Ep 193: Five Follow-Up Scripts To Restart Stalled Sales Conversations [LIVE]

Uncut Summer Series Kickoff

Sarah Noel Block 0:00

Hey, hey, hey. This is Sarah Nawa Block, and you are listening to Tiny Marketing. This is the Uncut Summer Series, where you are getting the raw, unfiltered, unedited recordings from our interviews, webinars, and workshops. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ridiculousness Hey friend! Quick note before we dive in this episode was originally a live stream from earlier this week. It's a little unfiltered, a little spontaneous, and honestly? That's my favorite kind. I hope you enjoy the fun!

0:31

Hello. Hi everyone, it is great to see, well, the little thing that I do get to see. Make sure to say hi in the chat and we're gonna get started, 'cause I like to keep these tight. All right.

Why Great Leads Go Silent

0:46

So if you went and counted right now, I'd bet you find that somewhere between three and five conversations in your inbox have just stopped happening. Not a no, not a rejection, just silence. Someone you talk to, maybe even had a great call with, you connected, and then nothing happened from it. You don't follow up because it feels weird now. And the longer it sits there, the weirder it feels. Today, I'm giving you five specific ways to revive those conversations, real scripts. You can screenshot them. I'm gonna have them up on the screen. And not just a, "Hey, just checking in," kind of script. And if anyone's brave enough to share one live, we might work through it together. So feel free to say hi in the chat wherever you're watching this right now. And if you have a conversation that has stalled, drop it in the chat now, so at the end of our session I can go into it and we can talk about how we can revive that again. So by the end of this stream, you'll have five specific ways to reopen a stalled conversation, and at least one of them has to apply to something that's sitting in your inbox right now. I know that last week I ran through this exact same exercise. I looked through my inbox and saw which conversations were just kind of just sitting there, just floating on top of the water, and I sent these exact messages. So it really, really works. While I go through these, if you've got a stalled conversation in mind, drop a quick note in the chat, um, what it was about, roughly how long ago it... or how long it's been quiet for, and I might be able to pick it up and work through it with you together. I love doing this live, so drop it in. But if you'd rather not, there's no pressure. So if you'd rather just listen, um, every one of these five ways works, and I've used them and my clients have used them. So it's not whether or not it works, it's whether or not it works for your situation and that specific client. So a quick introduction if we haven't met. I'm Sarah Noelle Block. I help solo consultants, fractional execs at build pipelines that don't depend on luck or random referrals. We build systems. The follow-up piece specifically is one of the highest leveraged things that I work with clients on because most of the revenue sitting in a stalled pipeline isn't from new leads, it's from conversations that already happened. And this is something that we work through specifically in Mission Two, Fast Cash, where we're going through these stalled conversations, the proposals that went nowhere, and we're reviving them. We're giving them new life. It's a little... I guess I call this resurrecting stal- stalled sales conversations. It's got a whole dead theme to it. It's very spooky. A quick heads up before I dive in. I'm hosting the Solo Consultant Summit in September, and it's free. If anyone, or if... Sorry, if anything we talk about today resonates, that's the room where we're gonna go even deeper. It's all the theme for September is all about lead generation and sales when you are a B2B solo consultant. It is, um... We have hundreds of solo consultants doing the same thing you're doing together, and the QR is right there to get on the wait list. So it's not open yet. You can only get on the wait list in a few different places, and this is one of them. So it should be, like, right here. Um, so sign up for the wait list to join the, uh, Solo Consultant Summit happening in September, where we're talking about sales and lead generation. Okay. Before I dive into my five ways to resurrect a sa- a stalled sales conversation, I have a deck right over here. That's why my eyes are moving. Um, in the chat, give me a number on how many stalled conversations you think are sitting there right now. Is it one? Is it three? More than you want to admit? I wanna see those numbers rolling in over in my chat on this side. I'm gonna pull it up so I can see your chat. Hello, everyone. It's good to see you. I, I see so many familiar faces. It's so... Thanks. Hi. All right. This is awesome.

