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Show NotesThis is the answer to a Flipping Junkie Podcast ‘Just Ask’ question. Steve L. asked: How do you avoid offending motivated sellers when making an offer.
Great question! The biggest issue with real estate is that it’s such an emotional thing for the sellers to be going through. It’s a difficult thing to deal with.
My first thought was, you’ve got the wrong mindset. If you think you’re going into a deal, or talking to a lead, with the idea that you’re offending them, you need to change your approach. You should always be presented as a problem solver, as an investor who is there to help them out of their situation. Helping them out of those problems with a genuine interest in helping the sellers out.
If you go into talking with the leads only thinking about the price points, then you probably will offend them. Some people will get offended with a low offer on their house, but at the end of the day you’re there to help them.
There was something from Brian Buffini’s podcast about listening. It boiled down to 2 things:
1. People do things for logical reasons
2. People do things for emotional reasons – the reason they typically won’t say.
When you’re helping a seller, you need to get to the core of the reason for why they’re selling their house. And, like we said above, selling a house is an emotional thing. So the more you can present yourself as someone who’s there to help them through their situation, the more likely they are to work with you, and the less likely they are to get offended.
Not every seller wants the most money they can get for the property. There have been lots of sellers who have sold to us for lower than what someone else was offering because we got down to the emotional reason for their sell and were there to help them out of it. If you can learn this, then you’re golden.
You need to go into each deal with this in mind:
1. You’re there to genuinely help them through their problem.
2. Find the emotional core reason for why they’re selling their house.
Bonus tip if you’re wondering “well how the heck do I get to that?!”
Ask them what they’re most worried about with the selling of this property. Ask what’s on their mind. If you don’t ask questions then you won’t understand why they want to sell, and what problems their having with selling.
The question, “How do I not offend a seller?” is a misunderstanding of how the process should work. You need to go into leads without any assumptions on why they’re selling. The amount of money the house is worth isn’t always the core reason for selling.
When you walk into a property, don’t assume who’s in charge. Listen to everyone attached to the house, they’re sharing the same concerns. It’s your job to be there to help them. Often times, the spouse not saying anything is the one who’s in charge, so be sure you’re talking to everyone.
If you understand these core ideas and game changers, then you won’t offend anyone.
Thanks for the question, Steve!
If you have question you want answered, post it in the Flip Pilot Group on FaceBook with the hashtag #JustAsk. Stay tuned for more answers!
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Episode TranscriptionHello everybody welcome back to Flipping Junkie podcast. This is a Just Ask episode so it’s something new that we started doing and if you’re a part of the Flip Pilot Facebook group, that’s Flip Pilot Facebook Group you can get an invite through flippilot.com to get into that private group that we have where all these investors are helping each other grow and strive to have a 30,000 foot view of the flipping business working more on their business than in their business. It’s been a great community. It’s been growing like crazy. You can go in there and ask questions. What I’m doing is some podcasts episode where I am answering some questions I get through e-mail and then through that group. And so if you want me to answer something through a podcast, if you just go into that group and then post something and ask and then you know use maybe a hashtag “just ask” and tag me Danny Johnson and I’ll consider having that as a podcast episode.
This one is from Steve and Steve had asked, “How do you not offend a seller?”
This is a good question. It’s a really good question because my immediate thought of a response for that was that you’ve got the wrong mindset really that if you’re worried about offending a seller and you’re going into it with the wrong view of things really. Because what it is is you should have a genuine desire to help sellers out of their situation. You have a solution to their problem with real estate and you provide a solution in closing quickly and get paying them cash, so if it has a lot of repairs all that kind of stuff you’re helping them out of their situation and that’s the way you should be approaching with a genuine desire to help the sellers out. I think when you go into a thinking that, “Oh, I’m offering this super low amount and they can probably get more” then you’re thinking about in terms of offending sellers and some people will get offended with the little offer, but it’s not all of them and you can’t help everybody. But this got me thinking about you know acquisitions and going to homes and talking with sellers and trying to work deals out and it gets into something I heard on a podcast recently from Brian Buffini about listening and what it talked about was basically people do things for two reasons and one that you hear that they say the reason for doing something is a logical reason and then you have the real reason why people choose to do something and that’s the emotional reason that they typically won’t say why they did something.
