How To Avoid Getting Ghosted By Your Prospects

Article originally published at https://www.startuphypeman.com/articles/2020/7/13/how-to-avoid-getting-ghosted-by-your-prospects.

You had a good Discovery call.

You had a good Demo call.

You even told them, “Hey as you make your decision, keep me updated. Even if the update is ‘no update’, or even if the answer is no, it’s really helpful to know what’s happening.’”

And yet, despite all that effort, your prospect still ghosts you. What in the literal F***???

You call and they don’t answer. You leave voicemails they don’t return. You send check-in emails that your mailtracking software tells you they opened but they STILL don’t respond!

Few things suck more in sales than getting ghosted. When it happens to me I’m like, “cmon -- really?? It’s SO EASY to hit reply!”

So I did some research into the psychology of ghosting, along with speaking with Startup Hypeman clients about their ghosting experiences, reviewed client demos where ghosting ultimately took place, and thought through my own experiences on the other side of the table as the buyer, and came up with a strategy.

This article covers the new strategy we’ve recently implemented at Startup Hypeman ourselves and are testing with our clients.

WHY GETTING GHOSTED SUCKS

For most (if not all) salespeople, getting ghosted is actually worse than flat out being told “No”. Why? Because it’s a form of rejection. In fact, it’s the worst form of rejection.

When you flat out hear “no” it’s actually less hurtful because it still closes the feedback loop, whereas ghosting leaves the feedback loop open.

While ghosting as a form of non-communication has been around in sales basically forever, it’s been popularized as a term within the dating scene over the last few years amidst the rise of technology-induced relationships (Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, etc).

Psychology Today reported a study of ghosting in dating (study by Leah LeFebvre, University of Alabama) from both perspectives. They found consistent themes in how the ghostee (the person who gets ghosted in the dating relationship) reacts to getting ghosted: (Paraphrased)

“Modified Communication...modified communication patterns often induced feelings of uncertainty in the ghosted, making it difficult to navigate the situation.”

“Lessening Interest...ghostees often didn’t have a chance to brace themselves for the ghosters' disappearance but were aware of the diminishing intimacy, connectedness, and/or attentiveness.”

“Those on the receiving end of ghosting typically don’t have closure or an understanding into what went wrong. So, often, the people who are left behind are haunted by the experience and are left to make sense of it without the benefit of answers or explanations. Instead, they are left hanging — and trying to close the circle on their own.”

This ‘left hanging’ feeling hurts in sales like it does in dating. Especially when the profession itself is so results-oriented, not getting a clear NO puts you in a situation where you are unable to achieve a basic metric on which you are graded.

WHY GHOSTING HAPPENS, EVEN WHEN YOU’VE BUILT RAPPORT

So why does ghosting happen, even after a couple good meetings?

LeFebvre’s study cites five themes that emerged in why the person would ghost on the dating scene. Four of them are particularly relevant to sales. Here they are along with direct quotes from participants in the study:

1. Convenience. “Ghosting was easier to do...rather than deal with the emotions of either myself or the current partner.”

2. Negative Interactions. “A change in someone’s feelings towards the other person...that they’d actually rather not, like, discuss or confront.”

3. Relationship State. “I chose to do it because I had only been on one date and did not wish to continue to lead him on but felt awkward having that conversation, so I instead just stopped talking to him.”

4. Safety. “...fear of the person going crazy.”

Whoopdeedooo…What does all this mean for sales?

You may have noticed two consistent themes from the above findings: 1) The ghoster chooses the most convenient option for them, 2) due to the emotional labor involved with delivering rejection.

One more time: The ghoster chooses the most convenient option for them, due to the emotional labor involved with delivering rejection.

That’s exactly what’s happening with your prospect. Their prevailing behavior is to act in a way that preserves and protects their own emotions, AND the effort that would go into managing your emotions.

Prospects are human, after all. They are thinking things like, “If I reply, they are gonna reply to my reply, and then I’ll have to reply to their reply! That seems like alotta work…”

“If I tell them no, they are gonna ask for a phone call to talk it over and try to talk me out of my decision…”

“They were so nice and helpful during our conversations, I really don’t want to let them down. Maybe if I stop responding they’ll get the hint and go away.”

“They were really expecting me to say yes, I don’t want them getting mad at me for saying no.”

Additionally, if you’ve ever been on the buying side, you know that oftentimes there’s a certain element of shame or disappointment involved in having to go back to someone who you have rapport with and tell them “I was wrong”.

Which means your prospect may also be thinking, “Ugh, how is this gonna make ME look?” 

HOW TO AVOID GETTING GHOSTED

When you have a narrative-driven sales process, you’re more likely to not get ghosted in the first place because you’re helping the buyer follow a natural story arc. But even if your sales process is super tight, ghosts seem to have a way of finding their sheets, don’t they?

