Why? Because Scheffler is crystal clear about what's important to him. He knows his carrot. He understands what fulfillment means. When something goes wrong, there's no cascade of "everything is wrong." His ego doesn't take a hit because he's focused on what matters most.

He picks himself back up, brushes himself off, and keeps moving.

But here's what most people don't know: It wasn't always this way. When he first brought on his caddie, Ted Scott, Ted told him straight up: "I'm not working for you unless you get the attitude, temper, and anger under control."

Think about that. The caddie refused to work with him unless he fixed his mindset first.

That's how important mindset in sales really is. Everything else comes after.
Your Visual Cue
Go get yourself a carrot ornament. Seriously. Find one on Amazon, hang it in your office, and use it as your visual cue for what matters most.

When you're sitting at your desk in the morning trying to get started, or when something has gone wrong and you're trying to bounce back, that carrot will remind you why you chose this soul-sapping profession in the first place.

Because maybe the only thing harder than sales is golf. But you chose it. Now own it.
The Secret Superpower

Here is an undeniable truth: The No. 1 reason for failure in sales is an empty pipeline, and the No. 1 reason you have an empty pipeline is that you are not doing enough prospecting.

In sales, everything rests on putting qualified opportunities in your pipeline. Prospecting is the beginning and the end, alpha and omega. If you don't prospect, you will fail. That is a guaranteed truth.

Each and every sales day, you must connect with prospects, engage them in meaningful conversations, and convert them into pipeline opportunities. 
It’s a Noisy World
The problem is that we live in a noisy world in which those same prospects are being inundated with prospecting messages from dozens of other salespeople who are also attempting to get their attention. 

So, if you don’t stand out, you lose. 

But I doubt I’m telling you anything that you don’t already know. It’s freaking hard to get attention when prospecting, and it's not getting easier. There are days when it feels like you could be jumping up and down in front of your prospect in a pink bunny suit while throwing hundred-dollar bills in the air, and they’d still ignore you. 
The Sledgehammer Approach Is Dead
One of the key reasons so many salespeople fail to break through is that their entire prospecting strategy is pounding away at prospects through a single communication channel—typically a series of automated emails sent through a sales engagement platform like Outreach or SalesLoft. 

Sadly, this sledgehammer approach just doesn’t work anymore. Recent data reveals that salespeople are sending as many as eight times more emails today than they did five years ago and getting just a tenth of the results. 

A big reason prospects are tuning out is that AI-powered sales automation tools have scaled email prospecting activity to an extraordinary level. 

In the past, writing a prospecting email involved strategic thought and taking time to craft a message that was unique to each prospect. It was a slow process, which meant salespeople sent fewer but better prospecting emails.

Today, AI engines can pump out hundreds of cold email variations in seconds with shallow, and often cringeworthy, personalization that, more often than not, turns prospects off. And as AI-generated prospecting emails flood inboxes, the sheer volume of this outreach has eroded any impact from the improved efficiency. 

Constant exposure to this irrelevant, repetitive AI-generated crap has left business executives exasperated. They are overwhelmed and have tuned out, turned off, and are ignoring all prospecting messages—good or bad, human or AI-generated.
Break Through the Noise
Most sales professionals today are desperate to find new techniques to help them break through the noise and get attention when prospecting so that they can engage in more meaningful conversations. 

Most salespeople want a bigger, stronger pipeline filled with qualified opportunities. Yet many overlook one of the most powerful prospecting tools right at their fingertips: LinkedIn.
Why LinkedIn, Why Now
It can be argued that the moment the sales profession changed forever and the door opened to modern selling as we know it was when Alexander Graham Bell said on the very first telephone call, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.”

The telephone's impact on the sales profession was profound and lasting. Then, as now, the phone remains the most efficient and effective means for conducting real-time, synchronous human-to-human conversations with prospects.

Bell made his call to Mr. Watson 150 years ago. Since then, only a handful of pivotal technologies have advanced the sales profession ...

