I thought I walked into a meeting with a CEO and I thought I knew everything I could about their business.

And the first thing that came out of my mouth, he was like, yeah, that's just not what we do.

And it was a terrible meeting.

From there, trying to be the best, most knowledgeable, most valuable business advisor out of the gate is a pitfall.

Welcome back to the Logistics and Leadership Podcast.

I'm your host, Brian Hastings and with me today I have Jeb Blunt Jr.

Jeb is the host of the top 200 business podcast called the Sales Gravy Podcast, is also the leader of all things marketing for the renowned sales training company Sales Gravy, based out of Augusta, Georgia.

Jeb and I had originally connected last year on social media or on LinkedIn.

About Us Potentially going to an event.

I think it was the Outbound conference in San Antonio.

And then from there I've been following you on social media or on LinkedIn.

Huge fan of the podcast.

You know, we're often sharing insights strategies with our team for your guys content to our small group of 10.

And more than anything, man, I, I, I feel like we speak the same language in terms of sales pipeline, activity, metrics and overall intent for our prospects and clients.

For the record, Fanatical Prospecting is pretty much like our sales bible.

And that book I constantly go back to, I literally it has, you know, coffee stains all over it.

I have it earmarked in a ton of different places.

It's all marked up.

Anytime that myself or our sales team is in a rut, I always feel like we go back to that, you know, anytime that, you know, we're in between setting up a new client.

So Jeb, thank you so much for, for coming on the show today and excited about how we can help sales professionals, you know, have a loaded pipeline, close more deals and have long term partnerships with our clients.

I, I, I really appreciate you taking some time out of your day and having me on your show.

I, I, I connected with you, I think last year, a year and a half ago around Outbound.

But I, I do want to say that I, I followed your podcast because it shot so well.

Your team does an amazing job with the production side, so I connected you with about that as well.

And then you know, quick aside, like my favorite books in my house are the ones that I have thumbed through a million times.

I've got these novels and these and these books like Fanatical Prospecting that are just completely stained and I think there's something so I love books.

I Love reading.

And, and one of my, one of my least favorite things is such like, high reverence for the book itself, like the paper that you don't, you don't, you know, dog ear it.

You, you don't, you don't crumple the pages.

Like, I just, I have such a reverence for the material that you should abuse books because that's what they're for.

The words are what matters, not the book itself.

So if you have books at home that you feel like you got to hide on the shelf because you've read too many times, like put those out on the very front.

Those are the ones that I want to see that you've read the most.

That makes me proud on my bookshelf when I have the ones that are just completely ruined.

So I'd love to hear that about fanatical prospecting in your, in your bookshelf.

No, it's great, man.

I think there's so many key points to it and I think, you know, whatever, you call me old school or call me old fashioned or whatever, but there's so many strategies in there, especially on the prospecting side, that I feel like are so good, especially in our world.

Now we're a freight brokerage company.

You know, we, we connect, we're an intermediary, we connect the shippers, manufacturers with different trucking companies across the domestic United States.

So, you know, for us, sales is a big piece and we have to convince these clients or prospects to do business with us versus whoever they're currently using today.

So, yeah, man, obviously I know, you know, Jeb Blood Senior is your dad.

So I'm sure that, you know, you were, you were trained and primed to be a masterful salesperson from the, from the get go.

But tell me more of a time that things didn't go kind of the way that you wanted from a career.

Perspective and why all the time, Brian, Every day.

Yeah.

Let me think of the one time that I can share.

You know, it's, it's, um, it's interesting.

You know, people say, well, your dad, you know, you've been trained.

And I grew up, I didn't want to be in sales.

Like, I never wanted to, to be a salesperson.

I wanted to be a baseball player, I want to be a musician, I want to be an astronaut.

Like, sales guy was not like top five on my list of things I wanted to do with my life.

But you end up in the, in business for, for many reasons.

But a time that wasn't working out was.

I took A marketing internship.

Because all the, all of my buddies in my, in my like, house that I was living in in college, they all had way smarter than me.

I just love being around them.

They were so intelligent or made a pluses on every single paper they wrote.

They, they would walk into an exam for economics, like macroeconomics, and they just didn't even care.

They study and they would, you know, ace the exam.

And I'm sweating, you know, off my brow, just trying to figure out, I hate those guys.

It made me so angry, but they were so good at it.

And I love being around them because they made me smarter than what I was.

And they all internships like they worked in different industries and, you know, finance and, and one guy was in politics.

One Guy's getting his PhD in frog eye biology.

He worked at the Smithsonian over the summer.

And I'm like, what do I got.

A good network there, man?

You got a good network.

It was, it's a really cool network.

But I didn't know what I was doing.

I didn't know what I was bringing to the table.

So I got this marketing internship and I was moving papers back and forth and back and forth and from the closet to the, you know, out here and then making friends and going to get coffee and going get lunch.

And it just wasn't what I thought that the guys that I was living with were kind of doing.

And it just wasn't really working for me.

And you know, it clicked for me when we had these, you know, we had these events, we would have these lunch ins and it was, I was selling like real estate essentially.

It was continuous care retirement facilities.

And we were taking, we were taking folks from like the Atlanta area and they were moving up into a more rural area.

They were in their 80s plus.

I mean the typical age around 82, you know, million and a half dollar net wor worth at minimum.

And they were essentially selling all of their possessions, all their home, and then moving into a continuous care retirement facility, which took you from like retirement age into the end of your life.

Biggest decision they were making.

The last big decision they were essentially making.

And I'm like 20.

I'm like 19.

I'm 20.

I have no idea what to tell these people.

They're telling me about their 401ks.

I didn't, I couldn't spell.

What is that?

And so I was moving papers back and forth.

We had these events and people just weren't showing up.

Um, we had three or so folks in the office there, two salespeople One manager, and it was me, the intern.

