KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The Mindset of Persistence: Why Agents Give Up Too Early

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Summary:This episode is a powerful deep dive into the reasons why most real estate agents fail to succeed: they give up on leads too early. The host and guest unpack the psychological barriers to consistent follow-up and provide a powerful mindset shift. The episode features a valuable live role-play, demonstrating exactly how to handle objections and persist with a lead in a way that is both professional and effective. This is a must-listen for any agent who struggles with follow-up and wants to develop the mental toughness required to turn cold leads into closed deals.

With any objection, if you don't answer it at least three times until they're about to like literally hang up on you, then you are literally setting yourself up for, I mean, I don't know, if you like that kind of pain, just punch yourself and then chip in the throat and you'll be okay with it because you're setting yourself up for pain when you don't set the appointment and then have to chase people down. Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate, where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors. In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate, you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year. Don't follow the herd. Be uncommon.

Here are your hosts, multi-millionaire real estate agent and investor, Chris Craddock and Jeff Safright. Welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Real Estate podcast. I'm your host, Chris Craddock, and I am super pumped. to have a buddy of mine, he has joined forces with us in our Gain Network, Global Agent Investor Network, part of EXP, and he has been an investor for a while. He's getting kind of his business rolling, and he's gotten licensed in the last year, and he is looking to absolutely blow the barn doors off. And so with that said, I thought, what better thing to do than,

just have a public coaching session. Let's hear what it is when Colby is willing to be vulnerable for everybody. Here's the question for you, Colby. This is what I always ask when we start. Will you give me freedom to say any of my thoughts and not hold back and know that this comes from a place of me wanting you to get better and not as a way to hurt your feelings? Absolutely. Boom. All right. Game on. So now I have the freedom to say what I'm thinking and even though I try to I try to still be nice I'm way less nice when I have that freedom to go so boom all right so first day Colby in real estate in the last 12 months how much money have you made I have made about 30,000 30,000 all right what is the goal how much

would you like to make in the next 12 months starting today starting today let's say 90 days from today because anything you do today, you will not see the results until about 90 days from today. So 90 days from today and then the rolling 12 months after that. Yeah, 90 days from today, my goals would be target would be 30,000, another 30,000 and automate my. No, no, no. So 90 days from today, go away. So what is that? Like we're in August right now. So we're talking September, October, November. So from November to November, how much would you like to, what would be the goal? the goal will be 200 200 all right cool and then what is the i mean i know it's it's great but if you're to just close your eyes and say okay this is my dream number what is the dream number 600 600 okay

now here's the thing you just fold us what your current ceiling is so whatever that number is is the ceiling. So, and I'll just tell you for me personally, years ago, when I had to write that down, when I was first starting, I was like, man, if I could make $400,000, and that was pre-inflation, so it's probably about the same amount as your $600. And you want to know where I got capped for three years? Where? $400,000.

So that, and the reason why was because I set that ceiling there. I was a $400,000 person in my mind. you know, and that was my net income for a number of years, like when I first was in the business because I had a goal, I was like, okay, six figures. Then it was, okay, man, if I made 400, life would be different. In a way, it was different, but it was also not quite as different as you think because as you're growing a business, if you make 400,000, then 50% goes to the government and you're left with 200. And then, you know, you use 200 to both throw your business and live on and try to pay for all the things that you've, you'd want.

to pay for going forward. So 600. And I'll tell you, I would say, think about how you can bump that up in your mind. All right. So 200 is a goal. 30 in the last 12 months. You want to go to 200. So we're talking about what? About 7xing what you did in the last 12 months. All right. So I had a mentor of mine who said to me early on in my life and career. It wasn't in real estate. He was doing some mentorship with me and he said, okay, I want to see your calendar and I want to see your checkbook. That was back when we had checkbooks. I want to see your calendar and the checkbook because these two things tell me what you care about most. You can tell me you care about other things, but the amount of time you spend on something and the amount of money you spend on something

tells me exactly what you care about. So if you care about like charities or organizations and you don't volunteer any time and you don't donate to them, you don't care about. Let's just be honest, right? If you, if you care about your business and your time is not spent in your business and your money spent growing your business, then you don't care about it. That's just the deal. And you got to be honest with yourself, right? That's step one of the 12 steps is like admit you're an alcoholic, right? Have a real thing. And I think step four is like a fearless moral inventory. Be fearless in your inventory. So with that said, let's jump into the thing that will dictate your success more than anything else, your schedule.

