KGCI: Real Estate on Air - 5 Techniques to Close Any Deal

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Welcome to Uncommon Real Estate, where it's all about finding creative solutions for real estate agents and investors. In exclusive mastermind conversations with some of the brightest minds in real estate, you'll learn how to earn an extra six figures a year. Don't follow the herd. Be Uncommon. Here are your hosts, multi-millionaire real estate agent and investor, Chris Craddock and Jeff Saferight. Hey, everyone. Welcome here to another episode of the Uncommon Lunchbox with you host, Chris Cradd. myself, Jeff Stapright. Today, we're having another coffee discussion, apparently, but I forgot the memo. I don't have coffee, but I do have my water. It's blurry there. I got to keep it in because of the blur factor, right? Anyways, hey, we're going to talk closing a little bit more. We're going to talk how to get there, some strategies, all that fun stuff. And Chris is drinking

his muscle milk instead of coffee. But hey, oh, oh, oh. Super coffee. Super coffee. This stuff is amazing. One of my former clients and now he's become a good buddy of mine is like their top sales guy. He was their first employee. They were on Shark Tank and everything. SuperCoff is amazing. All right. Awesome. Awesome. All right. So Chris, let's go ahead and dig into today because we've been known to get off topic a little bit and go overtime and all that fun stuff. But what do we got for today? We're going to talk about types of closing. But before we do that, let's, I know we're going off topic here. So tell us about your blurry background because I've, I've, I've, I've seen a couple of people with that.

So give us a tech tip here for us in the age of snoo. Right. Well, apparently you just got to go to your video section here. You go to your choose virtual background. And it is the, at least for me, it's the second option next to none. It's called the blur. And you hit that, you rock it. And now everything behind you is blurry.

And you're great. So, you know, for a person like myself, I got five kids. My background's always chaotic. This is clutch right here. Yeah, for me, we're building a new house that has like my office and podcast studio and everything, but we've got six kids and they are everywhere as well. So same things you've gotten going on. And so it is like I literally, I found a basement of one of our basement rooms.

And I'm like, okay, no kids are allowed in this room. This is my studio. This is where it's at. But yeah, the blur factor when you, you just see like crazy children running in the background. And I think that actually could work. So anyway, well, let's jump in. So I guess you already got us started. So today we're going to talk about types of closes.

I'm going to give you a resource right now. It's called the Great. Great Carlson is he's a great sales guy. He's got a book called The Closer Survival Guide. And it is a really, really, really good book. And it's all these different types of closes. But today we're going to look at a handful of closes. So the first one we're going to talk about is the puppy dog.

clothes. I've talked about this so many times. And so the puppy dog clothes was one. And honestly, this is dirty. It's a dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty clothes. So these dog breeders were having a hard time getting people to buy the, buy their dog. And so what they did was they said, listen, we're going to give you like the first night. You can take the dog home. And then if you don't want it, you can bring it back tomorrow. Right. You got 24 hours to bring the dog back. And I mean, dirty. Could you imagine, you have five tits. Could you imagine all of a sudden your tints come out? They'll love it on the puppy and everything.

You're like, oh, we're going to see if it's right. And then you're like, sorry, chids. We're bringing the dog back. Like it's dirty. It's dirty. It's just such a like, I mean, but it's also just an amazing sales tactic there. Because once the dog gets in the car and all the chins are there, unless the dog literally starts puking and pooping all over everything. And even then, bro, even then you.

