Sales Mindset Development

This might be the most important career advice in sales. Because here's the truth: Your reputation travels faster than you do. Your name comes up more than you think. Decisions about your future happen without you. Every. Single. Day. Think about it... That promotion you're hoping for? Being discussed in rooms you're not in. That big account you want to work? Being decided by people you've never met. That leadership opportunity? Being influenced by what others say about you. The uncomfortable truth? Success in sales isn't just about crushing quota. It's about having advocates. People who say "Give them a shot" when others doubt. People who defend your approach when it's questioned. People who mention your wins when you're not around. Here's what ACTUALLY happens when you have real advocates: ↳ Opportunities find you before they're posted ↳ Your mistakes get context, not just criticism ↳ Your ideas get championed, not stolen ↳ Your growth gets fast-tracked, not delayed ↳ Your reputation becomes your strongest asset But here's the part most people miss: To have people fight for you... You need to fight for others first. That SDR grinding it out? Mention their progress in the team meeting. That peer who helped you close a deal? Make sure leadership knows. That manager who coached you? Tell their boss what it meant. Because advocacy isn't luck. It's reciprocity. The rep everyone wants on their team? They've been building others up for years. The manager everyone respects? They've been defending their people consistently. The leader everyone follows? They've been fighting battles for others quietly. Here's what fighting for others ACTUALLY looks like: When someone's not in the room: - Correct misconceptions about them - Highlight their strengths - Share their wins - Provide context for their challenges When opportunities arise: - Recommend them even if it doesn't benefit you - Connect them with the right people - Put their name forward - Open doors they can't open alone The magic of advocacy in sales? It compounds. Every person you genuinely support becomes part of your network. Every battle you fight for someone builds trust. Every time you elevate others, you elevate yourself. Not through manipulation. Through genuine support. So ask yourself: Who are you fighting for when they're not around? Whose potential are you highlighting? Whose success are you championing? Because the people who win biggest in sales aren't just the best closers. Be the person who fights for others. Watch how many start fighting for you. Your career will never be the same.

What’s really holding you back? Spoiler alert: It’s not your skills. How many times have you felt like you’re not up for the job? That you’re not qualified? Or that someone else could do it better? Here’s the reality: ➡️ 13% of employees and 20% of senior managers admit they frequently feel like a fraud. ➡️ 54% of women report experiencing imposter syndrome, compared to 38% of men. I get it, because I’ve been there. I used to struggle with being visible - giving speeches, creating content online, even doing TV interviews. Despite decades of experience, there was always a little voice in my head whispering: “Do people really want to hear from you? What if they laugh at you?” Here’s the truth: It’s not based on facts - it’s just the noise in our heads. Here’s how you can overcome imposter syndrome and show up like you deserve to: 1/ The Imposter Loop ↳ You doubt every win and question every achievement. ↳ Own your story: You earned your seat at the table. ↳ Write down three wins you’re proud of. Seeing them silences the noise. 2/ The Permission Trap ↳ You wait to feel ready or for someone to say “go.” ↳ Stop waiting: Start before you’re ready. ↳ Set a deadline and commit publicly - action builds momentum faster than waiting for confidence to strike. 3/ The Comparison Game ↳ You stalk others’ success and compare your chapter 1 to their chapter 20. ↳ Run your own race: Their doubts, fears, and failures aren’t in the highlight reel. ↳ Unfollow or mute accounts that trigger self-doubt. Focus on progress, not perfection. 4/ The Perfectionism Loop ↳ You polish endless drafts, overthink every detail, and never feel “good enough.” ↳ Launch at 80%: Fix it in flight. Done is better than perfect. ↳ Set a timer for your next task and stop when it’s ‘good enough.’ Progress beats perfection every time. 5/ The Silence Spiral ↳ You keep your struggles hidden and pretend you’ve got it all figured out. ↳ Share your story: You’ll be surprised how many people say “me too.” ↳ Find a peer or mentor and share one struggle you’re facing. Vulnerability builds connection. 6/ The Safety Net ↳ You stay in your comfort zone and call it “being realistic.” ↳ Take the leap: Growth lives outside your comfort zone. ↳ Identify one “safe” habit you’re clinging to. Replace it with one bold action, no matter how small. 7/ The Knowledge Shield ↳ You hide behind preparation, waiting to know “just one more thing.” ↳ Start doing: Expertise comes from action. ↳ Turn learning into doing: Commit to acting on one idea from the last book, course, or workshop you completed. What would be possible if you silenced those doubts once and for all? For me, it meant saying yes to opportunities I used to avoid - like speaking on stage and sharing my story. ⤵️ Have you ever felt like a fraud despite your accomplishments? How did you work through it? ♻️ Share this post to remind someone they’re not alone. 🔔 Follow me, Jen Blandos, for advice on business, entrepreneurship, and well-being.