Five Ways To Reopen Threads

5:46

So we're looking at our inbox. We know which conversations are stalled, so let's get into how we can resurrect them. I'm gonna share my screen And I'm also gonna hide the comments from me because I always get distracted when I'm reading your comments. I'll, uh, pull it back up at the end. All right, so let's get into my five ways. So I'm just gonna do a little quick overview of the five ways that we can resurrect them, and then we'll dive in deeper. So number one is the no pressure reopen, and this is one that you use when the conversation has stalled after you sent a proposal, pricing or, like, a next steps kind of email, and the silence feels so loaded and awkward because there's an obvious ask hanging in the, in the air, and they haven't said anything. Um, so next. Uh, way two is the value add re-entry. So use this when the conversation is stalled before a decision was ever made. So they were still considering, they're comparing options. They're like, "Okay, thank you for the information. I'm just gonna... I'm still, I'm still getting my numbers together," or whatever they said. Or they got busy before committing to anything specific. Like, let's say this is probably best for a conversation where you were talking about possibly scheduling a gateway offer, and then it kind of just, like, evaporated. They stop talking. That's when you'll use this. We have the timeline check-in. Use this when you suspect priorities shifted on their end. It's just not an important project anymore. It's nothing about you. They just decided, like, project B was more important at this time. So something more urgent came up. Um, maybe the budget moved to them. If you're working with larger corporations, sometimes that bucket just shifts to a different project, and they don't have any control over it. Or the project just got too deprioritized Um, four is the social proof nudge. Use this when you're pretty sure that it's trust that's the issue. Um, so it's someone who you've talked to, but they might not be totally convinced that you're the right person for it. Um, they're still thinking, "Will this actually work for me?" And that's pretty much the underlying hesitation. I don't know if what they say they'll do will actually work for me. Um, even if they haven't said it, you can feel it. You can feel it in your bones when they're like, "Uh, I don't, I don't know. I don't know if you can do this, what you say you can do." And then five is the direct closeout. I've used this so many times. It's great when you, you've been ghosted for quite a while. It's just sitting there. It's been months. Um, you've tried soft follow-ups, um, and it's been quiet long enough that you can't just do a checking in. It would be weird. So this closes the loop and removes any pressure. So we'll, we'll get into it. We'll get into it in a second. But that's, this is the, the usual last step, and if you use it correctly You will get an an- a yes or a no, and that's like the... That's the ultimate goal is get out of purgatory. I'm really on, like, a death thing with this, with this live stream. But get out of purgatory and get that yes or that no. You're closing it up. That's the goal. All right. Um, be prepared to screenshot, my friends, 'cause now I'm sharing scripts.

Script One No-Pressure Reopen

9:42

Um, so this is the first one. It is the no pressure reopen. So you wanna send this after you have a proposal that's been sitting for a while, or you sent over pricing, and then they just went quiet. So why does this work for them? Most people avoid following up after a proposal because it feels like adding pressure. This message, um, does the opposite. It names the silence directly, and it removes any pressure, which paradoxically makes people more comfortable responding. They're like, "Okay, they're not mad at me." The question at the end gives them an easy, specific thing to reply to. So screenshot this. It goes something like this: "Hey, no pressure at all. I know things get busy. I just wanted to check whether this is still something you're thinking about or if the time is shifting." Pff, I said that weird. Um, "Happy to pick this back up whenever it makes sense, or if it's a no for now, that's totally fine. Just let me know either way. If the timing has shifted, when would be the best time to check in?" So ha- that's the one thing that you don't wanna miss in this one is that question at the end. Find out when they want to reopen this loop, and I would even say, like, "Let me know if you wanna just... if you want me to close this project or archive this proposal," so you can get that yes or that no, and you're not sitting in somewhere in maybe land Two. Okay, so two is the value add, and this is when conversations stalled before any decision has been made. So maybe it was a networking call, they talked about being interested in your offer, but they didn't go anywhere. Um, or you had a connection call that was more discovery in nature, and they showed interest in your gateway offer, but it didn't go anywhere. Okay, so why it works is we're re-entering with something that's useful. Um, it gives them a reason to respond when,

