Radio silence after sending a proposal to a company or corporate organisation doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a ‘no’. In fact, it’s often the opposite! Sometimes it can mean that the person you sent it to is dealing with competing priorities, waiting for internal sign-off or has been pulled into solving a more urgent problem.
But coaches, consultants, speakers and trainers who understand how the proposal process works are able to follow up with confidence (and avoid losing opportunities that best-practice follow ups could have saved!)
In this article, you’ll learn exactly where problems arise during the proposal process so that you can identify where you’re getting ghosted – and decide how you want to proceed so that you learn how to become a consultative partner who converts corporate clients regularly.
Why do corporate clients go quiet after a proposal?
Before we jump into taking action and trying to send lots of follow-up messages that feel awkward to us and to the prospect we sent our proposal to, it helps to understand why silence can happen after a proposal has been sent across.
This radio silence – or ‘ghosting’ – can happen after a proposal has been sent for a number of reasons, but the most common that coaches / consultants and trainers normally experience are:
- Longer sign-off process than expected: Companies often have specific sign-off processes, with some decision-makers having the authority to allocate a specific amount of budget to new pieces of work and other decision-makers not having the authority to sign off budget to new pieces of work. Not knowing what the sign-off process looks like is one of the key reasons that coaches / consultants and trainers often think they’ve been ghosted after sending a proposal.
- Competing priorities: There are often a multitude of critical commercial priorities happening inside an organisation at any given time and sometimes a genuine emergent situation will take precedence over a proposal that has already been submitted. But not knowing what the competing priorities are, is one of the big reasons that coaches / consultants and trainers don’t get replies after submitting proposals.
- Budget changing unexpectedly: It’s frustrating – but it can happen! Corporate decision-makers can think that they have a specific budgetary amount to spend… only to find that it changes during the proposal process (and they struggle to disappoint the seller by telling them!)
- Sending unqualified proposals: By far the biggest reason that coaches / consultants and trainers get ghosted after sending proposals… because they weren’t sending a qualified proposal in the first place! Often, coaches / consultants and trainers who are inexperienced with sales can suggest sending a proposal after a sales call with a corporate prospect… even when the prospect isn’t fully bought in / doesn’t have all the information required or isn’t a qualified decision-maker who will be able to sign off the piece of work.
Whilst most coaches / consultants and trainers think that 1-3 are the main reasons that they get ghosted after a proposal has been sent… this is the most prevalent reason (and the simplest to solve!)
Understanding each of these four scenarios changes how you move forward with existing and future proposal processes so that you’re not feeling like you’re putting tons of time and energy into creating proposals that don’t convert.
How does a proposal fit into your overall sales process?
Understanding where sending a proposal fits in our overall sales process means that we can start to understand exactly where to troubleshoot when our proposal gets ghosted.
At Selling to Corporate ® we’ve been teaching the same proven five-step Selling to Corporate ® sales framework for over ten years (to over 30,000 students!) and it works every time. Sending a proposal sits in the fourth stage of the framework:
- Clarity: Who are we selling to / what type of commercial transformation are we selling them?
- Lead Generation: The process of targeting, identifying and approaching qualified prospects to book qualified sales calls.
- Business Development: Building, maintaining and leveraging relationships that convert (incorporating sales calls, follow up processes and ongoing relationship building)
- Offers and Proposals: Creating, pricing and articulating solutions that meet a real need so that organisations get significant transformation.
- Delivery and Re-Sell / Up-sell: Delivering a great client experience and creating clear up-sell / re-sell processes to maximise revenue and client transformation.
This may not look like your existing sales process – especially if you’re newer / less experienced with selling to organisations.
The reality is that most coaches / consultants and trainers will have sold to individuals first (B2C sales) and will have been taught that a lot of other things matter in the B2C sales process that are not relevant to B2B sales (such as creating funnels, lead magnets, webinars, weekly newsletters, posting on social media and so on.) But whilst these are useful when selling to individuals, they’re not useful when selling to companies.
In our proven Selling to Corporate ® framework, each piece of the sales process qualifies and feeds the next stage of the sales process; meaning that each part has a clear purpose that allows coaches / consultants and trainers to move forward, knowing that they have everything they need to optimise the next stage (and gives a much higher conversion rate from cold lead → closed corporate contract!)
