May 14, 2025 • 9 mins
Brian Kemski wants to know how to stop prospects from ghosting him. He asks question that plagues salespeople everywhere: "What can I do about prospects who go through the process, seem interested, and then disappear into the witness protection program after I give them my information?"
If you've been in sales for more than a week, you know exactly what Brian is talking about. You have a great discovery call, you build rapport, you send over your proposal or pricing...and suddenly—radio silence.
The prospect ghosts you, leaving you frantically checking your email every five minutes and wondering what the hell happened.
In this Ask Jeb episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast I'm going to teach you how to prevent it.
You Gave Away Your Leverage for Free
During our conversation, I asked Brian to consider what he'd do if I offered him $100 to go get me a Big Mac. He wasn't interested. When I upped it to $200, he started considering it. At $500, he was ready to make the trip.
Why? Because at $500, the value exchange made sense to him.
Your sales information works exactly the same way. Your pricing, specs, and solutions have real value. When you hand them over without getting anything in return—especially before completing your sales process—you're essentially giving away hundred-dollar bills for free.
And once you give away all your value, the prospect has no more reason to talk to you.
Understanding Power and Leverage in Sales
In most sales situations, your prospect has more power than you do because they have more alternatives than you. They can choose your competitors or simply decide to do nothing.
The only way to level the playing field is through leverage—something you have that they want because it provides value to them.
It's like that hurricane example I gave Brian: If there's a hurricane in Miami, all the power is out, and you're the only person selling ice, you have all the power because there are no other options. But in normal business situations, your prospect has plenty of options, which gives them power.
Your information is the leverage that gets prospects to "dance to your tune." Once you give that away without getting anything in return, you've surrendered all your power.
Your Sales Process Should Be a Value Exchange
Here's what your sales process should look like instead:
Use discovery calls to build value: Ask questions that help prospects think differently about their problems. Create insights they can't get elsewhere.
Meet multiple stakeholders: Insist on speaking with everyone involved in the decision. This builds relationships across the organization and prevents ghosting.
Present your proposal in person: NEVER email a proposal. Your proposal meeting should be a closing meeting where you're getting a yes or no.
Look for engagement at every step: If prospects aren't willing to invest time and effort in your process, they're showing you they aren't serious.
Each step of your process should involve the prospect giving something (usually time and information) to get something from you. This creates what psychologists call the "investment effect"—the more effort people put into something, the more they value it.
The RFP Trap
The clearest example of giving away leverage is responding to RFPs without conditions. When you fill out all that information and send it without meeting the decision-makers, you'll rarely hear back.
My approach? "I'm not filling out all that information until you meet with me." If they want your solution badly enough, they'll meet. If they don't, you've saved yourself hours of wasted time.
I practice what I preach, but I'm not perfect. Just last November, I spent 12 hours on a proposal I knew had little chance of closing because I'd skipped steps in my own process. I gave away my leverage for free, and they ghosted me—exactly as I predicted they would.
I have to relearn this lesson once or twice a year. Maybe you do too.=
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
This is the Sales Gravy Podcast. Hi. I'm
Jeb Blunt, best selling author of fanatical prospecting,
objections, sales EQ, and inked, and I'm here
to help you open more doors, close bigger
deals, and rock your commission check.
It's wisdom Wednesday where you drive the agenda
(00:27):
in this segment of the Sales Gravy podcast
where listeners bring Jeb their biggest questions, and
he gives his best answers. These answers come
straight from the trenches because just like you,
Jeb is out there prospecting, selling, closing deals,
and leading his sales team every single day.
Now before we get started, some fantastic news.
The date and location for the next outbound
conference will be announced very soon. Outbound is
(00:49):
the biggest, baddest conference in sales. And if
you haven't been, this is the one to
add to your bucket list. Tickets are extremely
limited, and it sells out every single time.
Right now, you can get on the waiting
list and be first in line for early
bird ticket discounts at outboundconference.com.
Again, that's outboundconference.com.
Alright. Let's take the next caller. Next up
on the show is Brian Kempsky.
(01:12):
Jeb, there's a percentage of people that I
work with that go through the process, meet
with them. You know, you go through a
proposal. They seem like they're interested, and then
they go off into the witness protection program.
I understand you're gonna have a percentage of
that, but can you make some suggestions
or something to look for to avoid that?
I wanna get out of that game if
(01:33):
I can. Maybe it's not the case. Just
maybe some input. Where in your process do
you find that they go into witness protection
or they be they start ghosting you? After
they get your information. Okay. After they get
your information. Okay. Great. So let's think about
this for a second. When you give them
your information, what are you giving them? What
am I giving them? Like, specifications,
pricing, the things that are important to them.
