When Clients Don’t Engage (and You’re Screaming Into the Void)

Ah yes. The polite ghosting. The calendar invite declines. The quarter-long silence that makes you question everything, including your career choices, your email tone, and whether you somehow offended their entire extended family in a past life.

It happens. And it hurts. But you, my success delivering legend, are not helpless.

This isn’t about chasing. This is about flipping the script. Here's what I’ve done when clients ghost, dodge, or simply forget I exist despite the fact that I could make their lives 97% easier.

1. Send the Deliverable Anyway (Because You’re the Expert)

They won’t answer? Cool. I’m going to pretend they did. I create the project I think they need.

No preview. No teaser. I just send the whole deliverable with a note that says: “Thought you might need this. Here’s how I think you could use it, what problem it could solve, and what result you could expect. If you want changes, edits, or want to brainstorm just holler. XOXO kisses love ya mean it.”

You don’t ask for permission, you magnificent overstepping results machine, to be excellent. You are excellent.

✨ Want to level it up? Send it to their conference hotel room with a QR code taped to a sandwich. I.CON.IC.

2. Find New People and Slide Into Their (Professional) DMs

If your stakeholder ghosted, remember that the whole org didn’t. There are still humans in that building who can benefit from your brilliance. Go find them, party peanuts.

I get on LinkedIn and hunt down people with titles I usually serve: sales leaders, marketing folks, data nerds, whoever. Then I send THEM the deliverable. With context.

Something like: “Hi! I work with your team and wanted to send you a project I’ve done for others in your industry/role. Here’s one that may help you. Happy to customize it if you think it’s helpful.”

Polite. Helpful. Strategically unhinged behavior.

3. Show Up Where They Are (Conferences, Booths, Dinner, Chaos)

Sometimes it’s time to go full Victorian suitor meets John Cusack with a boombox .

Find out which conferences your client is attending, scan the speaker lists, check the hashtags, and show up. Swing by their booth, crash their panel (politely), make the dinner reservation, and charm them IRL (are the kids saying that still?). Court them with relevance, strategy, and your best “you already pay for this, let me make it worth it” pitch.

I come with a tailored, industry-relevant pitch and an actionable project in hand:

• What I can do

• How it solves problems

• Proof I’ve done it before

  
  

Not a script. A pitch. Human, helpful, and low-key irresistible.

4. Bribe the Champion (With Glory)

Find the person who wants to be seen. The one hungry for impact. The one who wants to shine at their next internal meeting.

Then, you create something that makes them look amazing. Frame it as, “Hey, I made this for you to share in your next team update. Want to run through it together before you send it?”

Now they’re engaging - not for you, but for their moment in the spotlight. And we know a thing or two about loving the spotlight, darling.

5. Build the Petty File

If I’m being iced out, I build the Petty File.

Listen, my cherubs, I’m an imperfect person. I try to be patient. I meditate (once). But sometimes, when a client ghosts me for three months and then resurfaces like nothing happened? I need a place to channel the feelings and the strategy.

So I make a folder. I name it something therapeutic like “CLIENT: Things You’d Love If You Called Me Back" Inside, I drop every insight, every idea, every little spark of brilliance they missed out on while they were busy being unreachable. Industry articles. Mini projects. Ideas I had in the shower. Things they could have launched if they would just book the call (rage screams).

And then, when they finally pop up again, I respond with calm, cool professionalism and say: “So glad to reconnect! We’ve actually scoped out a few things for you since we last met. When can we chat?"

It’s not petty. It’s prepared. It’s power with receipts, baby.

Say it with me, my audacious cherubs. We do not sit around waiting for permission to be excellent. We do not sit around waiting for anyone to discover our brilliance. We ARE excellent. We ARE brilliant.

✨ Final Thought

You’re not annoying. You’re doing your job. You’re just giving them something to say yes to.

If they won’t engage, you pivot, you create, and you outmaneuver the apathy.

Stay unhinged. Stay strategic. Stay showing up anyway. You deserve clients who see your genius. But until then? You’ll send it anyway.

✨ Now you: What’s the most unhinged thing you’ve done to get a client to engage?