52 Minutes of LIVE Cold Calling with Jeb Blount Jr.

0:00We are live! It's Zac Thompson, it's Jack Frimston Jr.. It's the live cold cold show brought to you by Nooks! And we are ready to rock and roll and I know what you're thinking in the audience, you're thinking what is happening with this gorgeous setup? Why has he got a cool studio? Because I'm a cool kind of guy. Zac Thompson, how are you on this fine Thursday afternoon? I'm quietly fermenting over here in the corner. I'm ready to rock and I've got a little surprise for you actually. okay yeah i've got a little surprise for you um you sent me over a list of data the other day yeah did you not yeah i did you said make sure you've uploaded this for the show yeah yeah i guess what what i've not done it right well it's it's time for you to get your revenge on me for the last live cold calling show but i've got a new i've got a mac now um okay i've got someone's someone's doing quite well but we're live we've got people joining us we're gonna start live cold calling any moment now as people are joining the live stream make sure you let us know where you are from how you're watching and how it's all going but today is a very very special live cold calling show because i was getting bored of you and i didn't want you to just be the only person on here with me so i thought who is the real best looking guy in cold calling and there's a guy that goes by the name jay bay jay jay bay jay jeb blunt jr and it is pronounced blunt before you get involved with that um so while people are joining i think we should bring him to the stage ladies Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jeff Blunt Jr.

1:48I want to comment really quickly because I've been sitting backstage. I've known y 'all for a while. I would say y 'all because I live in the south of the United States. It's the south of the United States. And we say things funny down here, much like you do in the UK. But saying that you're quietly fermenting in the corner is an insane string of vocabulary. I have no idea why you even came. How does that even happen? And here's the thing, for the people who are watching this live stream, I do believe that they're making up their accents. I don't think it's real. I think as soon as I leave the room, it's just like they say things like Worcestershire and Leicestershire.

2:23I don't think they sound like the way they do. This is mental illness that was weaponized, Jeff. That's the way to think of it. Very, very poorly. I didn't say that. I'm going to be very clear. I did not say that. He does not endorse it. His thoughts are his own. The next 45 minutes, we're going to be doing some live cold calling. We're going to be using Nooks, so we know we're going to be having conversation left, right and center. Jeb, let's start with a quick question before we get into it. Why have we invited you here today? Tell me about your sales expertise. Why do you think you would be a great asset to the Nooks live cold calling show?

2:59I didn't know that I was being interviewed today, but I would put it this way. As a Nooks partner and somebody who uses Nooks every single day and the son of the guy who wrote a book called Fanatical Prospecting, I build business through the phone. Like I simply every single day pick up the phone and start dialing people. And this is the most effective way for me to build my business. I have a$998 ,000 pipeline right now. 78 % of that was built through the telephone. Um, the rest of that was, you know, it's maybe some inbound, uh, emails. Like there's just a mixed bag of the other, you know, what is it?

3:39What is it? 28 % or 22 % or something like that. Um, but most of my pipeline is through the phone. So as we go through today's, you know, session, what's going to be really interesting is that I got your script, Jack, you're, you sent me an email and I did upload all the CSV. I do have it in the thing. So I'm better than Zach. And that's just, but, uh, you know, I looked at the script. and it's just very different styles. And I'm really interested to see what works today, what creates conversations and what ultimately gets people into the pipeline and what actually gets people interested in what we're talking about.

4:14So we'll do some A-B testing today with scripts and how we approach cold calls. So I think I'm uniquely positioned as somebody who does this every single day, works at a company who trains thousands and thousands of sales orgs all over the world about how to pick up the phone and make things happen as rainmakers and sitting in a room with the other two best-looking people in cold calling. We can really make some waves here and try and show people what it takes. And ultimately, what I'd like to point out is that when people watch these shows or they watch me prospect or they get into these conversations around prospecting, there's almost this mythical idea that it's almost like a marathon runner.

4:52You can just run it. You're just so good at it. It doesn't even matter who you're calling. You can just sell ice to an Eskimo. And what I hope people get from this session that we have is that we are just as human as everybody else. And look, we're going to get rejected way more times than we're going to get a yes. And in fact, some of us, maybe mainly me, are going to get zero yeses because I don't even know what I'm talking about when I start calling, right? Like, we're going to figure this out along the way. But I think the truth in the cold calling is that it's just about consistency and doing the work.