Cold calling terrifies most salespeople more than losing their biggest account. The rejection. The hang-ups. The voice telling you that you're bothering people who don't want to hear from you.

Before transitioning into sales, Steve Munn spent nine years as a professional hockey defenseman. As a hockey player, his job was to make life difficult for the other team and absorb whatever they dished back. 

"Part of it was getting punched in the face," he said on a recent episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast. "If I get a no from a prospect, that's maybe a bad day, but it's certainly not as bad as getting a concussion or a broken nose again."

That perspective shift, understanding what actually constitutes a threat, changes everything about how you approach cold calling. It goes beyond being tougher or having thicker skin.
Your Fear Isn't About the Call
Most sales professionals will do anything to avoid call blocks. They'll update their CRM. Reorganize their pipeline. Respond to emails that could wait three days. Anything but pick up the phone.

The problem isn't the person on the other end of the line. You don't want to be the one who fumbles, doesn't have the right answer, or proves you don't belong in that conversation.

Imposter syndrome thrives in sales because every call is another opportunity to prosecute yourself. Every objection becomes evidence that you're not cut out for this. Every hang-up confirms what you secretly suspected: You're bothering people who have better things to do.

That internal narrative is all in your head, and it's costing you deals.
Get Your Mind Right First
You can't make effective cold calls when you're living in your head. Anxiety, overthinking, or trying to sound perfect makes every conversation feel forced. Nothing bad actually happens on a sales call. Your life isn’t in danger, and a hung-up phone or curt “not interested” barely registers as a problem.

The best cold callers aren't fearless. They're prepared mentally before they start dialing.

Find what gets you into the right frame of mind: review recent wins, remind yourself that you’re solving real problems, or call a colleague for perspective. The goal is connecting with another human, not executing a perfect pitch. People can tell the difference.
Separate Message From Delivery
When someone says "we're all set" and hangs up, they're not making a judgment about your worth as a salesperson or a human being. They're communicating one thing: They're not interested right now.

The delivery might feel harsh, and the tone might sound dismissive. But the message is simple and impersonal.

Athletes learn this early. Coaches scream. Teammates criticize. Opponents talk trash. If you react emotionally to how something is said rather than hearing what's actually being communicated, you become ineffective.

In sales, the same principle applies. When you stop taking the delivery personally, you can actually hear what's being said. Sometimes what sounds like a hard no is actually "you haven't given me a reason to care yet" or "call me back in six months."
You Don’t Need to Know Everything
One of the biggest barriers to cold calling is the belief you must have all the answers. You hesitate because you think, "What if they ask something I don't know? I'll look like a fool."

Here's what that thinking misses: You have a team.

No salesperson operates in a vacuum. You've got service teams, technical experts, partners, and colleagues who collectively know far more than you do individually. The expectation that you should show up with encyclopedic knowledge is self-imposed and unrealistic.

What matters on a cold call isn't demonstrating expert...

Here's a question that keeps startup founders up at night: How does a first sales hire build pipeline and prospect effectively when there's zero technology, no tools, and absolutely no data resources available?
That's the challenge Matthew Russell brought to the table, and it's a scenario that's far more common than you'd think. Companies transitioning from founder-led sales often throw their first sales hire into the deep end with nothing but a laptop and a "good luck" pat on the back.
If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. But here's the good news: Some of the most successful sales teams were built from exactly this position, and there's a proven playbook for making it work.

The Hook Is Everything
When Will Frattini joined his boss Jane in Austin back in 2011, they had zero presence in the market. No reputation, no established relationships, no fancy tech stack. Just two people and a mission to build from scratch.
The first lesson? Your job isn't to reinvent the wheel or create some elaborate sales process. Your job is to figure out what hook the founder used to close their first deals, then ruthlessly replicate it.
This means getting the founder to show you exactly how they won business. Listen to their calls. Shadow their meetings. Mirror their approach. Don't try to be clever or add your own spin yet. Just learn what actually works.
Here's the critical part: You need the founder to be completely honest with you about your early meetings. Will's boss had the right to refuse any meeting he set. If it didn't qualify, she'd tell him exactly why. That feedback loop is gold because it teaches you the difference between a meeting that sounds good and a meeting that actually advances the sale.
Master the fundamentals before you try to optimize.

