Latest / Sales Leadership with Fexingo: Quota Carriers, Sales Managers, and Revenue Teams / The Stalled Deal Playbook for Sales Leaders
Transcript
- Lucas: You've got a six-figure deal that was hot two months ago. Emails are going unanswered. The prospect hasn't returned a call in three weeks. What do you do? Luna: I think every sales leader has been there. That sinking feeling when a deal you counted on goes dark. Lucas: Right. And the instinct is usually to push harder — send another email, offer a discount, loop in your VP. But that often backfires. Today I want to walk through a specific playbook for stalled deals that we've seen work at companies like Outreach and ZoomInfo. Luna: Let's start with the why. Why do deals stall in the first place? Is it always about price? Lucas: Good question. According to a 2025 study from Gong, only about 18 percent of stalled deals are primarily about price. The most common reason — about 40 percent — is an internal priority shift inside the prospect's company. Their boss changed direction, a new initiative came up, or they simply got busy. Luna: So it's rarely personal. It's organizational chaos. Lucas: Exactly. About 25 percent stall because the champion — the person advocating for your solution internally — loses influence or leaves the company. And the remaining 17 percent are what I'd call 'ghost stalls,' where the prospect just goes silent for no apparent reason. But the playbook for all of them starts the same way: stop selling. Luna: Stop selling? That feels counterintuitive. Lucas: It does. But think about it — if the prospect isn't responding, more selling is just noise. What you need is information. So the first step is what I call the 'red yellow green' audit of your deal. You go back through every interaction and score the health of your champion, the budget, the timeline, and the decision process. Luna: What does green look like? What does red look like? Lucas: Green means you have a confirmed champion who has access to the decision-maker, budget is allocated, there's a clear timeline, and you've spoken to at least two other stakeholders. Red means your champion is junior, you haven't validated budget, the timeline is vague, or the prospect has gone quiet for more than 10 business days without explanation. Luna: And if it's red, you probably shouldn't be forecasting that deal at all. Lucas: Right. But here's the twist — even a red deal can be revived if you approach it the right way. The key is to reframe the conversation from 'buying' to 'deciding.' You send an email that essentially offers to help them close the loop, even if that means walking away. Luna: Can you give us the exact language? Lucas: Sure. Something like: 'I noticed we haven't connected in a few weeks. I don't want to be a pest, but I want to respect your time. If this is no longer a priority, just say the word and I'll close the file — no hard feelings. If it's still active, let me know what would be most helpful from my side.' That's it. No discount, no new feature, no urgency. Luna: Wow, that's almost the opposite of what most reps are trained to do. But I can see how it disarms the prospect. Lucas: Exactly. It gives them an out, which ironically makes them more likely to re-engage. I've seen this work in about 30 percent of stalled deals. One example: a SaaS company called Clari had a $450,000 deal that had been dead for six weeks. The rep sent that email, and the prospect replied within an hour saying, 'Actually, we just got new budget approval. Can we schedule a call next week?' The deal closed 45 days later. Luna: That's a great example. But what about the 70 percent that still don't respond after that email? Lucas: Good point. For those, you need a different play. The second step is to find a new angle — ideally by reaching a different stakeholder. If your champion was in marketing, try the head of engineering or the CFO. Their priorities are different, and they might see value you hadn't pitched. Luna: So you're essentially starting a new sales cycle within the same account. Lucas: Yes. And you can do that without burning the original relationship. You simply say, 'I've been working with your colleague on X, and I thought you might find Y interesting.' It's a cold outreach, but it's informed. Luna: What about deals that are truly dead? How do you know when to walk away for good? Lucas: That's the hardest part. I use a simple rule: if you've sent three distinct outreach attempts — each offering something different, like a case study, a new insight, or the 'close the file' email — and you get no response, it's time to drop it. Put it in a nurture sequence and move on. Luna: But what about the pressure from leadership? They want the deal in the forecast. Lucas: That's a cultural issue. The best sales leaders I know have a 'no zombie deals' policy. If a deal has been stalled for more than 30 days with no active next step, it gets moved out of the forecast. It's better to have a smaller, accurate pipeline than a big one full of illusions. Luna: I want to go back to the audit. How often should sales teams be doing this red yellow green check? Lucas: Weekly. Every Monday morning, the rep should pull up their top 10 deals by value and run the audit. It takes 15 minutes. Over time, you start to see patterns — maybe deals with champions in engineering convert better than marketing, or deals over $200K stall more often. That data is gold. Luna: What do you do with those patterns once you see them? Lucas: You adjust your targeting and your qualification criteria. If you find that deals with a certain stakeholder are stalling 60 percent of the time, you might start requiring a meeting with that stakeholder earlier in the process. Or you might build a specific re-engagement sequence for that persona. Luna: So it's not just about salvaging individual deals — it's about strengthening your entire process. Lucas: Exactly. Let me give you a specific number. In a study by 6sense, companies that implemented a formal stalled-deal playbook recovered an average of 12 percent of revenue that would have been lost. That's huge. For a $10 million ARR company, that's $1.2 million. Luna: But I imagine not all stalls are recoverable. What does the data say about the overall win rate for stalled deals? Lucas: Gong found that only about 40 percent of deals that stall for more than 30 days ever close. And among those, the average time to close is 90 days longer than deals that never stalled. So the cost is real — not just in lost revenue, but in wasted time and resource allocation. Luna: That's sobering. So the playbook is really about triage — you want to quickly figure out which deals are worth fighting for and which are better left behind. Lucas: Exactly. And I'll add one more tactic that I think is underused: the 'internal champion call.' If your champion is still responsive but the deal is stalling, ask them for a 15-minute call where you role-play the internal conversation they need to have with their boss. You help them prepare talking points. That alone can unstick a deal. Luna: That's a great idea. It turns the rep into a coach, not a seller. Lucas: Right. And it builds real trust. I've seen champions become lifelong advocates after that kind of support. Luna: Okay, so let's say a listener is a sales manager. What's the one thing they should do this week based on this episode? Lucas: Pull your team's top five stalled deals — defined as any deal over $50K with no activity in 14 days. Have each rep send the 'close the file' email by end of week. Then track the response rate. I guarantee at least one or two will come back to life. Luna: And if they don't, you've at least cleaned up your pipeline and reduced noise. Lucas: Exactly. Clear pipeline, clear mind. Luna: Lucas, this was incredibly practical. I think we've given our listeners a real playbook today. Lucas: Glad to hear it. Next time, we'll talk about how to handle the opposite problem — deals that are moving too fast and risk skipping critical steps. Luna: Looking forward to it. Thanks for listening.