110 Audio » No Guts No REI Glory – Your Time and Knowledge Are Valuable » Claude Diamond

Intro:   Welcome, this is the Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast.

Joe:      Hey everybody, welcome this is the Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast. I don’t know if you can hear me, but these are my two girls. They are co-hosting with me today. Say hi, Lydia.

Lydia:  Hi.

Joe:      Say hi, Jewel. Oh, she’s a little shy.

Claude:            I’ll say hi, Jewel.

Joe:      And we’re with Claude. I don’t know how well you can hear me Claude, but I don’t have… I normally have my headset on.

Claude:            You are okay. A little bit garbled, a little bit garbled.

Joe:      Okay.

Claude:            Not the best. Hey, you know what’s the best thing about this business Joe? I know you are a homeschool dad. I’m a homeschool dad and my wife did all the work but I take the credit for it,

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            But, we worked from home. We worked from our kitchen tables, our desks and our kids know that we are not their uncle. We are their father. They see us too much.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            And, the best part… What it’s all about is the quality of life not just the money.

Jewel: Boom, boom, boom.

Claude:            Boom, boom, boom. I miss… You are going to miss this someday, Joe. There is something wonderful about doing real estate deals and having your kids sitting on your lap

Joe:      I…

Claude:            And, hit on the microphone.

Joe:      All right. That’s enough. That’s enough. But, this is fun. I guess, the… I enjoy working from home where my kids can interrupt me anytime and it’s just nice to see them. I know so many guys that they don’t come home till 6 o’clock at night and then they got to put their kids in the bed a couple of hours later.

Claude:            Uh-huh. Exactly. Let me tell you a little story here. I once… My little guy David, I was once doing a real estate deal on the phone. A very important client, this close to getting the deal consummated.

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            And, all of a sudden, there’s a yell from down the hall and it’s David from the bathroom saying, “Would somebody please help me wipe my butt?” and I went to the client. You know this joke form Hawaii. I went to the client and I said, “Can you… I got to leave. I got to put you on hold for a little while.” He said, “Claude! This is real important. Come on! We want to finish this up.” And I said, “Sorry, I can’t,” and he said, “Why?” And, I said, “Sometimes, you get a little behind in your work.” Oooh!

Joe:      Did you get that? No.

Claude:            We’ll explain it later.

Joe:      All right. Hey, girls. It’s time to go.

Claude:            We’re on to consulting in creative real estate.

Joe:      Sorry. I’ll get down when I’m done. Can you close the door? That was fun. I’ve never had my girls on a podcast before.

Claude:            There you go. And, why do we do all this? Of course, the money, the freedom to work… I love working from home. I’ve had jobs right where I’m sitting in traffic and commuting where I’m sitting and spilling coffee, even stopping short between my legs while I’m driving and people cutting me off and not…

            I don’t think there is a day I don’t thank God that I can sit here at home and work and make a great living and I was able to interact with my kids and my wife and I wanted to take a trip here somewhere. I know you are big on travelling. You know the lifestyle. We don’t talk much about that. But, the lifestyle that this business gives us… I mean, where could you get that working for someone else?

Joe:      Well, and that ties in to the topic we are going to be talking about too with consulting because now…

Claude:            Good segue.

Joe:      It’s having… Being in the consulting business is… It makes everything much more leverageable, right? You can leverage your knowledge a lot easier than you can leverage your time, right? And, that’s one of the things you’ve mastered, Claude. You’ve done a lot of… This is a strange concept to so many people, but you’ve done a lot of consulting directly to sellers to help them sell their house. Is that right? Can you explain that a little bit?

Claude:            One of the… We don’t talk enough. We talk about our success and everything. We don’t talk about the mistakes we made in our businesses. One of the… And, I’ve made a lot of them and hopefully I…

Joe:      Are you going to tell the story of what your wife called you?

Claude:            I can tell that, yeah.

Joe:      Yeah, you should because you are giving away so much free knowledge to sellers and your wife kind of smacked you across the head and called you. It’s a funny story. Tell the story.

Claude:            Yeah, I was on the phone with a client and people, I was doing real estate and just hustling, doing my own thing and some people would start to call me up because I was writing articles for a different mag, a creative real estate magazine and things and the days pre-internet. Let’s say it like that. I think I just aged myself. If you heard me on the phone for about, I don’t know, 30, 45 minutes giving a wealth of information from everything I’ve learned from the school of hard knocks and what I learned from Max and I got off the phone and she said a term of endearment I’ll never forget. She said schmuck and which if you have lived in New York City, it’s not a term of endearment, it’s…

Joe:      But, it could be a lot worse if you live in New York City. That’s actually a pretty friendly term, isn’t it?

