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Answer The Phone!

January 17, 2026

Answer The Phone!
​From the “Things I’ve Learned In Business” series.

Recently I sat down to write and ended up making a list of Things I’ve Learned In Business. These are things I learned over the years that I wish I knew without learning them the hard way. So I decided to create a series of articles over the next year discussing each item. I’ll put one out each month as one of my weekly articles. I hope you enjoy them. The first one is- Answer The Phone!

A new real estate agent once asked me the secret to success in real estate. I said- Answer The Phone! It’s a simple thing and it’s the same in any other sales business- if your customers can’t contact you they will move on. Real estate agents routinely work with other agents, usually collaborating on deals. I’m about to risk making myself sound old here but this topic has to be discussed.

When Did This Happen?

Sometime about ten or so years ago it became acceptable to some people to not talk on the phone. Even though everyone (worth repeating) EVERYONE carries a phone with them at all times. We even carry them to the restroom. It’s tempting to make this a generational thing (because it is) but I won’t get into that here. I can’t begin to count the times I’ve called another real estate agent to check on a property for a client and never got an answer. I leave a message. Do they call back? No. Only when they feel like it. No sense of urgency to talk to someone about buying their million dollar listing.

Once I called an agent and she didn’t answer. I immediately sent her a text and she immediately texted back. I happened to be sitting outside the building in my truck. I walked inside and into her office within about 30 seconds. She was alone in the building, sitting at her desk with the phone in her hand!

Sales And Phones Go Together

Seems to me that if you’re in a sales business of any kind, but especially one that is an extremely high ticket sales business like real estate, you should be eager to answer the phone and talk to a prospect. Some go so far as to say in their voicemail- “I prefer to communicate through text messages” of “If you want to talk to me faster, send me a text message and I’ll get back to you.” Here’s the part where I come off sounding old. If I have a million dollars to spend on your product and I want to talk to you, you should probably actually talk and not text. When someone has a voicemail like that it leads me to think I’m not important enough to you to get a real conversation. Well, guess who has the money to spend investing in multi-million dollar properties? Mostly they’re going to be people over 40. They are the “talking on the phone generation.”

What I Learned

So here’s what I learned from this problem. As you might expect the agents that answer their phone and return calls are the ones that are the most successful. Those that don’t answer their phones and don’t return calls are the ones that leave the business after a year or so. They leave because they aren’t making enough sales and they're broke.

It's A Relationship Business

So if you don’t like talking on the phone then a sales career is probably not for you. Because sales is a relationship business. And all businesses rely on sales.

Do you avoid answering your phone?

That's it for this time. See you next week!

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