What Do I Do When a Potential Customer Ghosts Me?

So you had a great conversation with a potential customer. They seemed interested, but then silence. They ghost you. A ghost is not a no most of the time. Mostly it's, I forgot, I'm busy, or I feel overwhelmed. This might not be the right time. And you're perceiving it as rejection. It's actually a chance for you to help. And yes, sometimes it is a no, but in my experience, most of the time it's not. And I'm going to show you how to identify each one and how to be able to reply to customers, potential customers to get them over the line so that you can be a consultant, a helper, somebody that's on their side to make sure that you are giving them everything they need to make the decision to buy. In fact, there are 3 big reasons why people ghost, and only one of them means that they're not going to buy right now. So we're going to go through each one and explain what to do. I have Nicole with me here on Q&A Wednesday to help me go through this question and make sure that we answer it for you. Hi, everyone.

Hi, Omar.

Hey, Nicole.

Hello. Well, gosh, ghosting. It's a term that gets thrown around a lot. So our listener/viewer is not alone. This question today comes from Mandy. Mandy asks, I had a potential customer who seemed really interested and then just disappeared on me. No response to anything. What do I do to someone who ghosts me like that?

I first want to say that I know that you and I both hate getting ghosted. Okay. I think that we both Think that everybody's like us, and the truth is that most people don't. Like we feel like I would never ghost anybody. I would always just reply, even if it's a no, even if I'm late, maybe I can't make it. There you can't just like forget about. We're talking about even as friends, family, you know dinners, you know appointments, things like that.

Is it a word that you even grew up with? I feel like it's a new generational thing. That's why I think we get frustrated.

Possibly, but I do think that we our standards are quite high, and and I think it kind of hurts us in a lot of ways because we just can't. Like, why would nobody reply to this? This is like, this is strange. You know, why would you just like, I sent you a message and you know that I'm waiting for you so I can know if I have to book the tickets or not and you just don't answer me?

It's rude.

It is rude in my opinion. But what I'm saying is that a lot of us, we just leave it at that and say like, oh, these people are strange. They're rude. They're careless. They don't care about other people. And you just, we relate that to our own business. And sometimes we don't realize we're not actually helping ourselves or helping our business by Knowing what to do with people that this is normal.

Yeah. So, if it's normal, what do we do?

Let's get into it. There are 3 big reasons I have found that people ghost. Now, there might be some other reasons here and there, but these are the 3 big buckets. And the first reason is probably the most common one. And a lot of people don't recognize this. And that is people are just simply busy, right? You might have a call with a customer that wants to sign up for your service to solve a certain issue in their problem or in their business. And they want to, like, improve something, make some money. Maybe they want to— to learn more about your product or service, this is one of many things on their plate. Like, probably, like, you're probably priority number 72, okay?

Mm-hmm.

And I'm not talking just about their business plate, I'm talking about their life. They have kids, they have family, they have to pick up the meds from the pharmacy for their dad's insulin. There's all these things that are going on in their life. They're just busy and they just, for some reason, missed your pitch or missed replying to you. Maybe they're disorganized, maybe they don't have the help they need. All these things are true. Right. But I think this is the biggest one because we feel like it's personal when it's not personal. Right. It's just, they're very busy. And I think that's a good thing because if you're dealing with somebody busy, they're a doer. They're making things happen. And most business owners, people that are making money are very busy. They don't have a lot of time.

Mm-hmm. So you're not letting them off the hook. You know, in a way it's a nice reframe that it's not a personal thing. Like don't take it personally.

Yeah. And I, I actually love it when I get a sales call, when somebody calls me up, like for example, last week the gym called me and said, hey, we sent you an email and I was just too busy to reply to the email about my annual renewal. And they called me and they say, hey, you need to renew your membership. It's gonna be canceling at this time, blah, blah, blah. And I actually appreciated it 'cause I can just finish and close this loop right now on the call.

Mm-hmm.

Right? I can say, okay, just renew me. Or I can say like, when can I— you're going to the gym on Saturday? All right, I'll be there. I'll meet you on Saturday when you go to the gym. And we'll renew your thing. I can close that chapter in my head now, you know, and that's actually easier. And some of us, we don't take that approach with our customers. We're like, just call them. Maybe they're just busy and a phone call is much easier. They're going to pick it up. They're in their car. Oh yeah, I'm so sorry about that. Where did we land? 1, 2, 3, 4. That sounds great. Let's make it happen. Send me the contract. I'll sign it today. You know, that sometimes is just the cure. It's just like understanding that they're busy. How can I make this easier for them? So it fits in their busy schedule.

