November 18, 2025 • 16 mins
Here's a question that hits closer to home than most sales reps want to admit: What do you do when you've been away from prospecting for a while and suddenly the call reluctance feels brand new again?
That's the situation Dwayne Malmberg from Sugar Land, Texas found himself in. He'd been crushing it in inside sales and appointment setting since the 90s. He was good at it. Really good. But after taking just over two years away from the phones, a new opportunity came along and suddenly he was facing something he didn't expect.
The call reluctance. The trepidation. The mental resistance to picking up that phone and dialing invisible strangers.
If you've ever taken time away from prospecting and felt that same knot in your stomach when it's time to get back on the phones, you're not alone. And more importantly, there's a systematic way to rebuild that muscle and get back to crushing it.
The Raw Truth About Cold Calling Fear
Let's get brutally honest: Cold calling creates emotional angst. Period.
I've made tens of thousands of cold calls. I make them with my clients during training sessions. I'll make them tomorrow morning. And I still feel that trepidation on the first couple of calls of the day.
It's just human. It's natural. It never completely goes away.
Think about it like jumping out of an airplane. A few years ago, I got the chance to jump with the United States Army Golden Knights. I was terrified. My heart was pounding. A sergeant even asked if I was okay because apparently I looked frightened.
When we got strapped in, I turned to the Golden Knight I was jumping with and asked, "Do you ever get scared?" His answer was revealing: "Yeah, of course I do. My heart's beating a little bit because it's an airplane and I don't know what's going to happen. But I've done it so many times and I've got a routine."
That's the key. The routine. The process. The mental preparation that gets you past the fear and into action.
The Big Pull: Why You Need Something Worth Fighting For
Here's the problem with facing fear: If you don't have something pulling you forward that's bigger than the discomfort you're feeling right now, you'll procrastinate forever.
The discipline to run a prospecting block and do your prospecting is the discipline to sacrifice what you want now for what you want most.
So before you even think about picking up the phone, sit down and write out what you want. Why are you doing this? What's the goal? Is it a paycheck? A promotion? Financial freedom? Providing for your family?
That's your big pull. That's what you focus on when you start your day, not whatever might happen on the call. Because when you're thinking about something as scary as facing rejection, if you don't have a big pull driving you, you'll end up avoiding the work that matters most.
For Dwayne, part of his why was clear: He's a caregiver for his disabled wife and needs the flexibility to work from home while still providing for his family. That's a powerful pull. That's something worth pushing through fear for.
Building the Muscle: You Can't Bench Press 250 on Day One
Let's say you were a bodybuilder in your 30s. You were strong, lifting heavy, crushing it in the gym. Then life happened. Kids came along. Your career took off. You quit working out.
Now you decide it's time to get back in shape. What happens if you walk into the gym and try to bench press 250 pounds on day one?
You're going to hurt yourself. Maybe badly.
The same principle applies to prospecting after time away. You already know how to do it. You've got the muscle memory. Everything inside you is saying, "I got this." But you can't expect to jump back in at the same intensity level you had before.
You have to rebuild the muscle gradually. Start with the equivalent of those 20-pound dumbbells and work your way back up.
The High-Intensity Sprint Strategy
When I found myself in a similar situation years ago, uncomfortable and fearful about making calls, I developed a strategy that I now call high-intensity prospecting sprints.
Here's how it works: Break your prospecting into very small, short blocks. Sometimes just five minutes. Make five calls in five minutes. Or ten minutes. Or fifteen minutes.
The key is this: Make it so small and manageable that your brain can't talk you out of it. If I tell you to make cold calls all day long, that feels overwhelming. But if I ask you to knock out just five calls, you can do that.
Then here's the critical part: Follow each sprint with something inspiring. Read a chapter from Fanatical Prospecting. Listen to a segment of your favorite sales podcast. Watch a training video. Put good stuff in your ears and in front of your eyes that builds your courage and strengthens your heart.
Then do another sprint. More inspiration. Another sprint. Repeat.
What happens is two things: First, by actually doing it instead of thinking about it, you get better at doing it. You get what I call sales endorphins. You feel good about yourself because you
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
This is the Sales Grade Podcast.
Hi. I'm Jeb Blunt, best selling author of
fanatical prospecting, objections, sales EQ, and inked, and
I'm here to help you open more doors,
close bigger deals, and rock your commission check.
It's wisdom Wednesday, and the premise is simple.