What time do you wake up? I wake up around 6.30. Okay. So you said around, what does that mean? Set my alarm for 6.30 and I make sure, I, truthfully, I set up for 5.30, but having some struggles. So I get up no matter what at 6.30, no matter what, the latest 6.30. Okay.

So let's start with the first conversation here. So you set your alarm for 5.30, but you don't get up at 5.30 so that you're telling me the first thing you do in the morning is you break your promises to yourself. Exactly. So that was one of the habits I decided a few years ago was actually, I think it was last year, the beginning of last year was I will never hit snooze again. And I haven't hit snooze since. And man, there have been mornings that I have dragged. But I'm not going to be a promise breaker. I'm a promise keeper. That's who I am.

I keep my promises. And inside, I know that I'm starting my day like that. So, bro, if you want to start winning, like, you're never going to keep any of the other promises if you start your day by breaking promises. So either set your alarm for 630 or set your alarm for 530, but don't hit snooze anymore, right? Are you at a place where you ready to make a commitment like that? Yeah, 100%. 100%. Okay. So what is the commitment?

The commitment is to get up at 5.30. Don't hit snooze. Get my butt up. Okay. Start my day off with a win. Cool. And what are you going to say to yourself when you don't feel like getting up? Because you got to have something you say to that you've got two sides. You got your side that sucks. Just like, no, I'm going to be soft and I'm going to suck at life. and I'm never going to, I'm never going to win, you know, and you got the side that's the lying, right? And whichever one you feed is going to be the one there. So what are you going to

say to that side that sucks when five very rolls around tomorrow and you're like, then I want to get up. I'm tired. My eyes hurt. What are you going to say? Absolutely. Yeah, I'm going to have to tell myself it's personally my fault that I didn't go to bed earlier if I'm not tired. And I did it to myself so I could just sleep better at the next. line absolutely well i'll tell you you got to have a mantra that you say to yourself as well like you got to say you got to have something like this is what winners do or all i do is when pick something in your mind that you say that motivates you because legit if you don't share for yourself who is if you are not motivating you who is we don't have we don't have our mom like as our big

cheerleader anymore like on the sidelines like a six-year-old soccer player anymore like we've got to be the cheerleader and if you can't find that internal motivation you got to figure it out because that's the only way to to make that happen so we got to start a day with the win boom all right so we're there then next you get up and from here on now let's just say let's say it's we'll just call it 630 because that's when you get out of bed what is what is the first thing you do at 630 first thing I have to do is either lift in the morning or I don't lift at all and I need the list just because it clears the line and it's healthy for you. So I love to lift.

So how often are you lifting right now? Every day. So you are. It sounded like there's like days that you're missing. So are you hitting every single day? Yeah, every day. Okay. And do you have a gym membership?

Do you have a gym in your basement or garage? Oh, yeah, you're Texas. You guys don't have basements, right? No, no. So I live in a little guest house. So I'm not paying any rent, which is awesome for me. And we have a shop and we have our own little gym in there. So I just get up and every day hit it hard in the gym.

Okay. And when you go to the gym, are you, are you hitting hard? Or are you going in and some days you hit hard and some days it's... Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it happens to all of us. Some days are better than others. But as long as we get in there and, you know, make something happen and that's a win. Yeah.

No, no, no, no. Absolutely. I actually, so I joined the Lifetime, which I don't know if it's nationwide, but I know at least around here, I joined Lifetime and started doing like the alpha classes because like when I lived in our old house, like I had this small little gym and like an unfinished portion of our basement that was just, it was crappy and all my weights were crappy and everything was crappy. But man, I could hit it like a like a monster. And then we moved into this house and I got like this sweet rack and like all this sweet gym equipment. And I just was so soft, like, so soft. And it was like, I got to do something different. I got to shake it up because that's not who I am.

