How to Stop Getting Ghosted During Your Prospect's Busy Season

James Buckley: 00:00

Welcome back, everybody, to the Sell Better Daily Sales Show, where we give you daily sales advice to help you sell better. Today, we are here to talk about ghosting. We have all been ghosted before, this is no secret. We're gonna talk about how normal that is. probably throughout this show. I want to give a big thanks to my special guest, Hannah Ajikawo. I get her name right every time. She is the CEO and founder of Revenue Funnel. Welcome back to the show.

Hannah Ajikawo: 00:23

Thank you very much, thank you very much.

James Buckley: 00:25

Great, great to have you all the time. Elmer Lopez, founder of Content… is it Contento? Am I saying it right?

Elmer Lopez: 00:31

Yeah, there you go, contact.

James Buckley: 00:32

Yes! I feel like it's Latino, right? Contento. Like, I want to throw a little, like, Latino.

Elmer Lopez: 00:38

Yeah, yeah.

James Buckley: 00:38

Yeah, like, I want to put it on there. Alright, you guys know the deal, scan this QR code, check it out, sellbetter.xyz, that's why we do what we do for you, for the people on the front lines doing the job every day. Hop over to YouTube and subscribe to get all the latest, greatest tips, techniques, tactics, and takeaways. This is my moment, y'all. I get to bring you something new. I have spent… I don't know about you guys, let me know in the chat. put one in the chat if you have spent a lot of time learning new tools lately. Claude, ChatGPT, I got a new one for you that is probably going to change the way you're adopting other tools, and it's Expertise.ai. We can't do everything that we need to do on the pipeline management side and learn all this stuff. We gotta be selling, and that's the problem that Expertise.ai solves for. So I signed up for this thing, and I was fortunate enough to get early access. Here's the kicker, I got you guys early access as well. They're calling it.

James Buckley: 01:31

an EA for AEs, and I'm a full cycle rep, so I juggle a lot of things all day while trying to learn all this new technology that constantly comes my way. I can connect my tools to this thing, and later, I'm gonna share some skills online that you guys can go and download, so be on the lookout for that. Use this code at this link Sell better, all caps, and instead of getting 1,000 credits to get your test drive of this thing and see what it's capable of, you're gonna get 2,000 credits. That's a special offer right here, just for being an audience member at Sell Better. And you might even catch Elmer talking about it, because he's creating a lot of content around expertise lately as well.

Elmer Lopez: 02:09

Absolutely. Check out my LinkedIn post today. I was just talking about it. It literally is, like, the assistant for AEs and sales reps in general. Definitely something to check out. I've been using it for the last few weeks myself, and it's been a game changer.

James Buckley: 02:23

If you're a full-cycle rep, you're juggling 8 to 10 balls every day, trying to keep them going, and then leaving in the afternoon, probably with a couple in your pocket. So check it out. I have one more thing for you, a couple more things for you before we get started here. If you're looking at multiple tools like CRM and email and funnels and scheduling and automation, High Level does a great job putting all of this into one place. You can spend less time managing software and more time actually selling, and you can start a free trial right here with our friends at High Level. So if you've ever been curious about what that is and what it does, drop that link right there and grab it. Everyone's talking about AI, very few teams know how to actually evaluate this stuff. So we have, from our friends at Gong, a free Revenue AI buyer's guide. Are you looking at buying a new AI tool? Please look at this guide, because it's going to give you 5 workflows that every AI solution should support. I mean…

James Buckley: 03:12

If you're gonna drop $40,000 and $50,000 on a team-wide solution, I hope you're covering some basics that probably get there, so this is a great guide for everybody, download it right now. GongHighLevelandexpertise.ai, thank you for being a part of the show. Let's get started. This is what you guys are gonna get today from Hannah and Elmer. Outreach that gets deleted. What does it look like? We're gonna give you some tips and some things you might want to avoid. Low-friction messaging formats. I think this is very important for right now. I think if you're using AI to help you with messaging, low friction. That's the key phrase. to use, conversational. And then, of course. building warm paths. There's no better time to have warm paths. So let's kick it off. This is the part that I kind of want to start with. Hannah, I want to start here, because almost always, when I look at ghosting on the seller's side, they say, we got ghosted, or the person ghosted me. But let's flip it around. Why does it feel completely okay, in the mind of the buyer, to just have a great call and then vanish?

Hannah Ajikawo: 04:09

You know, I look at this in two different ways. So, hey everyone, appreciate you all being here, like, I love this conversation. I've been in sales for over 18 years, so I've had more ghosts than you could dream of, for the most part, belonging that you're on this call, right? So I'm burning inside. But I think, look at it in two ways, right? So the first thing is. If we get out of our own head about we're being ghosted, and we start thinking about what makes it okay for a buyer to think, you know what, I'll come back to it. Two things. One. I want you to really be honest with yourself. Are you being ghosted, or are your prospects reacting to a situation that you've created? Which is one of complete ambiguity, they ain't got no next steps, they don't know what to do, what's expected of them, so think about that, let that land. The other side is. the most recent research that came out of Edelman when it comes to, employee engagement shows that there's about 20% engagement of, employees in their role today, globally, and it's done of hundreds of thousands of people, I think even millions around the world. People have…

Hannah Ajikawo: 05:08

Work commitments, they've got quarter ends, they've got outreach that they're trying to block. There's so many things going on, and they are genuinely overwhelmed and also quite disconnected. So when we think about ghosting, we have to look at it holistically, and not just a case of. But, you know, I said, oh, they said they'll come back to me next week. When was that? I'm like, did you give them a date, a time, a responsibility? Did you give them a consequence if they don't? Like, we're not… we're not doing all of that, James. We're not doing all of that. So I'm like, think about…Their reality in the context of everything when it comes to ghosting, not just the fact that you can't update your manager.