You set the agenda. Because on this segment
of the sales preview podcast, you bring your
(00:26):
biggest sales challenges.
Jeb Blunt, he hits back with his best
answers.
Those answers come straight from the trenches. He's
not just teaching the stuff. He's out there
every single day prospecting,
closing deals, and leading sales teams that win.
Today, we're bringing Duane Malmberg from Sugar Land,
Texas.
(00:46):
Alright. Next up on the show is Duane
Malmberg from Sugar Land, Texas. Tell me what
you got going on.
Well, I started this opportunity
with a company.
I can actually do it from home. I've
actually been working from home for a while.
Been in the
sales game since the nineties, inside sales,
(01:07):
appointment setting,
and I had stopped doing appointment setting and
any type of thing on the phone. It's
been about, a little over two years. So
when this opportunity came along,
I was like, okay. Well, let me get
back in the game. And so
I was trying to get my mindset right,
but I noticed that when I started having
thoughts about getting on the phone again,
I started having those
(01:28):
fears like I was new again. And I
was like, woah. What's going on? You know?
And so I've been looking at, you know,
your sales videos and different ones about getting
through the gatekeeper again. And this and what's
funny is a lot of stuff about getting
through the gatekeeper, I remember I used to
use, and so I was like, okay. So
I'm trying to get over that feeling, get
that mindset back about getting on the phone,
(01:49):
hitting it, and I actually was good too.
So that's the thing. You know? I totally
hear you, and I think that what you're
expressing is the raw human emotion
that we feel around cold calling and just
making calls. Even though you've been successful at
it before
and you were good at it, now you're
looking at calling invisible strangers again,
(02:11):
and
it creates a level of emotional angst and
fear.
And this is something that I explain to
young salespeople all the time. I've made tens
of thousands of cold calls. I make them
with my clients when I'm in training them.
I'm like, give me a list. I'll call
with you. And I still feel that trepidation
when when I get up in the morning,
and I'll feel it tomorrow when I get
up in the morning, and I call my
(02:32):
list. I'm gonna feel the first couple of
calls, that level of trepidation.
It's just natural. It's human.
And I'll give you a good example of
why your question's important and what we have
to start thinking about as human beings when
we face these types of fears. Five years
or so ago, I got invited to jump
out of an airplane with the United States
(02:52):
Army Golden Knights. It's pretty cool thing. Right?
You're jumping off with the pinnacle of paratroopers
in the world. They invited me. So I
go to Fort Knox and I get briefed
in and I get ready to go on
this thing, and I'm scared to death. Like,
up to the point where one of the
sergeants who was briefing us in came up
to me and said, sir, are you okay?
(03:13):
I looked frightened.
So we go down to the hangar to
get on the airplane. I'm like, I'm okay,
okay, okay. And I'm like, my heart's beating.
I'm afraid. We get on the airplane.
I'm tandem jumping with a golden knight, and
we're getting strapped in everything. And I just
turned the guy and go, like, do you
ever get scared? Like, it means this you're
jumping out of an airplane. And he said,
like, I mean, completely honest. He goes,
(03:34):
yeah. He goes, of course, I do. My
heart's beating a little bit when I jump
out of an airplane because it's an airplane.
And, you know, I don't know what's gonna
happen. He goes, but I've done it so
many times, and I've got a routine, and
we were going through the whole routine. He
goes, I just go through this routine. And
because I go through this routine every single
time, I'm able to get past the fear
and then make the jump.
And the jump was awesome. I had a
(03:55):
really, really good time, but it was a
good lesson for all of us as we
look at things that make us afraid is
what's the routine that we're going through in
order to make the call.
My guess is that if you go back
and think about where you were in the
past making calls, that there was just this
mental routine that you went through before you
made the first phone call of the day,
(04:16):
which by the way is the hardest one
because you're picking up a 10,000 pound weight
to make the phone call. I would go
through that and start, you know, thinking about
it. The second thing that I would think
about is something called the pull strategy or
the big pull, but making a outbound call,
a cold call is hard. That's why you
and I are talking right now. It's hard
because it's scary. The thing is is that
(04:37):
it's not gonna get any less scary. It's
gonna continue to be scary because you're calling
invisible strangers. It's just human. There's a reason
why you're doing this. You took this job
because you want something. And that something could
be a paycheck or that something could be
a goal or that something could be I've
got some thing I wanna buy or I
wanna move up in my life or whatever
it is. What you gotta have is that
thing out there that's driving you. Because when
(05:00):
you're thinking about something as scary as jumping
out of an airplane or
making a cold call facing rejection,
if you don't have a big pull, like,
if you don't have something that you want
more
than dealing with the fear right now, you'll
end up procrastinating.
