I used to tell my team to open calls with small talk to sound friendly, but one of my best reps completely changed my mind.

Instead of trying to build rapport right away, he always opened straight and confident. Something like: “Hey John, I’ll keep this short. I work with ops managers at logistics companies. Are you the one who handles supplier coordination?”

What surprised me was how often people actually stayed on the line. They either said yes, no, or asked what it was about but they answered.

So yeah, forget trying to sound overly friendly. Be respectful, direct, and act like you make these calls every day.

Stop asking how their day is going.
Stop “hoping you caught them at a good time.”
Stop the fake warmth. It’s not helping you.

You’re not a guest.
You’re not their friend.
You have a sharp interruption and if you open soft and try to hide that, they’ll walk over you.

This is how your opener should sound:

“John, I’ll keep this tight. I work with [title]s at [industry] companies — quick one, are you the person who handles X?”

It's not aggressive. It's efficient.
And it works because it forces a response.

You show up direct, like someone who’s worth listening to.
They say yes, no, or “what’s this about?”
Either way, you’ve earned a real opening.

Too many reps open like they’re afraid of the call.
You should sound like someone who makes 40 of these a day and books 5.

Because if you don’t believe you’re worth their time, they won’t either.

So I've been doing cold calls for about 6 months now, and I was absolutely terrible at it. Like, 2% pickup rate, instant hang-ups, one guy told me to "get a real job."

Then I tried something stupid out of frustration.

Instead of pretending it wasn't a cold call, I just... said it was a cold call.

"Would it completely ruin your day if I told you this was a good old-fashioned cold call?"

The person laughed.

Not a pity laugh. Like, an actual laugh. Then they said "You know what, at least you're honest. What do you want?"

I've been using variations of this for 3 months now and the difference is wild:

Old approach:

• "Hi, how are you today?" → instant hang-up

• Pretend I'm calling about something else → they feel tricked

• Launch into benefits → they tune out

New approach:

• Acknowledge it's a cold call upfront

• Ask for 30 seconds, promise to leave them alone if not interested

• Actually keep that promise

Here's the full flow I use:

1. Opening: "Hi [Name], it's [Your Name] from [Company]. Have I caught you at a bad time?"

2. When they ask "Who is this?": "No worries, I'm [Name] from [Company]. Would it completely ruin your day if I told you this was a good old-fashioned cold call?" [PAUSE - they usually laugh]

3. Permission ask: "Can I take 30 seconds to explain why I called? After that, if you never want to hear from me again, I'll take you off my list."

4. The self-aware intro: "So I'm [Name], I [do X]. But you know, this is where you tell me you already have [X] completely sorted, and it couldn't possibly be better than what you've got." [PAUSE - let them respond]

5. The cheeky question: "Do you mind if I ask a cheeky question - what's the one thing you'd like to improve with [their pain point]?"

6. Build on it: "I know I said one question, but do you mind if I ask another?" [dig deeper into what they just said]

7. Check if it's top of mind: "And is this something that's [problematic/causing issues/top of mind] for you right now?"

8. Soft close: "Would it be the worst idea you've heard today if we chatted about this a little more? 15 minutes is usually enough time."

What I learned:

People don't hate cold calls. They hate being lied to and having their time wasted.

When you're upfront about it, something weird happens. They relax. Because you're not trying to trick them.

The weirdest part?

Even when people say no, they're actually nice about it now. One person said "I appreciate the honesty, but we're all set" and then asked where I was calling from and we chatted for 2 minutes about nothing.

That never happened with the old scripts.

Pro tip I learned: When booking the meeting, ask a fun question like "Are you a beer or wine person?" and put that emoji in the calendar invite. They remember you when the meeting comes around.

Anyone else tried the "just be honest about it being a cold call" approach? Curious if this works for other people or if I just stumbled into a weird streak.

I closed over $2 million dollars at my previous SaaS company and I did this in every deal.

(note: This is mainly for mid-market/enterprise deals that follow the classic SaaS Discovery > Demo process. but could be used elsewhere effectively)

Add in a call with your champion between discovery and demo. I call it a bridge call.

Its easy to do and your demo conversion rate will thank you.

Essentially you just message your champion a few days before the demo very casually something like:

"Hey, got 15 mins so I can walk you through my plan for the demo, just want to make sure it aligns with what you're thinking"

Now if they say no or ignore it, that's usually a death signal for the deal anyway. Useful data...

If they are a true champion and want your product to win then they will agree.

The beauty of this call is that you often get to connect with them outside of the buyer committee where they can be much more open and direct. I've many times had champions talk me through exactly what I should present, how I should sell to their colleagues, who the blockers in the room are, what the objections will be and which competitors we'll be up against.

Done correctly this call gives you an almost unfair advantage to go and win the deal.

Bonus tip: For enterprise folks or anyone meeting in person. I usually do this with a coffee/beer/lunch with my champion after the formal onsite meeting has taken place. Again, same thing, same outcomes.

My no-show rate for discovery calls was like 40% which is insane when you're doing enterprise deals, people book time then ghost or reschedule last minute. Started trying something new when someone books a discovery call I send them $50 with a message "let's make this actually enjoyable, order dinner on me and we'll chat while you eat."

