When Sales Momentum Dies
Stalled deals bring sales momentum to a screeching halt.
Generally, in this situation, you’ll go through your sales cycle in your mind, wondering what you missed.
You found a lead, set an appointment. You ran a solid discovery call. The facilities manager seemed engaged. You delivered a clean proposal that hit their pain points. They said they'd “review your proposal internally" and get you the next steps by Friday.
That was a month ago.
Now you're about to send your fourth "just checking in" email into what feels like a black hole.
The deal is still in your CRM as "50% probability," but you can feel it - the deal is stuck.
To make quota this quarter, you have to speed up this stalled deal without being pushy or seeming desperate. If you don’t, you risk throwing away two months' worth of work.
Here's what most articles on stalled deals won't tell you: the problem often starts way earlier than you think.
By the time a deal goes quiet, you've usually missed three or four critical moments where you could have changed the outcome.
This guide walks through why commercial services deals stall, how to prevent them, and what to do when you're already stuck.
We'll skip the generic advice and focus on what actually works in the field.
Why Commercial Services Deals Stall (And Why It's Getting Worse)
Put yourself in this moment. You're a sales rep at a commercial roofing company. You've been working on an account for two months. For this example, let’s say it’s a warehouse complex that needs a full replacement.
The property manager loves your proposal. The pricing came in under budget. You've toured the site twice. Everything points to a “yes.”
Then it stops. The property manager stops returning calls. Your emails sit unread. You find out later they hired someone else - or worse, decided to patch the roof "one more year."
What happened?
The Four Most Common Stall Patterns
Deals die for predictable reasons.
The first is that you never found the real decision-maker. The person you've been talking to might love your proposal; they might even be actively looking for solutions, but they can't sign the contract. They need approval from someone you've never met - a CFO, an owner, or a board.
When they go to pitch it internally, it gets shot down or deprioritized.
The second pattern is budget limbo. They have the money. They know they need the work done. But the timing isn't urgent enough to pull the trigger now.
There's always next quarter. Next fiscal year. After the busy season. The longer they wait, the easier it becomes to keep waiting.
Third is stakeholder misalignment. In 2025, the average B2B buying decision involved 6.8 people, according to Gartner research.
That's nearly seven different opinions, priorities, and approval gates. If even one of those stakeholders isn't convinced, the deal stalls. Your champion can't get everyone aligned, so they stop trying.
The fourth pattern is competing priorities.
Commercial properties always have ten things that need fixing. Your solution might be important, but it's not urgent. Something else jumped up the list - a broken chiller, a surprise inspection, a tenant complaint.
In any case, your deal gets pushed to the back burner.
But there’s another factor -
What's Changed in the Last 3 Years
The current state of the economy has made buyers more cautious. Deals that would have closed in 30 days or less in 2021 are now taking 60 to 90 days (sometimes more, depending on your service type).
Prospects are doing more research, reading reviews, requesting referrals, and doing more thorough evaluations. They're comparing three vendors instead of two. They're asking for multiple references and extended pilot programs.
Much of this is coming from the trust recession, but other factors are involved as well.
The buying committee has grown. It used to be that a facilities director could approve a $50K contract. Now that same deal might need sign-off from a board member, an investor, operations, finance, and executive leadership.
More people mean more meetings, more objections, and more chances for things to stall.
Economic uncertainty has also shifted the default answer from "yes" to "not yet." When budgets feel tight, doing nothing feels safer than committing to a new expense - even if that expense will save them money in the long term.
But this is also affecting the length of the sales cycle. Research from CSO Insights tracked sales cycle lengths between 2020 and 2024, and they’ve increased 20-30%
If your deals are taking longer to close, you're not alone. But that doesn't mean you're powerless to fix it.
The Real Cost of a Stalled Pipeline
Stalled deals hurt more than your forecast. They create a hidden drag on the entire sales operation that most teams never measure.