The Metrics That Actually Matter
Forget about creating a complex sales process with seventeen KPIs. In the beginning, you need exactly one metric that matters: qualified meetings that convert to next steps.
Will's early goal was 20 to 30 worthwhile meetings per month. Eventually they scaled that to 60 per rep. But notice the word "worthwhile." These weren't just any meetings. They were conversations with real potential that the founder or sales leader validated.
The qualifier matters because it forces you to get better at targeting and messaging, not just activity for activity's sake. You can't game this system by booking junk meetings.
Victoria Walker asked how long it takes to build metrics in a niche market, and the answer is simple: You'll have metrics after day one. How many calls did you make? How many connections? How many appointments set?
But most new outbound teams trip up because they expect instant results, don't see them, and quit before the cumulative impact kicks in.

The 30-Day Rule Changes Everything
The prospecting you do today pays off in the next 90 days. This is the rule of cumulative impact, and it's why most outbound efforts fail.
Companies start strong, don't see immediate results, and abandon ship. Then they restart six months later with different reps, different messaging, and the cycle repeats. This is death by fits and starts.
Your commitment has to be ironclad: We're doing this every single day for at least 90 to 120 days before we make major changes. You'll make small tweaks to messaging and targeting along the way, but you don't stop the engine.
Think of it like an elite sports team watching game film. You're looking for incremental improvements. Last month you closed five good deals. This month you're aiming for six.

Cicero once said, "Cultivation of the mind is as necessary as food to the body."

Sales is fundamentally a mental game. Your capacity for understanding your prospects at a deeper level and developing creative solutions that solve their problems—that's your winning edge.

In a profession where you need to outwit and out maneuver your competitors to win, your ability to think, to truly contemplate and reflect, might be the most underutilized competitive advantage in your sales arsenal.
Always Responding. Never Reflecting.
Yet most salespeople these days are starving their minds. They're constantly in motion, constantly busy, constantly doing, constantly in front of screens—but rarely thinking. 

We've created a culture where being busy equals being productive. Most salespeople spend their days reacting to emails, to phone calls, to urgent requests, to the latest fire that needs to be put out. We are always responding, never reflecting. Always moving, never thinking strategically about where we are going.
Noise Kills Your Ability to Think
William Penn wrote, "True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment."

Think about that for a moment. You wouldn't dream of going weeks without sleep because you know your body would break down. But you regularly go weeks, maybe months, without giving your mind the silence and space it needs to just think and function at its highest level.

We live in the age of noise. Constant noise. Digital noise, physical noise, mental noise.

Your phone is buzzing with notifications. Your email is pinging every few minutes. Your CRM is demanding updates. Your manager wants reports. Your prospects are texting. Your colleagues and customers are interrupting. 

We have so many things going on at once and so much noise in our lives that it has become almost impossible to think.

All of this noise is killing your ability to think clearly, to make good decisions, to see the big picture, to be the creative and thoughtful professional you were meant to be. 
Schedule Thinking Time
That's exactly why scheduling thinking time is so important.

Most people don’t take the time to think because they don’t feel like they can afford to. Sitting quietly and thinking doesn't feel like work. It feels like you're being lazy. Our culture has programmed us to believe that if we're not visibly doing something, we're not being productive.

Likewise, constant stimulation has become a drug. Silence feels uncomfortable because we've forgotten how to be alone with our thoughts.

I passionately believe that we must schedule, on our calendars, time for thinking. No distractions, no music, no TV, no laptop, no phone—just you and your thoughts, alone.

Notice I said "schedule" it. If you don't put it on your calendar, it won't happen. You'll always find something more "urgent" to do.
Thinking Time
Taking time to just think is powerful. It slows you down, helps you relax, and frequently generates incredible ideas and inspiration. 

