If you sell into large companies, the biggest mistake you can make is prospecting the obvious title instead of the right one.

In this episode of Ask Jeb on the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount answers a question from Martin, who runs a high-end corporate gifting business and wants to know how to get decision makers at Fortune 500 companies to pay attention.

Jeb's answer starts with a simple filter: are these gifts going to employees or to customers? That single question determines whether you start in HR or in sales and marketing, and it changes everything about your prospecting approach. From there, Jeb walks through how to build a target list, how to use tools like ZoomInfo paired with LinkedIn to map an org chart and find real contact information, and why case studies and testimonials are the fastest way to make a new prospect feel safe saying yes.

What You'll Learn:

• How to decide between targeting inside a large account
• How to use tools like ZoomInfo paired with LinkedIn to build an org chart and find the right contact
• Why big company buyers are motivated by avoiding risk more than by getting excited about your product
• How to use existing customers as case studies and testimonials to build trust with new prospects
• How many target accounts you actually need in your pipeline to make relationship-based selling pay off
• What to do before you ever hire your first salesperson as a small business owner

Whether you're trying to break into your first Fortune 500 account or building out a sales team for the first time, this episode gives you a practical framework for finding the right person to sell to and proving you're safe to do business with.

Submit your question: salesgravy.com/ask

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

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Most sales reps spend their entire career chasing a number someone else set for them. In this Money Monday, Brad Adams, Senior Master Trainer at Sales Gravy, breaks down why quota is the wrong target — and what ultra high performers focus on instead. Four specific needle movers separate reps who hit quota from the ones making million dollar months look repeatable.

🎥 Check out Brad's Sales Gravy University Page

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

👉 Download our free Time Audit Log

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Fred Joyal sat at his first sales desk with a phone and a list of prospects, and couldn't make a single call. Years later, he'd built a business that generated over a billion dollars in revenue. Fred, co-founder of 1-800-DENTIST, joins Jeb Blount Jr. to break down the system that took him from frozen to fearless, and why the reps who win aren't the ones who feel ready, they're the ones who act first. They dig into how to build boldness through small, low-stakes reps before you need it in the moments that matter, why role playing is the fastest way to close more deals, and the story behind a $250,000 bet on live television. Fred also shares what happened when he said yes to an unexpected moment with Richard Branson, and why that yes changed everything.

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

👉 Download our free 7 Rules of Sales Negotiation Guide

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On this episode of Ask Jeb on the Sales Gravy Podcast, two callers bring Jeb Blount their prospecting problems. Calvin sells keynote speeches into a niche market and is stuck trying to find the one right person to call inside each organization. Dennis runs a sales outsourcing company and wants hard proof, not opinion, that cold calling still works so he can convince his own team.

Jeb's answer to Calvin is that there is no single right contact, there is a buying group, and the job is to multithread the account and reach all of them. His answer to Dennis is backed by real numbers, including a $250,000 day his own team generated from structured outbound calling when everyone had written off cold calling as dead.

What You'll Learn:

• Why the real question in niche prospecting is not who to call, but how many people in the org you need to reach
• How to multithread an account so you are not depending on one decision maker
• How Jeb's team turned a missed plan into a $250,000 day using nothing but structured outbound calling blocks
• What real cold calling conversion data looks like, from dials made to pickups to booked appointments
• Why mornings should be reserved for dials and afternoons for asynchronous touches like email, video and social
• Why small business owners answer their phones differently than executives, and what that means for when you should be calling

Whether you are prospecting into a niche market or trying to prove to your own team that the phone still works, this episode has something for you.

Submit your question: salesgravy.com/ask

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

Download our FREE Prospecting Call Tracking Sheet

Follow Jeb Blount on LinkedIn

Most salespeople have heard the same advice at some point. Sell yourself if you want the job, the deal, or the room to like you. It sounds right. It isn't. People love to buy, but they hate to be sold, and that includes being sold on you.

In this episode, Jeb Blount breaks down why "sell yourself" is one of the worst pieces of advice in sales, using a personal story about a dinner conversation that seemed great in the moment and fell apart the second it ended. He makes the case that the harder someone pushes their own pitch, credentials, or charisma, the faster they push people away.

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

👉 Download our free Prospecting Call Tracking Sheet

🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn!

Lee Salz is back, putting his new bestseller, The First Meeting Differentiator, to the test against real sales scenarios. Jeb Blount Jr. throws three at him: a rep who gets reduced to a price quote after leading with discovery questions, a technical AE who delivers a flawless ROI pitch and still loses what looked like a guaranteed deal, and a rep who runs a great meeting and still gets ghosted two weeks later. Lee breaks down what actually went wrong in each one, why logic without emotion rarely wins a buyer's trust, and why even a strong first meeting can fall apart without the right close. If you've ever walked out of a meeting feeling great and then never heard back, this conversation explains exactly why, and what to do differently next time.

📖 Download the first chapter of Lee Salz's book "The First Meeting Differentiator"

👉 Download our free guide A.C.E.D. Buyer Style Communication Guide

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Tristen is a residential and commercial real estate agent from Flowery Branch, Georgia who built a database of over a thousand contacts through years of relentless cold calling. Now that his pipeline is full of warm relationships, he feels guilty for not cold calling like he used to and wants to know if Jeb went through the same shift.

Jeb's answer cuts right to it: that guilt is cognitive dissonance, and it is a good sign, not a bad one. Your heart already knows the truth. A database built on cold calling decays every single day as people move, change jobs, and change circumstances, so even a full pipeline needs fresh blood coming in to stay strong. Jeb breaks down the difference between cold activity that builds new relationships and nurture activity that maintains existing ones, and why you need a deliberate mix of both no matter how big your database gets. He also shares the real story of a senior salesperson on his own team whose pipeline coverage dropped by hundreds of thousands of dollars the moment she quit cold calling, and how a small daily commitment brought it roaring back.

What You'll Learn:

• Why feeling guilty about not cold calling is your gut telling you something true
• How a database built through cold calling decays over time if you stop feeding it
• The real difference between cold prospecting and nurturing an existing database
• Why pipeline coverage shrinks fast once new activity stops, even with a full database
• How to build a sustainable daily prospecting habit instead of an all or nothing grind
• Why door knocking and open houses count as cold prospecting in real estate
• A simple trick for turning one more call or one more door into a daily habit

Submit your question: salesgravy.com/ask

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

Download our FREE Prospecting Call Tracking Sheet

Follow Jeb Blount on LinkedIn

Ever sent a follow-up and assumed silence meant the prospect lost interest? Jessica Stokes shares a personal story about a caterer who stayed persistent through weeks of unanswered calls and texts, only to land the job days before the event. No response does not mean no interest. It usually means the other person is busy or buried in their own priorities. Jessica breaks down five ways to stay visible without becoming pushy, including bringing value to every touchpoint and mixing up your communication channels.

🎥 Check out Jessica's courses on Sales Gravy University

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

👉 Download our free Prospecting Call Tracking Sheet

🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn!