client has completely ghosted me - not sure what to think!

[Mediacircus321]

I'm freelance with a range of clients. One particular client I worked closely with on a project that went very well. She was delighted with the work - I heard this both directly from her, and other people in the that we are mutually connected to professionally. Once she even introduced me to someone as her 'favourite person in the industry'...

When that project was completed, client said many times she wanted to work with me again, and we continued discussing possible ways to make that happen. Her communication style was always nice - engaged, reaching out to me directly, replying super-quickly to emails and so on. While it was a professional relationship, we got to know each other quite well, and would chat to each other a lot about our personal lives etc.

HOWEVER, I've emailed a couple of times in recent months and suddenly been met with absolute radio silence. First time was my reply to a usually lovely email from her....and when I heard nothing back for a few weeks, I followed up. Nothing.

I presumed she must have been super busy and thought little of it (I have quite a lot of clients!) but then emailed her earlier this week about a work thing that might have been of interest. Bear in mind none of these things are me brazenly vying for work/pitching stuff or anything.

Anyone experienced anything like this? I've never encountered it before tbh and don't know what to make of it. It seems so rude and odd...

If she wants to use you for work gong forward no doubt she will contact you. But she isn't your friend so I wouldn't be expecting 2 way conversations. You emailed something you thought she may be interested in. Maybe she isn't

@Spirallingdownwards - never thought she was my friend or wanted her to be! But we had a friendly, communicative professional dynamic, so this seems pretty weird.

She could have died?
she could be bereaved
she could have been diagnosed with something serious

I have a friend like you who seems to think every message she sends needs a response. She sends me stuff on LinkedIn which she thinks is relevant to me (often isn't) or I will be interested in (often I'm not). Her current favourite is sending me unwanted "cures" for a condition a family member has.

Just leave the poor woman/man alone. They are a client and nothing is more annoying than unwanted messaging. You say they were complimentary of your work. You may well be in danger of not getting further work if you keep sending unsolicited messages.

To be clear, I don’t think every message needs a response. Trust me when I say we had an ongoing, regular working communication (bear in mind my latest reply until recently was in response to her asking for something from me!). But she’s now just frozen the conversation and I have no idea why.

I don’t think I’d worry about it. You only know her in a professional sense, she might have some personal stuff taking precedence, she might be overwhelmed, she might be on a career break, she might have just forgotten to reply.

Would you know if something serious had happened to her via linked in or industry news or similar? Is she a freelancer as well, or are you communicating via a work email/phone no?

Well, either something has happened and she cannot reply or she does not have the time/want to reply. Either way, you need to respect that. She is your client, not the other way round.

@Intheshower - possible, though if something very serious was going on or had happened, I would probably know through our mutual connections.

@Thulpelly - absolutely, and I hadn’t actually thought about it at all until now.

Aware there’s nothing to be done, but I just wondered if anyone had experienced similar? I never ghost people like this…

Very likely nothing to do with you and either work is difficult for some reason or more likely she has something going on in her personal life.

I very much doubt you’d know if she or someone close to her had a serious diagnosis and she wasn’t broadcasting it

When she wants to work with you again, she will contact you. It’s that simple

She hasn't replied to two Emails and this is your reaction? Crikey there are sales weasels whose Emails I have been ignoring for years unless I want something.

Email is not the best medium if you want to try to sell your services. It is easily ignored. If you want a response pick up the phone.

I once was trying to figure out why an ex-colleague/friend hadn't replied to my messages. I re-read them to figure out how I might have offended her.

Turns out her mum had passed away.

Hopefully not the case here but the point stands that it is probably nothing to do with you personally.

Business might be struggling?

It’ll be either business or personal problems of some sort - or, possibly that she’s started working with someone else and thinks you might be annoyed about it, although I think that’s less likely.

Anyway it’s not you, so just move on.

Thanks everyone. @Aaron95 - it was three emails, and I’m not ‘selling services’ to her, it just feels really strange and surprising given our working communication thus far. But it’s reassuring to hear that it’s probably not ‘me’ from other posters…

Calm down..?

I think she may feel reticent to resume contact with you because she doesn't have any work for you so even if you've just sent her a friendly email she'll be thinking you're touting for business.

Be aware that because you have her details purely for business reasons you may be at risk, if you keep contacting her and continuing to get radio silence, she may clamp down on you and say don't call me, I'll call you type of message.

It isn't ghosting when it's business, it's because she doesn't need anything from you. Respect her boundaries if you want any chance of doing business with her in future.