So the discipline to run a prospecting block
and do your prospecting
is the discipline to sacrifice what you want
(05:21):
now, which is easy
or what you want most, which is something
else. So my first piece of advice would
be sit down and write down what you
want. Like, why am I doing this? What's
the process? What do I want? So that
when you start your day, that's what you're
focusing on, not whatever's happening in the call.
And I guarantee you that if you look
in your past because you've been doing this
for a long time, you've done that in
the past, and you just forgot to do
(05:43):
it this time. That would be number one.
Number two is you know how to make
the call, like, telling you to make the
call. You would know how to pick the
phone up, have a conversation with someone. You
already know how to get best gatekeepers. You're
pulling all of that in. What you've got
is to focus on your core mindset,
and that's something that you just gotta build.
So listen to the Sales Groovy podcast. We're
(06:05):
podcasting three days a week. We're having these
conversations.
Listen to them. I highly recommend
listening to or reading my book, Fanatical Prospecting.
That book's been, I don't know, a couple
million copies worldwide.
People use it everywhere.
The first part of that book, the mindset
part of the book will help you. And
then the frameworks for, you know, conducting a
call or for messaging or for getting past
(06:28):
gatekeepers,
you'll find all that in there. I think
for you, a veteran who's been doing this
for a long time, a lot of it's
gonna sound like, hey, I used to do
this. I already know how to do this.
This is pretty good. It'll remind you of
those things. But what I've always found is
that when I'm in a situation where I
feel
fear or I feel emotional angst, if I'm
putting good stuff in my ears, right, or
(06:48):
I'm putting good stuff in my eyes, it
has a tendency to make my heart stronger
and build my courage.
And I'll give you an example of this
from my own past, but
there was a time in my past where
I was exactly where you are. I was
uncomfortable. I was fearful. I was second guessing
myself.
I'd lost my confidence,
and I didn't, like, know exactly how to
(07:09):
get out of it. So what I did
was I started breaking up my calls into
very small short blocks. Like, sometimes just five
minutes. I'd make five calls in five minutes
or I would do ten minutes or fifteen
minutes. And we call these high intensity prospecting
sprints today, but back then, I called it
therapy because I was having a hard time
making the call. Right? So what I would
(07:31):
do is I would say, okay, I'm gonna
make 10 dials,
and then I'm gonna
read.
And I would make 10 dials, and then
I would read a book about sales
that would motivate me or inspire me. I
will read something that would be inspirational. Or
in this case, you know, I might watch
a YouTube video,
or I might listen to a segment of
a podcast, and then I would do 10
more and then 10 more and then 10
(07:52):
more. And what I found was there were
two things that happened. One, by actually doing
it and not thinking about it, I actually
got better at doing it.
And
I got what they call cells endorphins. When
you're actually doing it, you actually feel good
about yourself because you, like, now you know,
like, hey, I can do this. I'm fine.
Everything's okay.
By breaking it up into short little spurts,
it was easier for my brain to wrap
(08:13):
around actually doing it. Right? So if you
said, I need you to make cold calls
all day long. So when you're like, man,
that's a lot. Right? But if I said,
hey. Can you just knock out five calls
for me? You'd be I can do that.
Then what I would back that up with
is something that is inspiring me. Like, I'm
putting information in my heart. So you would
make ten minutes of calls, and then you
would read fanatical prospecting for ten minutes. And
(08:33):
then you make ten minutes of call and
then you read fanatical prospecting for ten minutes.
Right? So what you're doing is you're building
back that muscle
that you've kinda lost over the last couple
of years, which brings me to my last
point, which is building the muscle. Let's say
you were a bodybuilder and you worked out
really heavily in your thirties. And then you
had kids, like, you got no career, you
(08:55):
quit working out, you quit doing all those
things, and you decided one day, I'm going
back in the gym. I'm gonna get back
in shape.
You're not gonna go into the gym and
get on the bench press and go bench
press, like, 250 pounds. You're gonna go on
the bench press like me, and you're gonna
start off with two twenty pound dumbbells. Right?
And you're gonna do some reps on that,
and you're gonna build your way into
(09:16):
bench pressing 250 pounds.