Thinking time isn't meditation, though it shares some similarities. It's not prayer, though some people find it spiritual. It's simply dedicated time for your mind to process, reflect, and contemplate.

The beauty of thinking time is that it can take many forms. 
The Quiet Corner Think 
Find a quiet space like your office with the door clos...

Most salespeople lose a sales meeting before they ever open their mouth. They show up with decks of slides, lists of discovery questions, or AI-generated talking points, thinking preparation is about having more material. 

But while they’re busy organizing, their prospects are mentally checking out—and the meeting hasn’t even started.

Lee Salz, bestselling author and founder of Sales Architects, has observed this pattern for decades. "If you want to win more deals at the prices you want, you need a better first meeting strategy. Everyone says I want to win more deals, so they focus on closing at the end. But that's not where the opportunities are. The opportunities to win more deals start in that first meeting."
The Sales Meeting Problem Hiding in Plain Sight
Ask any salesperson: "If a prospect agrees to meet with you, what do they get out of it?"

The response is usually stunned silence.

That silence reveals the problem. Too many sales professionals approach the first sales meeting with an extraction mindset, focused on what they can learn instead of what they can give.

Think about how you prepare. Do you make a list of questions to gather information? Do you pull together slides about your company, products, and clients? That might feel productive, but here’s what it communicates: This meeting is about me.

When prospects can’t see immediate value in the conversation, they resist. They may decline the meeting altogether, or worse—they show up already skeptical, arms crossed, counting down the minutes until they can escape.
Why Traditional Discovery Is Failing You
Sales training has conditioned reps to believe that discovery meetings are the foundation of the sales process. In theory, this makes sense: You need information to qualify opportunities.

But here’s the problem—buyers don’t experience value when they educate you. They already have suppliers, vendors, and service providers. Another salesperson asking them to “tell me about your challenges” just feels like more work.

Worse, traditional discovery feels like an interrogation. You’re pulling data without leaving anything behind. And prospects are savvy enough to sense when you’re there to take rather than give.
The Emotion Gap in Every Sales Meeting
You already know people buy on emotion and justify with logic. You’ve heard it in every sales book, every training, every keynote.

Walk into the average first meeting, and you’ll see the same setup: a rep armed with facts, features, processes, and pricing structures. All logic, zero emotion.

The result? Buyers nod politely, take notes, and then ghost you. Not because your product isn’t good enough, but because you failed to make them feel anything.

Your competitors who are consistently winning aren’t necessarily better at selling features. They’re better at weaving emotional connection into the very fabric of their meetings. They create trust, credibility, and resonance in the first 15 minutes.
The Three Non-Negotiables of Every Winning Sales Meeting
High-performing sales professionals understand that every first meeting must accomplish three core objectives:

Meaningful Qualification: Determine whether this opportunity aligns with your ideal customer profile while also helping prospects better understand their situation. 
Clear Differentiation: Prospects need to understand what makes your approach unique, but not through feature comparisons. Real differentiation comes from your methodology, philosophy, and approach. Show them how you think about solving problems,

Here's a question that'll make your head spin: You know AI is transforming sales, everyone's talking about it, but you're still staring at ChatGPT like it's some mysterious black box, wondering what magical question you should type in first.
That's the reality for most salespeople in 2025. They know they need to embrace AI, they've heard the success stories, but they're paralyzed by the complexity and overwhelmed by the options.
If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. The biggest barrier to AI adoption isn't technical—it's mental. Salespeople are asking the wrong question entirely.

The Wrong Question That's Keeping You Stuck
Most people approach AI like it's some mystical oracle they need to appease with the perfect question. They think there's some secret prompt that will unlock AI's full potential, like finding the right combination to a safe.
Here's the brutal truth: There is no perfect first question for AI.
The real problem isn't what to ask—it's how you're thinking about the problem. Instead of asking "What should I ask AI?" you need to flip the script entirely.