It's Not Just About Lost Revenue
The obvious cost is the commission you don't earn. If a $100K deal stalls and dies, you lose whatever percentage you would have made. But the real damage runs deeper.
Every hour you spend nursing a dead deal is an hour you're not spending on fresh prospects.
Opportunity cost is invisible until you do the math. Say you've got a deal that's been "90% likely to close" for eight weeks. You're spending 10 hours a week on follow-ups, internal updates, and proposal tweaks.
That's 80- 90 hours per quarter you could have invested in building a new pipeline.
This tracks with Sales Performance Studies from CSO Insights, which show that the average sales rep spends 23% of their time on deals that ultimately go nowhere. That's more than one day per week chasing ghosts.
Stalled deals also wreck your forecasting.
You tell your manager that a deal is closing this month. It doesn't. You push it to next month. It doesn't.
After three months of missed forecasts, leadership stops trusting your pipeline management. They start questioning every deal, which creates more reporting work and more pressure.
There's also a morale cost.
Reps who spend months working deals that go nowhere burn out faster. They start doubting their skills. They lose confidence in their pitch.
Some of the most enlightening comments on sales forums come from frustrated reps who say they feel like they're "wasting time on tire-kickers" instead of closing real deals.
The 3-3-3 Rule for Commercial Services
Here's a pattern we see in commercial services sales: if a deal sits inactive for three weeks, the odds of closing it drop by roughly 40%.
After three months of silence, the deal is effectively dead - you're just refusing to mark it lost in the CRM.
And if a prospect doesn't respond to three consecutive emails, it's time to completely change your approach. Sending a fourth version of the same message won't work.
The 3-3-3 rule is a gut check. It tells you when to shift tactics, when to escalate, and when to walk away.
Most reps ignore it because admitting a deal is dead feels like failure. But clinging to false hope is worse than closing out a lost opportunity and moving on.
Prevention: How to Keep Deals Moving from Day One
The best way to fix stalled deals is to prevent them from stalling in the first place. That means building momentum early and maintaining it through every stage of the sales process.
Here are four steps to keep deals moving.
Build a Mutual Action Plan Before the Proposal
Most deals stall because there's no shared understanding of what happens next. You think the prospect will review your proposal and get back to you by Friday. They think they'll "take a look when they have time." Neither of you commits to a concrete next step.
A mutual action plan fixes this.
Before you even run the proposal, you sit down with the prospect and map out the entire buying process together.
You ask: "When do you want this live?" Then you work backward. What needs to happen between now and then? Who needs to review the proposal? Who approves the budget? What's the timeline for internal sign-off?
You document all of this in a shared plan - could be a simple spreadsheet or a formal close plan in your CRM. The key is that both sides agree on the milestones and commit to the dates.
If they aren’t willing to take action, the deal may be dead. It’s helpful to know this before you pour hours of your life into it.
Building a mutual action plan does two things.
First, it surfaces roadblocks early. If the prospect says, "I'll need to get CFO approval, and she's out until next month," you know immediately that your deal isn't closing this quarter. You can adjust your forecast and plan accordingly.
Second, it creates accountability. When you follow up, you're not "checking in." You're referencing a commitment they made. "Hey, we talked about having a proposal review with your team by the 15th - how'd that conversation go?" It's a completely different tone.
When decision-makers and reps know exactly where they are in the process and what needs to happen next, deals are far less likely to drift.
Multi-Thread the Account Early
Single-threading is one of the fastest ways to kill a deal.
If you're only talking to one person in the organization, you're vulnerable. That person leaves, gets reassigned, or loses political capital, and your deal disappears with them.
We call it “losing your internal champion,” and I can’t tell you how many deals I’ve missed out on over the years because I made this mistake.
Multi-threading means building relationships with multiple stakeholders across the account. You want to know the facilities director, the operations manager, the CFO, and ideally someone in the C-suite who cares about the outcome.
This feels risky. Reps worry they'll offend their main contact by going around them.