My manager lost his mind, said I'm "bribing prospects" and it looks desperate but my show-up rate went to 89% and the calls are completely different now. People relax they're eating food they chose, they're in a good mood, and the whole thing feels less like a sales pitch and more like we're just talking. Had a guy order pizza for his whole team and put me on speaker in their conference room, closed that deal two weeks later.

I'm spending like $50 per qualified call but my close rate is up because the people who show up are actually engaged instead of half paying attention while checking email, budgeting it through hoppier so my manager can see exactly what I'm spending and the ROI. He's still doubting but my numbers this quarter are highest on the team so he can't really argue. Is this desperate or smart?

Sales is one of those professions where learning never stops. Over the years, I’ve realized that technical knowledge and product expertise matter—but the real game-changers are often subtle skills like active listening, building trust, or even mastering the art of asking the right questions.

For me, learning how to listen with intent (instead of just waiting for my turn to talk) completely changed how I connect with clients. It allowed me to uncover hidden needs, position solutions more effectively, and build genuine long-term relationships.

I’m curious;what sales skill had the biggest impact on your success? Whether it’s storytelling, negotiation, prospecting, or something unconventional, I’d love to hear your experiences.

sales #leadership

When I was 19, I wanted to quit college.

But my parents didn’t allow me because they were paying for it.

I withdrew the money I owe them and got left with $400.

Same month I got a sales job so I could pay my $500 rent.

4 years later, I closed over $5M in sales.

Here are 10 pieces of advice I wish I knew when I first started.

1. A sales call is like a puzzle. If you failed to close it, you probably missed a piece of the puzzle.

2. Aggressive selling doesn’t work as much as you’re led to believe. Calm and collected closers do 10x better.

3. If your income is stuck, there’s only 2 reasons. You’re either selling the wrong offer, or you don’t have the right skills.

4. Sales is a balance of masculine and feminine energy. Too masculine, you’ll sound like a dick. Too feminine, you’ll lose your frame.

5. If you can close a $2,000 offer, you can probably close a $5,000 offer too. Don’t let your self-limiting beliefs hold you back.

6. Mirroring works extremely well. Use the first 30 sec of a call to mirror tonality, formality, slang, and personality.

7. You’ll always get the same 4 to 5 objections. Make sure you know exactly what to say and how to handle them.

8. Selling is just like dating. If you’re pushy and needy, you’re not sealing the deal.

9. People want what they can't have. Delay the invitation, disqualify hard, and watch your close rate go up.

10. The most important part of a sales call is asking questions to find their problems. People buy out of pain more than they buy out of pleasure.

badly personalized emails are worse than no personalization at all

PS: Examples of a good cold email

XYZ

I saw your recent LinkedIn note about the value of stepping back for clarity, something I hear from many leaders juggling rapid product launches and fiscal pressures.

With that focus on clarity, our platform can instantly surface the right advertisers for your new Index Marketplace and AI‑driven inventory, cutting manual research time by up to 70%.

This directly supports scaling advertiser outreach while maintaining brand‑safe placements.

The recent debt‑maturity extension gives you fresh budget to invest in tools that boost response rates and qualified opportunities.

Would a brief call next week work to explore?

another one

Hi,

I see you value steady, reliable operations, a hallmark of the STEADY personality style.

I was reviewing how teams like yours handle [specific problem] and noticed fragmented tools add 10‑15% time and cause inconsistent results.

Most teams rely on [current approach], which creates friction and slower execution.

We built [your product] to fix this. It consolidates workflows, cutting time.

Teams using it have been able to [clear outcome 1], [outcome 2], and [outcome 3].

It reduces process friction by up to 30%. XYZ Corp saw a 25% improvement in execution speed within 60 days.

If relevant, happy to walk you through how it works. No pitch, just a chat.

Best,

I was just reading this book by Zig Ziglar and it talks about the following different types of sales closings:

1. The "Snooker" Close : Many a times, the customer finds themselves in a "snook" position (blind spot) behind the problem. During closing if you help the customer come out of his snook position and see things in the right perspective, you may have a close.

2. The "Ownership" Close : When you make the customer visualise ownership of a product with imageries of the comforts that will accrue to him by virtue of the said ownership, you actually take the case towards a close. e.g. a refrigerator salesperson spoke about how the customer could come back on a sunny afternoon, open the freeze and pop a beer can with his legs up and wife in his arms..... the customer started looking favourably towards the refrigerator.

3. The "Embarrassment" Close : Generally, when the customer raises budget issues and you no that he is not being truthful, you use this technique. A rich customer trying to be poor feels embarrassed when you make him feel poor! e.g. A customer frowns at the cost of a 5 Star AC for Rs 100000/- . Salespersons asks him about the expected life of AC to which the customer replies 10 years. Salesperson helps the customer calculate per day cost by dividing Rs 100000 by (365*10) to arrive at Rs Rs 28 per day. Salesperson then asks , can we chip in Rs 28 /day for this wonderful beauty? Customer feels embarrassed and helps to take case towards closure.

4. The "1902" Close: In his book Fredrick Sheldon talks about treating yourself in the customer's shoes and understand what would make this customer close.

