Sales Teaching: Who Else Cares
At the Esteemed School of Selling workshop, we open with a session on how to restart a stalled deal.
A stalled deal follows a familiar pattern. You have a strong prospect meeting. There’s alignment on value. The conversation is positive. Everyone leaves with smiles and no clear next steps. You follow up a week later asking about the process and what comes next. Silence. You follow up again. Still nothing. The deal hasn’t died, but it has stopped moving.
Rather than focus on the language used to revive a stalled deal, it’s more useful to examine what causes deals to stall in the first place and how a single question, asked at the right moment, can prevent many of them altogether.
Why Deals Stall
There are countless reasons sales opportunities stall, but a few show up consistently.
First, prospects are busy. While the opportunity may be top of mind for the salesperson, tied to revenue targets, payroll, and quarterly goals, it often ranks far lower on the prospect’s priority list. What feels urgent to you may be item number one hundred to them. Silence is frequently not disinterest; it’s distraction.
Second, the person you’re speaking with may not control the budget. They may need approval from finance, procurement, or a CFO. In other cases, they may not be the ultimate decision-maker and must align with a CEO or multiple department heads before anything moves forward.
The result is uncertainty. From the salesperson’s perspective, everything felt aligned. From the prospect’s perspective, the real work is just beginning and it involves people who have not yet entered the conversation.
The Question That Changes Everything
So what is the single question that surfaces these issues early and prevents deals from stalling later?
“Who else cares?”
Salespeople tend to talk too much in early meetings. We explain our features, our pricing, our differentiation. We ask surface-level questions about pain points and priorities, which feel consultative but rarely clarify how decisions actually get made.
Occasionally, a salesperson asks the blunt question: “Who is the decision-maker?” While direct, it often lands poorly. It can feel confrontational or dismissive, especially to someone who does have influence but not final authority.
“Who else cares?” is different.
It is neutral, respectful, and expansive. It invites the prospect to reveal the full decision ecosystem without putting anyone on the defensive.
When asked well, this question uncovers:
Who will be involved in the work
Who must approve the decision
Who controls the budget
Who could quietly block progress later
It surfaces the reality of how decisions are made—before momentum is lost.
Why It Works
At the Esteemed School of Selling, we teach five core questions to ask in every prospect meeting. Who else cares? is often the most impactful.
The other questions clarify timing, urgency, and relevance. Together, they help determine whether the opportunity is real, whether the timing is right, and whether the people in the room are the ones required to move the deal forward.
When salespeople understand not just the problem, but the people behind the decision, stalled deals become far less common. Follow-ups stop feeling like cold pings into the void and start becoming coordinated next steps with the right stakeholders involved.
The Takeaway
On your next sales call, don’t wait for silence to teach you who matters.
Ask early. Ask calmly. Ask clearly.
“Who else cares?”
Give it a try. Be Esteemed.
