Potential Clients Ghosting You?
Publishing this blog post near Halloween seemed fitting.
I’ve noticed that lately, if there is anything you might find spooky about your business - it is the increase in potential clients ‘ghosting’ you. Of course, you know that every new inquiry is not going to turn into a booked service. But the incidence of getting “ghosted” by potential clients seems to be rising and it can be incredibly frustrating and lead to burnout.
It’s okay to be frustrated! But success in modern business means you have to shake it off and not take it personally. Instead, it’s time to assume that ghosting is going to be a more frequent problem - even from great clients that may eventually book you!
When are potential clients ghosting you?
In my experience working with small businesses, here are the times that my clients feel ghosted:
After you respond to their initial inquiry with an offer to continue the conversation further
After you have a great conversation where you feel like you made a connection and you send the requested pricing information over
A client raves about you and then you send the link to review on your favorite platform
I like to give my clients something they can do today to have a quick win, so let’s talk about a few things that are easier to implement before we dive into the bigger topics at hand. This is simple, but you probably aren’t going to like what I have to say:
It’s not them, it’s you.
You are ghosting your potential clients
If you don’t have a long-term follow-up strategy, you might be the one ghosting the client and not the other way around. I’ve had more than one business owner say “Well, I never used to have to follow up more than once after sending a contract.”
Without diving into the cultural and psychological reasons that our culture is not as considerate, has a shorter attention span, and needs more reminders - just know that things are different now. That is it.
I’m guilty of this, too. My son’s Scout pack leader probably thinks I am ghosting her right now! Life is busy.
I’ve written about follow-up strategy before and it is as simple - you need to keep following up! Push yourself to feel a bit uncomfortable and follow up more than you did in the past. I have never once had a client that followed up too much. True story!
Your follow-up strategy should include calls, texts, and emails. You also can experiment with different days of the week and different times of day. You just need to do more of it!
One of my most frequent deliverables for my clients is customized email sequences to meet all these needs. We can create effective emails that will nurture your clients along until they book. If you aren’t quite ready to hire out the work, consider using Chat GPT to make the task a little easier for you.
Potential clients ghosting you isn’t the biggest problem
Time management is likely the cause of most of your frustration. You invest a lot of time and energy talking to a lead and then…they ghost.
Is it possible that you are spending too much time talking to your leads before they agree to work with you? Is it possible that your “discovery call” or “consultation call” is too long? For most of my clients, I’d like to see you get this process down to 15-20 minutes. You should not be spending an hour on a phone call with a lead who is not a good fit, can’t afford you, or is a tire kicker.
There are some exceptions to this, one that quickly comes to mind is wedding florists. There is often a lot of education that has to take place and the quotes are more complicated. I still believe you can look at your process and find ways to increase efficiency.
Spending hours out of your week talking to people who have no intention of booking you…is going to be super frustrating! Not to mention it is not profitable or sustainable.
Can we look at your sales process and find ways to make those calls or email exchanges more efficient? Most of the time I believe that we can by:
Clarifying our messaging on our website to attract clients we want to work with
Getting clients on a call as soon as you can versus tons of back-and-forth
Having a great inquiry form so you can get some info about them to prep for the call
Creating a FAQ doc and sharing it ahead of your consultation call
Optimize your overall messaging
What happens if you improve your follow-up and you are able to reduce time on consultation calls and pre-booking correspondence but you are still seeing frustratingly high numbers of unqualified leads and tire kickers? It may be time to dive deep into all the things.
It could be time to take a look at your:
Your ideal customer/client avatar or persona
Website messaging
Social media presence
Email marketing
Reduce clients ghosting you after you request the review
In my experience your satisfied clients WANT to leave you a review. They just get busy or happen to have writer’s block at the time you make the request. There are ways to get the reviews without being annoying.
First, you may have to ask more than once! Don’t fret. If you are certain that the clients wanted to review you, it is okay to ask 2 or even 3 times as long as you space out the requests. Google makes it so easy to text a link, don’t be afraid to try that.
They want to help. Gently remind your customers that reviews are very important to small businesses and they have a great impact in reaching more customers. People that don’t own businesses often don’t recognize just how important reviews are.
Sometimes we need to tell our clients what to say about their experience with us. In my experience it really helps to try one or all of the following:
When you make the request describe exactly what you delivered the client, you could say something like: “Thank you for being willing to review the medium roast iced coffee with vanilla bourbon cold foam that we served at your employee appreciate event”
Include a sample review and say something like “If you’ve got writer’s block, here is an example of a review that includes talking points that my future customers would find helpful”
Include a bulleted list of elements that you would love to them to mention as part of their experience working with you such as clear and prompt communication, excellent packaging, stress-free delivery, a calm and confident presence that left everyone at ease
Potential clients ghosting you? Try something new
If clients ghosting you is getting on your last nerve, don’t just complain! Take action. Implement some of these strategies today. Some will be quick and easy, others will be more of a long term project.
If you would like more personal attention, you can always use my scheduling link to get on a complimentary 15-minute call to see if we would be a good fit for working together.
I’d love to leave you with a recent quick win with client. He was a wedding vendor that had a couple of contracts out waiting to be signed. He was sure that the clients wanted to book him. I suggested that he just send a follow up email saying “How are things? Any questions I can answer?”
By the end of the afternoon he had a signed contract and fully paid $4000 invoice.
In the past, this client never had the need to do further outreach beyond sending over a contract and invoice. I don’t know exactly why the times are changing, but they are. So, we have to be willing to change with them.
