‘I’ve had nothing back from her.’

‘Radio silence so far.’

‘She’s not come back to me yet.’

‘Nope, still waiting, got nothing back.’

This is par for the course when you’re trying to reach people in business, at work or at play. It’s not even confined to sales people trying to reach prospects and customers. We’re all busy and we’re all trying to reach other busy people whose agendas and priorities don’t necessarily mesh with ours.

It still makes it tough to get through your work and keep on track if you rely on input from others. You can get all scientific and favour certain days of week and certain times of the day, and then you’ll have those days when you get nothing back from anyone, which can be pretty frustrating.

We have to keep plugging away. We have to use all our skills and powers of persuasion to make sure we package those emails, voicemail messages and chats in a way that’s going to appear minimum impact to the recipient, with the maximum chance of a positive response.