For those of us in sales, whether it is on the supplier side or leasing apartments, it is extremely easy to get into the trap of thinking about our own needs in the transaction. So much of our life can be wrapped up in that sale opportunity, from job success to literally being able to pay our bills through commissions.

So it's no wonder that we can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking about the transaction from our own lens, about what our goals are and what we want to achieve with every interaction.

This also impacts our perspective on timelines.

Oftentimes, when we hear interest expressed in our product, service, or apartment, we go into close mode, but when that close doesn't immediately happen, prospects often get put into two types of lead purgatory:

1. They are simply forgotten about

        Or

1. They get put into a mindless "just checking in" process

But let's look at it from the buying side…

They were interested, but something is holding them back from making an immediate move. When leasing an apartment, it may be that kids, work, or everyday chaos has made it hard to focus on a more far away problem. They see the calls and emails, but their focus is on the spaghetti that their 2 year old decided to paint on the wall, and they don't have time to respond to make the leasing consultant feel better. Because at the end of the day, that response is really for the leasing consultant's benefit, not theirs.

Similarly on the supplier side, the property management executive is dealing with fires, both figurative and even literal, and while they loved the service concept, they just don't have the bandwidth quite yet to implement.

I never condone "ghosting" because at the end of the day the hope is that we all become partners, and ghosting a partner is a horrible way to start a relationship. However, as salespeople, we have to acknowledge that ghosting does happen and we have to understand what it means, and also what it doesn't mean.

Let's put some very raw numbers to this conversation.

After Multifamily Demo Day, we wanted to see if the event helped owners and operators actually understand the technology landscape better, and in that, whether they found suppliers that could help their business.

Of those that have responded so far, 92% indicated some level of connection (or planned connection) with suppliers after the event, which is incredibly high. Some have reported starting pilot programs, and some have signed up their full portfolios already.

One of the options from the survey was more forward-looking. Attendees could respond, "We plan on connecting," and to give context, here is how the survey worked: We listed out all 19 suppliers who were featured, and for each supplier, an attendee could indicate their level of intent. So let's say they specifically marked that they plan on connecting with 3 suppliers out of those 19. That is a very intentional selection, which basically means those 3 are on a pretty exclusive short-list for greater examination. But maybe not quite yet.

This level of future-intent occurred in 49% of specific-supplier responses that involved intent, but from the suppliers perspective, this may seem like a completely dead lead. What happened to that person who expressed interest? Did they change their mind? Were they never interested in the first place? These are the questions we ask when we are seeing the purchase only from our own perspective, and more importantly, on our own timeline.

But from the buyer perspective, they are swamped. A thousand calls, a thousand emails, and already inundated with current rollouts from suppliers they started talking to a year ago. In fact, the suppliers who are doing the current rollouts probably felt at one point they were being ghosted a year ago when things seemed to not be progressing, but the reality was that that ghosting didn't mean "not ever", it just meant "not yet".

This is where our timeline differences can frustrate those of us in sales, because our timeline is immediate, and we need those sales to achieve very current goals. But our prospects are much longer-term thinking, and they may not ever bother telling you that you are on a short-list to review. I guarantee that most of the suppliers have no idea they have been short-listed, and rather than feeling excited about the future possibilities, they may even feel ghosted!

So don't get discouraged. Think about long-term relationship building strategies that go beyond just "checking in". Continue to lay seeds and nurture them, and those future prospects will soon become current sales.