The Mental Shift That Changes Everything
Twenty minutes before recording our latest Ask Jeb episode, I was working on a new training program for Sales University. I had a slide deck and workbook that needed proofreading, and my first instinct was to think, "Who can I get to proofread this thing?"
That's how most of us think: "How can someone else do this?" or "How can I get this done?"
But I caught myself and asked a different question: "How can AI do this?"
I uploaded the slide deck to AI and asked it to proofread for me. Fifteen seconds later, I had a response—not perfect, but a starting point. I refined my prompt, asking for typos organized slide by slide, and boom—seven minutes later, the entire deck was cleaned up.
What would have taken me 45 minutes and still resulted in missed errors was done in minutes, with better accuracy than I could achieve manually.

Why You're Already Qualified to Use AI
Here's what Will Frattini from ZoomInfo pointed out that hit me like a lightning bolt: You already know how to use AI. You've been doing it for years.
If you've ever asked Siri for directions, told Alexa to turn up the music, or typed a question into Google, congratulations—you've been using AI. The only difference now is the sophistication and power of what's available.
The barrier isn't technical competency. It's the mental block of overthinking it.
You don't need to understand large language models or machine learning algorithms. You just need to ask a question and hit enter. That's it. That's the profound simplicity everyone's missing.

Think Like a Conductor, Not a Solo Act
Here's the game-changing mindset shift: Stop thinking of yourself as someone who needs to learn AI. Start thinking of yourself as a conductor standing in front of a symphony orchestra.
You've got Claude for certain tasks, ChatGPT for others, ZoomInfo Copilot for prospecting intelligence, Gemini for research—each AI is like a different instrument in your orchestra. Your job isn't to play every instrument; it's to conduct them all to create something beautiful.
The apex predators in sales aren't going to be the people who master one AI tool. They're going to be the conductors who know when to use which AI for maximum impact, iterating and refining until they get exactly what they need.
This means developing your prospecting methodology becomes even more critical—you need to know what outcome you're trying to achieve before you can direct your AI orchestra to help you get there.

Welcome to Grind Season. This week, we enter the most pivotal period of your entire sales year. From now until mid-December, how you choose to invest your limited time will determine whether you end your year strong, hit your income goals, make it to the winner's circle at President's Club, and start next year with a full pipeline OR wallow in mediocrity, miss your number, and damage your career. 
Write Your Sales Comeback Story
If you're ahead of your goals, this is your time to build an insurmountable lead and give yourself an unfair advantage as you enter next year. Do not rest on your laurels and coast. Grind it out and build a massive next-year pipeline.

If you're on track, this is your time to accelerate, finish strong, and propel yourself into the President's Club. 

If you're behind, this is the time to shift from being defense to offense.

Most salespeople who are going to miss their annual quota already know it by now. They can feel it. See it in their pipeline. Sense it in their gut.

But what separates winners from losers is that winners use this moment as a wake-up call, not a death sentence. 

Stop making excuses about market conditions, difficult prospects, or bad luck. Start taking complete ownership of your results and your future.

Stop thinking like someone who's behind. Start thinking like someone who's about to write their own sales comeback story. 

Your energy and confidence level will directly impact your results during Grind Season. If you show up defeated and desperate, prospects will sense it. If you show up confident and focused, prospects will respond in kind, and you will sell more.

But whatever your situation, this is not the time to coast. This is the time to get serious about finishing the year strong.
The Grind Season Mindset
"Grind Season" is more than just a motivational catchphrase – it's a winning mindset grounded in the unglamorous, but essential, embrace of this crucial period with intense focus, hard work, discipline, and consistent, intentional activity. 

It’s about ignoring distractions, drowning out the noise, being stingy with your time, and using every moment of your sales day to put new opportunities into the pipeline and actively advancing those deals through the pipeline.

This isn't about activity for the sake of activity. It’s about deliberately and proactively getting back to the basics and fundamentals of prospecting and sales at a time in the sales year when it matters. 
Your Pipeline Reality Check
Here's the key gut-check question you must look into the mirror and answer right now: Where do you stand relative to your year-end number, and based on that answer, what will be your next move?

