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[00:00:00] Have you ever been in contact with a lead or prospect, and you really think that this person, this company is going to become a client and then suddenly you're emailing them and you're emailing them and you're calling them and you're messaging them. And you essentially are. You don't hear from them ever, ever again.
This is extremely frustrating and it makes doing business development really you're not really incentivized to like, do the work right. When you feel like the people that you're speaking to that you think are going to come through don't.
So I wanted to address that today. And I wanted to give you five reasons why you may be ghosted and create some context for you about what to do about that, how to reduce that possibility from happening.
I'm [00:01:00] Celina Guerrero.
This is the Thrive Biz Chat where I talk on a weekly basis about what it really takes to run a thriving service -based business I work with CEOs and consultants to help them generate new business, specifically through human led sales activities. So this means outbound relationship building prospecting, if you like to call it.
And I actually have a new offer these days, it's called the LinkedIn Outreach Playbook and it is a one-to-one program. I work with you to help you ensure that you know where your next three to 10 clients are coming from. You have an actual plan to create consistency and sustainability in your business by having a plan of knowing what, how to find ideal clients, how to engage with them and how to have sales conversations that convert into clients.
[00:02:00] And, what you should be doing on a daily basis to execute that plan. What you should be doing and when you should be doing it, so everything is very clear and concise on a daily basis for you to generate clients in your business or create that plan and hand it off to someone on your team to do that on your behalf.
Information about that LinkedIn Outreach Playbook is in the notes or the comments. Now let's get started.
Five reasons that your prospects are ghosting you and what to do about it.
Number one, they don't see the value in what you're saying to them.
They're not seeing how your solution is relevant to their situation.
The reason this is happening is that, too often, we go to tell somebody what our [00:03:00] solution is without asking them, what their problem is.
By asking them what their problem is, we then have an opportunity to talk about our solution in a way that addresses specifically the issues that they have.
The solution to not being ghosted, because you're actually not providing value and relevancy to them is to specifically ask them what's going on with them.
And then you talk about your service.
The second reason you're being ghosted is that the timing isn't right. When we talk so much about, this is really like now we get into sort of qualifying the people that we're talking about, what that means qualifying is, the typical things, right? Do they have a budget?
Am I talking to the right person? Do they have an actual urgency around this? Okay. So sometimes you're talking to someone and then they just stopped talking to you because it's just not something that is urgent that they want, they're going to deal with right now. And so the [00:04:00] way to not be ghosted, is to simply ask. Ask them. What is your timeline? When do you expect to, when would you like to start? When would you like this project to be finished? What other priorities do you have? Is this a priority right now? Because some people might want to hire you, but they're not going to hire you for six months or they have other things they have to deal with.
And so if you ask the question, what's your timeline? Or how important is this to your business right now? And, and they say, well, actually, I'm not really sure. I have to talk to my boss or,, I have to think about it. People have very complicated lives, right.
And complicated work lives. So if you ask them. They might say, well, yeah, it's not exactly urgent. And then you're not surprised when they don't respond because you realize it's not important to them right now.
The third reason prospects, ghost you, is that you're sometimes not talking to the right person.
When we talk about quality, when we talk about [00:05:00] how do we understand if this person that I'm speaking with is going to become a client, we need to add. Ask if this person is responsible for making the decision. Okay. So it's possible. They're ghosting you because they're really the, maybe they're talking to you, but they really don't have any authority for hiring you. And so they just stopped reaching out. Maybe they're even a little embarrassed because they were talking to you and they don't have any authority around that. Maybe they went to talk to their boss. Their boss said, no, we don't want to do that. And they're busy, everybody's busy.
And so getting back to you may not be a priority.
Number four reason that prospects ghost you is they actually don't have any money. And so they are coming to you and having a conversation about your solution. But they really don't have any money. And they sound really interested, so you keep following up and then all of a sudden they ghost you because they never had any money to begin with.
It is possible that they came to you with a budget, but then somehow that budget [00:06:00] it got reallocated. We don't know. And so that is why it's extremely important to ask.
Have you thought about a budget for this project? Is this a line item, for this year? Is this already been budgeted?
I know we often say , if it's a priority, people will come up with the money. But I think the question needs to be asked because then when people ghost you and you have no idea, it might be because they didn't have the budget and you just didn't get clarification about that.
Number five, the last on my list is that they have other priorities. They have other projects that come up. Something that changes in the business, then all of a sudden, the thing that they were going to do with you just, it gets deprioritized.
A lot of times, I think people don't, know how to get back to you or they're embarrassed or they don't know how to turn you down. I think this is common.
And some people just don't think that they need to.
They're like, oh, this person has just some person. I don't owe them a response kind of thing, [00:07:00] but I think in many cases, it's people are really, really busy.
So your ability to ask that is the word I've used five times here. Right?
Ask what their problem is so that you're articulating a solution that is specific to the problem that they just described.
Ask them about timing. How important is this? What is your deadline on this?
Ask has there been a budget allocated for this?
Frustration and disappointment that comes with being ghosted, it feels disrespectful. It makes you feel like all of that work was for nothing. Was this person not really on the level that I thought they were, right?
And so, I suggest you just ask more questions, be clear about that.
The other thing is, to go back to my new one-to-one program, the LinkedIn Outreach Playbook, the more opportunities you have, and knowing how to qualify them. They're going to not feel as bad [00:08:00] when people reject you or when people aren't going to become a client, right?
We need to have a certain amount of opportunities in the pipeline because only a certain percentage of those people are going to be come clients. Not everyone is going to become a client. And yes, some of them will ghost you and some of them will have changes and some of them will go with your competitors and some will decide, not to work at all.
Yes.
But the more leads, the more consistent pipeline you have the less uh, awful it feels so to speak when opportunities don't come through. So check out that the LinkedIn Outreach pPlaybook, you can find a link in the comments or the notes, and I hope these tips helped you.
Just go out there and make sure you're asking these questions and you will eliminate some of the ghosting in your business.
Thank you for listening. I hope you have a great day and I'll talk to you next week. Bye-bye.