James Buckley: 05:44

Yeah, I think that's the part that we get afraid of, is, you know, I'm gonna be held accountable for no real results, right? So I better not get ghosted, and if I get ghosted, I better have a plan. I think that's a panic mode for a lot of sellers, but I also, again, will lean on this normalcy of it. Elmer, I know lately you've been on the buyer's side, and I've been on the buyer's side a couple times. I receive a lot of cold email. Hannah, you're a CEO and a founder. Your email inbox looks maddening as well. What's going through your head, Elmer, when you're getting those constant follow-ups, but you're… you're done, you're not responding? What's happening there?

Elmer Lopez: 06:18

Yeah, it's funny, because being on the buyer's side, you really start to understand why you get ghosted as a seller, and one of the things I've noticed a lot is everyone just sounds the same, and that's the biggest problem. So everyone's just sending the same, just following up email. What do you think about the, what are your thoughts on my last email? Just, just bumping this up, like. I know we all get lazy… we all get lazy, and we all, like, have heard this time and time again, but getting lazy is not worth losing your deal. Instead of just setting that crappy email that's not gonna get you anywhere. Instead, send a value send. And that's what we were talking about, I've talked about again and again, but a value send's like, hey, check out this ROI calculator. I know you talked about, talking through ROI with your executive next week. Perfect. Now they're like, thank you, they'll respond with a thank you note, or they'll give you an update of where you guys are within the pipeline. Or even when it comes to, hey.

Elmer Lopez: 07:15

this guy just commented, they love our product, this is some great social proof, notice they're in your industry and a competitor. I thought you should check this out. With no call to action. You don't even ask for anything at the end of that email. So when you're doing something like that, it feels like you're just trying to add value and help them, rather than trying to push them to get that deal done at the end of the month.

James Buckley: 07:37

That's solid. I will tell you a CTA that I've been using lately that has gotten me, and I don't even think it's the CTA, it's probably the tone of the message entirely, but I've just been saying at the end, instead of, I'll follow up, which is, like, kind of normal for me for the follow-ups, what I typically say is, enjoy the day. And I'm amazed at what that's done. Like, it's a remarkable… if you're not A-B testing something like that, just a positive, upbeat thing at the end, please, A-B test that. Here's the thing, I think we missed this, right? The priority for us, not for them, is to make the sale, get the signature, help the customer. If we close this account at $250,000, it's gonna make our year, but that $250,000 close is not nearly as important to the $4 million financial leak that they're trying to stop right now. But we get so wrapped up in what we do, which is why we take the ghosting so personally. Hannah, final thoughts on that. I see your wheels moving. You and I have been friends for long enough, I see the smoke coming out of your ears, you're like, I want to get in here!

Hannah Ajikawo: 08:37

All the time, like, James, let me in! No, so I feel it. So, I was just thinking, right? So, like, even now, I just checked my emails, I've had, like, 6 emails come through. I've had an email from an event that's coming up tomorrow, I've got an email from… I just got a lead, woohoo, right? There's… there's a feedback from a webinar we just had a couple of hours ago. So I'm like, there's all these… this is just the nature of it when you're leading and you're doing things. But James is so right that we're thinking about this $250K, they're thinking about this huge problem that's going on, but you have to also remember, the moment they say yes to something. Right? They're like, now I've got 25,000 things to do. I came in today with two… two bags of grocery shopping. I was like, I'm so happy I got it, and I'm like, I've got 10 minutes to my next meeting, and all these things that have to go in the freezer. That's so minimal, but just the weight of it, like, man, I don't mind if some of this goes off, I just want to leave it on the floor. This is just human nature, so always consider the buyer's perspective when it comes to these things.

James Buckley: 09:33

It's easy for us to be blind to it. Normally, I launch this at the beginning, but at this point, I'm gonna launch this question. Please identify yourself. What are you? I only do this because When we get a little bit of information here, we tend to be able to lean in that direction for the personas that are in the room. So, identify yourself, even if you're, like, an alien from another planet. Hannah, I want to stay with you, because we talked about this on the pre-call, and I want to talk about the sheer numbers problem. Because every leader that has any access to budget has opened their inbox every morning for the last 5 years and had inbox 9,000. And, I mean, I know people that have, like, notifications in their texts that say, like, you know, 10,000 unread messages. We can't be friends, if that's you, by the way, on this call. Yeah, yeah, I talk to him. But talk to me a little bit about how bad has it's actually gotten. I mean, you're a CEO, you see this every day.

