Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Settling the Rent Vs Buy Debate and 3 Rules of Investing in Real Estate with Paul Mark Morris

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Is renting really throwing money away? That is just one of the hot real estate topics Nicole gets into today with Paul Mark Morris— real estate expert and host of the podcast Radical Wealth Plan. Nicole and Paul talk about whether now is a good time to buy, Paul's three rules of real estate and whether 1031 exchanges are as cool as they seem on TikTok. Plus, Paul also gives a masterclass in the art and science of closing a sale. All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Always do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making any financial decisions or investments. All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative, involves a high degree of risk, and has the potential for loss of the entire amount of an investment. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC.  *APY as of 6/30/25, offered by Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Rate subject to change. See terms of IRA Match Program here: public.com/disclosures/ira-match.

I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Is renting really throwing away money? That is just one of the real estate topics that I get into today with Paul Mark Morris, real estate investor and host of the podcast Radical Wealth Plan. And I know that everyone these days with an Instagram account thinks that they are a real estate investor. But Paul is the real deal. His real estate firm oversees 2,000 realtors who have closed more than $7 billion in deals annually.

So as a real estate guy through and through, he is the perfect person to have the rent versus by debate with. As you know, I have a little bit more love for renting than most financial experts. Paul also gives a full-on masterclass in the art and science of closing a sale. Paul does what every finance bro has threatened to do since the Wolf of Wall Street. He sells me a pen. But actually, he crushes it. And as a side note, after the interview, Paul kindly mailed both me and our producer, pens, which I just think is the greatest relationship building move. 10 out of 10, highly recommend the interview after this. Support for today's episode comes from Square. The easy way for business owners to take payments, book appointments, manage staff, and

keep everything running in one place. On this show and in my books, I always talk about how important it is to have multiple streams of income. But how do you actually go from hobby to hustle? The answer? Square. I have seen it so many times in real life. Just this weekend at the farmer's market, there was a mom selling banana bread. We love banana bread. And I could not resist. In the past, I might have missed out because I never carry cash. But with Square, she was able to take my card in seconds. I got my delicious treat. She got paid and neither of us had to stress. With Square, you can get all the tools to run your business with none of the contracts or complexity. And why wait? Right now you get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com

slash go slash MNN. That's square.com slash GO slash MNN as in Money News Network. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. I am so excited you head up to Big Sur with my husband this fall. We are celebrating our anniversary. And while I will miss the little mush so much, we are also really excited to have a little parents' time. We deserve that. But you know, it got me thinking about this feeling when you walk out of the door for a trip and you wonder what your blaze is doing while you're gone.

Well, it turns out it could be working for you. I've been hosting on Airbnb for forever now, and I tell all of my friends to do the same because it's an amazing way to make passive income from an asset you already have, your home. But some of my friends who are super busy worry that hosting on Airbnb would feel like having a second job. And that's when I tell them about Airbnb's co-host network. Anything you don't have the bandwidth to do, a co-host can handle for you. They can create your listing, manage reservations, manage guests, provide on-site support, even handle design and styling.

So whether you're traveling for work or you're escaping the winter, or if you have a second place that just sits empty way too often, your home doesn't have to sit on the sidelines. Instead, you can earn a little extra cash without adding another job to your plate. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. Paul Morris, welcome to money rehab. Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to it. It made me feel like I'm a disc jockey. Yes, let's go.