There was a big corporate organization, so lots and lots of locations.

And I realized that I had a big list of all of the potential people that we had brought in.

You know, we call them list leads, just emails and phone numbers.

And so I was in this back closet.

Like, literally my office was a closet.

And, you know, I just remember fanatical prospecting.

And I had been quote, unquote trained my entire life.

And I think something clicked for me just went, you know, just call people.

It's like I saw when I was in economics 101 in college.

We're really spending a lot of time in my early years.

But this guy, this professor made me read this book.

I'd have to.

It's like lessons from Dead entrepreneurs.

I'd have to go look at the book again.

But the.

Essentially entrepreneurship.

The lesson of entrepreneurship was there's a gap in the market.

You go through it.

So there's, you know, bank of America guy who is bank of Italy, and he saw the people on the, on the docks of San Francisco couldn't get bank accounts or weren't getting bank accounts and weren't getting loans, and the banks weren't taking them because they were Italian immigrants and they weren't doing, you know, they just weren't.

They weren't allowed to be in that space.

And so we formed a bank and that was.

He saw a gap and he filled.

And so I saw this gap that we weren't having people in seats.

And so I just started calling people, just calling them typically older gentlemen.

And I would just invite them to lunch.

Nose, nose, nose, nose, nose, nose, nose.

Oh, you mean how prospecting goes?

But for the next six months, I had filled up every single luncheon, every single week for the next six months by calling people.

My, My boss couldn't figure it out, why people were showing up.

I hadn't said anything because I just did.

I thought it was my job, you know, I didn't really think anything of it.

And, and, and eventually, you know, I said I was calling people and, and she was not super happy with me, I think, because I kind of overshadowed what they were doing in the office, the other workers.

I don't, I don't exactly know what the politics of.

When I was 20, I was not really paying attention to much, but other than, you know, getting a paycheck and, and going home and hanging out with my buddies.

But I was doing this job.

And I think that at that moment it kind of clicked for me that, like, okay, I can make.

I can move things.

Like, I have the power to move.

Yeah.

And that was the first example.

And then later on, I learned, like, okay, now I'm bringing these people in and I'm having these conversations, and they just love me because I was just asking them questions.

I didn't know anything about their lives.

I didn't know what retirement was.

Like, I didn't even really.

This was an internship.

I didn't have my first real, like, formal.

Formal job.

Yeah.

And so I just didn't have anything to do but asking questions.

And I think in that moment when my career was like, I'm going to be marketing or I'm going to go into business, and, you know, I'm moving papers back and forth, like, this just doesn't feel right.

And then I started moving things, and business, for me, kind of clicked in that moment where I thought, okay, I can make.

I can change directions here.

Maybe sales isn't what I thought it was.

And that's like the earliest example of a time in my life where things just weren't going the right direction.

But I didn't exactly know what the right direction was.

I just knew that this wasn't it.

Yeah, no, man, I got.

I love that story.

And I feel like, you know, you didn't really know what you were doing, but you stuck, you know, stuck your neck out there.

You went out and got your teeth kicked in a little bit.

You know, you got a ton of no's, and then you started having some success.

You get, you know, figured out what to say and inviting people into these sessions or these events.

That's great, man.

I love that.

I feel like there's every, you know, entrepreneurial story or every sales story of any sales professional that has had great success.

I always feel like there's those early years where, you know, there are.

You hear so many stories about, oh, I was a.

I was a sales professional.

I was with this company for a year, and I was put on a performance plan and I needed to meet my numbers, and then boom, right?

It's like, now there's a need or there's a.

There's something that clicks to, like, get them out, Right.

I love that part.

I mean, even, you know, I love the fact that you did that and your boss didn't really know.

It's like, oh, well, what's going on?

Like, you know, like, to me, that makes it, you know, 10 times better that they didn't really know what was happening.

I didn't know I was supposed to say something if you're listening to this, say something.

Right, right.

Well, you didn't know that I was supposed to.

Yeah, promote yourself a little bit.

I feel like, you know, work on that personal branding side a little bit with our, you know, with this generation and with the sales profession as a whole.

Right.

You know, there's always this fear.

At least we see it on our side, especially with newer entry level sales reps coming in, you know, and one of the biggest things, even though they don't say it and I think they can, you know, talk up the interview or interview process, like I'll make a million phone calls in a day and then as soon as they sit down at that desk and they got this black box sitting there, there's something that happens.

And so I want to talk to you a little bit about the rejection piece and the fear of rejection and why do you think it's so prevalent and how, how do folks that are listening to this, this show today, how do they overcome that fear of, oh God, I actually have to dial this number.

You know, some systems, we don't have this yet, but you know, click to dial or you know, use an auto dialer or whatever they use.

So let's talk about rejection a little bit and how people can overcome that.

Well, I want to highlight something that it's.

There's a social media is such a toxic place and I think that it's toxic for many, many reasons.

But, but one of them, especially in the professional world is in sales, you know, B2B professional sales, is that you think that rejection is abnormal.

The fear of rejection is abnormal.

That there is, you know, you see the people post on LinkedIn and I'm guilty of it as well.

And, and so are so many thought leaders that, you know, we sort of have it, we sort of have this like rose colored rose tinted glasses around the fear of rejection.

Oh, you know, just get over it.

We've all been there and we make it sound so I think, I think lackadaisical in a way.

Like we sort of project it as like this is just something we all deal with.

So get over it.

But I want to, like, my take on the fear of rejection is that it's totally normal.

It's a biological response.

It's not you like you like you, Brian Hastings, the moral human being, the person that your family loves, your children are excited to be around, that your parents you raised and loved, your mother loves with all of her heart.

That person has nothing to do with the fear of rejection.

That is a totally separate Thing.

