The JB Sales Learning Lab Newsletter
Free, actionable sales advice sent to your inbox every weekend.
I've never had a strategy
. August 1, 2026 | Read online This is tough to admit out loud, but I've never really had a strategy when it comes to how I use social media, specifically LinkedIn, unless you count throwing spaghetti against the wall as a strategy. I was member #36,541 on the platform, which means I was one of the first 15,000 real people on it, since the story goes that the first 20,000 accounts were dummies created to make the place look populated. I used it originally as the networking and relationship...
Frameworks don't run themselves (playbook inside)
. After 25 years of training sales teams, the most common thing I hear isn't a question about technique. It's some version of "JB, my team knows what to do. I can't get them to do it consistently." They can quote you ICP, personas, trigger events, sequencing, all of it. Then they go back to their desk, and none of it turns into pipeline. For years I thought that was a discipline problem. It isn't. You can teach a rep the sharpest prospecting framework in the world, but if the system they run...
Happy Ears
. July 25, 2026 | Read online I spent an hour of my Saturday inside a Good Feet Store with my wife and daughter, and I walked out laughing so hard I almost cried. Let me set this up. I didn't know much about the place going in, and we did zero research. I figured it was insoles. I have high arches, and my go-to Adidas shell toes have the arch support of a piece of cardboard. My wife's feet and back had been bothering her, and my daughter has high arches too. So one day we decided to walk in....
Are Sales Stages Still Relevant
. July 18, 2026 | Read online The sales funnel was invented in 1898. A guy named E. St. Elmo Lewis created it to explain how advertising works: grab Attention, build Interest, create Desire, drive Action. AIDA. We've been running some version of that model ever since. I even use it as a framework for emails and calls. Which means the framework most sales teams use to manage deals in 2026 is older than the radio. That sent me down a rabbit hole this week with a question I don't fully have the...
Stop The Negative Tailspin
. July 11, 2026 | Read online My daughter went to a volleyball camp this week. After the first morning session, she texted me, frustrated. She wasn't on one of the top courts, she wasn't playing well, and she was spiraling. I could feel her frustration through the texts. That feeling of "this isn't going the way I wanted it to go" was pulling her down, and everything after that first disappointment was being filtered through that lens. I called her with the main goal of trying to shift her...
67% don't want you. 69% do
. July 4, 2026 | Read online 67% don't want you. 69% do I used to use a Gartner stat in my training that was about how 43% of B2B clients want a “rep free” experience. I used this to highlight the challenges we face as Sales professionals. I would then contrast that with the good news that of those 43% who wanted a rep free experience, they had a 23% higher regret rate. This meant that they regretted their decision more when a rep wasn't involved. I highlighted how this proved that Sales reps...
Be Curious, Not Judgemental
. June 27, 2026 | Read online I had a few conversations on the podcast this week that kept circling back to the same topic - curiosity. It reminded me of the famous darts scene in Ted Lasso. Ted gets challenged by Rupert, who's arrogant and assumes Ted doesn't know what he's doing. As Ted lines up his final throw, he talks about how people have underestimated him his entire life. He references a quote from Walt Whitman about being curious, not judgmental. Then he says if Rupert had been...
A bit of optimism
. June 20, 2026 | Read online I’m not sure if it’s all the love I’m seeing from and for the Scott’s and the Tartan Army while they’re here in Boston during the World Cup or all the conversations I’m having with clients, prospects, and partners, but this week was a week of renewed optimism for me and seemingly others. Last week, my newsletter (Here we go again) was about how I tend to go into full-blown prospecting and recon mode when times get tough, and pipeline dries up. People say sales...
Here we go again
. June 13, 2026 | Read online Helping elevate the people and profession of Sales by sharing authentic conversations, practical tips, expert advice, relevant tech and real-world lessons from my experience selling every day. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday. Here we go again Q1 was really good for me. I was traveling to different onsite sessions for training and keynotes, my pipeline was healthy with solid opportunities, deals were moving, and things felt like they were clicking. Then, I...
Before You Make Any Decisions
. June 6, 2026 | Read online I've had more conversations in the past two or three weeks than I've had in a long time. After Q1, my pipeline dried up, and when that happens, I do the same thing I've always done. I get back to work. I pick up the phone, I reach out to people, and I set up as many conversations as I can to get a temperature on what's happening out there (and try to drive revenue). What I'm hearing from almost everyone is the same thing. People are exhausted. Not the normal...
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