The Art of Not Getting Ghosted &

The Power of Follow Up

Index:
What, How & Why of Ghosting
7 Important habits that all Sales People need to inculcate
Power of Follow ups
 

WHAT is Ghosting?

Ghosting: The practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and 

without explanation withdrawing from all communication (​ Oxford Dictionary) 

WHY do people Ghost you? 

● A feeling of undue pressure​ often makes prospects go quiet. 

● The lack of a compelling buying need, business pain or opportunity to 

justify a sale​ closely correlates to instances of ghosting. 

● Engaging with a prospect early in their buying process and then pushing 

them to move forward at your pace​ is a sure-fire recipe for the silent 

treatment. 

● Sometimes, when a prospect moves forward with the competition​, they feel 

uncomfortable telling you and prefer to disappear completely. 

● Bad service, poor response times, or lack of product/service fit with the 

prospect’s needs ​is often a causal factor. 

 ● And last but by no means least, doing something inappropriate, 

unprofessional or unethical at some point during the sales cycle​ can earn 

you a one-way ticket to Ghostville.

How to avoid Ghosting?

Step 1. Answer the Question, “So What?” 

After every line you say to the prospect, ask the question “So What” to 

yourself and see whether it is beneficial to the client. 

Here, let me show you: 

“We’ve got lots and lots of customers. Look at all their logos on the slide behind me.” 

versus… 

“​I’d like to highlight 3 specific customers from this slide to talk about, as they had very 

similar business issues to the ones you’re struggling with.” 

Or: 

“We’ve won lots of awards for our projects over the years.” 

versus… 
 “We’re incredibly proud of the industry awards we’ve won, because we’ve won them 

with our customers. Hopefully this project we’re discussing might also win an industry 

award.” 

Step 2. Get The Facts 

● Is your contact sick, on holiday, fired, no longer with the company, having 

a family emergency? 

● Has there been a huge crisis inside the business? 

● Have your assumptions about the project changed? 

● Has the customer gone into a quiet period prior to making a decision? 

● Are they feeling rushed or pressured by your sales tactics? 

Step 3. Change Your Language 

“Would you be interested in…”​ versus ​“Would you be open to…” 

“I just wanted to follow up…”​ versus ​“I’d love to get your feedback on…” 

“I’d like to understand your business issues”​ versus “​ Can you help me 

understand why you made time to see me in the first place?” 

 
Step 4. Add Some Value. 

Cialdini’s Principle of Reciprocity states: 

“People are obliged to give back to others the form of behaviour, gift, or service that 

they have received” 

What this means in a sales context is this: If you have added value to your contacts at 

each stage of their buying process, as humans, they will feel morally obliged to respond 

to your emails, pick up the phone when you call, or agree to meet, when otherwise they 

might not have. 

Step 5 – Align Your Sales & Buying Process 

So often, in the B2B sales world, we become obsessively focused on our own internal 
focuses and lose sight of what’s happening on our customer’s side.

Step 6. Change the Channel 

SMS, Email, Linkedin all are very important channels. But usually we focus on only one 

of the channels. If you feel that you are being Ghosted, try to connect with the prospect 

on a different channel. For eg, if you were using SMS to communicate with the person 

and he isn’t responding, DON’T LOSE HOPE. Try a different Channel. 

Step 7. Fall on Your Sword or Qualify Out 

If you feel that you have done your best and still the person is Ghosting you, take a 

moment, type your last email/SMS and send it to them.  

Eg: “Hey ABC, hope you are well. I have been trying to reach out to you since [Date you 

sent your first communication], but I believe you have been keeping busy. Do let me 

know if we can get on a call on [Date] or I’ll assume that you are still busy and wait for 

you to reach out to me :) “ 

7 Important habits that all Sales People need to
inculcate:

#1 - ASKing is the only option to move forward in deals

1. What do we need to do to close this deal?

2. What is interesting about [Company Name] for you?

#2 - Always start from the top - the person who'll sign the contract

#3 - ​Fix next steps before you start the presentation, not after

#4 - To be successful at events - create interest, not inform & only focus on getting the follow-up
meeting

#5 - To identify the way deals flow sit down & analyze successful deals by seeing their step by
step process
#6 - Plan the week better on Saturday or Sunday

#7 - After sharing the benefit with a customer, either in meeting/ pitch, ask them to comprehend
it.

● If we would [Benefit], what would it mean for you?

● If you were able to get these results, What will it mean for you/ your company?
● Answers can be in terms of a revenue number or orders or maybe even a growth % or
feeling
● If they answer, does that sound good?
● The end goal is "Everything they tell you, they won’t forget" - so they'll remember that
they have to talk to you for the benefit you bring onto the table
Power of Follow up:
It’s easy to focus on the initial contact. The first meeting, the first call, the first email, anything.
You’ve done your job, pitched and now waiting for them to respond.

This is wrong. ​There is no Follow up Hustle​. We all want to avoid being annoying thinking that
we might get rejected.

