Epic Real Estate Investing - What to Say When Sellers Call w/ Jeff Garner | 290

Episode Date: September 5, 2017

Join Epic Real Estate Investing and special guest Jeff Garner to learn how to improve your communication strategies to convert more leads into contracts. Discover the keys to successful engagement with sellers so that you can achieve consistent deal flow. The time is now! Use the power of Jeff Garner’s “transition agreement” to secure deals and realize more success in real estate investing. ______   The free course is new and improved!  To access to the two fastest and easiest strategies to a paycheck in real estate, go to FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com or text “FreeCourse” to 55678. What interests you most? • E.ducation • P.roperties • I.ncome • C.oaching Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Broadcasting from Terrio Studios in Glendale, California, it's time for Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. Yeah, what's up? Hello, and welcome to the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast. This is the show where I show people, people just like you, how to escape the rat race using real estate. And to make this happen for you, the first step, is. is just shifting your focus from making piles of money to creating streams of money. That's where it begins.

And you only have to do that once, by the way. And then after you've done it, now just embrace it and let all of your actions follow this new mindset. And your escape from the rat race will move at least 10 times faster than those that choose the alternate path, the old antiquated path. And I just always like to clarify it. This is not get rich quick. So if you think that's where you are, you are in the wrong place. You have been mistaken. This is not get rich quick.

It's get rich quicker. and getting rich permanently. And to get started down that path or restarted, I've created a free course just for you so you can go to free real estate investing course.com and you'll get a crash course right there on how to find deals. And then you'll get the two quickest and easiest exit strategies to a paycheck in real estate. And then just stay tuned here each and every week. And I'll show you how to put that paycheck to work for you in a way that it works harder for you than you did for it. it. All righty.

And for all of you that have been recommending and referring this to your friends and family and associates and your networks and some people even play the episode in front of their RIA groups. And I just think that's awesome. And I really appreciate it. I would not be here if it wasn't for you. I would not be here if you didn't do that for me. And so I just really, really appreciate it.

And that's why I'm here for you each and every week just to give you what you're looking for. All right. Give you the important stuff. All right. Important dates. and I'm really excited about this one. If you're not excited excited about it,

then I just want to share it with you again. The next grub and grow rich, it's going to be held in Napa Valley. And I do these types of things because I want to attract people like me to me because that's who I love doing business with the most, the people that are just like me. And if you like the outdoors,

if you like the fall, if you like college football, if you like drinking wine, and just relaxing and trying to do as little as possible, if that's you, I really want to meet you. I really want you to come hang out with us on October 13th, where we're going to get together for some timely market updates. We're going to go over some really, what I call it?

Super. That's, I guess that's my big word now. I've been told this many times that I say that all the time on the show, and I didn't even realize it. But just some super awesome wealth creation strategies with my new tax attorney, and he's just been doing wonders for me and restructuring my whole business. and he's going to show up that night to be our guest and share with you what he's been sharing with me and we're just going to eat, going to drink, going to be merry.

And the site, the website, is now live. It wasn't last week when I shared this with you, but you can go to grub and grow rich.com. And if you'd like to stay for the whole weekend, this would just be great. And we can talk business as much as you want, only if you want. But that's not what this is for.

It's really for fun. I just want you to come along. You can do that by joining us. you can hop on a tour bus to taste wine, more eating, more drinking, more being married, just having a good old time, a good relaxing time, and probably the nicest time of the year to go to Napa Valley. It's just a fun event, something we've never done before, and there'll be little to no business conducted on this tour unless you want to, but that's your choice, your decision, and it's

going to be fun, hanging out with wine in the vineyards and, you know, smelling a nice country air and, you know, get over this heat. I don't know where you are right now, but we're in Los Angeles, and that's 105 degrees today, and I'm over it. Can't wait till the fall. And yeah, so you get to, and then my tax attorney, he's going to come along with me. My financing team's going to come along. You can rub elbows with them, the best of the best of the brightest people in the industry.

And they'll be there for, you'll be hanging out and just being cool, building your network, right? So, you know, while the richest people in the world focus on building their network, the poorest focus on finding work. So whoever said, it's who you know. They weren't kidding. It's absolutely all about that. So join us for the whole weekend, October 13th, 14th and 15th. It's going to be Friday night the 13th.

Ooh, Friday the 13th. I'm not superstitious. But Friday night reception and a wealth creation presentation. That's our Grub and Grow Rich event. And then if you want to spend the whole weekend with us, you can elect to do that as well. One on time with me, one-on-one time with my team of professionals. I'm going to take in some awesome, inspiring views of now. Napa Valley, taste some of the world's most delicious wines during our exclusive wine tour.

