Podcasts about money monday

Evan Taylor, Associate Professor of Economics at U of A, joined Arizona's Morning News to talk about the new jobs report released last week. The job market showed resilience, but inflation is rising faster than average wages.

Alligators and Assholes: Surviving the Chaos of Real Estate Investing Ever have one of those Mondays where absolutely nothing goes right? Software glitched, vendors dropped the ball, closings got delayed, and everyone is dragging their feet. Welcome to the reality of the current real estate market! In this raw and unfiltered episode of Money Monday, we are diving deep into how to navigate the "case of the Mondays" that seems to be sweeping the entire industry right now. If you are feeling the pinch, experiencing massive financial stress, or watching your rehabs and property listings sit on the market longer than expected—you are not alone. We are at the mid-year mark, and it is time to stop drifting, cut the distractions, and take control of your business. Grab a glass of iced tea (or something stronger!), take a deep breath, and let's talk about how to survive the chaos, refocus your strategies, and push through to the finish line. What We Cover in This Episode:Navigating Market Friction: Why deals are dragging out, closings are being delayed, and how to maintain grace when things don't go according to plan. The Danger of Drifting: How freedom can strangle an entrepreneur if you lack discipline, focus, and a daily schedule. The Reality of 100% Capital Loss: A look at recent high-profile multifamily losses in Houston and why market stress is peaking. Taking Back the Reins: When to fire underperforming vendors or realtors and roll up your sleeves to get the job done yourself. Mid-Year Goal Assessment: An honest look at evaluating your 6-month progress, adjusting your targets, and cutting out expensive "automation tools" that aren't hitting your bottom line. Stop Riding on One Investor: Why relying on a single source of private capital is stalling your growth, and the absolute necessity of marketing for money. The "Alligators & Assholes" Philosophy: How to step back, avoid burnout, protect your mental health, and use things like high school baseball or a simple walk to hit the reset button. Upcoming Opportunities: Exclusive updates on the upcoming Marketing for Money class and the highly anticipated Shadow Inventory Roadshow hitting distressed assets across the country. Quotes Worth Sharing:"The Good Lord doesn't give us anything we can't handle, but the devil absolutely gives us distractions to keep us from being efficient." At the end of the day, real estate investing is an act of grit. If your results are frustrating you, it's time to audit your action steps—because a perfect business plan means nothing if you aren't making offers. Take a breath, step away for an afternoon if you need to, and come back ready to dominate. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to smash that SUBSCRIBE button, leave us a 5-star review, and share this with a fellow investor who needs a mid-week reset!Watch the Original VIDEO HERE!Book a Call With Scott HERE!Sign up for the next FREE One-Day Note Class HERE!Sign up for the WCN Membership HERE!Sign up for the next Note Buying For Dummies Workshop HERE!Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here's How »Join the Note Closers Show community today:WeCloseNotes.comThe Note Closers Show FacebookThe Note Closers Show TwitterScott Carson LinkedInThe Note Closers Show YouTubeThe Note Closers Show VimeoThe Note Closers Show InstagramWe Close Notes PinterestGet Signed Up For the Next Note Buying Workshop HERE!

Welcome to another high-value episode of Money Monday! We are officially kicking off June and stepping into the high-stakes final month of Q2. As banks and hedge funds look to clean up their books and move assets before the mid-year mark, the note buying market is heating up with massive opportunities for savvy real estate investors. In this episode, host Scott Carson breaks down the mechanics of note investing, shares updates on recent institutional networking meetings downtown, and dives deep into a brand-new three-note tape that just landed on his desk. Whether you are looking for predictable cash flow, substantial underlying equity, or unique commercial real estate angles, this breakdown illustrates exactly how to analyze real estate debt for maximum return. Tune in to find out how to evaluate seasoning, handle arrearages, run due diligence, and use consistent marketing to raise private capital so you can close more deals. Key Topics CoveredThe Q2 Banking Clean-Out: Why June is historically a prime month for buying performing and non-performing notes directly from financial institutions and hedge funds looking to offload assets. Evaluating the 3-Note Tape: A comprehensive walkthrough of a newly received tape featuring clean, owner-financed assets with strong underlying equity. Deep Dive: Orange, Texas Residential Note: Analyzing a 2-bedroom, 1-bath single-family asset with five plus years of seasoning, carrying a 16% cash-on-cash return, and bought at a deep discount relative to market value. Deep Dive: Lorain, Ohio Residential Note: Looking at a 2-bedroom, 2-bath property with nine months of seasoning that boasts a projected 14% cash-on-cash return. Deep Dive: Melbourne, Florida Commercial Note: Exploring the unique advantages of a 3,700 sq. ft. commercial medical office asset on the Space Coast featuring an active operating tenant, an 8% interest rate, and a lucrative upcoming balloon payment. Navigating Arrearages and Lender Advances: How to review servicer notes, quantify property tax advances, and structure repayment plans to boost your overall ROI. The ROI of Property Inspections: Why spending $85 to $100 on quick occupancy checks and exterior BPOs saves thousands during due diligence. Marketing for Capital Raising: Practical tips on staying consistent with email blasts, social media, and drip marketing to attract passive investors ahead of mid-year quarterly financial statements. Conclusion & Call to ActionReal estate note investing allows you to become the bank, yielding predictable passive returns without the hassles of traditional property management. If you want to review the exact tape discussed in today's episode, it is officially live in our Basecamp group for our community members! Are you ready to take your real estate investing business to the next level? Don't forget that our next two-day Note Buying for Dummies Workshop is happening soon, followed by our extensive 7-week training series focused on marketing for private capital. Check the links below to secure your seat, grab your community discounts, or schedule a strategy call. Go out, take some action, and we will see you at the top!Watch the Original VIDEO HERE!Book a Call With Scott HERE!Sign up for the next FREE One-Day Note Class HERE!Sign up for the WCN Membership HERE!Sign up for the next Note Buying For Dummies Workshop HERE!Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here's How »Join the Note Closers Show community today:WeCloseNotes.comThe Note Closers Show FacebookThe Note Closers Show TwitterScott Carson LinkedInThe Note Closers Show YouTubeThe Note Closers Show VimeoThe Note Closers Show InstagramWe Close Notes PinterestGet Signed Up For the Next Note Buying Workshop HERE!

Welcome to another high-value episode of Money Monday! We are officially kicking off June and stepping into the high-stakes final month of Q2. As banks and hedge funds look to clean up their books and move assets before the mid-year mark, the note buying market is heating up with massive opportunities for savvy real estate investors. In this episode, host Scott Carson breaks down the mechanics of note investing, shares updates on recent institutional networking meetings downtown, and dives deep into a brand-new three-note tape that just landed on his desk. Whether you are looking for predictable cash flow, substantial underlying equity, or unique commercial real estate angles, this breakdown illustrates exactly how to analyze real estate debt for maximum return. Tune in to find out how to evaluate seasoning, handle arrearages, run due diligence, and use consistent marketing to raise private capital so you can close more deals. Key Topics CoveredThe Q2 Banking Clean-Out: Why June is historically a prime month for buying performing and non-performing notes directly from financial institutions and hedge funds looking to offload assets. Evaluating the 3-Note Tape: A comprehensive walkthrough of a newly received tape featuring clean, owner-financed assets with strong underlying equity. Deep Dive: Orange, Texas Residential Note: Analyzing a 2-bedroom, 1-bath single-family asset with five plus years of seasoning, carrying a 16% cash-on-cash return, and bought at a deep discount relative to market value. Deep Dive: Lorain, Ohio Residential Note: Looking at a 2-bedroom, 2-bath property with nine months of seasoning that boasts a projected 14% cash-on-cash return. Deep Dive: Melbourne, Florida Commercial Note: Exploring the unique advantages of a 3,700 sq. ft. commercial medical office asset on the Space Coast featuring an active operating tenant, an 8% interest rate, and a lucrative upcoming balloon payment. Navigating Arrearages and Lender Advances: How to review servicer notes, quantify property tax advances, and structure repayment plans to boost your overall ROI. The ROI of Property Inspections: Why spending $85 to $100 on quick occupancy checks and exterior BPOs saves thousands during due diligence. Marketing for Capital Raising: Practical tips on staying consistent with email blasts, social media, and drip marketing to attract passive investors ahead of mid-year quarterly financial statements. Conclusion & Call to ActionReal estate note investing allows you to become the bank, yielding predictable passive returns without the hassles of traditional property management. If you want to review the exact tape discussed in today's episode, it is officially live in our Basecamp group for our community members! Are you ready to take your real estate investing business to the next level? Don't forget that our next two-day Note Buying for Dummies Workshop is happening soon, followed by our extensive 7-week training series focused on marketing for private capital. Check the links below to secure your seat, grab your community discounts, or schedule a strategy call. Go out, take some action, and we will see you at the top!Watch the original Video Here!Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here's How »Join Note Night in America community today:WeCloseNotes.comScott Carson FacebookScott Carson TwitterScott Carson LinkedInNote Night in America YouTubeNote Night in America VimeoScott Carson InstagramWe Close Notes Pinterest

Evan Taylor, Associate Professor of Economics at U of A, joined Arizona's Morning News to talk about inflation and how personal savings rates have dropped from 5.5% to 2.6%.

