Editor’s Note: This is a continuation of our series breaking down Winning Through Intimidation by Robert J. Ringer. Each chapter is an operating manual disguised as a story. The goal is simple. Learn how to move in the real world without losing clarity or posture.

Discover Kajabi’s 30 Days to Launch: Scale Your Fitness Business Online guide. Launch online programs, memberships, and digital products while keeping in-person clients. Step-by-step roadmap, success stories, and AI prompts included.

🚀 Get the Free Guide

Locating a market is the least difficult step in selling, but only in a relative sense. It still demands time effort and endurance. It feels easier because buyers benefit from seeing a wide range of deals. They carry no obligation to the salesperson, so they stay open to submissions. That openness creates a trap. Access to buyers is not the same as having serious buyers.

Most listed buyers are not buyers at all. Many are brokers in disguise. Others are curiosity seekers who enjoy the motion and energy of deal flow with no intention of closing. A salesperson who works an unmakeable deal for a non serious buyer loses time confidence and posture. The lesson is simple. Attention is not the same as intent.

To qualify buyers Ringer used the same system he used to qualify makeable deals. His goal was to understand exactly what each buyer wanted and how they made decisions. Instead of begging for details he built an image that set the frame.

He mailed his premium brochure to establish distance credibility and control. A week later he followed up. By then he was no longer another eager broker. He was a professional who had already set the frame for the conversation.

During that second call he asked a few focused questions. The purpose was to avoid sending irrelevant deals. This worked because posture created cooperation. Buyers responded because they respected the frame he established.

He then captured everything in a buyer information form. Criteria. Cash flow targets. Property type. Geography. Timelines. Deal breakers.

The first question on the form mattered most. Was the buyer a principal or a broker. Wealth does not erase the appeal of a side commission. Many principals act like brokers when the chance presents itself. The directness of the question broke through the performance. Any hesitation revealed the truth. Anyone who failed the test was removed from his list.

With time and repetition the buyer profiles became sharper. Each submission refined the map and each rejection revealed clearer behavior patterns. Eventually Ringer built a small group of serious buyers he could rely on.

These relationships mattered far more than any single connection with a seller. Sellers sell once. Buyers buy repeatedly. Long term leverage belongs to the people who maintain deal flow, not the ones who exit after a single transaction.

Ringer learned the importance of buyer alignment through a painful story. He held every legal tool that should have protected him. A license. A signed commission agreement. Certified mail. None of it mattered.

He presented a ten million dollar property. The builder he met appeared serious. Then an associate arrived who claimed to review deals for the builder and receive a participation. Ringer followed up through him. He flew him to the property. He invested the time and the money required to push the deal forward.

Then the deal closed behind his back. Without notice. Without support. The builder claimed he never authorized the associate. The associate denied ever saying he worked for the builder. The seller claimed prior contact with the buyer.

It was the perfect jungle confusion. The Big Lie in full effect. The tactic where denial becomes so bold and so complete that it overwhelms facts.

Ringer weighed the idea of suing and decided against it. The buyer and seller were aligned against him. The associate created ambiguity. The seller might declare bankruptcy. A lawsuit would take years and drain energy money and momentum. Even a victory could leave him with nothing.

Practical justice is not what should happen. It is what actually happens. In the jungle a loss is simply a loss.

This is why building strong relationships with serious buyers is essential. A supportive buyer can stabilize a deal. A neutral or hostile buyer can collapse it.

When Ringer finally had a makeable product and at least one proven buyer who matched his guidelines, he considered Step Two complete. In his words, he had reached the fifty yard line. It was progress, not victory. The rest of the field was still ahead and still unpredictable.

Posture, clarity, and filtration were the tools that allowed him to keep moving.

If you want to sharpen your own decision making and filter out non serious actors you can try the free Gritletter Clarity Snapshot. It helps you cut through noise, focus your posture, and move with intent.