Client went quiet after the proposal

You sent the quote a week ago. Nothing. Below are the two follow-up emails that get an answer, the four-day spacing that keeps them from reading as chasing, and the message that closes the file in a way clients often reply to.

Why “just checking in” never works

The standard follow-up asks for attention. “Just checking in on the proposal I sent last week, let me know if you have any questions.” There is nothing in that sentence for the client to do. Replying to it costs them a decision they haven’t made yet, and not replying costs them nothing, so they don’t reply. Then you send the same email again in a fortnight and feel worse about it.

A follow-up that works asks for a decision and makes both answers easy to give. It names something concrete you’re holding, gives the client a way to say no without any awkwardness, and ends with a question they can answer in four words. Almost all of the silence you’re getting is a client who hasn’t decided yet, is waiting on someone else’s budget approval, or already picked someone and feels bad about saying so. All three of those reply to a decision request. None of them reply to a nudge.

Touch one: four working days after the proposal

The start date is the part doing the work. It gives the client a reason this email exists that isn’t your own impatience, and it puts a real deadline in front of them without threatening anything. Only use a date you would actually give away, though. A held slot you invent and then keep holding trains the client to ignore your deadlines, and they can usually tell.

“If anything in the scope or the price needs adjusting, say so and I’ll rework it” is the escape hatch. Plenty of silence is a client who liked you, found the number higher than expected, and doesn’t want to open a negotiation. That line tells them a smaller version exists. If they take it up, the answer is on the discount reply page: reduce scope, not rate.

Touch two: four working days later, then stop

This one gets answered more often than the first, which surprises people the first time they use it. “No response needed” removes the obligation, and a client who has been avoiding the email because they owed you an answer suddenly doesn’t owe you one. That’s frequently when the real reason arrives: the budget slipped to next quarter, the founder wants to wait for funding, someone else got the job.

Keep it genuinely warm. This is not a last-chance email in disguise, and any hint of “I guess you’re not interested then” turns a lead that might have come back in March into one that won’t. Nothing is being withdrawn except the dates.

The spacing, and when to stop

• Day 0: proposal goes out, with a “valid until” date already in it. Seven days is standard, and it means the first follow-up is a fact about the document rather than a personal reminder.
• Day 4: touch one. Working days, not calendar days. A proposal sent Thursday gets followed up the following Wednesday.
• Day 8: touch two, and the file closes.
• Day 90: optional. One short note if the lead was a good one: “Saw [the new location / the rebrand]. If [the project] is back on the list this quarter, I have space in [month].” Not a follow-up, a fresh approach.

Two touches is the whole sequence because a third changes what the emails mean. One and two read as a professional running a business. Four or five read as someone who needs the work, and that shows up in the price you’ll be able to hold if the client does come back.

Two adjustments worth making. If your quote had a “valid until” date, move touch two so it lands two or three days before expiry, and mention the expiry in it. And if the proposal was for a large project with several people involved, add a line offering a fifteen-minute call to walk their team through it, because internal silence is usually a stakeholder who hasn’t read the document.

What to change in the next proposal

A proposal that leaves the client nothing to do gets silence by default. Three things make the follow-up easier before you ever send it. Put a “valid until” date on the quote. Name the decision you need and the date you need it by. And make the accept action one line: a reply saying “approved” is enough, so nobody has to find a printer.

The kit’s scripts cover the version of this that happens after a project is underway, where a change order sits unanswered while the client keeps expecting the work. Script 13 is the polite third nudge, and it turns on the same move as the emails above: it states what you are treating as not approved, keeps the original scope moving, and names the date by which approval holds the timeline. Silence at proposal stage costs you a lead. The same silence mid-project costs you unbilled work, which is worse.

Script 13, script 14 and the proposal clauses that stop a quiet client from turning into unpaid work are in the $12 kit.