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We have 49,000 more unemployed workers than job openings. And the state of Arizona will be receiving more than $100 million in FEMA aid. What will happen with the money? It's Money Monday again, and University of Arizona associate economics professor Evan Taylor joins us to break down the most important economy news. 

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April's job report was better than expected. And how has our GDP growth been amid the inflationary environment we are seeing? Sounds like its Money Monday, and Evan Taylor, associate professor of economics at U of A joins the show to discuss all the most pressing local, national, and global economy stories. 

Are you ready to take your note investing to the streets?Welcome to another Money Monday! This week, we are diving deep into the world of "Roadshows" and a specific niche that is seeing a massive surge in inventory: Reverse Mortgages (HECMs). Whether you are a seasoned note buyer or just starting to look at distressed debt, understanding how to navigate these assets can be a total game-changer for your portfolio. In this episode, Scott Carson discusses a unique "divine intervention" moment—a trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma, that perfectly coincided with a fresh tape of over 35 reverse mortgage assets in that exact market. We break down what exactly a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) is, why families often walk away from them, and how you can step in to create massive equity through foreclosure or REO plays. We also talk about the reality of "engineer-designed" platforms versus real-world note trading, the importance of product over platform, and why the "Tulsa Note Roadshow" is just the beginning of a new way for our students and investors to partner on big deals.

The belief that great content will eventually turn into money sounds right, but it's often the very thing holding creators back. In this Money Monday conversation, Ralph Estep Jr., me and our cast and crew get honest about why so many podcasters stay stuck, showing up consistently, building attention, and still not seeing income follow. We talk through what actually changes that path, from having something clear to sell, to understanding what your audience truly needs, to getting comfortable promoting yourself and hearing no. Here's the thing, you know that moment when your podcast feels like it's working but your bank account says otherwise? That's where this episode sits, calling out the mindset that ends up keeping podcasters broke and reminding you that content alone isn't the business, it's just the starting point.Episode Highlights:[02:32] Time Change Banter[03:49] Spotlight Submissions[06:10] Money Monday Kickoff[06:32] The Great Content Myth[09:23] Discovery vs. Revenue[13:16] Sell Something First[17:15] Offers and Audience Fit[24:03] Affiliate Trust Angle[24:58] Billy on Skills[28:12] Sales Calls: Reality Check[28:56] Creators Must Learn Selling[31:32] Audience-First Sponsorship Fit[34:00] Monetize from Day One[36:07] Fear of Rejection Barrier[39:53] Creator Partner Program Pitch[41:43] Debunking Download Myths[44:39] Podcast as a Business Arm[48:50] Value, Income, and Metrics[52:22] Memorable Brand and Wrap-UpLinks & Resources:Feature Your Podcast on the Podcasting Morning Show:https://PodcastingMorningShow.com/spotlightThe Podcasting Morning Show:⁠⁠www.podcastingmorningshow.com⁠⁠Ways to Watch or Listen:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.podcastingmorningshow.com/joinus/Meet our Cast and Crew:⁠⁠https://podcastingmorningshow.com/people⁠⁠Join The Empowered Podcasting Facebook Group:⁠⁠www.facebook.com/groups/empoweredpodcasting⁠⁠⁠Book A Free Call With Marc:https://calendly.com/ironickmedia/freestrategycallApplication To Submit Your Show For Evaluation:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcastingmorningshow.com/eval⁠⁠Join us every other Monday at 7 AM ET for the Obsession Worthy Podcasts:⁠⁠⁠http://podcastingmorningshow.com/owp/⁠⁠Join us LIVE every weekday morning at 7 am ET (US) on ⁠Clubhouse⁠: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcastingmorningshow.com/clubhouse⁠⁠EPC3 Speaker Application:⁠⁠ ⁠https://empoweredpodcasting.com/speakersPowered by⁠⁠⁠ ⁠iRonickMedia.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ and⁠ ⁠ContentCreatorsAccountant.com⁠⁠Send in your mailbag questions:⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.podcastingmorningshow.com/contact/⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠marc@ironickmedia.com⁠Want to be a guest on the Podcasting Morning Show? Send me a message on PodMatch, here:https://podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1729879899384520035bad21b

Arizona's personal income has been growing. What do the numbers look like? And our state's March employment report came in! What's it tell us? To break down all the most important economy stories is University of Arizona's associate professor of economics, Evan Taylor, who joins us for Money Monday. 

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What could the economic impact in Arizona if we love power generation from Lake Powell and Lake Mead? Associate Professor of Economics at U of A, Evan Taylor joins us for Money Monday.

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What should you know about the latest numbers from the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity and the most recent statistics from the Department of Labor? Sounds like its Money Monday (which it is), and Associate Econ Professor at U of A, Evan Taylor joins us to break down all the most important economic stories. 

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Hour 3 delivers nonstop entertainment and real‑life insight as Gary With the Tea breaks down shocking updates in Drew Sidora’s divorce, including a court order forcing her out of her Georgia mansion while her estranged husband Ralph Pittman receives primary custody of their kids. The celeb tea continues with Married to Medicine’s Quad Webb appearing to find love again with her daughter’s former teacher, plus jaw‑dropping chatter about Jermaine Jackson, 71, marrying a 27‑year‑old and welcoming a child. The hour shifts gears on Money Monday, where tax expert Jennie Thornton fields urgent listener questions ahead of the April 15 deadline, covering everything from lost W‑2s and early withdrawals to senior deductions and multi‑state filing — turning financial stress into must‑hear guidance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The latest CPI numbers were... not good. And what hints does a Banner Health jobs report give about Arizona's healthcare sector? It's Money Monday again and Evan Taylor, associate professor of economics at the University of Arizona joins the show to discuss all the most imporant local, national, and global economic stories. 

Looking for the best NBA picks, predictions, and betting tips for Monday, April 6, 2026? Tune in to Profit Picks with expert handicappers Hakeem "Skee" Profit and Rob Veno as they preview today's biggest matchups with sharp insights and actionable advice.

The latest jobs report just released and there's good and bad news for Arizona and the country. Plus the President is seeking a big boost to defense spending. Sounds like its Money Monday again, which it is. Evan Taylor of the University of Arizona joins the show to discuss all the most important economic news. 

Looking for the best NBA picks, predictions, and betting tips for Monday, March 30, 2026? Tune in to Profit Picks with expert handicappers Hakeem "Skee" Profit and Rob Veno as they preview today's biggest matchups with sharp insights and actionable advice.

Young graduates are facing the grimmest job market in years. And will Arizona's economy rebound after a sluggish 2025? It's Money Monday, and Evan Taylor, associate economics professor with the University of Arizona, joins the show to break down what you need to know about the global, national, and local economy. 

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Looking for the best NBA picks, predictions, and betting tips for Monday, March 23, 2026? Tune in to Profit Picks with expert handicappers Hakeem "Skee" Profit and Rob Veno as they preview today's biggest matchups with sharp insights and actionable advice.

Associate Professor of Economics at U of A, Evan Taylor, joined Arizona's Morning News to talk about how water-based outdoor recreation is generating 11 billion dollars for Arizona's eocnomy. Taylor also talks about how the Arizona Chamber is launching an initiative to position us as the AI and digital economy leader.

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The one-hour weekly habit that changed everything in my business.Alright… we made it to the FINAL Money Monday

Looking for the best NBA picks, predictions, and betting tips for Monday, March 16, 2026? Tune in to Profit Picks with expert handicappers Hakeem "Skee" Profit and Rob Veno as they preview today's biggest matchups with sharp insights and actionable advice.

Evan Taylor, Associate Proffessor of Economics at the University of Arizona, joined Arizona's Morning News to talk about why Phoenix gas prices are so much higher than other places around the country. Taylor also talks about your potential savings if a "Gas Tax Holiday" is passed.

Credit cards are either one of the most powerful tools in your business… or the fastest way to completely wreck your finances.And the truth is… most salon owners fall into one of two categories. They either avoid credit cards completely… or they use them with absolutely no system at all.Inside today's Money Monday, I'm pulling back the curtain on exactly how I use credit cards inside my businesses, why they've become such a powerful financial tool for me, and the simple rules that keep them from ever turning into a financial disaster.Because here's the truth… Credit cards don't create financial chaos — a lack of discipline does.When used intentionally, credit cards can actually work for your business, not against it. From points to travel perks, I'm sharing how I run my normal business expenses through my cards and how that strategy has earned me free flights and even a Southwest companion pass.But there's a catch… and it's a BIG one.I also share the five non-negotiable rules I follow with credit cards and the weekly Money Monday habit that keeps everything under control.In this episode we're talking about: • Why I choose to use credit cards in my businesses • How I structure my cards across multiple businesses • The 5 rules I follow with credit cards (no exceptions) • The biggest credit card mistakes salon owners make • Why using cards to cover payroll or cash flow is a major red flagIf you're ready to stop feeling anxious every time you check your bank account and start running your business with more clarity and control, this episode is for you.And next week inside Money Monday, we're going even deeper into the 3-number spreadsheet I use to track revenue, expenses, and profit.Trust me… you're going to want to stick around for that one!