The key is to be short and sweet yet remain persistent.

Just contacting the person once and waiting for his reply won’t help.

Correct way to Follow up:

● Follow up as many times till you get a response.

● Getting the response is important, not the outcome.
● If anyone says “call after 4 days”, “busy till the month ends”, make it a point to create a
reminder for yourself to ping them after those days.
● If someone tells you they are not interested, focus on their benefit one last time. If then
also they aren't interested, leave the deal there. Eventually they will come back

Steli Efti followed up 48 times with an investor, and then he finally replied. He met the investor
through his friend and he got interested but eventually disappeared.
Steli emailed him continuously and one day he replied that he had been stuck up and now
wants to meet.
Moral of the story: Never lose hope, never stop hustlin.

You just need two things, ​TIME AND PERSISTENCE.

How to follow up like a Champ?

● If you have never interacted with the person, don't follow up more than 6 times.
● If you have had interactions before, follow up as long as you get a revert.
● What is the right follow up frequency:
 ● Use Internal CRM to add activity to follow up.
● For Enterprise CEOs, don’t email them every other day, give them 4-7 days before you
follow up
● Channels to use :
○ Email: to get a positive response, you can follow up as many times without being
intrusive but it might take time
○ Phone: For a quick response but it's easier to come across as annoying
○ Meeting: For quickest response: Tell them “I was just in the area, just wanted to
drop by and say hi”
○ Other ways include SMS, Linkedin

Dos and Donts

● Stay Persistent but stay nice and friendly

● Keep it short
● Provide Value
● Never make them feel bad or guilty for not replying

Guilt is your enemy

● Don’t make them guilty of not replying.
● Don’t be angry
● Don’t refer to previous mails in accusatory tone

Always keep it simple, straight forward

Time is your friend
● What if the person you’re trying to get connected to saw that mail/text when they were
busy or distracted
● Now the next time you follow up, what if it is the right moment when the person had the
mental bandwidth
If you follow up till the right time, you can easily succeed

“Deals aren’t closed in the show up, they are closed in the followup”

When you’re trying to replace your competitor, only two things are required:
● Patience
● Follow up

Look at things from their perspective, what if they have something for the next three
months and they cant do any changes.

Why they don't want to switch so easily:

Cost of switching>Value given by you

It will take a long time for them to switch , especially in enterprises: 6-18 months
Build a relationship with them, keep them in loop what your company is doing with other brands,
never let them go, BUILD THAT TRUST.

How to decide if the client is worth it?

● Are the prospect’s problem being solved by our product.

● How much is the prospect worth to our business
TOP Reasons why we don’t follow up:
● We think silence is rejection, if they aren't responding to calls, emails, we ASSUME that
they have rejected
If you want to assume something, assume that

KEEP FOLLOWING UP TILL YOU GET A RESPONSE: FOLLOW UP

HUSTLE

● You don't want to be annoying. Being liked means being Safe.

But on the other hand, you will never get what you want if you optimise for being popular

The cost of not following up:

Following up isn’t hard, we just make it hard by assuming things, trying to be nice etc.

Do you want to end up in “MaybeLand”.

YES IS GOOD, NO IS GOOD. BOTH ARE CLEAR OUTCOMES. BUT IF

YOU DON'T GET A CLEAR OUTCOME, YOU be IN MAYBELAND
WHICH HAPPENS TO US MOST OF THE TIMES WHICH MEANS
THERE IS SOMETHING WE ARE DOING WRONG.

Moral: Don’t be a hopeless optimist that the deal will come to you automatically, work for it,
follow up, GET A CLEAR YES OR NO.
NEVER LEAVE A DEAL UNTIL YOU GET A RESPONSE
Before starting a deal, determine three things in advance:

● What will be a success? (What results/numbers/specific outcome)

● What will be a failure?
● What are you going to do if the outcome you create is somewhere in the middle?

Again, GET A CLEAR YES OR NO

How to become a priority for everyone:

Steli Efti has described perfectly on how you can become a priority for everyone:
Here it goes...
What Steli Efti did differently:
Your current results in life are an indicator of your past hustle.
If you are currently doing really good, means that you’ve done a lot of hustle a lot of follow ups
in the past which is why deals are closing and money is flowing in.

If you think what you have accomplished this far is not enough, it’s not because of what you did
today but because of what you did and didn't do in the past months which has led upto this.

You haven’t closed a deal till the money hits the account.
Even if the prospect has agreed on the terms, you can never be too certain if you
have closed it.
Again, FOLLOWUP till the money hits the account, MAIL,SMS, CALL do
everything till the deal is finally closed when the money hits the account.

Effective follow up techniques when they aren’t responding

● If Someone isn’t responding to email followup, use the 1,2,3 trick.

● Put something funny in followup, use a GIF or any funny line if the
prospect isn't responding.
● The Goodbye Mail/Breakup Mail