That's where you are right now.
You gotta build the muscle back. You already
know, like, you know how to do it.
You've got the muscle memory. Like, everything is
saying,
I got this.
But you can't go into the gym and
go do a full workout the same way
you did, you know, five years ago
(09:36):
right now. So little at a time, build
out your mindset. Right? Go back the things
that you're doing to right now, learn and
and focus on your skill set. Focus on
setting those goals so that you've got something
that you're going for. And then I highly
recommend
short spurts of calls,
inspiration, short spurts of calls, inspiration,
build your muscle, build your muscle, build your
(09:57):
muscle. And what you're gonna find is that
you're gonna start feeling better about yourself. You're
gonna feel a whole lot more confident. It's
gonna start building, building, building, building. And one
day, you're gonna look back and you're gonna
go, I'm better than I used to be.
I'm better now because, yeah, I I've got
all this wisdom and I've learned it. That's
gonna be the key. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense.
And a lot of things you touched on,
(10:18):
you know, about how I'm feeling. And that
makes sense, though, about building the muscle back,
you know, because that's something you said, you
know, I actually was working out for a
while, then I stopped, and then I was
like, yeah. I need I can't go back
to what I was doing. So little by
little Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. I wrote
down another question too.
Like, for example, I have a lot of
responsibilities,
and I can get too much into my
(10:39):
personal life. But, you know, I have my
wife's disabled, so I'm I'm actually her caregiver.
That's why, you know, years ago, I started
working from home to have that type of
freedom where I could go ahead and take
it to the doctor. As a matter of
fact, when we leave here, I gotta take
it to the doctor. Yeah. So my time
management
is something that I need to learn how
to build back to. What kind of advice
can you get today? I would go back
(11:00):
to from a time management standpoint,
the most important thing that you can do
is just block your day. So you've got
a lot of responsibilities.
If those responsibilities are gonna impact your ability
to
do your prospecting and do your sales calls,
then what you wanna do is concentrate
and focus your time, your prospecting time in
a really short block. So these high intensity
(11:21):
prospecting sprints, what we're doing is we're getting
as much prospecting as we possibly can in
the shortest time that we possibly can with
the greatest possible outcome. Start your day with
the most important
highest priority sales activity that you possibly can
do, and then go, I'm gonna do this
really hard for fifteen minutes or really hard
for an hour. If you don't block it,
(11:43):
like, if you just leave it open with
all the responsibilities you're gonna have to do,
you're gonna end up diluting your time. So
you're gonna have to go get what we
call ruthless prioritization.
You're gonna say the first hour of the
day, then I'm not doing anything but this.
I've got a doctor's appointment that I need
to take my wife to. That's gonna be
at 03:00 in the afternoon. So that's gonna
take three hours. I'm gonna run, go do
(12:06):
that then, but also think if I'm taking
my wife to a doctor's appointment, if there's
time at the doctor's appointment where they don't
need me, take a prospecting list with you.
And say,
while I'm there, I'm gonna knock out five
calls while I'm there or 10 calls while
I'm there in the waiting room. So start
trying to, like, use every moment of your
time for that sales activity.
(12:26):
But most important for you is get your
calendar laid out in core
blocks for all the things that you have
to do. And my best recommendation is front
load your day, like, start your day with
your most intense sales activities.
Because
when you got a lot of stuff going
on
and you're also doing the hardest job in
(12:47):
sales, which is making outbound calls, by the
time you get to the end of your
day, you're, like, you're worn out. You're tired.
Your willpower's worn out. Right? It's gonna be
a lot harder for you at the end
of the day to find the motivation and
inspiration to go interrupt strangers.
It's a lot easier for you in the
first thing in the morning, and you're gonna
feel more confident in the morning. So organize
your day around
(13:08):
your responsibilities
and your emotional energy
so that you're in the right place
for who you are at that time
to get what you need to get done
during the day so that you're leveraging yourself,
your best self on each of those activities.
Yeah. I appreciate that. And, right, start in
the morning, I think is best. That was
already kind of my mindset.
(13:29):
It was in the morning because it's true.
By the time the afternoon comes, I'm like,
you know? But if I start in the
morning
and then I'm already motivated and say if
I got stuff done, I can kinda, like,
feed off of the morning motivation. Go, k.
I can make some calls this afternoon. So,
yeah, I appreciate that. That makes sense. And
you already kinda touched on another question of
(13:50):
mine about mindset
in regards to rejection. I know that's part
of the game.