Have you ever had a moment where the answer you were looking for was right in front of you? I’m talking about a giant neon sign moment where you realize that a strategy is working, and the proof is undeniable. Today, I want to share a quick story about an unexpected moment of validation that I recently had, and the valuable lesson that every top sales producer needs to keep front of mind. The Annual Sales Summit That Changed Everything I have a client that I’ve worked with for several years now. Each month, I deliver virtual training workshops focused on different areas of sales. Some months our topic will be on prospecting best practices, and other months we may focus on things like sales negotiation skills or how to advance deals in the pipeline. These workshops are optional for the sales team to attend at this particular company. So recently, I was invited to attend their annual sales summit. It was the first time that I’d be putting faces to names and shaking hands with the people who showed up to my sessions, month after month. It was a pretty big event. There were hundreds of members of the sales team from around the US. After grabbing my badge at the registration desk, I walked towards the main event space, and the sound of hundreds of conversations filled the room. It was that feeling of energy and the buzz of excitement when you’re surrounded by people who are having fun together. As I walked through the mingling crowds, I saw it. There was a giant board, I’m guessing about five feet tall, and at the top it read “Top Producers of the Year.” Now, if you’re in sales, you know what these boards represent. It’s the ultimate recognition and a testament to your consistency, grit, and incredibly hard work. I found myself looking through the photos and the names. These were my clients’ top producers, the ones who really earned their spot. And as I looked at each photo, a pattern started to emerge. I noticed a face that I recognized and then another. And then another. I couldn’t help but start to smile as I kept scrolling through this list of the fifteen names on the wall. All but one of them were people who were showing up to the monthly workshops month after month. I was shocked. Not just proud, but genuinely humbled. Now, I’d like to believe that our training played a part in their success. But the truth is, they earned it. Their spot on that board, their results, their massive recognition—it was a direct reflection of the continuous investments that they had been making in themselves. They didn’t wait to be great. They were proactively working on stepping up their skills one month at a time. What You Need to Remember Now, if you take one thing from this article, let it be this: top producers don’t wait for success. They prepare for it. That board wasn’t just a list of the most talented sales reps. It was also a list of the most intentional. It was a direct consequence of four behaviors that they had displayed: Showed up to the monthly workshops even though they were optional. Asked hard questions in these workshops. Applied new techniques and tools and put them into action immediately. Treated sharpening their skills as a non-negotiable. Here’s the truth: the person who dedicates one hour a week to getting better will always beat the person who’s naturally gifted but a little lazy. Intention beats talent every single time. 6 Best Practices to Inject Intention Into Your Week So how do you inject that kind of intention into your own week? Here are six best practices to help you: Show Up Before You Need To These top sales reps on the board didn’t wait for their production to dip before they started investing in training. They were already winning, and they still kept showing up. Skill building is like compounding interest. Small, consistent investments create exponential returns. Treat Sales Training Like a Workout You don’t go to the gym once and expect to be in shape. You show up three times a week for a year. That’s how you need to approach your professional development. Consistency is greater than intensity. Every session you attend adds a new tool, a perspective, or an edge to sharpen your game. Decide That You Are Always a Learner The reps who excelled weren’t afraid to ask questions that other people might consider basic. They were seeking clarity, not just validation. Remember, ego is expensive. Curiosity is profitable. Never stop being the most curious person in the room. Don’t Confuse Activity for Growth Many sales reps are busy; they’re active. But how many are truly intentional about growth? Top producers set aside uninterrupted time for professional development even when their schedule is getting full. So block out time to get better, not just to do more. Implement One Thing Immediately After attending a workshop or even listening to a podcast episode, challenge yourself to pick one tactic to put into action within twenty-four hours. Knowledge is power. Implementation is what turns that knowledge into results. Surround Yourself with Other Top Performers It’s easy in sales to get frustrated when we lose a deal or when things are not going our way. By surrounding yourself with other top performers, you’re going to help lift yourself up in those moments when you need a little extra support and motivation. Why This Moment Mattered Seeing that board of top performers, that physical printed validation, it really struck me—the emotion of realizing that the reps who had quietly and consistently invested in themselves all year long, had literally risen to the top. It was a powerful moment and reminded me why not only I do the work that I do, but it also absolutely confirmed that top performers are the ones disciplined enough to invest in themselves. I encourage you to commit to just one of these six tips that I shared today. Write it down and put it into action within twenty-four hours. Momentum doesn’t come from waiting. It comes from action. — The top performers on that board didn’t wait—they invested in training that got results. Explore my courses on Sales Gravy University and get the same strategies they used to reach the top.

