Tired of getting ghosted in sales? 👻

You’re not alone.

Pete Solway
03-10-2025 1 minute read

The silence usually creeps in right after the proposal lands. Suddenly, the prospect who was “keen” vanishes into thin air.

You’re left wondering…
• Should I chase?
• Should I park the deal?
• Are we still on, or am I being ghosted?

Here’s the 3 steps I teach founders and sales teams to prevent that sinking feeling:

1️⃣ Prevent ghosting by always locking in a next meeting with agreed next steps. After all who wants to play calendar ping pong for the next steps.

But what if you end up in a situation where the next meeting hasn’t been booked, and they’re ghosting you?

NOTE: By ghosting I’m assuming you’ve reached out via at least 3 touchpoints across email, phone, or LinkedIn, and there is still crickets.

2️⃣ 💡 I use a powerful email first coined by the late Mark McInnes, one of the best in the game, and it consistently gets higher response rates than anything else I've seen. See context in the Screenshot below.

But essentially, here’s the formula:

Subject: Slow, Go, or No
"Hey [Name],
I just gave you a call but missed you.

I’m following up to confirm if you are a:
Slow = Yes, still interested, but we need more time
Go = Thanks for the follow up, let’s get going
No = Thanks, but it’s not a fit for us."

Why it works:
Because it makes it easy for your busy prospect to give you a 1 word response + the subject line is kind of out there.

3️⃣ If no response to that outreach after a couple of day's, it's time for the break up email.

NOTE: When you do this, genuinely take it out of your pipeline and stop your follow up. You've got more engaged opportunities to be pursuing.

"Hey (name),
I’ve reached out multiple times and not heard back from you.

I’m going to assume we’re not proceeding?

From here, I’ll hold off the follow up from here and leave it with you to reach out if it makes sense to connect down the line.

All the best"