START WITH THE LIVE SYMPTOM
Waiting is the one move that is definitely wrong.
You have followed up twice. You do not want to sound desperate, but you do not want to walk away. The deal has not disappeared; the decision moved somewhere you are not looking.
WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING
A quiet deal is rarely a cadence problem. It is usually a missing decision, untested power or an artefact the buyer cannot take upstairs.
THE WORK
Reconstruct the last buyer milestone, not the last seller activity.
Name the person, process or internal argument the deal is now waiting on.
Use the next decision to choose a move rather than sending a third generic follow-up.
Create the problem statement or executive briefing that gives the buyer something useful to carry forward.
THE TEST
A seller who only knows the deal went quiet does not have enough context. A seller who can name the next decision has a move.
THE NEXT MOVE
Do not start with a programme. Start with the one live deal, account or operating problem that tells you where the motion is missing.
PRINCIPLES TO APPLY
The thinking behind the move.
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Every complex deal has a next decision.
The sales job is not to generate activity. It is to identify the one decision that must happen now and choose the move that makes it more likely.
Read in the manifesto11
Measure Buyer Activity, not seller activity
Whether the buyer articulated their problem back to you, gave you access to power or sent the first message after reaching the product. One hundred emails that produce one qualified conversation count as one.
Read in the manifesto