I like that. It's almost like you're not taking it personally. You're not feeling the rejection, the hurt. There's a good reason.

All right, let's move on to reason number 2, and that's they're interested in your product or service, but they're overwhelmed. This is different from busy. It's not that they're too busy to answer you and they're sold. This is somebody who feels like getting started, doing what is required to solve this problem is gonna be too much lift on their side. It's going to be too much work, too much time commitment. They're not really sure what's involved. It's just kind of in the too hard bucket. Like, I'm delaying the decision because it just feels like too much right now.

Like your pitch, you haven't explained clearly what the steps are. They don't— it's a bit vague. Because that could be a problem too, right? Or we're assuming the pitch is good, the offer is good. It's not clear to them. Why would it go into a too hard basket?

Well, we have to take responsibility as business owners. Often this feeling comes because they don't feel like the desired outcome is achievable with your solution, right? This is subconscious. And I'll go back to the gym example. Like, say for example, somebody's umming and ahhing. It's not like me. Like, I'm going to the gym. I just need to renew it because I like the gym. But what if somebody's like, I really didn't use the gym last year and I'm kind of delaying it and it's just too hard for them to commit because they feel like it's not going to be worth Is it worth it, right? This is where the gym has to step in and has to create an offer to make it easier for them to say yes. There's some friction here 'cause they're overwhelmed. 'Cause like, I don't know what I'm gonna do at the gym. I don't know the exercises properly. You know, I don't feel the motivation. I didn't get results last time.

Mm-hmm.

All this stuff is happening and delaying the decision. So the gym needs to repackage and say, hey, by the way, if you sign up today, we're gonna give you 3 personal training sessions for free. And if you come in today, we're going to give you the one for free without even signing up. So, you can go through the routines and see how it goes and be with one of our coaches. And then after the session, you could decide if you want to renew. That's a good reframe. Now, the prospect has no excuse.

Yeah.

They're like, OK, I have nothing to lose. I can go and do a workout and see how it feels to have a personal trainer. I never had that before. They get the training. They get the exercises. They realize they're doing a few things wrong. They figure out that, oh, This is what a good workout looks like. If I sign up today, I get 2 more of these. It's tempting to do that. Now I'm giving them enough to get over the line. A lot of people don't understand that we don't say yes to an offer unless we feel like getting to the desired outcome is going to be low pain threshold, low effort threshold. You know, we wouldn't go to a restaurant. Let's say, for example, you go into a French restaurant, it's fine dining, right? And then they said to you, okay, great. Have a seat. It's gonna you know this is gonna be expensive meal, but don't worry, we're gonna take care of everything. And by everything we mean you're gonna come back in the kitchen and you're gonna put the ingredients together and you're gonna do all this stuff. I know you wore fancy clothes, but just wear this apron. It's gonna be fine. Like you'd be like no, I don't want to do this. Like it's too much effort. I want to sit down and relax and have a meal and be pampered.

The restaurant example is one thing. What I think because this applies to professional services, people who operate say they're a law firm. accountants. I think this happens a lot in professional services. So, and I think we've experienced this with, have, with an immigration lawyer, for example, where it was really clear what the outcome was going to be working with that person, that it was just a no-brainer to say, to say yes. Because once you choose, like, you may decide I'm going to work with this person and then that's it. Like, there's no more opportunity to come back to the first person that pitched you. So is it because the outcome is not Yes.

I think that people don't understand what is required of them, right? As the customer. Because they understand that you can't do everything. There's something that you have to do. Like even if, for example, you're hiring an agency to edit your videos, right? They need your videos. You need to shoot videos, right? So you, they have to outline, hey, this is all we need from you.

Right.

