5 Questions to Ask EVERY Seller & Finding the “Bunnies” To Close the Deal

David:
This is the BiggerPockets podcast, show 528. And this one is all about going belly to belly direct with sellers,

Pace:
I’m not a good fit for every client, I’m really not a good fit for every seller, I just am not. And so it’s better for me to figure that out as fast as possible, so I can direct them to where they really need to be, so that we stay authentic to being just a really good upstanding business in helping people.

David:
All right, do not adjust your earbuds. This is our new intro music. What do you think? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Is it better than it was before? Does anybody miss the old announcer guy, because for now, he’s going to be stepping into retirement as he rides into the sunset. And we’re going to be moving on to this new intro music. Of course, announcer man will live on forever in our hearts, as well as in the 527 episodes that he was a part of. So for now, let me just say this is David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets podcast, where it is our mission to help you build financial freedom through real estate. We believe investing in real estate is the best way for the average American to build significant financial wealth and eventually find financial freedom. And we help you to do that by bringing on other people who have done it dissecting their stories, finding out what they did well, what they did not do well, and how they develop the system they ultimately had that led them to finding the same success we want for you.

David:
Today’s show is not just notable because of the new intro music, but also because of our guest today, Pace Morby. Now, we interviewed Pace a little while ago, and we talked to him about his system of finding off market deals directly to sellers. And it was so good that we brought him back on for he and I to get into this topic in more detail. And in the next show, Pace is going to be doing a Q&A episode with live calls. If you didn’t get a chance to check out last week’s episode, definitely go do that. But for today, Pace and I are going to cover the five ways that we get a seller to say yes.

David:
Now, I’ll give you a sneak peek. One of the ways that Pace does this so well, is by the power of stories. You want to listen to find out his secret for what he calls finding the bunnies, it will completely change the way you communicate with off market sellers. Okay, with that, let’s get on to the Show With today’s guest, Pace Morby. Mr. Pace Morby what’s going on my friend? How are you today?

Pace:
David Greene, one of my big heroes. How’re you doing brother?

David:
I’m doing pretty good. Thanks for saying that. So, welcome to the podcast. I’m excited to have you on as my guest co host today. We are going to have an episode that you listeners need to buckle your seats for. So we’re going to be doing a solo show similar to how Brandon and I do but with Pace because when we interviewed you Pace on our last show, it was so popular people liked it so much. We had to bring you back to dive even deeper into one of your areas of expertise. You’re a man of many areas of expertise, a multi talented ninja of real estate. But when it comes to getting sellers to say yes, off market deals or even on market deals where you’re just trying to get the person on the other end of the table that has an asset you want, this would apply to you if you’re a real estate agent, a loan officer, an investor trying to get a house, whatever it is, they have something that you want to own or help them with how you get them to say yes.

David:
So I’m excited. We’ve got five things, the first five questions that every person should ask to get a seller to say yes. Before we dive into that, do you want to give us any background into this or provide a framework?

Pace:
Yes, please, please, please. So, if you don’t mind, I’d love to tell you the story of my first deal I ever did. And honestly, I’m so glad the way it worked out is the way it worked out because I learned a massive lesson. And I tell people, it’s all about finding the bunnies. Okay? It sounds silly, but I want to tell you a quick story. So, my first deal ever taught me the five questions that we’re going to go into a little bit later, David. And the first deal was with a lady named Janie. I ended up sending her a postcard, right? “Hey, I’ll buy your house cash.” She calls on my postcard. This is before I even knew what a purchase contract looked like, I just jumped in both feet, took action, send out postcards, I get Janie to call me. I go set up an appointment. I go to this appointment, and I learned that Janie already has an offer from another buyer for $265,000.

Pace:
And me going through and utilizing spreadsheets and going through BiggerPockets forums and all that kind of stuff. I knew that I had to buy this house at $250,000 or less to make this deal work. So, instead of trying to hard sell her because that’s not my personality type, I just told Janie straight up. I said, “Janie honestly, there’s nothing I can do to help you. I am definitely not your buyer. I’m not your buyer. There’s just no way I can buy this house. If you already have somebody at $265,000, you definitely should go that direction.” And she’s like, “Wow, really you don’t even want to make an offer?” I said, “Janie I’m well below that number and if you already have an offer, I think you should take it.” So as I’m leaving the house, I turn around and I go to Janie, “Janie, is there anything else I can do to help you?” And she’s like, “Oh, what do you mean? What do you mean? If you can’t buy my house, how else could you help me?”

Pace:
And I said, “Well, Janie, you said in our conversation that you are a retired school teacher, you’re wanting to go back to Oregon to move back with your family, which is the reason you’re selling your house and you’re not probably going to go through a real estate agent, you just kind of want a quick sale, something more convenient. I’m just wondering, is there any way I can help you load up your truck or pack up boxes, any of my people can help you out?” And she’s like, “Wow, you’re serious?” I go, “Yes, I’m dead serious. Is there anything I can do to help?” And she says, “Well, this is a really weird request, but I have these bunnies that are like the size of Rottweilers that my granddaughter said she wanted, I bought them for her, they’re in the backyard. I don’t know what to do with these bunnies.”

Pace:
And I’m like, “You’re serious. You have big bunnies that you don’t know what to do with them.” She says, “Yes.” And this is absolute true story. It’s my first deal I… The first appointment I ever went on by the way, David. So I go in the backyard, I see these big bunnies, they’re like the Cadbury egg bunnies, they’re the massive, massive bunnies. She was, “I need to find a home for them and I don’t have the time.” I go, “Okay, well my mom has a little farm like 50 miles down the road, maybe I can have my mom take care of the bunnies.” Long story short, I ended up getting my mom on the phone, my mom comes and picks up the bunnies and Janie’s in tears. She can’t believe that I was willing to help her when nobody else even cared to ask her is there anything else we can do? Even if I’m not buying the house.

Pace:
So, whatever, I give her a hug, we’re all happy. Her and my mom were exchanging pleasantries, et cetera. And a week later, Janie calls me and she says, “Hey, Pace, how you doing?” I go, “Hey, Jamie, how’s it going? How’s the transaction going?” She goes, “I’ve canceled the contract with the other people.” She says, “I ended up not signing with the other people, I want to sell my house to you.” “What do you mean, you want to sell the house to me? She said, “You were the only person that cared about me to ask me anything besides about my house. You actually took the time to listen to what was going on, and where I was going and why I needed to get there. And you actually did something without any financial benefit to yourself. I want to sell my house to you.”

Pace:
And I said, “Janie, I told you, I can’t pay 265 for this house, I can’t.” And she goes, “I know. I want to sell the house to you at your number.” And we ended up buying the house… I ended up buying the house for $250,000, just because I was willing to listen to her, I was willing to find the bunnies and I was willing to actually go across the table in exchange a relationship type of conversation rather than trying to be a salesman, right? In essence, I took the sales cap off and just tried to have a human to human conversation. So now what I tell people all the time, when they call me and they go, “Hey, I have a lead or I have a deal I’m trying to contract the seller.” I always ask, “Did you find the bunnies?” And they go, “What do you mean did I find the bunny?” Why would a seller sell to you? What are you providing to them in their life? What convenience? What service? What value are you providing to them outside of just a purchase price? What are you doing to care about the seller.