To fully answer that question, begin with a pipeline reality check. Your current quota attainment tells you where you've been. Your pipeline tells you where you're going.

Far too many sales professionals look at their pipeline and see what they want to see, not what's actually there. This is especially true at this time of year when we allow baggage from the first half of the year to remain in our pipeline, hoping that somehow we might close it. But here’s the deal, during Grind Season, hope is not a strategy. 

The truth is, those deals have been dead for a long time. The stakeholders are ghosting you; they never commit to next steps, and most haven't returned your calls in months. In the words of Sales Gravy University trainer and author Kristie K. Jones, “stalled” is not a step in the sales process.  So start by getting brutally honest and ruthle...

Most salespeople waste their careers fighting over the same crowded prospects. Meanwhile, untapped markets are sitting in plain sight. These are the industries, segments, and territories your competitors don’t take seriously—or don’t even notice. They’re wide open, and they reward the salespeople willing to do the work.

On the Sales Gravy Podcast, I spoke with Nicholas Lalla, an economic development expert who helped bring more than $200 million of investment into a market everyone else had written off. His blueprint for revitalizing a forgotten city is the same framework you can use to uncover and dominate untapped markets in sales.
Why Untapped Markets Are Goldmines
The best markets are often the ones no one is talking about. When the crowd decides a territory is “too small,” “too tough,” or “not worth the time,” they leave the door wide open. That’s where the opportunity lives.

And let’s be clear: An untapped market doesn’t have to mean a new zip code. It could be a niche industry your competitors dismiss, a customer population they ignore, or a vertical nobody’s paying attention to yet.

If you don’t know much about a market, chances are your competitors don’t either. That ignorance is your advantage—if you’re willing to dig in.
The Data-Driven Discovery Method
Most salespeople gamble on gut instinct when picking new markets. That’s why they waste time chasing “big name” logos that never buy, or avoiding prospects who look difficult but actually have massive potential.

Top performers take a different path. They go where the data points. Before committing to a market, study the numbers your competition ignores:

Industry growth rates – Expanding sectors often fly under the radar.
Investment flows – Follow where capital is going before sales catch up.
Labor market trends – Job growth exposes emerging business needs.
Government spending – Public dollars usually spark private demand.

Data doesn’t close deals. But it stacks the odds in your favor and ensures you’re hunting where opportunity actually exists.
The 100-Conversation Rule
Numbers tell you where to look. Conversations tell you what’s real. Don't just study demographics—talk to 100 people tied to the market. Customers. Ex-customers. Prospects who should buy from you but don’t. Even suppliers and partners.

Ask them about their challenges, their frustrations, and the gaps they see. Don’t pitch—listen. By the time you’ve had 100 conversations, you’ll know more about that market than your competitors ever will. And you’ll have built a network of early relationships that pay off down the line.
Look for Adjacent Opportunities
The breakthrough comes when you stop looking for completely new industries and start examining adjacencies. Instead of jumping into foreign markets, identify prospects that connect to your existing expertise.

If you sell to manufacturing, explore adjacent industries like logistics or supply chain management. If you work in healthcare, consider medical device companies or pharmaceutical services.

Adjacent markets let you leverage existing knowledge while expanding into less competitive territory.
The Focus Formula 
Most market expansion strategies fall apart because of a lack of focus. Salespeople chase every shiny opportunity and end up spread too thin. The result? Lots of motion, zero momentum.

Domination beats diversification. Pick three or four high-potential segments and go all-in. Pour your time, energy,

Here's a question that'll keep you up at night: What do you do when you believe in "buy or die" but you're terrified of ruining future opportunities with annoying prospecting sequences?
That's exactly what Angie Anderson asked during a recent Ask Jeb session, and it's a problem that's plaguing salespeople everywhere. Angie subscribes to the buy or die mentality but doesn't want to destroy her odds of winning in the future by becoming the prospect's worst nightmare.
If you're nodding your head right now, you're not alone. The tension between persistent prospecting and respectful relationship building is one of the biggest challenges facing modern sales professionals, and getting it wrong costs you deals—both now and in the future.