Shoot all the videos, this format, send it to us in this folder. We'll take care of the rest. Now it's a bit clearer picture. That's not overwhelming. It's going to take maybe, you know, a couple hours a week. I could do that to be able to boost my social media. Right. Once they understand that this is linked to the outcome and this is all I need to do, but once it's all vague, like, oh, this big agency and the videos and the editing, do I have to approve things? Do I have to like— I don't know what this is all about. I've never done this before. You have to understand the customer is a newbie. They don't know what it's like to work with you. So you need to paint the picture and say, this is all you got to do. This is your response. This is your job. This is our job. And this is the outcome you're going to get when we do this.

Yeah. What I'm hearing is if you focus more on them in that scenario, then you reduce that overwhelm.

Yes.

Okay. That's cool. That's good.

And this is an easy kind of close. Like, you don't really need to do much. You just need to figure out what's blocking you. What's blocking this particular customer from signing up and solving those blockers. Reason number 3 why they ghost you. And here it is. They don't actually want what you're offering. Yet. Okay? There is a world where people are just not a good fit for you at this moment of time. Maybe they can't afford it. Maybe they just actually don't have the time to do what they need to do to fulfill their end of the bargain to see success in this transaction. Right? Regardless of what they say, this is actually good news for you. Why? Because you've already built a relationship with them. You've had a conversation with them. They understand what you're able to do. OK? Your job is to keep that relationship alive. That's the only mission you have. Why? Because if you continue just to check up on them, even if it's like once a quarter, hey, hope everything's going with your business. Letting you know if I could support you in any way. We actually have this new service that's a little bit lower entry. You may want to take a look. If not, wishing you all the best. By the way, Happy New Year. Whatever. Just be in touch like a friend so that When they are ready to buy, at some point they're going to be ready to buy. They have you top of mind. They're not going to be shopping around and looking at everybody else. I already know this person. I have their email. They email me every few months. The next time you email them and say, you know, happy Easter, they're going to be like, oh, actually, can you tell me again about what you do? Because I think I might need it.

Right. So you're saying it's not just following up on, do you still need my services? It's other types of content that you could put out there, whether it's around the festivities, like wishing people well around the festivities, or even other content? Like if you're a law firm providing insights into what's happening now, if you haven't unsubscribed from the list, could that still be helpful to be top of mind and having a system around continuous contact with your customers that's not necessarily, do you want to still sign up for my service?

I mean, it could be both. I mean, you can definitely Tell them, remind them of your services, anything new that's happening in your business, maybe an upgrade that's happening, share some news. But you could just genuinely just check up on them, right? Just to see what's going on.

Okay.

And this doesn't have to be in a newsletter format. This could be literally you sending them a text message. It could literally be you sending them a WhatsApp, sending them an email, just a personal email saying, you know, hey, I saw on Facebook that you had a baby. Congratulations. From all of us here at the office, you know, hoping everything's great. No ass, no nothing. Like, you're just top of mind. You're still in their world. The longer that you kind of ghost them, the harder it is for them to remember you and for you to then have that conversation again when they're ready.

You're building that relationship slowly even, because it is a relationship ultimately.

Yeah, 100%. And you know, the example that comes to my mind is You and I, you remember, we used to run weekly webinars at Webinar Ninja. We would run a webinar every single week demoing our product and we'd show why Webinar Ninja could help people's businesses as they try to create sales and sell their products and services via webinars. And we would send an email out to our email list inviting people to this webinar every single week. And some people would show up and not buy. Normal, right? Not everybody's gonna buy, right? But we have people that would show up one webinar, two webinar, five webinar, six webinar, nine webinars, ten webinars, like go to every webinar for like three months straight and then they buy.

Okay. Yeah, I never got that until now. Like it makes sense. They're just not ready. They weren't ready, but they they still wanted. They were still interested, but they knew it wasn't the right time.

But I'm gonna guarantee this is a guarantee guarantee. They would not buy if I never invite them to the webinar every week.

Or if they didn't continue to build that relationship, because in a way, those webinars were a way for you to build trust. That's what you always said. And it was a way to continue to nurture that relationship. And they felt like, okay, when it is time, why would I go anywhere else? Because I've already formed a sort of attachment or relationship with this brand, with this business, with this person.

But I easily could have had the attitude of like, oh, All these people didn't buy. They went to the webinar last time. I'm not inviting them again. You know, these guys are losers. I don't want to deal with them. No. Like, no, they're just not ready. My job is to give value. And when they are ready, they're not going to go shopping around. I trust Omar. I've seen him on 12 webinars, right?