We're learning some tidbits of local winemaking history and culture. Even on Sunday, you're going to get to make your own wine. I'm looking forward to that. I've never done that before. And so it's just kind of like 1% business. If you wish, that's entirely up to you. 99% fun and relaxing time. That's what I'm looking forward to.

And just, you know, get to know you. Get to know you better in an environment where we can really have a lot of fun. So join the epic team of professionals. experience some exotic wines, exceptional meals, and the lush Napa Valley. And like I said, if you haven't visited Napa Valley in the fall, you're in for a spectacular treat. And if you have, be prepared to experience it like you've never before experienced it on this exclusive and epic wine excursion. All righty. So all the details are available at drink and grow rich.

Dot U.S. Got it. Drink and grow rich. That us. Don't go to dot com. You're going to get sucked into some multiple. I love a marketing company. Don't go to dot net because you're going to be sold this other high-powered energy drink.

If you like that stuff, go there. But we are at drink and grow rich. Yes, it's one time a year. We've never done this before and we're doing it right now. So there's only 20 seats available. If this is something for you, come. I want you to come. All right.

Then last date to share November 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and the 4th and let's see. Oh, and the 5th. The 5th is optional, but it will be the last chance to catch the epic intensive weapons of mass production. where the last time, it's going to be the last time we'll cover how to get highly potent tools and methods every real estate investor can use to find more motivated sellers, buyers, and private lenders in as little as 60 seconds. In as little as 60 seconds, yeah, you heard that right. Even if you think you've heard it all before, I'm going to prove it.

And as soon as you register, you're going to get instant access to the Epic Fast Formula to to $10,000 in 30 days or less. Right when you register, you're going to get that. And this is all taking place on November 2nd through the 4th in Birmingham, Alabama. Yes, we came out to the East Coast by popular demand coming down to the South. It's football season. It's the fall. And ain't no better place to be than the South during that time of the year.

And that's where we're coming. And the reason for the fifth, it's the actual fourth day. The fifth, it's optional. But we're going to be touring properties with our Birmingham partners. We're going to seeing before, during, and after cash flowing properties are in rehab. And it's really, Birmingham, if you don't know, Birmingham is probably one of the hottest markets in the country. cash flow. It's the greatest mix between dependable cash flow and depreciation and we are in love with this market and we'd love to share it with you and our team. So again, the registration, it's not

actually is officially open now. Yep, it is officially open. You can go to epicintensive.com. Epicintensive.com, the first 25 people to register will be emitted in for free and then the price will rise the closer that we get to capacity. So half of those free seats are already gone by the way. You guys heard the little brief announcements to save the date announcement last week and you jumped all over it. So half of those are still available. All right. Lots of dates. I know.

Lots of domains. That was much longer than I anticipated. Good thing for the rewind though. So if you missed anything, you can always go back and listen again. Or you can go to the show notes at epic real estate.com and get all the information there too. Okay? So we've been moving along pretty steadily, you know, the last several episodes under a theme of really what I believe is the highest and best use of your.

time, converting the leads that you generate into contracts, getting control of your deals. Because once you've got control, now you can essentially dictate how much money you're going to make. You can control your own paycheck. And I don't know how many more episodes I'm going to be spending on this, likely a few more, at least, as I really believe it's that important to you and your business. I want to kind of just bring in everything that I can possibly share with you about this. And, you know, really improve your skills, improve your skills. improve your business and really improve your bottom line.

And, you know, your marketing might not be generating the lead volume that it used to, right? You might not be closing as many deals as you used to. And in a result, you might not be making the money that you're used to, right? I mean, maybe a little more going out right now than you're used to and a little less than you're used to is coming in. And the solution for more people, the answer for most people is, I need to generate more leads. I got to create more leads. I got to get more leads. How do I get more leads?

And true, more leads should result in more opportunity for you, should result in more business for you. But not necessarily is it the answer or even the, I mean, it is an answer, but it's not necessarily the answer. It's not definitely, I mean, I wouldn't say it's even the best answer. No. I mean, what if you could convert more of those leads that you're already receiving? What if you could convert those into contracts?