Scripts Two To Four Re-Entry Options

11:55

um, that has nothing to do with sales. So you didn't have a hard yes or no whether that was gonna move forward with a sale anyway, so you wanna reopen the conversation without a sales topic. It reestablishes you as a helpful person and not just a persistent salesperson. So it looks something like this. Um, "Hey, I saw, saw this and thought of our conversation about..." whatever their situation was. Um, "Thought it might be useful regardless of where things land on your end. How's everything going with..." whatever their goal, their challenge, whatever that was. So you're giving them something to support what you know their pain point is without actually talking about the sale or the next step or any monetary exchange at all. You're just re-entering the conversation Okay. Three is the timeline check It works because you're asking directly about the timeline. It gives them permission to say, "Not right now," um, without feeling guilty. So that often is what services as the real reason for the silence is they want to say no, or they wanna say they can't afford it, or they wanna say they can't do it right now, but they feel bad about it, so they just stay silent instead. So this timeline check gives them permission to say the thing that they're afraid to say, which is better. It's better to know than to be wondering. So it goes something like this: "I totally understand if priorities have shifted since we last talked. Is this project, goal," whatever it is, "um, still something that's on the radar for whatever timeline you talked about originally, or has it moved? Just wanna make sure I'm not following up at the wrong moment or seeing if, you know, priorities have shifted." You want it to be something like that where you get a clear idea of is this project still important to you, and is this timeline still the correct one? So I like to use this one when you suspect that priorities just shifted, and they're working on a different project instead. Or they decided, hmm, messaging is not that important right now. I need to focus on sales, something like that Four is the social proof nudge. Remember, this is the one to use when people are lacking trust. They are not sure if you can do what you say you can do. It works because you're sharing relevant results, and it reframes the conversation around, um, outcomes instead of decisions. You're just showing them something. Um, it's not are you ready to buy kind of conversation, it's here's proof this works for someone like you. And I also use this social proof strategy just in daily conversation when I'm on a connection call or a sales call. I love using social proof to show them, like, "Hey, this actually works and, like, this situation I was able to get this result by using this framework," as an example. So this doesn't have to just be email or, you know, social DMs. You can use this strategy in a phone call too, and you can use it early before you've been ghosted. Okay, so it looks something like this. Um, "Thought of you because I just wrapped up something really similar to what we talked about for," whatever. You probably aren't gonna name a client, but, like, someone in their industry or a situation that reflects, that mirrors their situation. "And the results were," and then give the specific outcome you got for them. "It made me think about our conversation, and I wanted to share in case it's useful for context." So that is a great way to reopen the conversation while also kind of answering the objection that they're, that they have through their silence is you don't trust me, but this is the reason you should Okay Five.

Script Five The Direct Closeout

16:17

Good God, took me like seven clicks to get to five. Okay, so five is the direct closeout. I really like this one. I use it a lot. So you wanna use it when it's been months, you've tried softer follow-ups. It's usually happens when there's a proposal out there. Um, so it works because you're closing the loop, and it removes all pressure. They are This type of message usually gets the highest response rate from old leads because if they don't want that project closed out and they don't want that door closed with working with you, they're going to respond. They will every time. They'll say something like, "Actually, let's talk," or, um, "No, you can stop wondering and move on. Yeah, you can close this. We ended up working on... Or we ended up hiring this person, or we ended up working on this project instead." You're gonna get an answer, and that's important. Um, so a bonus. Well, this is what it looks like. This is what it typically looks like. Um, it's been a while since we last connected about whatever the project is. So I wanted to check in one more time. Should I go ahead and close this out on my end, or is this still something you'd like to explore? Oh, there's a hummingbird right at my window. Either way is totally fine. Just wanna make sure I'm not leaving you hanging. Now, wait five days. If they didn't respond, normally they will, this is the last message you're ever going to send to them. I haven't heard from you, so I'm gonna go ahead and archive this. Keep me posted on how your project goes. This is a direct call-out. Like, if you're not responding, we are closing the door now. I am not living in purgatory anymore. So that's five ways, um, that you can resurrect a dead sales conversation. So there's the no pressure reopen for after a proposal. There's the value add, um, a re-entry for pre-decision silence. So you had some sort of call with them, they seemed interested, and then they just went cold on you. The timeline check when priorities look like they shifted. The social proof nudge when trust is the actual blocker that's keeping them from moving forward with you. And then the direct closeout. It's been quiet for a while, and you need an answer, yes or no. And whether they respond or not, usually they do, by the end of those five days post sending that, just archive it and move on. So pick the one that matches your sit- situation and send it today, not next week. Send it today. Okay. So I'm seeing some chats. I'm pulling it up right now