Hannah Ajikawo: 10:24

It's… it's… my own customers ghost me. They're already paying me, they go, like. And they… and this is why I always say, like, we have to do a really good job at finding ways to develop the relationships that allow us to break out of this, and I know we're going to go into this in a bit more detail, but this is just the nature of what happens. As I said, I've got emails. I can just see the numbers going up. I'm on 896. Like, I'm not going to get through that today, at all. And Claude ain't going to help me neither, okay? It takes so much time setting that up, but this is the reality. One thing I will say, though, is that some… some of this will change, right? I'm not sure if you saw the post, just coming off, from Alex Lieberman today, right? Where he said… yesterday, he said that, the CEO of Cursor reached out to him when he was still building Cursor and said, hey, can you check out my product? I'd love you to be an advisor. And he ignored the LinkedIn DM. He said, if I would have taken that. answered that DM,

Hannah Ajikawo: 11:18

given, like, taken 1% of the company as an advisor, I would have had something like $600 million after the sale yesterday. Yeah. So I'm like, this is just…people are balancing between, there could be something there that's really important, but I'm still busy in my business as usual. So, again, think buyer-centric, but also just… we can use that kind of information to play on that, right? Like, we can play on that a little bit and be like, I mean, don't be like Alex, and just send a screenshot as the CTA at the end of our emails.

James Buckley: 11:46

Yeah, yeah. Elmer, thoughts on this? I know you've seen a lot of things. Hannah brings up a lot of good points in her talking there. What are your thoughts on all of this that's going on right now? Things that you're seeing that might be relevant?

Elmer Lopez: 12:00

Yeah, that post is actually pretty funny, I just saw it yesterday, too. I was like, oh man, that guy could have had 6 mil in the bag, but it is what it is. What I think is finding a way to stand out, right? Like, we all know AI slop is a big problem nowadays, and it's not something we were dealing with 2 years ago. So, whatever you were doing two years ago, when it comes to email, sending messages, LinkedIn DMs, just sounding broad and spray and prayed, it's just not gonna work. So. sounding as relevant as possible, using some sort of buying signals to make it sound relevant to the persona. I think relevance over personalization, but relevance over spray and pray as well. So, like, rather than going super general and super wide and targeting founders, marketers, and salespeople all in one bucket. Bucket them separately. What does a founder care about? What does a salesperson care about? What does the marketer care about? And really focus on the pain points for each, and then it's going to speak to that person, or that persona.

Elmer Lopez: 12:57

And I think that's gonna be the biggest game changer. And whenever you talk to those prospects, it's understanding, hey, what's your best method of communication? Where should I continue to reach out to you? So, if they say Slack, then okay, send them an invite to a Slack private channel, which has worked well for me, personally. And you just go ahead and send them that group invite, and it feels like you're texting somebody, they can go ahead and respond on there. You can be on texting terms even better.

James Buckley: 13:21

Dude, so you're hitting a high note here, and it's something that I think has kind of been on the fence for a few years, and now we've kind of crossed over a chasm. But we have some things being said in the chat that I want to focus on, Elmer, and I know, Hannah, you have a thing or two to say about it as well. If email is basically dead, then…For a lot of decision makers, right? I mean, we look at our inbox, we see inbox 9000, and we go, well, what's on the agenda today? Because I'm not doing that, right? Like, if it's a dead zone for a lot of decision makers, then where are we actually finding buyers that are willing to talk? Is cold calling back in style? Because that's my game, right? Is it LinkedIn DMs becoming the hot zone for scheduled meetings? What do you think?

Elmer Lopez: 14:01

Alright, so am I… oh, go ahead, Hannah.

James Buckley: 14:03

You're gonna go, you're gonna go, Hannah. You go first.

Hannah Ajikawo: 14:09

Elmer, this is you, man, it's your time.

Elmer Lopez: 14:12

Oh, yeah, I'll go ahead.

James Buckley: 14:13

Yeah, man, you gotta go.

Elmer Lopez: 14:14

Alright. So, I think it's actually… more about…doing a multi-channel approach, right? They gotta be able to see you via email. Yeah, sure, your emails are filled, and… or these people's emails are filled, and they might not see it, but maybe they will. Maybe… and then multi-threading into LinkedIn DMs, and then a multi-channel approach for LinkedIn content. If you're not creating LinkedIn content, that's a great way to stand out from everybody else, because not everyone's doing it. I think there's a billion users or something like that on LinkedIn, and only, like, 1% create content on there. So, if you're not creating content and standing out. then you're missing out, because one of the things we do at Contento is we go ahead and connect with anybody that's in the deal stage or open opportunity, and once that happens, now that person is seeing our content on a consistent basis. If our competitors aren't making content, maybe they're not top of mind, but we are. So, think about that when it comes to

Elmer Lopez: 15:11

that multi-channel approach, now you're just adding an extra layer. It's no longer just LinkedIn DMs, it's no longer just email, it's no longer just text message. Now you're adding an extra layer that not everybody does, which is now LinkedIn content. Obviously, you can call them too, which is another option, but just, my perspective.

James Buckley: 15:30

Hannah, your thoughts? I've got my own things to say about text message relationships, because I do that very well, but Hannah, I know you've got a million things running through your mind.

Hannah Ajikawo: 15:37

Yeah, I was thinking about this on two levels, because, of course, I just have all these things in my brain. So I want you to think conceptually, right? So, as a mindset shift, I want you to think about the layer where you are. I like to talk about the term connective tissue. So, rather than thinking, I need lots of multi-channels in this, firstly, you are in a sales engagement, or a prospector-buyer-established need interaction, which means you've created connective tissue between your organization and theirs. Think about your limb, right? So, we've got an arm, right? We've got our shoulder, we've got our elbow, we've got our hand, right? We're not using everything at the same time, but it's connected. Right? So, we want to try and create some kind of connective tissue with our organization. So what that means is you separate it from the outbound cold calling type-y stuff, and it's just like, we're now in a relationship.