So everyone asks you, I'm sure, is now a good time to buy? Is that the number one question that everybody asks? It is, to be honest. And I've answered it so many times. that I'm happy to answer it again. Real estate is so deal dependent that there are great buys made in every market and there are terrible buys made in every market. So how good the deal is, is almost wholly independent of the market. Now, I might change the way I look at a deal knowing that, you know, like, we really, like, the market's been so hot for so long, you know,

we're really closer to the top than the bottom. I might adjust the things that I look at and be a bit more conservative. And I'm going to give you one anecdote, and that is I go to hot yoga and I'm in the locker room and men are nice to each other in the locker room at hot yoga. Because, yes, I'm sure. It's because like we've just been through hell, you know, and now we're where it's, much nicer. And the guy said to me, hey, you know, I know you're in real estate. And I was looking at this deal. I thought it was really great deal. And my CPA told me not to buy it. I was like,

oh, that's interesting. And he's like, well, what do you think is now a good time to buy? And I asked him, like, where the deal was. And interestingly, his realtor happened to work for me, which is not as crazy coincidental as it might seem because there are 2,000 realtors in L.A. working for me. and I knew the person and I know that she's a great realtor and she was suggesting a buy and then his CPA said don't buy now it's not a good time to buy and I and I asked him did your CPA go out and look at the property or did he at least see the deal and he said no he was just saying it's a it's you know it's not a good time to buy and I told him I absolutely promise you that that is terrible advice. And the reason why I know it's terrible advice, I'm not saying buy it or don't buy it,

but the reason why I know it's terrible advice is because if you don't look at the deal, how in the world would you know whether you should buy it or not? And there certainly is a price at which any real estate deal makes sense in any market. For you, I think the better question, and we can't get into it now is, is it a good time to buy for me and my family? If you have a need to buy real estate, meaning like you're renting, let's just say you're renting and you come to me and say, is now a good time to buy real estate, I would say now's a great time to look for deals. And every single market is slightly different. Like the Fed just dropped their rates and they're anticipating that the Fed is going to drop their rates. Again, maybe once this year, as many as two or three times next year, there are people waiting till those rates drop. And that, I'll tell you why that doesn't make sense. Because when the, when rates are low and the market's hot, then I have clients. Yeah, I have clients and people. They've now missed their seventh home. You know, they got outbid. And they're,

they're waiting for a time when their offer would be, would be looked at. So, you know, if you can afford to buy your own home, then every market is a great market. That doesn't mean that every deal is a great deal. You can make a bad buy in every market, and you can make a phenomenal buy in every market. Okay, I want to debate with you. Please. Renting versus buying. Should we do it now, or should we get to your three rules? Whatever you want to do. Let's go through your three rules. Okay. And then let's get into it. So rule number one, if you're investing in real estate, which is different, investing in real estate is different than buying your primary house.

It is and it isn't. I use an investor mindset when I buy my own house. I had a podcast on how I made a million dollars the day I closed on my own house. So how did you make a million dollars the day you closed? Well, so one of the myths is that in order to get a steal or a great deal, it's got to be off market you know you've got to steal it from somebody you've got to whatever those deals are always more expensive though people are always looking for them you know they're like oh you know if it's on the market so so i'll just give you the example of of my house my house is that it is at a

luxury price point and it was a poorly done flip okay what it meant in in real terms for this house and i'll just go ahead and tell you the numbers the house was listed at 4.75 million. It was at the top of the market. This is when anything that was like halfway decent was in multiple offers. 4.75 million was already low for this. That's why they priced it that way. And it just sat there. I looked at it and there were enduring qualities. The enduring qualities are magical views, 5,000 square feet all on one level. It had a beautiful infinity pool that was like carved into the edge of the mountainside. I'm painting a very nice picture, right? gorgeous. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Right. And you go in and there are, I think it's not an

exaggeration, 100 overhead LED lights of the cheapest brand possible. And there's not a dimmer in the whole house. So you go in and you turn on the lights and it's like, you're like, you're like in a surgical theater. Interrogation. It's interrogation rooms. It's like, that's bad. And then there was just so much wrong with the house. Visible flaws and things that chase people away that if you do a little bit of work or a little bit of due diligence that you can, you can work around. And the bottom line is I ended up paying $4.65 million for it. And just do the math. It's $5,000 square feet. And I brought brought a whole team in to inspect everything and then had a contractor who I trusted and said, you know, how much is it going to cost to fix all this stuff? And the answer came back,

