Cadillac, steak knives, coffee, cold
Every inbound lead goes into one of four piles: Cadillac, steak knives, coffee, cold. A field note on why Blake borrows the Glengarry Glen Ross lexicon for its tier system, which pile quietly kills the most reps, and the discipline it takes to call a lead cold early and walk away without flinching. Plus why tier names beat tier numbers, what separates coffee from a pitch deck, and why calling a lead cold is the highest-leverage thing a rep does all week.
Someone forwards me a sales lead. Before I read a word, I already know one thing: it belongs in exactly one of four piles.
Cadillac. The account everyone wants. Big number, obvious fit, named buying committee, a real reason to move now. A rep who wins a Cadillac deal gets to drive one home.
Steak knives. Second-place prize. The deal will close, probably, but it will not fund your year. It is real revenue, not a Cadillac, and if you treat it like a Cadillac you will blow both quarter and sanity trying to make it something it was never going to be.
Coffee. It belongs to the closers. Meaning: it is an early conversation with someone who has not yet earned a full pitch. Your job is to qualify, not to flash a deck. Most reps skip straight to the deck and wonder why coffee never becomes a Cadillac.
Cold. Walk away. The lead is not going to close. Not by you, not now, maybe not ever. Naming that is a favor to your pipeline and to yourself.
We built Blake to answer one question per inbound lead: which pile. Then it writes down the reason. You can disagree, override, retier. You cannot, however, pretend the question was not asked.
The tier that kills most reps is steak knives
Cadillac is easy. You know a Cadillac when you see it. You stop everything. You get executive air cover. You write a custom proposal. You drive the deal.
Cold is hard only because of pride. Admitting a lead is cold sounds like quitting. It is not. It is the single highest-leverage act a rep performs in a week. Every minute you spend on a cold lead is a minute you stole from a Cadillac that was waiting for your call.
Coffee is ambiguous by design. A new contact with a working email address is neither a Cadillac nor a Cold. You sit down and find out.
Steak knives is where reps go to die. It feels like the deal might just pop. You keep adding touchpoints. You custom-build a demo. You run a friends-and-family discount. At the end of the quarter you have a steak knives deal closed for a Cadillac-level amount of effort, and you tell yourself it was worth it.
It rarely was.
The discipline Blake tries to enforce is simple: call the tier early, commit to it, and spend accordingly. A steak knives deal deserves a steak knives motion. A Cadillac deserves the works. Nobody gets coffee until they have walked through the door.
Why not Tier 1, 2, 3, 4
People ask why we use the names.
The names make you feel something. That is the point. "Tier 1 / Tier 2 / Tier 3 / Tier 4" is the CRM way, and the CRM way is why your reps do not update the CRM. They want to be told what is worth fighting for and what is not, in language that carries stakes.
The names are also funnier. That is not nothing. A rep who laughs a little while marking a deal Cold is a rep who actually marks the deal Cold, which is the whole game.
What Blake gives you
Forward a lead. You get a tier, a reason, and the next action. The tier is the opinion. The reason is the audit trail. The next action is what closes.
Always be closing, sure. But close the right ones.