You send off an LOI to a potential client. Or perhaps you respond to a client who approached you. Maybe you got back with a repeat client about a new projects.

But then you hear nothing. Zilch. Nada. Radio silence. Crickets.

So of course you go to the very logical conclusion that they hate you. And that they obviously don’t want to work with you on the project. You aren’t qualified. They don’t like your LOI. Not only that, they are mocking you in the breakroom for even apply. Okay, maybe that last one is just me. And perhaps I’m the only one who then decides that I’m a fraud and the only reason I’ve been successful to this point is sheer dumb luck.

Or maybe you are irritated at the client for not getting back, which is also a normal reaction. In fact, many people might argue it’s even more normal to be upset with the client than going down the rabbit hole of self-doubt that most writers I know choose as their go-to response to the waiting game.

Why You Hear Crickets

But honestly, one of the things I’ve learned in the past 10 years a freelancer and in many conversations with clients is that most of the time you are wrong in your leap to the fact that they are not interested. Yes, sometimes it means you aren’t qualified, especially if you aren’t carefully targeting your marketing. There could be a typo in your LOI that you missed. But 97.532 percent (yes, that’s scientific) of the time, the reason that you probably hear crickets from potential clients is the following:

Something happened that has absolutely nothing to do with you.

We writers tend to think it’s about us. But almost always it is not. A lot happens in the corporate world that is totally unrelated to us as writers. This is especially true when a client has started to talk to you about a project and then goes dark.

Here are just a few of the things I’m talking about:

• The client is behind on emails and yours got lost in the millions.
• They are swamped with another project and yours is on the back burner.
• Their fish died.
• The office is moving to another part of the building and they are behind on emails.
• They aren’t hiring freelancers right now, but put your email in a folder to quickly find when they are.
• Their client went on vacation to Bora Bora and the whole project is in limbo.
• They were out of the office at a conference and read your email on their phone, then forgot about it.
• Someone left in their department and they are now doing the work of two people.
• They are in Bora Bora themselves and your email got lost in the post-vacation madness.
• They are swamped at work.
• They want to hire you, but don’t know specifics so they put it off and then forget about it.
• They had the flu read your email while sniffling in bed and then forgot about it.
• The project is on hold.
• Their department got reorganized and they don’t even know where their desk is going to be tomorrow.

What All of This Means for You

Okay, so I might have taken a few liberties. But you get my point. A lot of things happen in a corporate environment that affect hiring freelancers and starting projects that have zero to do with you. And all of these things mean nothing about your long term prospect of getting a gig or the project kicking off. Just as quickly as things can get put on hold or back burner, a need can come up just as fast.

Here are two things you should take away from all of this:

1. You must follow up. Every time you do not follow up, you are leaving money on the table. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see freelancers make. And because of all the corporate changes that happen in content writing that don’t happen with publications, it is even more critical in content marketing writing. Follow up, follow up, follow up.
2. You might get a gig a year or two later. My record is four years. Seriously. Just because you hear crickets now doesn’t mean that they won’t be your best client down the road. I personally think that many clients glance at freelancer emails and put the ones that they like in a special folder. And then when they have a need they look at the folder and start contacting freelancers. But they often forget the important step of letting the freelancer know that they are holding onto their information.

So, next time you hear crickets, stop and pause. Save yourself the torture of the rabbit hole. And instead put that energy into making more connections. Silence really means nothing, except you aren’t getting a gig today from that client.

Why do you find that you hear crickets? What is your strategy for dealing with crickets? Am I alone in blaming moon spots?