Prospect ghosting you? Turn the tables on them!

You're working with a prospect who appears to be interested in your product – but just when you thought things were going to close, they ghost you. Emails are not responded to. Calls go to voicemail. You’re left wondering …what happened?

Quite simply, your customer hit a bump on their buying journey. It might be an external factor completely out of your control like a budget reduction or a change in leadership – or the real reason may just be that they were never really that interested.

When someone does something for you, there is a natural inclination to feel the need to do something for them. This is the law of reciprocity that we spoke of in last week’s blog. But the law of reciprocity can be a double-edged sword. In the selling process, you invest time into meeting prep, doing a demo, preparing a quote… and your prospect, at some level, will feel an obligation to you. If they are ready to buy, this will support the buying process. But if they're not, it puts them in the uncomfortable position of needing to let you down. So, what do they do? They take the path of least resistance and simply avoid you!

In situations like this, it’s difficult to know how much time to invest in following up before you start to feel like a pest.

Here’s a tip. After you've tried a few times to reach this prospect, try reversing the tables. Send one last email, explaining that after repeated attempts to reach them, you have to assume that something has changed – and accordingly, you're going to close their file. This does one of two things:

1. If the customer is really a 'no', it lets them off the hook – and you can close the file and stop wasting your time.

2. On the other hand, if the customer is sitting on the fence, this often spurs them into action.

That’s actually another natural human law from the same Cialdini book: the law of scarcity. It's that fear of missing out - we naturally want something more when there is a chance we may not be able to get it.

So, next time you find yourself with a prospect ghosting you, try this technique and see what happens! I’ve personally had great success with it!