Nobody is paid to work the pile

Comfort advisors are paid on commission.¹ They earn on what they close, usually in the house, usually that day.

Give one of them a free hour. He is choosing between two things.

He takes the fresh appointment every single time, and he is right to. Anyone paid the way he is paid would make the same call, including the owner asking why he does not work the old list.

The pile is not orphaned because somebody is lazy. It is orphaned because nobody is paid to work it.

The same incentive explains the pressure to close on the first visit. A second trip is unpaid time, and deals that do not close in the room close far less often afterward.² That is not a manipulation tactic. That is a man reading his own pay plan accurately.

Why this matters more than it sounds

Problems caused by attitude get fixed with meetings. Problems caused by structure survive every meeting you will ever hold about them. An owner can ask for the old list to get worked, hear yes, watch nothing happen, and conclude his people do not care. His people care. The work has no owner, no time and no pay attached to it, so it loses to work that has all three, every week, quietly.

Which means the fix is never motivational. Somebody has to own the queue, on paid time, with the reasons in front of them and a way for the owner to see whether it happened.