To make ghosting even less of a possibility, and potentially rid yourself of it entirely, you have to create an environment that reduces or eliminates the emotional labor of saying no.

Sorry -- simply telling them “You can tell me if the answer is no, that’s totally cool,” doesn’t cut it.

To reduce the emotional labor, give your prospect an easier way to opt out.

For comparison, think through what your sales process looks like when the buyer is interested and does want to move forward. I’ll bet you know exactly what the next steps are (Prepare contract, review, contract, hold implementation call, etc.)

When the prospect is ‘opted in’ to purchasing your product, you KNOW how to get the deal done. Your company has created a process that makes it really easy for them to buy from you.

Conversely, what does your sales process look like when the buyer isn’t interested, or has interest but can’t move forward?

Are you struggling to think of anything? Probably because you don’t have any process.

To avoid getting ghosted, make sure you have a really easy way for the prospect to opt out of your sales process.

“But wait, shouldn’t I be doing everything possible to keep them IN the process?”

Yes of course, silly. But we already established that when seemingly everything goes right, ghosting still takes place. You’re better off acknowledging its existence and planning ahead for it.

So just how do you do this?

GHOST-PREVENTION FORM: THE EASY OPT-OUT

Here’s one way to make opting out of your sales process really easy. I call it the Ghost-Prevention Form.

It’s a simple, externally linked survey that lets the prospect say no while taking on only the amount of emotional labor they are comfortable with. That could be virtually zero emotional labor, all the way to a decent amount of emotional labor, but the point is they choose their destiny. And even if they choose the lower end you both get exactly what you want -- they don’t have to reject you, but you still get an answer.

The Ghost-Prevention Form (G-PF) contains a few questions to understand WHY they are saying no at this time. For example:

Q1 - I apologize, but at this time I can’t move forward and purchase your product because:

1. I couldn’t create budget for this
2. I couldn’t get approval from the right people
3. I don’t see how it could benefit us at this time
4. We chose a different provider already
5. Other (fill out)

*This question allows you to attach a proper Closed: Lost reason in your CRM. It also shows you what part of your buyer journey needs work. Option A is intentionally written as “I couldn’t create budget” and not “We don’t have budget” to help the seller better take ownership of that outcome. Instead of resting on the laurels of “oh they just didn’t have a budget”, the seller can see they have room to improve on being more effective at establishing a need that encourages the prospect to create budget.

Q2 - It’s okay to check in with me again in:

1. 3 months
2. 6 months
3. 1 year
4. Hit the road, Jack. Don’t come back
5. Other (fill out)

*This question gives you the appropriate follow up timeline per their request.

Q3 - In the meantime, add me to your nurture marketing campaign so I don’t forget about you:

1. Yes
2. No

*Now you’re getting their permission to re-market, which means they are more likely to actually open the drip sequence you want to send them.

Q4 - I am open to a quick call to share more detail on what happened on our end.

1. Yes
2. No

*By this point, they may actually be more likely to say yes to a ‘what happened’ call because you’ve reduced the emotional labor behind initially saying no. But again, if they decline a call, that’s also okay because you’ve gathered your data points from the previous questions.

Depending on the specifics of your product and sales cycle, you can change the questions, or even change the question logic based on their response -- so long as it doesn't turn the survey into a complex, emotionally-heavy procedure.

PUTTING THE G-PF IN PLAY

In order for the Ghost-Prevention Form to work (and not in itself get ghosted), you have to let the prospect know this is a thing, not just send it to them once they’ve already ghosted. I recommend putting it in play in the part of your own sales process where you’ve seen the most silent dropoffs take place. As you wind down the preceding call, implement a talk track like,

“As we move forward, obviously my hope is that we end up working together. I know things happen though, and for a number of reasons you may not see a good fit on your end. I’ll be honest, if that happens, I don’t like getting ghosted, but I also know it kind of sucks to be on the other side and have to tell someone else no.

So to make it super easy on you, when I send my followup email I’m going to include a link to a Ghost-Prevention Form -- consider this your ‘get out of jail free’ card. Save that email so you have the URL. If you know it’s not gonna work out, just fill out that form. That way I won’t have to send a million followup emails, and you can say no without having to say no to my face or type up a long email.

Can you get onboard with that plan?”

Want to see a Ghost-Prevention form in action? Here’s the Startup Hypeman version created using Typeform, including intro and outro language to the form, plus one additional question. Feel free to swipe the copy and adapt it for your own needs.

On a related note, if you want to learn how to run demo calls that land better with your prospect, convert higher, and thus help contribute towards the anti-ghost movement, check out Startup Hypeman’s Story Demo video.

And before you go...Answer this question in the comments below..

Have you ever ghosted someone else, either professionally or socially? If so, why did you ghost them and not reject them outright? RESPOND BELOW!