Hannah Ajikawo: 16:23

And it's symbiotic, it's connected, it's a win-win. I'm not chasing you, because without me, you don't succeed. Like, this is… this is a two-way partnership. So just remember and plant that seed, and that's when I want to get to the tactical level. Think about what, Elmer's talking about with the multiple touchpoint. You need to tighten your connective tissue. We come off a call, hey, so just to explain. Now that we've established that there's something on the agenda for the next, you know, it may be 3, it could be 12 months. I'm going to create a Slack channel, it's the easiest way to make sure that we can communicate. Perfect. They're not gonna say no, because that's gonna be awkward. They're going to say yes, and you're going to invite them on the call, wait till it gets in their inbox, let them accept it, now you've got that first connective tissue. Also, some of my customers don't use email. Is it easier just to create a WhatsApp group? Do you know how many people have sold to me? I'm telling you.

Hannah Ajikawo: 17:11

they sell in the WhatsApp group. The moment that I've accepted the meeting, I'm in a WhatsApp chat with the frickin' AE, the rep, the SDR, and I'm like, okay, I guess this is what you do. Get in the WhatsApp group chat. So now you're like, we don't need to do that. I've got a customer right now who actually says the first kickoff call we had, they said, we don't do email, by the way. We will never find it. We only do Slack. So again, strategic level, I've now connected my business to yours. We have connective tissue, I don't think you're going to buy right now, that's cool, but I don't want to get put with, you know, James Buckley cold emailing me. I'm not… I don't want… I'm not him anymore. I'm Hannah, I've established a connection. Tactically, get them out of email. We want WhatsApp chats, we want Slack. I'm telling you, it makes such a difference. And now it's casual, and now it's informal, and you can just pull and tug on them whenever you want.

James Buckley: 17:56

I adore you. People love my emails, for what that's worth. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Thank you for all of that, though, and I agree on WhatsApp, dude, let's talk about that for just a hair. So first of all, I get on a text message basis as soon as possible with people. I have this habit, when I'm on the call, I'll say, is this your cell? Can I save it? Most people, if it's direct, they're like, absolutely. I've yet to have somebody be like, no, never call me here again, right? That's a… if you've earned a good conversation. and you end with, like, hey, is this your cell? Can I save it? They're like, yeah. Text them right there, with your first and last name. save their contact information. I know people, like, oh, I don't want to burden my phone with all these contacts, you know. When that person calls you, or texts you, it's great to know who they are, and not have to scramble to your CRM to try to match up the phone number that's dialing you before it stops ringing with a profile. I've said this before, like, care about your prospects. This is real stuff. Emily, preach, thank you very much.

James Buckley: 18:55

Alright, so I'm gonna launch this question now, because I want to talk about it with our guests that are experts on the subject. When a prospect does go dark, what is your go-to move? I think that for me, when a prospect goes dark, I lean into a technique that I got from Morgan J. Ingram. Where, what I say on our first conversation is, this has been a lot of fun, I've enjoyed the call, let's agree not to ghost each other. They all chuckle, but then they ghost me, and I do this thing where I send a little ghost emoji in the subject line, and the body is, are you ghosting me? And I get LOLs back, and then they tell me what's happening. Morgan has been doing this for years, I still do it. It's, like, one of the best techniques for when you get ghosted. experts in the room. What are your techniques?

Elmer Lopez: 19:40

Typically, what I do is…I… it's funny, because I've gotten some, hate messages on this approach, but it's worked so well that I don't even care. It's like…it's a breakup email, and people don't think breakup emails work, but they definitely do. I'll put, giving up on this project, question mark, as my subject line, and then in the body of the email, I'll say, hey James, I've been trying to reach out via text, via email, via calls, etc, but I haven't been able to reach you. Just curious, are you giving up on this project? just that. That's literally all I send, and the reply rates are insane. The amount of deals I've reopened, the amount of deals I've closed because of that single email to bring back deals alive has been crazy, but there's probably gonna be some people who don't like it, but it's okay. It still works for me, so I'm gonna keep using it.

James Buckley: 20:29

You know, I don't know if I like it or not, but I will say this. When I heard you say it, it brought to my head that I wouldn't want to be known as somebody that gave up on a project.

Elmer Lopez: 20:38

Yep, exactly.

James Buckley: 20:40

That's something that hits my soul there, because if I start something, believe I'll finish it. Hannah, a magic technique, a bullet that you've got that works often.

Hannah Ajikawo: 20:48

So, it's a bit of both, actually. So, one of… from your side. In those initial calls, when you've established that there's some kind of value, where they have already agreed, like, yep, let's explore, set the frame, so I will say things like, I am not gonna chase you. And they're like, oh, okay. I literally say that, and I say, I want… so that's one phrase I say. I'm a bit older, and I've been around for ages, so I'm like, I literally say, I've been doing this for too long to chase you. I'm not gonna chase you. And then, funny enough, they respond fast. They just respect that. They're like, oh, you're not a typical salesperson. So try and break out the typical salesperson. But if you set the frame, and you say things like, hey. we've established that this is XYZ, this is important to you, all that alignment stuff, next actions. What are you competing against? Like, what else is this competing with? You just wanna…what you're trying to do is set, like, a… again, it's this connective tissue thing, we're just trying to strengthen this relationship that we have between them, so that we can actually, create a deeper relationship. So my thing is set the frame in that way.

