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.
Cold Calling C-Level Executives When calling into the upper “C” suites, assess their mood and circumstances at the time of the call quickly and match it with your tone and conversation. This will give
Build Relationships With Gatekeepers Tricks or tactics to “bypass the gatekeeper” may get you some surprise face time, but it’s often at the expense of the deal. Winning over a gatekeeper can often be
Your Prospect Is Stalling. Now What? Top producers know a weak prospect when they hear one, and they would much rather know ahead of time who is leading them on and not likely to
Why You Should Start Reversing Objections Reversing objections is counter-intuitive, highly effective, and requires superior preparation and courage. You must consider the response that requires the most confidence, preparation, quick-thinking, understanding, and sales talent.
How To Sound Natural Over The Phone If you sell for a living, sooner or later you have to pick up the phone for prospecting, follow up, and sales calls. To be effective, you
The Dreaded “I Am Not Interested” Objection Nothing, absolutely nothing, cuts a conversation with a prospect shorter than a brusque, “I am not interested.” Knowing how to respond to this objection can make selling
On cold calls, to grab attention your message and approach needs to be relevant. There are 5 questions to answer before you make that cold call that will help you develop a message that
The Status Quo Objection A common objection you might run into when prospecting is the status quo objection. Your prospect will tell you that they’re happy with their current provider, or that they simply
The #1 Trade Secret Of Pro Buyers After a lengthy new client acquisition process, the time has come to submit a proposal including pricing. Countless hours are spent formulating a glorious proposal that details
Stop thinking your job is done when the contract is signed. Stay on the ground. Remain active even after the deal is closed. Redefine Closing the Sale It’s time to reframe how we think
Salespeople and sales managers are caught up in their own version of Ground Hog Day. They keep using the same approach, having the same conversations, which are leading to the same outcomes. Sales Ground
In order to strike a balance between no theme and full-on theme park, it’s important to understand how to choose a theme that’s right for your presentation and your audience. A group of flight
To create true sales predictability (and avoid Sales Whiplash), it’s critical to consider both independently, and to have your pipeline numbers influence your forecast output. Drastically Refine Your Sales Pipeline This Year Understanding that
When you are winning deals, it’s easy to slip into a euphoric mindset and completely forget about the process that got you there in the first place. Out of all the sales rules, there
Everyone agrees that sales meetings can be excruciating. But, what if you turned your weekly sales meetings into rock star sales rallies? You can make just a few changes to make the meeting motivational,
What does average mean, especially in today’s workplace where the lack of employee engagement drains profits? Where it drains the performance of hard working employees who go beyond expectations? Years ago, a wise mentor
To build a winning sales team, and avoid making deadly mistakes, you need a scalable, predictable, and data-driven approach. Mistake #1: Hiring salespeople with your gut Hiring rock star sales people is the most
Put these 15 sales metrics in place and start monitoring them so you can see how you are performing as a company and individually, and where you need to make adjustments to achieve your
Complacency is hindering business growth and costing your sales teams new opportunities, valuable accounts, and profitable relationships. Here are three signs of complacency in your sales teams and how to squash it. Your sales
Sellers need individual business plans because personal performance planning fosters quota and territory ownership, accelerates the adoption of best practices, and builds a foundation for sales productivity accountability. It is surprising how few sales
Leaders cannot manage what they don’t measure. Therefore sales metrics and sales management are interconnected. For this reasons, it is imperative that sales managers and leaders clearly understand the metrics that matter. Sales Activities
Our team at Sales Gravy interviewed Ken Thoreson, president of Acumen Management Group, Ltd. As a sales management thought leader, Ken is recognized as an expert in sales execution, channel management, revenue generation, sales
Despite being awash in numbers, more sales data has not resulted in better sales performance. Therefore, it is critical that leaders understanding the sales metrics that contribute to effective sales management. Sales Activities, Sales