This month I am making one of my less philosophical statements so far, but it addresses an area (you guessed it) that I have been mulling over. Those of you in sales who may be on the sensitive side and are not so thick skinned may get something out of this. By adjusting your mindset, specifically changing your assumptions, you can reorient a rejection from a no into a not yet.

This is what happens when I ASSUME I know what someone is thinking. I can make an ASS of U and ME. I can’t claim credit for this charming acronym, however I tend to use it a fair bit.

Assumptions might be considered a parent of many mistakes (or the mother of all stuff ups) but also are likewise the parent of things that could have been but never were.

One of the assumptions we deal with as sales people is the voice in our mind telling us that the people we are trying to talk to don’t want to talk to us. It is possible that you may make calls to a handful of prospects who know your phone number, and not one of them may pick up. I am sure that we have all been there.

I am fortunate enough to be dealing with all you guys and girls who usually have their phone at hand. I tend to have a high hit-rate of calls being picked up. However, I also get a fair percentage of people who know who I am and know why I am calling, not answering my calls.

So, what is the assumption that I could make?

I could let it get me down and assume that they don’t want to chat to me.

Some of you will have noticed that I don’t seem to make this assumption. You know, I keep calling. If you don’t answer my call, I have trained myself to think that if you don’t pick up, it just means that you don’t want to talk to me right now.

I’ve just changed my assumption into something that means at a psychological level I am going to be able to easily try again another day. If I really need to pep myself up, I remind myself that I have such a great offer and am building such an awesome business, that you definitely need to talk to me!

Here are some of the genuine reasons for my calls remaining unanswered over the past 12 months of making calls almost every day to you, my real estate colleagues. The only reason that I know about these reasons is because I have persisted.

• Unwell or have had a health scare (very common, please, look after yourselves)
• Family members have been unwell and/or there has been a bereavement in the family
• There has been some change in the office management or a change in the office ownership
• Working on multiple deals
• Working on huge deals
• Working on huge multiple deals
• Work colleague/assistant has been unwell
• Someone in the family is having a birthday
• The grandkids are over
• The cat needs to go to the vet
• Gone on Holiday
• Lockdown with children
• Preparing for a singing performance (in an opera! How cool)
• Taking a break from real estate

Another common one…. I have heard a hundred variations of this:

There is so much going on that to even think about another thing is too much right now.  Even though I am not particularly happy right now, I just can’t face even the thought of change.

And of course, the one that doesn’t help me, but is genuinely great to hear:

I am happy where I am, things are going really well. I am super busy now so it’s not the right time for me to change. But thanks for your call.

I think that persistence pays off. I have a friend who called a potential vendor over 100 times before finally getting to talk to them. He got the listing, a reward for being so persistent. He works on the belief that people do want to talk to him and if he tries enough times he will get there.

And a quick practical hint – I do find that if you have failed to get someone at a certain time of the day, trying at another time may change the outcome. If you are trying to get hold of me about selling my home between 5pm and 7pm I am highly likely to be elbows deep in ‘processing’ the kids. If you try between 3pm and 4pm on a Wednesday I could be at swimming lessons (the kids not me). Unless it’s critical, I am not likely to pick up the phone. However, if you call me at 10am most days of the week I am extremely likely to be in the mood for a bit of a chat about the value of my home and where to and when I might like to move.

Life is busy, life happens. Weave perseverance into your plan and adjust your mindset. Assume that your prospects don’t pick up the phone because they have other stuff going on. It is likely to be just as much a matter of timing as anything else. If you get blanked, don’t assume that your prospect doesn’t want to talk to you…, you know what I say about assumptions.

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I am delighted to welcome another agent to Independent Agent this month.

Bharat Chadha comes to us from the building industry. In fact, he still is in the building industry. He owns a building company and has several builds on at the moment. He has decided that he can help his clients by offering a sales service to them as well. This is an exciting blend of businesses and one that I will be watching with great interest. He is happy to do conjunctional deals too so please, keep an eye out for him if you have clients looking for new builds, South and West Auckland.