The subject of this email is an extremely powerful negotiation tactic.
To give it more context, imagine a scenario in which you are communicating with a potential client. They are a warm lead and you believe your services would be an excellent fit for their needs. The conversation is fluid until this point, and your confidence in closing the deal is high.
Then, all of a sudden, the client goes dark and stops responding to emails.
As a Salesforce consultant, this scenario probably happens more often than you would like. It’s certainly happened to me on more than one occasion.
After a few days of silence, gently ask if there’s further information that you can provide to guide them to the next step. If that doesn’t receive a response, after a few days, it’s time to bring out the big guns:
“Have you given up on this project?”
That’s all you write (in the email’s body, not the subject)
These words are so powerful, and they are extremely hard to resist. I’ve always received a response from an email like this, and I’ve been pulled into a response when someone sends it to me.
The takeaway
When the conversation with a client client suddenly ends, once you’ve sent one or two gentle reminders, it’s OK to take more drastic measures. Use these words as a last resort to elicit a response.
PS. I learned about this question while reading “Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It”, by Chris Voss