Bro, even then you can't. I tried. I got a dog last November. I've tried multiple times to give him or give her away. And kids are not having it. They're not into it. Right. Right. No, not at all. So let me share with you, how does the puppy dog close relate to real estate? Here's where it's at. So again, in marketing, one of the big keys, it's called risk reversal, right? So when a buyer or a seller signs on the dotted line, who takes? all the risk. They do, right? So when we give risk reversal, you get them down the line. So one of the things Zig Zigler says is your first yes is always the hardest. Then after that, all the yeses are easy afterwards. I've talked about this before. For tax reasons, when I go on vacation, I like to do whatever it is, a timeshare presentation. And actually, I learn a lot from them. They're not necessarily high-level salespeople, but man, their systems and strategies are great. So right at the beginning, they ask the question, do you like vacation? Who in the right mind is going to say no, right? You get that yes. You get the yes. So you're getting the yes. So the puppy dog closed. You get them to sign. That's your yes. And what you say is, listen, you can cancel. And I've had a lot of friends. They charge if you cancel and they lock them in if you cancel. Listen, you can cancel. No questions asked. I take all the risk. I'm spending the money on this. I'm doing all the marketing for you. I'm doing everything. And all you got to do. If you don't feel like I mean, I deserve to keep your business, all you had to do is send

an email or give me a phone call and you can cancel. That's the puppy dog close. All the risk is on us. And they, once they signed the contract, didn't they're mine, they've gone down that road with you, right? One last thing I'll share, I was in youth ministry for a long time. And I, we always had massive amounts of kids come to camp with us when I was doing youth ministry. and it was so funny because I started teaching other folks in youth ministry how to get a lot of kids to sign up for camp. And one of the big things was what you saw was kids would say they were going to go to camp. But once they turned in their money, all of a sudden, then they told all their friends to come with that. Because if they didn't turn in their money, they'd be last minute and then they'd turn it in and they didn't have anybody there.

But once they'd turn in their money, they're like, now I don't want to go by myself. So then they bring all their friends with them. And so that there's just this like once you sign on the dotted line, you're in. Once you're turning and they could be in a refundable deposit. But once they turn into money, they're in. So it's that first yes where they just decide like the flip this, the script flips. And they're like, okay, I'm with you. So the puppy dog closed gets in the door.

And then it's you've really got to screw up bad to get fires. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It also helps. And this doesn't happen very often. Maybe like one in 20 clients will look at the length of the contract, right? And we typically do six-month listing agreements. And like I said, 90% of the time, 95% of the time, nobody cares.

But every once in a while you get that one person and you can go back and you can go, okay, I'll only do it for two or three months. Or you'd say, look, you can fire me at any time, right? There's no cost to you. And I actually had to do this this week. I had one of those people. I said, listen, a lot of agents are going to charge you $1,000, $2,000 for all their marketing dollars and all the money that they put into it if you fire them.

We're not going to do that because we believe in ourselves. And quite frankly, we don't want to work with somebody that doesn't want to work with us because it just makes everything difficult on everybody. So here's, you can cancel any time. You can fire me for whatever reason during this time. and it works almost every single time. Yeah, 100%. 100%.

So now let's go back to the closed up you're talking about originally, right? Where you picture it. Like maybe they're moving, like we live in the D.C. area and it's about to get cold here. And maybe somebody wants to move to Florida. So this is called the visualization closed.

Jeff, give us, close me. I'm like we're in September. It's starting to get cold here. Like I'm not freezing cold, but I don't like the cold. I want to be where I'm going to be warm year round. All you Florida people, stop judging me right now. But yeah, close me right now because now I'm just on the fence of when I'm ready to go. Close me with paint that picture, bro.

Yep. So Chris, this is a beautiful home, man. Why in the world would you ever want to sell it? Well, you know, I've always said my friends and family, my kids were young. I was going to stay up here in the D.C. area. But, man, I hate the cold. Like literally once it gets down, even 65 degrees, it's too cold for me. I just want to be warm and suns out, guns out kind of guy.

That's where I want to be. Man, I feel you there, but I think I'm probably going to have to get to the gym a little bit more before I can bring the guns out regardless of where the sun is. But, man, I'll back up and go with you if you're heading to the beach. But good stuff. So let's talk about time frame then. Like, you're going to be at the beach. What are you going to do at the beach?