As you can see from the proven Selling to Corporate ® framework, the proposal stage sits after lead generation and business development (specifically the sales call(s) that got us to the point of submitting a proposal!) which means that if we want to understand why we aren’t getting replies to our proposal, we could troubleshoot:
- Lead Generation: Was the prospect a qualified prospect? Meaning, do they have a) responsibility for your area of specialism and b) do they have autonomy over the budget to pay you for your area of specialism?
- Business Development (specifically the sale(s) call that got you to the point of submitting a proposal): In your sales call, did you a) get all the qualifying information needed to submit a high quality proposal (like understanding their budget?) and b) did they ask you to submit a proposal… or did you suggest it to them?
Troubleshooting in this way means that we’re able to understand whether they’re ghosting / not replying because:
- The proposal was sent to someone who was not a qualified decision-maker and will need to get others internally to push the proposal through, taking significantly more time (and relying on their level of influence internally)
- You didn’t have all the information needed to create a qualified proposal (meaning that you’ve likely suggested multiple options / price points to try and appeal… and inadvertently created more work and decision-fatigue for the stakeholder!)
- They didn’t actually want a proposal… but you suggested sending one because you’ve been taught that calls should always end in ‘getting a proposal’ … even if the opportunity isn’t fully qualified yet.
Sending qualified corporate proposals is not about:
- Whether it looks pretty or not (slide decks should be banned in proposal documents!)
- Sending three options inside a proposal because they’re ‘most likely to take the middle-priced option’
- Having a clear website sales page, outlining a generic offer with ‘click-to-buy links’ that companies won’t use.
Sending qualified proposals is about completing the steps inside the sales process that happen before the proposal is even discussed – so that you can achieve 75% + conversion rates like my clients inside Cold → Closed.
‘Who was asking about lead time for biz development? I’ve just had a BD call 12 noon today. Sent proposal this afternoon. Had it booked and confirmed by [spp-timestamp time="4:55"]. Never spoken to them before.’ – Leadership Consultant, UK
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How soon should I follow up after sending a corporate proposal?
Okay, so let’s assume that you did run a qualified sales process and that the proposal that you’ve sent is completely qualified.
What do you do next? When should you really be following up (without looking desperate for it to close?!)
Firstly, being keen to close business is not desperate… and maybe I need to write an entirely new article for that! But wanting to sign corporate contracts so that you can focus on delivering significant value and transformation to the client alongside making a profit and keeping your business running effectively? That’s not a bad thing at all!
But sometimes that enthusiasm to close business (or panic if your pipeline is lower than expected) can come across in the wrong way; as being inadvertently pushy / desperate and with corporate clients? It can turn them off working with you – or worse, attempting to negotiate your rate down because they see that you really need the work.
That’s why running a clearly defined follow up process is absolutely essential to a) convert your proposals consistently and b) make sure that you’re always operating from a position of power throughout your sales process, rather than a position of being willing to accept lower rates, negotiate or be out of the running entirely.
In a best-practice sales process, like the proven Selling to Corporate ® framework above, coaches / consultants and trainers are able to rid themselves of any anxiety around follow ups… because they discuss them transparently during the sales call so that the prospect knows exactly what they’ll be sending and when they’ll be following up.
That’s because it helps to be super transparent about sales activity – and reassures the prospect that they’re working with a professional who has a clear process. If you’ve got a clear sales process, they also assume that your delivery process will be excellent too – so it gives good signals, right from the start of your working relationship.
But in terms of practicalities, inside Cold to Closed we teach a very specific follow up process that:
- Has up to four courteous, pre-agreed follow-up messages (depending on whether or not the prospect responds)
- Work back from the proposal expiration date so that the process is transparent, helpful and clear.
- Gives the prospect the opportunity and reassurance that they can ask questions / ask for changes at any point so that they feel comfortable and relaxed about asking for additional reassurance, rather than avoiding challenging conversations about changes.
- Has a clear process to follow after the proposal expiration to continue the sales conversation and regenerate any deals that didn’t go through in the timeframe expected.
Now, you might think ‘But that’s a lot of contact… won’t the prospect be annoyed?’ and the honest answer is?
No. The proposal process inside Cold → Closed is specifically designed to:
- Follow qualified lead generation so that you’re having the sales call with the correct, qualified prospect (who has budget and responsibility for your area of specialism.)
- Follow a qualified sales call where you’re able to effectively diagnose one specific issue and create or suggest one clear solution (and manage their expectations around the way the sales process will work)
Which means that the prospect feels:
- Heard and understood; they know that you’re able to effectively diagnose the problem that they’re experiencing and trust you to create a solution that solves it.