Claude:            No, Joe. It’s not even friendly in New York. It’s either a part of the anatomy in Yiddish or it is a derogatory term meaning… You could be a lot smarter…

Joe:      Okay.

Claude:            …Essentially. And, what I learned from Claudia, my wife… It’s not a nice name. I learned that our knowledge can be marketable.

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            And, if you folks are writing things down, knowledge is marketable. You are going to seminars. You are reading books. You are talking to great people like Joe McCall and learning and going out there and doing things, but then, what are going to do with that knowledge? Can you reinvest it? Can you get an ROI on that knowledge, on that time you’ve put in and get people to pay you to solve their problems?

And that… Claudia gave me a million dollar idea at that moment that I could read… You can’t do deals with everybody because of the numbers, because of the location. It’s just your not type of deal or property. It’s too far way. But, can we make money helping people solve their problems? The answer is unequivocal yes, ladies and gentleman

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            Go ahead.

Joe:      I love this topic and I have never of anybody doing this before I met you. But, talk specifically now. You have a seller that calls you and wants to sell their house and maybe it’s in an area that’s too far away from you. Maybe, it’s in a part of town that you don’t want to do business in. How do you approach the seller and offer to consult with them to lease purchase their house if you don’t want to be involved with that. Yeah, I was going to pull that up too as well. I have your course on that.

Claude:            Yeah, it’s a good course. It’s in digital now. And, I’m not shellacking a course right now, but I did this entire package with the audio, video, mind maps of books on how to do consulting, coaching and mentoring in creative real estate.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            And, if you folks aren’t doing it and even for you newbies out there, you are going to find that even if you are just getting started, you know more than somebody else who just started.

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            And, they are going to come to you, “Where do I find the contract? How do I check the comps? What’s a good web page to find properties, to sell properties?” They don’t know the locations of these web pages. They don’t know where to get the contracts. They don’t know about title and research and things. And, you can help people if you want. You can use it for marketing to bring people to your webpage or even better yet, you can start charging a fee. And, I know you probably want to ask me, “What do we charge on our fees for consulting?”

So, my feeling has always been most real estate agents charge a 3 to 6% on regular residential real estate and I feel we can charge the same thing. So, here is the… So, somebody calls me up and they have a $100,000 condo. They are having problems. They want to set it up for wholesale real estate rent to own or whatever they want to do. Why can’t we charge as a minimum 3%? That would be $3,000. And, if you are not comfortable with that, believe me, charge 1.5%, charge $1,500, charge $500, and charge a lunch at Ruth’s Chris Steak House. But, get compensated for your time because millionaire thinking is based on placing a value on your time? Would you agree, Joe?

Joe:      For sure! And, so many times we get stuck with offering free advice and not getting paid for it and we find that we are wasting a bunch of time with folks. But, maybe walk through an example, Claude where a seller calls you, has his $300, has a $100. Maybe we could role play. How about that?

Claude:            Okay. So, you’ll be in Saint Louis and I’m in very warm San Diego right now.

Joe:      Where it’s hot and miserable, right?

Claude:            I’ll take it.

Joe:      All right. And so, I’m a seller and I have this condo that I’m having a hard time selling.

Claude:            Okay. And, you found me or I found you?

Joe:      You found my phone number on your desk somewhere and you have no idea how it got there.

Claude:            Oh, okay. Say hello.

Joe:      Hello, this is Joe.

Claude:            Yeah. Hi, Mr. McCall?

Joe:      Yes, hi.

Claude:           Yeah, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven?

Joe:      Yeah, that’s my number.

Claude:            Mr. McCall, my name is Claude Diamond. I’m in San Diego California. I don’t have a clue. I got your number here on my desk and I’m a little embarrassed. Why am I calling you?

Joe:      I don’t know… How did you get my phone number?

Claude:            I don’t know. It’s right here. You didn’t… I’m in real estate. I consult with people, helping solve problems and I buy and sell…

Joe:      Oh.

Claude:            …And wholesale. This doesn’t have anything to do with real estate, does it?

Joe:      Well, maybe. I have my house on the market right now.

Claude:            And, it’s sold already, right?

Joe:      No, it’s not sold yet.

Claude:            You know I did that on purpose. That’s a little guts move. And, this is your own home or an investment property?

Joe:      Well, it is our house. It’s our own home. We are not living in it now but…

Claude:            Oh, okay. You mind if I ask you a couple of quick questions? Maybe I can help you with a solution today!

Joe:      Sure. Okay.

Claude:            Notice the word today.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            It’s an intrical part of guts. There is no tomorrow.

Joe:      That’s good.

Claude:            It’s always today, contracts today, commitment today, it’s over today.

Joe:      Good. Good.

Claude:            I hope you don’t mind me stopping once in a while.

