How to handle a declined proposal
What to do when a client clicks Decline — log the loss reason, follow up, or revise and resend.
Not every proposal lands. When a client declines, Kaliun gives you a structured way to capture why and decide what to do next.
Open the declined proposal
You'll get a notification when a client declines. Click it, or open Proposals and filter by Status: Declined to find it.
Check the decline reason
When the client clicks Decline in the portal, Kaliun asks them (optionally) for a reason. Common ones:
- Price — too expensive
- Timeline — wanted it done sooner
- Scope — needed something different
- Went with someone else
- Not ready yet
- Other (with a text box)
Check the proposal's Activity tab to see what they said.
Pick your next move
You have four options:
1. Accept the loss. Archive the proposal and move on. Update the contact's pipeline stage to "Lost" and tag them with the loss reason.
2. Revise and resend. Click ⋯ → Create Revision on the proposal. Kaliun clones it to a new draft (v2) where you can adjust pricing, change scope, or rewrite the terms. Send the revision back to the client.
3. Follow up later. If they said "not ready yet", create a task to check in later. Use workflows to automate the follow-up.
4. Drop them from the pipeline entirely. Move the contact to the "Lost" stage of your sales pipeline or tag them as "do-not-contact".
Tracking loss reasons for reporting
Under Reports → Proposals, you can see:
- Win/loss ratio over time
- Which loss reasons are most common
- Which stages in your pipeline leak the most leads
- Average time from Sent → Accepted vs Sent → Declined
Use this to spot patterns. If "Price" is half your declines, you're either too expensive or not justifying your value well. If "Went with someone else" dominates, you're losing to speed — speed up your follow-up game.
Tip: declined proposals still count toward your forecasting as a "lost" data point. Over time this gives you a realistic close rate, which is more valuable than pretending every sent proposal is going to close.