I'm giving them my time. I I'm I'm
(01:55):
not following. Okay. I'm gonna show you. I
I get that. So
what is this? Hundred dollar bill. Hundred dollar
bill. Okay. What would you do for a
hundred dollars? I mean, if we were together
and I said, hey, Brian. Man, I'd love
some McDonald's. Tell you what, there's one down
there in the corner. I'll give you a
hundred dollars to go get me a Big
Mac. You keep the change. Honestly, I wouldn't
be interested. How about how about $200?
Okay. Maybe. Okay. Maybe. Well, I mean, I've
(02:17):
got a whole pocket full of hundred dollar
bills. So tell me what your number is.
$500. Okay. $500. You'll go down the corner,
get me a Big Mac. You keep the
change. Right? K? Yeah. Why would you do
that? Oh, you feel like you're there's an
exchange and you're getting value. You're getting value.
Right? The thing is is that in a
sales conversation,
right, that information that you're giving them has
value. Giving it to them is just the
(02:38):
same as giving them a hundred dollar bill
or a $500.
You gave them value. And once you give
them value and they have all the value,
they have no more reason to talk to
you. You gave away
all your value, and we call that leverage.
So what happens is when you give away
your leverage for free, you typically lose all
your power. Let me walk you backwards. Okay?
Just wanted to make that illustration for you
(02:58):
because what happens is if you give your
prices, that's why you should never email a
proposal. You email a proposal, you're dead in
the water. Now they have everything they wanted.
The reason that they hung around so long
is that they were waiting for you to
give you all their information. Like, if you
take them through one step of the sales
process, the next step of the sales process,
the next step of the sales process, and
then you give them a proposal, they got
no more reason to meet with you. Okay?
Right. So think about it like this. When
(03:19):
you're in a sales conversation,
the party that has the most power is
typically your prospect, the stakeholders. And the reason
is is that power is derived from alternatives.
They have more alternatives than you do. So
what I mean by that is if there
was a hurricane in Miami and all the
power's out and you're the only guy selling
ice, you have all the power because there's
no other options. But in most cases in
(03:39):
the commercial world, you've got competitors out there,
and they've always had the option to just
do nothing. Because they have more options than
you do, they have more power. The only
way that you're able to level the playing
field is through leverage. It's through something that
you have that they want
because it is a value to them. Think
you're not willing to go down to the
corner and get me a Big Mac for
(04:00):
a hundred dollars, but you'll do it for
5. Right? As soon as I've got that
leverage, you have all kinds of options. You
could do everything with your time. But at
$500,
you'll do what I want you to do.
So in other words, I'm able to get
you, the person that has more power invested
in this conversation,
to dance to my tune because I've got
something that you want, and you're willing to
do something for me to get it. Does
(04:20):
that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So if we
look at it that way, right, number one
is they've got more power than you do,
which is why they ghost you, and you
chase them. The only way to get them
to change the way that they're behaving is
that you have something that they want more,
and that is information.
The one thing that gets people to buy
from you, right, is that they're motivated to
buy from you, and they feel like they
(04:41):
don't have any other options. What we're doing
with the leverage is we're forcing them to
walk through our sales process. Like, your process
should be built around neutralizing any perceived options
that they have, and building a relationship with
them so that they trust you and they
wanna do business with you. If the buyer
has all the options, right, if they feel
like they have the power, why would they
do any of that? They just go, hey,
(05:02):
Brian. Give me your proposal. And then you
get the proposal and they disappear. And you
go, well, I wanna meet with you. They
go, not you can't meet with me until
you get the proposal. And you give them
a proposal and they disappear. Think about RFPs.
You get an RFP. RFP comes in. They
ask for all this information. You fill out
the information. You send it to them. You
never hear from them again. So if I
get an RFP, I go, nope. I'm not
filling all that information out. Not until you
meet with me. And if they want it
(05:22):
bad enough, they'll meet with me. And if
they meet with me, then I can start
changing the shape of things. What I'm able
to do at that moment is say, okay.
We need to meet for a first time
appointment. Then I need to meet multiple stakeholders.
