You send a quote. You mean to follow it up, you really do, but there's a job to finish today, and by the time you remember, three weeks have gone. It sits there, neither won nor lost. Just quiet.
A quiet quote isn't usually a lost one, it's a forgotten one, and that's a much bigger waste, because it was work you'd already half-won. It compounds too: next month there's a fresh batch of quotes to chase, the old one's gotten more awkward to bring up the longer it's sat there, and it quietly slides from 'forgot to chase' into 'too late now.'
Watch for a quote that's gone quiet past a sensible point, and have the chase ready in your own words, at the moment it's actually useful rather than whenever you happen to remember.
Imagine no quote sitting forgotten past the point it's worth chasing. Follow-ups happen on time, the ones genuinely going nowhere get closed off instead of drifting for months, and you close more of the work you'd already half-won.
There's an example of this here.
See exactly how the follow-up gets handled, step by step.
See the example