The Long Game

The Lead - The Long Game

We want it and we want it now.

It’ll come as no suprise to any of you when I say that we live in a world of instant gratification. On Amazon I can find just about anything I need, and get it to my house within a day or two, sometimes same day. My brain has become impatient.

When I order something off a site that’s not Amazon, I check the order confirmation page incessantly to see when it’s shipped and when to expect it. Honestly it makes me crazy.

But that’s the state of expectations in 2025. And it creeps into so many areas of our lives.

As salespeople, our expectations of our efforts are no different. We exert effort into different channels and methods, and we want to see the fruits of our labor quickly. Here’s the truth though:

Impatience is the enemy of outbound.

I want you to consider your prospect for a moment.

They may or may not have an active need for your services. They are living their life with little to no awareness that you even exist.

Let’s assume that they own rental properties in your market. You know the pain points they might experience at some point, but they’re not causing pain right this moment.

To get even more detailed - they have a long term tenant in their property. This tenant pays on time every month, little to no maintenance issues to speak of. The pain you might imagine an investor has, is not actively impacting them in an meaningful way. Sure, there’s a maintenance request from time to time, but it’s all good.

In all likelihood, that person is not going to resonate with even the best crafted message about property management services. Why would they! Life is good. Real estate investing feels truly passive to them.

So as you reach out to them, you get no response. You have no idea that they’re in this care free state of being. And that’s ok.

What’s not ok is just giving up on your outreach efforts because you aren’t getting responses at the rate you want.

Whatever your expectation is, it’s yours and yours only. It has nothing to do with the reality your prospects are operating within.

Imagine this framework for a second:

You’ve built something great. A business that really helps people. You are the best at what you do. Your company delivers outcomes that change people’s lives and financial futures.

Now if you really believed those statements were true, would that change the way you engage your prospects. The answer better be, “of course”!

The truth is that without the conviction that you have something people really need, it will be very easy to give up on telling people about what you do.

What I’m saying to you may sound extreme, but it’s real. Doing hard things takes conviction and commitment. Especially when the results aren’t immediate.

Let’s go back to our investor prospect. Everything is good, long term tenant etc.

Six months from now that tenant moves out, and that self-managing landlord faces years of deferred maintenance. Make ready work, pictures, setting a rent rate, showings, vetting applications. It’s a labor intensive process. It can be a painful process.

Or maybe your prospect has a property manager and things go south. Not hard to imagine.

So, here’s the question. When the pain appears for your prospect, do you deserve to get the call? Have you created enough value to be the person they want to talk to?

I think if we’re honest, we can all agree that one or two cold emails about how great our service is, how many 5 star Google reviews we have, is far from enough.

If this was easy, everyone would do it. If there was a magic formula, everyone would follow it.

It is hard. But here’s the good news - it’s hard for everyone. So keep going.

Episode 6 - This Thursday

The next episode of Outbound On Air drops this Thursday! This week Kristen and I get into why the environment you create matters so much (shout out to last week’s newsletter). It’s overlooked often.

If you aren’t subscribed to our channel, jump on. Below is a link to last week’s episode about messaging and ideal client profile.