You’ve probably experienced sending off a proposal and getting caught in the “voicemail loop of Hell”, wondering what happened to that prospect that seemed so eager. (This is what actually how the current Mimiran software started– I just wanted to know if/when someone had read a proposal, so I could call and have a conversation at the right time.)
So how do you avoid getting ghosted after sending a proposal? Don’t commit to writing the proposal until you have a meeting scheduled to review it.
This will filter out 90% of the problems– the people who are too “polite” to say “no”, the people who want some ideas to present as their own at the next executive meeting.
Some people will schedule and then not show up, either because (rarely) they didn’t intend to, or, more often, some emergency happened (we’ve all been there). This is frustrating when it happens at the last minute, because you’ve already written the proposal (which should only take 15-30 minutes– see my “Fill-in-the-Blank Consulting Proposal Template“), but they haven’t seen it yet. If they had a real emergency, they will want to reschedule the meeting, and they can see the proposal then.