But there's a tactful way to do it. You can say: "I want to make sure we're solving this the right way for your whole team. Who else should I be talking to?" Or: "When we get to the approval stage, who's going to need to weigh in on this?"
In many cases, your contact will be relieved. They don't want to be the only person carrying this internally - they want the higher up to sign off as well.
If you know the building has a facilities manager, a property manager, and an ownership group, you can plan your outreach to cover all three layers from the start - this is known as an ABM approach.
The goal isn't to talk to everyone at once. It's to avoid being dependent on one person. If your champion goes dark, you have two or three other threads you can pull.
Anchor on Cost of Inaction
Urgency doesn't come from your timeline or quota (even though that would make life easier). It comes from the prospect's pain. If they don't feel the cost of waiting, they'll wait.
This is where most reps get tripped up. They focus on the benefits of moving forward, but they don't quantify what happens if the prospect does nothing. That gap is where deals stall.
Let's say you're selling commercial lighting upgrades. You can talk about energy savings, better lighting quality, and rebates. That's fine. But what if you also show them exactly what they're losing every month they delay? "You're spending $8,000 a month on electricity. If we install this system, that drops to $5,200. Every month you wait costs you $2,800 in savings you're not capturing."
Now doing nothing has a price tag. That changes the psychology of the decision.
You can do this with property intelligence data, too.
If you're selling commercial roofing and you know the building's roof is 18-19 years old (pulled from permit history), you can say: "The average commercial roof in this region fails around year 20. If yours goes before you replace it, you're looking at emergency repairs that cost 3-4x what a planned replacement would."
The cost of inaction becomes real when you tie it to data they can verify. It stops feeling like a sales pitch and starts feeling like a business decision.
Use Intent Data to Time Your Outreach
Here's something most commercial services reps don't think about: timing matters more than persistence.
You can send 10 emails to a prospect who isn't ready to buy, and all 10 will be ignored. But if you send one email at the exact moment they start researching solutions, you'll get a meeting.
Intent data and buying signals show you when prospects are actively searching for services like yours. It tracks behaviors like permit activity, property changes, and online research patterns. When someone starts showing signs of interest, that's your signal to reach out.
For example, if you sell HVAC and you see that a hospital just pulled a permit for a building expansion, that's a buying signal. They're going to need new mechanical systems. If you contact them now (while they're in planning mode), you're infinitely more likely to get traction than if you wait six months and cold-call them.
Some teams using intent-based prospecting have cut their sales cycles by 25-30% by only engaging accounts already in-market.
They're not trying to create demand. They're responding to it.
This is preventative work. You're filling your pipeline with prospects who are more likely to move quickly because they already have urgency. That means fewer stalls down the road.
Recovery: Six Tactics to Revive Deals That Have Gone Dark
Okay. You've got deals that are already stalled. Prevention is great, but it doesn't help you now.
Here's what to do when a deal has gone quiet, and you need to bring it back to life
1. Stop "Just Checking In"- Send Value Instead
Go read any sales forum on Reddit and you'll see reps asking: "Why don't my follow-up emails get responses?" The answer is always the same. Because "just checking in" is code for "please give me your money."
Prospects ignore these emails because there's nothing in them worth responding to. You're not offering value. You're asking for time and attention without giving them a reason to care.
Here's what works instead.
Send them something useful with zero strings attached. A case study from a similar property. An ROI calculator they can use. A news article about regulatory changes in their industry. A free site assessment or energy audit.
The subject line might be: "Saw this report on warehouse HVAC efficiency - thought of you." Or: "Quick idea that might help with your cooling costs."
When you provide value first, you rebuild trust. You remind them why they engaged with you in the first place. And you give them a reason to respond that doesn't feel like work.
2. Re-Anchor on the Problem (Not Your Solution)
When deals stall, reps tend to push harder on their solution. They send another marketing asset (here’s why we’re the right fit for your project). They offer a discount. They try to close faster. This almost never works.
