I recently lost a client to an AI SaaS platform.
While it stung, the point wasn’t about losing business to AI. It was about how quickly businesses will trade away human nuance, risk management, and strategic context for the illusion of an easy-button solution.
When you commoditize expertise as automated deliverables, you inevitably commoditize the human behind it.
Today, I want to extend that idea a little further into something everyone in our industry is dealing with right now: the ghosting epidemic.
We’re not just talking about applicants being ignored after interviews (this is just rude). It extends even further: think prospects, partners, former coworkers, vendors, and the people who initiated the conversation in the first place…then disappeared.
A warm intro should not end in silence
A former coworker recently introduced me to their company’s CMO. We got on a call, talked through the opportunity, and to be honest, it was clear we were not completely aligned.
Not every chat needs to turn into a long-lasting, perfect-match business relationship. Sometimes the fit isn’t there. Sometimes the timing is wrong. Sometimes, both groups walk away realizing it would be more work than it is worth.
But because the introduction came from someone I previously worked with, I continued the conversation in good faith and out of respect for that connection.
Even though the call wasn’t perfect, the CMO (and my previous coworker) told me they would provide an update by “next Tuesday.”
Fireflies notes that generate a transcript + recap of the call after we all hang up.
Next Tuesday came and went. No email from the CMO. No update from my former coworker. Nothing.
I did not expect a signed agreement. Hell, I didn’t even follow up. I didn’t expect us to work together. But they set an expectation, and then both completely disappeared.
A warm introduction, in my experience, leads to my longest-tenured clients. Other times it’s just not the right fit. What it is not is a free pass to waste someone’s time. If anything, it should create more accountability (because someone put their own reputation behind the connection).
Then came the NDA that disappeared into thin air
Ready for the second round of “Tales from Nick’s consulting life”?
More recently, a decent-sized brand reached out to discuss my fractional SEO services.
We got on a call and talked through the business, their challenges, and what they were looking to solve. As usual, I had more questions than answers at that stage. That is kind of the point. A competent consultant should not hear a few surface-level problems and immediately pretend to know exactly what needs to happen and hand over a statement of work… but I digress; that’s likely a future topic to break down.
They said they could share more context if I was willing to sign an NDA. Fair enough.
To avoid jumping through corporate hoops and speed things up, they asked me to provide my own NDA. So I pulled up my standard agreement, reviewed it, updated it for this situation, and sent it over.
I even asked for confirmation that it would work to further expedite the timeline.
Then nothing.
I followed up a few days later. Nothing.
I sent another follow-up the following week. Nothing.
That was about a month ago now.
The weird part is that I was not chasing them. They reached out to me. They asked for the call. They asked for my NDA agreement. They asked me to take ownership of the next step.
At any point, they could have said, “We are pausing this.” “We went another direction.” “Legal is holding this up.” Or even, “We are not ready.”
All acceptable. All better than silence. But let’s be real, the ghosting is just plain rude.
‘No’ is not the problem. Avoiding the conversation is.
Nobody is entitled to a client, a partnership, a job offer, or even a response justifying the answer they gave you.
Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes a company goes another direction (like hiring AI over you). Sometimes the budget disappears, priorities change, or the fit just is not there.
That is business.
But once you invite someone into a process, especially one you started, you owe them the basic courtesy of closing the loop.
I get it, “No” can be frustrating and disappointing. Silence turns someone else’s calendar into the cost of your indecision (or straight ignorance).
The consultant who held time for a proposal. The applicant who completed another interview. The former coworker who made the introduction. The potential partner who followed the steps you asked them to take.
Ghosting is not “meh, we weren’t going to move forward anyway.” It completely shifts ownership, follow-ups, and wasted time onto the person who did not create the situation.
You do not have to say yes. You just have to be willing to say something. It’s common decency.
You can’t even imagine how often I hear reports like the above about ghosting post-interview.
Efficiency should create more room for professionalism
This really isn’t complicated.
Don’t promise an update by Tuesday if you have no intention of providing one. Don’t ask someone for a proposal, paperwork, an introduction, or an interview process unless you’re prepared to respond when they follow through.
If priorities change, say so. If the answer is no, say no. If you dropped the ball, own it instead of hoping enough time will make the conversation disappear.
You don’t need a new workflow, an AI agent, or an all-hands company meeting to send a three-sentence email.
To be 100% blunt: if you ghost people, don’t be surprised if those people start telling others that you’re an asshole.
Efficiency is supposed to remove busywork, so we have more time for judgment, relationships, and the human parts of business. It shouldn’t become an excuse to start more conversations than we are willing to finish.
If you can’t close the loop, stop opening the conversation.
This post first appeared on the author’s website and is republished here with permission.
https://searchengineland.com/the-ghosting-epidemic-why-efficiency-killed-basic-professional-courtesy-487762