Walk Like a Giant, Sell Like a Madman

Chapter 9. Dating Your Leads before Someone Else Does

People who know me are rarely aware that I moonlight as a marriage counselor. I tell workaholic spouses, "You'd better date your wife (or husband) or someone else will." The same can be said to salespeople: Date your leads or someone else will.

I see far too many real estate agents invest heavily in generating new leads (even buying them outright) and then completely drop the ball on nurturing those leads. That is the equivalent of spending months of your life wooing your sweetheart, finally convincing the person to marry you, and then completely ignoring him or her for the rest of your married life—which would probably be a very short-lived marriage.

You must continue to nurture your relationships with your leads until they finally decide to make a purchase decision. When they ultimately reach that point, you will have already positioned yourself as the salesperson of choice.