Your pipeline is full. The meeting is booked. The champion inside the account loves what you do.

Then you show up.. and there's nobody on the other side.

I went through this live on a recent episode with Neil Farrimond. 23 years of coaching the sales process has taught me the pattern: every ghosted deal falls into one of a small number of predictable gaps. Find the gap, close it, and the ghosting stops. Here are three that come up constantly, and the exact move that fixes each one.

Gap 1: You met one person. The deal needs four.

You have a great call with your champion inside the account. They love it. They want to work with you. Then: "Let me talk to a few more people."

That's not a brush-off. In most B2B deals, it's structural. There are three or four people who need to sign off, and you only met one of them.

The fix: map every stakeholder before you're in the room, not after. Research who's actually involved and what a win looks like for each of them individually. If you can't research them in advance, do it live: ask your champion, "What would the purchaser ask if they were here right now? What are they trying to avoid?" You're interviewing the missing decision makers through the one person you have.

And when you do get individual meetings with the others, start at step one of your process with each of them. Never assume your champion briefed them correctly. They talk to a dozen vendors a week. Half the time your pitch arrives as a game of telephone.

Gap 2: "Let's revisit next quarter."

They want to work with you. They have the budget. And they still want to wait.

This is decision paralysis, and it shows up hardest during volatility. Supply chain chaos, an election, anything uncertain. Teams get defensive about committing to anything new, even when the money is already budgeted.

The fix isn't pressure. It's a calculation, done together. Ask what happens if they do nothing for 90 days. Most people assume the pipeline stays flat. Walk through it with them, visually, and they'll usually realize it doesn't. Other vendors have those 90 days to grab the attention that was supposed to be yours.

Do this Socratically. Let them calculate it, don't tell them the answer. The moment they see the decline themselves, the gap changes. It's no longer "let's revisit next quarter." It's "I need three case studies from my industry before I can move." Now you have something specific to deliver, and a real reason to follow up.

Gap 3: "We already have someone doing that."

New sellers hear this and give up. Experienced sellers lean in, because it just confirmed two things: there's a market, and there's a budget. The deal already exists. You're just not in it yet.

Ask about their current workflow instead of pitching against the incumbent. What matters most: speed, quality, cost? How's that actually going right now? You'll usually find a real gap between what they need and what they're getting. "I already have someone" was never a no. It was an invitation to ask better questions.

The gap underneath all three: no locked next step

Every one of these gaps gets worse without a script. If your process doesn't end every call with a scheduled next meeting, you'll never know if a stall is a real objection or just politeness. State the outcome before the call even starts: "In 45 minutes we'll either schedule a start date or we won't. Does that work?" Now there's no ambiguity, and no ghosting, because you both already agreed on what happens next.

These three gaps are only the beginning. There are 36 of them across clients, teams, and contracts, and most sellers are sitting on at least a handful of them right now without knowing it.

We built a free tool that walks through all 36, so you can find exactly which ones are costing you deals this week. Download it here: 36 Sales Gaps.

Want the full system behind it? Start the 8-step sales process free for 7 days at www.strategysprints.com.

Watch the full episode: Stop Getting Ghosted: 36 Sales Gaps Killing Your Deals

Happy hunting.

Simon & The Sprinters 🐬⚡️🐆