Sales is poetry and probability: a repeatable process beats charm, but only slightly, and both matter.
Process is the science, messaging is the artJeb frames sales as poetry and probability — targeting is science, messaging is art, and both get engineered over the process.
Control the activity, never the outcomeSales targets are lag measures; reach-outs, calls and qualified first-time appointments are what a rep can actually control.
Volume without a process eventually tanksAndrew hit 80,000 a month on random outreach alone, then fell below minimum once the probability ran out.
Executive SummaryAI
Andrew Osborne, new to sales from a manufacturing supervisor background, asks Jeb how much of the sales process is a people skills problem versus a sales mechanics problem.
Jeb answers that all sales is poetry and probability — the messaging is the art, the process is the science — and that running a process is how you engineer trust with the person buying from you.
Asked which matters most, Jeb says running your sales process matters more than building the relationship, but only slightly, because chasing likability gets in the way of closing.
Andrew describes growing a side-hustle to 80,000 a month purely by volume of reach-outs, then watching everything tank because he had no process, and now focusing on prospecting activity he can control rather than the lag measure of closed sales.
Jeb's own moneyball metric is qualified first-time appointments: two good ones a day wins, of every 10 about half move to the next step and roughly two close within 30 to 60 days, and shortfalls point back to targeting, questioning or business-case skills.
Key Quote
“So all sales is, is poetry and probability.”
— Jeb
Key Quote
“Until robots are buying from robots, human beings buy from other human beings.”
— Jeb
Key Quote
“We're not in sales to build friends. We're in sales to make sales.”