You’ve heard people say, “Sales is a grind.” And they’re right. Sales requires relentless effort. You’ve got to make the calls, run the process, deal with internal roadblocks, handle piles of rejection, and show up every day with a smile on your face, ready to do it all over again. But the dirty little secret is that plenty of salespeople push through the grind day after day and still don’t seem to get ahead. They put in the effort and work hard, but get nowhere. All grind, but little progress. Here’s the truth they don’t always tell you: You can grind yourself into the ground and still fail if you don’t have the right mindset and belief system underpinning that effort. To keep it real, I’m the person who shouts from the rooftops that you’ve got to “grind to shine.” I say that in my book Fanatical Prospecting. It’s printed on coffee mugs. I love that mantra because it’s about doing the things other people are unwilling to do. But raw grind isn’t always enough. Sometimes, we need to pair grinding it out with tenacity. Tenacity is a Sustainable Sales Trait In sales, tenacity is a more sustainable trait than raw grind or pure persistence because tenacity combines persistent determination with process certainty and strategy. Grind is about doing the daily, repetitive, rejection-dense work required for success, but it can quickly lead to frustration and burnout when it isn't paired with enduring faith that the hard work is going to pay off.  Tenacity, on the other hand, is grinding combined with the absolute certainty that what you expect to happen is eventually going to happen. That’s the difference between the rep who grinds hard for a quarter, feels that they are getting nowhere, and burns out because they’re not seeing results, and the sales professional who consistently runs the sales playbook, without immediate evidence that it’s working, because they have faith that the process will eventually produce their desired outcomes. Uncertainty Causes You to Constantly Change Your Approach One big problem with grinding without certainty is that when results don’t show up on your impatient timeline, you start changing everything. You make 100 calls this week using one approach. Next week, you try a different script. The week after that, you switch your targeting. Then you read an article about social selling and abandon cold calling altogether. You’re working hard, but you’re also second-guessing every move. You change your messaging before you’ve run it long enough to know if it works. You abandon techniques after a handful of attempts. You skip or change steps in your company’s sales process after a couple of deals don't go your way.  When you put in massive effort, but spread that effort across ten different approaches instead of trusting the proven process and playbook long enough to let it produce results, you end up in an exhausting, demoralizing quagmire of chaos and eventually give up.  The True Meaning of Process Certainty When I say “certainty,” I’m not talking about positive thinking or affirmations or manifestation or any of that rah-rah motivational stuff. Certainty in sales means knowing—not hoping, but knowing—that if you do the right things the right way for long enough, the outcomes are inevitable. That you get the Sales Gravy.  That’s what allows tenacious salespeople to keep grinding when others quit. They’re not grinding on blind faith. They’re grinding on proven evidence that the process works.  For example, in Fanatical Prospecting, I explain the 30 Day Rule, which states that the prospecting you do in any given 30 days tends to pay off over the next 90 days.  The 30-day rule is always in play. It is proven. It is truth. But you'll never see it work if your prospecting is sporadic rather than consistently executed every single day.  The Three Types of Certainty that Power the Tenacity Engine If you want to develop real tenacity—the kind that sustains you through tough markets, rough quarters, and slumps—you need to build certainty in three core areas. 1. Certainty in Your Value You need conviction that what you’re selling genuinely improves your customers' businesses in a meaningful way. When you have that certainty, something shifts. You stop feeling like you’re bothering people or being pushy and start feeling like you are helping them. That you belong there.  And buyers can feel this difference. They sense and respond to your confidence, enthusiasm, and passion for helping them. Which gives you even more certainty. 2. Certainty in Your Process You need confidence that your sales process and playbook actually work.  Most sellers have been provided a proven, repeatable approach to building pipeline, qualifying opportunities, running discovery, handling objections, building consensus, negotiating, and closing business.  If you don't have a process, read or listen to my books Fanatical Prospecting, The LinkedIn Edge, Sales EQ, Objections, Virtual Selling, and Inked. Collectively, these books give you a powerful playbook for success.  But regardless of whether you get your playbook from your company or me, believing that it will work for you is a choice and mindset that only you can step into.  If you are constantly second-guessing the process every time things don't work out the way you want them to, you are doomed to frustration and failure. You'll be a slave to flavor-of-the-day thinking and winging it from call to call and situation to situation. But when you trust the process, you'll be steady, consistent, and confident. And you'll relax because you know that you won't win every time, no one does, but over time, because your process is proven, win probability is in your favor.  3. Certainty in Probability This is the big one. You need certainty that the math works in your favor over time. The simple truth is that sales is a numbers game played with human emotions. Not every call will book a meeting. Not every meeting will turn into an opportunity. Not every opportunity will close. But if you control the inputs—activity level, message quality, process execution—the outputs become predictable and win probability bends in your favor.  Ultra-high performers understand this at a bone-deep level. They know their numbers and conversion rates. This gives them certainty that the statistics are working in their favor.  On the other hand, the reps who are winging it are sky high when something goes well and in the dumps when things don't—without knowing what they did in either situation to affect the outcome. And it is on this emotional roller coaster where they eventually burn out and quit.  Top performers never board this emotional roller coaster because they’re anchored to math, not mood. How to Transform Sales Grind into Certainty-Fueled Tenacity Maybe you’re thinking, “Jeb, this all sounds great, but how do I build this certainty that you speak of?” Fair question. Here are four ways:  Track Process Metrics, Not Just Outcomes If you only measure outcomes—meetings set, deals closed, revenue generated—you’re going to struggle with certainty during the lag time between the grind and results. So instead, track the inputs like calls, conversation ratios, meetings, next step advances, or proposals delivered. When you measure the right activities, you can see progress and celebrate small wins even when results aren't there yet. This builds certainty that the process is working, which sustains your effort through the gap. Practice Until You Don’t Have to Think Competence begets certainty. Competence comes from practice and repetition. Role-play your cold calls. Rehearse your discovery questions. Murder-board your presentations. Practice, practice, practice your sales story, messaging, and handling objections. Record yourself doing it and watch it back. When you’ve practiced something until it is pure muscle memory, you don’t get nervous when it matters. You don’t freeze up or get embarrassed when you fumble. You execute with relaxed confidence. Emotionally Detach from Individual Deals The fastest way to lose certainty is to attach your identity to one opportunity. Tenacious sellers want to win every deal, but they don’t need to win every deal to feel okay about themselves. They treat each opportunity like one at-bat in a long season. Emotional detachment isn’t indifference. It’s a form of professionalism. It’s caring about the outcome without being controlled by it. Install a Mental Script for Rejection When you get rejected, it hurts, and your brain immediately tries to explain why. When you are in pain, it is super easy to default to stories that weaken your mindset and belief system. You say things to yourself like, “I’m not good at this or this isn't working.” Tenacious sellers consciously replace that story with self-talk that maintains certainty. “Not now isn’t never.” “This is part of the math.” My inputs are correct, I executed my process, but this just wasn't the right time for this buyer.” This is how top salespeople think because they know that the greatest threat to tenacity isn’t the rejection, it’s the meaning you assign to the rejection. Grinding Without Certainty is Just Another Form of Suffering Sales will always be a grind. The calls don’t make themselves. The pipeline doesn’t fill itself. The deals don’t close themselves. But grinding without certainty is just another form of suffering. It’s unsustainable. Eventually, you get frustrated, burn out, and give up. Certainty doesn’t eliminate the hard work, but it does make the hard work sustainable. So if you’re grinding right now and not seeing the results you want, don’t just grind harder. Build certainty. Get clear on the value you deliver. Trust your process. Know your numbers. Track the inputs. Practice your craft.  Because tenacity isn’t about being tougher than everyone else. It’s about being certain enough to keep going when everyone else quits. And remember, when you are tired, worn down, and feel like you can’t take another objection, when all you want to do is quit and go home, always stop and make one more call. Because that one more call is the ultimate demonstration of your trust in the process. Get your tickets today to OutBound – the world’s biggest, baddest sales and leadership training conference. Go to OutBoundConference.com

Looking for the best NBA picks, predictions, and betting tips for Monday, March 9, 2026? Tune in to Profit Picks with expert handicappers Hakeem "Skee" Profit and Rob Veno as they preview today's biggest matchups with sharp insights and actionable advice.

How will the increasing price in petroleum products impact the rest of the global economy. And the latest jobs numbers came in, and they aren't good. It's Money Monday, and to discuss the most important economic stories is U of A's associate econ professor Evan Taylor.  

I’m going to ask you a question that might sting a little. As a sales professional, are you just friction with a friendly face? Think about it. A whole lot of salespeople are good people. They’re polite, fun to be around, and are good conversationalists. They are good at building relationships and getting along with people. They’re the type of people that buyers say they like. The problem is, those buyers who say that they like them often don’t buy from them. They stall. Ghost. Go dark and say things like, “Let’s circle back next quarter.” But they don’t pull the trigger on purchases. When push comes to shove, they justify not buying with words like, “We really liked you and thought you had a great presentation, but in the end decided to go in a different direction.” The truth is that they went in that direction not because of the relationship (they truly liked you). Not because your product isn’t competitive or that your solution wasn’t a fit (they were). And not because they thought your intentions were bad (you wanted the best for them) They decided not to do business with you because dealing with you over the course of the buying process was too much work. And by the way, buyers don’t experience your good intentions. They experience your process. So today, I’m going to give you a wake-up call and a fix. Because in the age of AI, people expect seamless, frictionless buying experiences. And they compare you—consciously or not—to the easiest experience they’ve had anywhere. Not just to your competitors. How Salespeople Become Friction for Buyers Let me paint you a picture. A buyer sits through a discovery call. You’re friendly. You build rapport. You ask good questions, and they ask hard questions. You end the call with, “Thank you for your time today. I’ll get with my team and send over answers to your questions.” They say okay, and you end the call. A week goes by, and they don’t hear from you because you moved on to the next thing on your list and forgot to follow up with your team and them. Finally, after a week and a half, they remind you that you haven’t provided any answers to their questions. Embarrassed, you jump on it and send over the answers. But it’s not your best work because you were under the gun and moving too fast. Three days later, you email: “Hey! Just checking in. Wanted to see if I answered your questions.” The buyer is busy. They’ve got a million things going on, and they’re irritated because you didn’t give them the complete answers they were looking for. And now your email is another item piled onto their overflowing plate. They don’t respond. So you send another email: “Bumping this to the top of your inbox.” (Trust me, overwhelmed people just love it when you bump stuff to the top of their inbox.) You create even more irritation. Then you call and leave a voicemail: “Just following up on the answers I sent you.” You’re thinking: I’m being persistent. I’m doing my job. They’re thinking: You made me follow up on you to get the answers I needed, then you failed to give me what I want, and now this is suddenly urgent. From their perspective, no matter how nice you’ve been, you are friction. Your delay slowed down their decision-making process, the conversation was left open-ended, and now all they have are loose ends, and you’re driving them nuts. The Hard Truth About Relationships in the Age of AI Here’s the brutal truth: Relationships are vitally important. Trust matters. But relationships only carry you so far if buying from you isn’t easy or pleasurable. You can be likable and still be a drag. You can be “a great person” and still be the person the buyer avoids—because every step with you along the decision-making process comes with friction. And the thing about friction is that it shows up in small ways that feel normal to you but are exhausting to your buyer. Here are just a few examples: Meetings that end with no decision map or next steps Follow-up messages that add no new value Slow answers to simple questions Stakeholders have to push you The buyer is repeating the same story over and over because you are not listening and taking notes Your failure to follow through when you say you will Proposals that are generic marketing documents rather than valuable insight, value bridges, and recommendations AI Just Set the NEW B2B Sales Bar This problem is getting worse right now because of AI. And I don’t mean this in some hypey, “AI is changing everything” way. I mean, AI is retraining buyers. Buyers are being conditioned to expect frictionless experiences: instant answers, clear options, smart recommendations, and smooth paths from questions to answers to decisions. So when they hit your sales process, and it feels like walking through mud, they notice. They may not say it out loud, but their behavior says it for them. They stall faster. They ghost faster. They lose patience faster. This is a big part of what I talk about in my bestselling book, The AI Edge. Your edge isn’t that you use AI to crank out more activity. Your edge is that you understand the expectation shift and use AI to help you reach that new bar. In the age of AI, the new bar is FASTER with less FRICTION. For this reason, you need to combine your gift for connecting with people and developing relationships with leveraging AI to: make progress faster, follow up faster answer questions and provide clarity faster give insight faster understand your buyers’ organizations and problems faster deliver proposals and recommendations faster help your buyers feel trust and certainty faster. All with less friction for your buyers. How to Conduct a Sales Friction Audit To gain insight into how buyers may view you, take a hard look in the mirror and run a Sales Friction Audit. This takes five minutes, and it will tell you exactly what’s killing your deals. Score yourself 1 to 5 on these seven areas: Clarity: After every interaction, does the buyer know exactly what happens next? Speed: Do you respond at the speed of the buyer’s curiosity or the speed of your internal process? Effort: Are you reducing the buyer’s workload or adding to it? Progress: Do your meetings create decisions and movement, or just conversation? Packaging: Do you make it easy for the buyer to share your insights, information, and recommendations internally to their team? Certainty: Do you reduce uncertainty and risk, or do you create more? Reliability: Do you do what you say, when you say, without reminders? Now, after you add this all up, if you don’t like the number, don’t get defensive. Change your mindset. Because the fix is simple: Stop trying to be liked and start making it easier to work with you. Because if you are just friction with a friendly face, in today’s marketplace, you are going to get crushed by competitors who are friendly, competent, fast, and frictionless. But I want to be crystal clear: Frictionless doesn’t mean spineless. It doesn’t mean you turn into a people-pleasing slave to your buyer’s every whim. It certainly doesn’t mean handing out discounts like candy to make buyers happy. It means you run a sales process with structure, discipline, and competence, and that you understand that the buying experience and how you sell matter more than what you sell. Two Easy-to-Implement Ideas for Eliminating Friction in Your Sales Process Here are two easy actions you can implement immediately to reduce friction in your sales process. End Every Meeting with a Map and Next-Step Commitment The map is clear on who does what, by when, and what done looks like. Too many sales calls end with vague commitments. “I’ll send you some information.” “Let’s reconnect next week.” “Think about it and let me know.” That’s not a map or a next step. Those loose ends are friction. A map sounds like this: “Here’s what happens next. I’m going to send you a detailed proposal by Wednesday at noon. You’re going to review it with your team on Friday. We’ll reconvene on Monday at 2 PM to give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. Will this work for you?” A map is clear, specific, and has no ambiguity. You are leading the process and driving it forward to a conclusion. Turn Proposals into Recommendations Don’t dump choices on the buyer and say, “Let me know what you think.” Give options AND your recommended path. “Based on what you’ve told me, here are three options. Option A is the safe play. It has the lowest risk but only a moderate impact. Option B is my recommendation because it solves your core problem and gives you room to scale. Option C is the aggressive play. It’s also a higher investment with the highest potential return and the highest risk. Here’s why I’m recommending Option B . . .” In a world filled with uncertainty, your confident, assertive, expert advice reduces friction and helps your buyer make faster decisions. How AI Can Give You the Edge for Removing Friction Now here’s where AI comes in. If we’re honest, most sellers use AI to write emails. That’s fine, but it’s not the edge. The edge is using AI to remove friction for the buyer and to shorten the distance from interest to decision. Generate decision-ready call recaps: outcomes, risks, open items, next steps, deadlines Speed up the process of understanding your buyer’s organization and beef up your industry-specific business acumen Create a one-page business case that the buyer can forward internally, along with stakeholder-specific FAQs Record your meetings so that you never forget anything the stakeholders tell you and use those recordings to speed up the process of crafting personalized proposals and expert recommendations. Wake Up B2B Salespeople. The World Has Changed. The bottom line is that the relationships you build are crucial but not enough, because people do business with people they like, trust, and who remove friction from the buying process. They reward sellers who engineer a buying experience that feels seamless. But if you are just friction with a friendly face and buying from you feels like a slog, buyers will do what people always do when something feels too onerous. They’ll avoid it, delay it, or take the path of least resistance and buy from your competitor. The world has changed. Buyers have been retrained by frictionless experiences everywhere else in their lives. And they’re bringing those expectations to you. So be the seller who’s both likable and easy, who builds relationships and eliminates friction, who uses AI not to spam harder but to sell better. That’s the AI Edge. And remember, when you are tired, worn down, and feel like you can’t take another objection, when all you want to do is quit and go home, always stop and make one more call. https://www.amazon.com/AI-Edge-Strategies-Unleashing-Competition/dp/1394244479

