You sent the proposal. They said yes. Then nothing... no reply to the follow-up, no reply to the one after that. If you sell your own work, you've probably lived this. Sometimes people don't want to hurt your feelings, so they say yes and hope you just forget about them. That's usually what the silence means, and it's better to say so plainly than to keep refreshing your inbox. But before you walk away, think of the best case scenario: they got busy because their life is so awesome, and they just forgot about you. I know how that sounds. I'm not pretending it's the likely story. I choose it on purpose, after I've admitted what the silence probably means... and when I play that exercise it makes me feel happy for them. From there, I reach out to see if they need anything else to move our deal forward. "Reach out" is easy advice and hard to actually do. So this is the line I use when I want to let them save face: "Hey, let's jump on a call. I got super busy and want to make sure I didn't drop the ball on our deal." I take the busy on myself. Nobody has to explain why they went quiet, nobody has to admit they were hoping I'd forget, and we can just pick the conversation back up. Everyone's line is different and it should be. Find yours. If I still get ghosted, I let it go and focus my attention on the next prospect. Time wasted cannot be recovered, so I try to decide fast, let go fast, and push forward faster. So, that yes that went quiet... give it one generous call, then go find the next one. If you've got a proposal sitting in silence right now and want to talk through what to do next, grab 30 minutes on my calendar, ask me anything. #Sales #SmallBusiness #IndependentConsultant #Coaching