Pace:
And so a lot of people in my industry will say Pace is an amazing sell… He’s an amazing closer. I don’t think I’m an amazing closer, I think I just truly care about the person across the table more than most people really ever do. And so if you’re brand new to this industry, remember that your goal in working out a deal with any seller is always about finding the bunnies. It’s very rarely actually about the house. It’s always about the bunnies. It’s whatever is going on inside of their world. And so I was very lucky we ended up making $50,000 on that deal. I actually ended up assigning that deal to a fix-and-flipper, I knew and it was my first deal. I got a wholesale deal $50,000. And I just learned that valuable lesson. So now when I go to somebody’s porch or I’m on the phone with somebody, in my mind, I’m always thinking I need to find the bunnies, I need to find the bunnies.

Pace:
So the conversation we’re going to have today are the five things that I asked Janie in that appointment and the five things I ask every seller in every appointment and what I train all my sales guys to ask every seller in every appointment as well.

David:
Well that might be what makes you a great closer. So, I think people are going to see after they listen to this episode, how there’s actually a strategic advantage to understanding what the person on the other side of this deal is looking for. What matters to them, it’s not… It is benevolence and that does get you into situations where you’re more likely to help somebody but at the same time, it’s also a wise business move if you can understand what matters to them and what their goals are, it actually puts you in the driver’s seat for making that deal work, develops stress. A lot of really cool things, most human beings probably don’t make the connection between doing the right thing for somebody else, and how that actually is the smarter business move in a lot of cases.

David:
So, I’m excited to bring this to our listeners today, because I think that this will turn on a lot of light bulbs. There’s a lot of people who are trying to put deals together, and they just ask, “Well, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to say?” They’re trying to force their way in an opening that doesn’t always exist. And what you do Pace, is you’re very good at poking around and finding where the holes are, and then going in through the opening that’s there. So you also mentioned these giant rabbits. And it reminded me of this horror movie I saw when I was a little kid in my grandmother’s house that really bugged me, and I looked it up and it’s called Night of the Lapus, where these huge rabbits are running around terrorizing an entire city. It was the weirdest movie that stuck with me.

Pace:
It was massive rabbits?

David:
Yeah, humongous rabbits that were killing people and jumping all over them and just terrorizing a town for a night. It was made in 1972. So, it’s a very old movie.

Pace:
Oh my gosh!

David:
Yes.

Pace:
And of course it was at your grandma’s house. So, it just put this extra fear, creepiness was in the basement-

David:
Very similar to that. Dark room staying the night over there. I was probably five or six years old, and I’ve watched that terrible horror movie. So now every time I hear about large rabbits, I just… Go Google that and see-

Pace:
Oh my gosh!.

David:
… this terrible movie.

Pace:
Yeah. My mom ended up selling those rabbits to somebody else, but it just like… It was what sealed the deal. The rabbits, the stinking rabbits. That’s what sealed the deal.

David:
So, just like you have heard vacuum your truck, now we have find the bunnies. All right.

Pace:
Find the bunnies all the time.

David:
That’s a great intro. So, Pace, what is the first question that a buyer or a person should ask to get a yes from the seller.

Pace:
Okay. So, in my industry, in my experience, my first couple years in the business, I would actually go on physical appointments. Now, technology has advanced a little bit more, we had the whole pandemic thing. So more and more people are doing stuff over the phone and staying virtual. So, when I first started, imagine walking up to a sellers home and walking into their house to see their home and have a conversation about working out a deal with them, an off market deal. The first question I would ask, besides, “Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for having me come over.” All those types of things. I would just say, are you currently working with an agent? Or I would say what did your agent say your house is worth? And the main reason for this is I call this the black swan question.

Pace:
I’m trying to pull out anything that I might not be aware of, right? Relationships that are going to come and haunt me later down the road, maybe there’s a relationship with a realtor that I really should collaborate on rather than compete with the realtor. And I’ll give you a really good example. This is something that happens all the time. We actually have a deal in place in Arizona right now. Our cold callers call the seller, the seller says, “Yeah, I am interested in selling my house.” And my sales guy, my acquisition guy says, “Okay, what did your realtor say about what your house was worth?” And the seller says, “Oh, I’m glad you asked. My realtor says we should sell the house for 205 and that he wants to list the property next week.” If we didn’t ask that question, we would have been going into negotiations and doing all sorts of things, just to find out the seller wasn’t going to sell to us anyway, he was always going to sell with his realtor, because they’re friends, right?

Pace:
A lot of people’s realtors are their lifelong friends. And really good realtors are all about relationships. And so that would be basically an impossible seller to ever get into a contract. So what we did instead, and what we always do, is we find out what the realtor thinks the house is worth and we just say, “Why don’t you have your realtor represent you, we’ll make sure they get paid their commissions and instead of listing it on the market, we’ll just buy it directly through you and have your agent get paid their commissions.” And so we’ve got a deal in piece that we bought for 205, the houses probably ARV is like 330, needs $10,000 in renovations, and we bought it through the realtor rather than competing. So for us, the first thing I want to know, is there somebody else that’s making the decision with you.

Pace:
And the best way to ask that question is, are you working with anybody else? Or is there anybody else part of this decision making? And 99% of the time, it’s an agent, that’s a friend. And so you want to pull that out as fast as possible. And I think, David, I don’t know what your experience is with this, and I’d be curious. I feel like people want to dodge like an ostrich with their head in the sand. They want to hide from anybody else that could be their competition. For me, I want to pull all the competition together and know who I’m playing against, and see if there’s any way to collaborate with any one of those parties.

David:
Yeah, that’s big. When you’re an agent, they’re often talking to other agents that you don’t know about, and they don’t know how to tell you that or they don’t want to tell you that. And if you make them feel threatened, then they’re not going to. And what they’ll often do is say, “Well, what’s your commission?” Usually when they asked that question before anything else, they just want a number they can give to someone else and say, “Well, can you beat this?”

Pace:
So they’re kind of playing two parties-

David:
Yes, that’s exactly right. There’s another one who will say, what kind of services do you offer? Before they even want to know what do I know about real estate or how can I help them it’s just what’s in it for me? Same thing, they usually want to go to another agent. The other time where I see this play out is when somebody else is putting money in the deal. They’re getting money from their dad for the down payment, and you never talk to dad. You’re just dealing with them, and you find-

Pace:
The black swan.

David:
You get the house, they’re happy, they love it, dad goes and walks the house and he’s a little upset that he wasn’t included in the transaction. Instead, he finds ways to be a good dad, which is to say, that’s wrong, that’s wrong, that’s wrong. This is a terrible house, I’m saving you for making a big mistake. And they go from a happy buyer to a resentful, regretful buyer because I didn’t ask the question of who else is involved in this decision.

