Most Men Quit One Call Too Early
I’ve spent a lot of years on a car lot. If there’s one thing the sales floor taught me, it’s this.
Most deals aren’t lost. They’re abandoned.
A customer comes in, drives the car, likes it, and says, “Let me think about it.” The salesman says, “Sure thing,” shakes his hand, and that’s the last time that customer ever hears from him. Maybe he sends one text. Maybe two. Then he decides the guy wasn’t serious and moves on.
Here’s what I’ve watched happen more times than I can count. The customer was serious. He was just busy. Or nervous. Or waiting for somebody to care enough to call him back one more time. And the salesman who did make that call is the one who handed him the keys.
The difference wasn’t talent. It was follow-up.
You Do the Same Thing to Yourself
I want to be honest with you, man to man, because I think this goes way past selling cars.
Think about the last thing you started on fire. The gym. Getting up early. Reading at night instead of scrolling. Being more patient with your wife and kids. Getting your money right.
You went hard for a week. Maybe two. Then you missed a day. Then you missed three. And somewhere in there you decided it “just wasn’t working” and let it go quiet.
That’s the same move. You didn’t fail. You stopped calling yourself back.
Most men don’t have a motivation problem. They have a follow-up problem. They’re great at the first call and terrible at the fifth one.
Why the Fifth Call Is So Hard
The first call is exciting. It’s new. There’s energy behind it.
The fifth call is boring. Nothing feels different yet. You don’t see results. Nobody’s clapping. It’s just you, doing the same thing again, hoping it adds up.
That’s exactly where most men quit. Not because it got hard. Because it got quiet.
On the floor, the best salespeople I’ve worked with had one thing in common. They didn’t trust their feelings about whether a customer was going to buy. They trusted their process. Call on day one. Text on day three. Call again on day seven. Whether they felt like it or not.
You need the same thing for your own life. A process you follow even when the feeling is gone.
How to Make the Next Call
You don’t need a whole new plan. You need to stop letting the old one go cold. Here’s where I’d start.
Pick the one thing you dropped. Not five things. One. The promise to yourself that you know you walked away from.
Put the follow-up on the calendar. Not “I’ll get back to it.” A day and a time. Treat it like a callback to your best customer, because that customer is you.
Make the call even when you don’t feel it. Show up for ten minutes. Do one set. Read one page. The goal isn’t a big day. The goal is not letting it die.
Tell somebody. This is the part most men skip. When somebody else knows you said you’d do it, the fifth call gets a lot easier. That’s not weakness. That’s how the best in every field operate.
Somebody Should Be Calling You Back
That last point is why I built Abbott Strong. For 60 days, you’ve got a man in your corner who checks in, notices when you go quiet, and calls you back when you’d rather let it slide. Not to yell at you. To keep the deal alive until it closes.
If you’ve got something you keep starting and stopping, let’s talk about it. Book a free Clarity Call here: https://calendar.app.google/Y37MH6pwzR3EHSj77
And if you lead a sales team, a company, or a group of men who need to hear this, I’m available to speak to teams, groups, and events. You can find out more at www.abbottstrong.com/speaking.
Make the next call. Then make the one after that.
