You’re Not Off Track. You’re Just in the Middle.
One of the hardest things about sales is momentum. It's not hard to start or even close. It's about keeping yourself going when nothing is moving.
I don't know if people realize how much motivation it takes to keep selling something that isn't a slam dunk. A deal that has roadblocks. The listing that's been sitting. The product no one seems to fully understand yet. Weeks turn into months. Sometimes months turn into a year.
And you're still showing up, talking about it like it's day one. That's the job. It's why we get paid. But it takes something most people don't talk about: patience, persistence, and a little bit of self-trickery.
I joke that sometimes I have to pretend it's day one…when it's actually day 365.
In real estate, this is very real. As days on market increase, perceived value tends to decrease. But your energy can't. You still have to show it with the same enthusiasm. The same belief. The same presence.
I have a friend who was selling a property, and it took over a year. He had tons of showings, but no real offers. It was the usual story. It was overpriced, and it didn't present well.
Another friend in a completely different industry has been selling a product that had a rough launch. Clients don't fully trust it yet. She's been climbing uphill for the past year.
Different industries. Same feeling.
"Can someone just buy this already?"
Both of them felt stuck because nothing was working. The thought that they were off track. They weren't.
They were in the middle, and the middle is where most people quit. It's also where the real work happens.
The work of adjusting strategy, getting creative, reshooting the property, and staging it differently. My other friend had to reach back out to people who had said no and find new contacts within the same organizations to speak with. It's doing the things that don't feel exciting, but they move things forward.
Both of them have been successful before, and they will be again. That's because they didn’t make the middle mean something; it doesn’t.
It's not failure. Instead, it's just part of the sale.
Most people don’t lose in sales because they’re bad. They lose because they leave too early. Stay in it.