you know, well under $200,000. So let's redo that math, $4.65 million in with everything screwed up and $200,000 to fix it. Now we're at $4.8. It's never what they suggest. You know, it was over time over budget. You know what? I did it in a way. that I was like, like, tell me, if you think it costs 20 grand to fix it, like tell me 40. You know, I don't want to undershoot it. Just overshoot it. And the number came at at 200 grand. And the easy math is 4.65 plus 200. Now you're at 4.85 with all the stuff fixed. And then I went to a great realtor, even though I'm in that business. I went to a great realtor who specializes in the area. He knew the house. He knew the view. And he just said, there's, there's nothing. You

cannot touch anything with that kind of a view for under $1,200 a square foot. So that math is $6 million. So for $4.85, I'm getting $6 million worth of house. And that, by the way, was in one of the hottest markets. That's when it was buy, buy, buy. And I was still able to get essentially that steel. It wasn't a steel because guess what? It was already, it had been on the market, which means every end user, every investor had already seen this place and passed on it. And being able to see through that with the help of experts to, because I'm not an HVAC guy, you don't need to be any of this stuff. You know, just get the right people, get the right information, make an informed decision. And that's how I gained a million dollars equity at the

close of escrow. Well, we're definitely having a party at your house. But for somebody who isn't looking for a $5 million steal, let's come back to Earth and say, you know, we're out there, we're looking for a place. The number one rule you have is buy where you know and what you know. So explain that. Let's say you are, though, in a really expensive market like L.A. or New York and you know that, but you can't afford that. Right. And buying, buy where you know, make sure it's value add. make sure it cash flows. So and the other thing, just like you said, come back to Earth on the $5 million house. I just want to say that that math works exactly for a $500,000 house. So you buy the $465,000 house that has $30,000 worth of bad stuff. You can do a lot for $30,000. And now you're

at, now you're at $500,000 and it's worth $600. So the math works at $500,000. I'm originally from Pittsburgh and that's where I found that math. So one of the things that people find, you know, interesting or or surprising is that I've been, I've been investing in real estate for 30 years and I've never lost money in a single deal. And I've done that by following the three rules that you're referring to. And the first one is buy where you know. And to answer your other great question of, okay, well, you know, geez, I live in L.A. which is where I know, so like shouldn't I be buying in Detroit where I heard it's cheap or where, you know, whatever.

And my answer is, first of all, if you don't own a home, and this is where we're getting back to investing versus your personal residence, the best place to start building wealth by far is in your own home. And the reason why is there are loans and products, loan products available to you for your own home that do not exist for investors. So you have to check the box that says, yes, I'm owner-occupy. And then there are programs that, like, kick the door wide open. You mean lower interest rates for first-time homebuyers and much, much, much, much lower down payment for starters. I'm not sure if that's the best move for everybody, but we can debate it in a moment.

Let's put a pin in it. Let's go back to number two. So make sure it's value add. So buy the worst house in the best neighborhood is a great North Star. And the only reason why I deviate from that is because of where we live. Like, okay, so you're going to buy the worst house in Beverly Hills. Like, sorry, I can't afford that. That's not going to work. It's still a great idea. It just doesn't work in a very high priced area. So instead of buying the worst house in the best neighborhood, what I'm buying is, you know, close to the worst house in an area that I know is up and coming. And I know it's up and coming when, you know, about 25% of the houses are done. There are other signals. I use as a signal, you know, are there cool coffee shops coming

in? Or they're vintage shops or just like the cool stuff is coming in. And then you just know that it's starting, you know that it's starting to turn. Because if you buy too early, which I've done that too like I know this neighborhood is going to change and you want to catch it early and you buy too early you just never know like it could take forever so you have to like miss the best buys and wait till it's already starting to turn and then everybody in the neighborhood is like did you see that place like that is crazy what that sold for but when it's only like 20 to 25 percent redone. You're already paying more than the people that first got in, but you know that that train is moving, which is important. You're following the cool kids. You are following the cool

kids. Couldn't have said it better. So the third one is look for cash flows. That still applies for your primary house? Yeah. So when you're doing it for your own home, it's by where you know, buy the value ad and then know that you can afford the payment. And so if you can afford the payment, that's the same exact thing as it cash flowing. So if I'm paying, you know, $1,600 in rent and, you know, I look at the mortgage payment. I'm like, yeah, but the mortgage payment's going to be two grand. That's more. But I can't afford it.

