TL;DR: Ghosting in sales is when a prospect cuts off all communication without explanation or warning. It leaves reps feeling frustrated and uncertain about next steps. When a lead stops responding, the relationship isn't necessarily over. Take a step back and assess what changed.

The lead might have gotten busy with a new project or switched jobs. Either way, you can still nurture the relationship and close the deal. To help you figure out your next move, we asked sales experts to share the strategies they use to get ghosted prospects back into the pipeline.

Ghosting in sales is when a prospect cuts off all communication with a sales rep without any explanation or warning. .

It's common in B2B sales and leaves reps frustrated and demotivated. Most assume the best move is to give up and move on.

A prospect ghosting you creates an opportunity to strengthen the relationship.

We talked to B2B sales experts to find out which strategies they use to win back leads who ghosted them and why prospects ghost in the first place.

Why do prospects ghost salespeople?

When you don’t get a response from a prospect even after presenting a personalized sales pitch that impressed decision-makers, it’s only natural to wonder if you did something wrong.

Sometimes a prospect's radio silence stems from external factors beyond your control.

You could follow the best sales process and do everything right, yet client ghosting can still derail a deal.

Gauri Manglik, CEO & Co-founder of Instrumentl, says prospects tend to ghost salespeople when they get busy.

“There are a lot of different reasons people are busy. Maybe they have a big project due at work or an event to attend, or maybe they just got home from work and need to spend time with their family. It could be any number of things. Understanding their situation helps you create a connection that keeps you top of mind when they're ready to buy,” she says.

Alternatively, you may have used a suboptimal approach to close a deal, prompting the prospect to walk away without explanation to avoid breaking bad news or confronting you.

Jan-Philipp Peters, Co-founder of BitsForDigits, says prospects choose to walk away when sales reps treat them like entries in an outreach sequence rather than human beings.

‍Piotrek Sosnowski, Chief People and Culture Officer of HiJunior, agrees.

“They [your prospects] want to be heard and understood beyond the sales pitch. You need to show that you're invested in their success beyond making a quick sale,” he says.

Jason Moss, President and Co-Founder of  Moss Technologies, believes that prospects ghost sales reps because they lost interest in a product or found an alternative.

And Kate Wojewoda-Celinska, Marketing Manager at Spacelift, echoes the same sentiment.

“The primary reason prospects ghost salespeople is because they have found a better alternative. It could mean many things, such as a competitor's product or service, that suits their needs more closely. It could also mean they have found a more cost-effective option elsewhere. Sometimes, they may have realized that their investment in the product or service was too significant and opted out altogether,” she says.

Understanding why a prospect ghosts you is the best way to prevent ghosting from happening in the first place. reconnecting with prospects who stop responding mid-conversation requires a different approach.

5 strategies to win back ghosted leads in B2B sales

Getting ghosted after investing time in a relationship—especially past the initial call—is frustrating. Here's how to turn it around.

A prospect not responding immediately doesn't mean they're gone forever. Here are five strategies that consistently turn ghosted leads into closed deals.

1. Showcase your product’s value

Many prospects ghost over pricing concerns. Quote too low and they question your product's value. Quote too high and they look for cheaper alternatives.

To recover from either scenario, show your product's value clearly.

According to Jason Moss, President and Co-Founder of Moss Technologies, a great way to do this is to reach out to the prospect with a personalized message highlighting their previous interest in your product and offering additional value or information they would find useful.

“This could include new product features, a limited-time discount, a free consultation, or a trial period.” he says.

Tarun Agarwal, VP of Business at Mailmodo, says they offer an extended trial period as a value-add so the prospect can experience the product’s value first-hand and see how it can give them a better ROI than their competitors.

“This justifies our pricing and shows prospects why we cost more than competitors.”, he says.

2. Make the prospect feel valued

Personalizing messages at scale, sending follow-ups, and demonstrating your product's value can break through silence and drive stakeholder action.

Even with personalized outreach, prospects may ghost if they're skeptical or unconvinced you have their interests in mind.

To earn your prospect's trust, build a real connection.

Scott Orn, Chief Operating Officer at Kruze Consulting, says the best way to show your prospects you’re interested in helping them is to offer value without asking for anything in return.

According to him, this could be something as simple as sending a relevant article that might be useful to the prospect or doing a quick check-in with them via email or social media.

Jan-Philipp Peters, Co-founder of BitsForDigits, received a response 30 minutes from a ghosted lead after she shared an article that included a backlink to their website.

The strategy worked because it showed the prospect that she saw them as a real person and went out of her way to offer them value instead of looking at them as another name on her email list.

Lisa Richards, the CEO and Creator of the Candida Diet, got on a 35-min phone call with a ghosted lead to demonstrate her personable nature and understand their needs and concerns.

