Ghosting, it’s a big deal not just at Halloween. We saw Jodie’s frustration at being ghosted by her prospect. But why has it happened? Let’s wind back the clock.

Two months ago, Jodie started talking to her prospect. She identified a need, qualified it as best she could and engaged her pre-sales. They put in the work, built a proposal, the customer seemed keen. They asked her to email the proposals with pricing and said they’d review and get back to her. They wanted to make a decision this month. It all seemed pretty straightforward. What had she missed?  

We’ll dig into root causes for the prospect’s silence through the week but one simple thing Jodie missed was setting ‘micro commitments’. At the end of every call she could have set a mutual commitment – what she would do next, what the prospect would do next and what they would do next together – all with timescales. Ideally, she would have set up a call to walk him through the proposals before emailing them over. That way she could have gauged his reaction and made sure he focused on the value. She could have revalidated her understanding of the decision process and sign off process to form the next set of micro commitments.

Micro commitments are a solid way to make sure that every contact point has a clear mutual next step which drives shared communication and accountability. Are you forming micro commitments every conversation?

In the next part, we’ll figure out what else Jodie could have done to avoid her current ghostly dilemma.

Three days later and Jodie is still waiting for a reply from her prospect. Not a word. She’s in her 1:1 with her manager. She’s two days away from missing target.

“What do you think is going on?”, her manager, Ash, asks gently.

Jodie shrugs. “I don’t know. I know they’re busy but I really thought he’d have made a decision by now”.

“Is it his decision to make?”, Ash probes. “Does he have final sign off?”

“Well, he told me it was his decision”, Jodie replies. “But I think he has to get the budget signed off by his boss”.

“I doubt that your contact would have that level of sign off or be able to make the decision alone. Do you remember we talked about being multi-threaded to engage both the recommenders and those that will decide and sign off?”

“Yes, but he said I should just go through him as he was leading on it”.

“So has anyone met the CIO?”, Ash asks, thinking he probably should have, at least if it was a large enough opportunity.

“He came to one of the workshop sessions we ran but didn’t say much”. Jodie’s voice is a little lighter.

“So, do you think you could get hold of him – find out what’s happening?”

“Maybe. I’ve got his email address and he did connect on LinkedIn. But I don’t want to upset my contact”.

 Jodie and her manager have just pinpointed something else Jodie could have done to avoid this ‘radio silence’ she’s now experiencing. She’s entirely reliant on a single contact, one who isn’t ultimately signing off.

To avoid this, she could have built and maintained stronger relationships with a wider base, and multi-threaded her account team too – connecting Ash with the CIO and her pre-sales with key technical recommenders. Then you’ve always got other contacts to speak to – especially when you’re setting micro commitments with each along the way.

Are you insuring yourself against being ghosted by a single contact? Check your current deals – could you benefit from developing a stronger network of contacts?

Let’s drop back in on Jodie and Ash. They’re still discussing the opportunity.

They’ve got a plan to contact the CIO but Ash is curious about the apparent drop in urgency.

“You said that they were going to make a decision this month. Why this month?”

“He said their current contract runs out at the end of January so they need to make a decision this month so they have time to migrate.”

“Hmm”, replies Ash, gently. He’s seen this before. He realises he could have better coached his young team members like Jodie on understanding urgency. “It sounds like there’s a timeline but actually not a definite consequence to the end of this month – either a consequence if they do make a decision or a consequence if they don’t. There’s nothing really to stop it slipping a few weeks is there?”

Jodie looks down at her hands. He’s right but she had really trusted her contact.

“I guess not but if they want to change suppliers they do need to get moving quickly”.

“True, but I doubt their existing supplier would pull the plug on them. You know how many rolling contracts there are out there. Perhaps this isn’t quite as urgent to your prospect as you thought it was…”

And so Jodie and Ash have highlighted another cause for ‘ghosting’. The prospect may have intended a timeline but it wasn’t a hard deadline. Everyone is busy and perhaps he’s got other more urgent priorities, perhaps he’s passed it up to the CIO and hasn’t had a response yet. The CIO is busy with other things, this can wait for now. The contact won’t want to admit to Jodie it’s not in his control and he’s got nothing else to tell her. Maybe he even intends to email her back, though he would probably just say ‘leave it with me’, but it falls off his long to-do list each day. Whatever the reason, he doesn’t need anything from Jodie right now and he doesn’t have anything he wants to share. Because Jodie doesn’t hold anything he needs, and she hasn’t created a clear ‘next step together’ micro commitment, there’s no pressing reason for him to respond.

Avoid the time slip trap! Do you have a slipping opportunity? Test the urgency by asking about the consequences of action or non-action. Make sure deadlines and timescales are real and compelling. If not, you’ve more work to do to create compelling urgency and value, and meantime perhaps be realistic in your forecasting.

Month end has passed. Jodie’s missed target. She’s not far off but she’s disappointed. She realises she was over optimistic about closing her prospect this month.

She reflects on what she’s learnt over the last week.

1. The importance of microcommitments. If she’d had clear and timed ‘next steps together’, she would have had a better early warning system and been able to hold her prospect more accountable for responding.

2.  She knows now there’s not just ‘one right guy’. She needs more and higher contacts. She missed a trick by not following up direct with the CIO after the workshop and connecting him with Ash to build a senior engagement.

3. Taking the customer’s timescale preference at face value has been costly. She recognises now that she should have dug deeper into the drivers and consequences of the timescales. Double-checked her understanding with the CIO. Looked for reasons for deadlines to slip instead of optimistically accepting them.

 She knows, too, that her contact isn’t a Champion. A Champion wouldn’t have left her in the dark.

It’s a new month. Time to put her new learning into play for the rest of the quarter. She sets aside 30 minutes and works through the pipeline, asking herself the tough questions. She spots risks in her opportunities and starts to build a stronger plan to close. She’s determined to make up the shortfall and she has enough in her pipeline if she can increase her win rate. It’s time to act!

As she clicks away from her CRM, an email pops up. It’s from her contact.

With a mix of hope and trepidation, she opens it.

‘Jodie, sorry for the delay in getting back to you. We’ve been asked by the business to prioritise some other projects and cut back on spend between now and year end. We’re still keen to discuss – can we pick up again in January?’

At least he’s back in contact – but Jodie’s a little wiser now. She’s going to re-qualify and manage the opportunity differently now. She’s not going to end up back here again.  How about you?