5:23And eventually, the results will come. So if you see us fail, that's a success. I find that to be very, very successful. Oh, we're going to fail, Jack. We're going to fail hard. And we've tried to make it – we've tried to incorporate this UK versus US, cookie versus jammy dodger stuff. We're going to be calling business owners from New York because I've heard that New Yorkers are really, really rude. So I'm hoping Zach Thompson gets bollocked today. I think we should just get into it. I think we should start live cold calling. Jack, you're first. I know I know, mate, I was going to get there first.

5:55The misconception about New York is that New Yorkers are mean. People from Brooklyn, people from the Bronx, people from like, you know, from Long Island, they can be mean. Here's the deal. We're calling people who live in New York. They're probably not from New York. There's like nobody in New York is from New York. So if they're rude, they've completely adopted that personality. And I don't believe them. OK, well, we've got people in the audience. Let's know where you're calling from. Let's know how it's going. I'm going to make my first dial and I'm going to I'm ready for it Let's go Tell me that you can hear that I can hear it We're live Maybe a little sing song while we wait Maybe not Then it sounds cool When someone answers it's like Sorry I was in the middle of singing I'm actually partying through I'm just getting cold called by three people at the same time Wow Wow.

6:49I'm actually quite aroused by the thought of that. Oh, my God. The sales delivery brand is going to tank after this. Sorry. His thoughts are his own, guys.

7:03We're dialing. Connection rates are slightly lower in the US, we sometimes find. That's not John, is it? It is. Good morning, John. Bit of a weird one. we have never spoken before i guess can i fly through in 30 seconds why i've chosen to call you and then if it's not relevant we can leave it there go on amazing um so we're typically invited in by business owners who if they're honest with themselves they might be having some frustrations when it comes to the new business and growth side of things so it might be quantity and you want to bring let me let me let me stop you there so i'm not a business owner i'm not a business owner i'm I'm a board member for a number of agencies, but I live in the US.

7:49I'm based in the US and I focus on US agencies. Oh, interesting. I am a board of one called Armstrong B2B, which is UK-based, but my role is really US expansion and I focus on M &A. I do some growth stuff, but very high-level relationship stuff. I would say Armstrong have a really deep and good sales team. and they actually have a sales function, so they wouldn't need your help. Right, okay. So it sounds like there's a few different things you're involved in. I guess if someone really pushed you on it and there's one maybe area where maybe growth or the sales function isn't as strong as where you'd want it to be, what would that look like?

8:34It depends on the agency. So I work with different agencies. so some are B2B, some are more consumers, some lifestyle-y, some are media, some are digital. Honestly, the reason that they work with me is because of my relationships. I'm not really ever do kind of outbound stuff, you know, kind of emails and stuff like that. It's based on relationships and people that know me. Okay, so it actually sounds like even if one of your companies that you advise or work with came to you and said oh we're struggling with this the last thing you'd be doing is saying well let's start outbound because actually i've got all the connections and relationships where we can drive inbound kind of depends on i mean depends on the agency some of the some of some b2b agencies it can be outbound can be useful but um it all depends okay i don't suppose you can think of an example where you think it would be useful and not not at the moment i'm only really working with two or three at the moment okay okay okay that's interesting how would i so i'm going to push my luck can i ask you one last question before i let you go yes nice yeah how would i stay on your radar so if i wanted to like without sending you a smiley face on linkedin every couple of days and saying hey it's just me checking in how would i stay on your radar so that if something was to come up where you think it'd be worth having a conversation i would be the the guy you thought of straight away just check in from time to time what what's your name sorry and what's the company my name's jack i'm calling from a company called we have a meeting we have a meeting good name thanks um yeah yeah uh yeah just like connect with me on linkedin okay amazing well i'll i'll stay in touch with you we'll connect and i'll call you from time to time but it sounds like you're in a great position and I wish you all the best for the future all right thanks Jack take care bye bye bye what a lovely lovely oh what a waste of time Jack what a lovely British man that was oh god I'm so tired I've just been talking to qualified prospects all day without any wait time how have you been doing it because I've been cold calling people on my mobile and I reckon I've spoke to one person no no no stop that right now and use nooks.ai why what what what does nooks do it finds me the right people to call and it calls them and it connects with them over and over and over again so you're saying it's nooks.ai and i can just be speaking to qualified decision makers all the time no other better connection right wow nooks.ai you got lucky then to speak to the british guy i know yeah mate i i don't worry i had the i had the english man in new york filter on i had the morrissey filter on i was like oh no the rest of these are gonna be really bad for me i'll be honest with you i was i was trying to open his linkedin profile all the way through i've got this new mac i don't know how to use any of the buttons so i didn't really know um what he did but we kind of got in there um thoughts feelings same i'll give you shall give you some bits that i like yeah please give me some excuse yeah give me some bits you like and also give me some bits you don't like um before going in for objection handling or even doing like the classic blanket except you did a sounds like statement i think it worked really nicely but you did it a few times okay so it sounds like this yeah you could hear him like either laughing or going, yeah.

