The HIGH TICKET SALES Newsletter

#001 / How To Avoid Ghosting

TL;DR

1. Ghosting is not personal
2. Only quality can cut through the noise
3. Metrics that predict ghosting
4. Anti Ghosting Sales Process (10 Tips)

Scary Ghost Stories

The sales world is starting to feel a lot like Tinder these days.

You get a match, but they never respond.

You get a date, but they never show up.

My clients cite ghosting as their main gripe when learning sales.

Once buyers hear the price, they go radio-silent.

It‘s their main cause for deals not moving forward.

And it’s their main reason for giving up on sales.

It costs them time, energy and money. And it‘s just so frustrating.

It happens even more when you sell High Ticket Services, such as consulting or marketing.

A lot of hours down the drain.

(Not to mention the cost of opportunity.)

So for the first installment of this newsletter - let‘s look at ghosting and what you can do about it.

Ghosting is (mostly) not personal

There are two forms of ghosting.

Some people use ghosting as a form of punishment.

It‘s like the „silent treatment“ on steroids. I call this form decisive ghosting.

It‘s a conscious act, meant to achieve a goal: Make you feel bad.

Most people are super sensitive to rejection. This makes ghosting an effective tool to hurt them.

It takes zero effort and creates a lot of pain.

It‘s this type of ghosting that hurts the most.

But it only works because of neediness.

It doesn‘t hurt to get ignored by someone you don‘t care about.

But - there are also good news:

In sales, decisive ghosting is the exception.

Most people are not out to hurt you - it just feels like they are.

Indecisive Ghosting is the second form of ghosting, and it is way more common.

This is the client waiting for the problem to go away.

This is the client unable to make a decisions.

It‘s an unconscious act.

Don‘t take it personal. They are just indecisive.

This is often caused by the overall “lukewarmness” of a deal that’s neither quite here nor there.

The client does’t need your solution bad enough to act right away.

And they don‘t like/trust you enough to give you candid feedback.

So they‘ll just deal with it later, which eventually turns into never.

Your proposal just went on the pile of things they always meant to do - but never got around to doing. Your deal got stuck in the ghosting zone.

—

TAKEAWAYS:

If you take a look at the Client Relationship Map above, you will see there are two ways to get out of the „Ghosting Zone“.

1. Build a a better, bullet-proof business case that solves a Top 3 problem
2. Build enough rapport to allow for an open and candid conversation.

—

Cutting through the noise

Stopping Ghosting is your responsibility.

Yes, the other party should be the one putting in more of an effort.

But are they going to do it? Of course not.

They have nothing to gain by being more accountable.

So what are you gonna do? Not make money?

You can fight a small amounts of ghosting by simply following up more.

Write more emails. Call more often.

But that extra effort quickly mutates into monstrous workloads.

Plus, it‘s the obvious solution. Other sellers will try this as well.

And they will be using spammy, automated, low-value follow-ups.

The ensuing onslaught of „Hey Jim, did you get my email?“-nudges makes buyers retreat even more.

Engaging in this game is a waste of time. Jim got your mail, trust me.

(And if you have doubts, use a tool that tracks your open-rates.)

Instead, do less. But make sure it has an impact. Quality over quantity.

—

TAKEAWAYS:

• Instead of asking your buyers for more time and commitment, use what you get and make the best of it
• This is called the Return On Attention Pricinple
• Make your pitch quick-to-understand and easy-to-remember.
• Spoon-feed them crucial information without them having to respond.
• If your pitch lives rent-free in their head, if they can‘t stop thinking about it, there is less need to follow-up with them.
• Instead of 10 worthless 2-minute-follow-ups, do one worthwhile 20-minute-follow-up.
• If your follow-up does not improve your relationship or underline your business case, you might as well not do it.

—

A lot of this can be done via content.

But this will only work if it’s highly relevant for the buyer.

Otherwise, don‘t bother.

But how can you know if what you are doing is relevant?