The Buy or Die Misconception That's Killing Your Pipeline
Here's the brutal truth: Most salespeople completely misunderstand what "buy or die" actually means. They think it's about hammering prospects until they crack, but that's not persistence—that's harassment.
Real buy or die mentality recognizes that the prospect is never not a prospect, but sometimes now is not the right time. The key is knowing when to push and when to pull back.
Your sequence length and touch frequency should be driven by one critical factor: deal complexity and account size.
Short Cycle Sales Need Short, Aggressive Sequences Run 10-14 touch sequences over 10-30 days with touchpoints every 2-3 days. These prospects have buying windows that are typically always open, and the stakes are relatively low.
Complex Accounts Require Long-Term Relationship Building For massive, high-value accounts, you could run sequences that extend up to two years. Touch them monthly or quarterly to stay top of mind, waiting for the right opportunity window to open.
The magic happens when you track meaningful engagement. In any properly executed sequence, 30-50% of prospects will give you some form of signal—yes, no, or even "go away." All of these responses give you something to work with.
But here's the critical part: When you get complete radio silence from the other 50%, you stop. Pull them out of your sequence, slot in fresh prospects, and circle back in 90 days or six months. You have infinite time to go after them—use it strategically.

Why Generic Messages Get You Blocked Every Time
This brings us to the second major challenge facing modern salespeople: crafting relevant messages that actually resonate with busy prospects.
James Baldwin perfectly captured this struggle when he asked about leveraging tools like ZoomInfo to create relevant messaging. He sees tons of information but doesn't know what to use or how to use it effectively.
This is where most reps completely miss the mark, and it's costing them relationships.

The Research Failure That Destroys Credibility
Want to know the fastest way to get permanently blocked? Send a message that screams "I know nothing about you or your business."
This happened to me recently with a rep from a major software company. They did everything technically right—multi-channel approach, proper timing, professional voicemails—but they failed at the most critical element: relevance.
They prospected Sales Gravy without doing even basic research. My LinkedIn profile was right there. My content was everywhere. I've literally said thousands of times that if you mention my books when prospecting me, I'll almost always respond. But they were too lazy to look.
That's not persistence—that's sales malpractice.

How to Turn Data Overload Into Relevant Conversations
The problem isn't lack of information—it's information overwhelm.

I had intended for this Money Monday to be something powerful, a new message that would get you fired up for this week and this season. But last week, while delivering training to an amazing group of young salespeople with wide-open minds, I learned that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated. It disturbed me deeply and I feel compelled to deliver this message.
The Assassination That Shook America
On September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while addressing an audience at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. A young man, thirty-one years old with his whole life ahead of him, was killed for no other reason than someone disagreed with him.

After learning about the assassination, I found myself incredibly disturbed that a person in the public square could just be shot and killed like that – murdered right in front of everyone. So I did what I always do when I want to understand something: I started learning.

I watched hours and hours, dozens and dozens of Charlie Kirk's videos to learn more about the man, his message, and why someone would think it would be okay to assassinate him. I still haven't found the answer to that last question.
This Isn't About Politics
Before I go any further, let me be crystal clear: This is not a political message. This is not a religious message. It is about how we treat each other as human beings.

If you know me, if you've been to my events or training, you know I never talk about politics or religion. If you look at my social media feeds on any channel, you won't find much that would help you understand what my politics or religion are.

Do I have convictions? Yes. Do I believe certain things? Yes. But they're my beliefs, and I keep them to myself because my job is to train salespeople. I'm a sales author, trainer, expert, and consultant. That's my lane.

I train salespeople no matter what they believe. I train salespeople no matter what their religion. I train salespeople and help salespeople no matter where they're from or what their walk of life is.

