13 Real Alternatives to Cold Calling That Build Pipeline
Can’t stomach cold calling? Steal Jeb Blount’s 13 proven alternatives to picking up the phone that build real pipeline and actually work.
Welcome to the Sales Gravy blog, where salespeople and sales leaders get better every week. We publish new sales training articles and podcast episodes three times a week, covering prospecting, cold calling, objections, negotiation, and leadership, written by Jeb Blount and the Sales Gravy trainer team.
Can’t stomach cold calling? Steal Jeb Blount’s 13 proven alternatives to picking up the phone that build real pipeline and actually work.
The right time to hire a fractional sales leader is when your team has outgrown what you can manage on top of running the business. Here are 7 signs that tell you it’s time,
Making just three to five of proactive calls to customers in a five-minute block, breaks the reactive cycle most account managers live in and builds the relationships that drive real, predictable revenue.
Recruiting is a sales leader’s number one job, and the way to find sales candidates is the same way your reps find customers: recruit like you prospect.
Steal this trial close technique and exact scripts to motivate buyers to make decisions and act without making big price concessions.
Referral leads close at three to four times the rate of cold and self-generated leads. Once both reach a real sales conversation, referrals close at roughly 26 percent versus 9 percent for cold and
When should you ask questions on a cold call? Questions come after you’ve earned the right, when you’re gathering information and qualifying, and they lead the conversation only when the prospect contacted you first.
To prospect for new clients, stop making random touches and run a consistent five-step system. Work this system every day and you gain control of your pipeline, along with the peace of mind that
The best way to measure sales productivity is with leading indicators—the KPIs and metrics that predict future revenue and let you fix problems before sales dry up.
A good sales voicemail is short, scripted, and gives the prospect one clear reason to call you back. This guide gives you seven word-for-word sales voicemail scripts that work!
Salespeople fail at cold calling for five common reasons. Fix them and the phone starts producing appointments again.
Email response rates are collapsing because decision maker inboxes are stuffed with automated, AI-written slop. This is exactly why the phone is more powerful today than it was ten years ago.
The 3p’s holding you back from prospecting are: Procrastination, perfectionism, and paralysis from analysis. They are the enemies of prospecting and building pipeline in sales.
Douglas Burdett of The Marketing Book Podcast and CEO of Sales Gravy, Jeb Blount, dissect Jeb’s new book, Objections: The Art and Science of Getting Past No in this jam-packed episode. From becoming rejection-proof to understanding
How do you know when it’s time to give up on a prospect and stop hounding them, especially when you’re tasked with drumming up new business? Sometimes it’s hard to give up on prospects
The real cure comes down to first of all believing in yourself and your ability to help others. If you don’t believe you are helping others achieve a better outcome, then little else will
Try to put yourself into your prospect’s shoes. What would you want to hear when you pick up the phone where somebody is interrupting your day? As a brief introduction, we experienced a really
In this article, Mike Brooks encourages sales teams to ask themselves what’s really holding their prospects back from buying. The holidays are upon us and guess what? The teams I’m working with are still
Jeb Blount, Jeffery Gitomer, and Jen Gluckow offer tips, tricks, and techniques for getting past sales objections on this episode of Sell Or Die podcast. Jeb Blount, Jeffery Gitomer, and Jen Gluckow discuss actionable
On this short, high impact video, Jeb Blount and Jeffrey Gitomer battle it out over sales objections.
When their KPIs don’t recognize the importance of consistent prospecting follow-up to reach target contacts, you’re not only setting yourself up to lose a potentially good rep, you are also directly impacting your prospecting
Summary A LinkedIn social selling strategy works when sellers show up with authenticity, not automation. The biggest mistake sellers make today is using AI to generate posts and messages in bulk, then publishing without
Summary The easiest way to spot a fake sales guru on LinkedIn is to ask one question: are they selling you something before they’ve proven anything? Fake gurus manufacture credibility through aesthetics and urgency.
Summary How do you know what sales advice to trust? Look at who’s giving it. Credible sales advice comes from people who are actively selling today, have a verifiable track record across years and
Most salespeople are wired for now. The quota is now. The pipeline review is now. The pressure to close is always right now. And that urgency is exactly what gets in the way when
Summary: The leading indicator of sales success is not calls made, emails sent, or LinkedIn touches. It is the First Time Appointment (FTA) — a net-new meeting with a prospect you have never spoken
Buyer resistance is at an all-time high and has reached a tipping point. Two emotional intelligence competencies separate sellers who push through from those who back down. Key Takeaways: Using Emotional Intelligence to Break
Quick Summary Q1 surfaced a consistent theme across our best podcast conversations: the reps who win consistently are the ones who treat the fundamentals (goal setting, communication, prospecting discipline, and self-awareness) as non-negotiable. In
Quick Summary: The most effective way to rehearse a sales pitch is to practice out loud in front of real people until you own the story, not just recall it. When you reach that
Philip is a character licensing agent in the Philippines. His job is to connect beloved brands, anime titles, video games, and comic properties to companies that want to put those characters on their products.
In today’s world, people have a very strong belief in their weaknesses and an even stronger belief not to “brag” about their strengths. Yet, winning teams win because of the strengths of all team
As individual contributors top Sales Professionals have the luxury of only thinking about themselves. They can selfishly protect their own interests, act as lone wolves, and win at the expense of others. But as
What would happen if existing and future leadership programs were centered around a results-based model of leadership instead of a competency-based one? Think for a moment of a leader you appreciate or admire. Then
It’s not a question of if you should spend money on training, the question is how much will you spend on training. While you’re planning the budget for your organization don’t forget to include
During the last several years, three megatrends have increasingly gained speed, yet very few people actually discuss them or understand how to deal with them. Trends are evident in business. The fashion industry, for
Learn to say “No” thoughtfully and respectfully with the focus on creating a high-performance sales culture. Are you limiting your sales team and the ability to increase sales by not ever saying “No”? Sometimes,
Bullying behavior creates a hostile work environment. Eventually, word will spread about you being the bully boss. With technology, the spread of bullying in schools continues to make front-page news. Schools, corporations, and parents
Sales managers are charged with leading the sales team. Salespeople watch the leader, like kids watch parents, to see if words and actions are congruent. I recently read Stephen M.R. Covey’s book, The Speed
Small business owners who devote time to rethink how they are providing solutions (products or services) to better meet the wants and the needs of their customers will usually stay ahead of the flow.