Looking for the best NBA picks, predictions, and betting tips for Monday, March 2, 2026? Tune in to Profit Picks with expert handicappers Hakeem "Skee" Profit and Rob Veno as they preview today's biggest matchups with sharp insights and actionable advice.

One of the most vivid memories from my childhood was the day I was bucked off my pony, Macaroni. I was only six years old. We were in an arena where my mother was giving me my very first riding lessons.  Macaroni was stung by a bee, and she reacted by bucking. I couldn't hang on, and I landed hard on my back. It knocked the breath out of me. I gasped for air. Then, as I finally caught my breath, I started bawling at the shock of being involuntarily dismounted.  My mom caught the pony, led her back over to me, and gently told me to dust myself off and get back on. But by this time, I was sobbing the way kids do when they've cried so hard that they can't stop.  Failure is Just a Bruise I shook my head and refused to get back on the pony. My mother tried her best to calm me down and reason with me, but I still refused to get back on.  Then she took a different tactic and got tough. Her stern, direct tone of voice made it clear that she was not asking me to get back on the pony—she was telling me. That's what I remember the most because my mom had never talked to me like that before and has rarely ever used that tone and directness since.  “Get up, and get back on that pony now!” she admonished.  She was unmovable. Like Teflon. My tears and pleading made no difference. I knew I had no choice, so I stood up, shaking. Still trying to catch my breath, she helped me get back on the pony.  Right there in the riding ring, at six years old, I experienced one of the most pivotal lessons of my life. My mother taught me that failure is just a bruise, not a tattoo.  She wasn't being cruel; she was being protective—protective of my future self, the one who might otherwise have carried an irrational fear of horses, or an ingrained habit of backing down at the first taste of adversity into the rest of my life. She knew that if she had let me off the hook and let me walk away from that pony, there was a good chance that I'd never get back on again. That the fear I felt when I landed on my back in the sand would grow and gain a life of its own. That I would vow to never let the pain and embarrassment of falling off happen to me again, and with that, my brush with failure would become permanent.  Failure Can't Really Bite You The truth is, failure is usually a short-lived event. Yes, it's jarring, unexpected, and can momentarily knock the breath out of you. But it doesn't have to be the defining chapter of your story.  That's what my mother understood so well in that riding ring. She insisted that I face my fear, effectively telling me, “Hey, the worst part's over. Now that you've experienced fear and failure, get back on and prove to yourself you can handle it.”  Because once you push through that initial sting, you discover that the fear can't really bite you unless you give it teeth in your own mind.  When Failure Becomes Permanent For far too many people, though, the pain of failure does become permanent. Instead of allowing themselves a moment to dust off and try again, they walk away in defeat—often without fully grasping the long-term impact of that decision.  Rather than letting the bruise fade, they opt to memorialize failure in their minds, assigning it more meaning than it deserves. They replay the embarrassment and pain over and over, until it becomes an unspoken vow: “Never again.”  And in that single choice, a brief setback can morph into a defining moment in which they forfeit the chance to learn, grow, and eventually experience the sweetness of victory. Think about how this scenario plays out in everyday life. Maybe you dream of learning a new skill—painting, playing guitar, writing a book, starting a podcast—but in your first attempt, you falter or feel foolish. Rather than chalking it up to “beginner's missteps,” you decide: “I'm terrible at this; I'll never try again.” And that small bruise becomes a tattoo right there, on the spot. You miss out on the personal growth, the fun, and potentially incredible experiences you would have discovered if you'd simply dusted yourself off and tried again. Sales is a Tapestry of Failure In sales, this avoidance of failure is just as prevalent, if not more so, because the stakes often involve your income or your reputation at work.  One day, you run a sales call that goes terribly off the rails—the prospect is disinterested, you get flustered, or you stumble on a key question. You come away feeling embarrassed, incompetent, maybe even humiliated if it happened in front of your sales manager.  That single negative experience can color your perception of future calls. You avoid that type of call, that kind of prospect, or that particular approach. You remember that unpleasant feeling so vividly that you decide it's “safer” never to try again.  So many sales reps finally gain the courage to cold call a C-level executive at a high-value prospect. Then freeze when they get a hard objection, leaving them feeling small and insecure. Instead of analyzing what went wrong, adjusting their approach, and trying again, they vow, “I'm never calling anyone that high up again.”  And while that might spare them from momentary embarrassment and discomfort, the long-term consequences are enormous. Their pipeline shrinks and income tanks because they're playing it safe. And, ultimately, their career crashes because they're afraid to push outside of their comfort zone. Sales Failure: Where the Bruise Can Really Hurt Sales can be bruising. Each rejection takes a piece out of you and can feel like a blow to your self-worth. It's easy to internalize it. Over time, a string of “no's” can erode your confidence, making the idea of picking up the phone and calling prospects feel daunting. Our minds can often be drama queens. When something painful happens, we cling to that memory and replay it, each time piling on new layers of negativity—“I can't believe I said that,” “What was I thinking,” “I'm so stupid.” In reality, the prospect might barely remember it or might even respect your courage. But to you, it's all-consuming. But remember, a “no” in sales is rarely personal. Often, it's circumstantial—maybe the prospect is having a bad day, or their budget cycle doesn't align with your proposal, or they had a negative experience with a different vendor and brought that baggage with them into your presentation.  The more you detach your self-worth from the outcome, the less likely you are to see these “no's” as permanent markers of failure. Instead, you'll shift your mindset. You begin to view failure as data that you can use to gain insight into how to improve. You start to treat each rejection as a chance to refine your approach. Success Stories are Forged in Failure The true success stories in sales almost always come from people who learned to pick themselves up, analyze the failure, and adapt. They didn't let the fear of failure overshadow their potential for greatness.   The best salespeople—and frankly, the happiest people—know that failure is inevitable. Rather than avoiding it, they embrace it. They feel the pain just like anyone else, but recognize that bruises eventually fade. You just have to keep moving forward in order to heal. At the end of the day, resilience in the face of failure is a choice. It doesn't always feel like one, especially in the raw moments right after you've messed up, taken a big hit, or find yourself on your back in the dirt.  But as soon as you reclaim your power to stand up, brush off the dust, and climb back on—whether it's a literal or figurative pony—you'll find your perspective shifting. Failure no longer holds you hostage. It becomes a footnote in a broader story of your determination and personal growth. Failure is Only Final If You Make That Choice So, the next time you bomb a sales call, lose a deal you thought was a lock, get yelled at on a cold call, or face an embarrassing situation in front of your peers, remember: you get to choose. Will this be just a bruise, or will you sear it into your psyche, turning it into a tattoo of permanent self-doubt?  My challenge to you this week is when things go wrong, to look up and get up. Get back on the phone. Set another meeting. Propose the next big idea. Trust yourself to learn, adapt, and keep going. Will yourself to stop and make one more call.  Because failure is only final if you decide to never get back on that pony again. If you haven't grabbed our FREE guide, 25 Ways to Ask for an Appointment on a Cold Call, download it now at salesgravy.com/cold-calling-guide/.