And a 1031 exchange, very sexy on TikTok right now. Yeah. I do hear a lot of people talk. about it with their primary house. But it's intended for investment properties. Sure. Can you explain? So 1031 is really about pay taxes now or pay taxes later. And if you can delay taxes, that's always a good thing because, you know, again, I'd use very, very simple math. And let's say we got into an investment property and it was $700,000 and we put $300,000 in. And we put $300,000 in to make it great and you know the rents went up and we waited a while and now it's worth

two million dollars okay so if we sold it we would have to pay taxes on that one million dollar gain and that that would come out right now and then we would have that say you know whatever it depends on what state you're in and that sort of thing but as you say now we have one and a half million to invest instead of two million to invest If you 1031 exchange it, you can delay the taxes and then you invest the whole $2 million into a new property. So you have more to invest. And if you do that over time, your money will just grow much faster. Hold on to your wallets.

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N.A. Members FDICIC spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Timing depends on submission of payment file. Fees apply at out of network ATMs. Bank rank, and number of ATMs, according to U.S. News and World Report 2023. Chime checking account required. And now for some more money rehab. Okay, let's get into it. Yes. You say that buying is almost always better than renting.

A big pro for that is that people say renting is throwing away money. Sure. And buying is not. I'm sure that's one of your arguments. Of course. And you're making the landlord wealthy. You're not making yourself wealthy. Also, there are tax benefits.

I didn't create the tax laws, but there are massive tax benefits to owning property. I think the idea that renting is throwing away money is just incorrect. It buys you flexibility. It buys you safety. It buys you optionality. It buys your shelter. I mean, nobody says I'm throwing away money because I'm buying groceries or, health care. I think there is a cost of living. There's a lot that you don't get back from

homeownership either. You don't get back closing costs. You don't get property taxes. You don't get back the insurance premiums that you paid. And yes, you might get a tax write-off, but that's making the biggest financial decision of your life based on a right-off. It's like the tax tail wagging the dog. Somebody's paying insurance. And so if the landlord's paying insurance, they cannot pay their insurance unless they're charging you for their insurance. Somebody is paying that property tax. Or homeowners association fees, if that makes sense, or repairs. These are things that you never, ever get back.

It goes into the value of the property. The reason why apartment building owners are the secret millionaires or multi-millionaires is because it's worked for them and has always worked for them. I see people lose money in real estate. And the people that lose money in real estate are people that get over leveraged. Like you said, I agree with you, except that if you can afford to pay, if you can afford to pay the mortgage, just like if you can't pay your rent, you're eventually going to get thrown out.

And so if you can afford to pay your mortgage, then, you know, you're good to go. And over time, the payment that you're making is, almost all interest in the beginning, and then it starts to change. You're paying down principle over time. You're building your own war chest. But we can agree that in the short term, it doesn't make sense because there's a five to seven year break-even period, right? So if you're not sure you're staying there as your primary home, it doesn't make sense because you're spending so much in interest, especially in the beginning. We can do some easy math, if you would like. Sure. Let's say you buy a $500,000 starter home and you think you're going to get a

bigger, better place in five to seven years. You put 20% down. Okay. So you put 100K down. And after five years, you've spent 133,000, just on interest, and only 26k on principle. Okay. If you took that 100 grand and you put it in the market, instead, you'd have 160 grand. So the real cost is an opportunity cost, especially in the short term. I would want to ask you, where is the value of of the house during that period of time. And that you might say is market dependent. And I would say to you that if you bought it the way, I talked about buying it, it's more dependent

on the value you add than the market. But I love overtime, looking at big data sets. Yeah. Over time, I mean, that's the only way to make this comparison, right? So over time, real estate has yielded. On average, I know it's very market-specific and your properties are special, but 4.5% a year. Over time, the S&P 500 has yielded 10%. So if you're looking at an apples-to-apples comparison, you're going to make more if you take that money and you invest in the stock market.

