Catch the deals that went quiet this week

What it does

Most deals don’t die with a no. They go quiet: a good call, a promised next step, then nothing on either side. The longer the gap, the worse the odds. In Ebsta’s 2024 benchmarks, deals that sat more than seven days with no activity and nothing scheduled had win rates 65% lower. One saved view in your CRM catches them while they can still be saved.

What you need

• Your CRM, with deal stages and activity dates
• Ten minutes every Monday

How it works

1. 1

   Define quiet

   An open deal with no activity, from either side, for seven days or more, and no next meeting or task scheduled. Activity means an email, a call or a meeting with the buyer. A stage change or a note to yourself doesn’t count.

2. 2

   Build the view

   The filter, for any CRM

   Open deals only (every stage before won or lost)
   AND last activity more than 7 days ago
   AND no next meeting or task scheduled
   Sort by deal value, highest first

   In HubSpot, the deal properties are Last activity date and Next activity date. In Attio and most other CRMs, look for the last interaction or last contacted date, and the next task or meeting. Save it as a view everyone can see.

3. 3

   Work it every Monday

   For each deal, read the last email and decide one of three things: write to them with a real reason, set a dated task for when they said to come back, or close it out with a reason. Nothing stays in the view without a decision.

4. 4

   Give every open deal a next step

   The view shrinks when every open deal has a next meeting or a dated task. Make it a rule: no call ends without the next step in the calendar.

5. 5

   Put it where you can’t miss it

   Post the count and the top five by value to Slack every Monday. If your CRM can’t do that on its own, a small Zapier or n8n flow can.

What good looks like

The view is short on Monday morning and empty by Friday, and every open deal has a next step with a date.

Mistakes to skip

• Counting your own notes as activity. A note to yourself isn’t a conversation with the buyer.
• Letting the view grow. If it has 30 deals in it every week, nobody’s working it.
• Chasing with “just checking in”. Give them a reason to reply: the date they gave, a question they asked, or something that changed.