A stall is not a no. It is also not a yes you should paper over with a discount or a longer deck.
These five show up on almost every floor. Here is what each one usually means, and the line to say before you do anything else.
Send me an email
This is the polite exit. They do not want a PDF. They want the call to end without picking a time.
An email can follow a date. It cannot replace one. Agree to send it, then put the read on the calendar while you are still on the line.
I will send it today. When will you read it, and who should be on that call with you?
Too expensive
Price is the objection reps answer too fast. Sometimes it is the budget. Often the cost of the problem was never named, so your number is floating.
Do not cut the price to fill the silence. Ask whether the number is the blocker, or whether the problem does not feel costly enough yet to justify it.
Is the number the issue, or is it that the problem does not feel costly enough to solve right now?
Call me next quarter
Next quarter is a parking lot. Sometimes there is a real date: a renewal, a budget cycle, a hiring plan. Sometimes there is not, and the phrase means please stop.
Ask what changes between now and then. If they can name it, book the week it changes. If they cannot, you are being dismissed, and you should say so kindly.
What will be different next quarter that is not true today?
We already have someone
An incumbent is not a wall. It is a comparison they have not made out loud. Ask what that vendor does well, and where the work still leaks.
You are listening for a gap they will admit. If they will not admit one, you do not have a deal. You have a relationship you should not pretend to displace on this call.
Where does that setup still leave you doing the work by hand?
I need to think about it
Thinking is not a step. It hides a missing person, a missing number, or a missing reason.
Ask what the thinking is about. Then turn that into the next call, with the person or the number in the room. If they cannot say what they need to think about, the deal is not pausing. It is fading.
What part do you still need to think through, and who should think it through with you?
Do not collect stalls and call it a pipeline. Name the stall, say the line, and leave the call with a date or an honest no.