Pace:
That’s a really great point. So, my wife is a realtor. And so she had a buyer that she was showing around town, she probably showed them five, six different property, or probably five or six different weekends she spent with them. And then one day, like a week later, two weeks later, she sees on their Facebook, that they posted a photo of them at a new build community with a completely different real estate agent buying a home. And my wife gets defensive and all that kind of stuff. I say, “Sweetheart, let’s figure out where was the misstep, where is the problem.” And that’s exactly what happened. She did not include the father to go along and look at properties. She didn’t ask if there was anybody else involved. And she found out that the father was bringing the down payment for the house. And so he felt like, “Well, I’m bringing the money, but you’re not including me, this agent’s disrespectful. And so now she immediately put that father in law or the father in a defensive situation.

Pace:
And he ended up getting one of his realtor friends and bringing them to the table. And they got all the Commission’s. And so now my wife asked the same question, doesn’t matter if you’re an agent, doesn’t matter if you’re doing off market wholesale deals, you’ve got to know who are all the other parties. And more important, you’ve got to give the seller permission to tell you. Tell them it’s okay, hey, let’s talk about this. Maybe there’s some collaboration, let’s fit all collectively figure out how to solve whatever your issue is together.

David:
I’ve had the same thing with friends that bring me opportunities off market deals, “Hey, do you want to just buy my house, instead of putting it on the MLS?” And I’m dealing with them, I put all this work into it. And then when it comes time to getting it signed, I find out that their brothers and sisters are on title. And I never talked to any of them. And they don’t like that feeling of this getting done behind their back. And usually I did negotiate a better price than what Zillow is going to say, that was the whole reason I’m buying it. And it’s been blown up almost every time by those other people that you… Like the black swan, you never think that there’s going to be someone else involved.

David:
So I think what you’re seeing is very smart. It’s creating an environment where the other side feels comfortable to say, “Here’s all my cards, how should I play my hand? We’re going to do this together versus I don’t want to tell Pace all my cards, because he’s going to try to take advantage of me if he knows it. And you think that you’re having a transparent conversation, and you don’t find out until you’re actually at the closing table? It’s not going to happen.

Pace:
Yeah. And I think, maybe you and I could do another video about this in the future on upfront contract. So like when we set appointments, or we’re about to get on the phone, our team or back in the day, when I used to do it all myself, I would always set an upfront contract, the upfront contract was always, “Hey, I’m going to come to your home, and I’m going to go through things. And at the end of the day, I might not be a good fit for you.” But what we really need to do is come up with either a yes or no, but we definitely don’t want to have a maybe. So let’s just make sure we put everything on… I’ll give you everything on my side, you give me everything on your side, and if we’re not a good fit, are you okay just telling me that I’m not a good fit for you?

Pace:
And you always get the seller to commit to saying, “Yes, I am okay telling you that you’re not a good fit.” Then you go to the appointment. And then the tone has been set. The, “Hey, we’re having an honest conversation here and we’re not going to waste each other’s time.”

David:
That makes me think of how many people have met someone that they were interested in and started dating and it didn’t go that way, where they didn’t cope, feel like, “Hey, here’s everything good and bad about me.” And we just have an honest conversation of are we a good fit instead, both sides try to hide their best or hide their worst qualities and accentuate their best. And it’s not until you’ve invested in the relationship much like the escrow that you realize where a terrible fitness deal isn’t going to work.

Pace:
Yeah, guys, we’re giving you dating advice right now, not just real estate guys.

David:
BiggerPockets, love. All right, so this sort of segues us into question number two. So after you’ve asked the question, are you working with an agent or what did your agent say? What’s your next question?

Pace:
So I always jump into saying, “Are you okay with telling me no?” So I reiterate what we did in the upfront contract. So before we even get to the house, we do that upfront contract saying, “Hey, this could go this way or that way.” And then number two, is just saying, “Hey, by the end of this appointment, I might not be a good fit for you, and honestly, your house might not be a good fit for me and my company as well. Can we both agree that it’s okay for either party to say no to each other?” And again, it reestablishes that honest environment, so that everybody can be really, really open and transparent. And what happens is, the seller is like, “Whoa!” Because in this really competitive market, there’s no seller we’ve ever spoken to ever, not even in… This is competitive market.

Pace:
There’s never been a seller I’ve spoken to that has not spoken to a real estate agent, or 10 wholesalers or whatever, they’re all being hit up, they’re all being approached and marketed to, but only the best highest level professionals are asking these questions and getting the guard to come down. So that you can come across the table and have an honest conversation. Most people come in and they start beating up the house, they start talking about, well, your roof is ugly, and your this is that, and you’re immediately having the seller put all the defenses up. So you want to get them to recommit to saying, “It’s okay for me to say no to you.” And then you reiterate by saying, “Is it okay for me to say no to you?” And you immediately do the pullback.

David:
So, two things I want to ask you there or to comment on. The first is, that is a classic rookie blunder when you go to the owner of something and you beat up the value of it, and you tell them, your house looks terrible. I’ve seen agents do that where they want the person selling the house to be more realistic with the price. And they say, “Well, your drapes are ugly, the carpet looks terrible. It really needs to be painted, the upkeep isn’t there. This is why we got to list it lower.” And they think that the other side is going to say, “Oh my God, I haven’t taken care of my house. Yes, do this.” But all that happens is the other side says, “I don’t want you working with me. You don’t like my house.” So we do have a rule. Go ahead.

Pace:
Yeah, the rule is this. Here’s the rule. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. Good old Dale Carnegie, right? If you’re going to try and tell somebody their carpet is ugly and stinks, you’re telling them that you think that they’re a pig, and that they live in something that’s disgusting. And it’s completely offensive. I went on an appointment. David, I’d say it’s probably second year, third year in the business. I was constantly going and shadowing people to help them out. Right? Just local in my market, I would want to JV and collaborate with people and say, “Hey, if you guys want me to just come and listen to your appointments, I’ll come with you. I go to the appointment of this guy named John. John gets out and he goes, “Oh, I forgot.” He runs back to his car, and he grabs his clipboard. And I’m like, “Oh, what’s the clipboard for?”

Pace:
And he goes, “Well, this is like, as I go through the house, I basically grade their house as I’m walking through it, so that at the end of the appointment, I can tell them, well, I’ve graded the tile, I’ve graded this, and this is kind of…” I’m like, “Bro, this is why you needed me to shadow you, is because you’re sitting here telling the sellers that they’re horrible human beings and their house is stupid. Why do you want to buy a house, it’s so ugly?”

David:
On your first date by the way.

Pace:
On your first date. It’s so bad, I love that you called it a rookie mistake.

David:
Because you think in your mind, you’re changing their head, but you’re not. To them, it feels the same as your first date with someone and they say, here’s why you should date me. You’ve really let yourself go a little bit, you’re hard to get along with, you don’t have a great job, I’m the best option that’s ever going to come your way. And if you don’t go with me, you’re going to not be able to go with anybody. So I’m willing to take you on under these terms. You’re going to cook for this many times a night, you’re going to do all these things. Nobody in that situation wants to hear that on the first date. And that’s exactly how you make the other side-

Pace:
You’re lucky to be on a date with me. And by the way, did I mention your breath stinks?