Measurable impact

Of course, improving your communication won’t do any good if you are talking to a wall. You need feedback. But what if the buyer isn’t responding?

There are ways to estimate the other party‘s interest.

Average Response Time:

Shorter is better. Shrinking is better.

Relative Response Time:

If they take more than twice as long to respond than you, it‘s a bad sign.

Open Rate:

Anything less than 100% is a bad sign.

No. of Opens:

Needs to be higher than 1. 1 is bad. 0 is really bad.

Time per Session:

If you present your pitch-deck not as a pdf, as a web-page or a digital sales room you can track how much time your buyer spends with it. More is better.

Authority Levels:

The higher up the command chain your decision-maker is, the more important the topic is. But higher-ups are also quicker to ghost you, because they have a lot going on. Make sure to follow up with impact.

The Anti-Ghosting Sales Process

Have Options.

• Ghosting reveals a painful truth:
• You need the other person way more than they need you.
• And the more desperate you are for any particular client, the more needy you become.
• The more needy you are, the more you will get ghosted.
• The more you get ghosted, the more you get hurt.
• Keep adding new leads to the pipeline - you will never feel needy. And rejection will hurt a lot less.
• If a single rejection hurts you, you are not talking to enough people.

Have realistic expectations.

• Watch what people do, not what they say.
• If they have never invested a dollar - why should they start now?
• Question their motives early.
• Find the problem they are trying to fix.
• If there is no problem to fix, a deal is unlikely.

Learn to spot the dreamers.

• People can imagine themselves buying a lot of things.
• But once it’s time to fork over the money, the deal stops moving.
• Having dreams is important - but what are their Top 3 Problems?
• Dreamers are fun to talk to, but they rarely yield business and ghost most often.
• In a pinch, the problem always comes first.

Don’t let buyers give you “homework”.

• Don’t send out tailored offers just because someone asks.
• Don’t create offers in your own time.
• Don’t create content that is only applicable to this one client.
• The more work you unnecessarily invest for a client, the more their rejection will hurt. (And the more money you waste.)

• Instead, co-create offers live on the call with the client.
• Put everything on a whiteboard app like Miro of Figma.
• Record the call, if you can.
• Send them everything right after.
• If you create extra content, make sure you can use it in future sales calls as well.

Put them on the spot.

• Explicitly ask the client if they want to buy what the two of you just drafted.
• Don’t be vague about it, or you will get vague answers.
• Instead, ask the client bluntly: “After all we discussed - do you want to buy this?”
• If you get a “No” or if they are hesitant, dig up what’s bothering them.

• Never leave without a clear next step.
• If the client hesitates to make a decision, ask them what else they need.
• Plan the next step. Set up a follow-up date.
• Send them the information they need. Close them on the next call.

Track email openings.

• If they don’t look at the info you sent, they are not that interested.
• There is also a high chance they won‘t show for the follow-up call.
• Follow-Up once. If you don’t get a response, focus your time elsewhere.
• Here are some tools to help you with this: Superhuman (Email), Close (CRM), trumpet (digital sales room), Sendfox (Newsletter)

Cut your losses.

• If they no-show on follow-up calls, they are not that interested.
• Follow-Up once. If you don’t get a response, focus your time elsewhere.

Question everything.

• If you do everything right and ghosting keeps emerging as a pattern, consider changing your offer, your pitch or your target audience.

Get consent to be annoying.

• At the end of every call, ask people what they want to you do if you don’t hear back from them.
• A lot of the time, they will give you green light to annoy the heck out of them. If you get it, do it.
• If you get the „Don‘t call us, we call you.“ - they aren‘t that interested.

What‘s next?

My consulting covers everything you need to know about High Ticket Sales.

I teach you:

• How to build a High Ticket Offer that‘s an absolute no-brainer.
• How to tell a Sales Story that lives rent-free in their head.
• How to close 10k retainers without flinching

If that sounds like it‘s for you, let‘s have a chat!

Book a call with me!

Thank you for reading! :)

Paul