Yeah, I just love the idea that I can work from work from the beach. It can be warm. I don't have to go through. I don't have to dig my car out or dig out the driveway so I can get my car out in the snow. So, and man, I'll tell you, we'd love the idea of having a convertible because, yeah, here in the D.C. area, I got the convertible for like, what, three, four months. Those are the things I'm looking forward to. So, yeah, I mean, I'm excited about it. We've just got a bunch of stuff we've got to do here. So, I mean, probably in the next couple months will be, we'll be, we'll be. We'll be. be ready to look at getting her house listed. Very good. I just got one last question for you. Is it convertible for you or for your wife? Well, let's say both. Both. All right, awesome. So your wife is on board with the move to Florida? Yeah, absolutely. We both want to meet out there. Very cool. Well, hey, so I was actually reading an article the other day that this is supposed to be one of the coldest winters that we've had in a very long time. So assuming that we have one of these years where we're going to have a snowstorm come, our first snowstorm come November. Do you want to be here for one last jabang or you want to, you want to be enjoying that Florida weather and your

convertible before that? Bro, I definitely want to be down there, but I just haven't, I mean, you see the house. I just got a lot of stuff to do before we put the house on the market. So, so yeah, I mean, I really like what you said. So I think we're really interested. I don't know why we wouldn't end up working with you, but we just got some stuff to figure out. So that's kind of the deal. Awesome. All right. Well, let's put together a list here. Like we tour the house. We checked it out. It looks like there's some things to do in the basement. You may have a couple other things. But sometimes people think I've got to do all of these things before I sell the house. And in reality, you're not getting the greatest ROI. So let's walk through a couple of those things real quick. So we can determine whether or not extending that that timeframe of getting to Florida is there. Right. So we'll break world play here. But yes, so then we'll go through it. So Jeff did a great job reminding me why. And one of the things that he did as well was be playful, right? Like he's joked about having to go to the gym before he gets his guns out, right?

Joked about, which is self-deprecating humor, right? So it's totally good to do that, right? He asked whether it's for me or my wife, right? So a little bit playful. Now, if I was a totally high D in the low eye, that wouldn't have worked because he saw my energy. He was mirroring and matching my energy. So it's good there. Then he starts asking a bunch of questions.

And just for the sake of time, because I know we want to get through a bunch of these different closes, I cut it off. But I can guarantee you we're going to go. He's going to go through this and then circle back around to the vision of being down in Florida and saying, why don't we just get this started right now? I'll be able to help. I've got a whole team of folks that can get in here and get all this stuff done. I mean, within a week, we can have everything done for you.

And boom, then he's bringing it back around. So he's reminding you why, through questions, asking about stuff, reminding me, winter's going to be cold and I hate the cold, which is true, by the way. Like, I hate the cold. So on you people up north, I don't understand you, but I'm so glad that there are people that want to populate that part of a country, but I don't take you. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And I know this isn't the part that we're in, but really kind of, I feel like, Most sellers have been conditioned to think that they have to go through a 60-point checklist and do all of these things to prepare their homes to sell when more often than not, they're not going to get the ROI on it, especially depending on the time of year. Now, if you're like February, March and you want to get ready for the spring market, that might be a little bit different. But a lot of times, you're losing money by trying to do a laundry list of things to your home. So, you know, going through helping them to feel better about what should, shouldn't be done,

and then looping back to let's get you to Florida. We can get somebody in here. We can get this thing done and wrapped up. And you don't even have to be here for the first enough dorm. Yeah. So the last thing I'm going to say is this, before we move on to the next close, the next type of close is sales does leadership. So whether you're leading a big team or whether you're selling a client, you are leading that client. They are trusting you.

You are asking them to trust your guidance in your leadership, right? It is leadership. You cannot be a good leader unless you can paint a compelling vision for people, right? So what Jeff was doing was painting a compelling vision to say, let's date you where you want to go. And remember, to paint a compelling vision, it's with them. What's in it for me? And so what's in it for them is, hey, we can get you where you want to be without the hassle of all the pain that you have that you're working through right now.

So it actually just reminds me of a friend that somebody referred to me that's going to be moving down to Florida. So I am going to call that person later today and talk to them because they said they do not want to talk about moving until after summer, but they don't want to be used to the winter. And then the wife was like, I will probably be moving in like November, December. And so, yeah, this reminds me, got a call, paint that picture, remind them. Let's get going now.