Only Gyan, No Bakwaas: Daily Routine for a Salesperson 1. Start with Pipeline, Not Coffee. Check your leads, not your WhatsApp. Priorities first. 2. Know Your Numbers. How many calls, how many meetings, how many closes? If you don't measure, you're guessing. 3. First 2 Hours = Gold. Make your most important calls in the first 2 hours. Energy high. Distractions low. 4. Don’t Sell. Solve. Customers buy solutions, not products. Understand their pain. Speak their language. 5. Daily CRM Update = Non-Negotiable. If it's not in the system, it didn’t happen. No excuses. 6. Follow-Up Like a Machine. Most deals close after the 5th follow-up. 98% give up too early. Don’t be one of them. 7. Rejections Are Tuition Fees. Every “no” is learning. Don’t take it personally. Take it professionally. 8. One Hour = Pure Learning. Daily. Sales is evolving. So must you. Read, watch, or listen — but grow. 9. Protect Your Time Like a Warrior. Meetings without agenda? Skip. Random chit-chat? Skip. Focus is your superpower. 10. End Day with Review, Not Regret. What worked? What didn’t? What’s for tomorrow? Write it down. Leave nothing to guesswork. ✅ Pro Tip: You’re not in the business of selling. You’re in the business of building trust — at Speed

If you close $50k+ deals, I have news: Sales is not a numbers game. Sales is a skills game. 7 skills that grow your income without burning out on the volume game: 1. Finding 'the need behind the need.' Great salespeople dig under the surface. When buyers share their problems, they listen. But then they follow up with: "What's going on in your business that's driving that to be a priority?" THAT gets to the true priority. 2. Quantifying customer pain. No measurement, no money. Quantifying pain does three things: a) justifies the spend b) creates urgency c) helps your customer appreciate the magnitude of the problem. Try asking: "What metric is suffering as a result of these challenges?" 3. Creating champions. A great champion runs through brick walls to get the deal done. They sell your product internally when you're not in the room. Indeed: Salespeople don't close deals. Champions do. A league of champions is like a magnetic force for closing deals. 4. Business acumen. The best sellers in the world are actually businesspeople that happen to know how to sell. Don't just improve your SALES acumen. Improve your BUSINESS acumen. Senior execs will respect you 10x more than reps who only know the latest sales techniques. 5. Executive conversations You can close five-figure deals without this skill. But if you want to close six, seven, and eight figure deals? You better have gravitas when it comes to 'facing off' with senior execs. They're direct. They use plain language. They're efficient. 6. Negotiation. Negotiation is a 'threshold' skill. That means it makes almost all of your other skills more valuable. Becoming a great negotiator will pay dividends the rest of your life. Dig in and master it. 7. Writing. Clear writing indicates clear thinking. Sloppy writing indicates sloppy thinking. Your job as a seller is to persuade and communicate. Become a master of every medium that involves: - sales calls - written word - group presentations What skills would you add?