What does work is going back to the original problem. You need to remind the prospect why they started this conversation in the first place.
Pull up your discovery notes. What pain points did they mention? What were they trying to solve? What was keeping them up at night?
Now ask: "What happens if you don't fix this?"
If they say "we'll be fine," then you didn't attach to any real pain. Go back to discovery and dig deeper.
If they say "we'll keep wasting money" or "we'll probably have a failure at some point," then you've got something to work with. You can quantify that risk and make it feel immediate again.
Here's an example. You're selling commercial cleaning services to a hospital. The deal stalled two months ago. Instead of asking "Are you ready to move forward?" you send an email that says:
"When we talked in March, you mentioned your current vendor was missing 10-15% of scheduled cleanings, and you were worried about infection control compliance. Has that improved, or is it still an issue?"
Yes, you’re still selling, but you’re asking if the core pain still exists. If it does, you've restarted the conversation. If it doesn't, you've saved yourself weeks of chasing a dead deal.
3. Find the Real Decision-Maker
Sometimes deals stall because you've been talking to the wrong person. Your contact might be an influencer, but they're not the buyer. They can't actually approve the contract.
This is especially common in commercial services. You talk to a facilities manager who seems engaged, but when it comes time to close, they say, "I need to run this up the chain." That's when you realize the CFO or the property owner is the real gatekeeper.
The fix is to identify the economic buyer early.
Ask: "Who else needs to be involved in this decision?" Or: "When we get to the contract stage, who’s required to sign off?"
If you're already stalled and you suspect this is the issue, you can try a softer approach: "I know you've been busy. Is there someone else I should connect with to help move this forward?"
You can also do your own research. LinkedIn is your friend. Look at the org chart. Find out who holds the budget. Then reach out directly - but tactfully.
One approach is to send a brief message to the economic buyer that says: "I've been working with [your contact] on a solution for [problem]. I wanted to make sure this aligns with your priorities before we go further. Do you have 10 minutes to discuss?"
Now, you have to be careful how you approach this so that your primary contact doesn’t feel like you’ve “gone around” them, but if you’re respectful of their time and making sure everyone's aligned, most C-suite decision makers will take a few minutes to ensure a problem is solved for good.
4. Offer a "No-Pressure Give"
When a deal has been stalled for months, there's often tension in the relationship. The prospect feels guilty for ghosting you. You feel frustrated. Neither of you wants to have an awkward conversation.
One way to reset is to offer something with no ask attached. A "no-pressure give."
A “no-pressure give” is something of value you offer for free. This could be a free consultation. A quick walkthrough of a new feature or service. Anything that provides value without requiring a commitment.
The key is that you explicitly tell them there's no obligation. "I came across some data on properties in your area and thought it might be useful for your planning. No strings attached - just wanted to share it."
This lowers the barrier to re-engagement. They can say yes without feeling like they're committing to buy. And once you're back in conversation, you can assess whether the deal is salvageable.
“No-pressure gives” also increases goodwill, which can repair tensions in the relationship.
5. Create Urgency with a Deadline
Deals often stall because there's no compelling reason to decide now. You can create urgency by introducing a real deadline.
This could be a limited-time pricing offer. A pilot program that's only available this quarter. A rebate or incentive that expires.
The pivotal word here is “real.” We all get tons of sales emails that say an offer is “limited-time only,” only to get the same email next week. Don't manufacture fake urgency - it must be real.
One approach is to tie the deadline to an external event. "Our installation schedule fills up in August, and if you want to get this done before winter, we'd need to lock in your timeline by the end of the month."
Or: "The state rebate program for energy-efficient systems closes June 30th. If we don't submit paperwork by then, you'll miss out on $15K in available funding."
Many states offerenergy efficiency incentives that have real deadlines - use them.
External deadlines feel less like pressure tactics and more like useful information. They help the prospect justify moving forward now instead of later.
6. The Break-Up Email (When Nothing Else Works)
If you've tried everything and the deal is still silent, there's one last move: the break-up email.
