Jeb Blount is the multi-bestselling author of books such as "Fanatical Prospecting." In this episode we were meant to talk about negotiation and his excellent book titled "Inked: The Ultimate Guide to Powerful Closing and Negotiation Tactics That Unlock YES and Seal the Deal." But, as is our habit, we ended up talking about something else altogether. In this case, we dig into the ins and outs of virtual selling.

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In today’s episode, we are joined with award-winning author, and one of the most sought-after and transformative speakers in the world today, Jeb Blount. Jeb is the bestselling author of ten books and among the world’s most respected thought leaders on sales, leadership, and customer experience.

Ryan & Jeb will dive straight into Jeb’s journey of sales, what he’s learnt and how you can learn from it. They will also discuss the importance of time blocking your day, why ‘the pipe’ is life and the future of learning & why we must adapt.

Jeb is known for his ability to transform organisations by optimising talent, leveraging training to cultivate a high-performance sales culture, developing leadership and coaching skills, and applying more effective organisational design. 

If you’re a business owner, educator or in any sales role, you will find tremendous value in this episode.

Virtual Selling: A Quick-Start Guide to Leveraging Video, Technology, and Virtual Communication Channels to Engage Remote Buyers and Close Deals Fast by Jeb Blount

And, just like that, everything changed.

A global pandemic. Panic. Social distancing. Working from home.

Suddenly, virtual became king. Digital transformation rolled over us like a tidal wave.

Virtual Selling is the new normal. To remain competitive, salespeople, account managers, entrepreneurs, and business professionals must shift the way they engage prospects and customers. There is no turning back.

Virtual Selling can be challenging. Few of us haven’t felt the wave of insecurity the instant a video camera is pointed in our direction. It’s natural to feel intimidated by technology and digital tools. In the virtual world, everything moves fast.

Virtual Selling is powerful. The good news is with a little training and a few easy-to-learn techniques, you can confidently master virtual sales calls, protect your income, and continue to serve and provide solutions to the customers who depend on you.

Virtual Selling is the definitive resource and guide to leveraging video-based technology, digital tools, and virtual communication channels and techniques for human to human engagement and connection. You’ll learn directly from Jeb Blount, one of the most sought-after and celebrated sales trainers of our generation.

Jeb teaches you:

• How to choose the right technology stack for your unique situation
• The five elements of effective virtual sales calls
• The seven keys to making a lasting impression on video
• How to make the camera your best friend
• Why you must be video ready (BVR) all the time
• How to leverage virtual tools to get more done, in less time, with better outcomes
• Seven virtual communication strategies you must never forget
• How to conduct multi-stakeholder virtual sales calls
• The B.O.N.D. virtual engagement framework
• How to leverage digital tools to keep buyers engaged and deals advancing after the virtual call
• How to leverage the powerful M.L.P. strategy within the virtual sales process to bend win probability in your favor
• The five questions stakeholders are always asking on every virtual call
• The S.C.O.R.E. Discovery Method for virtual sales calls
• How to deliver effective virtual demos and presentations that grab attention and seal the deal
• Key strategies for leveraging Virtual Selling to reduce sales cycles and accelerate pipeline velocity
• How to ask for what you want, get past objections, and close the deal on virtual sales calls
• How to reduce costs and boost productivity with a blended virtual/physical sales approach that meets stakeholders where they are on the buying journey
• Mastering these techniques will instantly separate you from competitors and give you a distinct competitive edge

Virtual Selling is the most comprehensive resource on video-based and digital sales skills ever developed. As you dive into these powerful insights, and with each new chapter, you'll gain greater and greater confidence in your ability to conduct successful virtual sales calls. And, with this newfound confidence, your success and income will soar.

Following in the footsteps of his blockbuster bestsellers People Buy You, Fanatical Prospecting, Sales EQ, Objections, and Inked, Jeb Blount's Virtual Selling puts the same strategies employed by his clients¯a who's who of the world's most prestigious organizations¯right into your hands.

Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview...

https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/virtual-selling-jeb-blount

Jeb Blount is a best selling author including Fanatical Prospecting, Sales EQ, Objections and most recently Virtual Selling. He's published hundreds of articles and is among the world’s most respected thought leaders on sales, leadership, and customer experience.  He is the leader and CEO of Sales Gravy.  Sales Gravy is the #1 most trafficked website in the world.

The world was turned upside down in March and if you weren't selling virtually before, you are now. Office space is going away, and more companies are going remote and staying that way. Learn the fundamentals of virtual selling from Jeb Blount, best-selling author and accomplished sales trainer. 

Want the full transcript? Visit the show notes page on our website:

https://servedontsell.com/modern-sales/virtual-selling-jeb-blount

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You may have thought deeply about negotiation before, but do you have a plan for it? Learn how a negotiation plan strategy can help you find a winning deal that gets you more of what you want, while still delivering what your clients needs. 

Want the full transcript? Visit the show notes page on our website:

https://servedontsell.com/modern-sales/negotiation-plan

---

Get a daily sales insight sent straight to your inbox:

Subscribe to the daily sales insights newsletter

Don't miss a single episode:

• Subscribe on Spotity
• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Like what you heard?

Help us get the word out by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

If you started a business, odds are you know how to drive home a sale. But you can’t be the only one on the phones and running the business forever—it’s just not sustainable. If you want to take your business to that next level of performance, you need salespeople to think and act like you do—to leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home! Jeb Blount, sales and leadership thought leader, draws on his years in sales consulting to show you just how to coach your sales team to serve and win the hearts of customers time after time.

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Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to podcast@entreleadership.com. You could be featured on a future podcast episode!