12:10And then the, if someone really pushed you on it, worked really well. And then you did a nice cold read at one point where you did like a false statement. Can't remember the exact wording of it, but you said, so it sounds like if someone was to do, oh, it sounds like if someone was like, we need new clients, you would say, well, don't worry about doing outbound ever because I've got all the relationships. And he said, no, that's like, it would totally depend on the situation. So I thought it was really nice. much better than just what why what why what why because he'd already give you like relationships really important to me and we're all good like it's a much smoother route in so that would be my uh my bits to to big you up and we're seeing each other in person tomorrow because we're doing an interview with one of the world's biggest chef we can't say who um so that you've really started the the the relationship but it rhymes with morgan pamsey uh jeb oh yes organ pamsey yeah you know yeah jeb we've got people listening in what what was your thoughts on that because you're you're a cold calling connoisseur i was uh i was too busy giving us likes and thumbs ups on the uh yeah i mean look great conversation like i don't want to like knock the conversation.

13:31It was really nice. You guys, you did some discovery, you learned about his business. I think it was like, he, you know, it doesn't turn that person off from sales conversation in the future, um, from other people, uh, and yourself. So I think there was like a good like rapport that you were able to build there. Uh, my, just my only critique was like about five minutes into that call. I was like, could we hang up the phone? Like he's not, like we're not moving. Like we're not getting him into a meeting. He's not turning into a sales conversation. We've qualified essentially that he doesn't have an outbound B2B motion that he's interested in.

14:06And so like, it was a really nice conversation, but in the, like, we're having a fun time here. So in the context of this conversation, this, this was not bad, but if I'm like, if I've got 35 minutes to dial, like if I'm looking at my sales day and I can only get a few dials in that day, if I have that conversation that eats up so many good conversations, like the opportunity cost of that conversation is, you know, not terribly high, but it does, you know, at some point I would have said, you know what, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. I'll follow up with you. Um, and I'll let you get back to your day.

14:37Have a wonderful day. Like that, that would have just been my, my motion on it. I'll give you something else. So something happened to me today in terms of like compounding and like the long-term effect. And this is where I think a lot of salespeople don't think, I think you are right. And I think it would be, this is bad advice as well but somebody that i spoke to a few years ago two and a half years ago connected with on linkedin then they view my profile then i sent them a follow-up message saying i saw you view my profile were you trying to see my eyes were too close together that was in 2024 i got a reply today saying can we book some time yeah and that is two years later so so you are right if we're looking for those immediate things like yeah but then like obviously like if you're posting content If you're having conversations, putting them in your network, blah, blah, blah.

15:22It's the long game. Anyway, I think we should do a Jeb Blount sandwich. And I'm going to send you to the stage next. Okay, cool. Jeb, you're ready to dial. All right, you ready? I'm calling from We Have a Meeting, by the way. So this is not sales gravy. We're doing a parallel dialer. Let's see what happens.

15:50I did get nervous then that no one was going to pick up. Did you? We're going to have to be quiet when it connects.

15:59Because you don't want a headset. So just you don't know how to watch your mouth sometimes.