Follow-Up Timing And Tracking

19:20

Hello, hello. Okay, you have a spreadsheet listing them. That's awesome. Okay. Now, if you have any stalled conversation that you'd like to work through, just the scenario in which what happened, drop it in the chat right now. I would love to pull it up and brainstorm with you on how to resurrect it. I'd love to hear what the situation was And how long it's been sitting quiet, and then we can brainstorm what is the right type of resurrection message that we wanna send. So while I wait for any to roll in, unless you guys are super shy, that's okay if you are, um, I just want to reiterate this part. Pick the right message that matches the situation you're in right now. So you can go through your sent folder, which is what I did, and just went through all the ones that had a certain title, 'cause I always have the same subject line for, like, sales types of emails, and send the one that matches that situation. Okay, let me see here. So if there are no situations you want me to brainstorm live, then there's just one more thing before I let you go. If this is the kind of s- um, conversation with real scripts, practical pipeline moves, and doing the work together, that if that's your thing, I'm hosting the Solo Consultant Summit in September, and it's completely free. It is three days with solo consultants and fractional execs working on exactly the same stuff. We're working on pipeline, we're working on referrals, um, pricing and sales. So if this live, if this live stream is a, it's a tiny taste of what you'll get there. Um, scan the QR that's right up there and you can get on the wait list for it. It's not opening up, like, for true tickets until August. So get on the wait list and I'll make sure that you are the first to get to it. It's going to be a mix of, we have... For right now, we have over 30 applicants, and we have 20 approved speakers that are going to, that are committed and going to be joining us at that Solo Consultant Summit, and we also have some really cool live sessions that are happening, like Kendall Cherry, who is doing a live inquiry form tear down. So you can submit your inquiry form, and she'll go through it and help you make it so you're more likely to convert and find the right clients from it. So that's just a taste of one of the live sessions we're doing. It's gonna be tons of fun. Um, I'm gonna check my chat. So many... Um, how many follow-ups should you do? I send a follow-up until I get an answer. Um, so let me just pull this up real quick. So I will send a follow-up probably, let's see- Upon sending that initial sales call, let's say it's a proposal, sorry, that initial sales conversation, I'll send... Well, I'm gonna say for this situation it's a proposal. I'll follow up one week later, um, and I give a deadline. I always have a deadline on those. I use gateway offers instead of proposals, but there's a deadline on it. Um, so they have to commit by then, and for the sales conversations that haven't yet moved on to an offer, I'll send a follow-up every two weeks or so, probably up to, like, three times, and then I'll send that last ditch email, like, "Should I archive this?" So that's usually what I'll do. I'll, I want an answer. Thank you for the question. Um, if we're all shy, how do you think we... How long should we wait between messages? Um,

Subject Lines And The Reply Trick

23:30

so I usually do two weeks between messages so I'm not inundating them. Um, and I use Boomerang. It's a Gmail add-on. So I just have that email return back to me with a note in two weeks so I remember to follow up again, and then my final email to them after the three or so times that I'll follow up is always that last ditch one. What is it called again? Hold on It's that follow-up Good God. There we go. The direct closeout is the last one I send, and I usually do that around the three-week mark, but honestly, you can keep this going. I do that when we've already had an initial sale. That is a good way to go about, like proposals and, um, gateway offers. But if it's a sales conversation that has stalled, you can go on a lot longer than that. Um, after three, doing like two weeks apart, I would move them out like a month after that and keep going until you get a response Um, let's see. What do you put in the subject field? So I just... What I'll do is I'll create a template in my Gmail, so the template dictates the subject line. That's why it's always the same. It makes it easier for me. So mine says something like delivery and then whatever the thing is that I'm sending them. So that's usually for a gateway offer or p- or a proposal. So that makes it really easy for me too to do a quick search and find any that didn't move forward. So that's how I do it. Um, if we're talking about sales conversations that didn't move into a proposal or a gateway offer, then I would probably find, uh, some sort of tag that you can use for your subject line so you can do a quick search. Like, I do that too. So my... All of my calls that... Like connection calls, networking calls, sales calls, I put connection in the subject line so I could just do a quick search and find all of my connection calls. So just have some sort of keyword that's always in the subject line so it's easier for you. Another thing that I wanna say about sales calls is, um, they work best if you go to your sent folder and you hit reply, and you send them that way. So you have that RE at the beginning, because people are a lot more likely to open a reply to an email that they've already talked to than they would a cold email. So go to your sent file, hit reply, and then send the message that m- the five resurrection email that makes sense for you and your situation Okay, looks like I answered everything.

Send It Today And Closing

26:41

So thank you for being here today. Go to your inbox right now, right after this live stream, find the calls that have gone dead, and pick your script. Send it before you do anything else today, and I will see you at the summit in September. Thank you, guys, for s- oop, I have one more question, but before that, thank you guys so much for joining me today and spending your half hour with me. Um, let's see. I'm thinking for number five, should I close this out? Yeah, that's a good one. I like that. Um, and ooh, and one more thing. With all of these messages, keep them to, like, three sentences or less. The shorter you can have them, the more likely you're going to get a reply, and I love that subject line. Yes, do that All right. Thank you guys. I s- I think, I think I've gotten them all. I appreciate you. I appreciate you spending your time with me, and I will be back again in two weeks with more of this juicy sales conversations and how to resurrect those dead calls. All right, bye If you enjoyed this episode, please, please, please remember to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and rate and review. But most importantly, tell your friends. Share this episode with a friend so other people know about Tiny Marketing and our Uncut Summer series. I will see you next week with another great one