- Reassured that you have all the information you need to create a valuable proposal (rather than one that they receive and is wildly out of scope / over or under budget)
- Secure in the knowledge that you’ll be running a clear, transparent sales process – because that will also lead to a clear, transparent delivery experience.
So if you’re thinking that there should be a ‘best message / best wording’ for a follow up message after a proposal… there absolutely can be… but they only work if you have followed a proven sales process.
If you haven’t followed a proven sales process, then follow up wording won’t make a significant difference… but troubleshooting your sales process effectively and regenerating the conversation will save your deals.
What if I still hear nothing after following up?
AI would tell you to follow up again and again every ‘seven to ten business days until you get a response of any kind, up to a maximum of five follow ups’.
But that’s not how real sales processes work. If you’ve followed a proven sales process, managed the expectations of the prospect and run a clear follow up process, you will get a response.
In fact, the percentage of prospects that my clients who follow a proven sales and proposal process don’t hear back from?
Under 5%.
And even then, there are ways of using ongoing business development to regenerate relationships and restart sales processes that feel ‘lost’.
The worst things to do if you don’t get a response from a corporate decision-maker about a proposal?
- Try a ‘funny’ follow-up: Like ‘you’re harder to get hold of than the Pope!’ (which I usually get in outreach messages during the lead generation phase… but it doesn’t work anywhere.
- Be passive aggressive: Sending follow ups that contain any variant of, ‘I guess that [TOPIC] isn’t something you’re choosing to prioritise…’ will only ever put you on a list of providers that no-one wants to work with.
- Sending the same follow up: Corporate prospects know that they haven’t replied to you – and sometimes they’re just busy. But they do also feel guilty about it… and sending the same ‘I’m just following up to see if there’s any update on [PROPOSAL]’ each week, won’t encourage them to respond. It just reminds them that they still haven’t; feeding the sense of guilt that they have and discouraging them from replying.
Your proposal might be the most important thing in your business right now… but it’s not likely to be the most important priority on their plate. Make sure that your follow ups are consistent, courteous and expected for the best results and if you don’t hear anything? Think about how you can move them into your ongoing business development process.
(If you’re not sure how to execute a proposal follow up process / don’t know what to do after getting ghosted and you haven’t put together a best-practice B2B sales process that is consistently generating cold leads and turning them into qualified sales calls and closed corporate contracts? Check out Cold → Closed here which is designed to help coaches, consultants, speakers, trainers and done-for-you service providers set up a proven outbound sales process that turns cold leads into signed corporate contracts in 90 days or less.)
Is there anything I should not do when following up on a corporate proposal?
We’ve discussed this a little already – but a clear reminder below of the things to avoid when you’re following up on corporate proposals.
Do not send daily messages. Daily follow-ups signal desperation and they will get you blocked or ignored permanently.
Do not express frustration. Any version of “I have sent several messages and not heard back, which is frustrating” is going to scupper your sales process entirely. Stay professional, stay warm, and stay optimistic.
Do not lower your price unprompted. If you have not heard back and you are starting to worry, the instinct for many coaches and consultants is to offer a discount. Resist it. Lowering your price without being asked suggests that your original price wasn’t real and encourages new negotiations.
Do not give up after one or two follow-ups. If you’re running a proven sales process and have managed the prospects’ expectations? You can send up to four follow ups and expect a great outcome. However, if you haven’t run a proven process, your best option is to refer back to the troubleshooting section, identify issues and move forward, rather than adopting a new process midway!
What do I do if they finally respond with “we’ve decided to go in a different direction”?
Accept it graciously, thank them for their time, and ask one question: “Is there anything about our proposal or approach that I could improve for future conversations?”
Corporate buyers who give you a no often become the people who refer you or come back to you twelve months later when circumstances change. The way you handle a no is as important as anything you do to win a yes and will often determine whether or not a prospect feels comfortable to revisit a sales process with you.
Make sure that you keep them in your ongoing business development process – and that way, you’ll be top of mind when they’re ready to move again / the time is right
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Jess Lorimer is the founder of Selling to Corporate® and has helped over 30,000 coaches, consultants, speakers, trainers and service providers across 17 countries win corporate contracts. She is a TEDx speaker and the host of the Selling to Corporate® podcast.