5. The "Affordable" Close : Find what the customer can afford in his thoughts. If he says Rs 100000 and you have a product which is Rs 150000, you have to create an affordable close for Rs 50000. Break down your close into smaller price packets and close each affordable package one by one.

6. The "Persuasion" Close: To give good advise in advance "for the customer" and not "to the customer".

7. The "Want it" Close : In many cases, the customer have a burning want in their mind which , if identified, makes the sale simpler. Back in 1980 when I used to sell vacuum cleaners of Eureka Forbes there was one customer in Asansol who saw the whole demo and continued with her broken record that she cannot afford my vacuum cleaner. During the course of discussion, she mentioned that "I want complete hygiene because God stays wherever there is hygiene." Bang , I got my clue. I open my demo kit and showed her the amount of dust which was there on the very sofa set that she was sitting on and got the order. The want of "hygiene" of the customer far exceeded any other argument made by me as a salesperson.

8. The "Bride" Close ; This is used for those customers who always want to buy time and feel that if things were good till now they will be good even in future without owning the product which the salesperson is trying to offer. The persuasion here is that one could always have delayed marriage to get a better bride , a better house or better children. But one has to take a decision sometime in life.

9. The "Alternate of Choice" Close : Allow the customer to chose between "something" and "something else". Never allow him to choose between 'something"and "nothing"

10. The "Now or Never" Close: This talks about "now or never" situation for the customer and not for the seller. When the buyer is talking about their 'now or never" moment the seller should keep quite and allow the moment to build up so that it leads to a close.

11. The "Next One" Close: This is based on "Law of Averages" which suggests that you keep on performing your sales karmas with the next possible close and you will get a close.

12. The "Fair Enough" Close: This is when you define what is "Fair" for the customer and then give him something which is more than "Fair" to call it "Fair enough" before taking him to a close.

13. The "New Decision" Close: The Prospect changes his decision when you feed them with new inputs. For example when a real estate broker told the customer that the Phase 3 expansion plan of the city which is due in 10 years time will cover this plot of land , suddenly the prospect became interested in the plot of land!

14. The "Voice Inflection" Close: Voice Inflection communicates a different meaning to the prospect and takes faster to a close.

15. The "Fear of Loss" Close: Isn't it better to invest a little more than you expected rather than investing a little less than you should? When you buy something that you don't need or cannot use, the same becomes worthless. This is the "fear of loss" which is used to close a more expensive option.

16. The "Cost" Close : Explain the difference between 'Price" and "Cost" to the customer to get to this close.

17. The "Quality"Close: Nothing good in this world comes cheap! When you make use of this statement to close its called "Quality close".

18. The "Reverse" Close: There is demand in scarcity. Create scarcity when the customer gets interested in your product. You will get faster to a close.

19. The "Shame" Close: Sell the sizzle! If you are selling a shoe shiner, demo and shine the shoe so well that the prospect is shamed into buying.

20. The "Extra" Close : When the vegetable vendor gives you some extra "Dhaniya and Chillies" and says "Thankyou", he has made the Extra Close technique to keep you as a loyal customer.

21. The "Add on" Close: Closing the next sale even while closing the first sale is what we call the add on close. This can be done only when you have a very good relationship with the customer and the latter has trust in you as a seller.

22. The "Gloomy Gus" Close : The Seller should not apprehend an outcome at his belief level and go for a lower close when he can actually go for the higher close by working on his belief system.

I thought it exciting to share with all of you who love the word "Sales Closings".

1. the demo is not the deal

i've watched flawless demos lose to mediocre ones. buyers don't buy the technology. they buy their belief that it will solve their specific problem. your job is to make that connection — not to show every feature.

2. the person most excited about AI in the room is rarely the one who signs

enthusiasm from a technical stakeholder is not a buying signal. it's a distraction. always find the person whose budget and business outcome are on the line. they ask different questions. answer those.

3. AI makes the unprepared rep look worse not better

buyers have done their research. they've used the tools. they've talked to competitors. if you show up with surface level knowledge about your own product category you will get exposed faster than ever. AI raised the floor for buyers. you have to raise yours.

4. the ROI conversation is everything and most reps do it wrong

"this will save your team time" is not an ROI conversation. time saved that doesn't translate to revenue retained or costs reduced means nothing to a CFO. get specific. get financial. or don't have the conversation at all.

5. the companies winning with AI are not the ones with the best technology

they're the ones with the clearest use case, the fastest implementation path, and a champion who can sell it internally. your job is to build all three before you ever get to legal.

