
Ask HN: How to avoid ghosting by potential customers? - ajeet_dhaliwal
If you are involved with sales in anyway you have probably encountered ghosting - it&#x27;s when you&#x27;ve been having (what seems) like a fruitful conversation about their problems, their interest in what you are selling and helping them through perhaps a trial or getting started, you&#x27;ve exchanged anywhere from 5 to 75 emails and then suddenly they are gone, you never hear from them ever again, despite following up, no reasons, just gone. To be clear I am not talking about someone never having responded ever, I&#x27;m talking about a situation where the conversation has begun, you may have exchanged potentially dozens of emails, perhaps even spoken on the phone, perhaps even written custom code or helped with integration. It looks like the term originally comes from online dating but I am talking about the business variety.<p>The specific question I have is, assuming this is going to happen and accepting that there will be a subset of potential prospects that do this, has anyone found any ways to avoid this from happening, seeing warning signs, or reducing the rate this happens? In particular interest, it seems clear they are no longer interested in the product or service, but were they <i>ever</i> interested? I&#x27;m reading about the psychology around why this happens too and from what I understand they were interested at some point, but then changed their mind, perhaps the product wasn&#x27;t good enough, or didn&#x27;t quite meet their needs, whatever the reason, you won&#x27;t find out, but I am assuming they were interested at some point. Of course, the important thing is to quickly move on when you have realized this has happened but I think the rate of ghosting has crept up and hearing about other people&#x27;s experience and thoughts on this might save me and others reading a lot of time.
======
davnicwil
The likelihood when you've already exchanged quite a few emails and suddenly
all communication ceases is what you've said - they were interested but
something changed and now they're not. Coming up with an excuse and 'closing
down' a conversation with a salesperson so that they _don 't_ come back to you
has in my experience been... tricky. It usually takes a bit of back and forth
even to do that ("yes, I'm really sure I'm not interested, thanks" x3).

Because email is very low social pressure, it's probably just people avoiding
the awkwardness / time & effort of doing that.

If you want feedback on why they're not interested any more, probably the best
way is a phone call, or failing that an email which makes the very clear
upfront assumption that the sale is _not_ going to happen, and just asking for
a quick reason why they changed their mind (just assume they have upfront as
well - 90% of the time you'll be right). I think most people would be happy to
do this if they are confident the conversation is really going to end there.

------
lukevdp
In my experience ghosting from prospects happen when what they have told you
is incongruent with what they are now thinking, and they can’t explain why.
Often shifting priorities can cause it.

Asking directly for feedback as to why they aren’t responding sometimes works,
and otherwise I’ve found the best way to respond is just to let them know
you’re available should they want to get back in touch, and follow up in 6
months.

~~~
bewo001
Be aware that as a sales guy, you are a nuisance to the people you are talking
to. In the best case, I'll remember your proposal if a use case comes up, but
I have neither time nor motivation to give feedback on your failed attempt to
sell me something.

~~~
lukevdp
That really depends on the industry, the type of product, the type of buyer,
and the relationship between the buyer and the sales rep.

Personally, as a buyer I don’t treat sales reps as a nuisance, I treat them as
a resource.

------
johnorourke
You were probably talking to the wrong person: either through research or chat
you need to ensure you are talking to someone who has the authority to pay
you.

Also hidden in your text is "perhaps even written custom code"... could it be
that they got what they actually wanted from you and no longer need you?

Finally - sorry if this sounds harsh - if you've exchanged 75 emails and not
made a sale, you need to learn to sell better.

Read "Demonstrating to win" (cheesy title but absolute gold for enterprise
solution sales), and "Start with No" by Jim Camp (fantastically logical and
easy to use way of negotiating that will appeal to techies)

Good luck!

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
I can see the first two points being something that could easily happen but I
don't think they apply in my case. Thanks for the book references, do you
think 'Demonstrating to Win' applies to modern SaaS type apps too or more
Enterprise/high touch/on site sales?

~~~
scarface74
What’s the practical difference between “Enterprise/high touch/on site sales”
and B2B SAAS? Either way, you’re asking a company to pay you for a service
that plays a part in their business process that will cost them money in terms
of up front costs, training, and probably changing some of their business
process.

~~~
notahacker
Enterprise/high-touch/on-site sales assumes you go and see everyone involved
in the decision, understand every element of their business process and design
a solution to fit that, obviously using a massive pre-sales budget to do so.
And yes, you probably do end up exchanging 75 emails as well as an awful lot
more minutes of time, but if the sale fails after that you know why.

