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.

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
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.
Quick Summary Cold calling anxiety is not a symptom of weakness. It’s human and natural to feel fear when you cold call. You are interrupting a stranger who was not expecting you, and everything
Fear of the phone is quietly draining sales pipelines, and the reps who win are the ones willing to stop hiding behind email and LinkedIn and simply make the call.
Salespeople seek a magic window that makes cold calling easy. When prospects answer happy, say yes without a fight, and book the meeting themselves. So, is there a best time to call?

Short Answer Yes, you can make cold calling fun, and it is worth doing, because the reps who enjoy the phone are the ones who stay on it. Fun is not a personality trait

How then do we make coaching conversations productive, efficient, and less stressful for the coach and coachee? With a bit of forward thinking and action and these 3 sales coaching hacks: We all know

This makes the salesperson a shrewd negotiator, choosing to negotiate with the weaker party, making it more likely that a deal is done. One of the things I hear from sales leaders most often

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
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

How to Lead the Pack The past year was very challenging for many sales managers, but now we need to look ahead. Have you increased your sales targets? How will you ensure that your

Motivating Your Sales Team Can Be a Challenge For a sales manager, motivating your sales team is a never ending battle. Here are five simple strategies for sales team motivation. Everyone has a set

The worst trait of ineffective sales leaders is that they believe that they’re more important, smarter, and more competent than the people working for them. In leadership, one principle stands above all. You need

There is hardly a leader on earth that doesn’t yearn for accurate, predictable sales pipeline forecasting. The good news is that there are three elements of sales forecasting, that when mastered, will give you

Every Sales Manager’s Real Priorities The reason coaching is so important to sales is that the more you develop your sales team, the better your sales team becomes. There are dozens of tasks and

Examine Leadership Before Sales Skills If you hired reps who you believed could sell, and who proved that they’ve been successful selling in the past, then the first place to examine when your reps

For leaders, questions are king when it comes to coaching and training. Learning and practicing effective questioning skills is central to effective leadership. There are five rules for asking the right questions, at the

Reduce Bad Sales Hires With Better Interview Techniques It’s easy to make bad sales hires – we’ve all done it. However, with a few tweaks to your interviewing techniques you’ll improve the probability of

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been more than guilty of falling in love with the tallies on the sales report. I’ll read the report and assume that those whose names line up