Read the door. The neon OPEN sign is lit. The handwritten hours this week: 2 to 6. And a clock that swears they’ll be back by four. How many doors like this do we never see? Years back we had a brand new building, half empty, burning $7,000 a month on ads that weren’t working. I’m on a call with my partner and the president of the management company. Somebody asks him the obvious question. How are you going to lease this thing? He says, and I quote: “The power of positive thinking will fill it up.” That was his plan. So I had my assistant build a log. For two weeks, call the leasing office four times a day, every day, and write down whether anyone picked up. The pattern was ugly. The phones got answered two days a week. We were paying for five. We didn’t run a promotion or cut the rent. We just answered the phones five days a week, and the building started leasing. A Rently survey this year found 78% of renters move on within three days if the leasing office goes quiet. Only 14% will wait, even for a place they love. Nobody was waiting on our positive thoughts. They called, nobody picked up, they leased down the street. So when I see a door like this one, I know what the occupancy report says before I read it. The power of positive thinking never answered a single call.