It is Halloween – so let us exorcise one of the spookiest things in business

Do you want to hear a ghost story?

Well, it is Halloween season after all.

This one doesn’t have any ghouls or goblins – but it is a scary tale that keeps many business owners up at night.

A poll in PR Week earlier this year found that almost nine out of every ten agency owners had been ‘ghosted’ in the past six months.

For those unsure what ghosting is, it is undoubtedly more of a trick than a treat.

Ghosting is basically when communication suddenly and unexpectedly ends.

And it doesn’t just haunt entrepreneurs and Tinder users.

A separate poll revealed that 72 per cent of freelancers were ghosted by clients last year.

That suggests the culprits are not just a few bad apples.

It hints that this is not only a business-wide problem, but one that is worryingly becoming normalised.

And it is a really cruel practice.

Often for freelancers, they’ve poured their blood, sweat and tears into delivering results for a client only to hit a brick-wall when it comes to being paid.

And as an agency owner, it has happened to me too.

At Harvey & Hugo, we’ve spent hours brainstorming ideas and PR campaigns for perspective clients, researching new sectors and making initial contact with potentially key publications to help who we believed would be a new client.

There’s so much positivity from both sides, and then suddenly…an eerie silence.

Whatever the reason – be it unrealistic expectations or simply a misguided belief that you can just avoiding paying for work – the result is the same. Time wasted, needless stress and a bridge burned for good.

But the problem with ghosting is that word soon spreads.

The business community is tight-knit, and companies or leaders who develop a reputation for ghosting will find their reputation quickly tarnished.

And reputation matters.

At Harvey & Hugo, we’ve spent 16 years growing and protecting the reputations of hundreds of brands and business leaders.

We’ve done so partially by engaging in clear, open communication with clients. We set clear expectations from the get-go – and we absolutely don’t ghost.

This isn’t radical thinking. It should be the norm across business.

Yet for some, it isn’t vampires and monsters sending a chill down their spine – instead, it the thought of having to deliver bad news.

They don’t want to have to be the one breaking the news that they preferred the other proposal, or the other agency.

Or simply that their circumstances have changed, and that they can no longer afford it.

But in business, we are tough. People are used to dealing with bad news.

I doubt there is a business owner out there who has won more proposals than they’ve lost. Rejection is part of this game, and it is an emotion we can handle.

So this Halloween, let us exorcise ghosting once and for all.

Banish it. Stick a pitchfork in it.

And let’s leave ghosting to the ghouls.