And if I start my day like this, I'm going to finish my day like this. And so that's why I just joined Lifetime because I'm like, I can't look over and see like a 90 pound girl putting up more weight than me and feel. Okay. Oh, yeah. Sorry for all you PC people out there, but that's just how I feel, right? So, so, so yeah, that was that was the deal. So good, good, good. So you hit the gym and then what's next?

next. After I hit the gym, I will, typically what I do the night before is write down the list of what I need to do in the morning to knock out before I start my day. And so I'll look over, I have, I keep notes of all my KPIs and a Google sheet for all the list that I call. So for those that may be newer to the business world, KPI are key performance indicators, the things that you're focused on. So, Jack, go ahead. Exactly. Exactly. Just make sure that I'm, I'm, hitting my numbers and looking at my connection rate, my abandoned rate, just whatever list that I targeted and deciding dictating how my future day is going to be and whatever else I have on my notes to do to knock out in the morning. Can you read to me what your KPI was from this

morning? Yeah. So my KPI's were between, so I typically call, this is between me and my virtual assistant. I have a virtual assistant as well. And what you pay your virtual assistant? Four dollars an hour. Sweet. Yep. And so yesterday we combined for 1,972 total dials. And virtual assistant calls. She calls. She works eight hours a day. Cool. Okay. Go ahead. And this is only me calling for an hour yesterday because yesterday was pretty busy. so my dials are 1,972 there was a thousand and six no answers six hang up one lead 19 non-interested we got five wrong numbers our abandon rate was 5% connection 3.45 and that was for

a tax delinquent list here in the dfw area okay so you called all right so so real quick how many people did you call or how many dials were made yesterday between you and the A? 1,972. And how many conversations? We had, so our conversations, our connection rate was 3.45, so I don't have conversations in here. I need to add our conversation, our connect rate, but we had around 70 conversations. Okay, 70 conversations.

How many people were interested in something? Let's just say in sell them. one just just one was interested okay still one a day what's your average sales price where you are um these are distressed properties for this distress properties it's anywhere from 150 to 250 okay but still let's so let's just call it 200 so in the best case scenario you're going to flip a wholesale innovation like a spread deal and you're going to make some money there worst case scenario as far as profitability wise you'll list the property and you know typically what you'll see is three and a half percent on the list side and then whatever you pay a buyer's

agent in this new world right so so you're looking at what seven grand right there so do you know how many people you have to go meet with that are interested in how many appointments you have to take to get a deal? I have two listing appointments this weekend. I have not yet converted on these distressed properties. I am however closing actually five days from now on a friend of mine in my sphere of influence. So that'll be a big win. So I do not have that that number that you're asking for appointments to deals. Okay. Got it. How long have you been making calls? I have been making calls since I I joined EXP in April. Okay, got it.

And has it been this many calls every day? No, it's been consistent like this for about a month and a half to two months, around, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you're getting, so let's just say a month and a half to two months. So that takes 90 days for something to work. How many appointments have you had? So, I've had three appointments. Three appointments. Okay. Is this one, the guy that was interested or the girl that was interested yesterday? Are they, are they interested in an appointment? Like, what is, like,

how interested are they? It'll be a listing. They're, they're out of Dallas, and they, I'm going to have to call them back to seal the deal on an appointment times. Okay. Got it. Got it. So you can call them back, sealed the deal on the appointment. Totally good. And then, well, why didn't you set the appointment where you're on the phone with them? Because they were in a rush. And I was just trying to gather more information about their needs and kind of what was going on with everything.

All right. So here's one of the pushback moments. You ever talk to anybody that's not in a rush? Very, very few people are not in a rush on the phone. Right. Do you know how hard it's going to be to get these people back on the phone with you? Yeah, I do. Typically, I have to call them at least twice a day and get a text and leave a voicemail if they don't. Do you know how many hours not setting the appointment while you're on the phone with them has cost you?

I do not. It's probably going to be somewhere between 45 minutes and three hours. When you think about calling, when you think about the head space you have to get in, when you think about looking at the CRM, all of the different pieces, like it is, it just takes so much like headspace. So let's roll play it. We've had the conversation you want to sell and you're trying to get off the phone. Go ahead. So Colby, yeah.