By the way, if we were doing a true listening appointment with Chris and Chris's energy and just the way Chris is, I guarantee I would have broken out with a little vanilla ice garage got down so my hair could blow. Oh, yes. Can I tell you my mastermind that I'm going to at the end of this month, vanilla ice is actually going to be there. No, it's not. He is going to be at the mastermind at the end of this month.

And I mean, I think there's like 50 of us that are in is not. of mine. And so I was like, holy trap. Like when I was a kid, I still have ice baby memorized from back when I was like eight years old or whatever it is, 10 years old. Like I literally could sing the song to you right now. And maybe if you're lucky, I might even jump into it later at the podcast. All right. Let's let's move to the next close. The assumptive close. This is this is one that everybody knows about, but it is literally one of the most powerful closes ever. So Jeff, give us a couple. I know you use this all the time. I use this all the time. Show us some language around the assumptive clothes. Sure. Yeah. So Chris, we spoke about you want to

move the floor. You guys want to get the convertible. You want to roll with the rag top down so your hair can flow. Anyways, but we're talking about the things that we've got to do here. So if it's okay with you, what I'm going to do is send you a group text with my contractor just to introduce you so we can get those things wrapped up. And really, if everything goes our way, and I don't see where it's not going to. I think we should be ready to rock and roll and get this thing listed by the end of the month. If that time frame works for you, does that sound okay? Yeah.

Yeah. So there you go. So you're just assuming to close. So you're using language like we, when we list it, just talking about it, like, okay, we're here. You're assuming that it's a dumb deal, right? Because then nobody likes conflict. And so they're going to have to say, no, we're not going to work with you. Or no, we need to.

Like, that's conflict. You just assume it. And honestly, if you're a good leader, they're going to follow your lead. That's it. And part of that is, oh, I'll just tell you what, if you have not done a good. So I look at my wife has written a number of films. She's won a bunch of awards. I talk about the appointment is like a movie.

Okay. You've got act one, act two, and act three. The close is Act 3. If you've done a good job talking about everything, selling them in Act 1, selling them in Act 2, answering all of their question is walking through everything. The close is the natural conclusion to a great Act 1 and Act 2. It's a natural conclusion for Act 3. So all throughout, you talk when we list your house, when you're using re, when, like, you're just assuming,

you're just talking like you have the deal. And if you did a good job, you should have the deal. And I'll tell you this much, if you ever walk out of an appointment without them saying they're working with you. And trust me, I'm pointing to figure it myself as well. I'm just going to say this. It's not their fault. It's your fault. And I know that you're, everybody's like, how dare you say all this stuff?

I'm good at what I do. Whatever. And that's fine. You can say whatever you want. You can either get defensive or you can get better. But the reality is, I can almost promise you they're going to list with somebody. and you had the same appointment a hundred times over and over and over again, eventually at some point, if you're even somewhat of a learner, you will learn and you would walk out with the sign

agreement at some point, right? So what that means is that if you're walking out without a signed agreement and they're going to work with somebody, you just did not, you were not compelling. You weren't compelling enough as a leader. So now is the chance to work on up in your game so that you can be more compelling as a leader. So, so assumptive clothes. That's, that is one of the big, big, big, big, big closes. You just threw out the whole thing.

You're just talking to you something. Not if, if you ever use the word if you're in a bad, bad, bad place. Never use the word if. All right. So here's, let's say things have not gone well, right? Jeff's asking me a bunch of questions and I'm giving him, I need to think about it. I need to think about it. I need to think about it.

