Our rule
Every number on this site has a source, a date and a sample size, and we say what kind of evidence it is. Where something is our experience rather than a study, we call it that. A made-up or stretched number would undo the whole point of a lab.
- Peer-reviewed. Published research reviewed by other scientists. The strongest evidence, though often from outside sales.
- Industry survey. Large surveys by analyst firms and research groups. Good for how the market behaves; what people report, not what they do.
- Vendor data. Data from companies that sell sales tools, about their own customers. Useful direction, not independent proof.
- Prediction. A forecast, not a measurement. We say so every time we use one.
- Field-tested. What has worked on real calls and in coaching. Honest experience, labeled as experience.
The findings we lean on most
Every claim, graded
23 claims we make across the site, the Playbook and the manifesto, with the evidence behind each. 9 rest on peer-reviewed research.
| Topic | What we say, and the number behind it | Evidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Practice mode | Saying something out loud makes it stick better than reading it silently. 76% vs 60% of words recognized later (aloud vs silent). | Peer-reviewed | MacLeod et al. (2010), The production effect, J. Exp. Psych.: Learning, Memory, and Cognition |
| Practice mode | Mentally rehearsing a task improves how you perform it. Small but significant effect across 37 studies (1995 to 2018). | Peer-reviewed | Toth et al. (2020), Psychology of Sport and Exercise |
| Mindset | Call the nerves excitement instead of trying to calm down. 80% vs 53% accuracy (excited vs anxious); math scores 8% higher. | Peer-reviewed | Brooks (2014), Get Excited, J. Exp. Psych.: General |
| Mindset | Write the worry down before a high-stakes moment. Anxious students who wrote first averaged B+ vs B- (Science, 2011). | Peer-reviewed | Ramirez and Beilock (2011), Science |
| Mindset | Decide in advance: “if it's 9:00, then I dial.” Medium-to-large effect (d = 0.65) across 94 studies, 8,000+ people. | Peer-reviewed | Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006), meta-analysis |
| Mindset | One hang-up weighs more than one good call. Bad events outweigh good ones of the same size across many areas. | Peer-reviewed | Baumeister et al. (2001), Bad Is Stronger Than Good |
| The call | Give a real reason for calling. 60% yes with no reason, 93% with an empty one, 94% with a real one. Only partly replicated since. | Peer-reviewed | Langer, Blank and Chanowitz (1978) |
| The call | “But you are free to say no” helps, a little. Raised compliance on average across 52 experiments; best-designed studies found no clear effect. | Peer-reviewed | Fillon et al. (2023), Meta-Psychology |
| The call | Open warm, give your reason, never hand them the exit. “How've you been?” 6.6x; stating a reason 2.1x; “bad time?” 40% less likely to book. | Vendor data | Gong, cold call statistics |
| The call | A good cold call is a conversation, not a pitch. Successful calls run about 2x longer; reps talk about 55% of the time. | Vendor data | Gong, cold call statistics |
| The call | Inbound leads go cold fast. Responding within an hour made firms nearly 7x as likely to qualify the lead. | Peer-reviewed | Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington (2011), Harvard Business Review |
| The phone | The phone still reaches people. 1.55 calls to reach a prospect, down from 2.9; average success 2.7% vs 11.3% for a trained team. | Vendor data | Cognism, Cold Calling Report 2026 |
| The phone | Calls produce far more live conversations than cold email produces replies. About 57 conversations per 1,000 dials vs 4.5 replies per 1,000 emails. | Vendor data | Belkins, 2025 benchmarks (calls and email) |
| Teams | SDR teams are struggling to hit their numbers. 60% of SDRs at quota, the lowest on record; 3.0-month ramp; 1.9-year tenure. | Industry survey | The Bridge Group, 2025 SDR Metrics Report (351 companies) |
| Teams | Reps don't get enough practice. 47% of Gen Z reps don't get enough roleplay before customer calls; sellers sell 40% of the week. | Industry survey | Salesforce, State of Sales 2026 (4,050 sellers) |
| Teams | Fewer reps are doing proper cold outreach. 48% of sellers say they lack the bandwidth for it. | Industry survey | Salesforce, State of Sales 2026 |
| AI | Buyers still want a person to check what AI tells them. 69% of B2B buyers validate AI-generated insights with a sales rep. | Industry survey | Gartner (May 2026), survey of 645 buyers |
| AI | Human interaction will matter more, not less. 75% of B2B buyers will prefer human interaction over AI by 2030. | Prediction | Gartner (Aug 2025) |
| AI | More AI agents won't automatically mean more output. Agents will outnumber sellers 10 to 1 by 2028; under 40% of sellers will say they helped. | Prediction | Gartner (Nov 2025) |
| AI | AI takes a real share of the prep work. Sellers expect AI agents to cut research time 34% and email drafting 36%. | Industry survey | Salesforce, State of Sales 2026 |
| The call | Teaching a buyer something new beats asking generic questions. Challenger reps were 54% of star performers in complex sales, vs about 7% for relationship builders. | Industry survey | CEB/Gartner, The Challenger Sale research (6,000+ reps) |
| The call | The five-part call: open, reason, problem, qualify, ask, then one question after the yes. The structure is field-tested. Parts of it are backed by the Gong and Langer findings above. | Field-tested | Greg Goldberg, 16 years on the phone |
| Objections | What each objection usually means, and the response to try. Field-tested lines from real calls and coaching, not from a study. Adapt them to your words. | Field-tested | Greg Goldberg, 16 years on the phone |
Our own numbers, coming
Practice mode counts each rep anonymously: which objection was practiced and, on the homepage, rough ranges for talk time, pace and filler words. It never records what anyone says. In a few months that becomes data nobody else has: which objections reps practice most, and how a fifth rep compares with a first. It will be published here, every quarter.
Try it
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