You're seats have been given away

This past Wednesday, I was flying from Kansas City to Spokane via Salt Lake City. For obvious reasons, I try hard never to take connecting flights, but this was my only option. When I booked the flight, I had an hour and 20-minute connection in Salt Lake City, which is reasonable. Also in my favor that day: there were blue skies at all of the airports, therefore the weather was not an issue. Yet, it was a terrible travel day.

The inbound flight to Kansas City was late because of a bird strike. Then we pushed from the gate (late) and then sat on the tarmac for another 15 minutes, so it was clear I was not going to make my 5.30 p.m. connection. Except that I could see through FlightAware that the flight I was connecting to was also late. But...the Delta app didn't know this, and it automatically moved me from my original 5.30 p.m. flight in Salt Lake to the 10.56 p.m. flight in Salt Lake, which would have gotten me into Spokane at 11.33 p.m. If I took that later flight, by the time I got a rental car and drove to where I needed to go, it would have been 1:30 a.m. in the morning. (And 3:30 a.m. in K.C., where I started my day at 5 a.m.!)

While en route to Salt Lake, I messaged customer service to put me back on my original flight. They told me my seat was already gone and that I'd have to be on the standby list. Upon landing in Salt Lake City, I immediately ran to the customer service desk. That representative told me the same thing, but assured me I'd be number two on the list. When I got to the gate, I checked in with Angela, the primary gate agent, who told me the same thing.

Now I’m hoping two people won’t show up for this flight, and mulling over the very unappetizing itinerary ahead of me if I don’t make this flight. I stood there waiting with the woman ahead of me on the standby list. At 5:55 p.m., the flight had been fully boarded, and we waited agonizingly, counting down until 10 minutes before departure time, when they would give up the remaining two seats. Exactly at 10 minutes, they begin processing the two empty seats. The woman ahead of me gets her ticket and boards. I pull up to the scanner in front of the door, and as the gate agent is processing my ticket, I feel a rather large guy come up behind me. Now I know I've just taken his seat, so I really don't want to turn around and look him in the eye. Plus, I can feel that he’s probably twice my size. 

I peek slightly over my shoulder, and I see the guy he's traveling with, who's also much bigger than me, wearing cowboy boots and a big cowboy hat.

I turn back to the gate agent, who processes my ticket and says, “Okay, Mr. Ross, follow me.” At the same time, I hear the guy right behind me say, “Wait, can we still get on this plane?” The other gate agent tells him, “I am sorry, sir, your seats are gone.” That's the last thing I heard before Angela shut the door behind me.

As we are walking down the jetway, Angela says the understatement of the year: “That’s not going to go well.”

Now, the obvious question I had was, “Who the f&*! is lolly-gagging through the airport 10 minutes before their flight???”

The first customer service agent in Salt Lake had told me that all the passengers on this flight had already arrived at the airport—no one else was connecting. These two guys were simply...not paying attention.

There is a cost to not paying attention.

There is a cost to not taking right-action.

By the way, this is not even close to the first time this year when I was waiting for a seat on a full flight. I have made every-single-one-of-them. I’m definitely not trying to jinx myself, but I am committed to making flights. 

On the other hand, if one shows up late, or doesn’t pay attention, they are going to sit in the airport for another 4+ hours - rhetorically speaking. In this particular case, it is not the airline’s fault! Although I am sure those guys tried to blame the airline.

In real estate, like life, time is of the essence. But I don’t mean the total nonsense of responding to messages at 11:30 pm (and that is total nonsense).

I mean: What we do every day matters and everything does not matter equally. There are only a few things we need to do that are really important. Moreover, consider that not doing these things has a cost. In the example above, those two guys lost 4 hours of their life sitting in Salt Lake City airport. 

The cost of not doing what’s most important as real estate professionals: thousands and thousands of dollars. For example, one of my coaching clients last week finallystarted making her daily calls. She has to make one outbound call per day - that’s it. One! 

On our coaching call this week she reported that she was making her calls, and told me about one of the calls she made. She called a past client and the person - wait for it - actually picked up. She had a good, short chat, and then it turned into a showing on her $20mm+ off-market listing. That one call could end up being worth over $1,000,000 in commissions. What if she had not called? What if she had said, “Oh, I will do it later...”

Be intentional.
Be purposeful.
Be clear about what matters.
Take action!