Then I need to do deeper discovery. Along
the way, you're building relationship with people. Like,
there's human things happening here, and you're asking
them questions. You're helping them think, and you're
(05:43):
building a business case. And so what you
wanna do is that when you when you
give a proposal, you want that proposal to
be a closing meeting. You want it to
be a meeting where you're getting a yes
or no. Now in super complex deals and
enterprise deals, you're rarely gonna be in a
situation where you're gonna hammer down and close
the deal in the final moments, and they
are gonna walk away. Right? Essentially, what you
(06:04):
wanna do is use your leverage to bend
them to your process that allows you to
build a business case that forces them to
make a decision to do business with you
because they can't see a better option out
there. And as long as you're giving your
leverage away for free, they're gonna keep walking
away. As long as you give it away
without them building relationship, they're gonna keep walking
(06:24):
away. Now if you use your leverage to
bend their will back to your sales process,
which means, by the way, that you have
to have the fortitude to walk away from
people who aren't willing to do that. Like,
if you if you go, like, this is
how we're gonna do this, and they go,
no. You gotta be able to walk away.
Go back to fanatical prospecting boot camp. The
entire reason why you were in fanatical prospecting
boot camp is so that you can fill
up your pipeline so that you have lots
of options so that if one party's not
(06:46):
gonna play, you can leave them because you
got 10 other that are waiting there because
you went out and got them. Right? But
when they're willing to play, then and this
is important. As you start going through the
process, what you're looking for is engagement. So
as you start asking questions, are they leaning
in? Are they willing to put in the
effort? And if they are, then you keep
moving forward. And if they're not, then you
have to realize, I'm just gonna go put
(07:07):
a lot of work in. I'm gonna do
a proposal, and they're never gonna they're never
gonna call me back. They're never gonna work
with me. And we all do that. Look,
I did that this this fall in in
November. I spent twelve hours putting together a
proposal that I knew in the back of
my mind I had no probability of closing
because I didn't do all the things I'm
telling you to do. And I gave it
away for free, and they sure enough disappeared.
And I knew that. Like, I know it,
but I gotta go learn that lesson about
once or twice a year in order for
(07:29):
things to work out for me. As you're
looking at the people that are ghosting you,
there are probably patterns and signs other than
you giving your leverage away for free that
they were never into this anyway. They weren't
really working with you. But if they are,
and then you step them off through all
the steps in your sales process, it allows
you to take advantage of something called the
investment effect. And we all get this. Right?
So things that human beings have to put
(07:50):
effort into, we value more. So every step
that they take on your sales process with
you, the more they value getting to an
outcome. Even by the way, if that outcome
isn't the outcome you want, they'll at least
not ghost you. Like, they feel an obligation
to
say, hey. This isn't gonna work for us
right now, but we really appreciate taking time
with you, and then you can learn from
it. But it all comes back to that
(08:11):
one thing. Right? $500 will get you to
get me a Big Mac. Right? What are
they willing to do for your information? And
hold the line at that. Don't give your
leverage away for free. I like that. Thank
you.
Gonna wrap this up in a moment with
some final thoughts. But first, if you have
a question for the show, head over to
salesgravy.com/ask.
That's salesgravy.com/ask.
(08:32):
1 of our producers will reach out to
you and get you scheduled to join Jeb
on a future episode. When prospects vanish after
you've delivered your proposal, it's rarely about your
price. It's about your leverage. If you hand
over your value too soon without earning reciprocal
investment from the buyer, you lose your power
in the deal. And just like Jeb said
in this episode, if someone's willing to grab
a Big Mac for $500,
(08:53):
it's because the value motivates the behavior. Your
information, your time, your expertise, and proposal
has real value. Protect it. Force engagement by
walking your prospects through your sales process step
by step, and don't hesitate to walk away
from those who won't match your effort. That's
why your pipeline matters. It gives you options
so that you're not beholden to the one
who ghosts you. Hold the line. Make them
(09:15):
earn it. And when you feel tempted to
cave and just send the proposal, stop, take
a breath, and make one more call instead.
And when you're down on your final call
block, tired, frustrated, ready to call it a
day, remember this. Push through the resistance, hold
the line, and make one more call. This
is Jeblen Junior, and I'll see you next
time on the Sales Gravy Podcast.
This is the Sales Gravy Podcast. Hi. I'm
Jeb Blunt, best selling author of fanatical prospecting,
objections, sales EQ, and inked, and I'm here
to help you open more doors, close bigger
deals, and rock your commission check.
It's wisdom Wednesday where you drive the agenda
(00:27):
in this segment of the Sales Gravy podcast
where listeners bring Jeb their biggest questions, and
he gives his best answers. These answers come
straight from the trenches because just like you,
Jeb is out there prospecting, selling, closing deals,
and leading his sales team every single day.
Now before we get started, some fantastic news.
The date and location for the next outbound
conference will be announced very soon. Outbound is
(00:49):
the biggest, baddest conference in sales. And if
you haven't been, this is the one to
add to your bucket list. Tickets are extremely
limited, and it sells out every single time.