Jeb Blount joins Jeff to talk about the new sales reality.  Virtual tours, video calls, online showrooms are all just scratching the surface of what sales has become and will probably remain.  As your customers become accustomed to these methods of sales, are you embracing them? Change can be hard but the sooner you embrace change the easier it is for both you and your customer.

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Get your sales question answered on The Buyer’s Mind podcast! Email us at ask@jeffshore.com or give us a call at (844) 547-4673 Extension 1. 

Want more of Jeff Shore’s advanced sales strategies? Visit www.JeffShore.com to download free sales tools & resources. Or come join the Jeff Shore Community on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JeffShoreCommunity

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Emotional control in the negotiation process is difficult to master. It’s partly because as a species we are ruled by emotion. It’s difficult to take a step back and let go of the different influences on the negotiation and focus on the facts. In this episode of Sales Reinvented, Jeb Blount shares his take on emotional control in negotiation and why it’s so important to the process.

Jeb Blount is the CEO of Sales Gravy and a Sales Acceleration Specialist. He’s a best-selling author and most recently penned: INKED: The Ultimate Guide to Powerful Closing and Sales Negotiation Tactics that Unlock YES and Seal the Deal. Jeb is a world-renowned keynote speaker and the host of the Sales Gravy Podcast. This episode is packed with information you can use to become a better negotiator—don’t miss it!

• [1:01] Jeb’s definition of negotiation
• [2:04] Negotiation is the precursor to profit
• [3:10] Salespeople find negotiation uncomfortable
• [5:20] The rules Jeb follows in the negotiation process
• [10:01] Emotional control and other important attributes
• [13:16] The MLP Strategy (motivation, leverage, and power)
• [17:18] Important negotiation dos and don’ts
• [20:34] Jeb’s eye-opening negotiation story

Negotiation is essentially emotionally controlled conflict. Jeb points out that because it’s inherently conflict, it’s difficult for people in western economies to engage in. Negotiation isn’t an everyday facet of our lives like it is in some Eastern cultures, such as India. If you’re in the UK, US, or Canada you don’t negotiate—you pay the price. 

Because negotiating isn’t a part of our everyday existence, we aren’t good at it nor do we like it. There’s a lot of stigma surrounding negotiating. In some instances, if you attempt to haggle or negotiate a price it’s met with contempt and an upturned nose—leaving you embarrassed. When it isn’t a cultural norm, it can feel uncomfortable. It can feel like rejection. It feels like a zero-sum game with distinct winners and losers. 

Unfortunately, most salespeople aren’t properly trained how to negotiate. If they are, they’re trained by someone who typically doesn’t have sales experience. On the flip side, most procurement people are professionally trained negotiators who know what they’re doing and take advantage of that fact. 

Jeb embraces a few rules as part of his negotiation process: 

Rule #1: Don’t negotiate until you’ve already won the deal. Until you’re selected as the vendor of choice, don’t attempt to negotiate—or you’re just negotiating with yourself.

Rule #2: Leverage the negotiation triangle. Make sure you develop a great relationship with someone in the stakeholder group. Once they select you, you’re typically shoved off to procurement who want to lower your prices. It’s nice to have a stakeholder to reach out to if it seems you’re at an impasse.

Rule #3: Incorporate a give-take playlist. Jeb points out that you should never give without taking something in return. He emphasizes that “I want to be able to give things to the buyer that are low-value to me but high-value to the buyer while I take things away from the buyer that are high-value to them.” The more you take, the more painful the negotiation process becomes—thereby compelling them to stop negotiating and align on a deal.

Jeb believes that emotional control is paramount to your success:

“Don't negotiate when you're hungry. Don't negotiate when you're tired. Don't negotiate when you're worn out. Because when you're in those positions, you're more likely to give things away that you don't have to...When you're worn out, there's a limit to your willpower, your emotional control, and discipline.”

He notes that if you’re not in a position where you can exercise full emotional control, do everything possible to reschedule the negotiation so you don’t get into a situation where you're giving away the upper hand to the buyer.

Jeb goes on to share a negotiation strategy that he teaches in his book: The MLP strategy (Motivation, Leverage, and Power). He also shares some powerful negotiation dos and don’ts. To learn more about how he leverages these in a negotiation, keep listening!

Jeb’s company had spent six months going through a discovery phase with a prospect they had worked with in the past. But the deal they were working on was the largest yet. They had reached the final proposal and were selected as the vendor of choice. So the stakeholder group sent them off to procurement to nail down contracts.

Their counterparties procurement team sent them a letter stating that they had found other businesses that can do what Jeb’s company was offering—but at a better price. Jeb’s saleswoman read that letter and lost all emotional control, worried they were going to lose the deal. She was poised and ready to concede and lower their pricing to save the deal. But Jeb knew it was a negotiation tactic and responded accordingly. He let them know that they’d be happy to lower the price to fit the budget, but that something would have to be removed from the deal to do so. 

They came back to the table and quibbled over details for three solid months. The executive team was being pressured by the upper-management to wrap things up because they were now way behind schedule. Jeb received a call from the executive sponsor trying to figure out what the hold-up was. Jeb filled him in and told him that procurement had stalled the process. 

So the executive sponsor made a call to the Senior Vice President. The VP then called procurement. 24 hours later, they received their original contract, signed and ready to move forward. Jeb’s emotional control and relationship-building strategy won them the deal. 

This episode is PACKED with useful resources from a top sales negotiator. Listen to the whole episode to take advantage of his vast knowledge and expertise. 

• The Sales Gravy Podcast
• Jeb’s Book: INKED

• Jeb’s Website
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Follow on Twitter
• Watch on YouTube

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

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