02 — Sales tactics

Read the room before you follow up

Most follow-up advice answers the wrong question. “Should I follow up?” Sure. The question that actually moves a deal is how — and the answer is sitting in your engagement data.

Without it, every follow-up is a guess. You hit send, the deal goes quiet, and you're left writing “just checking in” with no idea whether the quote was devoured or never opened. With it, you know exactly what's happening on the other side of the link — and a follow-up that knows what happened lands completely differently than one that's fishing in the dark.

Duodeal's statistics panel shows you six things: views, distinct visitors, total time spent, views today, and the split between mobile and desktop. Here are two deals that look identical on paper — same product, same price range, both sent — and read completely differently once you look.

“A follow-up that knows what happened lands completely differently than one that's fishing in the dark.”

What you do next should be just as different. The data is always there once the proposal is open — the only question is whether you bother to read it before you hit send on the next message.

A Duodeal proposal with the engagement statistics panel open

Quotation statistics panel: 8 views, 3 visitors, 7 min total, 2 views today

The hot deal

Six views. Two distinct visitors. Real time spent. And “views today” isn't zero — they were back in it this morning. The natural instinct is to relax. They love it, I'll let them come to me. It's a tempting read, and it's where a lot of winnable deals quietly stall. High engagement isn't a finish line — it's a window, and windows close.

“High engagement isn't a finish line — it's a window, and windows close.”

Visitors above one means it got forwarded — a buying committee just formed. Views climbing above visitors means someone is walking colleagues through your quote, defending it in rooms you're not in. “Views today” is your timing. The “Hot” score isn't a status to admire. It's a green light.

The cold deal

Same setup, different signals: one view, under a minute, views today at zero. Or every counter sitting on zero — never opened. Here's the part most sellers miss: a cold reading isn't bad news. It's a second chance you'd be flying blind without. The deal was always going to go quiet — that's just sales. The difference is that now you can see it, which means you can do something about it instead of guessing.

“A blind follow-up can only repeat itself. A follow-up that can see gets to fix the actual problem.”

Never opened isn't a proposal problem — it's attention or timing. Re-establish relevance instead. One view, under a minute, then silence usually means the quote didn't hook in the first thirty seconds, or it reached the wrong person. Either way, the move isn't to chase harder — it's to change what they'll see. Edit the proposal. Hand them a genuinely new reason to open the same link.

Quotation statistics panel: 2 views, 2 visitors, 3 min total, 0 views today

The thread

A quote opened six times and not signed isn't a deal you're waiting on. It's a question nobody's asked you yet — and now you can see it well enough to answer.

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