When you smell the deal going bad...

So, on the first contact, the prospect is enthusiastic as hell.

On the second contact, the prospect is still enthusiastic, but they seem genuinely busy.

Now, on the third contact, this is where it gets interesting. The prospect seems to have gone off the boil. That enthusiasm is no longer there, reflected in their tone and language. In fact, it's now starting to leak into their vocabulary. For example, you will hear them say stuff like, "No, yeah. that sounds great". You can smell it now. It's a bad stench. This deal has gone bad. You know that something behind the scenes has changed.

Suddenly, you wake up in the morning and see a giant big email looming on the horizon, starting with "Unfortunately..." And this MOFO is heading to shore pretty quickly

Now you're caught. If you broach this issue with the prospect, defenses will go up, and they will deny that anything is wrong. They will tell you stuff like we're just waiting on blah blah. It's a smoke screen and you know it.

So, rather than wait for that email that begins with "unfortunately...". What tactics do you try when you sense a deal is going bad?