There are few things as humbling in sales as being ghosted.
You have what you think is a cracking meeting. There’s nodding. Sensible questions. Someone asks for a proposal.
You go away, put in the work and send it. And then nothing. So you send that mournful email: “Just following up on the proposal I sent you.” Silence.
Eventually you start wondering whether the prospect has died, emigrated, or entered witness protection. Of course, there are dozens of possible reasons. Priorities change, budgets disappear, people lose momentum.
But I think there’s another possibility we don’t examine enough. Perhaps the ghosting didn’t start after the proposal. Perhaps it started before we even wrote it. We tend to assume that once a prospect has agreed to the next step, we’re progressing. Discovery call, progress. Demo, progress. Proposal, pfft, serious progress.
Except buyers can move through our sales process without ever moving through their decision process. That’s when the ghosting starts to make sense. We heard a request for a proposal as intent. They may have meant “send me some information.” Or “I need something to show my boss,” or “I’m not sure how to end this meeting.”
When I write a proposal, I want most human decisions made already. Not the final business ones, but things like if the problem is important. Yes, I want to do something about it. Yes, I believe you understand it, and yes, your approach makes sense. If those decisions aren’t made, the proposal is being asked to do too much. It’s being asked to sell for you.
So how do you stop people ghosting you? I don’t think you can eliminate it.
Humans remain human. But I do think we can reduce it by asking a different question. Most of us ask: “What’s the next step in my sales process?” A better question might be: “What decision does the buyer need to make next?” Those two questions can lead to very different conversations. Before offering to send a proposal, we might ask: “If the proposal reflects everything we’ve discussed, what happens next?” Or “Is there anything you’re still uncertain about before I put something formal together?”—that’s not a closing technique. I’m increasingly suspicious of those. It’s simply an attempt to find out where the buyer actually is.
And you may hear things you don’t want to hear. We’re still looking. I need to convince my business partner. We’re probably not doing anything until next year.
Wonderful!
That’s information! It’s far more useful than spending half a day producing a proposal and three weeks wondering why no one replies.
I think one reason selling becomes harder than it needs to be is that we fall in love with our process. Lead, discovery, demo, proposal, negotiation, close. Lovely and tidy. The buyer isn’t experiencing anything nearly so tidy.
They’re figuring out if they can trust you, if the issue is worth fixing, if your solution will be good, if their boss will say yes, or if waiting six more months might just be easier.
That’s the process we should be paying attention to. Because selling isn’t really pulling someone through stages in a CRM. It’s helping another human being make a sequence of decisions with enough clarity and confidence to continue.
Next time someone disappears after a proposal, by all means send a follow-up. But ask yourself one more question: “What decision didn’t we make before I sent that proposal?”
The answer to that may tell you more than another “just checking in” ever will.
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