Hey, welcome back to the 24-7 Profit Plan. I am Damon, and if this is your first time tuning in, welcome to the show, friend of the show. We talk about practical ways to grow your business using AI automation, and we do it without the corporate fluff and without trying to make your head explode with tech talk. Today we are talking about something that affects almost every real estate agent and personal injury attorney I speak with. And most of them do not even realize how much it is costing them. We are talking about missed calls. Not just the inconvenience of missing a call, but the real dollar amount that walks out the door every single time somebody hits your voicemail and decides not to leave a message. Because here is the thing: most people do not leave voicemails anymore. Statistically, somewhere around 80% of callers who reach a voicemail just hang up. They do not leave a message. They do not try again later. They just move on to the next option. And in both real estate and personal injury law, the next option is usually a competitor. So let me paint you a picture of how this actually plays out in real life. It is a Tuesday evening, about 8 15 at night. Couple just got back from a showing on a house they absolutely loved. They are already mentally decorating the living room. The wife is texting her mom a photo. The husband is on his phone searching for a real estate agent to call because they want to move fast on this. He finds three agents online. He calls the first one. Voicemail, he calls the second one. Voicemail, he calls the third one, and that agent picks up. They have a great 10-minute conversation. And uh that couple has an offer submitted on that house by 10 o'clock that same night. Agents one and two wake up the next morning with absolutely no idea any of that happened. They check their missed calls, maybe they see a number they do not recognize, maybe they plan to call back later, but by the time they do, it is already over. The couple is already working with someone else. That is what I call the invisible loss. The lead that disappears before it ever has a chance to become a real conversation. Now, here is the statistic that should really get your attention if you are a real estate agent. Research consistently shows that somewhere between 70 and 80% of buyers end up working with the first agent who responds to their inquiry. Not the most experienced agent, not the one with the most five-star reviews, not the one who sold the most homes last year, the first one to respond. Think about that for a second. Most of the time, in that first moment, when a motivated buyer or seller reaches out, speed is the only thing that matters. And if your phone is unavailable, speed is exactly what you cannot offer. Now, let me shift for a minute and talk to the personal injury attorneys who are listening because everything I just said applies to you as well. And honestly, the financial stakes per call are even higher. Picture this scenario someone is in a car accident at 9:30 at night. They are shaken up. Uh, maybe they are sitting in their car waiting for the tow truck to arrive. They start searching for personal injury attorneys on their phone. They find a few names that look credible, and they start calling. They call the first firm, voicemail. They call another one, voicemail. They call a third firm, and this time somebody answers. A calm professional voice that acknowledges what they have been through, asks the right questions about the accident, explains how the process works, and gets them scheduled for a free consultation first thing in the morning. Do you know what that caller is going to do? They are going to show up to that consultation, and they are very likely going to sign with that firm because that firm was there in the moment when they were scared and needed someone to answer. Now think about what a signed personal injury case is worth to your firm. Uh, depending on your practice area and the nature of the case, we are talking anywhere from$10,000 on the low end to$50,000 or more in contingency fees on a strong case. That is not a missed phone call, that is a missed opportunity worth tens of thousands of dollars. And it happens because of a voicemail. Now, I want to be honest about something here because I think a lot of people hear this and their instinct is just to try harder to answer their phone. And look, I completely understand that instinct, but let me push back on it gently. You are in showings, you are in depositions, you are sitting across from a client who deserves your full attention, you are driving between appointments, you are having dinner with your family on a Sunday evening, you are a human being, and you cannot be available every single second of every single day. Uh, nor should you have to be. The problem is not that you are bad at answering your phone, the problem is structural. Your business depends on inbound phone calls, and inbound phone calls do not respect your schedule. They come in at eight in the morning and eleven at night, and on Saturday afternoons and on holidays. The demand for your services does not clock out when you do. So the answer cannot be try harder. The answer has to be a system that handles those calls for you when you genuinely cannot, and handles them in a way that actually serves the caller instead of sending them to a generic voicemail. And when I say a system, uh I want to be clear about what I mean because I know a lot of people hear that and picture the kind of automated phone experience that makes you want to throw your phone across the room, press one for billing, press two for support, press three to repeat the menu. That is not what I am describing. What a good system looks like is a real conversation. A caller reaches out at 9 p.m. and instead of hitting voicemail, they actually get to talk. For a real estate caller, that might mean a brief conversation about what they are looking for, their timeline, whether they are already pre-approved for a personal injury caller. That might mean what kind of accident, when it happened, what their injuries were, and whether they have spoken to anyone else. And at the end of that conversation, an appointment gets booked directly onto your calendar. You wake up in the morning and instead of a missed call notification, you have a qualified lead waiting for you with notes on exactly what they need. That is the difference. Not just technically answering the phone, actually serving the caller. Before I close out today, I want to leave you with three practical things you can do this week that cost nothing and take about 10 minutes each. First, call your own phone number from another phone right now, outside of business hours, and experience exactly what a potential client experiences when they cannot reach you. Is it a professional voicemail message? Is it even a personalized message or is it the default carrier recording? Most business owners have not actually done this in years and they are genuinely surprised by what they hear. Second, pull up your call log for the last two weeks and uh figure out when your missed calls are actually happening. Are they in the evenings, weekends, during your busiest hours in the middle of the day when you are unavailable? Knowing exactly when the gap exists is the first step to closing it. Third, write down the five pieces of information you would most want to know from a first-time caller before you call them back. What makes a lead qualified for you specifically? That list is the foundation of any intake process worth building. Simple steps, but most people never take them. They just keep doing what they have always done and quietly wonder why they feel like they are leaving money on the table. All right. That is a wrap on today's episode of the 24-7 Profit Plan. If this episode resonated with you, the team at Gerald's AI Solutions builds AI voice agents specifically for real estate agents and personal injury law firms. And the best part is you do not have to take my word for any of this. You can call a live demo agent right now and hear it for yourself. If you are in real estate, call Ashley at 1-317-820-2616. If you are a PI attorney, call Sarah at 317-2038349. Those calls are completely free. You are just experiencing the technology firsthand. And if you want to have a real conversation about what this could look like for your specific business, you can book a free strategy call at Gerald's Asolutions.com. No pressure, no pitch, just a real conversation about whether it makes sense for you. Thanks for being here, friend of the show. If this episode was helpful, share it with a real estate agent or attorney in your network who needs to hear it. And subscribe to the 24 7 Profit Plan wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode. I will see you on the next one.