Prospect went silent after the proposal? What to send, with proposal follow up email examples

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Your prospect went silent after the proposal. Before you write a proposal follow up email, work out why they went quiet, because the right email depends on the reason. Often the deal isn't dead; it's stuck with someone you haven't met, or it slid down the priority list. This guide covers how to diagnose it, then exactly what to send at day 3, 7, 14 and 30, with emails you can copy. For the full set of follow-ups from the demo onwards, see our sales follow-up email templates.

I've had plenty of deals go quiet after a proposal. A few were lost. Many came back, usually because I sent something that helped the buyer move it forward internally, not because I sent "just checking in" one more time.

Why prospects go silent after a proposal

Silence feels personal. It almost never is. Here are the usual reasons, roughly in the order I'd suspect them:

• It's stuck with someone else. Your contact forwarded it to their boss, finance or IT, and it's sitting in their inbox. Your contact is waiting too and doesn't want to admit they can't move it.
• The priority moved. A fire, a reorganisation, the end of a quarter. Your project didn't get worse; something else got louder.
• They're comparing. They're waiting for another vendor's proposal, or someone suggested they look at alternatives.
• The price surprised them. It's more than they expected, and they don't know how to say so without it getting awkward.
• They never read it. It's buried, in spam, or they opened it on a phone and meant to come back.
• They've decided no. And they'd rather not write the email saying so.
• There was never a next step. The demo ended with "send me something" and no date. So there's nothing for them to be late for.

Each of these needs a different email. "Just following up" fits none of them.

How to tell which reason it is

If you send a PDF, you won't have steps 1 to 3, so you'll lean more on your notes and on asking. That's one practical argument for sending proposals as a page instead of an attachment.

In AfterDemo, this is what the seller view shows: who opened the proposal, which sections they read and for how long, and who it was shared with. Each deal also gets a temperature (hot, warm, cooling or dead) and an action plan of next steps, so you can see which quiet deals are worth chasing.

What to send, and when

The emails below assume you sent the proposal on day 0 and haven't heard back. Change the brackets and rewrite them in your own words. Each one is short enough to read on a phone, and each gives the buyer a reason to reply.

Day 3: one easy question

Keep it light. The goal is a reply of any kind, so make replying easy. Ask one question that has a short answer.

If it was never opened: don't send the same email again. Resend the proposal with a different subject line and one sentence about what's in it, in case the first one got buried.

Day 7: help the person who has to approve it

By now, the most likely reason is that it's stuck with someone else. Your contact may want to say yes but has to convince an approver. Make their job easier. Offer the material an approver needs, not another nudge.

Our business case template shows what that one-page summary should cover. Arming your contact this way is the single most useful thing you can do for a quiet deal. The guide on how to arm your champion goes further.

Day 14: bring something new

Two weeks of silence means "just checking in" is off the table. Send something with value on its own: an answer to a question they asked on the call, a short idea for their problem, or a relevant example. Then offer them an easy way out.

If you know someone else who was involved, this is also a good point to write to them directly, with your contact copied. Keep it about their part of the decision, not a way around your contact.

Day 30: close it out

After a month with no reply, send a polite close-out. Be clear that you'll stop, and leave the door open. This email often gets the most honest reply in the whole thread, because it's easy to answer.

If they don't reply to this one, stop. Put a reminder in your calendar for the time they mentioned on the call, or for next quarter, and move on.

Should you call instead?

Sometimes. If you have their number and spoke on the phone before, one call around day 7 to 10 can do what three emails can't. Leave a short voicemail with one reason to call back, then follow it with a two-line email so they have it in writing.

Switch channels once, not every day. Email, then a call, then email again is fine. Email, LinkedIn, call, text and another email in one week is not.

What not to send

• "Just checking in." It asks for their time and gives nothing back.
• "Did you get a chance to look?" It makes them feel behind. They'll avoid replying until they've read it, which may be never.
• A fake deadline. "This price expires Friday," when it doesn't, damages trust in the rest of your proposal.
• A surprise discount. It tells the buyer your first price wasn't real. Find out what's stuck first.
• "I saw you opened it." Use what you know to time your email. Don't quote it back to them.
• Guilt. "I've reached out several times" is fine once, in the close-out. Not in every email.

Prevent the silence next time

A lot of the silence after a proposal is set up on the demo call. A few habits cut it down:

Write the follow-up faster

To see how AfterDemo drafts these from your call notes, in your own style, watch the follow-up email preview:

Inside AfterDemo, AI drafts follow-up emails in your own writing style. Nothing it drafts reaches the buyer until you approve it.