So if you invest that $100K and never put another dollar in your investment account over that 30-year mortgage, you'd have $1.7 million on a $5,500. hundred thousand dollar house with the interest you're spending close to a million dollars for that house so it has to grow a lot and oftentimes it doesn't and so you want me to answer that is that a statement or is that a question I'd love for you to answer it's like you know a national a national weather forecast let's say we're going to plan your we're going to plan your wedding we're going to plan your you know big celebration and you're going to like look at a national weather forecast. It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. You got to look at the micro market. So let's talk about a specific area. We pull the numbers for L.A. and a lot of

metro areas. For comparable homes, rent is 30 to 40% lower than a mortgage payment. So in L.A. right now, the median rent, $3,000 versus a mortgage, $5,000. So we talked about the opportunity cost if you invested just the down payment and never put in another dollar, you would still beat the return on an average home. But let's say you added that delta of what you're saving on your rent versus a mortgage and all those costs that you never get back. So $2,000 a month. With no down payment, you would have $4 million at the end of 30 years if you signed up for a 30-year mortgage. If you did both, you'd have $5.7 million. If you did both, you'd have $5.7 million. you took the $100,000 down payment and the $2,000 that you're saving every month by renting and not buying,

then you would make almost six times as much money as you would have spent buying. What do we say to that? Well, again, every single property is its own stock market. The market exists inside of that. I don't know what stock you could possibly, you would have to have a crystal ball to pick a stock where, by the way, and I did take a loan out on the $4.6.5 million house. And the amount of money that I put down was $400,000. And when I closed escrow, I was plus a million in a market that was difficult to buy into. And so you're at 250% gain. If somebody will spend that, I mean,

ultimately a property is only as valuable as somebody's going to spend on it. I got a call while I was in escrow and someone said, I'll pay you a million dollars more for the for the house. And I had already like sold the Santa Monica house. You know, a million dollars sounds great. And then I had already sold the Santa Monica house, and then it's a short-term gain. I'd have to pay like 52% tax. So, okay, so I'm going to walk with $480,000 cash. That still sounds great. And where am I going to go?

You know, in one of the hottest markets, I would have to, like, move out of town in order to do that. So I hear what you're saying. And I respect people that have, you know, this phenomenal stock market knowledge. The thing that I love about real estate investing is it's when you invest in the S&P, you're a passenger in somebody else's car. Okay, I wouldn't even say that. You're riding, you know, in the backseat of the bus of somebody else's bus,

and there's drivers, and there's, you've got no control of what's going on. And when you buy a piece of real estate, you can find out, I believe, more about that piece of real estate, especially if you have local knowledge, like, hey, I live here. I know what, you know, what the area is doing, what it's not doing. Now you throw in $600 for a home inspector that's going to, like, go through every single thing. You're going to know more about that house, that one single purchase than, you know, I believe than anyone could possibly know about a stock. How are you going to know. I definitely don't have a crystal ball for sure, but over time, the S&P 500, so the overall index has yielded 7 to 10 percent. Over time, I'm definitely not in the driver's seat there,

but historically it allows me to diversify. So renting, I don't believe, is throwing away money. It's buying you the option to invest elsewhere, where you can also have potentially higher returns and your risk is spread out. I thought I was in the driver's seat of my house until it burned down. Tragic and hopefully you had, you know, insurance to help. Insurance premiums are through the roof too and it's really hard to even get an insurance policy. That's correct. Every one of these things creates opportunity. Well, I think it's just important to remember that homeowners don't just pay a mortgage. They pay insurance if they can get it in some areas, property tax, repairs, you know, and renters skip a lot of that. So.

