The Conversation That Cost Me a Listing (And What It Taught Me About Every Conversation That Followed)

There is a dining room table early in this career that still comes to mind.

The sellers were a young family. Their children played nearby while we sat together going through comparable sales, market conditions, staging recommendations, and a full marketing plan. Nearly an hour of preparation, expertise, and genuine care laid out across that table.

Everything pointed to the same conclusion. The market supported one price, and listing significantly above it would almost certainly lead to a longer time on market and, eventually, a price reduction.

Then Mrs. Seller smiled and said, "I think our home is worth another $60,000."

The response was thorough. Appraisals were discussed. Buyer expectations were explained. Market conditions were walked through carefully. A solution was even offered, an automatic price reduction built into the listing agreement.

Mr. Seller thought that sounded reasonable.

Mrs. Seller did not.

They interviewed other agents. The listing went to someone else.

The drive home was spent replaying every moment of that conversation. And for a long time, the conclusion was the same. The listing was lost because the explanation had not been good enough.

It took years to understand that the explanation was never the problem.

What Explaining Actually Does in a Conversation

When someone shares a belief, a hope, or a number they have attached meaning to, and the response is an explanation of why they are wrong, something predictable happens. They defend their position. Not because they are unreasonable. Because defending a position is the most natural human response to feeling that someone is trying to prove you wrong.

The more thorough the explanation, the stronger the defense becomes. And the more the conversation feels like a negotiation between two opposing sides rather than two people trying to find the best path forward together.

This pattern shows up everywhere. In listing appointments and buyer consultations. In leadership conversations where a manager needs a team member to change direction. In partnerships where two people see the same situation completely differently. In any conversation where one person has information the other needs but cannot yet receive.

The information is not the obstacle. The sequence is.

The Second Dining Room Table

Years later, there was another dining room table. A different family. A different home. Almost the exact same challenge.

This time, something was different.

Instead of preparing to explain, the approach shifted to curiosity. Questions were asked. More listening happened than talking. What mattered most to this family, what they were ultimately trying to accomplish, what they understood about the market and what they did not, all of that came first.

Something interesting happened.

Nobody had to be convinced of anything.

As the conversation unfolded, the sellers began connecting the dots for themselves. The market data was not presented as a correction to their thinking. It became part of a conversation they were already having internally. By the end of the meeting, they chose a price that aligned with what they actually wanted to accomplish.

Not because they were persuaded. Because they felt genuinely understood.

That experience did not just change the approach to real estate conversations. It changed the understanding of what communication actually is.

Understanding Is More Powerful Than Explaining

One of the Four Cornerstones of Influential Communication inside Exactly What to Say® is that the person asking the questions controls the conversation. Not the outcome. The conversation.

There is an important distinction in those two words. Controlling an outcome means engineering where someone lands. Controlling a conversation means creating the conditions where someone can think clearly, speak honestly, and arrive at a decision that genuinely feels like their own.

When someone believes the goal is to prove them wrong, they protect their position. When someone believes the goal is to understand them, the conversation opens up. The guard comes down. The real concern, the one beneath the stated objection, becomes visible.

And it is almost never what it appeared to be on the surface.

The second listing appointment was not really about the price. It was about a family trying to feel confident that they were making the right decision with the biggest financial asset in their lives. Once that was understood, the conversation could actually help them.

The first appointment never got there. Not because the information was wrong. Because the sequence was.

The Question That Changes Everything

This principle is not limited to real estate conversations. It lives in every meaningful exchange between two people where something important is at stake.

The leader who tells a team member exactly what needs to change and then wonders why nothing shifts. The parent who explains the same thing for the third time to a teenager who has already stopped listening. The colleague who presents a perfectly logical case and walks away confused about why it did not land.

In every one of those situations, the same question is worth asking before the next conversation begins.

Is the goal to prove the point, or to understand theirs?

That question does not mean abandoning expertise or withholding important information. It means sequencing differently. Curiosity before clarity. Understanding before explanation. Questions before answers.

Because when someone feels genuinely understood, something shifts in them that no amount of explaining ever reaches. The resistance drops. The real conversation begins. And the information that could not land before suddenly has somewhere to go.

What Gets Said in the Moments That Matter

The conversations that shape outcomes in business and in life are rarely won by the person with the most information. They are shaped by the person who created the conditions for the other person to actually receive it.

That is a different kind of preparation than most people invest in. It is not about having better data or a stronger argument. It is about knowing what to ask, how to listen, and how to stay genuinely curious long enough for the real conversation to emerge.

The listing that was lost early in this career was lost not for lack of knowledge. It was lost because explanation was chosen over understanding.

Every important conversation since then has been shaped by that lesson.

Understanding first. Everything else follows.

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Chris Ruszkiewicz is an Exactly What to Say® Certified Guide and the founder of CMR Coaching & Consulting, a founding owner of a Keller Williams Realty office, and an Executive Business Coach with 32 years of experience in sales, negotiation, and leadership.