I just have to get back, like you
said, that muscle of even if it is
personal, it doesn't matter. Yes.
And the book that I would highly recommend
is an audiobook or in print. I wrote
a book called Objections,
super popular book. And the Objections book walks
(14:11):
you through
specifically how to deal with the human
emotion of rejection.
And it gives you specific frameworks for handling
rejection.
If I don't glorify rejection because there's nothing
to glorify. It's not fun. Nobody wants to
feel rejected. And it's not a fluff book
about, hey, you know, you just gotta roll
off your back. It actually teaches you that
(14:31):
the way that you feel about being rejected
is real,
and here are some things that you can
do in order to handle that fear of
rejection so that you can still go do
your job in sales. Folks, if you wanna
be on with me, if you got questions
like this, I don't always have the right
answers, but I'm happy to have a conversation
with you, and I'd love to have a
conversation with you. All you gotta do is
go to salesgravy.com
(14:52):
forward slash ask, and we'll get you on
the show. Dwayne, good luck for you. I
believe in you. I've got
hope, and I'm sending you all my best
wishes and good vibrations
to go out there and crush it. I
appreciate that. I need that. Thank you very
much. Have a good one, Dwayne. Alright. Thank
you. You too.
(15:12):
That knot you feel in your gut right
before a cold call,
it's human.
And the only real cure is doing it
again.
You need to start each day with your
highest value sales activity.
Run high intensity prospecting sprints that last just
five minutes, and if you can, get it
to fifteen minutes of nonstop
action.
(15:32):
And pair each sprint with the quickest blast
of mindset fuel.
Use the big pool. Write down what you
want most in your future and let that
massive goal overpower today's tiny discomfort. Block your
calendar ruthlessly and celebrate those small wins and
rebuild that muscle every single day because confidence
(15:52):
always follows action.
Look. There is no secret to success other
than when you're tired and when you're ready
to go home,
you look down at that phone and you
pick it up one more time. This is
Jeb Blunt Junior, and we'll catch you next
time on the Sales Groovy Podcast.
This is the Sales Grade Podcast.
Hi. I'm Jeb Blunt, best selling author of
fanatical prospecting, objections, sales EQ, and inked, and
I'm here to help you open more doors,
close bigger deals, and rock your commission check.
It's wisdom Wednesday, and the premise is simple.
You set the agenda. Because on this segment
of the sales preview podcast, you bring your
(00:26):
biggest sales challenges.
Jeb Blunt, he hits back with his best
answers.
Those answers come straight from the trenches. He's
not just teaching the stuff. He's out there
every single day prospecting,
closing deals, and leading sales teams that win.
Today, we're bringing Duane Malmberg from Sugar Land,
Texas.
(00:46):
Alright. Next up on the show is Duane
Malmberg from Sugar Land, Texas. Tell me what
you got going on.
Well, I started this opportunity
with a company.
I can actually do it from home. I've
actually been working from home for a while.
Been in the
sales game since the nineties, inside sales,
(01:07):
appointment setting,
and I had stopped doing appointment setting and
any type of thing on the phone. It's
been about, a little over two years. So
when this opportunity came along,
I was like, okay. Well, let me get
back in the game. And so
I was trying to get my mindset right,
but I noticed that when I started having
thoughts about getting on the phone again,
I started having those
(01:28):
fears like I was new again. And I
was like, woah. What's going on? You know?
And so I've been looking at, you know,
your sales videos and different ones about getting
through the gatekeeper again. And this and what's
funny is a lot of stuff about getting
through the gatekeeper, I remember I used to
use, and so I was like, okay. So
I'm trying to get over that feeling, get
that mindset back about getting on the phone,
(01:49):
hitting it, and I actually was good too.
So that's the thing. You know? I totally
hear you, and I think that what you're
expressing is the raw human emotion
that we feel around cold calling and just
making calls. Even though you've been successful at
it before
and you were good at it, now you're
looking at calling invisible strangers again,
(02:11):
and
it creates a level of emotional angst and
fear.
And this is something that I explain to
young salespeople all the time. I've made tens
of thousands of cold calls. I make them
with my clients when I'm in training them.
I'm like, give me a list. I'll call
with you. And I still feel that trepidation
when when I get up in the morning,
and I'll feel it tomorrow when I get
up in the morning, and I call my
(02:32):
list. I'm gonna feel the first couple of
calls, that level of trepidation.