David:
And so because of that, don’t expect as much for me, I’m going to lower the price of what I’m going to offer you for this house. That’s the way it’s received when we approach it that way.

Pace:
People see that. Here’s the thing, is like you go to the old school methodology of sales, right? Like the psychology of sales and how to manipulate sellers and planting seeds and doing all these things. Kind of an old school used car mentality. But really, people want to do business with people they know, like and trust. And people really want to do business with people who also like them, right? You like me, I like you. Great, let’s have a relationship together. Let’s figure something out where we both benefit. You’re absolutely not going to accomplish that when you’re telling people they have ugly house and horrible drapes and all that kind of stuff. You lose, you’ve lost.

David:
So keep that in mind everybody. We have a rule on my team that you cannot say anything negative about someone’s house until the listing agreement is signed. And even at that point, it needs to be worded very delicately, you don’t come out and say, your carpet sacks.

Pace:
Hmm, I love that.

David:
But at the listing appointment, I would never say yeah, your kitchens outdated. That’s not an appropriate time. So there could be a point-

Pace:
I love that we’re in such in sync on that.

David:
Yes, there could be a point where that does need to happen where you need to have an honest conversation about, “Hey, if we want to get top dollar, we need to make your house more neutral, right? We can’t have the bright purple on orange walls. And I’m sure the same thing happens when you put something under contract. There is a point where you may need to say, “Look, the ARV is only this much according to… This is why your house doesn’t comp to that property over there.

David:
So this is why I’m able to offer, but don’t lead with that. You know, the last thing I wanted to make about your second question, which is are you okay with telling me no? Is, it sort of puts the other side in a position where this is not a lay down gimme, you’re not just going to chase them and throw money at them, you’ve already let them say, “Hey, I’m really interested in you. I’d like to date you.” But you’re not throwing yourself you’re not like whatever you want. I’ll just do it. Right? Nobody wants to see that either, that this person’s a pushover. So it lets them feel a little bit like, “Hey, maybe I got to sell Pace on my property. Do you want to comment on that?

Pace:
Yeah, one of my favorite lines, I tell people this is maybe another show that we do in the future is, I have a line of saying, I’m probably not the right buyer for you. I’m probably not the right buyer for you. But let me help you try and find a buyer or let me help you do this. And I immediately start pulling away because it is the opposite of what every other salesperson is going to be doing. I just say I might not be your buyer, and I immediately make the ground very neutral. And we both have to come to the table with value, they have to come with the appropriate price, and I have to come with timeline, price and all of the other things as well. So, neutral ground, trying to make everything neutral ground, not I’m the salesperson, and I’m trying to-

David:
Which is very important if you’re going to do the pullback, “Hey, I may not be the right buyer.” That you also have already expressed, where’s your bunnies? When that person is like, “Well, he’s not chasing me, he’s not overwhelming me, but he really cares about me, he still wants me to be happy. In fact, he wants to make sure that we’re a good fit, because he doesn’t want to waste my time.” That’s a completely different presentation to this person you’re interested in or this deal you’re interested in, than, “Hey, if you don’t have what I want, you have nothing to offer me and I’m on my way.”

Pace:
Right. So, I’m probably not your buyer is one of my most used words, or sentences. Another one that’s really, really strong. These are not questions I ask sellers, but this is another one that I’ll use for a seller is… Well, you’ve got I’m probably not your buyer. Obviously, that’s a really, really good one, then you’ve got one… We could get into the weeds on all the questions. I probably should stick to the five questions I asked instead of getting to all the strategies and all the-

David:
Maybe what’s another version of are you okay with telling me no? Do you have other substitutes for them?

Pace:
I’ve got one that just says… My favorite thing to ever ask a seller is this. Catch me up to speed. It’s such an open ended question, I say, catch me up to speed. Where are you at in the process? Why would I be a good fit? Why would an investor be a good fit for you? And I’ll tell you, if an investor is not a good fit for you by the end of you telling me what’s going on. So, I always say catch me up to speed and I shut up.

David:
I like that.

Pace:
And I let them say, “Well, I’ve met with this person, I’ve met with this.” And that kind of stuff. And I always ask, the third question I always ask in that vein is, so why weren’t you guys able to work out a deal? What are you looking for that somebody else has not been able to provide you? And essentially, you’re just continually trying to chase the bunnies. You’re trying to find the bunnies. What’s going on? What are you really trying to accomplish? And you’re trying to get them to be authentic and honest with you through those lines of questions. And letting them know it’s okay to say no, it’s okay to say this is what I really need. This is okay for my timeline to be here. It’s okay for you to be embarrassed about your house. Let’s just have a quick honest conversation and I’ll tell you if I’m a good fit or not.

David:
We do something very similar where when somebody was working with another agent, and now we’re talking to them, the question I trained my team to ask is, what were you unhappy with? Or what would you have changed about your relationship with your last agent?

Pace:
So good. When we call on expired listings, because I never go after people who are listed. Unless I’m working with the agent. And a lot of investors I see do that’s just kind of a horrible thing. We wait for the… If the listing is expired, we always call the seller and say, what were you looking for that the other party was not able to accomplish? And is that something that you wouldn’t mind giving us an opportunity to try and accomplish for you? Something along those lines. Very, very simple. And then you’re giving them permission to basically complain about the other party and tell you every little nitty gritty detail.

David:
And they will. That’s why we ask it. People will hand you the playbook of exactly what they want if you ask that question the right way. I’m sure there’s a very similar dating thing. Well, what did you not like about your last girlfriend or your last boyfriend?

Pace:
Oh my gosh!

David:
Who doesn’t want to vent about everything that irritated him? And now you see where here’s all the landmines that I want to avoid? Where when you don’t ask that question you mean well but you step on these landmines the entire time and depending on how solid of a relationship you have with that other party, a couple animates might be more than that relationship can withstand.

Pace:
Right, 100%.

David:
Okay, so that’s very, very good. I like that. So now that you’ve asked them, are you okay with telling me no? We want to get to a yes or no, we want to avoid the maybe, what We have to do to figure that out? Now the… I want to say the battle lines, but the boundaries of this relationship are very clearly defined. And you now, Pace as the person pursuing the deal knows more or less what you got to get to in order to make that a win for both parties. What is your third question?

Pace:
So the third question we ask or I train my team to ask is, what’s your plan moving forward? Now a different version of that question. So again, what’s your plan moving forward? Once we finalize the transaction in the world that we potentially work out a deal? Where are you? Where are you living? Where did you move to? Are you in an apartment? Are you moving in with somebody else? Are you going and buying another house? What does that look like? Tell me what’s going on? Another way I say that in my own words, is I’ll say something like, imagine you have a magic wand and you could just wave your magic wand and this whole transaction is done, where are you living? What are you doing? What’s going on? Paint that picture for me.

Pace:
And I actually tell the seller to paint the picture for me. And I give them three or four minutes to just line that all out. And then I as the salesperson or as the value provider, I figure out where can I provide value in that story, so I can help make sure that story becomes a reality for that seller.

