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.

Objections are not deal killers. Sometimes, they are deal enablers, helping the salesperson to understand the buyer’s real needs and requirements. Zig Ziglar was the best-known sales trainer in the world. The man from

The reason salespeople fail to get what they want is they fail to ask. Instead of asking they beat around the bush and passively wait for their prospect to do the work for them.

So what’s your team’s Sales EQ? Here are three emotional intelligence skills to look for in your next hire. You’ve met this person. They are brilliant. Their ideas are creative. Yet no one wants

In one of our most intense podcast episodes ever, Jeb Blount and Alex Goldfayn discuss why salespeople who want to make more money must re-learn how to use the phone.

If you are using these three words you need to stop. They add no value, trigger reflex buyer scripts, and stall your deals in the pipe.

When your customers make buying decisions based on value, they are doing exactly the same thing that you do when you make buying decisions as a customer. Many top sales executives believe that few

In sales, today’s educated buyers know the difference between real butter and an imitation. Funny, how many business professionals say they are a good salesperson, yet in all actuality, they are just in sales.

In sales, its easy to become the buyer’s little puppet – they pull the strings and you dance. On this podcast episode you will learn how to use engagement tests, take aways, and emotional

The “what” centers around the value you as the solution provider bring to the buying decision table. The hardest question for any business owner to answer and along with the correct response to potentially

Top sales performers and successful small business owners embrace the human touch and are viewed by their constituents to clients as “valuable.” These individuals make time to stay human. In what is still a

What would happen if each day you scheduled 12 minutes to push yourself away from the desk and take a walk outside or even lock yourself in the bathroom if need be? Just stop

It is imperative that all employees understand how they are profit centers and how all these profit centers connect to the bottom line. Certain paradigms exist within each business culture. These paradigms are philosophical

Are you struggling with employee discipline in your office? People challenges occur most often because there is a lack of structure and understanding of the company goals. How many times do you hear something

If you truly want to do more with the same amount of time each and every day, then begin by developing those self-leadership skills necessary for personal success. Can we agree that: A minute

These 8 keys can help you unlock your sales training and development programs so that you get “the most bang for your buck”. Sales training will be one of the few training and development

Part of the reason so many small business owners are crazy busy is because they are not 100 percent forward-thinking leaders. “We don’t have a budget as much as we need to take this

How frequently in business do we continue to ride dead horses? From ineffective marketing to misaligned operational systems to poor management, all continue to exist even though they are, simply speaking, dead horses. Years

Often, when a sales rep knows the right way to ask for the sale, they’ll be more inclined to do so! This common error costs more sales than most sales leaders are willing to

Sales managers are all around us; those in the selling game have likely encountered multiple. Like salespeople themselves, they have a wide range of qualifications, personality traits and work ethics, but the role of