It's just natural. It's human.
And I'll give you a good example of
why your question's important and what we have
to start thinking about as human beings when
we face these types of fears. Five years
or so ago, I got invited to jump
out of an airplane with the United States
(02:52):
Army Golden Knights. It's pretty cool thing. Right?
You're jumping off with the pinnacle of paratroopers
in the world. They invited me. So I
go to Fort Knox and I get briefed
in and I get ready to go on
this thing, and I'm scared to death. Like,
up to the point where one of the
sergeants who was briefing us in came up
to me and said, sir, are you okay?
(03:13):
I looked frightened.
So we go down to the hangar to
get on the airplane. I'm like, I'm okay,
okay, okay. And I'm like, my heart's beating.
I'm afraid. We get on the airplane.
I'm tandem jumping with a golden knight, and
we're getting strapped in everything. And I just
turned the guy and go, like, do you
ever get scared? Like, it means this you're
jumping out of an airplane. And he said,
like, I mean, completely honest. He goes,
(03:34):
yeah. He goes, of course, I do. My
heart's beating a little bit when I jump
out of an airplane because it's an airplane.
And, you know, I don't know what's gonna
happen. He goes, but I've done it so
many times, and I've got a routine, and
we were going through the whole routine. He
goes, I just go through this routine. And
because I go through this routine every single
time, I'm able to get past the fear
and then make the jump.
And the jump was awesome. I had a
(03:55):
really, really good time, but it was a
good lesson for all of us as we
look at things that make us afraid is
what's the routine that we're going through in
order to make the call.
My guess is that if you go back
and think about where you were in the
past making calls, that there was just this
mental routine that you went through before you
made the first phone call of the day,
(04:16):
which by the way is the hardest one
because you're picking up a 10,000 pound weight
to make the phone call. I would go
through that and start, you know, thinking about
it. The second thing that I would think
about is something called the pull strategy or
the big pull, but making a outbound call,
a cold call is hard. That's why you
and I are talking right now. It's hard
because it's scary. The thing is is that
(04:37):
it's not gonna get any less scary. It's
gonna continue to be scary because you're calling
invisible strangers. It's just human. There's a reason
why you're doing this. You took this job
because you want something. And that something could
be a paycheck or that something could be
a goal or that something could be I've
got some thing I wanna buy or I
wanna move up in my life or whatever
it is. What you gotta have is that
thing out there that's driving you. Because when
(05:00):
you're thinking about something as scary as jumping
out of an airplane or
making a cold call facing rejection,
if you don't have a big pull, like,
if you don't have something that you want
more
than dealing with the fear right now, you'll
end up procrastinating.
So the discipline to run a prospecting block
and do your prospecting
is the discipline to sacrifice what you want
(05:21):
now, which is easy
or what you want most, which is something
else. So my first piece of advice would
be sit down and write down what you
want. Like, why am I doing this? What's
the process? What do I want? So that
when you start your day, that's what you're
focusing on, not whatever's happening in the call.
And I guarantee you that if you look
in your past because you've been doing this
for a long time, you've done that in
the past, and you just forgot to do
(05:43):
it this time. That would be number one.
Number two is you know how to make
the call, like, telling you to make the
call. You would know how to pick the
phone up, have a conversation with someone. You
already know how to get best gatekeepers. You're
pulling all of that in. What you've got
is to focus on your core mindset,
and that's something that you just gotta build.
So listen to the Sales Groovy podcast. We're
(06:05):
podcasting three days a week. We're having these
conversations.
Listen to them. I highly recommend
listening to or reading my book, Fanatical Prospecting.
That book's been, I don't know, a couple
million copies worldwide.
People use it everywhere.
The first part of that book, the mindset
part of the book will help you. And
then the frameworks for, you know, conducting a
call or for messaging or for getting past
(06:28):
gatekeepers,
you'll find all that in there. I think
for you, a veteran who's been doing this
for a long time, a lot of it's
gonna sound like, hey, I used to do
this. I already know how to do this.
This is pretty good. It'll remind you of
those things. But what I've always found is
that when I'm in a situation where I
feel
fear or I feel emotional angst, if I'm
putting good stuff in my ears, right, or
(06:48):
I'm putting good stuff in my eyes, it
has a tendency to make my heart stronger
and build my courage.
And I'll give you an example of this
from my own past, but
there was a time in my past where
I was exactly where you are. I was
uncomfortable. I was fearful. I was second guessing
myself.
