Insights: How I work
How I decide a lead is dead.
Quitting on a seller too early costs deals. Chasing one who already said no costs trust. I stopped deciding by feel and wrote down a rule.
Why does this decision need a rule?
Every lead list I work eventually fills up with people I have not heard from in a while. Some of them will never sell. Some of them will call me in a year. If I do not have a rule for telling them apart, I either chase everyone forever or I give up on people too early. Both are expensive.
For a long time I made the call by feel. A lead felt cold, so I stopped. That was not a system. It was my mood on a given afternoon. So I wrote down what "dead" actually means for me.
What counts as dead?
A lead is dead when one of these is true:
- The owner told me plainly they will not sell, and there is no change in their situation that would make me ask again.
- The property sold to someone else.
- The contact information is wrong and I have run out of honest ways to find the right one.
- The person asked me not to contact them. That one is not a judgment call. It ends the conversation, and they come off every list.
That is the whole list. Notice what is not on it.
What does not count as dead?
Silence is not dead. People go quiet for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with me. A family member is sick. Tax season. A tenant situation that has not boiled over yet.
"Not right now" is not dead either. When a seller says "maybe next year," I believe them, and I write that down in their words. That lead goes into a slower lane with a date on it, not into the trash.
A high asking price is not dead. Plenty of owners start high and adjust once they have more information. My job is to be the person who is still around, politely, when they do.
What happens to leads that are quiet but not dead?
They move to a nurture lane. The follow up slows down and gets more useful. Instead of "are you ready to sell," it is a check in with something worth reading, or a question about whether anything changed.
This is where Automize earns its keep for me. I do not trust myself to remember to call someone in seven months. The software does remember. Kaizen gets the benefit of that patience without me holding it all in my head.
Why do I write down the reason?
Every time I mark a lead dead, I record which of the four reasons applied. It takes a few seconds.
Looking back at those reasons is how I learn where my process leaks. If a lot of leads die because the contact info was wrong, my data is the problem, not my follow up. If they die because they sold to someone else, I was probably too slow or too quiet. The reason tells me what to fix.
What is the actual lesson here?
Deciding a lead is dead is a real decision, and it deserves the same care as deciding to make an offer. A short written rule keeps me from quitting on people who just needed time, and it keeps me from bothering people who already gave me an answer.
Respecting a no and being patient with a maybe are the same habit. Both come from listening to what the seller actually said.