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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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Eat What You Kill summary
Sam Taggart
Becoming a Sales Carnivore
17 mins
Brief summary
Eat What You Kill by Sam Taggart delves into mastering sales through a focused, proactive approach. It emphasizes aggressive prospecting and personal discipline, offering actionable insights for sales professionals striving for success in competitive environments.
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Eat What You Kill
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Key idea 1 of 5
The carnivore mindset
Success in sales often comes down to your mindset more than anything else. And while there are many approaches to sales, we often see two distinct styles emerge: herbivores and carnivores. This distinction shapes careers more profoundly than any product line or sales approach could ever do.
Picture herbivore salespeople grazing on what's placed before them. They stay at their desks, counting on their company to supply prospects and opportunities. A car salesperson waiting at a dealership all day shows this perfectly – they sit quietly until a customer walks through the door. When business flows steadily, herbivores can do quite well. But if prospects thin out, anxiety creeps in about finding customers. These salespeople often lose their jobs first during hard times, since they've never built the skills to create their own opportunities.
Carnivore salespeople make radically different choices. Cold calls, networking, knocking on doors – they chase down opportunities through any possible path. They hunt their own success without waiting for help. This basic difference shapes how salespeople handle every challenge they face throughout their careers, from market downturns to competitive pressures.
But becoming a carnivore alone doesn’t guarantee sales success – you also have to optimize how you see yourself. This means moving through the three stages of sales thinking. At stage one we have victims, who point fingers elsewhere when sales drop. Common phrases for victims are things like "these leads are terrible" or "this area's too weak."
Next come survivors, who own their results but aim too low. They focus on getting by instead of pushing ahead. Give them an amazing sales quarter that doubles their usual money, and they'll see it as their peak, not their new starting point. Many get stuck here, never realizing how much further they could go.
Those who reach the highest level become conquerors. They push past comfort zones, always seeking bigger achievements. Show them a company record of $300,000 monthly sales, and they'll work to beat it – less for cash than for proving what's possible. These salespeople create new standards of excellence, raising the bar for everyone around them.
But what stops others from reaching this level? Many salespeople face an invisible barrier – their mental speed limit. Like a golf cart that won't go past 15 miles per hour, they hit an artificial ceiling on their performance. Breaking through means stopping comparisons with average numbers. Hearing that most sales reps earn $43,000 yearly or that one daily sale counts as good work can plant those figures as goals instead of starting points. This mental barrier holds back countless promising careers.
Real sales excellence demands thinking like a carnivore and growing into a conqueror's outlook. By breaking free from self-made limits, natural drive takes over. Then exceptional results follow, leaving average performance far behind. The path opens up to remarkable achievements once you recognize and overcome these mental blocks.
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What is Eat What You Kill about?
Eat What You Kill (2025) transforms you from a passive order-taker into an unstoppable sales force by tapping into your inner carnivore. Through proven techniques for must-have skills like building pipelines, crafting bulletproof pitches, and turning rejection into fuel, you'll discover how to break through your perceived limits and close more deals than ever before.
Who should read Eat What You Kill?
- Salespeople looking to break free from limiting mindsets
- Entrepreneurs who want to build stronger revenue streams
- Business leaders ready to transform passive teams into hunters
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