Most prospects won’t reply, and that’s OK

I’ve been in sales since I’m 15 years old. I started selling airplane cleaning services, tried to get a startup afloat in Canada, and then transitioned into tech sales in 2015.

Through all these years, I’ve noticed one thing.

Most prospects I contacted didn’t reply to my outreach.

The best I got was a 38% reply rate (that’s how you can get it too). But even though most people don’t reply, it’s OK.

It’s not because they don’t reply that they aren’t acting on what you sent them.

Here’s a great example:

I got invited last week to share my outreach system on a webinar with Andrei Zinkevich. We had over 100 participants showing up, and I recognized a few people I had been reaching out to.

During the live Q&A, one of them asked me about my follow-up structure. After answering, I asked him why he didn’t reply to my outreach.

Here’s what he said:

“I was just really busy with other priorities. But I really like your stuff, I’m promoting it with the team, and I’m even considering bringing you in for a training.”

This prospect had never replied, but he was already considering working with me.

And this has a name.

It’s called the Dark Funnel. In short, it’s all the actions prospects are taking without you knowing about them.

Think about the emails and links you send them. They are sometimes shared on Slack, in private communities, or people even chat about them in meetings.

Think about the referrals people are giving. All these actions are almost impossible to track, but they are all contributing to getting you known by your prospects and the people they interact with.

And that’s why you sometimes get meetings and opportunities appearing out of nowhere.

So next time you get frustrated because you don’t get replies, keep that in mind.

It’s not because you don’t see it that it doesn’t exist.