
Why Jeb Blount Bets on Process Over Personality for Sales Success (Ask Jeb)
About this episode
If you're moving into sales from a completely different industry, you're probably wondering which matters more: how likable you are or how well you run your process.
In this Ask Jeb, Andrew, a former manufacturing supervisor from Manhattan, Kansas now building a sales career, asks Jeb Blount to settle the debate between people skills and sales mechanics.
Jeb breaks sales down into two forces that both matter: the poetry of messaging and relationship building, and the probability of running a consistent process. He explains why he'll bet on a process person over a "gift of gab" person almost every time, why tricks and tactics fail the moment a prospect sees through them, and why the one metric he tracks above all else is qualified first time appointments, the Moneyball number that predicts everything downstream.
What You'll Learn:
- How to diagnose whether a slump is a targeting problem or a skills problem
- How to build a qualification process around the are the one metric that matters most in your business
- Why Jeb bets on a process-driven salesperson over a naturally charming one
- Why sales is both an art and a science
- How the "alternatives equal power" principle plays out in every deal you're chasing
- How a mindset from manufacturing applies directly to building a sales system
- Why relationship building matters, but never at the expense of running your process
If you're new to sales and trying to figure out where to focus first, this episode gives you the framework to build your foundation the right way.
Submit your question: salesgravy.com/ask
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