I'd lost my confidence,
and I didn't, like, know exactly how to
(07:09):
get out of it. So what I did
was I started breaking up my calls into
very small short blocks. Like, sometimes just five
minutes. I'd make five calls in five minutes
or I would do ten minutes or fifteen
minutes. And we call these high intensity prospecting
sprints today, but back then, I called it
therapy because I was having a hard time
making the call. Right? So what I would
(07:31):
do is I would say, okay, I'm gonna
make 10 dials,
and then I'm gonna
read.
And I would make 10 dials, and then
I would read a book about sales
that would motivate me or inspire me. I
will read something that would be inspirational. Or
in this case, you know, I might watch
a YouTube video,
or I might listen to a segment of
a podcast, and then I would do 10
more and then 10 more and then 10
(07:52):
more. And what I found was there were
two things that happened. One, by actually doing
it and not thinking about it, I actually
got better at doing it.
And
I got what they call cells endorphins. When
you're actually doing it, you actually feel good
about yourself because you, like, now you know,
like, hey, I can do this. I'm fine.
Everything's okay.
By breaking it up into short little spurts,
it was easier for my brain to wrap
(08:13):
around actually doing it. Right? So if you
said, I need you to make cold calls
all day long. So when you're like, man,
that's a lot. Right? But if I said,
hey. Can you just knock out five calls
for me? You'd be I can do that.
Then what I would back that up with
is something that is inspiring me. Like, I'm
putting information in my heart. So you would
make ten minutes of calls, and then you
would read fanatical prospecting for ten minutes. And
(08:33):
then you make ten minutes of call and
then you read fanatical prospecting for ten minutes.
Right? So what you're doing is you're building
back that muscle
that you've kinda lost over the last couple
of years, which brings me to my last
point, which is building the muscle. Let's say
you were a bodybuilder and you worked out
really heavily in your thirties. And then you
had kids, like, you got no career, you
(08:55):
quit working out, you quit doing all those
things, and you decided one day, I'm going
back in the gym. I'm gonna get back
in shape.
You're not gonna go into the gym and
get on the bench press and go bench
press, like, 250 pounds. You're gonna go on
the bench press like me, and you're gonna
start off with two twenty pound dumbbells. Right?
And you're gonna do some reps on that,
and you're gonna build your way into
(09:16):
bench pressing 250 pounds.
That's where you are right now.
You gotta build the muscle back. You already
know, like, you know how to do it.
You've got the muscle memory. Like, everything is
saying,
I got this.
But you can't go into the gym and
go do a full workout the same way
you did, you know, five years ago
(09:36):
right now. So little at a time, build
out your mindset. Right? Go back the things
that you're doing to right now, learn and
and focus on your skill set. Focus on
setting those goals so that you've got something
that you're going for. And then I highly
recommend
short spurts of calls,
inspiration, short spurts of calls, inspiration,
build your muscle, build your muscle, build your
(09:57):
muscle. And what you're gonna find is that
you're gonna start feeling better about yourself. You're
gonna feel a whole lot more confident. It's
gonna start building, building, building, building. And one
day, you're gonna look back and you're gonna
go, I'm better than I used to be.
I'm better now because, yeah, I I've got
all this wisdom and I've learned it. That's
gonna be the key. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense.
And a lot of things you touched on,
(10:18):
you know, about how I'm feeling. And that
makes sense, though, about building the muscle back,
you know, because that's something you said, you
know, I actually was working out for a
while, then I stopped, and then I was
like, yeah. I need I can't go back
to what I was doing. So little by
little Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. I wrote
down another question too.
Like, for example, I have a lot of
responsibilities,
and I can get too much into my
(10:39):
personal life. But, you know, I have my
wife's disabled, so I'm I'm actually her caregiver.
That's why, you know, years ago, I started
working from home to have that type of
freedom where I could go ahead and take
it to the doctor. As a matter of
fact, when we leave here, I gotta take
it to the doctor. Yeah. So my time
management
is something that I need to learn how
to build back to. What kind of advice
can you get today? I would go back
(11:00):
to from a time management standpoint,
the most important thing that you can do
is just block your day. So you've got
a lot of responsibilities.
