If You Can't Tend To A Garden, Please Don't Get In To Real Estate

Maybe it is the rain? But today while checking in on all of my prospects, suddenly I was transformed back to being a 9 year old little girl with a huge bucket following my dad row by row. Oh I how I hated that darn bucket and those horrible squeaky boots he made me wear to avoid being bitten by anything hiding in the greens. What seemed like football fields of tomatoes, cucumbers, peas and corn turned in to my nemesis each harvest season.

My dad had two other perfectly capable daughters how I ended up being the preferred bucket holder I suppose I will never know. Maybe it was because I was the short one, my center of gravity made me easier to reach.

Anyway, I did my best to be on good behavior and that generally lasted the first two rows then my moms side of the family became quite apparent in my disposition. After all there were 567 things I would have rather been doing than picking vegetables. Even sweeping the porch would have been a good alternative.

Sorry Dad.

He must have worked so hard to get those vegetables each and every year. The time he spent preparing the soil alone was phenomenal.

So many of our neighbors, friends, and people at church got baskets of the freshest vegetables around from my dad, mostly delievered before anyone else was up. Anyone but me and dad that is.

 I didn't realize it then, but I do now. Boy do I realize it now. He was so proud of that garden.

Possibly a strange analogy, but I realized today how many years and how much effort I have put into building my real estate garden. There is nothing more heart breaking than realizing a referral falls on deaf ears, sort of like the tomatoes that, if not picked on time, fell ruined to the ground.

If only I could carry my own bucket, pick my own tomatoes, and prepare the soil all at the same time. I just can't.

Good leads take years to acquire and only minutes to lose. Realtors must have patience, determination, and somewhat of a green thumb in order to harvest them.