Let’s talk about Ghosting  

Published on: 03/26/26 9:00 AM

Posted

Your prospects aren’t ghosting you. You never qualified them in the first place. 

I’ve been listening to Blair Enns and David Baker dissect this on the 2Bobs podcast (Dealing with the Ghosting Problem) and the truth is brutal. 

40-60% of your “qualified opportunities” don’t go to competitors. They go to no decision. 

Why? Because you wrote a proposal for someone who was interested, not someone with intent to buy. 

There’s a massive difference between the two: 

INTEREST sounds like: 

  • “That’s interesting, tell me more” 
  • “We should probably look into this” 
  • “Can you send us something to review?” 
  • No timeframe, no budget, no urgency. 

INTENT sounds like: 

  • “We need this by Q3” 
  • “Budget is allocated” 
  • “The team is ready to start in March” 
  • Clear deadline, resources assigned. 

You heard “tell me more” and cranked up the pitching machine. They were browsing – you jumped in with a marriage proposal. 

Here’s what we prequalify at Beckon before writing any proposal: 

  • Budget: Do they know it, does it meet our minimums and are they committed to spending it? 
  • Competition: Who else is pitching? Is the incumbent involved? Why are they looking to change and why now? 
  • Stakeholder alignment: Does this have internal buy-in or is the pitch part of their business case? 
  • Chemistry: Will we get direct access to the senior decision-maker? 
  • Intent signals: Have they committed to executing our proposal? Have we agreed on timescales for starting? 

If we can’t get clear answers, we don’t write a proposal. We keep qualifying. 

A common red flag to watch for is when someone asks you to “put something together” but can’t tell you what success looks like. That’s not a prospect – that’s someone building a business case on your time. 

Your closing ratio doesn’t improve by following up harder. It improves by qualifying better. 

If half your pipeline goes nowhere, you don’t have a ghosting problem. You have a qualifying problem. 

We work with agencies to build qualifying frameworks that work. If your pipeline is stalling and you’re not sure why, let’s talk.