all these smoke screens because if somebody says I need to think about it, unless they're a high C, and if you don't understand what I'm talking about like disc profile, go back and listen to some of our past podcast where we talk about the disc profile. If you're a high C personality, those, those folks are hardly ever going to sign right then and there. They really do need to think about it, but a D, an I and an S. If they don't, if they need to think about it, what it means is you weren't compelling. They don't want to have the conflict right there. They want to interview a bunch of other people and likely somebody else is going to do it for dirt cheap and they're going to get what they pay for and then we're going to work with a weaker agent because they offered

them to be the cheapest agent. And they also probably promised them that the house will sell for way more than it will actually sell for. And they're going to sit on the market, reduce the price by 50 grand. And then all of a sudden they're going to sell for less money because it was a staleness thing than you did. And you know whose fault that is? It's yours. It's mine. It's our fault because you were not compelling enough. So we got to get better. So here we go. Now, if you, if you get to the end of the appointment, this is called the doorknob closed, right? And actually, it's called the doorknob closed. I call it the laptop closed. But the real phrases is the door knob closed. If you get to the end of the appointment and you're asking the questions,

one of the things is I got to think about it. One of the questions I always ask is, so if you have to think about it a lot of times, what I found is I didn't answer a question that you were thinking about. So I'm just kind of curious. What were the questions that you had that I didn't answer? No, they'll say the answer to that. Okay. Boom. That's good. They'll say the answer. Well, I still need to just think about it. Well, the doorknows is the idea that you stand up, you touch the door knob, and then you turn it and ask one question. I felt the laptop closed because I usually have my laptop out. I do my listening presentation. I close the lap, like I say, okay, no problem. You've got to think about it. I close the laptop because as long as the

laptops out as long as we're in the appointment, their guard is up. They draw the line in the sand. They're in, as Orrin Club calls it, the power frame, right? They're in that power frame. And if I push at all, they're going to push harder back. And so the doorknob closed where the laptop closes. You close the laptop. You put it away. You sit back and you just signal to them with all of your body language. The meeting is over, right? It's over. And then you just say, hey, I'm just kind of curious, what was it that you were looking for that you were hoping would happen or you were hoping somebody would talk about here that would have made you say, man, I'm ready to, I'm ready to rock. And sometimes people are like, oh, no, I would, I would never, I just need

to think about it or whatever. But think about the guy Jerry McGuire. I never have contracts. My word is good as hope. That's not true. It's bogus. So, so you say, like, the laptop is closed. They've brought down their power frame. They erase the line in the sand. Now you're, just two people talking before you're leaving and their guard is down and then they'll talk to you. They'll say, well, this is what I was, this is really what I was looking for. You told me the house and cell for $6.80 and I really want $7.20 for it. And so that's the deal. And I'll tell you, it's crazy. When you close the laptop and you ask that question, you change your whole status, right? Like your whole figure, your body language. And then you ask that question, they will start talking because

they bring their guard down. It's insane. It's insane. So anyway, Jeff, what do you think about that? Do you have any? Yeah, I mean, I think basically what you're doing is you're changing the energy in the room. And really, you can do that. You can do that by changing by closing the laptop. I personally don't bring a laptop. This is not my style. But I used to use a notebook until I lost my notebook and lost $30,000 probably or more. So now I use an iPad. So what I do is whether it's like leaving or whether I just feel like the conversation is not going the direction that I would have hoped that it would, is I just close the iPad and I just sit back. Changing my posture changes the dynamic and the energy in the room,

and it kind of releases a breath of fresh air, right? And by me just stepping back, it really kind of releases some tension. And essentially, that's what you're talking about in erasing that line. That line is drawn when tension. rises. And so there's different things that we can do to release that tension. And that makes us more approachable. And one of the things that I found is anytime that you do that, is it, it just changes the dynamic of the conversation. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. 100%. So we're,

we got one minute left before we got to get it. I'm going to just hit two quick closes real quick. One is one that I've struggled with, but I've gotten better with over time is the takeaway close. And actually, there's an agent on our team, John, who we've had on here before. He is really good looking at a takeaway close. Apparently, he'll say this on appointments. He was like, yeah, you're talking about these other agents. It sounds like that's a good agent. You probably should go with that agent. Like, why wouldn't you go with that agent? They sound like a great agent. And literally, like, he's like saying, like, you should do that. Not work with me. You should work with them. And literally, he says over and over, like probably at least once a month. He will