Lower-cost B2B SaaS means the solution already exists, and you've got to
understand how/if their business process will adapt well enough to it to make
it worth the money to them based on a lot less information. You'll miss a lot
more, and get 'ghosted' a lot more as a result. But you do get to speak to a
lot more prospective buyers.

~~~
scarface74
I worked for a company involving HIPAA compliant messaging for health systems.
Everything was hosted by us from the server side and the mobile apps were in
the app store -- not provisioned via MDM. We still had to have onsite
"implementation managers" to train employees.

------
throwaway01210
Throwaway, wanted to weight in a bit: we sell a complex software package to
medical institutions. After the initial sales, customers become extremely
interested in the topic, yet they ghost us for 3-4 months before coming back.

This took some doing, but suspected cause is Epic. Customer, once aware that a
high-pain problem exist, asks Epic what/whether they have a solution to this
already (almost all large hospitals are on Epic in the US). Epic runs a
strategy where they answer "yes" to every single one of these questions.
Customer waits patiently for 3-4 months for a solution to materialize, which
fails to do so. Only after this do they turn back to us to actually deliver.

Looking at your product, it is not inconcievable, that during procurement, one
of the stakeholders bring up "why don't we just use X?", and this turns the
conversation from purchasing your specific stuff to "how can we solve Y
problem?". If this is so, you might want to have a larger picture during your
sales pitch, which shows benefit matrix across competitors in the space,
clearly marking you as a winner & sent to the stakeholders so as for this not
to derail purchasing process.

------
outtolunch
From my solely experience as a freelancer/entrepeneur what I've found out
about potential customers ghosting is that these potential customers are so
close to the Crocodile Brain (or Lizard Brain) [0] that you may have to treat
them like so. My secret sauce is to shorten conversations and always think
about the next thing to reply _before even starting a conversation_ :

1\. build a diagram for a single conversation

2\. draw branches for every positive and negative potential customer replies

3\. optimize your diagram to shorten negative conversations (so "wrong"
customers won't feel chained to your interactions and are able to leave at
will)

4\. try to visualize the Happy Path [1] to conversion from potential to
customer and fragment it into a couple of conversations with clear start-
finish-accomplishment marks so you can gradually build every potential
customer profile and really know whether they're really interested (coming
back spontaneously) or not (leaving _while replying_ , so you know the reason)

Make sure your potential customers can always get out of conversations at will
(showing they're not who you're looking for) and remember sometimes
conversations get awkward enough that people just won't know how to get out of
it and just do it anyway - leaving without a reply

0:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6bZG7vTUNM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6bZG7vTUNM)

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_path](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_path)

~~~
bewo001
Especially in bigger companies, decisions to buy a product take a lot of time.
Department A likes your product and starts asking detailed questions.
Department B gets wind of that and feels that A is trying to get on B's turf.
Department C knows that A will be reorganized soon and will no longer need
your product, but can't say that openly yet. Heated internal meetings ensue.
Management gets involved. During all this time, you will get slower and more
vague responses. Maybe some budget cut strikes. Managers fight about the
prioritization of projects. This can take weeks.

------
thatoneuser
Close faster. Don't do any of this "custom code or helped with integration"
bullshit unless they're paying you for it. Develop intuition.

That's about all you can do. 75 emails is... A lot without making a sale. Fwiw
I'll usually get 1-3 emails asking what client wants, hopefully a phone call,
I write a proposal and send it over, I wait a few days and follow up asking
what they think. Maybe the want to negotiate terms or whatever, that's 1-3
more emails and maybe another call. All in all <10 emails, 2 calls max, and I
either have a sale or I say thanks and feel free to contact me in the future
if they're interested in this or other work.

I never work for free without getting paid for something first. I won't do
coding tests, I won't write code, I won't figure out a problem. I will give
them expert advice if I can and if it will help them see the value of my work.
However say I've had a client pay for a job before and they have a small ask -
I'll probably do it for free if it's 2 or less hours one time.

And intuition - I mean that's hard but you gotta be able to read people. Know
when they're kicking tires, know when they're in over their head or out of
their element, know when they don't have the Auth to get a request filled.

------
lb1lf
YMMV, but I've experienced lots of this in my current role (engineering
manager at tech support in $EngineeringCompany.)

Customers keep asking for info on upgrades, specs, try to trick us into doing
detailed engineering - then suddenly boom, they are dead quiet at best or at
worst stalling - replying to your requests, but only non-committing.

I've since made it a checklist item that we notify our customers right away
during first contact that IF they lose interest for any reason whatsoever -
just let us know so that we may put the matter to rest, no hard feelings.

Stalling until we give up is not kinder than just being brutally honest.

I've found that quite a few customers appreciate us stating it so bluntly, as
it gives them, too, an easy way out of the otherwise awkward situation of us
spending time and effort providing solutions (or gathering a response!) and
them from spending same trying to let the matter drop without expressly
stating they are doing so.

It does not prevent us from spending time on projects which never come to
fruition, but it does help us cut our losses as the time between customer
losing interest and us being able to close the matter is decreased.

------
itronitron
I will ghost any software sales person that asks me more questions than they
answer, so I recommend noting your potential customers' initial questions and
making sure that those get answered before continuing to develop the lead.

------
softwaredoug
I’m interested in this question too, but here’s what’s worked for me. Mostly
it’s about being completely up front and honest about what you want with clear
deadlines for the next step from them for you to keep them around in your
sales pipeline.