Somebody's paying that, though. The landlord is paying that, and that is going to be reflected in your rent. And make sure that it's worth whatever you're missing out on 10% potentially compounding in the market. We're going to still be friends after this. Are we going to be friends after this? Absolutely. I think it's just really important to not take anything for gospel.

I don't think it's one-size-fits-all for anybody when it comes to financial moves, whether in real estate, in the market, in anything. So this idea that buying a home is for everybody is not true because not everything is for everybody. And flexibility, especially if you're moving around, is really, really important. Sometimes it's not emphasized that five to seven years of break-even period, you're not going to even make the money back in that if you sell before that time. And I have a client that was interested in a certain area. I saw this house that was great. And I'm like, let's take a look at this house.

And he's like, oh, you know exactly what I like. this is amazing. And the guy has lots and lots of money. This would be a small buy for him, small risk. And he was very close to buying. And I said, let me ask you this. Do you know, are you going to still be in LA in the next three to five years? And he said, you know what? I really don't know. I'd put it like a 50% chance. And I looked at him and said, you know what? I can't guarantee you that if you if you came back to me to sell this house in three or four years that we could even get the money that you put into it and that that caused him not to buy so i i'm in agreement with you i found i found a place to agree this is good before we go can you sell me

this pen yes let's go so let me ask you what uh what are you going to use the pen for signing books I love it. Would a gel pen be great then for signing books? Like a smooth pen to make my handwriting look better than it is. Okay. And also when you're signing a bunch of books, the other thing that happens like that smudge thing. I hate the smudge thing. Right? I do like a Sharpie. Okay. I am a Sharpie lady for books. And it's not too, it's not too fat. It's a little fat. I can't write as many things as I would want. So if we find you a pen that's going to be permanent so it doesn't so it doesn't smudge because

then at the end of the thing you're like you got the ink all over your hand and blah blah blah it's like all spread out. Okay. So so gel pen works a non-smudge and is there anything else about the pen like how about like nice weight to it or whatever? It's like balanced weight. Yeah, balanced weight. Not too heavy.

but something that I could sign a lot of books with. Right. But that feels like I'm excited to use it or people would notice. Great. Okay. So why not? Yeah. And so you don't want like the average Bick pen because you're like, what's that? This is a special moment for me.

I'm getting my little amount of time with Nicole and this book. And this is really special to me. And she's got like the Bick pen out. We don't want that. Right. Okay. and then do you want like the super fancy over the top like no because what if i lose it okay yeah right i know and i lose the pen i've had monplong pens like i'm like i lost the pen i hate myself so that's

why you shouldn't have the pen right there's the answer right right exactly okay so actually so let me ask you if i were able to deliver to you a pen that is uh that's gel permanent won't smudge all over your hands has sort of a luxury feel to it has that creates that special moment but yet you know you're not going to shoot yourself if you lose it is that would you say yes to that yes okay then it looks like we have a deal because this is you've described exactly this pen i think it's it might be a hundred dollars like 80 so it's not like i don't know i don't even know what a mont blanc cost but like a couple hundred dollars and then they're fountain pens and they run all over the place.

But this is, yeah, this is a good, and then when you put the top on it, well, here, I'll let you hold it and see what you think about the weight. Oh. Right? Now maybe you want to take a test drive. See, I think you like that pen. I like the pen.

And I'll tell you why. Because you asked me what I was looking for instead of just actually selling a pen. Selling creates opposition. And convincing. creates opposition. So to sell effectively, to sell very effectively, you want to give somebody what they actually want.

Yep. And there's no way to figure that out without asking the questions. So, you know, when I'm asking the questions, like, what about the pen is important to you? And then you said, that's just, you said, non-smudge, or I said, does that make a difference? It's because I know something about book signing. You're like, yeah, oh, yeah, the smudge is terrible.