16:06I'm going to go. And I am tracking my dials, by the way. Nice. Medical prospecting call tracking sheet. You can get these. Loads of people in the audience. Let us know where you're calling from. Let us know where you're calling from. Hey, David, this is Jeb Glenn over at We Have a Meeting. How are you, sir? I'm so sorry. What is this in reference to? My name is Jeb Glenn. I'm over at We Have a Meeting. The reason I'm giving you a call is to set up a conversation because I help organizations like yours with B2B outreach just like this. Oh,

16:39the first rejection, Jeb. How does it feel? I don't like that. Have another go Have another go Your tone is lovely You sound so strong Like a young Jeb Blunt Like a young Luther Vandross Young Porton Pamsie Porton Pamsie That's who we're interviewing tomorrow Oh my god He's my favourite Is he? Nothing Nobody's answering this phone Hey Todd, this is Jeb Blunt over at Sales Gravy How are you? What? I don't think it was a real answer I think it was one of those It answered and hung up You went into real muscle memory there Straight from Wham to Sales Gravy Keep going, you're going to get a conversation You always heard that voice, Jeb It's an AI assistant What, your voice?

17:45Where did you get your voice? It's a beautiful voice. Unfortunately, the person you're calling cannot take you. Okay. That's not helpful. What dialer are you on? One, two, three, four, five? I'm on the two. Okay. You play it safe, don't you? Is it professional? It just starts rolling. You get too many conversations, you start freaking out. he's on his first couple of k's on his warm tempo run yeah when he gets past his first couple of k's he gets to his tempo it's crazy how it's just rolling it doesn't even it's amazing it's ridiculous with like AI the AI virtual assistants I prefer the power dialer for that specific reason that I can just hey Jeremiah this is Jeb Blunt jr over at we have a meeting how are you sir okay thanks how are you i'm doing fantastic i am reaching out to you because i help organizations uh 5x their pipeline through business development functions just like this and i thought it would be worth setting up a conversation with you or somebody on your team who heads up your business development for your marketing firm would you have time next tuesday at two no i've got this taken care of for now um oh beautiful so yeah Yeah, that's exactly why I called.

19:09I mean, most organizations have some function like this. What are you currently doing? And that way I can put it in my notes. And that way, if I do reach out, I have more relevant messaging. And at least if there's something interesting there, we can have a conversation with them. Well, we have a CRM platform and we have outbound lead gen. It's a scale we're comfortable with. Okay, cool. Yeah. How many folks do you have in your sales team, by the way? Two. Perfect. Well, look, Jeremiah, I really appreciate your time. I will reach out. My name is Jeb Blunt. I'm over at We Have a Meeting. Look out for me on LinkedIn.

19:42But otherwise, have a wonderful day, sir, and I really appreciate your time. Sorry. Thanks a lot. Bye.

19:50Wow. That's what you mean when you're in and out. You've winded and dined him. That's quick. Yeah, in and out. And here's the thing that we got from that. He has a sales team of two. Is he an ICP? Now, for sales gravy, this is the challenge that we're having on this call, right? my commentary on this would be like, is he my ICP? Not really. Like the first sales group university, one of our like very affordable platforms that I sell for like two or$3 ,000 at a pop. Like I, that's a two cycle sales close. Yes. That's an ICP, but for like a$25 ,000 contract or a$60 ,000 contract, he's probably not in there.

20:23So like he said, he's gotten taken care of. He's got a CRM and like two salespeople who are doing this. Great. No, he doesn't have it taken care of. So now I know that. And then he said, he's comfortable with the scale. No, he's not. he's just on a sales call was the sales guy. And then he mentioned that he's got two salespeople, which means he's in a very like small market. He's probably in between like a million and like 3 million at max. So his budgets are really small. So I learned all of that in about 15 seconds. Like that's what I'm getting to with cold calls. Wow. You know, you know, the, so I would, this is where we'd like have contrarian views of i would never say like go in for the meeting straight away what's the success rate of people just go yeah all right bang some time in the calendar and then the through line to attending or is it more of it's a guise to just get a conversation um you know typically in like these kinds of call blocks i'm not asking for a meeting like i'm only doing that because that was kind of the the mission for for this session but i would actually say like uh hey jack this is this is jen blen jr over we have a meeting the reason i'm calling is to ask you a quick question because I help teams 5x their pipeline in 90 days through our business development services.