\- be explicit about your strong desire to work together, but it’s ok if the
other side doesn’t share the feeling

\- ask the potential client early on to let you know ASAP if it’s no longer
worth it for you to

\- give clear timelines to keep a commitment on an engagement. If they don’t
make progress by X date you’re moving on to other engagements

\- if they disappear send a firm “thanks for your interest, sounds like the
timing won’t work right now, we’re moving on...” email

~~~
notahacker
The latter two points in particular sounds like you think you're doing them a
favour by allowing them to contemplate being your customer. There's a chance
that might be the case if you're proposing exclusive partnerships or keeping
loads of dev time free for them, but for the more standard case of selling a
product, they don't care whether they're in your pipeline or not and they'll
cheerfully ignore the deadlines you set for a commitment whether they're
interested in buying the product or not. And whilst sending the "thanks for
your interest, but we've got other customers out there" email might be
cathartic, it's even less likely to elicit useful information than a "just
wondering if you have a decision yet?" email, and more likely to put them off
a purchase they were delaying over. Unless you're actually seeking an answer,
you don't need to have the last word.

In general, if you want a better chance of an answer, pick up the phone. Sure,
they might not answer and you might get in "a few months maybe". But you also
might get a reason why it's no, a date they might be interested in it again,
or the person that's taken over the job from the person that showed the
initial interest.

------
Aromasin
I'm guilty of being one of these ghosts. Perhaps it's bad conduct, but when
I've decided to move on from the solution that the sales person was providing
I generally don't get back to them. As such, I'll list some reasons as to why
below to maybe make up for bad karma build-up...

The reasoning behind it stems from one of three things; I've found a solution
to my problem so I don't need your service/product any longer, the problem I
was having has been superseded by something else so I've shelved it for the
foreseeable future, or I've discussed your product/service with the upper-
management and they've got back to me with a big red 'denied'.

I suppose the solutions to the above would be as follows:

1\. Ask whether the buyer is considering other options in the same market of
the service/product you're providing. As the buyer, I'll be messaging up to 20
different sales-people at any one time to see what they can offer me compared
to their counterparts. There's nothing more frustrating for me than a sales-
person who beats around the bush - so even if their offer might be better,
it's not worth my time to organise meetings, discuss price, email back and
forth, and do other busy-work with them when I have another sales-person that
is transparent with what they are offering from day 1. Succinctly put, find
out who you're competing against quickly and close the deal before they can
offer something better.

2\. Again, this is in the realm of closing the deal quickly. I often get jobs
that crop-up mid way through negotiations, that supersede said negotiations.
There's not much you as a sales-person can do in this case other than close
quickly, or be persistent with contact so when the job does come back onto my
radar I've still got your contact at the back of my mind.

3\. Discuss whether the buyer is at the whims of a 'upper-management sign-
off'. If they are, you can discuss with them as to how to make it easier for
them to get that sign-off. I recently had to buy a new CAD package. There
ended up being some contention between myself and the uppers due to
integration with our current systems, but one of the sales-people and I talked
through the issues I was having with management and rectified it, going as far
as writing some new code to help with the integration before we even started
to talk about price. The other sales-persons basically said "Hope you get it
sorted. Lets us know how it goes" and that was that. Obviously we went with
the prior package, almost entirely due to the service.

At the end of the day, there are 101 other reasons, but those are the top 1, 2
and 3 I can think of currently. I hope that helps somewhat!

------
vsskanth
I think I can provide some context. When I was working as engineer in an R&D
group for a large corporation, I typically have to email a lot of vendors and
buy a sample to test it out for solving some internal. Ghosting usually
happens when:

1\. Your product doesn't meet the spec and/or doesn't work as advertised

2\. Your product is good but I wasn't able to get the budget cleared to
actually move forward.

3\. There is budget now but stuck internally in political/procurement hell
after my handover to the project manager or procurement person.

4\. All good, but project cancelled.

TLDR - Moby Dick theory of enterprise procurement. [1]

I try my best to let the salesperson know whats up but after the handover I
lose contact.

[1]
[https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part5.html](https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part5.html)

~~~
drchiu
Your response is quite good, and I’ve tried to mimic this as well. I don’t
think it happens often enough (I know I certainly have missed providing a
courtesy response), unfortunately. As people just get bombarded so often with
sales emails, general courtesy is lost in the transaction.

------
skmurphy
Given your pricing you should ask folks to pay for one or more targets and 30
days of storage if you are writing custom code or helping with an integration.
If someone pays you $25-$100 for an eval they are far more likely to be
serious. You have priced for easy trialability and should ask prospects to put
a little skin in the game.

------
usgroup
There is a way but it requires you to think one conversation ahead at each
conversation. 50% of your objective in the initial conversations should be to
generate the next conversation. That means you can’t just add “ok, next steps”
at the end of a “good chat”.

It has to be the bulk of the conversation that makes it inevitable and
desirable.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
Do you try to avoid coming across as high pressure though when you do this or
do you embrace that and think if they can't handle the high pressure they
wouldn't be interested anyway?

~~~
usgroup
Pressure has nothing to do with it. Have at T the sort of conversation that
requires another at T+1.

------
ncmncm
Often enough, people change jobs -- quit, or get fired. Their e-mail becomes a
black hole for at least a month, until somebody in IT gets around to turning
it off, if ever.

Some people are so bored at work they pretend interest just to have someone to
talk to. Then maybe they get busy, or fired. Sales is rough.

