Following up
A prospect has gone quiet.
Silence almost always has a mundane cause, and almost never the one you imagine.
In short
A prospect who stops replying usually falls into four cases: the project is postponed, the budget is not approved, your contact is not the decision maker, or they are simply overloaded. None is solved by resending the same message: they are solved by changing channel, contact, or question.
Diagnose before insisting
A postponed project is the most common and most benign cause: nothing is lost, only the calendar has moved. An unapproved budget looks much the same but unblocks on a known date, often at the start of a financial year.
The third case is the costliest: your contact is not the one who decides and will not admit it. The giveaway is initial enthusiasm followed by complete silence the moment anything must be committed. The fourth, the overloaded contact, shows up as short but genuine replies at long intervals.
The three ways to unblock
Change channel. An email unanswered for three weeks has little chance on the fourth send. A call, or a message on a professional network, puts the subject in a different context.
Change contact, openly. Going around someone quietly always costs you; writing to their manager with the original contact copied in does not, and often unblocks things within a day. Change the question, finally: drop « where are we on this » for « should I close the file », which gets an answer in most cases.
Postponement
Note the restart date and call back then. Nothing to do until then.
Wrong contact
Ask explicitly who else needs to be involved. The question is normal and not remotely offensive.
Genuine abandonment
Recognisable by no reaction even to the closing message. File it and move on.
Knowing how to close
Endless follow-up damages your image and costs you time you owe to live deals. Set a number of attempts, and a last message that says so plainly.
Closing is not giving up: it is moving the file out of active follow-up and setting a reminder at six or twelve months. Situations change, people leave, budgets unlock. What does shut the door for good is having pushed hard enough to be remembered for it.
Frequently asked questions
When is a prospect genuinely lost?
After four to five attempts over two to three months with no reaction at all, including to the closing message. That last message is the best test: it gets a reply when there is one left to get.
Is it risky to write to your contact's manager?
Not if you do it openly, with the original contact copied in and without criticising them. It is the quiet workaround that creates a lasting problem.
Should you delete silent prospects?
No, take them out of active follow-up and set a distant reminder. A prospect silent this year is often a client in two, provided somebody remembers.
Keep track of every follow-up
Lea CRM keeps your contacts, deals and reminders in one place, and shows you every morning what needs doing today.