When Clients Ghost

NOTHING HAPPENED

In October of 2023, I took a pretty big gamble for my small business. I poured hours into creating a special end-of-year offer in an attempt to onboard some new clients and carry my business through the quiet winter season. It was, in my opinion, a fantastic offer filled with value and I was eager to see even just a couple of businesses jump on it.

But my end-of-year offer wasn’t the only work I was doing to try to avoid a rough winter. I spent even more time reaching out to current and past clients to make sure they knew I was available to start new projects. And I encouraged prospective clients who were on the fence to jump in now while my calendar was open.

I launched my end-of-year offer on November 1st and rolled out a series of emails over the next two weeks. It was an exciting time for a solo business owner who had never tried anything like it before. And from November 1st until February 1st, I heard from exactly zero people. Nothing from my email series, nothing from current clients, nothing from prospective clients.

It was the biggest “ghosting” experience I’ve ever had. But it was far from the first.

Since starting Unite Creative Company in August of 2021, I’ve had to handle my fair share of ghosting. Most of the time, and I’m sure this is a common experience for most small business owners, cold emails or calls are never returned. Or there is one conversation and the prospective client is never to be heard from again. But I think the harder experiences are those that feel like they have promise.

In the spring of 2023, I found a request for a proposal from a non-profit for some educational content. It was right up my alley and the kind of job I had been transitioning my company to specialize in. I had a series of great calls and emails, submitted a proposal, and then waited. 

And waited… And waited. 

At first I followed up once a week. Then thinking that was overbearing, I switched to every other week. Nothing…for four months. And then one day I got a reply. But not just any reply. A reply that the client was signing the contract, submitting payment, and wanted to schedule a shoot as quickly as possible.

That single instance still sticks out as a turning point for me in my view of how to handle ghosting.

TRY THIS

Here are a couple of things it taught me:

It isn’t personal.

The reality is we all get ghosted. And, if we look at the plank in our own eye first, we ghost others all the time too. My guess is you and I don’t ghost on purpose or because we dislike someone. We get busy, the email gets buried, we are unsure of how to respond. It’s all normal and most of it isn’t personal.

It’s okay to be persistent.

I have the kind of personality that doesn’t like to bother people or sound sales-y. Which makes selling my services hard at times. If people balk at a proposal or don’t respond, I feel kind of icky following up. But I’ve seen time and again cases where a simple email just checking in on a person has proven enough to make the ghost reform into a real person. My follow-ups to someone who has ghosted me often contain nothing about the proposal or lack of follow-up from them. Rather, I try to reignite the conversation by treating them as they truly are, a human being.

Silence may mean I need to assess my approach.

If I don’t hear from someone, I tend to default that the person just doesn’t like me or what I have to offer (I’m still learning that first lesson over and over). While that largely isn’t true, something I do evaluate is, “Did I approach them in the right way?” I’ll look at my communication and try to sit in their shoes. Was I too sales-y? Was I not clear enough? Did I confuse them? Do I actually provide a service they need? All of these questions not only help me understand why I get ghosted but help me refine who I reach out to next. I don’t want to waste the time of others or myself and this has helped me narrow my target market so I actually do hear back.

Ghosting is an unavoidable part of business that I never expected to encounter. But it has become a valuable learning tool for me personally, the growth of my business, and the standard I hold myself to in my relationship with clients. Now excuse me while I go respond to an email that I got a month ago…

By John Wist - Owner, Unite Creative Co.

John is a husband, father, and former journalist who now spends his time helping businesses and organizations tell their unique stories. In his free time, John likes to travel, visit national parks, and hike with his wife and three kids.