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.

Neil Farrimond and I broke this down on this week's episode. There are 36 predictable reasons a deal goes quiet. Not bad luck, not a personality problem. Find the gap, close it, the ghosting stops. Here are three, and the fix for each.

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, and by the third relay it barely resembles what you said.

Get the other 33 gaps free, right now: the 36 Sales Gaps tool. Find which ones are costing you deals this week.

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. Draw it out with them on paper: month one, quiet. Month two, a competitor calls the same prospect. Month three, the budget moves somewhere else, and it leaves a bitter taste when they realize it happened on their watch.

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. Most sellers are carrying a handful of the other 33 right now without knowing which ones. Download the free tool and find out in under 5 minutes, before your next call, while the taste of this one is still fresh: the 36 Sales Gaps tool.

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

Happy hunting.

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR7NxvHu0wY

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