During the call, if the prospect objected to something, she shared additional information like case studies, industry insights, and data from similar projects her company had done with other corporate clients.

This helped her establish a personal connection with the prospect as it demonstrated she was proactively working to address their concerns and objections. As a result, she was able to win back the lead’s interest and close the deal.

3. Practice persistence while being polite

When prospects push back, salespeople sometimes resort to pushy or aggressive tactics to close the deal.

While aggressive selling occasionally works, it usually drives prospects away.

But what actions could a prospect perceive as being pushy or aggressive?

• Ignoring “no” and following up repeatedly.

• Being overly familiar or too direct with a prospect too early in the sales process.

• Dismissing customer concerns and pain points while resorting to time pressure (deal only lasts X hours) to get them to cave.

If you’ve done any of these things, it could be why your prospect stopped responding to your messages, or your call went straight to their voicemail.

Here are proven strategies to reconnect with the prospect and recover the deal.

Alwin Wei, co-founder and CMO of SEOAnt, recommends acknowledging that you may have been too pushy to reconnect with the prospect.

“We send a personalized email empathizing with the prospect and acknowledge that we may have spammed them and failed to provide any tangible value. In addition to this, we also provide a 30-day free trial in the email. This approach converted 45% of ghosted leads by letting them try the app and rebuilding trust.” he says.

Nebojsa Savicic, Co-founder of Plainly, sends a personalized video in which he asks the prospect if they have any dilemmas, doubts, or specific questions about what the product does.

“This approach works 9/10 times because it allows them to see what the tool does, and it makes them feel special. Plus, a video makes it easier for the prospect to see that I genuinely care for them compared to an email where I copy-paste and replace the [NAME] field.” he says.

4. Simplify the options

Sending emails, case studies, and other information highlights your value and builds trust. But too much overwhelms prospects.

If this happens, Michael Dadashi, CEO of Infinite Recovery, suggests taking the time to research the person you’re reaching out to and creating a message tailored to their needs.

“Make sure the message is concise and includes a call-to-action that will entice them to respond. A personalized message shows you value their input and see them as more than a quota number. This captures their attention and motivates a response. ” he says.

Will Yang, Head of Growth & Customer Success, Instrumentl, also follows the same approach to restart conversations with ghosted leads.

“We present prospects with a curated list of features that best fit their needs, explain the value these features will bring, and ask them if they'd like to set up a call or continue the conversation further. This strategy wins back leads because it addresses their specific needs without overwhelming them. It also builds trust and shows we're committed to their success.” he says.

5. Track job changes

When prospects ghost you, they may have changed jobs while a sales deal is in progress. Sometimes, it’s as simple as a prospect changing jobs while a sales deal is in progress. A sudden job switch can put the brakes on a deal and make you question next steps at the prospect’s current organization if you haven’t multi-threaded your sales deals.

But it also creates an opportunity to connect with your prospect and offer relevant solutions that address pain points within their new role.

Tipalti, a payment automation software, used this strategy to connect with previous customers and create $4 million in the pipeline.

The company’s sales team uses UserGems, a B2B prospecting tool, to track prospects’ job changes and employs a triple-threat prospecting method to start engaging with them.

“We hit them [the prospect who switched jobs] from every angle. We start with an email talking about the relationship at the past organization. We then follow up with a phone call, and a LinkedIn request but pointing them back to the original email with collateral. It’s important to provide value throughout the sequence,” says their sales development manager Korey Krueger.

In addition to this, they also used UserGems’ pipeline generation playbooks to achieve 23x ROI in closed-won revenue.

Breathe life back into ghosted leads to optimize pipeline generation

Ghosting is frustrating at any experience level.

Offering extended trials, making prospects feel valued, and communicating strategically wins back ghosted leads.

But if  you lost touch with your prospect because they switched jobs, use a sales intelligence tool like UserGems to get accurate job change data and reconnect with them to close the deal.

Tipalti's Senior SDR Kory explains how UserGems works:

“It automates what I’ve been doing manually on LinkedIn, with exponentially greater scale and efficiency,” he says.

“It takes a lot of effort to get the information UserGems provides. More tenured SDRs have the capacity to get some of that information on their own. But junior SDRs struggle to do so, thus not fully utilizing their territories. UserGems helped up-level everyone in the organization,” he adds.

Want to check out how UserGems can eliminate pipeline anxiety and get your sales teams to get more closed-won opportunities? Request a demo today.

Why UserGems

UserGems is a pipeline generation software that helps revenue teams generate and protect revenue efficiently. With UserGems, companies can track and automate outreach when their champions change their jobs, and capture the buying groups to find the warmest path into every account.

Companies like Mimecast, Greenhouse, Medallia use UserGems to reach their revenue goals, quickly and efficiently.