Mm-hmm.

I've gotten so much value from him. There's a law of reciprocity that kicks in. They're like, you know, if I'm going to buy a webinar software, it's going to be from this guy because he gave me so much value week after week. Right? And you just got to keep on inviting people to an opportunity to learn from you, to grow from you, have that conversation, to see the value of your products and services. And they just— they eventually bought because I kept on inviting them. It doesn't cost me anything to invite them and to have an open mind. And actually, it was actually kind of fun. You know, I don't want to name this person by name because maybe it's a little bit embarrassing for them. But like, let's call him Greg. You know, Greg used to show up like, it's Greg on the chat again. Hey, Greg, welcome back. And like, Greg is not a customer yet.

But Greg was like, I knew so much about Greg.

Yeah. You know who I'm talking about. I know who you're talking about.

Greg was great.

Yeah, and it's just good to have an ally in the chat and in this context of a webinar. But this is the point, you have to keep on inviting them. And the funny thing is, is that a lot of people lose a lot of sales 'cause they don't follow up. And just to go back to the webinar example, we used to always teach that, you know, when you run a webinar for people, Low-hanging fruits in terms of making sales is the post-webinar emails, the emails you send after the webinar. Say, hey, we made this offer. Maybe you didn't see the offer, you left early, or you didn't attend the webinar, you're watching the replay. This is what the offer is. There's 24 hours left on the offer. There's 10 hours left on the offer. Those follow-up emails that happen, on average, 30% of all sales came from follow-up.

Hmm.

And it's not— I didn't just say, oh, they didn't show up. That means they're not interested. Oh, they didn't buy after the webinar they're on. They're not interested. Forget about them. I don't want to bombard them. People are busy. People sometimes just need a little bit more time. Maybe they need to ask their wife or their coworker or their boss if this is OK. You know, there's so many things that can happen. Your job is to serve. Just serve, serve, serve, serve. And then when people are ready, they'll buy. By the way, thanks so much for joining us here on Q&A Wednesday. We have an upcoming episode that I'm really excited to share that we recorded recently. It's called The Top Five Mistakes When Creating and Selling a Live Event. Nicole and I have run a lot of live events. We've learned a lot of hard lessons. We made every single one of these five mistakes. We want to make sure that you don't do this. And by the way, if you run a business, you're going to run a live event. You're going to run a professional development day. You're going to run a Christmas party. You're going to do something with your team, even if you don't do it for money to sell to customers. So make sure you subscribe so you don't miss that episode. It's going to be one of my favorites because there's a lot of. Funny stories, pain and anguish that's shared. But at the same time, I went through that so that you can benefit. So make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss it.

You mentioned the word bombardment. And I think there could be something cultural there that it could be a difference. I feel like that's an Australian thing. Like we— that sense of like, I don't want to bombard people. It's a bit of a mindset, and therefore you don't follow up. And I've got example that actually happened to me the other week. But I think in America, Possibly. You don't even have this thing of like, I don't want to bombard people.

Well, the easy cure to that, if you feel like you're a burden to people— by the way, most of the people that are on your email list, they chose to be on there. Like, they signed up for your newsletter, they signed up for some sort of freebie, maybe they signed up for a webinar, uh, maybe your client asked for more information, that's why you called them. Like, you didn't choose this. You didn't just like cold call them. Most people, they have chosen to be Contacted, okay? If you feel like, oh, I don't want to keep on following up, maybe it's too annoying, you can literally just have a PS line or a line in the bottom of your email and say, hey, I just feel like I want to make sure I help you in any way I can. Even if you don't buy, I want to make sure I could support you. If you don't want to get any more emails from me, you can unsubscribe or just let me know, I'll stop emailing you. Or otherwise, I'm going to keep on following up and making sure that I take care of you. Like, you could just have a one-liner if you want to, if you're worried about that.