I mean, how would that impact your bottom line? Yeah, it would be great because you'd be doing more business without spending more money, without spending more energy trying to generate more leads. So I've asked my new training partner to join me again today, hot off our ground and pound school. It's a boot camp style sales training that we did just before the last intensive in St. Louis. And I asked him to come to share with you just how you might be able to increase your conversion rate and make some more money without having to invest more time, without having to invest more money, energy into generating more leads. So please help me. Welcome back to Epic Real Estate Investing, Mr. Jeff Garner.

Jeff, welcome back to the show. Hey, thanks for having me, Matt. You bet, you bet. So we just got back from St. Louis a couple of weeks ago for our first ever ground and pound school boot camp training. I think it was a great success. I've always prided myself on being a practitioner as well as an educator and actually teaching and talking about what I do on a daily basis. And I pride myself on surrounding myself

with people also. So, you know, in the past, we've had a lot of guests here that either they were students who were really doing it, or I had people come on the show that aren't educators at all, aren't gurus at all that just say how it is. And I think you fall right into that category. The very first time that you've, you know, taken what you do on the streets, we took it off the streets. We brought it into the classroom and we just shared it with, you know, 11 very fortunate individuals that I think had a great time. And I think learned a lot. I mean, what was your impression on your first time in front of the classroom like that? Man, it was, it was awesome. It brought it, you know, it brought years and years and years of doing it full circle to be able

to teach it to people. It was a little, it was, I was a little nervous because I wanted to deliver. But I was really taken back by the response we got from all the students. And, and, you know, And you see these guys come in. You know, we had like 11 people, didn't we? I think they had 11 people come in from all over the country, and they have a look of they're not sure what they're getting into, nervous. You know, this is an area to where they're very, you know, kind of uncomfortable and feel defeated, you know, evaluating property and negotiating with sellers.

And then when they left, you know, the smiles, you could see that they had confidence or laughing and joking and kind of fired up to get out there. and start practicing, you know. So it was really, really fulfilling for me, and I had a ton of fun. Yeah, it was great to watch them leave essentially, you know, armed for battle, if we're going to stay with the ground and pound metaphor. But, yeah, they were armed. They were, confidence, I think, was great.

I mean, the spines were very erect and, you know, walking out with confidence, shoulders back. And, you know, they had some great skills and techniques to now use in the field, which I think is really the part of real estate. estate investing or for the investor what's the highest and best use of their time is to be talking to sellers and negotiating contracts and that's exactly what the school does so to to develop that skill absolutely absolutely and the beauty of it is is whether you have your phone ringing or you're just going to the grocery store you can use this skill everywhere you go because everyone is a potential client you know it's it's basic communication skills on in

and on how to get, you know, someone's motivation or get their interest. And so it's something you can use all day long, whether you have tons of marketing coming in or not, or you're just sitting there on Zillow calling for sale by owners. Every time they pick up the phone, now you have some tools to use to spark a conversation and, you know, start judging motivation and decide on whether it's a deal. So I think it's one of the number one skills we need is real estate investors. because not everyone starts off with huge marketing budget. Sometimes you have to beat the streets or get on the ground, pound the ground, however you want to look at.

Right. I think two things. I'm going to come back to that word skilled. I think that's a very operative word. But the other part of it, I think when people think about going to someone's house and talking to sellers or just sales in general, they have a very specific idea of what a good salesperson is or what a good negotiator is, you know, You know, right now the internet is just, Grant Cardone has really covered the entire internet of being like this sales guy and this sales guy and you just got to work your butt off. And this is how you get it.

You stare the sellers in the eye and you shake their hand firm and you force them to put the pen to paper and blah, blah, blah, blah, and just be dominant, right? And it's really, it doesn't work that way, not at all. And I think when people see that, like there's a certain crowd that's really attracted to that and attracted to that work ethic and attract to that posture. But when you get in the real world, it's actually very counterintuitive on how it works and what actually does succeed, right? Absolutely.

I think that, you know, Grant Cordon stuff is wonderful for motivation to get yourself out of bed and go to work and beat the streets. But it is so counterintuitive to sales these days and what people, I mean, you will be, you will scare the crap out of your cellars, and they will freeze up on you, and you will have nothing but failure with that tactic. Walking to someone's house who just inherited it from their grandmother that just passed away a week ago,

and you go and beating on the table saying, sign here, I'm not leaving, basically. You will leave and maybe even get arrested, but it's about gaining their confidence and making them comfortable and getting away from that old, school style of selling to where you are selling them, you're hard selling. This is the complete opposite.