SummaryBenjamin Lee shares practical strategies for financial stability, focusing on living one month ahead and naming emergency funds to improve financial mindset and security.Key TopicsLiving one month ahead in budgetingNaming and assigning purpose to emergency fundsUsing YNAB and podcast insights for financial planningBreaking the cycle of paycheck-to-paycheck livingTakeawaysStart funding your smallest account first to build momentum.Naming your emergency fund categories changes your financial mindset.Living one month ahead reduces financial stress and increases security.Break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle by gradually building a buffer.Psychological benefits of intentional money management.https://benjamin.bloghttps://icandopodcast.com

You're at a networking event and someone corners you. For the next ten minutes, they talk nonstop about their vacation, their dog, their new car. You're not having a conversation. You're trapped in their monologue. You're annoyed. You tune out. You start looking for the exit. That's exactly how your prospects feel when you make yourself the star of the conversation. What Is Sales Main Character Syndrome? Sales main character syndrome is when you position yourself as the hero instead of your prospect. You see it everywhere: On the phone: You launch into a five-minute pitch about your company history before asking a single question. In email: You send giant blocks of text about features without mentioning their actual problems. On LinkedIn: Your connect request immediately hits them with "Here's my product, here's my calendar link, let's meet." No matter the channel, it all leads back to the same place: your product, your company, your agenda. Prospects don't care about your product yet. They care about their problems, their goals, and what's at stake in their world. When you make it all about you, you trigger resistance. Buyers feel sold to instead of collaborated with. And that leads to ghosting, objections, and stalled deals. Nobody wants to sit through a feature dump. People need relevance. They want to feel heard and know you actually get them. The Real Cost of Sales Main Character Syndrome Sales main character syndrome has consequences that will wreck your quota. Prospects disengage. When you focus on yourself and your product instead of the buyer and their needs, they tune out. Calls feel like lectures. Emails read like brochures. Messages get deleted without a response. Lose their attention, and you've lost your shot. You miss the real opportunities. By making the interaction about yourself, you fail to ask the right questions. You don't hear what's actually going on in their world. You can't identify the true pain points, the real goals, or what's actually motivating them. So you pitch solutions that don't align with what they need. You waste discovery time chasing the wrong problems. Destroy trust before it's built. Your prospects stop seeing you as a helpful guide. Instead, you're just another salesperson pushing a product. Without trust, everything gets harder and long-term relationships become impossible. The cost is too high. So how do you flip the script? The Mindset Shift: From Hero to Trusted Guide Your job is to be a trusted guide, not the hero. Think Yoda, not Luke Skywalker. Your prospect is the hero of their own story. They're the ones facing the challenge, making the decision, and living with the outcome.  When prospects feel like the main character, they engage more. They open up. They trust you. And trust moves deals forward. Here's a simple three-step framework you can use in every conversation. Step #1: Change Your "I" to "Why" Stop starting conversations with: "I want to show you..." "I'd love to introduce..." "I think you'll like..." Your buyers don't care about your "I." They care about their “why.” Why should this matter to them? Why is it relevant right now? Why does it solve a problem they're actually facing? Lead with "why," and the focus shifts from your agenda to their reality. You'll stop sounding like a salesperson and start being seen as someone who understands their world. Before: "I'd love to show you our new platform and walk you through all the features we've built." After: “Companies in your industry are losing 20% of their pipeline to manual data entry errors. Here's how to fix that." One is about you. The other is about them. Step #2: Define What You Solve, Not What You Sell Most salespeople can rattle off what they sell. A platform. A service. A software solution. That's not what your buyer cares about. Buyers don't wake up thinking, "I need a new vendor today." They wake up thinking, "I need to fix this problem that's making my life harder." When you define the problem you solve instead of the product you sell, you build immediate value. You position yourself as a partner in their success, not just another pitch in their inbox. Product-focused: "We're a sales engagement platform with email sequencing, call tracking, and analytics." Problem-focused: "We help sales teams stop losing deals to slow follow-up and inconsistent outreach." Stop leading with what you sell and start leading with what you solve. Conversations convert faster when prospects see themselves in the problem you're addressing. Step #3: Listen to Hear, Not to Respond The biggest mistake in sales? Listening just long enough to jump in with your answer. Most reps wait for their turn to talk. They're mentally preparing the pitch while the buyer is still speaking. It feels efficient. It's actually ineffective. Listening to hear means shutting up long enough to understand. You catch the nuance. You pick up on the emotion. You uncover the hidden pain points that competitors miss because they're too busy pitching. Slow down. Tune in. Let your buyer feel heard. That's when trust starts to build and when real opportunity opens up. Your Challenge: Put It Into Practice This Week The shift from sales main character syndrome to trusted guide isn't complicated. But it does require awareness and intention. You have to catch yourself when you're about to launch into your standard pitch. Pause and ask, "Am I making this about me or about them?" Your prospect is the hero. Your job is to guide them to success. Make it about them. Lead with relevance. Listen deeply. Watch what happens when you get this right. Because the most successful salespeople aren't trying to be impressive. They're trying to be useful. Make your prospect the main character in every conversation. Do it consistently, and you won't have to chase attention. You'll earn it. -- Stop getting tuned out. Download the Free ACED Buyer Style Playbook and learn how to speak your buyer's language.

