I spent 12 years as a REALTOR, first with Phyllis Browning Company and then as a Keller Williams Luxury Consultant. For the last nine years, I have been a Business Development Executive at Chicago Title San Antonio, and for nearly six of those years I also worked as a business coach, helping owners build and brand their businesses. I have watched closings slide, buyers pause, and sellers wait longer than anyone planned. I thought I understood what it felt like when a timeline slipped out of your hands.
Then my daughter and I decided to build something of our own.
This year, the two of us have been building Daily Lagree, a boutique Lagree studio in Alamo Ranch on San Antonio's west side. Lagree is a high intensity, low impact workout inspired by Pilates, and opening a studio together has been one of the most meaningful projects of my life. It has also given me a front row seat to a lesson I thought I already knew.
We planned to open in September
For months, everything we did was built around that date. The equipment orders, the founding member campaign, the hiring conversations all pointed toward it, and somewhere along the way I stopped thinking of September as a goal and started thinking of it as a given.
As I write this, it is late October. Daily Lagree has not opened, and we do not have a new date yet.
What surprised me is that nothing really went wrong. There was no failed inspection or bad decision that knocked us off course. The delay built up slowly, one reasonable holdup at a time, through inspections and utility hookups that each took a little longer than expected. Any one of them was easy to absorb. Together, they moved our opening by months.
When I step back and look at the bigger picture, the lesson is one I think applies to almost anyone building something: we planned carefully for the parts we controlled and hardly at all for the parts we didn't.
Every build runs on two timelines, and only one of them is yours
The first timeline is the one you own. It is the build out, the equipment, the brand, the hiring. It moves when you push it, which is exactly why it feels so natural to plan around.
The second timeline belongs to everyone else: the city inspectors, the utility companies, the approvals that have to happen in a certain order before the next one can start. It does not move faster because you are working harder or because you have already announced an opening. In most businesses with a physical space, that second timeline decides when you actually open your doors.
That is especially true in San Antonio right now. The growth on the west side, where we chose to build in Alamo Ranch, is a big part of what drew us here. It also means that everyone else who saw the same opportunity is waiting in the same lines we are. Growth brings opportunity and congestion together, and a realistic plan has to make room for both.
Real estate has always understood this
I have spent years working alongside real estate agents and watching this play out in their business. Building something of my own, with my daughter, has made it personal.
Today's market is a good example. With rates in the mid 7% range, a lot of buyers have decided to wait for better conditions. Homes are staying on the market longer, and sellers who did everything right are finding that their timeline is being set by things well outside their control. Buyers feel it from the other side, too, with their plans shaped by the school year, the sale of their current home, or simply the choice to wait and see where the market goes.
The agents who handle this well have something in common. They don't promise control they don't have. They give their clients an honest picture of the market, keep doing the work, and stay in touch through the slow stretches. In a market like this one, that steadiness is a big part of what clients are counting on.
A delay is a brand moment, whether you treat it like one or not
When September came and went, my daughter and I had a waitlist and a group of founding members who had committed to Daily Lagree before taking a single class. They trusted us based on nothing more than what we told them we were building.
The natural instinct is to go quiet and only come back once you have good news. We went the other way. We reached out directly, told people where things stood, and were honest that we did not have a new date yet and were not going to make one up just to have something to say.
I have written before that a brand is about how you behave, not what your logo looks like, and this is where that becomes real. For the people who signed up early, how we communicate during the delay is their first real experience of who we are. That impression will last longer than opening day, and no amount of launch excitement can fully make up for it if we get it wrong.
Real estate teaches the same thing. The agents with the best reputations are not the ones whose deals never hit a snag. They are the ones whose clients always knew what was going on and why.
Waiting isn't the same as standing still
The second timeline decides when you open. It does not decide what you do while you wait.
So we pivoted our energy toward what was still ours to move. We hired our instructors and kept building the team, so that when the city side finally comes together, we will be ready to open instead of scrambling to catch up. Agents in a slow market are doing the same thing: the ones who keep their relationships warm and their clients informed will be in the best position when things pick back up. Waiting only becomes wasted time if you let it.
How to pivot when the timeline isn't yours
Whether you are opening a studio or guiding a client to the closing table, the same habits help when the calendar shifts:
- Name the timeline you control. List what still moves when you push it, and put your effort there first.
- Tell people early and honestly. Share where things stand before anyone has to ask, even when you don't have a new date.
- Use the wait to get ready. Build the team, sharpen the systems, and strengthen relationships so you are ready the moment the door opens.
What I'd plan for differently next time
Map out both timelines from the start. For the one you don't control, find out early who has to sign off, what order it happens in, and how long it is actually taking for other people in your area right now. Then give yourself more cushion than feels necessary.
And decide ahead of time how you will talk to people when the date moves, because it probably will. The people waiting on you will remember how you handled the delay long after they have forgotten how long it lasted.
The calendar was never ours to control. How we show up while we wait is completely up to us.
About Natalie
Natalie Biggers is a Business Development Executive at Chicago Title San Antonio, where she has partnered with real estate agents since 2017. A passionate connector, she helps business owners network and build their brand identity. She also owns Daily Lagree, a boutique Lagree studio in Alamo Ranch on San Antonio's west side, alongside her daughter.
A San Antonio native, Natalie spent 12 years as a REALTOR with Phyllis Browning Company and Keller Williams, where she served as a Luxury Consultant, and later spent nearly six years as a business coach with MAPS Business Coaching. She studied English and professional writing at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She believes every team member, no matter their title or role, is vital to the whole team's success. When she is not working, she is raising strong women and saving stray animals.
Build Different is her newsletter about business, people, and the real work behind building something worth having.
Connect with Natalie: 210.710.3713 ·
natalie.biggers@ctt.com