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.
Prospects Have Objections, You Need to Know How to Handle Them Learning to handle objections is important so that you don’t spend time with prospects who are not going to buy and you ensure
Three Turnarounds to Common Insurance Sales Objections In inusrance sales, there are three objections that you will face when engaging prospects and customers. You gain a competitive advantage when you prepare in advance and
Your Prospect’s Attention Span is Short It is super easy to lose your prospect’s attention on a cold call. When you do, click . . . the call is abruptly over. When you make
Gatekeepers Are Not The Enemy It may seem like the gatekeeper’s primary job is to keep you out. But they can be your ally if you learn how to enlist their help. Knowing best
3 Key Elements of Sales Fitness To reach peak performance and productivity, sales professionals need to be physically fit, because mental energy is limited by physical energy. Here are three steps you can take
Snail Mail Isn’t Dead When it comes to making connections with hard-to-reach decision-makers, gaining familiarity with a prospect, and maintaining a relationship with your past and current clients, snail mail can’t be beat. Here’s
Video Messaging Works The simple truth is that video messaging works. Even a 60-second video can get you and your team right to the people who matter the most. Prospecting Isn’t Easy I was
Finding The Right Time To Prospect The best part of weekend warrior prospecting is that prospects tend to be more relaxed without distractions. Here’s why you should set aside a block of time on
Lessons In Sales Negotiation I built the confidence to never get rattled and to always ask for what I want. The worst thing that could happen is that a buyer walks away without putting
Leverage Friday afternoons for phone calls to people you haven’t been able to connect with or with prospects who are tied tightly to a competitor. It happens every summer. The number of sales appointments
What you want to do is offer value in your visit or demo, and then leave it up to your prospect to decide if it’s worth taking your call or visit any further after
On this episode of Sales Pipeline radio, Matt Heinz and Jeb Blount discuss emotional intelligence, Sales EQ, and Fanatical Prospecting. You’ll be surprised to hear Jeb’s opinion about how sales and marketing should work
It’s evident that time is a critical factor in completing sales, building and keeping the relationship. Given that, what strategy does your dealership have in place to shorten the time it takes to close
The only asset you have that is in limited supply is your own time. When a slow customer takes up too much of it, you lose. The time you’re spending with them is preventing
At the end of the day, you want to make things as easy as possible for the prospect, not turn them into your admin. Last week I received an email from a very friendly
The key to any sale is getting your prospect to tell you how to sell them. If you can do that, you’ll make your job much, much easier. Today it seems to be harder
Too often we get so focused on what we produce or deliver, that everyone in the company loses sight of the real value of the product or service. Aligning everyone in the company to answer one question can
Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others can be powerful tools to help you prospect more effectively. In my new book coming out this September, “High-Profit Prospecting,” I share insights every salesperson needs to
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.
Most sales team meetings fail because they aren’t actually about selling. Mike Weinberg says the fix is simple: stop running status updates and start running meetings that make your team more aligned, more energized,
Jumping in to save a rep’s deal feels like leadership, but it trains your team to call you instead of solving problems themselves. Real sales leadership means coaching the rep, not closing the deal
If you want to know how to scale a sales team, document your sales process and prove your close rate before you add headcount, then decide whether your next hire is a leader or
Most sales forecasts fail for a reason no CRM can fix. Sellers stop telling their leaders the truth the moment honesty starts costing them something.
Summary The most effective sales compensation strategy for getting a small team focused on high-value complex deals is to layer a significantly higher reward on those deals without reducing incentives on transactional ones. Pair
Summary When the market shifts, your salespeople are not going to figure it out on their own. That’s your job. As a sales leader, your responsibility is to see the change coming, get ahead
Summary: Most sales managers confuse empathy with sympathy and pay for it in team performance. Jeb Blount breaks down the real difference, why listening first is the most powerful coaching move you have, and
Summary: Q1 is feedback, not failure. Top-performing sales teams use a Q1 sales strategy review to assess whether they have an execution problem or a focus problem, then make targeted adjustments heading into Q2.