The fear of rejection comes from the fact that we're social creatures and we grew up in societies.

And if you are rejected, that means you're kicked out of society.

And if you don't have social infrastructure, you get eaten by lions.

Like, that's what the fear of rejection is.

And if you know that, you know, 99.999% of human beings will always have a fear of rejection.

You are not abnormal.

It's not something to overcome, it's not something to mask.

It is a human natural response.

There are people in the world who just don't have it, and God bless them, but they are not the people that you should be, like, idolizing, as this is what I should be.

So first and foremost, it's normal.

The second part of that is like, why do we see the people kind of come into the office and say, hey, I can make a million calls.

And they get to the phone and then it weighs a million pounds and it's all hairy and it looks like a spider and they won't touch it.

Look, I'm the same person.

Like, I am exactly the same person as that person is.

You were no better or no worse.

And I think as a leader, one of the things you really want to understand is that you cannot, like, I think of, like, coaching.

You can't scream at somebody until they do it.

Like they just.

It's just never going to work.

The fear is real.

The outcome is not.

Like, the fear of the rejection is typically way worse than the actual outcome.

So when I think of rejection and why it's so prevalent in that space is because when rubber hits the road, it's a biological response, not a rationalization.

We rationalize much later.

We.

We have the fear, it stops us.

And then we find all the reasons.

Our brain is really good at this, at figuring out ways to, like, make that fear real and then make that fear less shame.

So we do both of those things at the same time.

I'm not a psychologist, so, like, looking to read all those books, you know, I'm probably wrong, but that's how I experience.

I think you have a lot of experience, so I think it's very, very valid.

So it's, you know, it's that.

That's how I see it.

That's how I experience it as well.

And so, you know, one of the things that I have to.

It's like objections in a way.

Like, I think.

I think of my framework as real simple.

It's just the screw it framework.

For example, I was working with this guy in my sales team and I was in a local market and we were in the field.

We did field sales.

We sold highly commoditized product telecommunications.

And you're pretty much competing against the AT&TS and the Comcast and the WOWs and all of those folks.

And they're all salespeople.

It's kind of like car sales.

Like, no one wants to see you walk into their front door.

No one, Not a single person.

And we went up to this new territory that had been taken over because our company had done a really bad job like 10 years prior.

And all of those people, I don't know if you're from the south, but like, they remember you, not you, but they remember the company that did them wrong.

And you walk in that door and they know, they, they see that label on, on your chest and they were like, no, get the hell out of here.

So we go to this new territory.

We knew this as a background.

And we walk, we go to the store, and it's the first door of the day.

It's like 8 o' clock in the morning.

The whole street is pretty much closed as business.

And I looked at my, my partner, my prospecting partner.

I said, hey, do you want to take the first door?

And he was like, hell no, not for me.

And I, I feel the same way.

Like underneath the surface, like, you know, duck, duck on water.

Like, my legs are like, oh my God, like, I'm freaking out.

I, I had convinced this guy to come.

I was like, yeah, come on, come.

On, we're gonna go do this.

I big, I was talking big game.

I was the same guy as walking into the office saying, I can make a million phone calls.

And then sitting down on the desk and I, I looked at the front door and there's nobody in the store.

It was like an antique store.

And I just have this mindset that's just screw it, okay?

Like, the worst they can say is no.

If you're dating, that's not the worst they can say.

I'm just putting that one out there.

But if you're in sales, like, the worst they're going to tell you is no.

And I just go, screw it.

Like, in that moment, it's like, I will, I'll tell another story.

I, I grew up going to this camp.

It's called Athens Y Camp.

A wonderful organization.

And my family's been going since my great grandparents.

I mean, this is the oldest boys camp in America.

And they have these big cliffs on Lake Tallulah.

And as a 15 year old you, they take you to the top of these, like hunt.

It's like, it's like 80ft.

It may be like 60ft, but it's.

A, it's a thousand higher.

When you're that age, it's been growing.

It's been getting higher and higher and higher as a.

There's a thousand feet up in the air.

You know, for, for the stories purposes.

And you have to jump off.

It is really difficult to jump off that cliff.

I think the fear of rejection and prospecting is a lot like that fear that your.

Your brain goes, self is self protection.

Like you just don't want to die.

Yeah.

Like this.

It.

Like you don't want to jump up this cliff and bad things happen.

So you, you have a hard time jumping.

But if you just go, screw it.

Just surprise yourself.

You know, it's like when you're.

If you've ever been on like a gun range, like they, they tell you surprise yourself when you pull the trigger, because when you intentionally pull the trigger, you tend to jerk.

Yeah.

So I surprised myself.

I go, screw it.

And I open the door.

So I'm in this town, I open the door, I jumped off the cliff and I open the door and I walk in and I go, hey, I'm Jeb Blunt at XYZ company.

The reason I'm here, and I do the whole fanatical prospecting thing and the lady walks around the corner and goes, oh, yeah, no.

And then walks back around the end.

She goes to the back of the building and I looked at the guy and he goes, oh, that's how it's going to be.

And I went, yep.

Next.

All right.

And we did that.

Oh, and once you start going screw it, just pick up the phone like it's momentum.

Agreed.

So the fear of rejection is real.

Yeah.

But once you start to realize that the outcome is never going to be as bad.

Like I jumped off the cliff and I landed in the water and I was a hero to the, to the guys that I was with.

Then I jumped off the cliff 10 times.

It's so much easier once you get past that first one.

So one, it's natural.

It's real.

Don't.

Don't try and gaslight yourself into believing that it is.

But then understand that you have power over it.

If you allow yourself to have power and just surprise yourself and do it.

Yeah.

God, I love it.

I think it's like there's no better way than to just rip the band aid off and, you know, jump in the deep end.

Or whatever analogy you want to use.

I love the story that you said, even with the telecommunications company going in door one, you know, similar type of story.