David:
That’s very, very important. You’re, you’re getting them. This is what I like about that. A lot of the times when we’re in a situation that we’re not happy, we’re in pain, which most of your clients who are not clients, but the people on the other side, in some form are experiencing pain. That’s why you’re at the table. They know they want to get out of the pain, but they don’t know how. And many of them don’t even understand that they are empowered to figure out how to get out of that pain, right? Most of us don’t think clearly when we are in pain, that’s one of the things that you learn in jujitsu is when there’s another human being with all of their weight on your chest or your face. It’s very hard to think in that moment, what do I need to do? And until you’ve been in that experience, many, many times your brain, the neurons in your brain start to work their way through that problem. But there’s a panic mode that hits when you first get hit.

David:
And it was very similar, like the law enforcement industry, when you first find yourself in a catastrophe, nobody just becomes a superhero and rises to the occasion, you actually fall down to whatever the last thing that you trained yourself to do was. So you can’t expect the people that you’re working with on the other side to have their own solution. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be talking to you. And that question sort of forces them to ask themselves, yeah, how do I want to get out of here? What would a win for me look like? And if they don’t know, it’s very hard for you to give them what they want. Is that more or less why you’re asking that question?

Pace:
Oh, my gosh! Yes. Here’s a really good phrase along those lines is, a confused mind always says no. And if they don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish, then how are you going to provide that for them? Right? And I love that you said that, that I didn’t understand that about jujitsu. I’m not… That’s not my world. But I love that analogy that makes so much sense. When you’re in pain, it’s the only thing you can think about. And you don’t even understand how to get out of it necessarily. So, I’m telling people, or allowing people to tell you what that looks like, also shows you that they have holes in their story.

Pace:
And then it opens up doors for you to fill in those holes. And they say, “Well, I don’t know.” And then you can ask the question of what if this? Or what if do you have a family member you can move into with? Or are you planning on moving across to get a job? Or what about this or what about that? And you can actually start feeding them questions so that they can fill in the holes of their own story and craft that ending essentially for them, or by nudging them in the right direction.

David:
Which is oftentimes the most loving thing you can do for another person, because they don’t want to be in that spot. And it’s natural for them to look at you like the enemy and put up walls because they think you’re just trying to come in and take their thing for free. By asking these questions you sort of realign yourself instead of against them as with them looking at the common problem. I call that triangle theory on our team, we never want our clients to feel like we are in conflict with them. So, if they want to sell their house for 700,000, but it’s worth 600,000, I don’t want it to be me versus them saying your house is worth 600, no it’s worth seven, now we’re clashing. And even if I win, that relationship is damaged.

David:
What I want to do is create a third person making triangle or a third entity, which in this case would be the market. Hey, based on what the market is telling us, your house would sell for $600,000. Here’s the data that would support that. Right? Now it’s me and you how do we come up with a solution against the market? That’s the enemy.

Pace:
Yeah. A common enemy.

David:
That’s exactly right.

Pace:
I love that.

David:
And then our interests are aligned. And so now they look at me like, “Oh, this person is trying to help me, we are working together on the same goal. Whereas if I don’t provide that I naturally just become inherently the enemy and it’s very hard to get there. And so what you’re describing here is brilliant because you’re working through the psychological barriers that someone has and it’s not inflicting more pain on them. It’s actually helping remove pain, helping them get a clearer head themselves, right? Like in that jujitsu analogy, you’re giving them a little bit of relief from that chest, or that feeling of someone just all their weight on the chest and they can’t breathe. And you’re saying, hey, talk to me about what you’re feeling? What do you think we can do here? And they start coming up with solutions, or at least they come up with a pathway that they want to get out of the pain, which you Pace as the expert, you know what those options are. They don’t know, they’ve never been here. How many deals have you done in your career?

Pace:
Thousands.

David:
Right? So you’ve seen a lot of those angles and all we’re trying to do is get that person to trust us. And so, what you’re describing, it makes sense, you’ve come up with this over thousands of deals, because it’s brilliant.

Pace:
Yeah. Here, if you have the five questions, and I’ll tell you the five questions, I say question number one, are you working with another agent? I call that a… It’s an I question. I’m curious about something. Right? Is an I question. Then number two is a me question. Are you okay telling me something? It’s I, me. And then what ends up happening is I start transitioning to you. Okay, now I understand the I and the me, what’s going on with you? Which is what’s your plan moving forward? Where are you going to be? What’s the magic wand situation? And then you go into four and five, that’s when I transition to the we and the we question, right? It’s I, me, you, we, we. And at the end, it’s now I start doing subtle things like, well, let’s say that we could accomplish this together, let’s say that we could get you to that end result. What would that look like? Right?

Pace:
And we start saying, we, we, we. Start the conversation as I and me, find common ground on the story or whatever the thing they’re trying to accomplish is, and that’s when I start throwing in the we, the we, the we. Now, there’s still some pull away aspects to this too. Before we get into four and five, let’s say that they tell me, “Well, I just need to get rid of property. Somebody in my family, I inherited it. I don’t want to deal with it. I go, “Okay, well, assuming we can come up with all these types of things, what happens if I’m not the buyer?” Do you have a backup plan for that? And I actually start pulling away a little bit and saying, do you have a backup plan? Do you know what you’re doing? So that they can feel a glimpse of a world that does not involve me for a moment.

Pace:
And they go, “Oh, no, no, no, I want you to be part of that transaction, we’ve already solved this together. I’ve told you what I need, you’ve told me you can accomplish that. Now you’re telling me that what happens if you’re not the buyer, what are you talking about man?” And I get them chasing just a little bit on our side, and we turn it into a we thing. And the fourth question. The fourth question is I say this, I say, this is what I train my team, I’ll tell you how I phrase it. How do you know you’ve made the right decision on the person to sell your house to? Another way to say that is say, how do you know that we have solved everything you’re looking for and you’ve made the right decision working together with me?

Pace:
Something along those lines, where it’s now a we, a we, a we, but I always throw back on them and say, how do you know you’ve made the right decision? Or how will you know you’ve made the right decision once you either sign an agreement, or you move forward with one of the buyers that you’re talking to?

David:
So is that similar to where a relationship expert says, do you remember why you first fell in love with them? Oh, tell me what you like about that person?

Pace:
Right there. 100%.

David:
Right. You’re getting them to reinforce all the things that originally they wanted to work with you. Because usually, in my experience, at least once we get some stability or some security, greed will kick in, right? I got that thing that I wanted, how can I get it better? And that’s where they’re going to start asking other people. Well, what would you do? Or what could you give me? Or should I list it on the market? And that’s where dad might step in, because he just now gets brought into the deal. He’s only given you that much, oh, your house is worth way more. And all those doubts start creeping in. So I do think that I agree, it’s very important that you reinforce that it was their decision to get to this point that nobody forced them into that.