You’ve got a champion. Someone inside the account who gets it. They love your solution, they’re fighting for your proposal, and they’re feeding you intelligence about the decision-making process. So you’re golden, right? Wrong. One reorganization, one promotion, one departure, and your deal could vanish overnight. Research from LinkedIn Sales Solutions analyzed thousands of enterprise deals and found something most salespeople refuse to believe: sales teams that build relationships with multiple stakeholders inside an account are 34% more likely to win.  That’s the difference between hitting quota and missing it. Between a banner year and a brutal one. Why Single-Threaded Deals Die On average, 4-7 people influence a complex B2B buying decision. Even if you nail the pitch, you’re still just one voice in a conversation happening behind closed doors. A conversation where people you’ve never met are raising objections you’ll never hear. Where priorities you don’t know about are shifting the criteria.  Your champion can be dismissed as “the person who likes that vendor.” But when you’ve got three advocates from different departments? Consensus wins deals. Your Champion Won’t Stick Around One in five of the people you’re counting on right now won’t be in their role twelve months from now. They’ll get promoted, reassigned, poached by a competitor, or laid off in the next restructuring. When that happens to your sole contact, your deal doesn’t just stall. It dies. The new person in that role has zero relationship with you, zero context on your solution, and zero incentive to champion something their predecessor started. But if you’ve built what top performers call “account insulation”—relationships with two, three, or four people across different departments and levels—the web flexes when someone leaves. It doesn’t break. Weak Ties Matter More Than You Think We’re trained to go deep with our primary contact. Build trust. Understand their pain points. Tailor every message to their specific needs. That’s not wrong. It’s just incomplete. In complex selling scenarios, influence often spreads through what researchers call weak ties—the casual, adjacent connections that link clusters of strong relationships. These are your amplifiers. A brief introduction. A shared article. A helpful insight that makes someone in operations remember your name when your solution comes up in a meeting you’re not in. These loose connections become the difference between a deal that stalls and one that scales. Think about how deals from referrals close. They close twice as fast as deals that start cold. Accounts with multiple contacts grow larger, stay longer, and refer more business. The pattern is clear. Get enough internal referrals, and you stop being the vendor someone works with. You become the partner everyone trusts. Five Mistakes That Keep You Single-Threaded Account multithreading fails most often before it ever really begins. Not because it is hard, but because salespeople sabotage it with impatience, poor judgment, or misplaced effort. If you recognize any of these behaviors, they are costing you leverage inside the account. Trying to build fifty superficial relationships instead of multiple deep, meaningful connections. Spray and pray doesn’t work in prospecting, and it doesn’t work in account multithreading. Asking for referrals before you’ve built credibility. You can’t extract value before you’ve created it. Failing to nurture the relationships you’ve already initiated. You can’t plant seeds and never water them. Ignoring the law of reciprocity. If you don’t offer value first—business insights, useful data, relevant introductions—people won’t feel any obligation to help you. You’ll burn through goodwill and get nothing back. Wearing out your welcome. If you’ve reached out multiple times with relevant insights and gotten silence, that’s a signal. Move on. How to Build Your Account Web With Multi-Threading Start by mapping the web of people connected to your account. Decision makers, influencers, skeptics, the quiet analysts whose opinions shape what the decision makers think. Write it down. Visualize the relationships you have, the ones you need, and the blank spaces in between. Then ask questions that open doors and show you recognize the decision is bigger than one person. “Who else on your team would have a point of view on this?” “Would it be helpful if I shared what other departments are doing with similar tools?” “Is there someone else who should see this?” Or use my favorite: “I need your advice on this.” That phrase invokes reciprocity and dramatically increases the probability they’ll give you the referral. When trust is formed, asking for a direct referral becomes an act of generosity rather than an intrusion. Frame it around value, not obligation. “Would you be willing to introduce me to your colleague in operations? I think she’d have an interesting take on what we’re talking about.” “If anyone else on your team might benefit from this, would you mind sharing my name?” People say yes far more often than you think when you ask this way. The Quiet Chorus That Closes Deals The more people who trust you, the faster and further your message travels inside the account. You’ve got accounts in your pipeline right now sitting on a single thread. One job change, and that deal you’ve been nursing for months vanishes overnight. Stop searching for the one perfect contact. Start building a small community inside every account. It’s not a single voice that carries your deal through. It’s three voices in three different departments saying the same thing about you when you’re not in the room. Protect Your Pipeline with Discipline Account multithreading isn’t complicated, but it requires discipline and a shift in how you approach relationship-building. If you’re ready to protect your pipeline, increase your win rate by 34%, and build accounts that grow instead of churn, start mapping your key accounts today. Identify the blank spaces. Ask better questions. Build the web before you need it. Ready to close more deals? Explore Keith Lubner’s courses on Sales Gravy University. 

You've got a champion. Someone inside the account who gets it. They love your solution, they're fighting for your proposal, and they're feeding you intelligence about the decision-making process. So you're golden, right? Wrong. One reorganization, one promotion, one departure, and your deal could vanish overnight. Research from LinkedIn Sales Solutions analyzed thousands of enterprise deals and found something most salespeople refuse to believe: sales teams that build relationships with multiple stakeholders inside an account are 34% more likely to win.  That's the difference between hitting quota and missing it. Between a banner year and a brutal one. Why Single-Threaded Deals Die On average, 4-7 people influence a complex B2B buying decision. Even if you nail the pitch, you're still just one voice in a conversation happening behind closed doors. A conversation where people you've never met are raising objections you'll never hear. Where priorities you don't know about are shifting the criteria.  Your champion can be dismissed as "the person who likes that vendor." But when you've got three advocates from different departments? Consensus wins deals. Your Champion Won't Stick Around One in five of the people you're counting on right now won't be in their role twelve months from now. They'll get promoted, reassigned, poached by a competitor, or laid off in the next restructuring. When that happens to your sole contact, your deal doesn't just stall. It dies. The new person in that role has zero relationship with you, zero context on your solution, and zero incentive to champion something their predecessor started. But if you've built what top performers call "account insulation"—relationships with two, three, or four people across different departments and levels—the web flexes when someone leaves. It doesn't break. Weak Ties Matter More Than You Think We're trained to go deep with our primary contact. Build trust. Understand their pain points. Tailor every message to their specific needs. That's not wrong. It's just incomplete. In complex selling scenarios, influence often spreads through what researchers call weak ties—the casual, adjacent connections that link clusters of strong relationships. These are your amplifiers. A brief introduction. A shared article. A helpful insight that makes someone in operations remember your name when your solution comes up in a meeting you're not in. These loose connections become the difference between a deal that stalls and one that scales. Think about how deals from referrals close. They close twice as fast as deals that start cold. Accounts with multiple contacts grow larger, stay longer, and refer more business. The pattern is clear. Get enough internal referrals, and you stop being the vendor someone works with. You become the partner everyone trusts. Five Mistakes That Keep You Single-Threaded Account multithreading fails most often before it ever really begins. Not because it is hard, but because salespeople sabotage it with impatience, poor judgment, or misplaced effort. If you recognize any of these behaviors, they are costing you leverage inside the account. Trying to build fifty superficial relationships instead of multiple deep, meaningful connections. Spray and pray doesn't work in prospecting, and it doesn't work in account multithreading. Asking for referrals before you've built credibility. You can't extract value before you've created it. Failing to nurture the relationships you've already initiated. You can't plant seeds and never water them. Ignoring the law of reciprocity. If you don't offer value first—business insights, useful data, relevant introductions—people won't feel any obligation to help you. You'll burn through goodwill and get nothing back. Wearing out your welcome. If you've reached out multiple times with relevant insights and gotten silence, that's a signal. Move on. How to Build Your Account Web With Multi-Threading Start by mapping the web of people connected to your account. Decision makers, influencers, skeptics, the quiet analysts whose opinions shape what the decision makers think. Write it down. Visualize the relationships you have, the ones you need, and the blank spaces in between. Then ask questions that open doors and show you recognize the decision is bigger than one person. "Who else on your team would have a point of view on this?" "Would it be helpful if I shared what other departments are doing with similar tools?" "Is there someone else who should see this?" Or use my favorite: "I need your advice on this." That phrase invokes reciprocity and dramatically increases the probability they'll give you the referral. When trust is formed, asking for a direct referral becomes an act of generosity rather than an intrusion. Frame it around value, not obligation. "Would you be willing to introduce me to your colleague in operations? I think she'd have an interesting take on what we're talking about." "If anyone else on your team might benefit from this, would you mind sharing my name?" People say yes far more often than you think when you ask this way. The Quiet Chorus That Closes Deals The more people who trust you, the faster and further your message travels inside the account. You've got accounts in your pipeline right now sitting on a single thread. One job change, and that deal you've been nursing for months vanishes overnight. Stop searching for the one perfect contact. Start building a small community inside every account. It's not a single voice that carries your deal through. It's three voices in three different departments saying the same thing about you when you're not in the room. Protect Your Pipeline with Discipline Account multithreading isn't complicated, but it requires discipline and a shift in how you approach relationship-building. If you're ready to protect your pipeline, increase your win rate by 34%, and build accounts that grow instead of churn, start mapping your key accounts today. Identify the blank spaces. Ask better questions. Build the web before you need it. Ready to close more deals? Explore Keith Lubner's courses on Sales Gravy University. 