This gets, you want them to sell themselves. You want them to settle their own objections. Right. You don't want to have to, you know, how do you, everyone has these lists of how to get by, get past someone's objections. Well, there's no better way to get past someone's. one's objections, then having them do it for you. And I believe that the way we are conditioned today in this society, you know, sales is

flip-flop. It's totally opposite. You know, the guys I train when I listen to calls or I talk to them, I will stop it and go, you're selling there. You can't sell that, you know, you're trying to talk them into you. You're trying to convince them how great your services and how great you're going to be and why they need to do it. And that is the complete opposite.

on what we try to teach and what we do when we go on appointments. Yep, yeah. And I'm noticing online by some really brilliant sales trainers and some people that have legitimate experience in the real world. And not to say, I don't know much about Grant Cardone. I don't know what his experience is, but the people that are really in the trenches today and making things happen are scratching their heads.

Like, people are really listening to this guy. They're really listening to this approach. And there's a lot of backlash now, and I think rightfully so. even by some of our mutual friends, just fantastic salespeople and trainers, are, you know, saying that's not the way it works. And I think what's brilliant about that, and I'm really glad that that message is coming out. And I think this is what was so great about the ground of pound school was it shows that anyone can do this. You don't have to be the big, giant, cocky, confident, perfect-looking person with the gift for gab that they were born with. You don't have to be that person.

Anyone can do this. and, you know, and I just think that it just makes it available to everybody and you don't have to feel like a jerk. You don't have to feel like a douchebag. You don't have to feel slimy. You know, you can do it and you can be really effective just being yourself and just with a couple implementing a few different techniques, developing the skill that we were talking about. Yeah, and absolutely. That is the other thing that I really got out of our boot camp that I realized and we talked about it with. everyone was, look, you do not have to be a salesman, a born natural conversationalist or a super

social butterfly. When you know, when you just have some skills and a few techniques that will help you to get them to talk. And the reality of it is, is we teach people to listen 70%, talk 30%. So if you're not a real open chatty person, this is actually kind of good for you. It's the people who like to talk that are for because they have to taper themselves back. And, you know, getting saying, asking some impact questions or, you know, going negative and, you know, talking about their other options and how they could be positive for them. It's amazing on how you will get them to disqualify. that's the word I was looking for earlier, disqualify all their objections,

your competition, and tell you their motivation. You don't have to tell them how they need you or how they're going to lose that house. If they don't sell you, they better move fast. You know, we stay away from that.

We want them to feel comfortable. And when we leave, like all my sellers, we do videos at the closing table, video testimonials. They're selling their house to us at a discount. We went through the whole process, and they're doing a video referring us to, you know, the rest of, you know, doing a marketing piece for us. So the goal is we want them to be happy all the way through.

We want to feel like their life is better, and we didn't just buy a house. We helped them to move on to whatever their future needs to be and make as best as possible. Absolutely. And perfect. So you had said something they're talking about going negative. That was one of the techniques and strategies that you shared with everybody at the school and things like reversing and the transition agreement. And, you know, those are some of the techniques that you taught at the school. We got another school coming up, by the way, in St. Louis again, October 27th and 28th.

It's by application only. We're going to keep that small. I think 10 people is a good number. We had 11 people. We'll just make a nice round number of 10. And if you want to go, I'll let's share with you at the end how you can apply for that. But one thing is, we shared the techniques, we imparted the skill, like, this is what it takes, and people left, like, I got it. But it is a skill.

And to develop a skill, it's practice. It's repetition and, you know, getting feedback and making adjustments. And so, you know, what you've done with the school, and we've put together a follow-up sales call, right? So you can check in. It's accountability call along with sales training. you know, just kind of practicing and perfecting that technique. So I know we just had the very first one after that, and you led that call.

How did that go? It went well, man. It was, it was, you know, just a little background to that. As I remember us sitting down and trying to figure out what's the best value and content that we can offer to people where we put this together. And I was like, you know, there's all these trainings out there that you get online and people get it and they read it or they watch the videos

and they go try to practice it, and that's it. And when I got into sales originally as a realtor 20 years ago, I had sales meetings weekly, and I had a mentor. And so, you know, this was, like you said, our first call in that process. We didn't want to just, and so it's been nice to follow up with our students and see their process and try to help train them and motivate them and be accountable. But it went really well, man.

went really well. You could still see a little confidence. You could see the confidence in them still. Not all them had done deals, but they were all implementing it. And they weren't talking like this was a scary process anymore. It was like, yeah, I was on this call

and I went negative or I reversed it. And at the end, I took it away. And, you know, Russell, which is one of my favorites just because he tries hard and I just see him being right on the cusp of really breaking loose and having success. He did a deal. He went on a seller appointment. And it's been what, two or three weeks?