And so, when you go to talk to a seller and you’re trying to help them out of their situation, you really have to get to the core of what the problem is because typically what they’re looking for and the reason why they’re going to choose to sell is not just solely on you know getting the most money they can for the property. I think a lot of people assume that that’s what every seller wants but it’s not. It’s not by any stretch of the imagination. We buy houses from sellers all the time where we offered less than somebody else did, but they chose to go with us, and the reason was we got down to the emotional reason for them deciding you know why they would sell and why they were wanting to sell. I think if you can learn this it’s huge and it changes the whole dynamic of working with sellers. Like I said, number one is you’ve got to go into it with a sincere desire to genuinely help people with their problem with their property. In doing that you talk to them and try to get to the core reason of why they’re wanting to sell or what the problem is that they’re facing and then providing a solution for that so that the emotional decision to sell to you even though they might say it’s a logical thing that they want the most they can get, what really what they’re going to do is choose emotionally who to whom to sell to if you’re worried about competition dealing with other investors trying to buy the same property.
Here’s a very cool tip. Here’s a very helpful way to figure that out because I think the next question that you are probably thinking and listening to this is “How the heck do I get to that?” How the heck do I get to the emotional triggers or what’s really going to sway which way they go on this. A really good way is to ask them what are they most concerned about or worried about with this selling of their property, what’s on their mind. You have to ask questions and you have to ask questions that get to the core of that to understand where they’re coming from and where they’re at because I think all of us go in with these assumptions and a lot of them are just plain wrong. We’re going to think all day long that that that’s how somebody is feeling or what’s the thinking and that’s why I wanted to go into this talk this way because that question of “how do I if not offend the seller” is really the misunderstanding of how that whole process should work. And so going in and not having those assumptions about what somebody is really looking for wanting out of this deal and it’s not always about the money. It’s probably hardly ever about the money the decision to who they sell to has less to do with that than you think. Along the same lines when you go into these appointments and there are several people at the property, never assume who the decision maker is so you might be talking to somebody who says, “Well I’m going to I’m trying to sell this house and they’ve got a spouse that’s not saying anything” and you’re talking and building this rapport and you’ve got this connection with the person you’re talking to with the other one sitting there is really the one that’s going to make that decision afterwards and you didn’t give them any time and so just be careful of that as well. But I think if you understand that and if you’ve got other people doing acquisitions for you, if they understand how huge and what a game changer that is to approach those appointments and talking with sellers in that way it can really change things and really get to the point where you’re getting more of these deals than you were before when you’re going into it thinking that you’ve just got to offer more than everybody else.
I hope that helps you guys and like I said join the Flip Pilot group. Go to flippilot.com to get your invite and or if you find Flip Pilot Group on Facebook and request an invite into the group and then if you have a specific question you’d like to see me answer on this podcast on the Flipping Junkie Podcast just use hashtag “just ask” and then tag Danny Johnson. The cool thing is you’ll immediately get answers from the group and then if I do a podcast episode, I’ll post that as an answer to it in the comments of that post, so it’s a cool thing. Everybody check it out and be sure to rate and review the podcast. If you’re enjoying these episodes and you want to hear more of them or whatever, just write and review the podcast. Just go over to flippingjunkie.com/rate, R-A-T-E, flippingjunkie.com/rate if you’re not sure how to do that on iTunes is where I’d appreciate getting all those and I like to read all those and I’ll be reading those on the podcast whenever I do the longer interview podcast. Thanks a lot for listening to the Flipping Junkie Podcast and I hope you guys have a great day. Talk to you soon.