I don't care where you come from because my entire purpose, my reason for being on earth, is to help you sell more, help you gain confidence, and be there to help you with your biggest sales questions and challenges.
What Charlie Kirk's Example Taught Me
What I discovered in watching those videos was something that transcends political beliefs. Charlie Kirk's example was his willingness to go sit down face-to-face with people who disagreed with him, sometimes vehemently, and just have a conversation. And do it respectfully.

I noticed something remarkable in his videos: more than once, he said, "You know what, I stand corrected." Someone would come to him with a different set of facts, and he would say, "Okay, that sounds right. I agree with you." In many cases, he would shake the person's hand after a debate.

He was respectful. It was never about the person. It wasn't personal. He didn't hate the person. He had conversations about their ideas. How Charlie Kirk disagreed mattered.

That is what we need to get back to. Not someplace in the future – today, right now.
The Human Cost
I watched his wife Erica's message to the world, and I found myself on an airplane as a grown man with tears streaming down my face, trying not to let everyone see that I was crying. It was heartbreaking watching her pain.

She has two kids – one is one year old, one is three. That assassin changed their lives forever.

I can't imagine when one of them gets older and either finds the video of their daddy getting assassinated or someone puts it in front of them. If you step into that frame for just a moment with your human empathy, it will make you hurt.

Charlie's children will be raised with stories instead of memories,

What if one simple discovery question could close your next big deal?

Here’s the one I used: “Tell me what’s going on with your team?”

Then I shut up and listened. The buying committee talked, debated, and worked their way toward their own clarity. By the end of the call, they had essentially closed the deal for me. I barely said a word.

That’s not a fairy tale—it happened. And it proves why most sales discovery fails: reps focus on their checklist and pitch instead of helping the buyer gain clarity.
The Certainty Crisis Killing Your Deals
Dr. Lorenzo Bizzi joined The Sales Gravy Podcast and revealed a simple truth: Buyer uncertainty kills deals.

Traditional sales discovery often increases that uncertainty. Rigid qualifying questions, seller-centric agendas, and shallow data gathering make buyers feel misunderstood and cautious.

When you approach discovery this way, you’re eroding trust. Sure, buyers are evaluating your product—but they’re also evaluating whether you understand their world. And if you can’t help them gain clarity, even the best solution won’t move the deal forward.
The Science of Deep Sales Discovery
The most effective influence tactic isn't charm, rapport, or even product demos. It's clearly displaying the arguments and reasons why your solution works for their specific situation.

But you can't build rational arguments until you truly understand the problem. And you can't understand the problem until you master deep discovery.

Deep discovery operates on two levels:

The Organizational Level: What metrics matter to the company? What are the measurable business outcomes they're trying to achieve? What's the cost of inaction?
The Individual Level: What's at stake for each stakeholder personally? How will this decision impact their performance review, their standing with leadership, and their career trajectory?

Remember: Organizations don't make decisions. People do.
The Power of One Question
The most powerful discovery conversations start with one well-crafted, open-ended question that invites the buyer to tell their story—not your story about how great your product is. 

The question I used—"Tell me what's going on with your team?"—worked because it was:

Open-ended, with no leading assumptions.
Centered on their world, not my product.
Neutral, without judgment or bias.
Broad enough to go anywhere.

When you ask the right question and then listen, the buyer starts convincing themselves. They begin connecting the dots between their current situation and what they need to change. 

And here's the key: If the buyer says it, it's the truth. If you say it, you're just another salesperson spinning a pitch.
Cognitive Empathy Is The Difference Maker
Dr. Lorenzo Bizzi defines several types of empathy. But for salespeople, the distinction that matters is simple: affective empathy pulls you off course, while cognitive empathy keeps you sharp, connected, and in control.

Affective empathy—actually feeling what your buyers feel—will drain your energy and cloud your judgment. When they're frustrated, you get frustrated. When they're uncertain, you become uncertain.

Cognitive empathy is different. It’s the ability to recognize and understand what your buyer is feeling without taking it on yourself. You stay clear-headed and outcome-focused, while still connecting deeply with their situation. 

In discovery, cognitive empathy shows up in the emotional nuance most salesp...