Right now, you can get on the waiting
list and be first in line for early
bird ticket discounts at outboundconference.com.
Again, that's outboundconference.com.
Alright. Let's take the next caller. Next up
on the show is Brian Kempsky.
(01:12):
Jeb, there's a percentage of people that I
work with that go through the process, meet
with them. You know, you go through a
proposal. They seem like they're interested, and then
they go off into the witness protection program.
I understand you're gonna have a percentage of
that, but can you make some suggestions
or something to look for to avoid that?
I wanna get out of that game if
(01:33):
I can. Maybe it's not the case. Just
maybe some input. Where in your process do
you find that they go into witness protection
or they be they start ghosting you? After
they get your information. Okay. After they get
your information. Okay. Great. So let's think about
this for a second. When you give them
your information, what are you giving them? What
am I giving them? Like, specifications,
pricing, the things that are important to them.
I'm giving them my time. I I'm I'm
(01:55):
not following. Okay. I'm gonna show you. I
I get that. So
what is this? Hundred dollar bill. Hundred dollar
bill. Okay. What would you do for a
hundred dollars? I mean, if we were together
and I said, hey, Brian. Man, I'd love
some McDonald's. Tell you what, there's one down
there in the corner. I'll give you a
hundred dollars to go get me a Big
Mac. You keep the change. Honestly, I wouldn't
be interested. How about how about $200?
Okay. Maybe. Okay. Maybe. Well, I mean, I've
(02:17):
got a whole pocket full of hundred dollar
bills. So tell me what your number is.
$500. Okay. $500. You'll go down the corner,
get me a Big Mac. You keep the
change. Right? K? Yeah. Why would you do
that? Oh, you feel like you're there's an
exchange and you're getting value. You're getting value.
Right? The thing is is that in a
sales conversation,
right, that information that you're giving them has
value. Giving it to them is just the
(02:38):
same as giving them a hundred dollar bill
or a $500.
You gave them value. And once you give
them value and they have all the value,
they have no more reason to talk to
you. You gave away
all your value, and we call that leverage.
So what happens is when you give away
your leverage for free, you typically lose all
your power. Let me walk you backwards. Okay?
Just wanted to make that illustration for you
(02:58):
because what happens is if you give your
prices, that's why you should never email a
proposal. You email a proposal, you're dead in
the water. Now they have everything they wanted.
The reason that they hung around so long
is that they were waiting for you to
give you all their information. Like, if you
take them through one step of the sales
process, the next step of the sales process,
the next step of the sales process, and
then you give them a proposal, they got
no more reason to meet with you. Okay?
Right. So think about it like this. When
(03:19):
you're in a sales conversation,
the party that has the most power is
typically your prospect, the stakeholders. And the reason
is is that power is derived from alternatives.
They have more alternatives than you do. So
what I mean by that is if there
was a hurricane in Miami and all the
power's out and you're the only guy selling
ice, you have all the power because there's
no other options. But in most cases in
(03:39):
the commercial world, you've got competitors out there,
and they've always had the option to just
do nothing. Because they have more options than
you do, they have more power. The only
way that you're able to level the playing
field is through leverage. It's through something that
you have that they want
because it is a value to them. Think
you're not willing to go down to the
corner and get me a Big Mac for
(04:00):
a hundred dollars, but you'll do it for
5. Right? As soon as I've got that
leverage, you have all kinds of options. You
could do everything with your time. But at
$500,
you'll do what I want you to do.
So in other words, I'm able to get
you, the person that has more power invested
in this conversation,
to dance to my tune because I've got
something that you want, and you're willing to
do something for me to get it. Does
(04:20):
that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So if we
look at it that way, right, number one
is they've got more power than you do,
which is why they ghost you, and you
chase them. The only way to get them
to change the way that they're behaving is
that you have something that they want more,
and that is information.
The one thing that gets people to buy
from you, right, is that they're motivated to
buy from you, and they feel like they
(04:41):
don't have any other options. What we're doing
with the leverage is we're forcing them to
walk through our sales process. Like, your process
should be built around neutralizing any perceived options
that they have, and building a relationship with
them so that they trust you and they
wanna do business with you. If the buyer
has all the options, right, if they feel
like they have the power, why would they
do any of that? They just go, hey,
(05:02):
Brian. Give me your proposal. And then you
get the proposal and they disappear. And you
go, well, I wanna meet with you. They
go, not you can't meet with me until
you get the proposal. And you give them
a proposal and they disappear. Think about RFPs.
