The Past Client Calls
The rising, resurrecting call from someone whose life moved forward enough to need you again.
The Baby Announcement and the New Listing
The phone rings and it's a name from a few years ago, a past client whose whole life has apparently kept moving in your absence — a baby announcement, a promotion, a need for one more bedroom — and the call itself feels like Judgement's trumpet: a rising, a resurrection, proof that the work you did back then is still alive somewhere, quietly generating its own second act. They didn't call another agent. They called you, because the first closing left them trusting you enough to come back.
Answer this call like the honor it actually is. Judgement is about being recognized, being called forward by something you earned honestly the first time. Every past client who returns is proof the work outlasted the transaction — let that land fully before you jump straight into logistics.
what may cross your path
- A years-old contact resurfaces with news about a baby, a job, or a move.
- You remember, unprompted, a detail from a client's first purchase that they're touched you kept.
- A referral arrives that traces back to a closing you'd nearly forgotten.
- Someone says you were the only agent they'd ever call again, before you've even said hello.
Being called back is proof the first time actually mattered.
The Cousin Who Has to Sell First
The call rises the same way, hopeful and warm, and then lands somewhere more complicated: it's a referral, for a cousin, who first has to sell a house in another state, to a buyer who doesn't exist yet, on a timeline nobody's committed to. Judgement reversed isn't a false alarm — the resurrection is real, it's just further off than the phone call made it sound, contingent on other people's decisions that haven't happened yet.
Hold the lead warmly without overcommitting your hope to it. Some calls rise into real transactions and some rise into 'maybe next year,' and the skill is treating both kindly while only actually planning around the one that's real. Follow up gently. Let the timeline be theirs, not yours.
what may cross your path
- A referral comes with a contingency attached — a house to sell first, a job offer to confirm, a lease to end.
- You add a lead to your CRM with a note that reads 'not yet, but keep warm.'
- A promising call turns out to be months, maybe a year, away from anything actionable.
- You catch yourself getting ahead of a deal that hasn't actually started.
A slow yes is still a yes. I don't need to rush it into being now.