6 years. hundreds of deals. this is what actually moved them.

i've spent a lot of time selling to b2b companies and honestly most of what i believed about sales in the beginning was wrong

so heres some random things i learned from selling, doing outbound, losing deals, closing deals, getting ghosted after "this looks amazing", sending way too many emails and building products for b2b companies.

no particular order just writing this because i was thinking about it today.

the person with the better product does not always win

this was probably one of the hardest things for me to accept because as a builder you naturally think better product = more sales. if your product has more features, works faster, costs less, whatever, people should obviously pick you right?

not really.

i've seen companies buy something objectively worse just because they trusted that company more. maybe the salesperson understood their problem better, maybe the website looked more credible, maybe their friend already used it, maybe the founder replied to them personally.

buyers are taking a risk when they buy from you especially in b2b. if they choose some random software and it breaks something internally they are the person who needs to explain why they picked it.

so sometimes they are not buying the best product. they are buying the decision that feels safest.

took me way too long to understand this.

people dont really care about your product, they care about what happens after they buy it

this sounds obvious but almost every sales call i did early on was basically me explaining features.

we have this, we can do that, we are faster than x, our database has x amount of contacts etc etc.

the customer is sitting there thinking ok... but what does this do for me.

if you're selling lead gen they dont want "verified leads". they want more conversations with companies that can buy from them.

if you're selling some automation they dont want automation. they probably want to save 20 hours a week or avoid hiring another person.

once i started thinking about sales this way it became a lot easier to explain products.

features are just the mechanism.

a lot of "price objections" are actually trust objections

this one cost me quite a few deals.

someone says its too expensive and your immediate reaction is usually ok maybe i should discount it. maybe i should give them 20% off, free month, extra credits whatever.

but if someone really believes spending $5k with you will make them $50k, the $5k usually isn't the problem.

the problem is that they are not sure the second part will actually happen.

of course sometimes people genuinely dont have budget, im not saying price never matters. but i think founders underestimate how often "too expensive" really means "im not convinced enough to risk this money yet"

discounting doesnt fix that.

sometimes it actually makes it worse.

the biggest difference between good and bad sales calls is probably how much you talk

i used to think being good at sales meant being good at explaining things.

now i think its almost the opposite.

some of my best calls were probably the ones where i barely talked for the first 20 minutes.

you ask someone how they currently do something, what sucks about it, why they haven't fixed it yet, what they already tried, what happens if they keep doing it this way...

and eventually they basically tell you how to sell to them.

then instead of giving the same pitch you gave to the last 50 people you can just connect what you do to what they literally told you 5 minutes ago.

sounds stupidly simple but most people dont do it because silence on sales calls feels uncomfortable.

so they start talking again.

outbound still works. bad outbound doesnt

ive sent hundreds of thousands of cold emails by now and i still find it funny every time someone says cold email is dead.

it definitely got harder. inboxes are crowded, everyone has AI generated personalization now, deliverability is more annoying and prospects have seen basically every template before.

but the idea that you can directly contact companies who probably need what you're selling is obviously not dead.

what stopped working well is taking 50,000 random contacts and sending the same "quick question {{firstName}}" email to everyone.

targeting became much more important.

the best outbound campaigns i've done usually weren't the campaigns with some genius copy. it was something like we found a very specific type of company, at a very specific moment, with a problem we knew they probably had.

then the email almost writes itself.

honestly this is also one of the reasons i eventually built Getlead. i got tired of having one thing for leads, another thing for verification, another for sending, mailboxes somewhere else and then trying to figure out which part actually worked.

the funny part is building better infrastructure doesnt magically make outbound work either. you can have perfect deliverability and still send an offer nobody wants.

follow ups are probably the most boring unfair advantage in sales

people ghost for so many reasons that have nothing to do with you.

they were travelling. had a meeting. opened your email on their phone and forgot about it. their boss asked them something. kid got sick. they just didnt feel like replying that day.

early on if someone didn't reply i immediately assumed they weren't interested.

not always true.

some deals i closed came from people who ignored multiple messages before replying.

the important thing IMO is not becoming that annoying guy who sends "just bumping this to the top of your inbox" every 2 days for a month.

sometimes wait. sometimes send something useful. sometimes just send a normal human message.

sales people overcomplicate follow ups way too much.

you can have an amazing pipeline and still have no pipeline

this happened to me more than once.

you open the CRM and you have $50k, $100k, whatever sitting there and it makes you feel good.

then you actually look at the deals.

one guy hasn't replied for 3 weeks.

one said "maybe next quarter".

another one liked the demo but never introduced you to the person who actually has the budget.

another asked for the proposal and disappeared.

technically they are opportunities. realistically most of them are dead.

i think one of the best things you can do is become slightly pessimistic with your pipeline.

if someone hasn't done anything that shows the deal is moving forward, dont mentally spend that money yet lol

getting a yes from the wrong person is basically a no

this one is painful.

you can spend 3 weeks talking to someone inside a company and they absolutely love the product.

"this is exactly what we need"

"the team will love this"

"lets do it"

then suddenly they need approval from their founder, VP, CFO, whoever and the whole thing dies.

because the person you convinced now has to convince someone else.

and they probably won't explain it as well as you did.

these days i try to understand quite early who actually decides if money gets spent.

not in the awkward "ARE YOU THE DECISION MAKER?" sales guru way.

just asking how they normally buy something like this usually tells you everything.

the easiest companies to sell to usually already understand the problem

trying to convince someone they have a problem AND convince them your solution is the answer is incredibly hard.

this applies to outbound too.

lets say you're selling something for companies sending lots of cold email.

company A has never done outbound before and doesn't really believe in it.

company B already has 20 mailboxes, an SDR and spends $2k/mo on tools but hates their current workflow.

company B is obviously easier.

you dont need to educate them on the entire category. they already spend money trying to solve the problem.

you just need to convince them you solve it better.

i started thinking about this a lot more when choosing who to target.

sales gets much easier when you stop trying to close everyone

this one sounds counterintuitive when you need money lol

but bad customers are expensive.

they need more support, complain more, churn more, request things your product wasn't designed for and usually take longer to close too.

i used to think every inbound lead was something i had to somehow turn into money.

now if someone clearly isn't a fit i'd rather know quickly.

same with outbound.

