Getting ghosted? You're not alone

It's 2020; if you haven't been ghosted, you aren't living. 

Urban dictionary defines being ghosted as "to avoid someone until they get the picture and stop contacting you." While dictionary.com defines being ghosted as "the soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit imagined, usually as a vague, shadowy or evanescent form, as wandering among or haunting persons." As you can deduce, being ghosted isn't great. 

I need to use both hands and toes to count the number of times I've ghosted vendors since Covid-19 started. The reasons I've ghosted vendors vary from budget concerns, annoyance, lunar alignment, to changing strategy. 

Hot tip from one vendor to another: don't be a jerk. 

We are all inundated with emails. We are all scrambling to make our numbers. Some of us are even busy homeschooling kids on top of it all. 

Show some empathy, compassion, and humor in your emails. 

Many of the vendors I've kept in contact with predate Covid-19. They check in with me for reasons other than buying. The few I've established relationships with since have all been real. 

What do I mean? They've had their parents walking behind them during zooms. They don't badger me to get a deal closed. They get it. We're all just trying to keep our heads above water the best we can. 

So when you set up your next email cadence, ask yourself, does this email sound like an empathetic human is sitting on the other side of this? Am I adding anything beneficial, entertaining, or at least informative to their life? Would I read, engage, and be bought into this email if I were on the other side? 

If the answer to those three questions is unequivocal, yes, then go for it. If not, take a minute and reassess your approach. Or else risk being ghosted.