The time cost of a difficult seller: knowing when to cut your losses

Identifying a difficult seller early

Difficult sellers often show signs early on: they repeatedly reschedule, are evasive with answers, demand unreasonable terms, or have emotional outbursts. These are red flags indicating that the deal will likely consume excessive time and mental energy.

Listen to your gut feeling during initial conversations. If a seller is causing you frustration or anxiety before you even have a contract, that's a strong signal of future difficulties. For more on first calls, check out /learn/first-call-with-a-motivated-seller.

Tracking time spent on the deal

Start logging your time for each lead, especially those that feel challenging. Include time spent on phone calls, text messages, emails, property research, driving to appointments, and any administrative tasks directly related to that specific seller. Use a simple spreadsheet or your CRM's notes feature.

Be honest with yourself about the cumulative hours. A few minutes here and there add up quickly. This tracking helps create a factual basis for assessing the time investment, rather than relying on a vague feeling.

Quantifying the intangible costs

Beyond direct hours, consider the intangible costs: mental stress, distraction from other productive tasks, and opportunity cost. Every hour spent on a difficult seller is an hour not spent on a potentially easier, more profitable deal.

Suppose you typically close one deal for every ten qualified leads you work. If a difficult seller consumes the time of three leads, your numbers are impacted. This 'soft' cost is real, even if it doesn't have a direct line item.

Calculating your hourly rate for deals

To put a dollar figure on your time, estimate your personal hourly rate. If you aim to make, suppose, $100,000 profit annually and work 2,000 hours, your hourly rate is $50. Now apply this to the time spent on the difficult seller.

If you've spent 20 hours on a deal with a difficult seller, that's a hypothetical $1,000 in your time. Compare this to the potential profit. If the expected profit is low, and the time cost is high, the deal's viability diminishes rapidly.

Decision point: continue or cut losses

Once you have a clearer picture of the time and potential monetary cost, you can make an informed decision. If the numbers don't add up, or the stress is unsustainable, it's usually better to walk away. You cannot save every deal, and not every deal is worth saving.

Do not let pride or sunk cost fallacy keep you tethered to a bad lead. Politely disengage, explaining that you cannot meet his or her expectations or that your business model does not align. This frees up your time for leads with higher potential.

For more strategies on working leads, refer to /how-to-work-your-leads.