He went on a seller appointment. He realized there was no motivation there for them to sell. They didn't need to sell. They only wanted to if they could get top dollar. So he converted it to a rent management agreement with him for two reasons. One is to make a little bit of revenue because he's. he manages properties. And the second one was to keep a hook in that seller.

So when that day comes, whether they are motivated and they're reasonable, he has first shot at it. And I talked about it. And he said that he went negative with them. And, you know, they would, the guy was, well, we really only want top dollar. And we, you know, we're not, we don't want to take a discount. He said, well, you know, have you thought about a realtor yet? You know, maybe a lot of times realtor gets you more money than what us investors can. It isn't.

We're not a fit for everybody. We can't buy them all. And they say, oh, no, no, no, we don't want a realtor. We don't want to pay commissions. We don't want to deal with all that and people going through our houses. And he eventually found out, you know, got to the bottom of it. And the guy was, you know, I think he went negative with him about renting it. If you ever thought of renting it.

Hey, sometimes you can make money, more money over the long term than going with an investor. So in this case, he got the no. You know, Matt, we call that going for the no. And getting the no is okay because at least you're not wasting your time. chasing someone down who is never going to sell to you, but he got some business out of it, and he'll probably get that deal in six or seven months. So Jonathan, who I was super impressed with now. I know he's been with RIA ACE and been working, you've been coaching him for a while.

And I swear I remember them talking when they came into the boot camp that they were kind of struggling a little in their new market, Nebraska. he was on the call and kind of blew me away when he told me they're doing four writing four or five contracts a week now now maybe they were doing a couple before that but I don't remember it but all I know is since then they've caught fire and when I when I talked to him and it's like well what are you implementing what strategies you're using and he said that he's been doing the takeaway that takeaway's killing it for him at the end going you know you know it's okay you know we can't buy it. I am all and I don't know that it's really that great of a fit for us either. And he's been terrible, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, we definitely want to sell. You know, it was just like that. I told you how Brent wrote like two or three contracts in a two-week period on the hood of his car after he walked away from the sellers.

They'd follow him out. And he did the deal on his hood. And so, you know, a lot of guys are, you know, Russell was going negative a lot. a lot of comfort in that. And Jonathan, that takeaway seems to be his sweet spot. You know, one of the things, too, for some people, and this was my case when I was taught this kind of sales is that a lot, some of us already have some of these natural abilities. Okay, we're not reinventing the wheel, per se.

This is new strategies in today's times that are new and improved sales strategies. But like Jonathan said, you know, I talked to him. He's like, I was already doing a couple of these tactics, but I didn't know it. And having the, having a plan and knowing when to implement them and why you implement them and the timing and the effect it has on your sellers has really helped. And I think change the dynamics of his appointments. And made a big difference. So that was really cool to hear all of that.

Yeah. I think, I think the reason. that this strategy and this approach, what we were teaching at the boot camp and what you brought to the table is that just that anybody can do it because it's kind of instinctually in them already and then just getting clarity about, oh yeah, now knowing when to do it and why you're doing it. And actually, like he just said, having a plan around something that you kind of do instinctually already. I mean, if you're just a normal, good caring, empathetic human being that cares about the people that you're working with, you kind of have this already in place.

But now you just get to use it and use it with a purpose and drive towards the end, towards this, you know, this common goal that you and the seller have. Absolutely. And it just makes it, and that takes all the fear out of it, you know? Exactly. Because when you walk into an appointment, you're going, okay, man, and you're trying to do the grant card on and get yourself pumped up so you can go in there because you're walking into a stranger's house that you know nothing about.

You don't know whether they're going to have pit bulls. Are they going to be happy? are they going to be mad, and you're trying to get yourself psyched up to hopefully get a deal. And, you know, having a strategy and knowing, you know, between transition agreements and going negative or takeaways or reverse questioning and just the timing on when to use all of those, gives you a lot of confidence. And that comes out of you as is someone who doesn't need the business. Because when you walk up nervous and your palms are sweating and you're mumbling because you're not sure what you're getting into and you're scared You look desperate and when you go in some tools and some practice Whether you're practicing throughout your day everyone you talk to or

