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Sales Gravy

The 3 Tier Prospecting System That Fills Your Pipeline (Ask Jeb)

9 min episode · 2 min read

Episode

9 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Marketing, Sales & Revenue

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Three-Tier Prospecting Pyramid: Structure daily calls by qualification level: start with inbound leads and "Qualified 2s" (known contact + company size confirmed), then "Qualified 1s" (decision-maker unidentified), then cold unqualified lists. This sequencing ensures highest-probability prospects receive attention first each morning.
  • Voicemail by Tier: Leave voicemails only for Qualified 1s and Qualified 2s, never for cold unqualified lists. For cold lists, the goal is simply getting anyone to answer and asking two qualifying questions — headcount determines whether they advance to the next tier.
  • List Homogeneity for Speed: Build prospecting lists around a single role, market segment, or geography so one voicemail script works across the entire list. Mixing CFOs, CEOs, and directors on one list forces a new message each call, slowing reps to below 50 calls per day.
  • B2B Nurture vs. Active Prospecting Segmentation: Separate prospects into two buckets — one-time buyers move to passive newsletter nurturing once a project closes, while repeat buyers (constant signage needs, ongoing builds) require active top-of-mind prospecting, since purchase decisions often default to whoever the buyer remembers most recently.

What It Covers

Jeb Blount outlines a three-tier prospecting system for high-velocity sales teams, explains when to abandon CRM leads in B2B signage sales, and details voicemail strategy based on prospect qualification level.

Key Questions Answered

  • Three-Tier Prospecting Pyramid: Structure daily calls by qualification level: start with inbound leads and "Qualified 2s" (known contact + company size confirmed), then "Qualified 1s" (decision-maker unidentified), then cold unqualified lists. This sequencing ensures highest-probability prospects receive attention first each morning.
  • Voicemail by Tier: Leave voicemails only for Qualified 1s and Qualified 2s, never for cold unqualified lists. For cold lists, the goal is simply getting anyone to answer and asking two qualifying questions — headcount determines whether they advance to the next tier.
  • List Homogeneity for Speed: Build prospecting lists around a single role, market segment, or geography so one voicemail script works across the entire list. Mixing CFOs, CEOs, and directors on one list forces a new message each call, slowing reps to below 50 calls per day.
  • B2B Nurture vs. Active Prospecting Segmentation: Separate prospects into two buckets — one-time buyers move to passive newsletter nurturing once a project closes, while repeat buyers (constant signage needs, ongoing builds) require active top-of-mind prospecting, since purchase decisions often default to whoever the buyer remembers most recently.

Notable Moment

In B2B signage sales, Blount argues prospects should almost never be permanently dropped from a pipeline — repeat commercial buyers tend to award contracts simply to whoever surfaces first when a new project begins.

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Episode Transcript

There's nothing like the American Express Platinum card. Find out your welcome offer after you apply, which could be as high as 175,000 points. Learn more and find out your offer at americanexpress.com/explore-platinum. Terms apply. This is the Sales Gravy Podcast. Hi. I'm Jeb Blunt, best selling author of fanatical prospecting, objections, sales EQ, and ink, and I'm here to help you open more doors, close bigger deals, and rock your commission check. Go ahead, Mike. I have a couple questions. Let me just lay the groundwork here. Couple years ago, I hired a third party lead gen. It got me to send out email. And then when they got in the spot that they sent those to me, and then I followed up with hold the plug on that probably at the beginning of the year. It didn't work. I got enough business software. I had to pay them for the service, what we paid for it. But my question is, what do you see as the value of having third party lead generation service work from you like that? And then the other part of that. I've got a kind of leads. You know, people were responding back. Hey. We've got a project coming up. You know, check back with me at six months. I put it in CRM, follow-up and follow-up. How long do you leave those in there before you just kinda let them go and maybe put them in a direct campaign to try later on? But Tell me what you sell. Our product is signed and signed. So these are primary people in the, commercial real estate space, developers, some general contractors. A lot of them were have projects pending over architects. I would never contract directly with them, but getting in there is a good way to get out of all the project. The organization is generating good leads for you, and you can make money at it. You'll lose an ROI. There's nothing wrong with that. I want as many inbound leads as I possibly can. They're the easiest ones to close. So the more you can get, the better. In terms of when do you give up on it, if you said it was a b to c situation, I would say, well, I mean, there's a point where you give up because you can't stalk people in b to c. But in terms of your space with signage, the answer would really be never. If you knew that there was a particular project that they were working on and you had a timeline to either be chosen as the company that delivers the signage or not, and then the signs go up and you lost it, you're gonna move them into a nurturing campaign because the project itself is done. If it's a commercial real estate organization that is always putting up new signs, right, if you see their signs going up all the time, like, I've got a company …

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