I know you got, I know you got to run and just just real quick. So just so that I can get an understanding of what you're looking, looking to do and looking what to sell for. I'm curious, I can swing by. I'm going to be over in your neighborhood tomorrow. or early next week, Monday evening. What would work better for you? Tomorrow or Monday evening? So tomorrow I'm going to be pretty tight up with work.

Monday evening, I'm not sure. I might be able to fit it in, but I want to have dinner with my family. Okay. Well, why don't we just put it on the calendar for, let's say, 515, and we can just be in and out in about, you know, 20, 30 minutes, and then we'll be done in time for you have dinner. Does that work?

yeah that should be fun boom done okay now push back a little bit harder and be like i don't have my calendar in front of me i'm really in a rush you know give me that give me that piece because absolutely like sometimes it's going to be like that where it's like a little bit of pushback and you've got lean through it but i'll tell you with any objection if you don't answer it at least three times until they're about to like literally hang up on you then you are literally setting yourself up for i mean If you like that kind of pain, just punch yourself and then chip in the throat and you'll be okay with it because you're setting yourself up for pain when you don't set the appointment and then have to chase people down. And I'll tell you, I am that person. Like I needed to get

a generator. When we moved into a format, power goes out here a little bit more often. So we needed a generator. So I signed up for all these generator like type installers. And all these people were calling me and I'm like, I just, I still want to deal with it right now. I don't want to deal with right now and I just kept pushing off pushing off pushing you off and the reality is if somebody when I got it done somebody got me on the phone nailed me down on the time and then got out here and they got my business because I didn't want to go through a bunch of different people because I was busy so that was the whole thing is you got to get somebody to like nailed down so all right give me a little bit of a little bit more pushback on that okay so yeah just just tomorrow or

or Monday evening work for you better? No, neither of those times work for me. Okay, cool, cool. You know, this weekend, I got some flexibility. When do you typically, when do you, are you typically free on a weekend? On a weekend, man, it all depends because my kids are playing sports. It all depends on their tournament. Probably not available in the weekend.

Okay. You want to just put, why don't we just put like Tuesday evening around five down? and then if you need to change it, we can absolutely change it. But like, why don't we just put that down as a placeholder for now? And then next week on Monday, I'll reach out to you and just double check that that works. And if it works, cool. And if we need to bump it, then we'll just bump it, you know, to a time that works. Does that work for you?

Because I know you're, I know you're a little bit busy and I'm really trying to get stuff done. So is that, is that cool? I'm not sure if it'll work. I may or may not answer the phone, but you could give it a try. Okay. Cool. well sounds good well why don't like i get that and so yeah i don't i don't know that we need to talk on the phone as much i mean obviously you want to get your house sold and i i want to get you

a cash offer i think you know we may have a a buyer for your house so i just need to i'll just come through take some notes and you know just i can hop in hop out you know 15 minutes and we'll be good to go so yeah why we just scheduled for tuesday and if you need to reschedule we'll reschedule. I'll text you Monday to make sure we're good to go. Okay, that's fine. As long as it don't take too long. Okay, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. If it's any more than 15 minutes, we'll

rock and roll. We'll get out. Boom. All right. Cool. Yeah. So what did I do there? You handled the objection and you kept on trying to find a solution for a better date that worked better with him. And you didn't take the no for an answer. Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. Everybody's going to give you a note. And I tell the story all the time. I went to a wedding, right? And, you know, I like to, I need to get slightly custom stuff just because, you know, just my build, you know, off the rack doesn't work for me very well. And I went to a wedding. And sure enough, I tore a big old, the seam in my butt, right? Just, just tore it. And we were heading to the reception. And so I, you know, there was a mall literally right across from the reception center. And I'm like, dude, I'm just going to go in. I saw a big J.C. Penny sign. So I just ran into JCPenny. I'm like, what can I get that will fit and match my suit? I walk in and a salesperson walks up and he's like, hey, can you help me? And you know what I said to him?