That's it. Yeah, in an email, that's so easy. And if they unsubscribe, that's your message. That's clear. They don't want to be followed up with. So the example that I was referring to was there was a membership, a club here in Sydney. I'd gone in and inquired. It was like a networking entrepreneurs club. I'd gone in and inquired that I received, and then nothing happened at the time of the day. You know, when I went a few months ago, I got a call randomly as I was driving. And it was someone saying, it was one of their salespeople saying, oh, do you, does this sound familiar? You inquired about a membership at this club. And it took me a while and I said, oh yeah, it is familiar. And I was literally getting into the car park and it was not the right time to finish the phone call, right? Because I'm trying to get into the car park to get my keys and reception and all that. And I said, can you call me back in 90 minutes? And this is now a week, a couple of weeks have now passed and I haven't received a call back. Do you feel like it's a fail on that business? 1,000%.

1,000%. I mean, there's no reason not to call you unless they didn't hear that part. But I mean, they should call you in 90 minutes because that is somebody who's interested. That's somebody who wants to learn more. And that's a good example of what I was saying, like you're a busy person. And when, when they call you, you actually have an easier way for you to figure out like, hey, can you fit into my schedule? And they should make it easy for you to have that sales call, not the other way around. You don't just cater to their needs. The business's job is to serve the customer.

Yeah. And I guess the reason I said that a bit about the culture side of things is because I felt that hesitation in the salesperson. that they were a bit embarrassed that they were following up and that it wasn't the right time. And I was like, would your answer to that be just get over it? Like I've actually said, call me back in 90 minutes. I've given you a specific timeframe. So would you say like—

Yeah, and it goes back to all the episodes we did about sales and what I learned from my dad. Your job in business is to help people make a decision. And if they inquired and they didn't sign up, but they also didn't say, I'm not interested, they haven't made a decision yet.

Yeah.

So you just have to have the mindset, I'm here to help, to be a consultant, to this customer and to help them decide. And I want to give them all the information they need so they can be able to make a decision. Hopefully, that decision is to buy and be a customer. And that's up to you as, as the person that's putting the offer together and selling this product. But that's your job. Your job is to help them. They asked for help.

Yes.

So, Mandy, who asked today's question, I want to just kind of put this all together and kind of summarize. Most people don't ghost you because they think you're horrible or they don't want your service. They're just busy or they feel overwhelmed, or it's just not a right fit for them right now, right? Maybe they don't have the budget. Maybe they switch, you know, strategies, and that's what the, the business— their business needs or their life needs. So you just need to make sure that, one, you follow up. Two, you make it very easy for them to be able to understand the value and what they need to do to get the value from your product or service so they're not overwhelmed. They understand the first steps. This is why, like, you know, even with the $100 MBA program, we have like an orientation video. The first thing they see is like, hey, this is your first step. This is what you got to do. So people don't feel overwhelmed. You know, this is how you choose your track. So you have to make it easy for them to understand that achieving your goal is not going to be difficult. My job is to make it easy for you. Third, you need to make sure that you follow up even if they're not buying now, right? Things change in life. People's financial situation changes, their needs change. By the way, by you staying in touch, you also become a way to get referrals. They might be like, hey, I might not need your service, but I have a friend of mine I talked about when I had your conversation. They, they need your service. Let me give you their contact. So you're just top of mind. So when they are ready or they can tell other people about you, you're just in their inbox. You're, you're not forgotten about. You're a friend, you're a colleague, or you're somebody that they can trust. So just keep those in mind. And just have a system, even if it's just a schedule in your calendar, like I need to follow up with this client or this person, or I have to get on the phone and just follow up with, you know, supposed to call in 90 minutes. I'm sure that person didn't put in their calendar, call Nicole in 90 minutes. Otherwise they should have done it. So make sure that you have a system to address all 3 types of nos or ghosts.

Mm-hmm.

So that way you can capitalize on follow-up and make more sales. Again, great question, Mandy. If you have a question, That you're— as a listener of the show, make sure you submit it over at 100mba.net/q. We'll grab your question and answer here on Q&A Wednesday. If you want to learn more about this topic, sales, we have a masterclass on this that we published about a month ago. If you just scroll up in whatever app you're using, it's called How to Sell More and Make Millions: The Ultimate Sales Masterclass. This is everything I know when it comes to what works in sales. to feel comfortable, to feel confident, but also to make as much money as possible in whatever you do in your business, whether it's a product or service, software tool, whatever it might be. Thanks again for being part of the $100 MBA Show, and thanks, Nicole, for being here again. We'll be here every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss our next episode. Thanks again.

Bye.