Getting screened out of sales jobs by AI before a human even looks at your resume?

In this episode of Ask Jeb on the Sales Gravy Podcast, Jeb Blount answers a question from Nick, who is trying to move from the rail industry into a sales career and keeps getting screened out by applicant tracking systems.

Jeb's answer is simple: stop treating your job search like an application and start treating it like a prospecting campaign. Nick's rail industry background is the exact expertise that companies selling into that industry are looking for. Jeb breaks down how to identify those companies, use LinkedIn and local networking to get in front of the people who make hiring decisions, and shares a real world example of an in-person walk in that landed a interview in just a few minutes.

What You'll Learn:

• Why resume screening and AI applicant screening systems disqualify non-traditional candidates before a human ever sees their resume
• How to identify companies that sell into your current industry and use your expertise as a shortcut into sales
• Why treating your job search like a prospecting campaign beats just sending in applications
• How to use LinkedIn, your network, and local business owners to get directly in front of hiring managers
• How walking in the door instead of submitting a resume can change the outcome entirely

Whether you're pivoting from a specialized industry or just trying to get noticed instead of filtered out, this episode gives you a practical playbook for getting in front of the right people in your search for a sales role.

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Prospecting can feel like playing the lottery, but treating it like one is a sure way to lose. In this week’s Money Monday, Jessica Stokes explains why the random approach to prospecting fails, and what actually separates reps with full pipelines from reps stuck in feast or famine. She breaks down how to target the right prospects, build lists before you need them, and use enough touchpoints to actually get a response, then leaves you with five questions to determine if your prospecting is working or just running on hope.

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You've been taught to keep a poker face with prospects, and it's costing you their trust. Todd Caponi has spent his career learning the history of sales, and he found that sales started as a service profession. Somewhere in the last several decades, that service mindset was traded for pressure tactics and feature dumps. Todd joins Jeb Blount Jr. to break down what it takes to rebuild that trust, drawing on his newest book, The Four Levers of Negotiating, to explain why stiff, perfect pitches repel buyers and why sharing your flaws upfront wins them over instead.

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If you are trying to get budget approved for professional development, wondering whether AI can actually improve your sales coaching, or stuck trying to motivate senior reps who have stopped caring, this episode of Ask Jeb on the Sales Gravy Podcast covers all three.

Jeb tackles three real questions from the field. First, how to build the case for conference budget, whether you are asking for yourself or bringing your whole team. Second, what actually works and does not work when using AI to analyze and coach sales calls. Third, how to create urgency with successful but complacent senior reps who have lost their edge.

What You'll Learn:

• How to build the ammunition you need to justify professional development budget to leadership
• Why framing a sales conference as a reward or a team kickoff event can unlock budget at small companies
• Why Outbound Conference works especially well for small companies that cannot afford a traditional sales kickoff
• Where AI genuinely helps with sales call coaching, and where it falls apart at scale
• How to build a prompt library for AI call analysis and coaching
• Why some of your best reps stop trying and what that actually means
• How a transparent, goals-first conversation can re-engage a complacent top performer
• Why asking a veteran rep to teach the team can reignite their own learning and buy-in

Whether you are fighting for conference budget, experimenting with AI in your sales process, or trying to reach a rep who has checked out, this episode gives you practical, tested approaches you can use right now.

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Submit your question: salesgravy.com/ask

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

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Text messaging is one of the fastest tools in a salesperson's toolkit, but it can also destroy the relationships it's supposed to support. In this episode, Jeb Blount breaks down how to blend intentional texting into your account management process and shares a personal story about losing a longtime vendor relationship after his account manager let texting replace real conversation.

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📱 Read Blending Text Messaging Into Your Account Management Process

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Most reps aren't losing deals because they're lazy. They're losing deals because they're busy with the wrong ones. Mark Hunter joins Jeb Blount Jr. to call out the habits wrecking pipelines everywhere, and hands over the one move that flips a stalled deal into a closed one.

Mark also talks about the OutBound Conference, where he’s been a speaker since the very first event in 2018. He explains why he still shows up every year to challenge his own limiting beliefs alongside other top performers. 

🎟️ Grab your tickets for OutBound Conference

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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

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

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What does it really take to build something great? It’s grind and refusing to stay down when you hit a wall. In this week’s Money Monday, Jeb Blount Jr. shares the story behind Sales Gravy’s early Everest and how the company scaled it instead of giving in. From the COVID-era studio investment that turned into a global advantage, to a strategic hire who walked away three weeks in, Jeb reveals that there really is no secret formula. You just have to get back up, again and again.

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Ask a top performer what makes them successful, and they will often tell you, "I've just got great relationships." But that's not something a sales leader can coach or teach to the rest of the team. 

In this episode, sales advisor and author Jeff Bajorek joins Jeb Blount Jr. to break down how leaders can push past that response and uncover the specific, repeatable behaviors, from always picking up the phone to making one more call at the end of the day. He also covers why relationship-building looks different for every rep, and how leaders can coach to a process without forcing everyone into the same exact playbook.

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

👉 Want to become a better sales coach? Check out our C.L.E.A.R. Coach™ Training

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How do you know when a third party lead generating service is actually worth what you're paying for it, and should your team be leaving a voicemail on every single call?

In this week's Ask Jeb, Jeb Blount answers two questions, one from Mike, who runs a commercial signage business selling into real estate developers, general contractors, and architects, and one from Michael, whose SDRs are making 50 to 75 calls a day.

Jeb's answer to Mike is simple: in most B2B spaces, you never fully give up on a lead. Once a project closes, that lead moves into a nurturing campaign, not the trash, and a good lead gen partner earns its keep by spotting new opportunities before they're too far down the road.

For Michael, Jeb breaks down the three tier calling structure his own team uses to decide who gets a call, who gets a voicemail, and who gets cut loose, plus why building a homogenous list makes that whole process faster.

What You'll Learn:

• Why B2B leads should almost never be fully abandoned, even after a project closes
• What separates a lead gen service worth paying for from one that's just handing you a list
• How to build a three tier calling structure using qualified leads
• Why inbound leads should always get called before any cold outreach
• When it makes sense to skip the voicemail entirely on a cold list
• How building a homogenous prospecting list speeds up your voicemail messaging
• The five step voicemail framework that gets you on and off the phone in under a minute

Whether you're running a signage company chasing commercial real estate projects or managing a team of SDRs working a cold list, this episode gives you two practical frameworks: one for knowing when to let a lead go quiet, and one for knowing exactly who to call first.

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

Our Sponsors:
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What separates ultra-high performers from every other salesperson? It's Fanatical Prospecting. In this week’s Money Monday, Jeb Blount explores why a full pipeline is the ultimate predictor of sales success and reveals the simple, repeatable habit that top earners use every day to outsell the competition three to one.

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

👉 Download Our Free Fanatical Prospecting Dial Tracking Sheet

🔗 Follow us on LinkedIn!

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