Hannah Ajikawo: 21:47

The second thing you want to do in that kind of initial call is make sure that you can, break out of formalities. The faster you can get to an F-bomb or a laugh. or a connecting point. Now they're like, oh, I feel so… yeah, I'm chill now. You're chill. This is where they become vulnerable… vulnerable with you, they share more with you. The other side is that kind of breakup. what the… what the fuck? It's not a breakup email. For us, it's like, what the… come on, man. Like, what's going on? So, I like using things that, I got from Jen Allen-Knuth. Hey, help me match your urgency here. You know, do you want to act on this now, or not? me, again, more experienced, I'll say… I will literally send a message after a couple of weeks and say, should we chat? I'm free tomorrow at 10am. All of a sudden, they're like, yeah, sure. So do you know that you've been ignoring me for a month? Like, what? And you just act like nothing, and then on the call, you say, don't ignore me again. So yeah, top of the time, and then the bottom, like, tactically as well. That's what I do.

James Buckley: 22:38

That… that's really good. Those are two really solid tactics. Three, if you count mine. I would recommend that you guys A/B test all of these when next time you're getting ghosted in your pipeline, because you can really lean into the ones that work for your vertical. Keep in mind, all of us kind of have, like, a little bit of a different nuance about what we sell and who we sell to. Some of these tactics work with different personas differently. You gotta find the ones that are pragmatic for you. Let's take a look at these results, though. Look at some of these go-to's that our audience gave us. 32% switch channels. They go to text, LinkedIn, Slack. I think that's smart. And then, right behind it, very close second, send a value ad with no ask. Why do you guys think these are frontrunners, and what about the other two? Elmer, thoughts on those?

Elmer Lopez: 23:26

Well, the value-add is a big one that I mentioned earlier, right? And the thing is, with the value-add, is if you make it related to wherever stage you are in the pipeline, it's gonna be actually helpful for them. Like I talked about earlier, if you know what next step is gonna happen internally. then go ahead and align that value add that you're gonna send with whatever that next step internally is. Hey, I'm gonna go talk to the finance team. Again, that ROI calculator is going to be helpful. But anything that's valuable according to that next step in the pipeline specifically is going to be perfect for that prospect. They're gonna actually respond, and the chances of them just saying even a simple thank you, we're doing X, Y, and Z, is gonna be, much of a higher chance to happen.

James Buckley: 24:11

Yeah. Yeah, I… go ahead, Hannah.

Hannah Ajikawo: 24:15

I was gonna say, no, I love it. The no value add with, the value add, sorry, the no value add, don't do that, with no ask is powerful if it's going to be truly relevant, and you're helping them make a decision, which may sometimes not mean they choose you. You have to kind of be okay with that sometimes. Right? Like, hey, I know you said you're gonna go out and look for competitors. I'm actually just gonna… I've just… I put together a breakdown for you in a spreadsheet. We did a bit of a review before. These are the things to look out for with each competitor. They're actually quite strong at that, but you did mention that's not important. They'll be so surprised. Because you're, of course, going to frame it in your lens, but it's a case where that has saved them a lot of work, really. Like, saved them a lot of work, and it shows that you're informed. So I always say, like, those… that answer makes sense, the value add. I do that all the time.

James Buckley: 25:00

Not bad. I will say that the best place for me to send a value ad with no ask? InMail, believe it or not. If I'm not already connected to them, which normally I am, but if it's cold, we had a conversation, we hadn't connected yet. InMail, for some reason, if you're giving and not asking for anything, people are like, hey, thanks for sharing. And you could say things like, hey, no sweat, hey, whatever happened to that thing that we talked about? Right? And suddenly they connect, oh, sorry, I don't jump in here, I don't do this a lot, right? I don't spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. You're like, that's fine, right? What happened to that thing? And you get the update, right? That's what you're really after. You're after the update. What's the status? Okay, you guys know this is a very tactical show. I have two of the best tacticians in the game, in the room with me. I want to start on the right. with Hannah's four-piece message, and then I want to go to Elmer's three-stepper. Now, for those of you that are wondering.

James Buckley: 25:52

how many steps should there be when I get ghosted? Please feel free to take part in the question I've just launched. Elmer, Hannah, Hannah, let's start with you. Talk to me about your four-piece message. Is this one message, or is this four separate messages that kind of cover all these things?

Hannah Ajikawo: 26:09

It's more a case of trying to understand how do I piece together what I'm trying to communicate back to this prospect. I like thinking in puzzles and pieces and processes, right? So, like, there's things that you have to understand, firstly, about is… have I… you know the first question I answer? If you can remember the seed I planted, right? Which is. are they ghosting me, or have I actually created my own luck here? Or bad luck? Which is, I haven't told them to get back in contact with me, so we need to make sure that we have We've had this meeting, we've established a clear need that ties not only to the business, but also at a personal level. We're looking at the relevance in our communication, the value that we're sharing early on, and making sure that it ties directly to the established need, not in our head, because we heard that they said it takes us long to do something, something that they've explicitly stated.

Hannah Ajikawo: 26:57

whatever we're giving from a kind of next action perspective should be really actionable. So when people are chasing me with things, because we buy a technology for our consulting firm and also our own tech platform, is, I need to know what I need to do next, because my emails are piling up. I've had another 10 since I mentioned them. So it's like, I want to know what is the thing that's expected of me. And am I sharing this at a moment that actually makes sense for them? So, considering the fact that they told me they were away for 4 weeks, me trying to chase up and share… it's just not relevant. I should be waiting until they're back. So there's all these things that we need to pull together to make it make sense, when we're trying to establish how to break that, I guess, that ghosting dark cloud of doom error.