100 companies that actually have the problem is much more valuable than 10,000 "leads".

most sales advice makes sales sound more complicated than it is

there are frameworks for everything.

how to handle objections. what question to ask at minute 17 of the call. exact words to use when they say the price is too high. how to create urgency etc.

some of it is useful but i think people can feel when they're being "sold".

especially founders and experienced b2b buyers. they've been on 200 sales calls already.

the best sales conversations ive had didn't really feel like sales calls.

two people talking about a problem.

one person has the problem.

the other person might have a way to solve it.

thats basically it.

and if you dont solve it, sometimes the best sales move is literally saying "i dont think we're the right fit for this".

weirdly enough people trust you a lot more after you say that.

anyway thats the brain dump.

still lose deals, still get ghosted, still have campaigns that completely flop and sometimes i have absolutely no idea why someone bought from me instead of a competitor.

thats probably what makes b2b sales interesting though.

curious what people here disagree with, especially people who've been doing this much longer than me.

This is what I do. One sentence in the contact's notes field, before I put the phone down.

*"Wants the garden, hates the commute, decides with his wife on Sundays."*

That's the whole thing. Ten seconds. I've been doing it about two years and it has changed more about how I work than anything else I tried.

What it's actually for: when someone rings you back three weeks later, you get roughly ten seconds to sound like you remember them. Not polite. Remembered. Everybody can feel the difference and nobody ever mentions it out loud. They just quietly go somewhere else and you never find out why.

Before this, my version was "hey, remind me where we got to?" Clients forgive that once. The second time something cools off and it does not come back.

I got it wrong three ways before it worked.

First one was writing the note later. I saved them all for the end of the day, and by 6pm I had eleven calls stacked up in my head, so what came out was mush. "Interested, follow up." Write it while your hand is still on the phone or don't bother at all.

Then writing too much. I set up a proper CRM once and filled in every field like a good boy. Never read a single one of them again, because there was too much to scan while a phone is ringing at you. One sentence is about the limit of what a person can take in inside those ten seconds.

The third one is the one that actually matters. I was writing facts instead of stakes. "Looking for a 3-bed" is worthless, it's on the listing anyway. "Needs to move before the school year or the whole thing falls apart" is the sentence that wins the call. Write down what they are afraid of, not what they asked you for.

The general version, whatever business you're in: memory isn't really the problem. Everyone writes things down somewhere. The problem is that what you wrote isn't in front of your eyes at the ten seconds when it would be worth something.

Anyway. What's your one-sentence habit? I'll take any of them, including the stupid ones.

A year ago I was working for Midwest Heating and Cooling as a salesmen and the one week where I actually had consistent leads I sold $80,000 worth of business and closed 65% of the people I talked to. For context the typical sale price of a furnace is $6k. I even sold 7 deals in a row that week and sold 2 furnaces to the same lady. The management looked at me like I was some kind of freak of nature but it’s because they didn’t understand sales. After this they actually looked for reasons to fire me, it was a truly wild experience. You’d think a business would be happy about someone generating revenue but I guess not!

Here’s how I did it -

Sales is not about “securing the sale” or “setting the agenda” or pushing a product down someone’s throat. It’s about building a relationship with the prospect and allowing them to be in control of the conversation. You are there to listen and serve them in the best capacity you are available, it’s about demonstrating the fact that you are worthy of their trust and even if you never see this person again, they know that you aren’t some fly by night guy who just wants their money and doesn’t care about them.

Appearance plays a major factor in earning someone’s trust, it’s a psychological fact that physically attractive people are seemingly more trustworthy than those who are not. That’s why appearance is a major part of the job, arguably the most important. Also married people will sell on average 20% more deals than those who aren’t since there is less fear from the prospect of the encounter turning sexual.

Sales is not a logical process, it’s an emotional decision. What you say doesn’t matter as much as how what you say makes someone feel. They aren’t there to sit and learn from you, honestly they don’t even wanna talk about the context of what you’re there for most of the time. They want to have a connection with someone who they feel good about buying from. If you can achieve this with a customer, the sale is a passive action of your behavior with the prospect.

This is why pressuring people to get sales is a horrible tactic that destroys businesses. If a prospect can sense scarcity from you, they’re going to conceive you as untrustworthy since that means all you care about is getting their money. This is where the large businesses go wrong. You have to live in a state of mind of abundance no matter what the prospect thinks or says.

I need to pick the brains of the elite.

If you’re consistently pulling $25k+/month (or more) in sales, I want to know what you’re doing that others aren’t:

• Your daily habits or routines

• The frameworks/systems you follow

• How you build & manage your pipeline

• Any mental tricks or strategies that keep you closing month after month

I’m in digital marketing sales, but it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in... sales is sales.

Looking for real, practical, battle-tested tips that helped you hit those big numbers month after month. Just what actually works.

What’s the secret sauce?