This is a short, polite message that says: "It seems like now isn't the right time for this project. Should I close this out, or is there a better time to connect?"
The beauty of this email is that it forces a decision. The prospect has to either re-engage or let you go. Either outcome is better than limbo.
According to multiple studies and anecdotal reports from sales forums, break-up emails get responses 40-60% of the time.
Sometimes the prospect says, "Sorry, we got slammed, let's reconnect next month." Sometimes they say, "Actually, we went with someone else." Either way, you get clarity.
And occasionally, the break-up email is what finally gets them to move. The fear of losing you as an option jolts them into action.
The tone matters. You're not being passive-aggressive. You're being respectful of their time and yours. "I don't want to keep bothering you if this isn't a priority right now. Let me know what makes sense."
It's a clean exit strategy that often turns into a revival.
How to Know When to Walk Away
Not every stalled deal deserves your time. Some are just dead. Some were never real to begin with. Knowing when to walk away is just as important as knowing how to revive a deal.
The 5-Point Qualification Check
If a deal has stalled, go back to basics. Run it through a qualification framework to see if it was ever a real opportunity.
Does the prospect have a genuine need, and are they aware of it? If they don't actually have a problem your service solves, they're never going to buy.
No amount of follow-up will change that.
Do they have the budget and the authority to make a purchase? If the person you're talking to can't approve the spend, or if the money isn't allocated, the deal can't close.
Is there urgency? If nothing bad happens when they don't act, they won't act. Simple as that.
Do they trust you and your organization? If trust is missing - maybe because of a bad past experience or a competitor relationship - you're fighting uphill.
Are they willing to engage? If they won't take your calls, won't respond to emails, and won't commit to next steps, that's your answer. They're not interested.
If the deal fails on two or more of these criteria, it's time to mark it closed-lost and move on.
The Sunk Cost Fallacy
Reps cling to stalled deals because they've already invested so much time. "I've been working this for four months - I can't give up now."
That's the sunk cost fallacy talking. The time you've already spent is gone. It's not coming back. The only question that matters is: what's the best use of your time going forward?
Let's do the math. Say you've got a deal that's been stalled for three months. It's worth $50K in revenue. You've spent 60 hours on it. You're spending another 2 hours per week trying to revive it.
In that same 2-hour period, you could be prospecting new accounts. If your close rate on fresh opportunities is 25%, and you can generate 10 new qualified leads per week, that's 2-3 new deals per month.
Would you rather spend 12 weeks trying to salvage one stalled $50K deal, or spend that same time closing three fresh $30K deals? The answer is obvious when you see it on paper.
Walking away from a sunk cost is hard. But it's also one of the most important skills in sales.
Measuring What Matters on Stalled Deals
If you want to get better at managing stalled deals, you need to measure them.
A phrase often attributed to Peter Drucker is "What gets measured gets managed." It actually came from a V.F. Ridgeway performance study that warned: “Only measure what matters.”
If you're not tracking how deals stall, where they stall, and why, you can't fix the problem. You're just hoping things improve.
Here’s what you need to track to ensure deals keep moving forward.
Track These Metrics
Start with “days in each pipeline stage.” If deals are sitting in "proposal sent" for 45 days, you've got a bottleneck. If they're getting stuck in "verbal commit" for weeks, something's breaking down before the close.
Track your stall rate by deal size. Are your bigger deals more likely to stall? That might mean you need better executive buy-in or more thorough discovery on high-value accounts.
Measure your recovery success rate. Of the deals you mark as stalled, how many do you successfully revive? If that number is under 20%, you're either not trying the right tactics or you're wasting time on deals that were never real.
Finally, track time from “last activity” to “closed” or “lost”. This tells you how long a deal can go quiet before it's truly dead. You might find that anything inactive for 30 days has a 90% loss rate.
That's your cutoff point.
Build a System, Not a Habit
Metrics only matter if you act on them. Build a system that forces consistent pipeline hygiene.