Pace:
Yeah. How will you know you’ve made the right decision moving forward with me or anybody else? Is another way that I say that. And I basically have them say that. And it’s also sometimes you’ll get if you missed the black swan in the very beginning on question one, with the real estate agent or the father or whatever, sometimes you’ll get an additional black swan in question number four, which is, well, I’ll know I made the right decision if I have my attorney sign off on it. Okay, now we’re having another conversation. And then I backtrack and I go back to the beginning. And I start going through the process over again, because now I know I have a black swan that I didn’t do a good enough job in the very beginning to pull out, but question number four does so many amazing things, including pulling out any last minute decision makers that I didn’t do a good job extracting, and also getting us on common ground saying, how will we know we’ve made the right decision in moving forward?

David:
So a question four is, how will you know you’ve made the right decision to sell your house? And then you’re letting them talk because what your goal is, is to pull things out of them that you might have missed, rather than to tell them that they’ve made the right decision because that puts them in the position of the quote you said earlier, what was it about a coerced will?

Pace:
Oh, yeah. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

David:
There you go. So if you just tell them, “Oh, here’s why this is the right decision for you, but it was never something they agreed to. Behind that, their subconscious is still saying no and that’s going to come out before the commitment.

Pace:
And I imagine, isn’t that what jujitsu is all about too? Is like taking their body, like their movement and manipulating it to one direction or another direction, is that not what jujitsu is?

David:
For someone like me who’s brand new, what I do is I try to move you in the place I want you to be. So, I’m usually stronger than the other person. And I try to pin them down or grab a limb and push it to where I want it to go. The people that get very good at it, they don’t force anything, they grab your arm. And as you go to push their hand away, then they grab the sleeve of the hand that pushed it away. And as you go to yank that away from them, they let you pull them in deeper to where you are. And they take a tire position. And then if you don’t like that, and you turn away from them, well, they suck up that space. And now they’re sitting heavy on your chest. And to get away from that you turn away and then they take your back. They let you decide what you’re going to do. And they just slowly, slowly-

Pace:
So interesting.

David:
… take advantage of every move. And I’m not at that level yet where I can see those angles. Right? I’m brand new, I haven’t talked to sellers before, but you’re doing jujitsu psychologically, you’re not wasting your energy, you’re making them waste energy, you’re putting them in a position where you’re in an advantage. But that’s okay, because they’re in pain in the first place. Right? A tap for them is actually a win. They got to get rid of this property, but they foresee it like you’re my opponent. And if I tap, then I’m going to lose. That’s the difference. Is this isn’t a situation where one of us wins and one of us loses like in jujitsu. This is more of a situation like if you’re a police officer, and you’re wrestling with a homeless person who thinks that someone’s trying to kill them, and you need to get that knife out of their hands or whatever the case is, is going on, you getting them to submit and that situation keeps them safer, right? That’s more or less. I mean, it’s not a perfect analogy. But yeah, when you’re doing jujitsu-

Pace:
I think it’s a great analogy. I love it.

David:
And I feel like human nature is always to try to overcome or to tell people what to think. But none of us like it when someone does that to us. And that’s what I think you figured out Pace, you’re treating them the way that you would want to be treated. And it’s actually in a loving manner, helping them come to a solution that’s good for them. And it just it’s going to be good for you too.

Pace:
I had a girl on my team, Anna Martina, she’s been with me eight years. And she used to be on my construction company for a long, long time. And then she transitioned into my acquisition department where we buy our off market deals. And she was really struggling for two or three months, really having a hard time. And she just said, “I don’t understand what we’re trying to do here. I don’t know what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to low ball people on their houses.” I’m like, “Anna, let’s go through the last 500 transactions that we’ve done as a company and I’m going to tell you every single story attached to the seller, and I’m going to tell you the pain that they were dealing with, so that you understand what we actually accomplished for them. Instead of you just thinking that we’re low balling people and buying their houses 70 cents on the dollar, whatever it is.” She has this epiphany like, “Oh, my gosh, that makes so much sense.” I go, “Can I tell you 10 more stories?” And I proceeded to tell her 10 more stories.

Pace:
And by the end of the 10th story, she’s like, “I get it. We’re actually helping people relieve their stress and their pain and their whatever.” And I’m like, “Anna, the first question I told you to ask them is, are they working with a real estate agent, because if they should be working with a real estate agent, we actually push them that direction because a real estate agent has a little bit more time to get them a higher price. For us in the off market world, people have a lot of pain don’t really have time, or they really need the convenience factor. We’re finding that through asking them to tell us where those bunnies are. And she just had this major epiphany. So I’m not a good fit for every client. I’m really not a good fit for every seller. I just am not.

Pace:
And so it’s better for me to figure that out as fast as possible, so I can direct them to where they really need to be. So that we stay authentic to being just a really good upstanding business and helping people and so that’s the thing at the end of the day for us, is we help people that’s our company motto. We help people by providing value other people don’t see. That’s it.

David:
That’s a really good word for the people who have guilt over how do I get a good deal for myself without ripping someone off? It depends on the perspective you have. So one of the ways that I’ve learned to look at this is that if I am driving on the road and I want a bottle of water, I will usually stop at 711 to buy it. Now if I buy a bottle of water at 711 that might cost me three dollars. I could save a cup or a thermos and fill it up at my office for free. Or I could buy a case of water at Costco for the same three dollars. Okay? It is absolutely more expensive to do it at 711. But I am choosing to forego the work that it takes ahead of time to drive to Costco, remember that I need the water ahead of time, buy the case, drive it back home, put it in my house, remember to grab it, bring it with me in the car, and then find some way to refrigerate it. Okay?

David:
I am paying extra willingly for the convenience of it is right there, it’s already been refrigerated. And I have to compensate 711 for the work that they did to get that thing shipped into their place, put into inventory, put into the fridge, kept cold by their own power bills. And if you understand that there’s a willing trade off when you pay more for convenience, I’m not being ripped off by 711, that is the best option for me at that time. And if I wanted more for my house, I would have to be willing to go through the process of putting more time, more energy, more effort, sometimes putting more capital of my own into that house to fix it up. All the things that you’re going to do after the house closes, you have those resources. And I just want to kind of reiterate that, because when you’re offering someone less than the value of their home, that does not automatically mean you’re ripping them off, just like when 711 charges me more for a bottle of water, they’re not ripping me off either.

Pace:
Right, 100%. And again, we keep a spreadsheet of every deal that we do. And there’s always a story attached to it. Every single seller has a story and the story involves a tremendous amount of pain that requires a tremendous amount of convenience. And so if we can’t accomplish that, and they don’t need that, that’s why question number one is so important is because we push them in the right direction to get the highest price with the timeline that they have. But if their timeline is like, “I need the money in two weeks, I have a thing. I have a such and such.” Or I in… We had a deal where the seller says, “I live out of town, my probate attorney referred my number to you, I don’t ever want to go to this house, I inherited it for my uncle. Just tell me your number.” And we say, “Well, why don’t you tell us your number?” Right? And he’s like, “I don’t care. 150 grand.” I’m like, “Well, I think it’s probably more like $185,000.” He goes, “Shit. Yeah, sure, whatever.”