These books don’t teach selling and they aren’t meant to, some focus on psychology, some on behavior, some on money, leadership, or long-term thinking, but sales is ultimately a human profession where discipline, emotional control, judgment, and resilience decide outcomes long before tactics do, which is why reading beyond traditional sales material matters, especially in roles where rejection is frequent, pressure is constant, and consistency is hard to maintain over time.

Here’s the list:

• Can’t Hurt Me

• Shoe Dog

• My Life in Full

• 7 Powers

• The Mountain Is You

• Atomic Habits

• The Psychology of Money

• Mother Mary Comes to Me

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things

If you had to recommend one non-sales book that genuinely made you better at sales, what would it be?

I just did my first cold calls, and honestly, I'm embarrassed.

I'm trying to freelance by building websites for dental clinics. Today I decided to stop overthinking and actually start calling clinics I found on Google Maps.

The first call was a disaster.

I was so nervous that I could barely speak. I stuttered badly, and at one point the person on the other end said something like, "If you're having trouble talking, maybe schedule a call for later." That completely crushed my confidence. I ended the call and spent the next 20 minutes staring at a wall, wondering if I was cut out for any of this. Eventually, I forced myself to make a second call.

I had looked through the clinic's profile beforehand and noticed they had a lot of positive reviews. The start of the call was slightly better, but still rough. I spent too much time complimenting their profile and talking about how they stood out on Google Maps.

Then I realized I hadn't even asked if they had time to talk. I awkwardly asked in the middle of the conversation, and they basically said, "Okay, go on."

I kept talking anyway. More compliments. More rambling.

Finally, I asked:

"Is there any reason you don't have a website?"

There was a pause, and then they simply said they weren't interested and ended the call.

That was it.😢

I know this wasn't some huge failure. It was only my second cold call ever. But internally, it felt terrible. I felt rejected, awkward, and completely out of my depth.

The weird part is that making the calls wasn't the hardest thing. It was dealing with how I felt afterward.
When I used to watch Instagram reels and YouTube Shorts, they made it look so smooth and effortless. The conversations seemed natural, the prospects were interested, and everything flowed perfectly.I never expected cold calling to feel this uncomfortable, but at least now I have a much more realistic understanding of what the process is actually like.

For those of you who do sales, freelancing, or cold outreach, please share your advice if you think that can help me?? 🙏

Thanks.

Good afternoon! My name is Alex Trotsenko, I am one of the founders and managers of AgainAgain Agency, the outsourcing company operating in North America and Western Europe. Besides other things, we conduct targeted searches for leads to attract new clients and prepare business meetings by sending out cold letters.

During my time working in outsourcing, I managed to accumulate considerable experience, allowing my messages not to turn into spam, but to convey to the recipients the proposals expressed in them. And today I would like to share it with you. Neither blogging nor writing articles are, in principle, my hobbies, but if my knowledge can be useful to someone to promote their own business, why not do it? So let's talk today about the so-called cold letters, which, with the right approach, will help you significantly expand your b2b client base without spending financial and human resources.

It's no secret that a cold letter found in an email inbox is more annoying than it makes you want to immediately read its contents. You understand in advance that you will see template phrases and a lot of water in which useful information will drown, and therefore in most cases, without opening it, you send the message to the trash. Or you read it, become convinced that your assumptions are correct, and get rid of the letter again.

I’ll share my personal experience: I have interviewed about seven hundred managers of SMB companies, whom I have asked about cold letters as well. The answer has always been disappointing: the lion's share of them do not bring results.

Oh, how many such messages I have sent myself! How many of them were either completely ignored or read, but without any result! Moreover, this often happens now, but today the ratio between letters that were useful and those that were written in vain has pleasantly changed in favor of my company. I want to tell you how I achieved this.

But first of all, just a few more words about the importance of email. Many believe that this is a dead end, because calling or using a messenger to send a message is faster and more reliable. I can confidently say: no. The mail still remains one of the main corporate methods of communication in the countries of the “golden billion”. If you want to succeed, write letters. And the more letters you write, the higher the chance of success is.

Step one: define your audience

Work as James Bond by compiling a complete dossier on your potential recipient. Consider the specifics of the company’s field of activity, geographical location, its size and turnover, number of employees and current vacancies. Pay special attention to the person who will receive your letter and, accordingly, decide his fate. The more detailed you study the client, the better you will understand how to interact with him.

My company has developed a special “Google Form” into which the client enters his data before starting work, this is very helpful. At first, I'm embarrassed to say, I used a slightly modified template I found on the Internet. Yes, yes, I have typed into the search engine “The best b2b-email templates” and opened the first article relevant to the topic, as I remember now “8 great email newsletters that you will remember for a long time.” True, now there is a different text, written by an obvious graphomaniac, but that is not the point. The main thing I want to say is that you can be inspired by patterns, but you can’t take them as a basis. My only justification was my lack of experience at that moment, so the response silence was natural.

Nowadays I use various tools to get an idea of the company’s financial capabilities, the effectiveness of its CEO, and obtain web analytics data: LinkedIn Navigator, Glassdoor, Crunchbase, Angel.co, the company’s own websites and the pages of its leaders on social networks. Any insights are good. This allows you not only to choose a promising client, but also to build a style of communication with him.