We'll go to some of these events and conferences and, you know, we're a truckload carrier or a truckload brokerage and we go to some of these events with, you know, different shippers and food manufacturers and produce companies and stuff like that.

And it's interesting because, you know, there's a lot of them around and there's a lot of like, I, I don't know, I call them like, like sharks in the water where, you know, you're, you're going through like, all right, this guy I see, I've seen him on LinkedIn.

I know who that is.

I'm going over, right?

And it's like actually having the ability to go over or like setting a goal or setting.

Okay, by 10am I need to shake five hands, right?

It's 9:31 right?

Now I need to go shake five hands, right?

So like setting a goal or setting that parameter, even in, you know, you were saying with the telecom company, okay, it's 8:00am By 9:30am I, I have to go in 10 places.

After 10 places, then.

Then I can, you know, take a break or I can drive around a little bit or go get a coffee.

But setting some sort of goal to get there, I think is, you know, a huge thing where people can set that goal.

And now it's not necessarily about that feat or it's not about, it's like, okay, well, all I'm doing is just, I'm gonna go, I get, I get rolled myself with a coffee at 9:30 if I get to swing 10 doors, right?

So.

Oh yeah, I love that.

Oh, yeah.

Look, if you have, if it's one, I.

Sometimes there's been days like I, I am, I'm a very normal person.

I am not a superhero by any means.

Some, some mornings I wake up, it's one call.

I'm like, I can make one call this morning.

But what I've always found is that, you know, 99 of the time you make that one call and you're like, no one picked up the, no one picked up the phone.

Or you walk in the door and it's locked or whatever, you know, screw it, I'll do another one.

Like, you just.

And it just sort of snowballs from there.

So maybe you only do five, but you were, your goal was one.

So you 5x your, you know, your goal.

So I love it.

You know, that's That I love that, that, that process that you just laid out.

Yeah, no, it's great.

Now with that, like, even with the rejection side of it, you know, people getting over it, I think, you know, I think it, a lot of it is psychological.

And how do you, you know, like the most professional or the most successful sales reps that I've ever seen are people that, you know, block out that piece.

Right.

And like, yes, it's real.

Rejection is real.

I feel it.

You feel it.

We do this thing on a daily basis.

You know, we're making, we're still making, you know, calls, you know, throughout a week or what have you, but it is real.

And if you can figure out a way to block out that feeling or even setting something up psychologically to get you to that point, I think can, can help you overcome that fear of rejection.

Agreed.

Now I'm going to switch over strategy or you know, we'll call it like pre call planning.

Right.

Which like, I mean, in our industry it's just, it's so fascinating.

You have to set a time limit for some of these pre call planning sessions or stages, I guess.

What's something on that?

Like, what's something newer reps should actually be doing before a call?

And again, like, obviously every industry is different.

We're in freight brokerage, you guys are in sales training.

What are some things that, that you've seen that have had some success with reps?

Like, what should they be doing before that call?

Well, there's a million ways to skin a cat.

You can always prepare.

You can over prepare, you can under prepare.

I've done both.

I've done all I've been there, done there, got the T shirt.

You know, I thought I walked into a meeting with a CEO and I thought I knew everything I could about their business.

And the first thing that came out of my mouth, he was like, yeah, that's just not what we do.

And it was a terrible meeting from there because I, and I had, I had five pages of research sitting next to me and the first thing I said, he said, no, that's not what we're doing.

And I, I had to scrap the entire book.

Right?

It was, I'd been in that, I've been in that situation and I've swung the other way where I just have done nothing lazy.

And I have walked into the meeting and I went, you know, I can just wing this because I'm, I'm cocky and I'm, I'm cool and I've got charm and you know, I'm good at what I do, and I can just be there.

And, you know, I've had those conversations where I clearly was way out of my depth.

And, And I've been on both sides of this.

There's a couple of things I'm not.

The boilerplate stuff is like, do your research, you know, who you talking to.

That kind of stuff.

First things first.

Smile.

Like before you walk in the door, before you go into the building, before you get on the zoom call, before, whatever, just.

I just smile.

I smile away.

I practice the smile.

I know it sounds psychopathic, but I tell my kids all the time to say, you know, they get hurt, they.

They're sad, something happens to them, they're mad at me.

I say like, look, the first thing we're going to do here is smile.

Because smiling has this interesting physiological effect that even if you're upset or even if you're not in the best mood, if you smile, it releases some.

Some dopamine a little bit, some as some of the.

Some of the feel good things to your neurons.

Um, so if you smile, you tend to feel better just because of the fact that you're smiling.

Whatever that process is, it makes you feel confident.

And so I like to set my shoulders back and smile.

I practice that.

The other thing is, I like to write on a piece of paper or wherever I'm taking notes.

I like to write is the.

I was taught this by one of our trainers, Brad Adams, who's, Who's a fantastic trainer.

Is W A I t w.a.I t.

Wait.

It stands for why am I talking?

I love talking.

I'm talking right now.

It makes me feel good.

People love talking, and I love to hear my own voice.

I'm not afraid to admit that I have that, like, whatever that little ego is about myself, but if I'm in a sales conversation or even just connecting with another human being, like even networking, why am I talking?

Ask questions first.

So I practice asking questions even to myself in the car, like on the ride over or right before the zoom call, I'll.

I like to write down all the questions I plan on asking.

And that's always, you know, pre call prep.

You can do that with research.

Yes.

You know, the things you need to know.

The board, the.

The, you know, the.

The band stuff or whatever you want to write down.

But I practice those questions.

I just ask them out loud.

Don't wing your questions.

I.

I like to.

I like to kind of play jazz a little bit.

That is, it gets me in trouble.

Because if I don't practice what I'm saying.

