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
Every week, someone asks me: “Jeb, do I need Sales Navigator to prospect on LinkedIn?”My answer: No. But you do need a system. LinkedIn is the most powerful prospecting platform on earth. It’s a
You’ve probably heard it a hundred times lately—AI is coming for your job. Every week, there’s a new headline about another role being automated, another company replacing people with bots, another “AI agent” that
The buzz around “social selling” is deafening. Every guru, every pundit, every platform is screaming about its power. And yet, most salespeople are failing at it. Miserably. They log into LinkedIn. They dabble with
The gap between average salespeople and elite performers lies in process. While most reps chase quick wins and hope something sticks, top producers follow proven sales strategies that consistently deliver results. They’ve mastered the
Most salespeople are busy. Few are productive. They chase. They pitch. They get ignored. And the cycle repeats. Why? Because they’re committing one of the worst offenses in modern sales: They’re treating LinkedIn like
You’re on LinkedIn, but do you really know how to use it effectively? There’s no good reason to avoid mastering LinkedIn. Your prospects are on LinkedIn actively engaging, researching, and making decisions. LinkedIn is
Every day, your prospects are assaulted by a digital firehose of generic, AI-generated emails and connection requests. It’s an incessant barrage of noise, and as a survival mechanism, your buyers have learned to ignore
You know AI is transforming sales, everyone’s talking about it, but you’re still staring at ChatGPT like it’s some mysterious black box, wondering what magical question you should type in first. That’s the reality
The OutBound Sales Training & Leadership Conference presented by Sales Gravy returns Nov. 9-12, 2026, at the spectacular Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa in Las Vegas. If you’re serious about your sales career
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