The deal looked solid. Verbal commitment from the VP of Operations, budget approved, timeline set for Q1 implementation. Then complete radio silence for six weeks.

Initial Assessment

Our champion stopped responding to emails and calls. The procurement contact gave vague responses about internal reviews. Red flags everywhere. The account exec assumed it was dead and started focusing elsewhere.

I pulled call recordings and email threads. The verbal commitment came during a demo with four stakeholders present. But legal and IT security were never involved in any conversation. That was the gap.

The Recovery Process

We reached out to a different contact in IT through LinkedIn, asking directly about security review requirements. Turned out our standard security documentation was stuck in their queue because it did not address specific compliance frameworks they needed.

We scheduled a call with their security team, walked through our SOC 2 Type II report, and provided additional documentation on data residency. The deal unstuck within a week.

The real issue was our sales process did not include early security and legal validation for enterprise contracts. We were optimizing demo-to-verbal-commitment speed but ignoring the gatekeepers who could kill deals silently. Now security review happens before pricing discussions on any contract above $100K.