You get an RFP. RFP comes in. They
ask for all this information. You fill out
the information. You send it to them. You
never hear from them again. So if I
get an RFP, I go, nope. I'm not
filling all that information out. Not until you
meet with me. And if they want it
(05:22):
bad enough, they'll meet with me. And if
they meet with me, then I can start
changing the shape of things. What I'm able
to do at that moment is say, okay.
We need to meet for a first time
appointment. Then I need to meet multiple stakeholders.
Then I need to do deeper discovery. Along
the way, you're building relationship with people. Like,
there's human things happening here, and you're asking
them questions. You're helping them think, and you're
(05:43):
building a business case. And so what you
wanna do is that when you when you
give a proposal, you want that proposal to
be a closing meeting. You want it to
be a meeting where you're getting a yes
or no. Now in super complex deals and
enterprise deals, you're rarely gonna be in a
situation where you're gonna hammer down and close
the deal in the final moments, and they
are gonna walk away. Right? Essentially, what you
(06:04):
wanna do is use your leverage to bend
them to your process that allows you to
build a business case that forces them to
make a decision to do business with you
because they can't see a better option out
there. And as long as you're giving your
leverage away for free, they're gonna keep walking
away. As long as you give it away
without them building relationship, they're gonna keep walking
(06:24):
away. Now if you use your leverage to
bend their will back to your sales process,
which means, by the way, that you have
to have the fortitude to walk away from
people who aren't willing to do that. Like,
if you if you go, like, this is
how we're gonna do this, and they go,
no. You gotta be able to walk away.
Go back to fanatical prospecting boot camp. The
entire reason why you were in fanatical prospecting
boot camp is so that you can fill
up your pipeline so that you have lots
of options so that if one party's not
(06:46):
gonna play, you can leave them because you
got 10 other that are waiting there because
you went out and got them. Right? But
when they're willing to play, then and this
is important. As you start going through the
process, what you're looking for is engagement. So
as you start asking questions, are they leaning
in? Are they willing to put in the
effort? And if they are, then you keep
moving forward. And if they're not, then you
have to realize, I'm just gonna go put
(07:07):
a lot of work in. I'm gonna do
a proposal, and they're never gonna they're never
gonna call me back. They're never gonna work
with me. And we all do that. Look,
I did that this this fall in in
November. I spent twelve hours putting together a
proposal that I knew in the back of
my mind I had no probability of closing
because I didn't do all the things I'm
telling you to do. And I gave it
away for free, and they sure enough disappeared.
And I knew that. Like, I know it,
but I gotta go learn that lesson about
once or twice a year in order for
(07:29):
things to work out for me. As you're
looking at the people that are ghosting you,
there are probably patterns and signs other than
you giving your leverage away for free that
they were never into this anyway. They weren't
really working with you. But if they are,
and then you step them off through all
the steps in your sales process, it allows
you to take advantage of something called the
investment effect. And we all get this. Right?
So things that human beings have to put
(07:50):
effort into, we value more. So every step
that they take on your sales process with
you, the more they value getting to an
outcome. Even by the way, if that outcome
isn't the outcome you want, they'll at least
not ghost you. Like, they feel an obligation
to
say, hey. This isn't gonna work for us
right now, but we really appreciate taking time
with you, and then you can learn from
it. But it all comes back to that
(08:11):
one thing. Right? $500 will get you to
get me a Big Mac. Right? What are
they willing to do for your information? And
hold the line at that. Don't give your
leverage away for free. I like that. Thank
you.
Gonna wrap this up in a moment with
some final thoughts. But first, if you have
a question for the show, head over to
salesgravy.com/ask.
That's salesgravy.com/ask.
(08:32):
1 of our producers will reach out to
you and get you scheduled to join Jeb
on a future episode. When prospects vanish after
you've delivered your proposal, it's rarely about your
price. It's about your leverage. If you hand
over your value too soon without earning reciprocal
investment from the buyer, you lose your power
in the deal. And just like Jeb said
in this episode, if someone's willing to grab
a Big Mac for $500,
(08:53):
it's because the value motivates the behavior. Your
information, your time, your expertise, and proposal
has real value. Protect it. Force engagement by
walking your prospects through your sales process step
by step, and don't hesitate to walk away
from those who won't match your effort. That's
why your pipeline matters. It gives you options
so that you're not beholden to the one
who ghosts you. Hold the line. Make them
(09:15):
earn it. And when you feel tempted to
cave and just send the proposal, stop, take
a breath, and make one more call instead.
And when you're down on your final call
block, tired, frustrated, ready to call it a
day, remember this. Push through the resistance, hold
the line, and make one more call. This
is Jeblen Junior, and I'll see you next
time on the Sales Gravy Podcast.
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