I fumble through my sentence or I kind of forget what I was going to ask, or I get out of order.

And it's not that it has to be prescriptive, but just give your tongue, your mouth, your brain, the practice of kind of speaking those words in order.

Because then the next time you do it, it is much more natural.

Actually comes across much more natural, confident.

And then as far as like what new reps should be doing before they walk in, if you are a brand new rep, say you're 23 years old, say you're 28 years, say you're 40 years old in your first sales job, the first thing I would tell you is you don't have to know it.

You don't have to know everything.

Sure.

Your job is to listen.

Think therapy.

Your job is to listen.

So if you walk in and I've, I've done it, I love doing it.

I, I'm still, I'm still going to use my youth to my advantage.

I, I'll walk in and say to a CEO, Hey, I'm 28 years old.

I have had some experience in sales, lots of business experience, but I am not the expert in the things that you do.

I would just love to have a quick masterclass with you about what it is that your business does, because the next time I have a conversation with a CEO like you, I would like to be a little bit more prepared.

I don't think it matters how old you are, but I think that anybody any CEO wants to, wants to talk, they want to hear themselves as much as you want to hear themselves.

Yeah, I also feel like they're, you know, anybody in that role, they definitely have, you know, some sort of ego or they have, you know, some sort of, you know, track record.

I also feel like that you just said, I love the acronym you use their weight.

Even with, you know, the pre call planning or the prepping, I think there's a level of transparency that you just said, hey, listen, I know a little bit about your company, but I would love to learn more.

Okay, now they're actually interested.

You get the prospect to talk to you get the client to talk and they get to, you know, give you a ton of information.

Hopefully as a, you know, seasoned sales rep, you're writing this information down so that you can remember it.

But I think there is a level of transparency there where the intent is, hey, I want to learn a little bit more about you guys.

I don't know everything today.

Can you, can you share something, right?

And I think that that kind of takes their guard down where, yeah, no problem.

Here's what this, this, this and this does.

Now they trust you.

Now when we get to the decision making process, they think, oh well, Jeb, I trust him.

He was that, you know, guy, that was the younger dude that I felt good about in the meeting and I'm going to sign the deal.

All of that, that five page thing that I had, the binder that has all the information about their company.

I guarantee that CU does not give a crap whether or not you have it or not.

They do not want to hear how much you know about their company.

It's just never worked.

One thing.

Now this is going to, this is going to date me a little bit and I, you know, been in the, the business world for a while almost, you know, 15 years now.

And I wanted to ask you a question, you know, because I have a couple of different thoughts.

Is cold calling dead?

Yes.

Cold calling debt.

If you're not doing it.

Yeah, I guess so.

You know, I don't think cold calling's dead.

Look, I'm, I'm a Gen Z.

Like I, I'm, I'm full Gen Z.

I'm from the first year of Gen Z.

But I don't like, I don't like talking to people.

Like I, I have anxiety before I pick up a phone call because genuinely, like I can do everything on my phone and it's just the way that I grew up in life.

But I can tell you this, like when I have conversations with people, it's on the phone.

Email just isn't conversation.

It's, it's, you know, passing each other in a hallway and like hoping the message sticks.

You know, when I'm in sales, like the, the, the only way for me to have real business conversations is via the phone.

And here's there's a couple reasons why it's not dead.

The first is that humans like talking to humans.

The second is that people still pick up the phone.

I like that we hear the, oh, no one picks up the phone anymore.

I could, you could give me a list of your prospects right now.

List of 25 people.

I bet five of them would pick up the phone just right.

I can, I can guarantee you that just statistically speaking, across all industries, across what we do, like I can always have a conversation with somebody.

Now what that looks like is different.

But you have auto dialers that do all this for you.

We don't have that.

We're a small team as well.

I Pick up the phone and call people.

People pick up the phone.

I pick up the phone.

I'm a Gen Z, right.

I pick up the phone.

Two things that I want to highlight is that we have completely ruined asynchronous communication via AI.

Everything's AI, everything's automated.

It's not even AI.

It could just be like your, your HubSpot or whatever it is that you're using.

People just know it's not real.

Like, like I know this, I know you're not actually talking to me.

You're talking to 500 people when you send that email.

The second thing is attention spans are so small.

Yeah.

Tiny.

Even if you send the best message in the world.

Like, I read two sentences of it and I, I just, I don't have time.

I don't have space for that.

I've got so many.

Who does, right?

Yeah.

I'm a captive audience.

If you call me, I gotta sit there and listen to you.

That's the process of it.

So those two things combined.

No, cold calling is not dead.

I, I, I don't think it really ever will be exceptional.

For one thing, that's, that is just unfortunate is the, the robo calling and the AI calling and all of that, that might kill cold calling, but that's not because, that's not because the human beings you were calling are bad.

It's because there's just, unfortunately, we live in a technology landscape that's, that's just, it's not, it's not going the right direction.

I, I, I don't, yeah, no, I agree.

And I think that, you know, even with that, like, the cold calling scenario, and I, I love seeing people, I do think that there are effective strategies on LinkedIn, on social, I do think that there's effective email campaigns, effective email strategies.

At the end of the day, I truly believe that humans want to talk to humans.

You just said it a few minutes ago.

I firmly believe in the power of human connection.

Anytime that you have an issue or a challenge and you call, we'll call it XYZ Airlines.

Do you want to talk to a bot or a robot?

You don't.

You want to talk to somebody who can help you solve a problem.

And I'm a firm believer that people want other humans to do that.

Now, there are some things, I think doordash is pretty sweet, right?

Like you can order food from your couch and it'll be delivered in 25 minutes.

At the same time, I do think that, you know, a lot of the strategic business conversations are to be had over the phone.

And I think that those are.

There will always be a place for that.

There will always be a place for in person connection in and also having those strategic business conversations over the phone.