I've trained thousands of AEs in the last 6 years. These 9 traits separate the $500K+ earners from the ones updating LinkedIn to "exploring opportunities” … Look, AI is eating sales jobs for breakfast. SDR roles? Nearly gone. Basic discovery? Automated. Follow-ups? Already replaced. If you're a sales leader, you need to know what to hire for. If you're a rep, you need to become irreplaceable. These are the 9 traits AI can't touch: 1. Deal Velocity Obsession Average reps wait for "perfect timing." Top performers know: time kills all deals. Create urgency or lose to "no decision." 2. Calendar Architecture They don't manage time, they architect it. 8-hour prospecting blocks. Non-negotiable. PACER method. Color-coded. Zero reactive time. 3. Discovery Forensics Skip "What's your budget?" Ask "What motivated you to reach out today?" Uncover $2M problems hiding behind $50K budgets. 4. Pattern Recognition Every lost deal gets a post-mortem. They see what others miss. Close rate jumps from 20% to 47%. 5. 12-Week Year Discipline Forget annual quotas. Work in 12-week sprints. Daily wins tracked. Weekly scorecard. System beats motivation every time. 6. Objection Archaeology "Too expensive" = "I don't see the difference" "Need to wait" = "Scared of switching" Dig past surface. Find real fear. Close. 7. Rejection Immunity Lost a $500K deal yesterday? Prospecting today. 169 no's to get 1 yes? Make 170 calls. Recovery time: hours, not weeks. 8. Tech Stack Mastery Sales Nav + Apollo + ChatGPT + Gong = Pipeline machine 21-day sequences running while you sleep. First to test. First to find the edge. 9. Executive Presence Don't pitch products. Advise businesses. "Your broken process costs $3M annually." CEOs take your calls. CFOs trust your math. Let me speak some truth to you.. When I ran a 110-person team delivering $195M annually, these were nice-to-haves. In 2025? They're survival skills. AI handles transactions. You handle transformation. Your move. Sales leaders - Stop hiring "experience." Hire these traits. Sales reps - Pick your weakest 3. Work on them for 30 days. I've mentored over 50 President's Club winners that worked DIRECTLY for me not even including my clients. Every single one had 7+ of these traits. The ones with all 9? Running their own companies now. — Remember the PACER Method in # 2? Well, I broke it down here: https://lnkd.in/gbpFye_t

Dear sellers, Your buyers don’t need you for information anymore. They can watch your demos on YouTube, read G2 reviews, or trial your product without speaking to a soul. What they do need? Someone who can cut through the noise and make sense of it all. Nick Cegelski said it best: “Buyers don’t suffer from starvation. They suffer from indigestion.” And that’s why 60% of deals stall in no-decision. It’s not because your product isn’t good. It’s because you drowned your buyer in decks, PDFs, and 27 “just checking in” emails. The best reps I know don’t act like information pushers. They act like sense-makers. That means: → Recapping problems, not features. → Giving buyers only what they need to win their internal meetings. → Turning recaps into boardroom language the CFO can actually use. → Helping build the business case instead of tossing over “customer stories.” → Running the entire journey in one place, so nothing slips through the cracks. The reason you’re losing deals isn’t because selling is too complex. It’s because buying is. 11 stakeholders. 60 email threads. Everyone overwhelmed. Sense-making sellers don’t just “sell.” They simplify. They structure chaos. They guide buyers through the mess. In 2025, that’s the only skill that matters. Be the rep who makes it easy to buy. Or be the rep buyers ghost. Your choice.

I once coached a rep who spent 45 minutes writing a single prospecting email. It never got opened. This is what perfectionism looks like in sales. It feels like diligence. But it's actually fear in disguise. It’s the #1 silent killer of productivity I see in top performers. And it’s keeping thousands of reps from greatness. When I ask my clients why they procrastinate on key actions—emails, calls, exec meetings—it's rarely because they’re lazy. It’s because they’re scared it won’t be “good enough.” They believe if it’s not perfect, it’s not worth doing. So they delay. They overthink. They rewrite the email 9 times. They wait until they “feel more prepared” to meet the VP. They avoid risk… and call it professionalism. But here’s the truth: Perfectionism is just fear—dressed up as high standards. And it’s costing you pipeline, confidence, and growth. The irony? You only become “good enough” by doing the reps. You don’t become a world-class presenter by sitting in Google Docs. You become one by presenting. Over and over. You don’t write powerful emails by waiting for inspiration. You get there by writing 100 bad ones first. Mastery doesn’t come from waiting until you're ready. It comes from acting before you are. The best salespeople I know are not perfectionists. They are consistent executors. They ship when it’s 80% ready. They call the VP even when they’re nervous. They send the message before second-guessing every word. They understand that competence is built through action. Not before it. Perfectionism isn’t a high standard. It’s fear of failure in a nice suit. You don’t beat it by thinking. You beat it by acting. Every single day. Done now Beats perfect never. Always.