21:33So the framework that we use is just like identify myself, grab their attention by saying their name, identify myself where I'm calling from. And then the reason for my call is to be, I'm like going to be very transparent about that. Like I'm trying to set a conversation with you or I'm trying to ask a question. And then my because is more of like that value statement of the reason for the call or like the kind of the meat of the reason you would listen to me. The reason we do that is that people are trying to answer like really quick questions about when, you know, when you pick up the, when they pick up the phone, who are you, why are you calling me?

22:08Like, those are the first two questions that I'm trying to answer within five seconds of them picking up the phone so that their brain can actually listen to me when I get to the because statement. The psychology behind that is, you know, it's armchair stuff. I mean, you guys have a different version you had a great conversation there's many ways to skin a cat but for me and my like my personality if i go for like that authentic um hey like i'm just calling is this a sales call do you want to hang up for me like it just does not work for my style i sound i actually sound more salesy doing that than i do being just completely wow wow jeb blunt jr there you go and that's a hot take guys zach thompson you're in the chair man okay Lovely.

22:51Loads of people watching. Let's know what you think. Let's know what you think of Jet Blunt's hair. Let's know what you like. Tell me what you think about my take. I mean, it's something we teach all the time, so I'd love to hear the perspectives on it, so put it in the comments. I'd like to see the conversation. Jeremy. Hello, that's not Nick, is it? It is, yeah. Oh, Nick, you're going to hate me. It's 20 plus 4 and this is a sales course. I don't know if that makes you want to have me tracked down and shot or let me every 30 seconds before you decide it's totally up to you what you're selling can i fly through it very quick if it's not for you i'll never bother you again does that sound fair yeah go on yeah so i normally get brought in by frustrated sales directors who are a little bit frustrated when it comes to the new business side of things so there's a feeling that perhaps there's not enough new business meetings in the diary as a result the pipeline's looking a bit bleak well they are meeting people but they're just not sorry nick go on you no we're fine thanks mate no we're fine thank you okay you might not can i ask you one last question before i let you go go on yeah when you say you're fine what do you mean exactly just so i can make a note we're fine with our new business so we get in and the activity guys so yeah i don't we don't need any help with that thank you fair enough okay so it sounds like even if i did bring you something be more hassle than it was worth yeah no worries mate all right cheers nick how did y 'all get the British people I don't know it's not fixed do you want to have another stab Zach I'm on a British list oh yeah I didn't do the I was like time does not make any sense for New York you really are something aren't you I said that to you before and you were like nodding along I thought it was a joke at my expense Can I do one more?

24:40Yeah, man. Do one more.

24:44And then you're going to get told off by someone in New York. Or I'm going to get told off by someone in England. Hello, is that Andrew? Yes, speaking. Hello, Andrew. You're probably going to hate me for this, but honesty is the best policy. It's actually a sales call, so I don't know if that makes you want to have me track down and shot. It won't make me hate you. it will just the clocks tick into i know what well i don't need to buy anything but you never know all right well i'll fly through it if it's not for you i'll leave you alone yeah yeah okay so i normally get brought in by sales directors who are a little bit frustrated when it comes to the new business side of things so there's perhaps a feeling that there's not enough new opportunities in the pipeline or they are meeting people but they're just not the right seniority perhaps they don't have the right problems and as a result they're in these never-ending deal cycles but you might you're looking to what you're looking to sell me i'm looking for service or whatever yeah so it's more of a service so i i basically get brought in by businesses who have those problems to take those away and fill the diary with relevant meetings yeah not interested i mean you're probably the third person that's wrong in the last two weeks and i have to admit i've given time to them to talk to them and um the previous two are very much ai sort of biased towards getting information and then like you know saving me having someone doing it spending all their time doing it sort of thing and i've got one recruiting a bdm until my bdm's in place i won't know whether i need any further support and we're already we're already at full capacity with what we can deliver and support as a company okay and i'm a great believer and you only grow when you can sustain it but maintain and sustain it so okay can i ask you this might sound like the stupidest question but i'd be silly to not ask it you said you're at full capacity but you're hiring a bdm is that full does that mean to increase the opportunity then i can recruit and invest in support staff.