use this clothes and he said that people will literally talk themselves in as they're standing there talk themselves into working with you instead and it's like they're like well i like this about you i like this about you i like this about you and like literally talk of into it they'll say okay well that sounds good then then let's let's sigh let's get it done so that's that's the takeaway clothes and actually oh my gosh i got a i bought a car yesterday from my daughter and i just want to share this real quick before we get to the last close, literally told me what the number was. And I just sat there of my wife. My wife said it was so awkward. I just sat there looking at the sheet and I just didn't say anything. I said like probably like five minutes, just quietly looking at the sheet. I mean,

and the salesman's like, you know what? I really need to sell a car today. Why don't I knock off 500 bucks from there? And I was like, I mean, that would help. And then I just sat there looking at it again. And I just didn't say anything. Just stare at the sheet. And he's like, you know what? Tell me what number it would take to get it done. And at that point, like I saw on there, there's an $800 charge and like the processing charge. And I was like, I said, well, what is this number here?

And you just said that's the processing charge. I was like, okay. And then I just sat there quietly and he was like, what if we mount that off to? And so, well, I didn't take it money off because I was just sitting there looking. I didn't say a word. I didn't even ask for letting. I didn't say anything. I just sat there looking at it quietly.

And my wife was like afterwards. She was like Chris. That was the most awkward moments of my life. Because you just weren't talking and you just looked at you all afterwards. So anyway, that's what then last last close will talk. Oh, man. There's so many other good clothes this year. And actually there was an agent on our team who had a problem getting a deal closed,

a seller to sign with us because they were interviewing a. ton of other people. And so I jumped in, they asked me if I'd help. I jumped in and I was like, listen, here's the deal. If we don't get coming seeing started right now, if we don't get coming soon like this coming soon thing started right now, we're going to go active way, way, way late in the fall and likely we're going to miss the heat of the market. If we miss the heat of the market, it's going to cost you a lot of money. So we've got to get this done right now. And literally within 24 hours, he had the signed agreement back to us. He chose to work with us over another agent that chose to do it, that said he would do it at a much, much reduced

commission. This would cost, admittedly by choosing to work with us with the price that he was looking at, it was literally $14,000 more expensive. But by having what's called the urgency close, we need to get this done now or we're going to miss this part of the market. And we all know that FOMO is a huge thing. If you're missing out, look at every single political message. I don't care whether you're a Republican or Democrat. What you will find is that if you are a Republican, if the Democrats get in the office, the world is going to fall apart. America is going to be terrible. If you are a Democrat, if the Republicans get in office, like the world is going to fall apart. Like it's that fear that really, really pushes. So regardless of what side of the aisle you're on,

Fear is the biggest piece, which is fear brings urgency. And if you are showing like 10 houses, 15 houses of buy side, it means you don't have the urgency clothes. You don't have that going on. So both on the seller side and the buyer side, this is one of the most powerful closes ever. We're over time. So, Jeff, if you have anything you want to add, that'd be great.

But then also remind everybody the promise that we will give if everybody will give us a five-star review. Yeah, absolutely. Nothing really to add. We can add that in our. In our next episode that we do on this, I would say maybe it's time to bring Bell back on and do some buyer's side clothes because I feel like a lot of the closings that we're bringing to the table are at least the examples that we're using are a lot more listing base. So go to wherever it is that you listen to your podcast at, anything else. You can find us on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you're at, we're there.

Check out this episode, check out the last episode, check out other episodes. Chris mentioned the disc profile episodes. Check those out as well. While you're there, give us a five-star review. And once you do that, then let us know, contact us. You can reach me at 703-899-7-270. Once again, it's 703-899-7-270. Give us a five-star review.

Reach out to me, and we will do a free half-hour coaching call and do whatever we can do to help you increase and boost your business. We're here to help. We want to see you thrive. We want us to you succeed. We want to see you live an uncommon life doing uncommon real estate. So with that said, this does conclude another episode of your Uncommon Look, Lunchbox with you always Chris Craddick, myself Jeff Saferight.

We'll be back Tuesday, same time, same place. Look forward to seeing you then. Until then, continue crushing it. Have a great weekend. Bye. Boom. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Uncommon Real Estate. Subscribe to the podcast to stay up to date with the latest mastermind conference.

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