You're practicing on real leads you walk in like the guy who is interested But doesn't have to have it doesn't have by it Right and that's half the battle right there yep there's a saying when you need nothing you attract everything and that comes into play right here for sure and it's funny that you mentioned jonathan and russell because we have been working with russell for a little while jonathan is actually a brand new client just a couple months ago and uh you know what we do here is we really focus on lead generation and finding deals and both of those guys have those systems set up in place and and a lot of people that i talk to they think that uh you know in this market

maybe their their lead generation uh efforts aren't producing their amount of leads that they used to, and they think they just got to spend more money, they got to work harder. And, you know, what this is kind of showing now, that's not really the case. You don't have to spend more money. You don't have to work harder. You just have to hone that skill of converting the leads that you do have, because, you know, your phone's ringing, your inbox is filling up. There's opportunity all over the place. Now we just have to work on that conversion skill. And that's really what this camp does. And speaking of that, and you kind of mentioned something a little bit about mindset just a second ago, you know, when that phone does start ringing, let's, this kind of turning

into a sales call and we didn't really, or a pitch and it wasn't our intention, we wanted to, we had definitely had an agenda and that was, let's talk about that initial phone call when the phone rings, kind of go through what your mindset should be and how you prepare for that. I mean, it's probably comes naturally, you've done it thousands and thousands of times now, Jeff. But, you know, initially, you know, when you're talking to having that very first conversation with the, when the lead comes in, what is your mindset, what is your intent, what is your goal, and how might that call actually kind of sound? Well, my intent is to calm them down and get their guard, and calm them down and get my

seller to feel completely comfortable with me so that we can just have a conversation. Okay, so is that to say that typically when they call their guard is up and they are uncomfortable? Yeah, yeah. Now, don't get me wrong. Some people are carefree, but most people are looking at it like they're afraid. Like, okay, I'm going to call on this postcard. I'm going to call on this flyer. This guy says he pays cash, but I'm not giving my house away, and I'm not going to let anybody steal it from me.

You know, so they're guarded. And they don't know what they're getting into either. Real quickly, what you just said there is that they are afraid most of the time. And what's the irony there is the investor on the other side answering the phone is also afraid. right? So it's like if you're, so just kind of take comfort in that right there off the bat. Understand that the person calling you is more scared of you picking up the phone than you picking up the phone.

So that should put you in a more comfortable position right there right away. But go ahead. Exactly, exactly. You know, it's like I say to my son about little spiders. I'm like, they're more scared of you, buddy. Just relax, okay? Yeah. Yeah.

And we're scared too. And I know I was. and until I had like kind of a strategy, I stayed that way. You know, and sometimes it, you know, so I want them to relax, and I want them to be okay, and I want them to put their guard down so that we can have a conversation to decide if it is good for both of us. That's my intention, and right out of the gate. And then I, and then my second intention is to find out their motivation level, meaning how, motivated are they to sell?

And is it potentially a deal or is it not a deal? And so by getting them to put their guard down, relax, realize that I'm not going to jump through the phone and steal their house right out from under them while we're talking. And that giving me the real information isn't going to hurt them and enable me to do any magical tricks to where I steal a house and get them to just open up and be able to talk. Perfect. So let's stop right there before we go on. So what do you do specifically to make them feel comfortable, to make them bring their guard down,

and to get them to tell you the actual truth about why they're calling and why they're selling? I use what I call transition agreements, which is basically an explanation of exactly what's going to happen next. Time frame. Why we're talking, what the intent is. and that regardless what happens, it's okay for them to say no at any point. Got it. Yep. We do the same here.

So that's very good. It does a lot. So what would be like a typical transition agreement sound like? It would sound like this. I would, you know, hello. You know, this is Jeff. Thanks for calling starting point real estate. And they'd be like, oh, hi, my name's Matt.

And I'd say, hey, Matt, I appreciate you calling. You know, most of the time people call us. They want to know what we do and how much we can offer for your house. Do you have those same questions? Are there any others I can answer as well? And most of the time they say, no, that's it. Or sometimes they'll say, yeah, and when can you close? You know, something along those lines.

And I'll be like, great, thanks. Well, let me take five to ten minutes of your time. So I'm giving them the time frame. Okay. I need five or ten minutes of your time to ask some questions. questions about the property and your situation, just to kind of get some more information so that I can answer those questions for you and find out if it's something that's going to work for us. Now, at the end of this, if it's something that seems to fit into what we're looking

for as well, then we can go on to the next step and set an appointment. But if it doesn't sound like something you're interested in, then you can say no at any time. We can't buy them all. That's not a problem. You know, someone along those lines, Matt, to generally just giving them, hey, this is what's going to happen. So your fear of, I don't know what's going to, what is this process, are they going to ask me for my Social Security number, you know, I'm telling them, hey, we're going to ask you

some questions about your situation in the house. Is that okay? Right. Great. Do you have 10 minutes? Okay, good. And at the end, we'll decide on if it makes a lot. sense to go any further and knows okay.

