5 Reasons Your Leads Are Ghosting You (and 3 Things You Can Do About It) In Your Photography & Creative Entrepreneur Business
5 Reasons Your Leads Are Ghosting You (and 3 Things You Can Do About It) |
- High-End Sales Expert for Unconventional Photographers and Creative Entrepreneurs.
Are you spinning your wheels and trying to figure out why your leads are ghosting you in your photography or creative business? This is for you.
Lately, since the new year started, I have seen people talking the most about being ghosted by leads. This is something that I can't even tell you how many times I’ve seen this being talked about in Photography or Creative business groups. It’s been in so many spaces from a bunch of industries that I'm in, really.
So let’s talk about it today because being ghosted is a symptom of a problem, which means it can be solved. Being ghosted isn’t a circumstance that just happens, there is always a reason.
So I've been seeing a lot in the photography industry mostly photographers speaking this year about getting ghosted and how to fix it or why they are being ghosted.
As you know, I'm also a photographer, so in this resource llI’ speak a lot about the photography industry because I'm still in it. Plus, a majority of my one-to-one business coaching clients are photographers as well. I've been in this space for over 17 years. However for the sake of this resource, if you aren't a photographer and you are a creative entrepreneur feeling the sting of the ghosting and found your way here- It all works the same and this will still help you.
In the last few weeks has been really when I've just seen people asking about getting ghosted really ramp up. Times 10. Let me know if this is you:
You may be thinking it's the start of the year. I see my calendar. It maybe feels kind of empty. So then your brain starts to freak out. And you're maybe able to convince yourself a little bit that it's okay. I'll just wait a little bit.
And then you wait another week and then another week. And then before you know it, another month is about to end and you're still in the same position you were in with leads ghosting.
This is clearly a hot-button issue right now, which is something that I do see at the beginning of the year, almost every year.
First, what is ‘ghosting’ in your photography or creative business?
Ghosting is when you get a lead to come through your inquiry form, or maybe an email, or a DM on social media and they completely stop responding to you at any point in the sales process. It seems like they virtually fell off the face of the Earth.
I see ghosting most often in two parts of the sales process:
1-when they initially reach out to you and you respond back, then they ghost from there at the start of the conversation before it even can really begin.
2-after you have had the consult, or after they've seen your pricing and packages, then they ghost in the middle of a conversation, not at the start.
I would say most people talk about the first one more often, because the second one has a higher likelihood of the leads politely bowing out by telling you they aren’t interested and ‘going another direction’.
Plus, you get more people on the first one, because if you think about your leads, it's kind of like having a funnel, right? You get more up top and less towards the end who book- aka you get more inquiries than bookings, typically.
So I think that's why definitely you see more at the front end of ‘‘Hey, I've got this lead, I'm responding to this lead. Where the fuck did they go?’’
I see that probably the most often. So I'm going to be talking about both, but we're really just going to be talking about the reasons why they're ghosting you at any part in this process because it's very unlikely that an actual booked client will ghost you after they have booked you. (It of course can still happen, people have things that happen in their lives, but that's not what we're going to be talking about.)
Ghosting in the sales process of your photography or creative business.
Once they have reached out to you and they are a live inquiry, your active sales process has started. If you're in my world, perhaps in the $5k ALCHEMIST™ Group Coaching Program, or joining us at the Iceland Adventure Abundance Retreat in July, or one of my 1:1 Business Coaching clients-
Then you'll know that I consider the sales process as having both a passive sales process and then active sales process. The passive sales process is when people are becoming aware of you, but you may not be aware of them yet, such as going through your content because
I teach your marketing as being part of your sales process. I digress.
And then the active sales process is when they have become a lead and you are actively communicating with them and actively trying to push them through your sales process to then have them convert to a booked client should they be the right client for you. The most common time I see people dropping out and ghosting photographers and creatives is at the front when the active sales process starts.
So today we're going to talk about the five most common reasons you might be getting ghosted and three actionable steps that you can take to see if you can curve this symptom, this unwanted result.
But before we get into the 5 reasons, you’re getting ghosted because you have a leak in one of your 3 Core Foundational steps:
There are only three steps you need to grow your business and convert leads to clients.
Step 1- You need to alchemize your brand-
know how you’re different in the market and who you are for.
Step 2-You need to be seen by your aligned clients-
know where your aligned clients are and what they want to see.
Step 3- You need to sell them your unique solution-
know how your offer is uniquely created for your aligned client’s needs and your strengths.
That’s it.
So if you're having any symptoms and any unwanted results, you have a problem in one of the 3 core foundational steps. You need to go back and revisit all 3 of these foundations and see what needs to be refined, defined, or systemized.
If you want some help figuring this out, we go over this in great detail in the Group Coaching program $5k ALCHEMIST™.
I know this might sound crazy, but in order to get a new client, Someone needs to pay you money. Crazy. I know. Groundbreaking. I know.
But, in order to grow your business through aligned clients and raising your prices, you need to nail these three core foundational steps in your business. If you don't know deeply who your aligned clients are, then you won't know what they want to see and what their motivations are to buy. That's actually the problem because if the 3 Core FOundational steps aren’t nailed, you might be calling in the wrong people to begin with which could mean all of your responses back to them will be generic and give them no reason to respond back to you. So your brand could feel generic if it's not alchemized, which means it looks and feels and sounds like everybody else in the industry. (Which is the problem with using popular, industry guru’s email response templates like 1,000’s of other people… I digress).
Put yourself in your aligned client's shoes for a minute.
Right now, they're reaching out to lots of people trying to solve this one problem that they're looking for a solution for. They're already aware that they have this thing that they want to pay someone money to do or to fix or whichever it might be.
And then all of the responses they're getting back sound the same or just don’t resonate with them.
How are you going to stand out?
In my group coaching program, $5k ALCHEMIST™, we uncover your alchemized brand so you can truly uncover how you are different in the market and who your aligned clients are. Because once you know who your aligned client is, you will know what to say back to them. They will feel enticed and excited and have the desire to speak back to you.
One of the things that I see in the industry when people talk about ghosting quite often, is that they almost feel entitled to a response back. I'm going to call BS on that. You're not entitled to anybody's time. Even if it's something you would never do, that doesn't mean that you're still entitled to somebody else's time.