James Buckley: 27:39

It is a cloud of doom, and I think we get frustrated, and we lose sight of what good messaging looks like, and we begin to get desperate when it happens, and desperation will almost always cause us to make bad decisions. Elmer…

Hannah Ajikawo: 27:51

I just…

James Buckley: 27:52

Go ahead.

Hannah Ajikawo: 27:52

just a kind of 20-second layout is… I'll give you a quick example, because there's a deal that we're working on right now, and we knew really early on in the call and the conversation that they were going to be getting a new VP in of a particular division, or give it away. And, so when they joined. We were monitoring that on LinkedIn, we shared a message with the person, saying, oh, I can just see that they've come from this really big company. They've probably got some other vendors on their list, and I informed the, I inform my champion of who to think, how to kind of, like, position us against the people they might have exposure to. So it's like, that's just relevant, and it's timely, because it's… it's… it's piecing all of those puzzle pieces together. That's kind of the way that you add value, not just like, hey, someone else has joined, and they're like, I know, I've met them. So that's what I mean about, kind of, timely as well.

James Buckley: 28:38

Yeah, yeah, that's a good add-on there. And I… we have to have the whole puzzle, right? Nobody likes… nobody's going to be framing a puzzle that's missing a few pieces. Alright, so, Elmer, your three-stepper here, you say that this helps where most reps blow it when they're trying to follow up without being obnoxious about it, and I think that's the risk we all take. You know, I always feel like, and some people have said, I tend to give them more time. A small group of people said that. I do this as well. My… when I'm reaching out. I will sometimes try to follow up with somebody, and if you're not using AI to follow up with anybody right now, right? Everybody's using AI for multiple things, AI can help you do great follow-ups, but it'll be like, hey, looking inside your HubSpot here, I can see that you've reached out 3 times in the last 7 days. Maybe wait till next week. Listen to these suggestions, right? Because they're there for you!

James Buckley: 29:31

Yeah, Elmer, talk to me about your 3-stepper with the data that's up on the screen here. It looks like most people said it depends on the size of the deal. I can appreciate that answer.

Elmer Lopez: 29:40

Yeah, I'm gonna say…again, buying signals is gonna be big, even while you're in mid-stage of a deal, that's gonna be important. But also, your own Gong call transcripts or whatever call recording software you're using is a great buying signal within itself. Maybe there's something you missed. Go back to that call, ask it questions, and understand, hey. this guy tell me there's a new hire coming in that is gonna be a part of the decision process, and that's why we're lagging on this whole deal? Maybe going back and seeing if that was something that you missed, could be worthwhile, and then when you see that buying signal message from whatever tool you're using to see buying signals, and you see, hey, James just finally got hired at XYZ company that you've been targeting this whole time, or been working with this whole time. now you can send them that email saying, hey, notice that James hopped on to the team. The last time we talked, he was going to be a part of the sales cycle for this, or something like that. Curious if it'd be worthwhile to circle back, right?

Elmer Lopez: 30:39

Now, maybe it's a dead deal, and now you're reviving it because you know exactly what's happening within their company. Same thing could be within a fundraising signal, etc. Maybe there's an acquisition happening. Notice that there's an acquisition happening. Curious if we can involve… we should involve anyone from the other side, or if you need more time for this exact thing that we're trying to sell you.

James Buckley: 31:00

So I really love your messaging, I just want to call out a few words that always stick out to me, and I think it's because I get so many messages with them. I don't like I saw, I don't like I noticed.

Elmer Lopez: 31:10

Yeah, and I don'.

James Buckley: 31:11

Don't, like, circle back, touching base, bubbling this up to the top, like, this is all, like, really old and outplayed language that I think most sellers… there's a lot of veterans in the room, they've been at this for 20 and 30, in some cases, 40 years, right? These folks know that that's just filler words, it's language that people expect, and it doesn't land. I want to caution the newbies in the room. Do not get stuck in the standard outbound language of following up, touching base, and checking in. This will definitely land you in the spam folder more often than not, and we…our buyers in the modern age are typically very aware of what's been written by Chat or Claude, or GPT. You know, there's so much out there.

James Buckley: 31:58

That's the question, right? Are you using an AI tool to do this stuff? If you are, identify it. If not, and you have another, please tell us in the chat. I'm very interested in the tools that are out there. Let's continue on with this question, and I know, Hannah, you'll have a thing or two to say about Becca's question as well, even though it came from Elmer's comment. I'm gonna talk about your breakup email. She says, for that email, do you find it worth it to start a new chain with the breakup email, or is it part of the…The big thing, you know?

Elmer Lopez: 32:27

Yeah, I actually started a new chain. You did? I mean, there's no specific chain, but it's like, the reason why it works is because of the subject line, that says giving up on this project, so if it's within the same email thread, and they're already not looking at that one email thread, I… for me, what's worked is sending that new email, so…

James Buckley: 32:47

Nice, nice. Hannah, any thoughts on when you're gonna separate? A lot of folks said it depends on the company size. Some people said 4 to 6 touches was enough for them. When do you break away? When do you realize, alright, I'm chasing a literal ghost here, this person is never gonna reply?

