5 reasons the client ghosted you.

I know the feeling - you have an amazing email land in your inbox - its the “dream” job. It’s the job that excites your spirit, its the bride with a full bridal party and the dream mood board. It’s the brand you have always wanted to work with. You excitedly email back, with your more than reasonable rate than what they are asking for. And bam. Crickets. We have allllll been there. And today, I wanna myth bust, with 5 reasons they ghosted and how we can all collectively, increase our conversion rate and BOOK the dream client. Every darn time.

1) They don’t believe in you just yet.

The reached out, because they liked what they saw. They might have seen your Instagram and felt intrigued. They might have done a quick Google and you were the first to come up. But the pull wasn’t strong enough. They wasn’t feeling that spark or buzz that excited them to work with you. In other words, you just didn’t convert them enough initially. So how do we fix this? We have to put ourselves in our clients shoes. Reverse engineer your process. Go on your own website through the lens of your client. Are you exciting yourself? Are you converting you? Are your images and copy making your client feel compelled to REALLY want to book you? Try to make every single page on your website sparkle. Add something interesting and exciting to everything you put out. You don’t want to be like everyone else, because thats not memorable. I have my dogs on my about page and I am told on a weekly basis that my about page was a huge reason why people reached out. You see, my work pulled them in. But my dogs made me memorable, exciting and funny. That makes the pull (and the reason to stay) so much more inviting!

2) Your email etiquette scared them.

I actually very rarely see email etiquette from makeup artists that makes me feel concerned. But what I mean by this is - is your first initial email and point of contact, easy? Is it simple? Is it too much information? Your client doesn’t want to be bombarded with contracts and terms and conditions, when all they have asked for is a price. Your client doesn’t want to jump through hoops to work with you. So make it easy. Make it so easy, they can reply or respond with their exact needs in less than 2 minutes. I don’t see a lot of rude makeup artist etiquette, but I do see a lot of complicated booking practises. Try to simplify everything, make it more inviting and easy. I guarantee you will have much happier customers.

3) Your communication.

You might be surprised to know this, but I am shocked at some of the email lead times I witness. I have heard from some of my own clients, when they were doing their bridal makeup research, some makeup artists were getting back to them 5-14 days later. Sometimes, I simply won the gig because my email communication was on point. Now don’t get me wrong, you should never be a slave to your emails, but implementing some simple email office hours into your daily routine will ensure that client isn’t left hanging. My own email office hours are at 10am and 4pm. Outside of these times, I don’t respond as I like to focus on other things, but I know, twice a day I am checking in with enquiries. If you find your own email communication leaves little to be desired - try an autoresponder, simply communicating your email office hours. Clients are much more likely to wait for you, if they know WHEN they can expect a reply.

4) Your pricing isn’t aligning with your service.

Sometimes, price is an issue. We wish it wasn’t - but very often with our clients, they have to feel aligned with the artist they are communicating with, in order for it to all make sense. What I mean by this is - let’s say a client reaches out to a makeup artist who has a super high end website, and work that is very strong. But when she reaches out, she finds the makeup artists email etiquette is quite careless, and unorganised. There is very little thought and love put into the booking and as such, the client feels a little strange about booking this makeup artist now, because it’s not adding up. Similarly, another client may reach out to another makeup artist, who has a great body of work, but when she hears about her ridiculously low prices, she feels put off because she feels she is too cheap, despite absolutely loving her work to begin with. Your work, your booking practices, everything within your business needs to feel purposeful and aligned. It needs to feel right, otherwise clients can sense that. Make sure your pricing is right, and that it aligns with your services.

5) They just aren’t the ideal client.

You know I can’t resist, but it’s true. Sometimes a client will reach out and despite all your best efforts, they just aren’t the one. You might LOVE the sound of this commercial job, it might in theory be the dream - but actually that client may take 90 days to pay and actually ends up being quite the pain in the bum. Similarly, that bride with the beautiful mood board, might turn out to be the worst bride of your life. When being ghosted, its easy to feel upset and down about it, but try to reframe this. If they were truly the dream client, they would book. If they were YOUR ideal client, they wouldn’t ghost. The ones who ghost, they go for a reason and usually that reason, saves you a heck of a headache. Don’t get hung up on the ones that don’t book. They have just given you room, freedom and time to dedicate to the ones who do.