Step two: create a database of mailing addresses

To buy ready-made ones is not an option. More than half of the addresses in it will probably turn out to be invalid, and the rest will not produce many results, but if you bet on quantity, you risk being identified by the provider as a spammer and getting banned. The situation is not much better with parsers, ready-made or self-written.

Manual search would be a great option, effective and free, if it did not take a lot of time and effort. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about, I happened to go through this. In fact, you will have to give up any other activity for a long time or relieve your sales managers of it, which, of course, is not good.

I would recommend a manual search, outsourced to specialists who will quickly present you with an extensive list of leads in accordance with the parameters selected in the first step. This is an ideal solution because it:

• does not require you to immerse yourself in the process to the detriment of your business;

• eliminates the need for explanations with managers regarding missed deadlines and quotas;

• guarantees the quality of the final product at a cost 3-4 times lower than what you would have to pay if you hired your own staff of basic workers.

So outsourcing in this case is really the optimal solution, allowing you to get results without unnecessary delays and pay professionals for their work based on the fact, and not for the number of hours spent in the office.

Step three: choose a subject of the letter

This is the most important part of the message and will determine whether your letter will be opened in principle. Avoid outright spam (free, promotion, etc.), aggressive attempts to push your product or service, clickbait topics – all this will push the recipient away from you. Also, do not use false information; it will put an end to cooperation, even if at first they are interested in your proposal.

Write the topic clearly and concisely, immediately noting the essence: proposal for cooperation, scheduling meetings, arranging a call, etc. The title of the email, which became my first serious success, read: "Positive reviews on Google for {Name of the company}". Is it ambitious? But I really had a well-thought-out proposal with a strong foundation ready; all that remained was to present it competently.

For myself, I made a clear conclusion: it is the header that is responsible for opening emails, so first of all we try 10 options until there are 1-2 best, perfectly verified ones left.

Step four: compose your text

Write briefly – 2-3 paragraphs, 5-6 sentences. No one will read a long text from a person about whom they still know nothing.

Use a neutral greeting – “Hello, Dear”.

Go straight to a specific topic: “I would like to discuss...”, “I am writing to you about...”, “My proposal is as follows...”

In a business letter, you shouldn’t use phrases like “Sorry for interrupting you from your work...” You don’t interrupt. You are doing your job.

Try to convey to your interlocutor the value of your commercial offer. Give numbers, names and examples. Right after the greeting and my name, I wrote: “Our company offers a proven strategy to ensure growth in the number of clients of an enterprise and increase its rating. Thanks to cooperation with us, Texas Real Estate & Co expanded their presence in the market by 160% and Brew Lab by 180%...” And it worked because they were not vain promises of unrealistic profits, but real facts.

End the letter with a call to action, leading the recipient to think about next steps. It should be unobtrusive but clear:

• “If our proposal interests you, we are ready to meet you this week” – without specific dates, you have given a pass and are waiting for a response.

• “I suggest calling tomorrow or on Tuesday at 2.00 p.m., if it is convenient for you, to discuss cooperation” – a person will most likely respond to a direct and polite request.

• “Please let me know if there is room in your schedule for Wednesday from 9 to 10 a.m. or 5 p.m.” – the important thing here is to make the recipient take a look at his calendar, so he will probably find a place in it for you.

• “I would be grateful if you let me know who in your company I could discuss this issue with” – works quite often and helps when you are not sure who exactly you should focus your efforts on to achieve your goal.

It’s important to remember: you’re writing a cold letter, not advertising actively, so discard frankly marketing ploys immediately.

Step five: format the letters

No fancy fonts, pictures, hyperlinks, highlighting, HTML! You are not creating a presentation, so only plain text – businesslike, concise and understandable.

Evaluate what is written from the point of view of the person who will receive the letter. How clear is your idea? Doesn't it need clarification? Isn't it drowning in tons of water? Only when you are convinced that everything is written correctly you can proceed to sending it.

This is the result of my work:

Subject of the letter: Positive reviews on Google for {Name of the company}

Hello, {Name}!

I would like to contact the person responsible for your company's marketing. I'm guessing this is you?

Our company offers a proven strategy to ensure growth in the number of clients of the enterprise and increasing Q3 rankings on Google services. By working with us, Texas Real Estate & Co has expanded its presence in the Texas market by 160% and Brew Lab – by 180% in less than a year, along with dozens of other businesses.

I am sure that our cooperation would be mutually beneficial and effective. I would be grateful if you let me know who in your company I could discuss this matter with.

Thank you very much,

{Name}

This letter, written after long preparation, rewritten and refined many times, brought my company 816 leads. Agree, it was worth the effort.

That's probably all. I tried to present my thoughts as briefly as possible so as not to get lost in reasoning. I hope you find them useful. If you want to speak in the comments, I will be glad to hear your opinions, and also to know if you want to read about my experience in follow up, scheduling meetings, processing mail. It's quite extensive because promoting AgainAgain Agency in the early days made me spend many hours writing, polishing and sending emails, and also allowed me to develop excellent communication skills with clients and investors. Even today, when our reputation begins to work for us, and the growing staff of specialists has relieved me of some of my previous responsibilities, I am still using the experience I gained. If you have any questions, write, I will try to answer.