Long before Google, I had a student job at the biggest toy store in Europe, Hamleys of London. Specifically, the one in Regent Street. I was 24, working mostly on commission, selling the Puzzle Car – an interactive jigsaw puzzle. At first, I found it challenging to get out of my comfort zone to stop people so I could pitch the toy. I’d do the demonstration, explain what it does, and watch people smile, nod—and walk away. No sale. But I paid attention. I started noticing patterns. Some people were drawn in by the movement of the toy itself. Others needed a push—a story about how their kids would love it, or how it was the perfect gift. And then there was the biggest sales driver of all: crowds. When one person bought, suddenly, three more wanted one too. If a crowd gathered, more people stopped to watch. And the more people watched, the more people bought. It was my first lesson in FOMO and social proof—and it wouldn’t be my last. But beyond that, selling toys at Hamleys turned out to be a crash course in business, leadership, and startups. Here are 5 lessons that still stick with me today: 1 – Storytelling sells People don’t buy products; they buy emotions, experiences, and stories. The best pitches aren’t about features—they’re about making people feel something. 2 – Rejection is part of the process For every ten people who watched my demo, only one would buy. Sound familiar? Founders hear "no" way more than "yes." The trick is to keep going and not take it personally. 3 – Know your audience Parents wanted to hear how educational and safe the toy was for their kids. Kids just wanted to see it move. The message mattered as much as the product. 4 – Energy matters If I looked bored or unmotivated, people kept walking. But when I was excited, when I believed in what I was selling, people stopped to listen. Whether you’re leading a team, pitching investors, or selling a product, your energy is contagious. 5 – You eat what you kill Working on commission meant no guaranteed paycheck. If I didn’t sell, I didn’t earn. It was a powerful lesson in accountability—something every founder understands. No one is coming to save you. You have to make it happen. Looking back, I didn’t know this job would teach me so much about business, startups, and leadership. But the fundamentals are the same, whether you’re selling a toy or building a company. What was your first job, and what did it teach you?

Sales is unpredictable. You’re responsible for a revenue target, but at the end of the day, you’re heavily dependent on your customer to make that revenue happen. However, the best Sales leaders know that the game isn’t about waiting for customers to take action - it’s about focusing on what you can control. And what you can control is how much you help your customers. Instead of obsessing over revenue numbers alone, shift your focus to tracking "help" metrics. Ask yourself: How many customers did your team call last week? How many did they reach out to via email? How many in-person meetings were conducted? How many follow-ups happened? When a customer called your Salesperson, did they pick up the call and solve the issue? Are your salespeople equipped with the right knowledge to truly help? These "help" metrics give you a better picture of how well your team is serving your customers. The more your team helps, the more trust they build – and the more that trust translates to revenue. Sales isn’t just about tracking revenue. Sales is about helping customers solve their problems. When your team is consistently there to guide, assist, and deliver value, the revenue will naturally follow. So, if you're a Sales leader, remember: Focus on helping. The numbers will take care of themselves.

The best seller on my team just told me "My last manager checked my activity. My current manager checks my thinking." That difference is why one team consistently hits 120% of quota and the other struggles to reach 85%. Most sales leaders are still stuck in the "did you make your 60 calls" mindset when they should be asking "did you identify the numerical priority in those 3 key conversations?" The gap between mediocre and elite sales teams in 2025 isn't about WHO you hire, it's about HOW you develop them. Bad leaders manage activity. Great leaders coach decision-making. When a deal stalls, average managers say "Did you ask for the next meeting?" Great coaches ask "What's the buying team's actual decision process?" When pipeline is light, weak managers demand "More calls!" Strong coaches dig in with "Let's analyze which accounts are showing actual buying signals." Teams with coaching-focused leaders see 28% higher win rates than those with pure management approaches. Are you still counting dials or are you developing critical thinking? Your reps can tell the difference, and so can your results.