Pace:
He didn’t want to deal with anything other than just getting a check. It was the weirdest thing, even when we paid him more money than he asked, and we were trying to be really honest, because it was a referral from a probate attorney. He didn’t even care about that. Guys, I’m telling you, there are so many sellers that are like that, if you understand how to find off market deals, there are so many sellers that are just like that. It’s just not a good fit for going through a traditional real estate listing some of the time. And that’s the goal of an off market deal, is to find those situations.

David:
And I would add that you’re doing that with the understanding that you are giving up the convenience of having an agent to do a lot of the work that agents typically do. When you’re going after these off market deals, you should be able to get a better deal, but that’s because you spent more time and effort and energy resources to find that deal. And you maybe need to have a little bit more experience with knowing like what do I do once I get it? That’s another problem I see these people say I want an off market deal, but then they want to go to an agent and say, “Hey, can you do this for me?” But they don’t want to pay him. You have to pick one of those two roads.

Pace:
Totally agree. That’s a whole nother topic for a whole nother day. I love that topic. That’s a great topic.

David:
Yeah. This applies whether you’re the buyer, whether you’re the seller, whether what industry you’re in, I just think bringing clarity on what are you getting into where do you fit on this spectrum is really important because a lot of people don’t take action because they’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. And just life and businesses doesn’t work that way.

Pace:
Right.

David:
Okay, so that brings us to question number five. So, once you’ve got to the point of how will you know you’ve made the right decision, you’ve got some clarity on what a win looks like, where do you go from there?

Pace:
So we always ask this question. We say, okay, so assuming we can accomplish this story, right? Because the seller has now told us a story about what they’re trying to accomplish. And if they don’t know the story quite yet, we try and fill in the gaps and create this perfect fairytale ending for them. And that’s a whole nother topic for another day. I could share sale recordings, I could share all sorts of fun things. You guys can hear how these conversations go. And you’ll see how they beautifully come together. We had a seller say no 35 times to something in the same conversation. And by the end, we ended up getting the contract, because we were filling in the gaps of what their story really was and what they were missing. But at the last question I say, assuming we could accomplish everything we talked about today, what’s our next step?

Pace:
And that’s our closing line. People always wonder, what’s the closing line? How do you get people to sign on the paperwork? What’s the actual line you use to get the seller to say, “Great, pull out the agreement?” Do you say, “All right, it’s time to sign the contract, now go get your pens, let’s meet.” No, our line, this is our closing line. It doesn’t seem like a closing line, which is what the best closing lines always are. Is assuming we could do everything or assuming we could accomplish everything we talked about today and get you to this point. What’s our next step? And I throw it all back on them and they go, “I guess, let’s put an agreement together.” Perfect. And then what I do is I’ll either get my transaction coordinator or I will have already brought a contract, I go pull it out of my truck or whatever. And that’s the closing line. The closing line is assuming we can accomplish everything we talked about today. What’s our next step?

David:
Oh, I’m so glad you’re saying this. Because I’ve seen so many, I see this in the agent realm a lot of the time where the agent will blow them away with a listing presentation or a buyer’s presentation. And they know what the client wants, and they are so committed to helping them and they’re incredibly excited. And then they get scared to say, hey, here’s what comes next. Or what’s our next step? Or, hey, here’s what I’d like to do from here.

Pace:
Right.

David:
And it’s like spending all your time talking to that person and telling them how much you’re interested in them and how great they are and winning them over and making them like you, then you don’t set up another date.

Pace:
Bro.

David:
And you put it put the ball in their court. Now they got to come and figure out what goes next after you just basically made it look like you’ve got the plan, right? It’s so easy to screw that up because you’re afraid of rejection, or you don’t want to take the lead, but they’re looking for you to tell them here’s what comes next. Would you agree?

Pace:
I could not agree anymore. And since this has become a dating advice show, I’m going to tell you guys a little story. I went on a date with a girl, and I remember going on a date, everything went famously. Really, really great date. And I’m walking her up to her doorstep. And we ended up sitting there talking on her doorstep for maybe an hour and 45 minutes because I couldn’t approach and have the closing line or move in and turn my head, I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know what it was I just couldn’t do it. So after an hour and 45 minutes, David, she goes, “Okay, so if you’re not going to kiss me, I’m going to go inside.” She turns around, opens the door, walks in, closes the door, never talked to her ever again.

Pace:
Never talked to her ever again. And I was just so much like, “Wow, she wanted me to kiss her the whole time? How did I not pick up on this? How the heck did I not pick up on this?” And it’s the same thing with sellers, right? Sellers invited a professional into their home knowing why you’re there. Right? They know why you’re there. And so it actually in my opinion, it’s very awkward when you don’t ask that question. And everybody else that’s new to the industry thinks it’s awkward when you do. It’s awkward when you don’t guys, people are expecting you to ask that question. Assuming we can accomplish everything we talked about today, what is our next step? And then you shut up. And they say, and they invite, and they suggest that you bring the contract and you get the agreement signed. That’s it.

David:
Yeah.

Pace:
That’s the magic.

David:
There’s no ROI on any of your effort if you don’t go put the house in contract, that was what the whole goal was. And it’s just heartbreaking when you see someone run a marathon and then stop right before they cross the finish line for whatever reason. I see that all the time and I’m like, “Oh, you did so well.” And then you froze, and then the other side is like, “Well…” Maybe they take it as rejection. Right? I guess he doesn’t like me, he’s not going to kiss me or whatever it is that they were looking for. So, that is very good advice that they’re wanting you to close. Go ahead and give them what they want and get them out of that pain.

Pace:
Right. All day long.

David:
All right, well, this has been very good. We’re going to recap these five things and then we’re gonna move on to a version of the famous four that we’re going to call the furious four. Number one, the first question was, are you working with an agent, or what did your agent say? And very quickly Pace why is that our first question?

Pace:
Make sure that we know all the parties that are involved before we go any further.

David:
Very good. So, that doesn’t just have to be the agent. It could also be, well, what did your parents say? Or who else is involved in-

Pace:
Attorney.

David:
Yes.

Pace:
Your neighbor, your best friend.

David:
What are the other voices saying? Question number two, are you okay with me not buying your property? And what’s the purpose of that?

Pace:
Neutral ground, just make sure that I’m not here to attack you. I’m here to have an honest conversation, very simple. And both of us could walk away saying no to each other and be perfectly-

David:
So, you’re not needy, you’re not desperate, you’re not putting them in a position where they say I want one million dollars for my $200,000 house.

Pace:
Nothing’s worse than a clingy salesman.

David:
There you go. Number three. So what is your plan moving forward? Why are we asking that question?

Pace:
We’re trying to get them to paint the picture for us, right? We want them to draw that out. And if they’re missing any pieces of that picture, it’s our job to suggest through asking other questions, which is maybe another topic for another day, what kind of questions to fill in the gaps of their story. You want to hear their version of the story and see where they’re at so that you can suggest and fill that in so you can move on to the next one.

David:
And this may be a time where you might say that catch me up to speed if you feel like you don’t have all that-

Pace:
All the [inaudible 00:54:43]. Catch me… In fact that should be the name of my LLC. Is catch me up to speed LLC. I swear. I ask that question so many times.

