There are those times when a new prospective client appears, looks promising, and then…[insert sound of bomb falling here].
I’ve had a few instances like that. A prospective client contacts me and expresses sincere interest about working with me in the future. I immediately respond and let them know that I would love to work with them.
Then there is some back-and-forth emailing which usually ends with the client saying, “We will get back to you when we have work,” or, “We will get back to you in a month or so,” or something to that effect.
After the prescribed time period, I hear crickets, so I ping the prospective client with an email saying that I am still definitely interested in working with them. They ask for more time, so to speak.
I ping them after that time with another email. Silence again.
At one point does one give up and stop “pestering” the prospective client? I once threw that question out to the members of one of the professional organizations of which I am a member. The answer I liked best was, “Tell them you need to know by a certain date whether they intend to work with you. If they don’t answer by that date, move on.”
Fellow editor, what do you do when this happens to you?