I feel like I need to re-learn this lesson every week.

We send emails or leave voice messages, fingers crossed, and hope that this is it, the next great job, the next big client, the next contact who will open doors for us. And then we don’t hear back. Life intervenes, we get busy, a few weeks pass. Now it seems like it’s been too long to follow up. Or maybe it’s only been a few days and it feels too soon to follow up and anyway they never answered so they weren’t interested, my resume wasn’t good enough, they didn’t have anything for me, right?

Wrong.

Not hearing back is not hearing back.

You have no idea what was happening when your email or voice mail arrived: they were busy that day, the email got pushed down in their inbox, it got caught in the spam filter, it was accidentally deleted, they meant to respond but forgot. They were away on vacation and didn’t turn on their vacation message. Their assistant screens messages and didn’t pass it along. There was a crisis in the office. Their kid had the flu. Their father fired the home-care nurse again.

It wasn’t about you, it was about them.

What can you do?

Follow up. If you left a voice mail, send an email and vice versa. If it’s time sensitive and something you really want and you know your bravado is up for it, go in person. Let your passion shine through. Follow up again. What is the line between persistence and making a pain of yourself? It’s hard to know, but most of us give up before we reach it.

Just remember, No means No. Anything else means Don’t Give Up.