David:
Number four, how will you know if you’ve made the right decision to sell your house?

Pace:
You want to make sure that you’re not missing anything, right? You want to make sure that everything you’ve talked about, the solution that they’ve provided, they’re looking for maybe other investors, you might even hear… We heard this thing a couple of weeks ago where they go, “Well, I would know I made the right decision by selling my house if I could get $1,000 earnest money when I sign my agreement.” I go, “Okay, great.” So assuming we could do that, what’s our next step? That was it. They gave me, they teed me up for the closing line. So you sometimes ask that question number four to tee you up for the closing line, which is number five.

David:
Which is beautiful. The number five would be, well, what’s our next step?

Pace:
Right. Assuming we could accomplish that, what would be our next step?

David:
And what’s the reason that we’re trying to get to that point?

Pace:
Because we want to make money.

David:
All right. All right. Well, that is very good Pace. We’re going to get this show on the road and move on to the next segment of our show, which we are going to call the furious four. Okay, so these four questions, Pace and I are going to kind of dig in on each other. What we want to know are ways that people can pick up the ability to get a seller to say yes. So my first question to you Pace, what is one real estate book that someone can read to help them with their ability to get a seller to say yes?

Pace:
One of the greatest books on real estate sales ever to be written is called, You Can’t teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar. And it is written by David Sandler. And it’s all about the Sandler method, all about very similar to what we’re doing here. A lot of questions and the flow of everything we do in sales and real estate, all comes from that book. You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar, phenomena.

David:
Beautiful.

Pace:
So, David, what about you? What is a really good business book? Maybe not real estate specific, but a business book that could help people out with sales.

David:
I mentioned it before, it’s Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff. I don’t love the title of the book. So I never read it. But it’s probably one of the best books or the best book I ever read when it comes to understanding other people, it really gets into the psychology of how people interpret information. And it gives very good advice for getting through people’s defenses to where they’ll actually hear what you have to say. And most of what you’ve described today is stuff that the book supports very strongly.

Pace:
Interesting.

David:
Have you read it before?

Pace:
I have, yeah. It’s a great book.

David:
Yeah. Probably I could tell there’s some influence in that book with what you’re doing here. All right, so our third question Pace, what is one skill people can pick up that will help them to get sellers to say yes?

Pace:
Telling stories. All day long telling stories. We learn through telling stories, right? Examples, analogies, parallels, you talking about jujitsu, it makes you feel when you said that thing about somebody sitting on your face or your chest, it made me feel it. You know what I’m saying? It’s not just me understanding it, I felt it, I imagined what I would do in that situation. So telling a third party story or telling a direct story related to the situation you’re dealing with, learn how to tell stories, and there’s multiple books on that, Art of Storytelling is really, really good. Or what I do is when I’m watching movies with my kids, or my wife, I’m trying to guess the end of the story. I’m not really watching the movie, I’m trying to pick up on the story that the filmmaker has made for me, because I want to be able to turn around and tell better stories all day long. If you can tell stories, you will win so many more appointments, you won’t even be able to count all your money. It’s crazy.

David:
That is fantastic advice. I’ve heard it said before that stories are easier for human beings to remember than anything else. That before we could even write down things on paper, before papyrus was invented. People were telling stories, and that is how they pass on information. Because you can remember the information when it’s in the context of the story, versus just a line, a sentence, a bullet point principle, very hard for human beings to keep that in mind.

Pace:
All day long. So, David, what about a habit? What’s a good habit that people can pick up in order to close more deals?

David:
So my opinion, at least in my life, is there’s always a temptation to want to tell someone else how they should think. Hey, I know more than you, I’ve done this more than you, just trust me, this is what you need to do. And even when I’m right, what you said earlier, completely is applicable, where the person who is coerced against their will is of the same opinion still. I don’t think you used coerced, but that was the idea, right? I might be right, but it won’t matter. It’s not effective, because you have not accepted it. Just like in the movie Inception, right? You can’t get a brain to accept somebody else’s idea. It’s got to come from them.

Pace:
Such a great movie.

David:
So one thing that I try to do to fight back against my own nature that wants to rush to a conclusion and tell people what to do, is I force myself to be very curious about how they see the world. And I want to get them explaining to me what their perspective is, rather than telling someone how to think I think a really good habit to get into is to learn to ask questions to understand where the other person is, and very similar to something like jujitsu, when you’re asking questions and they’re talking, you will see the opening, you’ll see the point where they’ll go, “Oh, I do need to sell this house to him.” And that’s when you’ll make your move. Versus what I do in jujitsu right now, because I’m new is trying to force an opening and just getting myself in trouble.

David:
And even if I don’t get tapped out, I just burn up all my energy trying to do that. And I put myself in a bad position. So, learning to ask questions and flow with the other person instead of trying to make them see what I see is a great habit I think people can pick up.

Pace:
I think, just to jump on top of that, because I love you being super honest about your experience with jujitsu, because you’re saying I’m not great, right? I’m fumbling, I’m getting pinned down and running into all sorts of situations. Because so many people are trying to get into real estate have a hard time even starting because they’re afraid of getting pinned down. They’re afraid of ever having anything bad happen. So they overanalyze every little thing. Is it okay to just jump in and just make mistakes?

David:
Well, if you’re not going to learn jujitsu at a seminar, like you were just saying, that’s the only way you’re going to learn is I go in there and I get put in pain. And in that pain, I become very receptive to what my instructor is saying, this is the way you should get out of it. When I’m just watching the video on YouTube and I see the technique I go, “Oh, okay, yeah, I should do that.” But I don’t really internalize it and visualize it and go through it in my head lik, when I have a person sitting on my chest, that’s 350 pounds, which is often the case when I’m training, that I just feel like I can’t breathe. So this is why we’re always telling people to take action. We’re not wanting you to go mess up, but we know that the mind responds very well to information it receives when it’s in pain.

Pace:
That’s a really good thing. And there’s a phrase, I can’t remember who said, it might have been Confucius. He said, “If you tell me something, I will forget. If you show me something, I will remember. But if I do it myself, I will learn.” Right? And you really have to do this stuff. You have to get into those situations and you have to get into that pain so you can become better and better and better. And at the end of the day, what are we doing all day long in getting deals? Getting deals really comes down to helping somebody out of a situation and letting them get to the next chapter of their life. We can’t do that, we can’t help people unless we understand the things that we talked about in this video.

David:
Absolutely. I didn’t know you’re the philosopher, but that’s really good. All right, we have gone for quite some time. I really hope everybody got a lot of value out of this one. Please share it with others if you did. This is an incredibly valuable skill that you need to have if you want to get into real estate investing, because most opportunity that comes our way, is coming to us because somebody else has mismanaged an asset or not taken care of it, which means they’re probably in pain, and which means you need to know how to deal with somebody who’s in pain. These are some very effective techniques. Pace, thank you very much, you did a great job. I’m going to get you out of here. This is David Greene for Pace, catch me up to speed Morby. Signing off.