26:50Oh, I see. So it's a BDM. Right. Okay. Okay. So if I'd rang you back when you had that BDM in place, would this be a relevant conversation then? Possibly, because then I would have assessed what skills my BDM's got. And then if your service, which I'm presuming I've got to pay for a month or a couple of grand or something, is whether it's worth an additional tool that he will help him. Or he's already got the capability to produce more opportunities than we can cope with. Okay, that makes sense. But obviously it's too early to have that conversation because where you are currently, you don't have a problem until he's in in terms of that extra pipeline.

27:31Yeah. Okay. I've called, I've got to take, I've been missing this person for literally ages. Yeah, of course, I'll let you crack on. When would be best to call you back? a couple of months all right no problem at all cheers and take care bye

27:48i love the contradiction call out i think it's so talk us through that zach why it was why it was important to call out that contradiction because i mean just because maybe maybe it doesn't make sense but it did make sense at the end you know the whole like we're at full capacity we wouldn't need it but i'm hiring a bdm sometimes those things don't yeah i don't and then perhaps it would have been a case of those things that make sense but i do believe that it's a it's a sitter rather than a hunter that he's hired yeah jeb what's your feelings i mean i liked it i mean i thought you did great qualifying i like you i learned so much about his business in that conversation it is definitely not right now like i even look at the very beginning of the conversation it was not a right now but um i like the calling out of the contradiction i do this a lot with objection turnaround.

28:37So if you noticed in the last call, the guy was like, no, we're, we're, we've got this taken care of. And I said something like, that's awesome. Beautiful. That's exactly why I called most people already have that in place. You know, in most cases, you're calling their bluff. I mean, if he was at capacity, he wouldn't be hiring somebody like this, just not the way that that really works. However, you know, it's dangerous if you not necessarily what, what Zach did, but like, if you're listening to this and you're trying to take that tactic, You can end up in arguments with people if you call out contradictions like that.

29:08Arguing somebody on a sales call is never going to end up in, you know, typically a closed one in most situations. The other thing is like, I think he was confused about why you were calling. I think that he assumed that you were talking about like a BDR platform or some kind of tool and not a service. One thing that I know that WAM does, which I want to highlight here, is training for sales teams as well. Like I know that Jack and Zach have a lot of reach into keynote speaking and training different sales teams. You know, he's hiring somebody, maybe pivoting into that conversation. How are you planning on training and onboarding this person?

29:44What does ongoing support look for? Now, this might be a coaching conversation. So, again, a business like that that's hiring one person, like, you know, I don't know what your coaching fees are, but coaching can be quite onerous. Extortionate. Yeah. So expensive. Too expensive. Yeah. Like no one can afford us. But like, you know, it can be quite onerous. So, I mean, I think you had a lot of good conversation in there. The one thing that I would point out, and I'm just going back to this thing, this fanatical prospecting and like how my style of doing it is if you notice the first like two minutes of that conversation was him like, yeah, I'll take the call.

30:14What are you calling me about? And then you were kind of like doing your script of how you guys go about your process. And he was just waiting for that. Like, what are you calling me about? And why, well, like, who are you and why am I having this conversation? So kind of getting to that faster, I think would have smoothed that conversation out a little bit a little bit more i'm gonna i'm gonna try your approach now jeb i'm gonna mix it up so i say my name's jack frimson calling from we have a meeting uh i'm just calling to get some time and you what do i say yeah so the framework is really simple so i'll do it for the video so that you get the whole thing and everyone listening does it's called we call it the five-step framework you can get this in the book it's like 70 bucks on amazon it's like worth the price of admission um it is uh get their attention the easiest way to grab some attention to save their name then you identify yourself and who you're calling from.

31:01It's just like the way that we do this. And then the reason for my call. So the reason is not my because. The reason for my call is to either set up an appointment with you, have a conversation, ask you a question, or to make a sale if it's like a one call close. So in this scenario, it might just be, hey, I'm looking to set a conversation with you. So, hey, Jack, it's Jeff Blunt over at We Have a Meeting. The reason for my call is to set up a conversation with you because. And then I use the because as a psychological tool to open up. I won't get into it, but like it opens up their, you know, their willingness to listen.