If those responsibilities are gonna impact your ability
to
do your prospecting and do your sales calls,
then what you wanna do is concentrate
and focus your time, your prospecting time in
a really short block. So these high intensity
(11:21):
prospecting sprints, what we're doing is we're getting
as much prospecting as we possibly can in
the shortest time that we possibly can with
the greatest possible outcome. Start your day with
the most important
highest priority sales activity that you possibly can
do, and then go, I'm gonna do this
really hard for fifteen minutes or really hard
for an hour. If you don't block it,
(11:43):
like, if you just leave it open with
all the responsibilities you're gonna have to do,
you're gonna end up diluting your time. So
you're gonna have to go get what we
call ruthless prioritization.
You're gonna say the first hour of the
day, then I'm not doing anything but this.
I've got a doctor's appointment that I need
to take my wife to. That's gonna be
at 03:00 in the afternoon. So that's gonna
take three hours. I'm gonna run, go do
(12:06):
that then, but also think if I'm taking
my wife to a doctor's appointment, if there's
time at the doctor's appointment where they don't
need me, take a prospecting list with you.
And say,
while I'm there, I'm gonna knock out five
calls while I'm there or 10 calls while
I'm there in the waiting room. So start
trying to, like, use every moment of your
time for that sales activity.
(12:26):
But most important for you is get your
calendar laid out in core
blocks for all the things that you have
to do. And my best recommendation is front
load your day, like, start your day with
your most intense sales activities.
Because
when you got a lot of stuff going
on
and you're also doing the hardest job in
(12:47):
sales, which is making outbound calls, by the
time you get to the end of your
day, you're, like, you're worn out. You're tired.
Your willpower's worn out. Right? It's gonna be
a lot harder for you at the end
of the day to find the motivation and
inspiration to go interrupt strangers.
It's a lot easier for you in the
first thing in the morning, and you're gonna
feel more confident in the morning. So organize
your day around
(13:08):
your responsibilities
and your emotional energy
so that you're in the right place
for who you are at that time
to get what you need to get done
during the day so that you're leveraging yourself,
your best self on each of those activities.
Yeah. I appreciate that. And, right, start in
the morning, I think is best. That was
already kind of my mindset.
(13:29):
It was in the morning because it's true.
By the time the afternoon comes, I'm like,
you know? But if I start in the
morning
and then I'm already motivated and say if
I got stuff done, I can kinda, like,
feed off of the morning motivation. Go, k.
I can make some calls this afternoon. So,
yeah, I appreciate that. That makes sense. And
you already kinda touched on another question of
(13:50):
mine about mindset
in regards to rejection. I know that's part
of the game.
I just have to get back, like you
said, that muscle of even if it is
personal, it doesn't matter. Yes.
And the book that I would highly recommend
is an audiobook or in print. I wrote
a book called Objections,
super popular book. And the Objections book walks
(14:11):
you through
specifically how to deal with the human
emotion of rejection.
And it gives you specific frameworks for handling
rejection.
If I don't glorify rejection because there's nothing
to glorify. It's not fun. Nobody wants to
feel rejected. And it's not a fluff book
about, hey, you know, you just gotta roll
off your back. It actually teaches you that
(14:31):
the way that you feel about being rejected
is real,
and here are some things that you can
do in order to handle that fear of
rejection so that you can still go do
your job in sales. Folks, if you wanna
be on with me, if you got questions
like this, I don't always have the right
answers, but I'm happy to have a conversation
with you, and I'd love to have a
conversation with you. All you gotta do is
go to salesgravy.com
(14:52):
forward slash ask, and we'll get you on
the show. Dwayne, good luck for you. I
believe in you. I've got
hope, and I'm sending you all my best
wishes and good vibrations
to go out there and crush it. I
appreciate that. I need that. Thank you very
much. Have a good one, Dwayne. Alright. Thank
you. You too.
(15:12):
That knot you feel in your gut right
before a cold call,
it's human.
And the only real cure is doing it
again.
You need to start each day with your
highest value sales activity.
Run high intensity prospecting sprints that last just
five minutes, and if you can, get it
to fifteen minutes of nonstop
action.
(15:32):
And pair each sprint with the quickest blast
of mindset fuel.
Use the big pool. Write down what you
want most in your future and let that
massive goal overpower today's tiny discomfort. Block your
calendar ruthlessly and celebrate those small wins and
rebuild that muscle every single day because confidence
(15:52):
always follows action.
Look. There is no secret to success other
than when you're tired and when you're ready
to go home,
you look down at that phone and you
pick it up one more time. This is
Jeb Blunt Junior, and we'll catch you next
time on the Sales Groovy Podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.