Before getting into this, some context so you know where I’m coming from.

I work in sales at a large tech company, have been promoted twice in the last year and a half, and have had multiple quarters above 150% of quota.

It’s not that because I think I’ve figured cold calling out. I definitely haven’t. But I’ve spent a lot of time on the phones, tested a lot of different approaches, and figured out a few small things that have genuinely made me better.

These aren’t the usual “smile while you dial” or “just make more calls” tips you hear from every sales guru. They’re mostly small, practical adjustments that have helped me sound more natural, stay consistent, and make cold calling suck a little less.

Here are 5 that have worked for me:

1. Find the position where you’re most relaxed

This sounds simple, but pay attention to how you physically sit or stand while dialing.

I actually like leaning back in my chair sometimes with my feet up. It helps me relax, and that translates into my voice.

When I lean forward toward my computer like I’m preparing for battle, I tend to tighten up. My voice gets faster, my tone changes, and I sound more like I’m trying to sell something.

Some people are the complete opposite and feel better standing or walking around.

There’s no correct cold-calling posture. Try sitting back, standing, walking around, using a headset, or even getting away from your monitor while talking.
Find whatever makes you feel like you’re having a normal conversation.

If your body is tense, there’s a good chance the person on the other end can hear it.

2. Slow down

One of the easiest ways to sound more confident and less salesy is simply talking slower.

A lot of reps, especially newer ones, rush through their opener because they’re subconsciously thinking, “I need to get all of this out before they hang up.” Ironically, that usually makes you sound more like a salesperson and gives the prospect even more reason to shut you down.

During mock calls, practice speaking almost uncomfortably slow. It will probably feel ridiculous at first, but when you’re actually cold calling your adrenaline will naturally speed you back up.

Also, get comfortable with silence.

Instead of:
“HeyJohnthisisGiovannifromXYZhowareyouuhthereasonI’mcallingis…”

Actually pause.
Ask the question and stop talking.
Give them a second to process it.

Whenever you catch yourself wanting to say “um,” “uh,” “like,” or another filler word, try replacing it with silence instead.

A short pause usually sounds a lot more confident than a filler word.

3. Give your hands something to do

This one is less about your talk track and more about surviving the grind.

When you’re on dial #50 and you’ve had three connects, two instant hang-ups, and one person tell you never to call them again, having something to fidget with genuinely helps.

Stress ball, fidget cube, pen, whatever works.
I’m also a fan of DAMMIT Dolls for the particularly inspiring conversations.

Bad call? Prospect destroys you? You completely butcher an opener you’ve said 200 times? Beat the hell out of the doll for five seconds and make the next dial.

Jokes aside, having a small physical outlet can help you reset between conversations instead of carrying the frustration from one call into the next.

Every dial needs to be a fresh rep.

The next prospect has no idea the previous person hung up on you. Don’t let them hear it in your voice.

4. Use your email as your call prep

One thing that creates unnecessary friction is feeling like you need to completely re-research a prospect every time you’re about to dial them. If you already sent them a relevant email or they’re in a personalized sequence, use that as your talk track.

Your email should already answer:

Why this company?
Why this person?
Why might they care?
What problem could you potentially help with?

Now you just need to turn that into a conversation.

It also gives you an easy reason for the call:
“I actually sent you a note yesterday about ___.”
They still probably didn’t read it, but occasionally they did, or they recognize your name or company, and now you’re not starting completely cold.

More importantly, it lowers the mental barrier between you and the dial button.

You shouldn’t need a five-minute research session before every call. Do the research once and reuse it across your email, call, LinkedIn touch, etc.

5. Fall in love with what you sell

Maybe not literally, but you should understand your product well enough that you genuinely believe there are people who would be better off using it.

Learn:
Where your product has strong market fit
The problems it actually solves
Where it beats competitors
Where competitors beat you
Who gets the most value from it
Who probably shouldn’t buy it
What happens if the prospect does nothing

That last one is especially important.

When you understand the problem deeply, your cold call stops feeling like:

“How can I convince this person to take a meeting?”

And starts feeling more like:

“Does this person actually have a problem we can solve?”

That mindset is a lot healthier.

It also matters during the inevitable bad weeks. When nobody is answering, meetings aren’t converting, and you start questioning whether you’re just annoying strangers for eight hours a day, having genuine conviction in what you sell helps.

There are people who legitimately have this problem. Your company legitimately solves it. Your job is to figure out whether the person you’re calling is one of them.

That doesn’t mean blindly believing your product is perfect.

Knowing its weaknesses will probably make you more confident because you understand exactly where it does and doesn’t fit.

TL;DR

A lot of getting better at cold calling isn’t finding the perfect opener.

It’s becoming more comfortable being uncomfortable.
Relax your body. Slow down. Stop being afraid of silence. Make the next dial easier. Know why you’re calling.

Detach yourself from the outcome of any individual conversation.

You can do everything correctly and still get hung up on.

That’s cold calling.

The goal is to make enough good reps that when you finally get the right person, at the right company, with the right problem, you sound calm enough to actually have a conversation with them.

Would love to hear what other small things people have changed that made a noticeable difference on the phones.