Back in February I tweeted to say I would blog about being ghosted:
My next Anti-Sell post is going to be about ghosting. 👻 Nearly 10 years into my freelancing career & I just experienced my most brutal ghosting yet, & from the last people I expected, too. I’ll tell the story + share my ghosting experiences over the years. Coming soon! 👀
— Steve Morgan 📗 (@steviephil) February 28, 2023
Then… Many months later (😅), after another ghosting, I realised I should probably actually write it.
So apologies that this post has been a long time coming (but hey – at least it’s a thematically good time to publish it, given what month it is)… 🎃👻
Let’s go straight into my 7 thoughts on ghosting with…
1. Ghosting sucks 👎
Ghosting will never not suck. That much is simple.
I should probably drop a definition at this point, shouldn’t I? Ghosting is when someone stops contacting you, despite already being in the middle of a process (e.g. talking about possibly working together). It can unfortunately be common for a freelancer to be in the middle of a discussion with a prospective client, only for that prospective client to go quiet on you.
Maybe you’d only sent a few emails back and forth. Or maybe you’d had a meeting/Zoom call. Or maybe you’d even gone as far as working hard on a proposal for them, only for them to never get back to you on it. So all that time and effort you went through was for nothing.
Boils your blood, doesn’t it? 🤬
Fun fact: the first ever ghosting experience I had was with one of my first ever prospects. It was an account manager at a Cardiff-based design agency, who wanted to outsource some SEO work to me. They’re still around today, FYI. 👀 …Although I no longer work with/through agencies, so hopefully that won’t happen again.
Ghosting is pretty much a rite of passage that every freelancer experiences. So I’m probably going to shock you when I say…
2. Sometimes freelancers ghost other freelancers! 😱
That February tweet I embedded earlier? I was ghosted by a pair of people who now work in-house doing the marketing for a startup.
One of them was a past freelancer. The other still is a freelancer.
I… Yeah… I’m guessing you’re as shocked as I was at the time.
And that’s the brutal truth: even freelancers can ghost other freelancers – the people we’d last expect to do it to us, as it’s probably happened to them.
As horrible as ghosting can be, it’s important to look at the positives, such as…
3. Ghosting can help you to rationalise how the working relationship could’ve gone 😤
So, you got ghosted (did anyone else picture Captain America when reading that?). You had your time wasted and you got disrespected.
If it happened to you at the sales stage, it can be a bummer.
…But what if it’s actually a blessing in disguise?
If someone ghosts you at the sales stage, then there’s the chance that they’d ghost you in other ways. What if they’d ghosted you when sending important emails regarding completing the work? What if they’d ghosted you when sending invoices? 😨
At the time, it’s hard to rationalise the experience and to see it as a positive – I know from experience. And none of us have a crystal ball we can use to see how things could’ve gone down if we had worked with the individual responsible. But put it this way: if they ghosted you at the sales stage, then what if their ghosting would’ve become a common theme…?
4. It frees you up for decent/better clients 🤗
Another positive from a negative experience.
A ghoster has shown you their true, crappy colours.* By not working with them, you’re freed up to work with someone else: someone else who isn’t a ghoster; someone who’s more respectful of you and your time.
* Well, at least that’s how it seems, but…
5. Not all ghosting is intentional 🤨
This is probably my most controversial point, but: not all ghosting is bad. Or, to word it better: not all ghosting is intended to be bad.
Allow me to explain, from a past experience…
A few years ago, I nearly ended up working with a luxury hotel in the South Wales area.
I remember a funny non-ghosting-related anecdote, which I’ll quickly share: despite being a luxury hotel, I was worried they might think my prices were high, as they needed a lot of work done to their site. Then, as part of the tour of the hotel, they showed me a meeting room that had two antique cabinets in it. They told me they cost £6,000. Each. In a room – they also told me – that rarely got used. At that point I realised what I was charging them was probably fine. Anyway…
We had meetings, I went to the hotel, we got on well, there were lots of emails, a proposal, and we even got to the contract-signing stage. All I needed was their signature and we’d be all good to proceed.
Then… Crickets.
I was really annoyed. I’d spent so much time trying to make this sale and they stopped replying to all emails, calls, etc. at the final moment.
A few months later, I bumped into a guy I know who’s a mutual acquaintance of the people at the hotel. I ranted to him saying that they screwed me over.
His reply? “Oh, didn’t you hear? [Name] got diagnosed with cancer.”
Oh. Crap.
I think to this day it might be the only legitimate ghosting I’ve ever had (where I know the circumstances).
But that made me wonder: what if other people who ghosted me did so for similar reasons? Issues in their personal life, or a death in the family, or a serious illness?
That’s why – from now on – if I get ghosted, I try not to let it boil my blood too much. Because not all ghosting has an evil intention.
That said, if you can…
6. Be the one to try to close the loop ➰
Even if it’s just a quick email that says something like: “I haven’t heard from you, so I’m guessing this isn’t happening.”
They might end up replying, which obviously could reawaken the conversation. Maybe they had a legit reason for going quiet (see #5 above 👆). Or maybe they thought they actually had replied. Or whatever.
And if they don’t reply, then… well… you know what they’re like. And in a weird sort of way, it puts you in a position of power, as you’re the one saying the final thing on the matter.
And finally…
7. It’s never your fault 🥲
Sorry to go all Good Will Hunting on you (and spoilers for Good Will Hunting, I guess…), but it’s not your fault. It’s never your fault. Try not to take it personally if someone ghosts you.
I feel silly saying this, as I’m someone who takes everything super personally, and so I feel like I can never follow this (my own) advice, but it’s true.
It’s not your fault.
What’s your thoughts on ghosting? Have you had similar experiences / different experiences? What’s your ghosting horror story? Feel free to drop some thoughts in the comments below (👇) or tweet me.