And that's like, you know, so. Yeah, another thing that you'd said there, I think is really important is when the seller calls and starts asking questions, a lot of people say, what do I say when he says this? What do I say when she says that? What do I, what's your response for this? And you said, great, I'd love to answer those questions, but I've got, I have a few more questions. I have a few questions I need to ask you so I can't answer those questions.

So a lot of people go into the default, well, we can close in and, and, 14 days. Is that the right answer? You know what I mean? Like, they just get cornered and start answering right away. And by taking control, say, I'd love to answer your questions. I'm going to ask you some questions. You have five to 10 minutes. And once we get those answered, then I'll be able to answer your questions. Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You basically, and not even in so much detail, more, more that, oh, great. Well, let me get a few things from you so I can answer those questions for you and this will take 10 minutes here um i lost my point there um my guy you okay you said something matt you said yeah most people go into well i can close in 14 days they just they feel like

what's the magic answer right make them happy and what my guys would what i would hear is this when they first come in um when they'd say something like when can you close well you know what we can close fast we pay cash if you need we'll take all your stuff that you don't want we'll throw it away for you, no charge, we'll pay your clothes. I mean, they just start hammering them, it's selling them. Like, they don't know what to say. They don't know when to stop. I'm going to give them so much that these sellers are going to be wild.

And they're going to think, I have to go with these guys. And most of the time, they go, oh, well, great. Well, thank you very much. We'll be in touch if we're interested. Because you just gave everything away. You have zero leverage. You don't even know what the house was. You might have the right things you might not have.

So. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What? Okay. So that's fantastic. So you go through the questions, you answer the questions. What is the one thing is, and I think this is on a lot of people's mind, is how do you know or what are the things that you're actually listening for to know whether or not it's worthy of your time to set up an appointment and go out and visit with that seller? How do you detect urgency or what was there a threshold or keywords or phrases you're looking for? Well, what I'm looking for is just their willingness for the process, you know.

their willingness, do they need the money? Why are they selling? Are they just window shopping? And I guess the things I look for, see, the way I teach a call is you need to be on your phone or in front of a computer so that you can get online and get a rough idea, like through Zillow or Redfin, any of those, what the average is on that property.

If you pull that up and it says it's worth 180, you can guarantee it's worth either one, 50 or 200, you know, somewhere in that range, okay? At least you have a ballpark. And at the, we won't take a penny under 180 or we won't take a penny under 170. You know it's tough. So you need to get into deeper, into some more techniques to get their motivation levels up, to get the reasons why they want to sell, why they called you, the real reasons like I'm being foreclosed on. I have to move to be with my mother out of state because she's sick. I, um, I have a judgment for a hundred grand I have to pay off.

You need to find out what those things are so that you can see if this person is really going to sell, if they have a reason to sell. So, you know, finding out what their mortgage is. Because if they want one, if you know it's worth somewhere between 150 and 200 and they owe 160, I mean, those are motivation levels right there. I mean, they might have motivation, but there's no deal there for you. Or they tell you that they just won't cooperate. They won't commit to giving you an answer at any point. You could say at the end of the call, well, this is great. I think it's a property we're interested.

How do you guys feel? Well, yeah, we'd love to take the next step. Okay. Well, you know, and then we go into the next transition agreement, you know, and it sounds like this. What's going to happen next is I'm going to turn this information over to my acquisitions manager. It's going to do a little research and contact you and set up a time to come in and take a look at your house, kind of fine-tune the numbers, and then at the end of that, if it's something we're still interested in, and it's something you want to go forward with, we'll give you a cash offer, and you can say yes or no, no, no problem. And is there anyone else that needs to be there? Are you the only signer on this? Well, no, there's four other people, and they're all out of state. Okay. Well, are you going to be able to, are you in a position?

And there's many different ways to say this. Usually I'll say if we're not interested in the property, we'll let you know right away. Are you going to be able to give us an answer yes or no the day we're there? And a lot of times you really got to decide how nice, good of a deal it is, or how good a report you have if they say no. Nope. Okay. Well, because I have other signers or I'm going to sleep on it no matter what. And then you get into other techniques to turn that around.