I agree.

I put this out there.

If you heard that conversation and it confirmed for you that cold calling is dead, then all the power to you.

Look, I'm a person that like, if it works and it's stupid.

It's not stupid.

It works.

Yeah.

So if you are able to be as successful as you want to be and reach your potential and your business is growing and you don't have any issues with not using the phone, then I.

Then you know, all the power to you.

But if you are hearing that and your business isn't where you want it to be and you aren't bringing in enough meetings and you aren't selling what you want to sell and you're still thinking cold calling is dead, I would tell you, why are you trying to kill it?

Like I would ask you that question.

Why are you trying to kill it?

Try it, maybe it'll work for you.

Right?

And I think, I mean, I think now people are more open to have conversations and more people are willing to have a conversation with somebody that is not a robo dialer or somebody that actually speaks within the first three seconds as opposed to that dead space.

Right.

Like, oh, the answer, like click somebody over.

Right.

So I think that, like, oh yeah, I think somebody's talking on the phone.

I can appreciate a good sales pitch and I'll listen to it for a while, right.

Until they, you know, start going super into the scripts and it's, it's not prepared and you know, anyway, let's go into more of a sales leadership angle.

So, you know, with sales leadership, you know, what do most companies get wrong from a sales training perspective and how do they improve that?

And obviously don't give us all your secrets because I know that that's what sales gravy is based on.

But where do they go wrong there?

Where do they go wrong in the sales training?

How can they improve as a whole?

Yeah, the number one reason that sales training fails is a lack of buy in from leadership there.

It doesn't matter what the training is.

It doesn't have, it didn't have to be sales training.

It could be any kind of training.

If your leadership is not bought into it, it will not succeed.

When we walk into an organization, one of the ways that I qualify my deals, like one of the ways that I'm, when I'm Working with a sales team and I've got buy in from maybe a manager or a director who wants to help their team succeed.

But the VP of sales is completely, you know, turning away from it, ignoring it, essentially like deferring decision making to somebody else.

I, I have a spidey sense around these things and I just know that it's just not going to be more than a two month engagement, three month engagement and all the habits are going to go back exactly to where they were before we walked in.

People think it's the naysayer salespeople at the top.

People think it's the naysayer sales managers.

I will tell you that if a VP of sales or a CEO or senior leadership is not invested in training, it's not worth your money.

I mean just spent.

You would be better off, I think taking all your money that you were going to spend on sales training and put it in a dumpster and then setting it on fire.

It would have, it would be a better decision and bring us in and wasting people's time and then not getting anything out of it.

So that would be, that would be what most companies do wrong when they bring in sales training.

How to solve that one?

You know, I don't think that you solve it in terms of, there's not strategies or you know, methodologies or ways to like get around that.

The first thing is, you know, as a leader, if you're listening to this and you're not interested in sales training, that's okay.

But figure out what you can do as a leader that you are interested in that supports your sales team in a real tactical way.

You know, I don't think the rah rah sessions that VP of sales does on like the monthly phone call is going to change anybody's world.

So just keep that in mind.

Like if you're not bought into it, don't try and buy it.

It doesn't make it, it doesn't make sense for your business.

You have to find the solution that you're bought into first as a leader before it'll make any difference because there's no follow up afterwards.

There's no accountability to the training, there's no change in culture.

And then with that it just the, the knowledge and the training that a company like sales gravy might bring in or any other company what might bring in.

It just dies on the vine.

Again, put your money in a dumpster and set it on fire to a better decision.

Yeah.

Which I'm sure you've had a lot of Experience with that, especially with, you know, you go into a situation, VP of sales is Jack to, to get you guys in there, you know, they're, they're ready to go and maybe direct.

The director who's overseeing a group of other managers isn't really bought in.

He thinks he can do it himself and he wants to put his spin on it.

Do you, I mean, do you get that pretty often?

Yeah, I, it's usually it.

If you have the senior leadership involved, the middle will move.

And I think that it's not a waste of time.

Got it.

If you have the middle who's bought in, but the senior level, that isn't.

It's.

You might as well not do it.

And so I do.

Typically when we see that like the middle management area, the directors, the managers, that they're not bought into it, it does suffer.

I will, I will not.

I'm not, you know, sugarcoating that it will suffer.

The salespeople will not hold everything and there won't be account accountability to, you know, 100% of the training.

So the way that we kind of move that needle is we have to.

And this is like when you bring in a new person to your business, you have to understand what their goals are.

You know, the sales director is not bought into the sales training and they think they can do it better themselves.

It's typically because they are unaligned with the mission of the process of bringing in sales training.

Like, why did we bring in sales training?

If the sales training is brought in, in their mind to fix their gaps, to fix their ineptness and they feel maybe, maybe threatened by the sales training, you know, that is a misalignment.

If you are a, if you're a senior leader in that space, you need you.

And maybe even the sales training team needs to go to him and say, you know, what is it that you think that they're like, what's the challenge?

Sure.

Well, what is it that you want to get done?

If, if, if they are truly not interested in helping their team out, well, that's a different conversation.

But I would say 99 of the time, they're not bad people.

They're good people.

They have well and they're well intentioned.

And it just comes down to a conversation around like, this is not here to hurt you, it's here to help.

And we want to make sure that we're on the same team here.

So what is it?

What's your vision of this versus what, why we were brought in and when we can align there that solves the problem 99% of the time.

And it's typically like a 30 minute conversation where they just, we just need to hear them.

They just need to be real people from here and say, like, hey, I don't think that we are that bad of a sales organization.

Why are you bringing a sales trainer to fix us?

And the sales VP might have not might or the CEO might have not illustrated that.

Well, they might have said, you know, we're bringing in sales training to fix what we're doing.

But really they meant we're here to enhance or, you know, just, just change the mindset a little bit to make things interesting.

