Leslie Ye says, “Q: What’s a salesperson’s least favorite word?

A: *crickets*

(Psst: It’s a trick question.) The answer isn’t a word — it’s silence.

A silent prospect leaves deals in indefinite limbo. You obviously can’t mark the sale as closed-won, but it’s human nature to hope that maybe it’ll close.

Silence isn’t the only thing salespeople don’t love hearing, of course. “Maybe” comes to mind. When a prospect tells you they’ve gone with a competitor or decided to delay a purchase decision, you can move on, but “maybe” creates the same uncertainty as silence.

Silence or a “maybe” followed by silence could mean anything.

  • Did you lose the deal?
  • Is your prospect avoiding your email or have they just not read it yet? (If you don’t ever want to wonder if a prospect’s opened your email again, HubSpot Sales will take the guesswork out of the equation.)
  • Did they go on vacation and forget to set an out-of-office reply?
  • Is your contact writing back to you at this very moment? (Probably not.)”.

4 Breakup Email Templates That’ll Get a Response Once and For All

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