But that was a long answer for your question. No, it's actually a really good one. I mean, a good answer. So I kind of put it in bullet points so we can, I mean, definitely you filled in all the spaces in between the lines here. But really, that initial phone call, the first thing is you want to make them feel comfortable. You want them to drop their guard. And basically build rapport. You just want to be likable and make them feel comfortable.

And we do that by the transition agreement, setting their expectations, telling what's going on, not being too, you don't want to be reactive. So you want to take control of that and make sure you get your questions answered before you answer any of their questions. And that's not even a tactic. That's just being a responsible professional that I can't give you an answer. There's not a one-size-fits-all answer. I need to know more about your situation before I can do that. Right. So that's one. Make them comfortable, drop their guard and, you know, build rapport. So that's one. Number two is during that whole process, you're really looking for willingness, right? That you're looking, that's kind of how you're detecting the motivation. Are they cooperating or they standoffish? You're just looking for their willingness to to cooperate and communicate and conversate, right? Yep. Okay. Third thing is your next, the real intent or the goal of that call is to set the appointment. Right?

So that's another transition agreement. Let them know how easy it is going to be able to set an appointment, what they should expect. It's okay to say no. You also let them know if everything goes well. We'll have an offer for you. And you can say yes or no. So we call it a release statement. You call it a transition agreement.

Same type of thing accomplishes the exact same thing. And the fourth thing is, oh, by the way, now you're checking, do they have the ability to sell once you get there? Yep. Right? Did I hit that? So rapport, looking for willingness. set the appointment and then look for the ability to perform. Absolutely.

Sweet. Yeah. That's good. Of course, there's a lot of stuff in between there and a lot of the specific techniques and strategies that we covered at the school. We've got, we're right on 30 minutes, so we're out of time. Let's resume this next week. So once we've set the appointment and what goes on at the actual appointment at the property, you want to come back and do that next week?

Sounds great, man. I'd love to. Perfect. Okay. So in the meantime, if you would have looking to, if you'd like to come out and learn for two straight days with Jeff and myself, you know, the first day is an all-classroom event. Second day is half classroom, half in the field where we actually go put some of this stuff to work. And that's in St. Louis on October 27th and 28th. We're only taking 10 people.

That's as much as we can fulfill, I think, and really make sure everyone has a really quality experience and gets what they take. and then with that comes the six-month of follow-up sales calls, accountability calls, training calls. You can go to ground and pound school.com. Ground and pound school. com. You can apply there. There's a short little questionnaire. It lets us know a little bit about you and your business and what you want to accomplish.

And then on the next page, if you want to jump to the front of the line for your application interview, you can go ahead and self-schedule yourself right into the calendar. Okay. It's not free and it's not cheap either. Okay. So this is an investment in yourself. it's an investment in your skill, and that's what we want to make available to those who want it.

Do you have anything to add to that, Jeff? I think it is one of the top skills that we need to have as real estate investors. Yep. Because, like I said, you can use this all day long. You don't have to have huge marketing budgets. Everyone you talk to is a prospect, and there's plenty of free leads out there. So absolutely, and I thoroughly. enjoy it and you know right you know that's the there's really three ways you can increase your

bottom line three that come to mind right away you can increase your lead generation so you're increasing your opportunity one you can increase your conversion and that would be two and three you could increase your spread right you can increase the the discounts and I think what what's really cool about this school is once you've got the skill number two and number three increasing your conversions and increasing your spread, once you've got that skill, no one can take that away from you. And if you can convert more, then everyone else to compete with you is going to have to spend more. And I think that's the real advantage. So once you've got that initial exposure to what those techniques are, and then you practice it just the way you'd practice, you know, driving a golf ball or, you know, juggling through tennis balls,

or even something as simple as tying your shoe, once you've practiced that enough and have enough repetitions, and now you can do it without thinking. and what a huge advantage that gives you over your competition and what an amazing field to have that competition, how well it pays. So I'd invite anyone that this is even remotely resonating with. Go to ground and pound school.com. We would love to see you in October. And then Jeff and I will resume this conversation next week

where when you're walking up the steps and you knock on the door, what's next? Sound good, Jeff. Sounds great. Sounds great, man. I appreciate it. You bet, buddy. Thanks for being here. and we'll do this again next week. All right.

See you then. All right, I'll see you next week. God bless and to your success. I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream. You've been listening to Epic Real Estate Investing, the world's foremost authority on separating the facts from the BS in real estate investing education. If you enjoyed this show,

please take a minute to visit iTunes and share your thoughts. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time here at Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.