Because we work in business and every day is a new day.

Let's just try something new.

No, I agree with you.

And I think there's a level of that too where you get, you know, the, A lot of times you get that successful salesperson and they have a lot of success in the individual contributor role.

Then they get bumped to manager or now they're the sales director.

Now they're, you know, directing or leading, you know, five or six people.

They're probably a very good individual contributor, not the best manager or leader.

Now they go in and they say, oh, well, just, you know, do it the way I did it.

And you know, they have this, you know, ego, you know, attached to that.

And then they get the CEO that comes over and says, hey, listen, we're going to do some sales training.

And then it's more of like a shot of like, oh, wait, hold on a second.

Like I was, I was the number one rep in 2007.

Remember me?

Like, I was, I was President's Club three different times.

You know, like then you get kind of the back and forth banter.

So yeah, I agree with you.

Like, if you want to have, you know, sales training within your organization, I think you made a couple different references there about having alignment, and I think that's 100% accurate.

If I was a senior leader.

Don't promote Michael Jordan.

Right.

Michael Jordan is not a great basketball coach because no one's Michael Jordan.

You can't be Michael Jordan.

Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan.

And if Michael Jordan tries to tell Brian Hastings how to be Michael Jordan, it's just not going to work.

That would be my analogy there.

And if you do have a Michael Jordan on your team and you want to promote them, you need to make sure that they understand that when they get into that role, they're no longer the Michael Jordan of logistics.

They are now, you know, they're they're, they're now the Steve curve.

Yeah, yeah, well and I think there has to be like a level of intent there too.

I can never be Michael Jordan Number one, I'm not that great at basketball and number two, I'm like 5 10.

So there we go.

But yeah, you know, starting point guard for the varsity basketball team I think is more what we're looking for.

Backups to the starter really.

Yeah.

So somebody comes in and they're looking for a sales profession and they're the first couple months into it, you know what, what's some advice, what are some things that you would give to a person that maybe is 22 to 27?

Maybe they, they've went, they've gone to Trugreen Chemalon, they've done the door to door thing for a while.

They've sold some bug spray services.

Right.

So question there.

What advice would you give to that, that younger person as they go into sales, you know, to make their mark into have the most success possible.

And then I, and then I do want to ask you one more question about success rate and why people succeed.

But first of all let's, let's hone in on that 22 to 27 year old that's in the industry and they want to produce more sales.

First and foremost, knowing comes after doing and there's a lot of us that would rather know everything and then go do.

You will not be successful.

You won't make very many sales if you are focused on the product, the service, who you're selling to.

The icp, you know, grand strategy.

Trying to be the best, most knowledgeable, most valuable business advisor out of the gate is a, is a pitfall.

And it's, it's not that the aspiration is wrong.

It's not that I fault anybody for wanting to be that person.

I always want to be the most knowledgeable person about what I'm selling.

I think it helps.

I don't think it's a detriment.

But if you're a new, you're a new rep, you come out of the field, you've been doing something that was maybe more door to door.

So Cutco knives, like we have that a lot around here.

A lot of people sold Cutco knives or make the rainbow, like you know, vacuums.

You've done the hardest job.

The hardest job is just getting out there and like talking to people.

So you've done the hardest job.

Now you just need to do, go talk to people.

And I, that humility of walking in the door with A smile on your face and, hey, I don't know anything about what you do.

Could you tell me, like, if you're, if you work in the small business or you're working with like, logistics and you're, you know, you're, maybe you're talking to a truck driver or someone who owns like five different, you know, five trucks in their fleet, and they're not like a huge business, maybe even a thousand trucks in their fleet.

And, and, but they started the business.

You go, what possessed you to, like, get into this?

Why, why are you here?

If you walk in with that, you will start to learn business faster than you can read it.

Sure, you can't read books.

You can read books, but you, you're not going to take it.

It's not going to hit your brain the same way as if you have a real conversation with somebody and you're going to make mistakes.

Like you're going to say the stupid thing.

You're going to assume, which you all know assuming does.

It makes an ass out of you and me.

You're going to do it.

You're going to, you're gonna cut corners sometimes by accident, you know, you're not gonna know that you did it.

I would just say to that new rep, like, look, if I'm gonna tell you one thing is that knowing and doing are two separate things, and knowing comes after doing.

So start doing it, but with humility and being coachable.

Being coachable in that aspect.

But check your ego at the door and just say, you know, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna get my teeth knocked in for however long it takes, and then eventually it will click.

Like when I was working in telecom, I didn't know anything about telecom.

I sold.

So, I mean, I've been a sales training world my entire life.

I've been in a couple different jobs, mostly tech.

I sold a lot of tech in my life, but I sold telecommunications because I just thought it was interesting, what a mistake I made because it was super interesting and I really loved it.

And I, like, I had such a high going and doing it, but it took me nine months.

It took me nine months before I could really sell at a high level.

And if I had to go back and tell myself something, I'd be like, you're not going to sell us at a high level.

In month three.

I was trying really hard.

Stop trying so hard.

Just let it come to you.

Field the ball and then, you know, get it to first base.

And eventually you'll start turning double plays and eventually you'll, like, you'll learn how to swing at the, at the fastball down the middle and hit it out of the park.

It just comes after time, so give it some space and, you know, be successful as you can.

Be as successful as you can.

But know that how.

There's going to be a period of time where you're gonna have to check your ego and say, like, this is not my potential.

It is the.

It is the road to it.

So you're climbing the mountain.

You're in the first leg of the mountain.

You're not the mountaintop.

I love the way that you say it's the road to it.

And I think there's so much even in our society today, right.

Like instant gratification.

And I'm guilty of it as well.

Right.

I just mentioned doordash.

Right.

That's a hell of an app.

You know, you're hungry and you want some food, and it's there in 25 minutes.

