“Touching base” is one of the laziest phrases in sales. When a prospect reads “just checking in”, they don’t see a professional follow-up. They see: “I want your money, but I can’t be bothered to add anything useful to your day.”
I reviewed a pipeline with a founder who was frustrated that a strong prospect had gone quiet. He showed me the email trail. It was painful.
Email 1: “Just checking in on this.”
Email 2: “Any thoughts on the proposal?”
Email 3: “Touching base to see if you’re ready to move forward.”
I asked him a simple question: why would the buyer reply to that?
You’re treating the relationship like a bank account. You’re trying to make a withdrawal (a decision) without making a deposit (value). If the balance is zero, the transaction gets declined.
We changed the approach. Instead of “touching base”, he found a relevant news article about a regulation change in the prospect’s industry and sent it with a short note: “Saw this and thought of our conversation about compliance.” No ask. No pressure. Just value.
The prospect replied within 20 minutes.
Before you hit send on your next follow-up, ask yourself: am I depositing value, or am I trying to withdraw momentum?
If you have nothing useful to say, don’t send anything. Silence is better than needy noise.
What to do next: build a simple follow-up library: 5 “value deposits” you can send without asking for anything (industry change, risk story, short benchmark, checklist, relevant case study). Then use those instead of chasing.