Like I said, I mean, just guess. What do you think I said, you know? I have no idea. Dude, I just said, I'm just looking. I wasn't just looking. I had a freaking tear in my, in my, like, the suit button. I was the epitome. I'm not just looking. I was a buyer. But that was just naturally what came out of my mouth on that. And then I start looking around and I'm like, oh, crap.

And I knew I didn't have much time. And I'm like, dude, I need to find it. So then I went back and found him. I was like, hey, can you show me? Where's the men's section? I need like a soup hand. And then they brought me in and showed me all the different options and I found something that fit.

And I told them what happened and I found something that fit. But literally, I thought about that. And I'm like, why did I say I was just looking just naturally? Like that just came out of my mouth because I just didn't want to deal with the hassle, right? And that's where people are. And even though they need your help, they're going to say the equivalent of, I'm just looking, or not now, not now, not now. And that's where the winners are able to figure out just like the generator people, they nailed me down on a time. Like when you can nail people down in a time, it's going to save you. Imagine that times the next 25 conversations.

How many hours of follow-up you're going to have to do versus just get something nailed down. And even if they cancel on you later, like, that's the whole thing. And let me, I'll say one last thing. And then maybe we'll do a part two of this because we didn't really even get far into the day. But here's the other thing. Never call and just confirm an appointment. If you ever confirm an appointment, you're asking to get canceled on.

So my dentist, you know, I remember sitting with him. He's a business guy. And I remember sitting with him. I was sitting in the chair. And we were just talking with each other. And I was like, hey, I get. the automated voicemails from you or the text from you that have no reply all the time. I was like, I'm just curious, why you send those like that?

And he was like, oh, because we found that whenever we called to confirm, people would just cancel us all the time. So we send the message where people can't reply so they can't cancel, but they're also reminded that it's there. And he said, our cancellation rate went down by more than 50% when we stopped giving people the opportunity to cancel. And I was like, oh, my gosh, last thing I'll throw out there, we partnered with a company called Express Homebuyers where they would send their listing appointments to us. And all of a sudden, we went from closing, like a set to met rate of over

80% to a set to met rate of less than 20. And we had no idea why. Then we found out that on that they updated the calendar and on it, it put a reschedule or a cancel appointment, button. And literally as soon as that button appeared, people rescheduled or canceled nonstop. Like literally we had over 60% of the people that normally we met with when it was just a button to click, they just rescheduled because everybody's busy. So just know everybody's busy. Keep the appointment, move forward and your productivity is going to go through the route. All right. We're at the turn of the hour or so. Kobe, give me three things that you're thinking about and one thing you're going to implement from this session.

Yeah, so three things I'm thinking about. First of all, I can't, I can't lie to myself and hit snooze. That's first and foremost. How we start the day is how we set the tone for the day. So we need to start off with a win. I'm going to set the appointment. If there's any pushback, that's fine. It's normal.

Get a time, you know, get a time and continue to be consistently calling and marketing to get deals. That's awesome. That's awesome. I know that as you keep doing this, bro, you're about a month in. So you got two more months before you start really reaping the benefits of all the work you're doing. So just stay consistent.

You got 60 more days of consistency, of planting, where you don't necessarily see the fruit all coming up. And this is where I'm just going to use harsher language. This is where losers quit and winners keep going. And so, you know, keep running, brother, keep running, keep doing the right thing. And it will come, you know, you will have the harvest coming up in the next 60 days from today. All right, man, this was great. This was awesome.

I hope it was helpful for you. And if you're listening in on this and this was helpful, please just post that in the review section. The more reviews we get, the more, you know, anywhere you listen, whether it's iTunes or wherever it rewards that. we would really mean a lot to me if you would give us an honest review. And if I can do anything to serve you, hit me up on Instagram at Prad Rock, C-R-A-D-D-R-O-C-K. Happy to help and serve you all. Until next time, Colby, crush it. And everybody, go out there, be a person at your word. What you say you're going to do, go make it happen. Kick butt. See you guys. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Uncommon Real Estate. Subscribe.

to the podcast to stay up to date with the latest mastermind conversations from Chris, Jeff, and other uncommon real estate industry leaders. If you love this podcast, please write us a review, and to fast track your real estate career, go to chriscratic.com.