A short message that gives the silent buyer a blameless reason for their silence, makes 'not now' cost one word and adds nothing else. Say once when you will be back, and never announce that you are closing their file.
Four follow-ups, no reply. You have run out of new ways to say "just checking in".
Send a short message that gives the buyer an ordinary, blameless reason for their silence, "I'll assume your priorities have changed", makes "not now" cost them one word, and adds nothing else. Do not ask them to explain the gap: someone who has gone quiet and is then asked why loses face, and goes quieter. If you want a reply, the easiest one for them to send is a no.
Two lines can go with it. One says when you will be back in touch, once, and you keep to it. And if the silence is your fault, because a date slipped, a pilot broke or the price moved late, do not reopen the argument about the miss: come back with a choice between two small next steps and something finished they can use.
Blair Enns' magic email. A reply in the existing thread, with the subject changed to "Closing the Loop", saying you have not heard back and will assume they have gone another way or their priorities have changed. Then one line offering help in the future, and nothing else. His point is that the calm retreat moves you from the one chasing to the one who might get away.
Dean Jackson's nine-word email. The buyer's first name as the subject line, and one question: are you still looking for the thing they asked about? No signature, no link, and his rule that adding anything after the question kills it.
Josh Braun's "Did I lose you?". One sentence that assumes a change of direction or priorities, a joke at his own expense to take the pressure off, and an offer to help later. He sends it only after four or five unanswered follow-ups, or it reads as a confrontation.
Krysten Conner's permission line, quoted on UserGems' blog, where she is introduced as a UserGems account executive: she loves a yes, is fine with a no, and finds maybe or silence the hard part, then asks for help understanding where things stand.
Chris Voss's one question. In a Black Swan Group newsletter of October 2025, the subject line "Have you given up on solving this problem?", sent alone, and then you wait. Voss says it works because answering no feels like freedom and yes feels like a trap. He publishes no data.
The breakup email. The last message in a sequence says it is the last, withdraws, and leaves the door open. HubSpot's "see you later" template says it has been a while, assumes the product is not a priority at the moment, says you do not want to keep taking up their time, and names when you will reach out again. Anything announcing that you are closing their file is on the do-not list: Jason Lemkin tells sellers never to say it, and Justin McGill reprints a "Permission to close your file?" email only to say nobody believes it any more.
When the silence is your fault. Braun's wording for an ask without pressure opens with "Would it make sense to", "Would you be open to" or "Would you be opposed to" instead of "I'd love to". Offer two next steps and let them pick. When the buyer is engaged and deciding, recommend one step instead, as in Earn the next step before you book it; the choice is for a buyer you have to win back.
Nobody has compared these messages on live deals. Enns, Jackson, Braun, Conner and Voss publish their own versions, which shows the move is widely taught, not that it works: practitioners who read each other are not independent evidence. Every response rate they quote is self-reported.
The breakup email's numbers, and its critics. HubSpot's page quotes one of its enterprise account managers, Katharine Fischer, whose team sees a 33% response rate to breakup emails. Doug Davidoff of Lift Enablement analysed roughly 2,500 prospecting emails and found breakup emails drew three times the clicks and five times the replies of the other emails in the sequences, which compares the last email with messages the same people had already ignored. Anthony Iannarino argues that the breakup email is giving up dressed as strategy and makes the sender look undeserving of a meeting. Nobody has measured that cost.
People are slower to deliver bad news. Sidney Rosen and Abraham Tesser named the MUM effect in a 1970 laboratory study: people passed good news on to the person it concerned more readily than bad. A year later, a field study of 27 applicants for disability aid found the agency took somewhat longer to tell people they had been refused than approved, a difference the authors called marginal. How often a silent buyer is sitting on a no has never been measured.
Silence often means no script for saying no. Gili Freedman and Darcey Powell's review of research on ghosting lists not knowing what to say as one possible reason people disappear, and reports that people who ghost feel both guilt and relief. Erving Goffman described the same thing in On Face-Work, 1955: after a social lapse, tactful people skip the challenge, because making someone explain themselves costs them more face. That is the case for supplying the reason yourself.
Saying you will follow up works, in a letter. Todd Rogers, John Ternovski and Erez Yoeli sent voting letters to 771,000 people in 2016. Adding one line, "You may be called after the election to discuss your experience at the polls", raised the letter's effect on turnout from 0.48 to 0.72 percentage points, about half again. People act more when they expect someone to notice.
Choice and a reason, instead of pressure. Edward Deci and colleagues gave 192 students a boring task in 1994 with a reason for doing it, an acknowledgement that it was dull, and wording such as "you can" instead of "you should". People given all three kept at it longest when left alone, though the pattern was not tidy: people given none of the three stayed longer than those given one. Erika Patall and colleagues' review of 41 experiments found that giving people a choice raised their motivation and effort. The theory behind both is Richard Ryan and Edward Deci's self-determination theory.
Nobody has compared these wordings on real deals, and the numbers attached to them come from the people who send them. The bad-news and ghosting research explains why people go quiet; it does not test any message that brings them back. The voting letter and the boring-task experiment are far from a buying group.
Give the buyer a blameless reason for their silence, make "not now" cost one word, add nothing, and send it once. If you say when you will be back, keep to it; if the silence is your fault, offer two small next steps and leave the miss alone. Judge it by whether an answer arrives, and count a clear no as a result.