And you don't have to do anything.

You have to talk to anybody.

It's a.

It's amazing.

But I think that, I think that in our world today, there's so much instant gratification that if you're going through that tough time where you're, you know, keep on having those rejections and you're able to see that light at the end of the tunnel or even bottle up those small victories or those, those conversations that go like, halfway decent and call that a win, I think you'll be better off, you know, moving forward and seeing some of that.

It's all, it's all learning.

Like, it's, it's genuinely.

It is.

You are, you're just, you're just.

You're getting the, the, the scars.

Yeah.

That you can, you can refer to when you're later in your career, even if it's three months later and someone says something to you and it stumps you, you're going to be less stumped at that point.

You're going to go, oh, yeah, I remember that one.

I'm good.

I'm good to go here.

Someone's goes, well, your price is too high.

Why don't you know, the service of the other competitor is just as good as.

And I don't know why I would pay this.

This amount.

And, and then you can.

You have examples.

You have stories you can tell.

People love stories.

And when people give you objections, start telling stories because they want to listen to you.

I love it.

Last question.

Why do a small amount or a small percentage of Sales reps have this level of success.

Why do majority of sales reps stay here?

And then, you know, obviously I know, you know, I think we both know the answer of the bottom 20%, but why is that?

Why do only a certain level of, or, you know, we'll call it 10, 20% have the most success in sales?

I wish you'd ask me this again in like 15 years.

I have a different answer.

I'm going to start with.

It's hard.

Just, just point blank, it's hard.

There are people who are top performers and there are people who aren't.

And I think there's a role to play for everyone.

To move from the 80% to the 20% is probably harder than moving from 19% to the 1%.

The reason is it requires a lot of self awareness.

What do you mean, what do you mean by that?

What do you mean by self awareness?

Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to say self awareness is the reason most people stay in 80% versus the 20% self awareness.

To me, in that, in this scenario means you have to be willing to check and keep yourself accountable to the fact that you are, you aren't reaching the potential that you have inside of you.

You know, the reason that Michael Phelps is the number one, I just love sports, but Michael Phelps is the number one swimmer in the world is not because he was the most physically gifted.

I mean, he truly is physically gifted, but it's not because he was the most physically gifted or the most mentally strong person who's ever existed in the world.

There's been better athletes, there's been better swimmers.

I'm sure he's come out, he's been beaten before.

Like it's not, he's not invincible.

So you, those athletes that reach those top levels, the difference is that when they were at the, at the 80%, when they were the mediocre person or they were at the immediate, at the cusp of greatness, they knew they weren't there yet.

And the fact that they knew that is a leap and bound beyond most folks.

And I say that in that we, we love to build worlds for ourselves.

We have a narrative that we teach ourselves, that we spin, that we are.

It's that, you know, there's a problem over there.

It's, I can't do this because of whatever something else.

And those things all may be true, but perception is reality.

If you make those things your perception and you lose sight of the fact that you can make changes and that you can, you, you can, you can play a different game than you're playing right now, just based on thinking a little bit differently.

If you don't have that self awareness to go, yeah, this isn't working.

I got to figure something else out.

You will stay in the 80%, but if you are willing to be self aware and say, you know what, what I'm doing right now ain't working, I'm gonna make a change.

Those are the people who are successful.

Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

And even from the, the sports analogies, you know, I'm a big baseball guy as well.

And it's, you know, if you're a hitter and you haven't gotten a hit in the last 10 at bats, well, I gotta change something.

What am I doing?

You know, is it mechanics, is it mindset, is it mentality?

What is it?

Same thing with golf, right?

I feel that golf is such a, a great sport to challenge yourself where it's like, okay, I hit my seven iron, you know, 160, right?

And knowing how, you know, how, how well you hit each club and knowing, okay, well, I'm not, I don't drive the ball very well.

I'm probably gonna hit a five iron here so I can keep it in the middle of the fairway.

Obviously that never happens to me.

I'm usually like this way.

But yeah, I think that's, that's a, that's a great take on it.

I feel like the, the self awareness piece of, you know, what exactly?

What am I good at and where do I excel and where do I need help?

Well, Jeb, I just want to say, you know, thank you very much for coming on the show.

That wraps it up for today.

For those that are listening, please, you know, go out, subscribe to the show.

Make sure that, you know, you follow Jeb on social if you can.

Jeff, tell us, tell us where, you know, where we can find you.

Yeah, the, the best place to reach me is LinkedIn.

Jeblin Jr.

There's Jeb Blunt as well.

You can reach him.

He probably will not be able to get back to your message, but he will do his best.

But I'm the taller, better looking.

There you go.

If you look up, Jeb Blunt, color, better looking.

That's me.

Message me.

Follow me there.

Listen to the sales gravy podcast if you like this kind of conversation.

Brian has an amazing podcast.

So like, and follow this one if you haven't, you know, like, follow, share.

It really helps shows out like this and helps ours as well.

So the sales groovy Podcast.

You can find us anywhere on YouTube, Apple Music, and Spotify, and anywhere you get your podcasts.

And then, you know, if you're interested in learning more about sales training, I.

I build all of our free resources.

The things that sales leaders can use, that sales professionals can use, go to salesgravy.com resources.

All of those resources are absolutely free.

I've got so many more that I'm building, so always go and check that out for.

For content around your sales life and your sales leadership and your sales organization.

You know, that's the place you'd want to go to find ideas and ways to improve what you're doing.

Awesome.

Well, Jim, thank you very much for being on the show today.

Brian, you're awesome.

And thank you so much for having me on y' all.

Like, follow.

Listen to this podcast.

If you haven't liked this podcast, if you've gotten this far and you're still listening to my voice and you haven't liked it, shame on you.

Go and do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Touche, man.

I.

I appreciate it.