u/Sweet-Bad-3507

I have been in biz awhile, but I still catch myself agonizing over inquiries that don't have anything obviously wrong on paper... budget's fine, timeline's fine, they seem nice enough. But something still feels off and I genuinely can't point to what it is.

Curious if anyone's actually built some kind of process for this, or if everyone's just running on instinct at this point. And if it IS instinct... how do you know when to trust it versus when you're just being paranoid because you've been burned before?

Been doing this a few years now and I've noticed a weird pattern... I can have a great first call, they seem genuinely interested, sometimes they even ask a bunch of follow up questions. Then I send the proposal and... nothing. Not a decline, not a "let me think about it", just silence.

At first I assumed it was price. But a few of them have circled back weeks later like nothing happened, so now I'm not so sure that's actually it.

Curious if this happens to other designers here. If you've had leads go cold on you, where does it usually happen for you... after the first call, after you send pricing, after the proposal, somewhere else? And if you've ever figured out why someone went quiet, I'd genuinely love to hear it. Trying to work out if it's a me thing or just how this business goes.