It does not ask for an update, a decision, or a call back. It asks for something no other follow-up asks for, which is why people actually answer it.
Voss is given a situation every agent recognizes. Someone was warm, you were talking, they were engaged, and then they fell off the map and you have not heard from them in weeks. He gives one text message to send, and tells you to use it word for word.
"have you given up on working with me?"
Then he explains why it works. It is not asking for anything, and that is the point — it triggers a sense of loss instead of an obligation. In his words: "Nobody wants to give up on anything."
He splits the replies into three groups. About twenty percent close immediately, and his read on those is that the deal never actually died: "It fell off the table because it's a confusing, chaotic world and they were just overwhelmed by what was going on and they didn't mean to, but they they forgot about it."
Another twenty percent tell you they are done. He treats that as a win, not a loss — "which you need to know so you don't waste any more of your most valuable resource your time on them."
Then the middle sixty percent, which is the uncomfortable part. "You weren't listening. There were questions they asked that you didn't answer." Those people are still reachable, but only if you go back and answer what you skipped.
“have you given up on working with me? Now, 20% of the time, the deal will close on the spot.”
Your version of this text is "just checking in" or "any updates?" Both of those ask the prospect to do work and give them nothing to push against, so the easiest reply is no reply. Voss's version triggers loss aversion instead. Nobody wants to agree that they gave up on something, so the sentence is hard to ignore. But the text is not the valuable part of this. The sorting is. Right now your pipeline is one undifferentiated pile of maybes, and you spend the same effort on people who are never buying as on people who are two weeks out. Sending this splits the pile. The 20% who close is the part people quote. The 20% who tell you they are done is the part that actually pays, because it hands back hours you were spending on dead files. And his read on the middle 60% is the uncomfortable one: he says they went quiet because you did not answer a question they asked. That means the fix for most of your silent leads is not more follow-up. It is going back through your notes for the question you skipped. What we're assuming: the 20/20/60 split is Voss's own figure from his consulting practice, not a real estate dataset, and he does not say how it was measured.