Hannah Ajikawo: 33:01

You know what, it really depends on, how qualified the opportunity is for me. If it's a solid, qualified… because, as we know, some opportunities, it's a long shot, and you can gauge that. Experience will tell you that, and as you get more experience, you'll be brave enough to ask and say, hey, like, is this…How quickly does this get pushed down a priority list? If, you know, someone sneezes and it's like, this isn't important anymore? But there are some things where someone is… they're genuinely, like, this… like, it's make or break. You be on it, you add the pressure, say, hey, when we first spoke, you know, when we set the frame, I told you I'm going to help, this is something that I'm going to partner up with you on, I'm your partner in this. If it means we have to pause for a few weeks, let me know. Cool. Yeah. Someone mentioned it in the… I think Roy as well, like. understanding why you're being ghosted is so important. There could be genuine reasons, and I love, love, love, Elma, that you spoke about, talk to your AI. We just keep recording, and we never go back. We never go back and say, hold up.

Hannah Ajikawo: 33:56

Am I missing something? Like, I feel like I'm being ghosted, but is there something that they said that I missed? And it's like, oh yeah, I'm going on paternity leave. Oh, damn! I've been chasing this daddy down! He's like, I'm with my little girls, I'm embracing, you know, was it chest time? Skin to skin? And you're like, hey…So we have to really… we generally forget, I do… I was about to chase the client down, and I was like, damn, they said they were away, I forgot. So please go back to your AI. It's so important, and you'll be so surprised at what you pick up.

James Buckley: 34:25

This is, this is a great talking point, right? We take it so personally. We believe that we did something wrong. You know what, if you want to know if you did something wrong, and you want a great follow-up post-call, take your transcript from Gong, load it up into Claude ChatGPT, it looks like most of you are using one of those two. Right? And ask it to analyze it and create a strong follow-up for you, and then customize it, make it your own. Right? That's the part you don't want to skip. Don't just copy and paste, that's lazy. Go back, read it, make sure it's your language. Does it sound like you? Read it out loud. Do you feel like you when you're reading it? Send that one. If it doesn't feel like you, and it sounds like it was written by an MBA, and you don't have an MBA, please don't send that message. You look foolish.

James Buckley: 35:12

Right? That's as real as I can say it. But I'm so glad that everybody is using these tools, because they are out there. So, that's an interesting question. Becca. Anybody else that has questions, by all means, jump in. Now, here's something I said before we kicked this call off, and I want to talk a little bit about signals. 72% of deals are lost to no decision. Guys, I'm gonna say this to you, it's gonna change your brain a little. You are not getting ghosted. You are falling into the majority. That's what's happening. Hannah, thoughts?

Hannah Ajikawo: 35:45

it's very true, unless you're Hannah, right? So, I think, with a…I know I'm gonna repeat myself again. This is true. The majority of deals end up here, but I'm gonna add a few caveats. One of the caveats is a lot of the deals are not real deals, and you're gonna be honest, you need to be honest with yourself, right? When I was… when I was a junior rep, so let's say 4 years into my career. I went after the big, chunky competition, chunky deals, sat down with my MD, he's like, you keep getting all these big deals, but they don't close. Went through it, and he was like, damn…He's like, they're not really deals. They like meeting you, you're informing them, you're educating them, but they're not qualified. And I was like, oh, okay. So we really need to be relentless and work on qualifying out. That's the first thing. The next thing I will say is, when it comes to… the reason why I said not me is because I want my prospects to feel, particularly when it's a qualified deal, that it's disrespectful to not respond.

James Buckley: 36:39

Mmm.

Hannah Ajikawo: 36:39

in a given… like, they're not going to go one month without contacting me. That just doesn't happen, because I've set the tone and a relationship building credibility and trust, like, hey, I'm in this with you. I'm all in. If you want to do this, I am all in. I'll go to… at bat with you. Who do you want me to message? I'm sending them people from their team, I'm looking through the website, I'm finding… I'm checking stuff, advising them. I'm that partner for them, so them not responding feels uncomfortable. So that's how you get out of this, deals lost to no decision. Better qualification, and establishing yourself as someone that shouldn't be ignored.

James Buckley: 37:12

I, you know, Morgan says it the best, too, he says, I'm hard to ignore, and I think I've been hard to ignore my entire career, maybe even since I was a kid, but that's a different podcast. Elmer! Let's talk a little bit about your thoughts on this subject, because, I, you know, I think watch for buying signals or buying behavior and not engagement is a very.

Hannah Ajikawo: 37:31

interesting statement.

James Buckley: 37:33

And I think we get those two confused very often. Is there something happening to your messaging that lets you know that you should continue on, this is meaningful? Are you watching click rates? Are you looking at opens? Sometimes I feel like, oh, I got 14 opens on that email, but then my fear is that they sent it around to the whole team and said, this is what not to do.

Elmer Lopez: 37:52

Yeah, I think one thing that's, been helpful for me in the past, too, is just having, like, a digital sales room. I'm not gonna plug any right now, but having a digital sales room can be helpful within itself, because if you see someone else enter that digital sales room, you're like, who in the world is this? So now you're doing your research, and then starting to try to multi-thread or get an introduction the next time you have a conversation with that prospect. But that's gonna be something that I always look out for. But also, just looking at those buying signals in general, maybe they didn't tell you there was some sort of restructuring happening because they didn't know within the company. Or that there's gonna be a new hire coming in that would be involved in this whole deal. But if you're watching out for those signals, and then reach back out to them, again, not saying noticed or anything like that, but keeping it more relationship-based when you reach back out to that, main point of contact, then the chances of them responding are just gonna be much higher.