On this first Monday of the second month of the year, it's time for a gut check. First, we need to check where we are against our new year goals. Next, we need to take stock of our first month's sales performance and make adjustments. We're just a little more than 30 days away from our New Year's intentions, resolutions, and goals. A month ago, we set out into the new year with hope and ambition that this year would be our best ever and that we'd make positive lasting changes in our lives. It's Easy to Slip Off the Track You'll remember that discipline is sacrificing what you want now for what you want most. But as time goes by and sticking with new habits gets more challenging, it's easy to forget what motivated us to make the changes in the first place. It's easy to let down our guard and go back to our comfort zone. The farther away we get from our intentions, the more likely it is that we allow our discipline to slip and get off track. It's just human nature. Small Slips in Discipline Can Add Up Quickly Let's say you kicked off the new year determined to have your best sales year ever, and you knew that meant filling your pipeline daily by getting Fanatical about Prospecting. But upon reflection, you realize that days have passed since you picked up the phone, knocked on a door, or talked with customers. You've been making excuses to avoid the very activities that move you closer to your goals. I'll admit that it happened to me just this past week. This month has been non-stop travel — 12 flights, 10 cities, 8 keynotes, 5 full days delivering training to sales teams. Toward the end of the week, I got tired, made excuses, and let my exercise and nutrition routine slide. This was something I promised myself I wouldn't do when the year started. I know that if I don't stop right now and recommit to my goals, then there is a good chance that I'll continue down this negative path — because it's easy. Revisit Your Goals and Resolutions This is exactly why NOW is a good time for a gut check and a look in the mirror. Pause and carve out time today to revisit your goals, resolutions, and intentions. Sit down and think about what you decided to achieve back in early January. Visualize what it was that motivated you. Picture what you want most and where you want to be at the end of this year. Go back and re-listen to the Money Monday episodes on building a personal business plan, reflection vs. regret, and why personal goals are essential for sales discipline. Then recommit to your goals. Remember the feelings you had when you set them, and make an intentional decision to get back on track. Evaluate Your First Month's Performance Against Your Sales Goals Next, step back and evaluate your first month's sales performance. As you do, you'll likely find one of three scenarios: You Crushed It – You had a killer month and blew your goals out of the water. You Were Average – You hit quota or did “okay,” but you know you're capable of much higher performance. You Bombed – You missed your number and ended the month worse than you hoped. Great Sales Month If You Crushed it, and you're at the top of the ranking report, fantastic, congratulations! But be very careful not to let off the gas. It's likely you worked very hard last month to achieve these results. There will be the temptation to take a breather. Trust me, if you do, this complacency will come back to bite you. Now is the time to recommit to doing the activity that fueled your success last month so you don't end up with a lackluster February and a disastrous March. In other words, you've set the foundation for a huge year, take advantage of what you have accomplished, and keep the pedal to the metal! Average Sales Month If you had an average or just OK month — maybe you hit quota, maybe you came close, but you know you've got more in the tank — then it's time for some honest self-reflection. Ask yourself: What held you back from greatness? What could you have done differently that would have resulted in higher sales productivity? Maybe you needed to prospect harder. Perhaps you could have pushed a little harder to close some of your pipeline opportunities. It could have been that your pipeline wasn't big enough from the start, and you ended up scrambling to make your numbers, but otherwise, you did everything right. It's okay, you haven't hurt yourself. You are still in a good position to have a great year. But you'll need to identify your performance gaps and plan to overcome them in February. This is a good time to sit down with your coach or mentor, break down your performance, and get guidance on where you can make tweaks and get better. If you don't have a coach and you want to talk with someone, go to https://salesgravy.com/coach to get help. Bad Sales Month If you bombed, if your month was downright awful, then you're going to need to move fast to make adjustments. Getting behind the eight ball at the beginning of the year is no fun. You don't want to chase your tail for the rest of the year. The key is taking positive action now. Rather than dwelling on the negatives — which is super easy to do — pull your head up and start breaking down what happened. Empty Pipe Did you have an empty pipeline, so you had nothing to close? That happens to a lot of salespeople in the first month of the year. Go back and listen to the How to Fix an Empty Pipeline Now Money Monday episode from a few weeks ago. Use that lesson to help you fix the problem. Closeable Opportunities that Pushed Were there closeable pipeline opportunities that simply pushed into this month? Make sure you're on top of them so they don't vanish for good. But also make sure you have the pipe to cover this month, so you're not solely depending on last month's leftovers. Shortcutting the Sales Process Is it possible that you might have been skipping steps in the sales process? This will often happen when you are in a desperate and stressed emotional state. This is a big clue that it is time to get back to the basics and fundamentals of selling— and get disciplined about following a proven sales process. This may be a very good time to take some courses on Sales Gravy University and read (or listen) to books like Sales EQ that can help you dial in your sales process. Recommit to Your Sales Goals We all slip. We all make mistakes. Discipline can waver, especially once the initial excitement of a new year fades. But you have the power to step back into your resolutions and do the daily work required to achieve your goals. Whether you crushed it, coasted, or crashed, the key to getting February off to a strong start is to recommit. Make the decision — say it out loud: “I'm going to be better in February than I was in January.” Need help setting winning Sales Goals? Check out our FREE Goal Planning Guide

On this first Monday of the second month of the year, it's time for a gut check. First, we need to check where we are against our new year goals. Next, we need to take stock of our first month’s sales performance and make adjustments. We're just a little more than 30 days away from our New Year’s intentions, resolutions, and goals. A month ago, we set out into the new year with hope and ambition that this year would be our best ever and that we'd make positive lasting changes in our lives. It's Easy to Slip Off the Track You'll remember that discipline is sacrificing what you want now for what you want most. But as time goes by and sticking with new habits gets more challenging, it's easy to forget what motivated us to make the changes in the first place. It's easy to let down our guard and go back to our comfort zone. The farther away we get from our intentions, the more likely it is that we allow our discipline to slip and get off track. It's just human nature. Small Slips in Discipline Can Add Up Quickly Let's say you kicked off the new year determined to have your best sales year ever, and you knew that meant filling your pipeline daily by getting Fanatical about Prospecting. But upon reflection, you realize that days have passed since you picked up the phone, knocked on a door, or talked with customers. You've been making excuses to avoid the very activities that move you closer to your goals. I'll admit that it happened to me just this past week. This month has been non-stop travel — 12 flights, 10 cities, 8 keynotes, 5 full days delivering training to sales teams. Toward the end of the week, I got tired, made excuses, and let my exercise and nutrition routine slide. This was something I promised myself I wouldn't do when the year started. I know that if I don't stop right now and recommit to my goals, then there is a good chance that I'll continue down this negative path — because it's easy. Revisit Your Goals and Resolutions This is exactly why NOW is a good time for a gut check and a look in the mirror. Pause and carve out time today to revisit your goals, resolutions, and intentions. Sit down and think about what you decided to achieve back in early January. Visualize what it was that motivated you. Picture what you want most and where you want to be at the end of this year. Go back and re-listen to the Money Monday episodes on building a personal business plan, reflection vs. regret, and why personal goals are essential for sales discipline. Then recommit to your goals. Remember the feelings you had when you set them, and make an intentional decision to get back on track. Evaluate Your First Month's Performance Against Your Sales Goals Next, step back and evaluate your first month's sales performance. As you do, you'll likely find one of three scenarios: You Crushed It – You had a killer month and blew your goals out of the water. You Were Average – You hit quota or did “okay,” but you know you're capable of much higher performance. You Bombed – You missed your number and ended the month worse than you hoped. Great Sales Month If You Crushed it, and you're at the top of the ranking report, fantastic, congratulations! But be very careful not to let off the gas. It's likely you worked very hard last month to achieve these results. There will be the temptation to take a breather. Trust me, if you do, this complacency will come back to bite you. Now is the time to recommit to doing the activity that fueled your success last month so you don't end up with a lackluster February and a disastrous March. In other words, you've set the foundation for a huge year, take advantage of what you have accomplished, and keep the pedal to the metal! Average Sales Month If you had an average or just OK month — maybe you hit quota, maybe you came close, but you know you've got more in the tank — then it's time for some honest self-reflection. Ask yourself: What held you back from greatness? What could you have done differently that would have resulted in higher sales productivity? Maybe you needed to prospect harder. Perhaps you could have pushed a little harder to close some of your pipeline opportunities. It could have been that your pipeline wasn't big enough from the start, and you ended up scrambling to make your numbers, but otherwise you did everything right. It's okay, you haven't hurt yourself. You are still in a good position to have a great year. But you'll need to identify your performance gaps and plan to overcome them in February. This is a good time to sit down with your coach or mentor, break down your performance, and get guidance on where you can make tweaks and get better. If you don't have a coach and you want to talk with someone, go to https://salesgravy.com/coach to get help. Bad Sales Month If you bombed, if your month was downright awful, then you're going to need to move fast to make adjustments. Getting behind the eight ball at the beginning of the year is no fun. You don't want to chase your tail for the rest of the year. The key is taking positive action now. Rather than dwelling on the negatives — which is super easy to do — pull your head up and start breaking down what happened. Empty Pipe Did you have an empty pipeline, so you had nothing to close? That happens to a lot of salespeople in the first month of the year. Go back and listen to the How to Fix an Empty Pipeline Now Money Monday episode from a few weeks ago. Use that lesson to help you fix the problem. Closeable Opportunities that Pushed Were there closeable pipeline opportunities that simply pushed into this month? Make sure you're on top of them so they don't vanish for good. But also make sure you have the pipe to cover this month, so you're not solely depending on last month's leftovers. Shortcutting the Sales Process Is it possible that you might have been skipping steps in the sales process? This will often happen when you are in a desperate and stressed emotional state. This is a big clue that it is time to get back to the basics and fundamentals of selling— and get disciplined about following a proven sales process. This may be a very good time to take some courses on Sales Gravy University and read (or listen) to books like Sales EQ that can help you dial in your sales process. Recommit to Your Sales Goals We all slip. We all make mistakes. Discipline can waver, especially once the initial excitement of a new year fades. But you have the power to step back into your resolutions and do the daily work required to achieve your goals. Whether you crushed it, coasted, or crashed, the key to getting February off to a strong start is to recommit. Make the decision — say it out loud: “I'm going to be better in February than I was in January.” Need help setting winning Sales Goals? Check out our FREE Goal Planning Guide