Every deal in your CRM should have a "last activity" date and a "next step" defined. If it doesn't, it's dead.
Run a weekly pipeline review where you look at every deal that hasn't moved in 14 days. Decide: Am I taking action this week, or am I marking it lost?
Automate reminders. If a deal hits 21 days with no activity, your CRM should flag it automatically.
The discipline of keeping your pipeline clean prevents dead weight from dragging down your forecast. It also forces you to confront reality instead of hoping deals magically come back to life.
Conclusion
Stalled deals are a fact of life in commercial services sales. Long cycles, multi-stakeholder approvals, and budget uncertainty guarantee that some opportunities will go quiet.
The question isn't whether you'll face stalls. It's how you respond when you do.
The best reps prevent stalls through disciplined discovery, mutual action planning, and multi-threading.
They anchor prospects on the cost of inaction instead of just the benefits of moving forward. They use intent data to time their outreach so they're engaging accounts that are already in-market.
When deals do stall, they have a playbook. They send value instead of check-ins. They re-anchor on the problem. They find the real decision-makers. They offer no-pressure gives, create real urgency, and know when to send the break-up email.
And they know when to walk away.
Not every deal is worth saving. The opportunity cost of chasing dead deals is real, and elite reps protect their time ruthlessly.
If you want to shorten your sales cycle and keep your pipeline moving, start measuring what matters. Track your stall rate, your recovery rate, and your time in each stage.
Build a system that forces you to take action or accept the sunk cost and cut bait.
The teams that win in commercial services aren't the ones who hope deals come back. They're the ones who prevent stalls from happening in the first place and have a clear-eyed strategy for handling them when they do.
And, if you’re looking for a commercial services sales platform that can help you go straight to warm decision-makers rather than chasing cold leads, book a demo of Convex.
We’ll show you how commercial services teams identify the warmest opportunities, engage the right stakeholders, and keep deals moving through the sales pipeline with property intelligence and buyer intent data.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should I wait before following up on a stalled deal?
If a prospect hasn't responded in two weeks, it's time to follow up. But don't send the same message again. Change your approach - send value instead of asking for a response.
What's the best way to re-engage a prospect who's gone silent?
Send them something useful with no strings attached. A case study, an ROI calculator, or a relevant industry report. Give before you ask.
How do I know if a deal is truly dead or just delayed?
Run it through the 5-point qualification check: need, budget, authority, urgency, trust. If it fails on two or more, it's dead. Mark it lost and move on.
Should I offer a discount to revive a stalled deal?
Only if price was the actual objection. Most deals don't stall because of cost—they stall because of lack of urgency, unclear ROI, or missing stakeholders. Fix the real problem first.
How many stakeholders should I be talking to in a commercial services deal?
At minimum, you should have relationships with three people: your champion (the person advocating for you internally), an economic buyer (the person who controls the budget), and an influencer (someone else who cares about the outcome). More is better.
What's a mutual action plan, and why does it matter?
It's a shared timeline that maps out every step between now and close, with specific dates and owners for each milestone. It matters because it creates accountability and surfaces roadblocks early instead of letting deals drift.
When should I use a break-up email?
When you've tried value-based follow-ups, re-anchored on the problem, and reached out to other stakeholders, and nothing has worked. The break-up email is your last move before marking the deal lost.
How can intent data help with stalled deals?
Intent data shows you when prospects are actively researching solutions. If a stalled account suddenly starts showing buying signals again (like pulling permits or visiting competitor sites) that's your cue to re-engage with perfect timing.
What's the biggest mistake reps make with stalled deals?
Sending "just checking in" emails. They're lazy, they provide no value, and they train prospects to ignore you. Always lead with something useful.
How do I multi-thread an account without offending my main contact?
Ask your contact directly: "Who else should be involved in this conversation?" Most of the time, they'll appreciate the help. If they resist, you can frame it as ensuring alignment across the organization before reaching the approval stage.
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