James Buckley: 38:44

Yeah, and that's what we want. We want a higher chance of response. I promise, no matter how good you get at this job, you will get ghosted. I promise. They will leave the company before they have a chance to complete your deal, and you won't know.

Elmer Lopez: 38:59

Yeah, yeah.

James Buckley: 39:00

It turns out, they don't call you to let you know that stuff. They just get canned and move on like everybody else, right? Hannah, you said something on the pre-call, and you've kind of alluded to it a couple of times throughout this episode, but I kind of want to end on this high note. You said something that I think a lot of sellers need to hear. If you're getting ghosted, you never had a deal to begin with. And I think this is a very, reflective, very self-aware kind of statement and mindset to have. How do we get good at knowing this? That we never had this, it was just a figment of our imagination? Because I'm a victim of happy ears, I'll be honest.

Hannah Ajikawo: 39:37

I'm gonna drop the sauce, you ready?

James Buckley: 39:38

Yes.

Hannah Ajikawo: 39:39

This is 100K coaching source, yeah? Alright, so what I want everyone to do is, I want you to get a piece of paper and put a line down the middle. On the left-hand side, I want you to put research, and on the right-hand side, I want you to write review. And I want you to ask yourself. where do I think every single one of my opportunities are in their buying journey? Have they explicitly shared words and language that talk about where we're viewing, we're researching the market, we're just trying to figure out what our needs are, we're just having a few internal meetings, all of that stuff. That means they are literally in research mode. It's like me being on the app today, adding lots of stuff to my basket. I'm not gonna buy all of that stuff, I'm gonna delete most of it and probably forget and go to bed, right? But that research mode is, honestly, they're not buying. They can't buy. They're not aligned internally.

Hannah Ajikawo: 40:27

the review stage is language like, yeah, we're quite further along, we've shortlisted 4 or 5 vendors, and over the last few months, we've been doing this, and we also tried to do something ourself, that didn't really work. We gave… we tried AI, that didn't really work. Like, we want to hear that they've been through the ropes, they've been through the trenches trying to figure it out. And then we land on this place where we're like, if we've got deals in review, those things are active. So, like, the deal… the deal that I lost recently, that they ghosted me for three and a half weeks, I think I was reading it to you pre-call, and I knew that they were in research. So I was like, this isn't an opportunity yet, because they haven't figured out in their head what the problem is, how they're going to approach it, if they want to invest in it, but they were really excited by the ideas of how we're going to fix their go-to-market. But they just, they weren't in yet.

Hannah Ajikawo: 41:15

So when I messaged them, gave them that breakup email like Elmer said, they responded, we're gonna look at this again in Q4, we're just gonna try and figure it out. So I'm like, see? They need to try it themselves first. So that's the source. I pro- just do that. Just put the line down the middle. Plot your deals, and you'll figure out the ones that need work, and the ones that ain't gonna close.

James Buckley: 41:35

If you came here for the sauce, you just got the sauce.

Hannah Ajikawo: 41:39

In 180 seconds.

James Buckley: 41:40

That is amazing! Alright, so, final thought from both of you, in 30 seconds or less, Elmer, something that everybody's coming away from this episode saying, I'm gonna do this today. What is it?

Elmer Lopez: 41:52

I actually want to add on to that last question, for what you were just talking about with Hannah. I actually think if you're opening an opportunity and there's no critical event. then that opportunity is not going to be closing anytime soon. And a critical event can be, like. just for example, I'm selling a data tool, right? And maybe, Hannah's company and James' company, they're about to merge, so their CRMs are gonna get real messy real soon. So if I'm selling a data company that does enrichment and things like that to clean up a CRM and deduplicate the CRM, that's a critical event, because if that's happening next month, you need us. You need us to help you with that. Or if I'm selling, a badge scanner, for example, and you're going to a conference next month. then that's a critical event as well. It's like, okay, you need us next month as well. But if they're like, oh, you know what? Yeah, we're just evaluating our strategy, for the year. We might be doing something like this in…

Elmer Lopez: 42:49

The next 6 months, 7 months, I'm not sure, though. We're just evaluating, we're just exploring, and there's no critical event there. I'm not sure if I'm opening that opportunity myself.

James Buckley: 42:57

That's a great way to wrap up the show. Hannah, 30 seconds, one sentence, maybe two. Last, final thing everybody's coming away from you and thinking about.

Hannah Ajikawo: 43:07

Yeah, don't, don't worry about why you're being ghosted, figure out why the buyer thinks it's okay to not respond to you right now.

James Buckley: 43:13

That is the gem to think about if you are at this show, coming away from this. Go look at your closed, lost deals, and the ones that you listed as ghosted, and use the techniques that we've given you here to go bring them back to life! If there's zombies, you might have a chance. We'll see. I hope everybody has a great day. I want to thank you for spending your afternoon with us. Join us every day right here, sellbetter.xyz. You'll get a survey. Take part in that survey. Tell me what you liked about this. Tell me what you want to see more of. We'll create it right here for you. Shout out to our partners over at HighLevel, Gong, and Expertise.ai. Don't forget to look out for all the content that I'm going to put out about the stuff I've built. built in expertise. Have a great day, everybody, go get them