On one of our calls, an agent was stuck on something small that turned out to be a big “ah-ha.” She had a client she had been texting back and forth with, and then the texts simply stopped. No reply, no explanation, nothing. She asked me what to do next.
Answering her, I said a sentence out loud that I had somehow never put into words in 40 years of doing this. I told the group, “Somebody capture that. This is an article waiting to be written.” Because there are exactly five paths of communication in our business, and once you can see all five, you stop guessing and start choosing.
The 5 paths of communication
Here they are and what each one is really for.
1. The phone call
This is still the workhorse of the business. A voice carries warmth, tone and the little pauses that tell you what a person is really feeling. Nothing short of sitting across a kitchen table moves a relationship further than a live conversation. When something matters, the phone is almost always the right answer.
2. The voicemail
A voicemail is not a failed phone call. It is its own path, and a strong one when you use it on purpose. Its whole job is to leave a warm, specific reason for someone to call you back. A good voicemail plants a seed. A lazy, “Hi, it’s me. Call me back,” plants nothing.
3. The text
Fast, casual and low-friction, which is exactly where most buyers and sellers now live. A text gets read in seconds. That is its power and also its trap, because it is so easy that agents hide inside it and never climb to a higher path.
4. The email
This is the path for anything that needs a record. Numbers, timelines, documents, anything the client will want to scroll back and reread. Email is your paper trail, and it is where you put the things you want remembered exactly as you said them.
5. The knock on the door
The boldest path, and the one almost nobody uses anymore. Showing up in person says something no message ever will. It tells a client they matter enough that you got in your car and drove over. Used with care, it is the most powerful path of the five.
Notice what is not on that list. A mailed letter. To me, a letter is not communication; it is marketing. Communication runs in two directions. A letter is you talking at someone and hoping they talk back.
Now, the part that matters more than the list: When someone reaches out to you on one of these paths, answer them on that same path first. If a buyer sees your ad and texts you, text them back. Do not call them out of the blue. That text was their choice, and it tells you where they feel comfortable. Meet them there before you try to move them anywhere else.
When someone picks a path to reach you, that path is a gift. It tells you exactly where they feel safe in communicating with you. Start there.
Comfortable is where you begin, not where you stay. Take that texting buyer. I do not want to live in a text thread forever, because a thread only goes so deep. So I text, and I text, and I use the texting to encourage a phone call, because the phone lets me hear them and lets them hear me.
I would not open by calling them out of nowhere. I start where they started, and I earn my way up to the next path instead of jumping straight to it.
Getting back on track
That brings us back to Jenn. Her client came in on text, so text was the right path, right up until it went silent. Here is the rule for that moment: When a path stops working, you do not keep firing messages into the same dead thread. You switch paths, and you raise the intensity.
Here is what I told her. Call him. And if the call does not land, get in the car and knock on his door. Not to chase him, and not to push a transaction. To check on him. Make sure he and his wife are okay. That is the honest reason you show up, and it happens to be the human one, too.
Then, once you know he is alright, you can gently tell him where things stand and what the silence might be costing him.
Understand that it is not your client’s job to know what a closed door is costing him. He is a tired man taking care of his wife, and the mechanics of a sale are the last thing on his mind. It is your job to know it and then to educate him gently, so he can make a better decision than silence.
When a path goes quiet, do not send another text into the void. Move up a path and raise the intensity.
The judgment that separates a professional from an amateur is this. You are matching the path to two things at once: the person and the urgency of the moment. Low urgency, stay on their comfortable path and be patient. Rising urgency, start climbing toward the phone and, when it truly matters, toward the front door.
Here is why this matters more every year. We now live in a business where everyone hides behind the text. It is easy, it is safe, and it lets an agent feel busy without ever being brave. But the client who went silent did not need one more text. He needed someone with the judgment to know it was time for a call, or a knock, and the care to actually do it.
That is what people hire an advisor for. Not another unanswered message in a crowded thread, but a steady professional who knows which of the five paths the moment calls for and is willing to walk it.
Darryl Davis is the CEO of Darryl Davis Seminars. Get connected on Facebook or YouTube.