So I would write down, not an interpretation of what you said, but I would write down the exact words that you used. And repeat it back. And repeat it back. And it's not just like sales, you know, manipulation or whatever. It is that the person's going to feel heard. And then when you're in a position of selling something, someone is going to believe a small fraction of what you say.

However, people tend to believe everything they say. So I'll give you an example in my business, which is the brokerage business. And so if I were meeting with your friend John and he were, I know he moved, but I think he was at, what it doesn't matter is he's at firm X, okay? I know that firm X does nothing to help him with his business. And if I go, oh, John, you're such a great realtor. You do such a great job. And you're with firm X.

They just don't do anything for you. I know that. It creates this opposition. And then he wants to tell me all the things that they do for him, even though they don't actually do it. So instead, I say, wow, you're a great realtor, which is true, and your great business. man. That's also true of John. And I'm just curious, what do they do to help you grow your business at FermX? And every single time, he's like, they do absolutely nothing. So them saying, you'll allow

them to say it. So as I'm writing all these things down, I'm getting your requirements. And let's say there's requirements one, two, three, four, five. And I've written down exactly what you said. And so like, okay, so to be clear, what you want in a pen is you want it to be non-smudge, you want it to be special. You also would like it to be not overly expensive, so you don't have to worry about losing it. You want it to have some weight so it writes nicely, and you want it to be special enough to create the moment. I'm not sure that I can get you a pen that meets all of those needs, but I want to know if I am able to meet all of those needs, are you going to buy the pen? And you could answer a myriad of things, including like, well, no, you know, I'm still

going to have to think about it. And then I'll just say, okay, well, then we, you know, we're not really having a business conversation. That's fine. We don't have to have a business conversation. But I'm trying to find the things that you need in order to make this deal. And then I'm going to go run around and try and make it happen. But I know that you respect my time. I respect your time. I'm not going to run. I don't want to run around and try and make all this stuff happen unless I know that we have a deal if I'm able to provide these things to you. And that's the conditional close. And when I didn't do it, there was one specific instance where, you know, it was a very important recruit for me. And she asked me for like six things. And I could only give her five of them.

And then I said, look, if I were able to do these five with that. And then when we got to the meeting, I was with a business partner who, you know, it wasn't his fault because I should have briefed him first. And he just threw the offer letter out on the table to her. And she looked at the offer letter and said, oh, okay, well, I'll have to like take this home and think about it. And it never happened. And I feel certain that if I had said, hey, should I, should I, should I, should I, I love this woman, too. I'm a name dropper. It's Sharona, who the song My Sharona is written

after. And she and I are. That's a real woman? Yeah, it's a real woman. I love her. She's, I hope she loves me as much as I love her. She's funny. She's sarcastic. She brought her dad to the meeting. This was the closing meeting. And I know that if I would have said, hey, Sharona, you asked me for six things. and I need to know that if I'm able to deliver these five, are you a yes, that she would have said, well, yeah, if you can do this and that and the other thing, well, then yeah, yeah, I am a yes if you can deliver that and be like, okay, great. So that's, that's go, let's shake on it. And I think she would have, she would have joined my firm.

So make it about the person and not the product. It has to be. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if there's a product involved, then you want to. relate the product to that person's needs and how does this product serve that person's needs and also there may be aspects of the product that that do not serve the person's needs and then you want to know like okay so I'm not going to change the product is that do we have enough of

your needs in order to to satisfy it and if you really take that open minded approach it's not like I mean I had to there was one sales guy on Instagram I actually blocked him because it was like ruining my mojo because he was like screaming at people and all this stuff and I'm just like oh you know it that works because doing something with a lot of energy as opposed to doing nothing is always going to do is always going to work but that but ultimately I don't want anybody to buy anything that they don't want that's not going to serve them and I think at the end of the day you do better as a salesperson by by meeting people's needs Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network.

I'm your host, Nicole Lapin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan LaVoy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, money rehab at money newsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me.

And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.