Joe:      No, that’s great. I’m glad you point those out.

Claude:            Yeah, Mr. McCall. I’m in California. You are in Saint Louis.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            How urgent…? Do you need to move this house right away for some urgency or is there no rush and you can wait three months till July or June or whatever?

Joe:      Well, I’d like to sell this thing as soon as possible. We’ve had it listed for about five months now and it’s…

Claude:            You don’t owe money on it, do you? You’re not making payments on mortgages, taxes insurance and things like that, are you?

Joe:      Oh, yeah. Yeah, we are. The Realtor told us that she could sell this thing pretty easily and it’s just… I don’t know. I’m getting nervous.

Claude:            Well, I would be too. How much money do you think you’ve put out on this empty vacant property?

Joe:     Oh, I don’t know. In the last five months, it’s been vacant, $5 or $6 grand?

Claude:            Yeah. You are not married. Are you?

Joe:      Oh, yeah.

Claude:            Oh, how do you do that? My wife would kill me if I flushed $5, $6 grand down the toilet. She’d say, “Man, we could have put in savings, paid off some bills, taken a trip to Saint Louis…

Joe:      Right.

Claude:            …Or something like that. Too many Saint Louis jokes, I’m sorry.

Joe:      Okay.

Claude:            So, how are you dealing with it? Now, my wife would be very upset with me.

Joe:      It’s stressful. We are down here in Nashville and it’s tough.

Claude:            So, let me ask you something and it’s okay to say no to me. I help people. I have some techniques, some strategies. I might be able to show you how to sell that property or at least recoup some of the money you’ve lost in the next 30 days. You wouldn’t be interested in that, would you?

Joe:      Well, what do you mean by that? I have it listed with an agent right now.

Claude:            And, is it working?

Joe:      No, not really.

Claude;          Okay, is she helping you pay that? Is she helping you with that $4,000, $5,000 loss?

Joe:      No.

Claude:            Oh, okay. How many more months? I mean, we are in the harder winter here? How many more months can you…? I mean, is that a strain on your family? I have my… I remember once a friend of my brother’s. He ended up going bankrupt and really hurting his marital status because of the stress of an empty property that they couldn’t fill or sell.

Joe:      Well…

Claude:            He’s kind of stressed. I hope that is not something that could occur to you.

Joe:      Well, I mean no. But, it’s definitely something that we talk about every day and we have… We have about a few weeks left in our listing agreement with this agent. I don’t know what we are going to do after that.

Claude:            Okay, off the role play for a second.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            You just pointed… I just got you from a four to a seven…

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            …Or maybe an eight, okay? I just raised your… I call it the Claude barometer so this is all tied in with guts. Even consulting is tied in with guts. Now, we’ll go in to the consulting. Let me ask you this, Joe.

Joe:      Okay.

Claude:            I have some ideas where I would charge you a flat fee. And, I would show you how to move your property in the next 30 days maybe through renting to own where we could get somebody in the property who will be pre-qualified, who will buy the house in the next 12 to 18 months, who will give you some cash up front hopefully to reimburse you for the money you lost. And, we’ll help you to break even at the least or even make some money on your house until the closing. And, best of all, there will be no real estate commission because I’m not a Realtor in Missouri. If that isn’t… Is this of any interest to you, Joe?

Joe:      Well, maybe. I’m not sure I understand though. So, you’re not going to list my property?

Claude:            No, it’s not what… Well, I could. But, is it working?

Joe:      No, not really so…

Claude:            Why do we want to do the same thing over and over again if it’s not working?

Joe:      So, I would rent it and then sell it? How does…? What do you mean by that?

Claude:            Well, what I do is I consult with people and I show them how to maximize the marketability of their house and make it attractive to a broader spectrum of people. In other words, I want to make your phone ring off the hook with good people who want to give you several thousand dollars up front as option money that goes in your pocket to reimburse you for what you lost, help you to pay your mortgage taxes and insurance or home owner fees and help you to get a pre-qualified buyer in your house so that you can get this house sold. And, I do charge a fee for this, it would be… How much is your house worth, Joe?

Joe:      Oh, about $150,000.

Claude:            $150,000? My fee would be $4,200.

Joe:      Hmmm.

Claude:            It’s a lot of money. You can give me half now and half when somebody moves in.

Joe:      Okay.

Claude:            And, I will show you in the next 30 days how to move this house, how to get it sold and get a tenant in there to help you with the monthly loss.

Joe:      And then, what if it doesn’t? What if you don’t find a tenant in 30 days?

Claude:            Then, I will waive my fee for the following 30 days until you are personally satisfied and I will put this in writing, Joe. And, I will send you an agreement today so that you and your wife can discuss it. And, we’ll have another meeting at 4:30 this afternoon and see if we want to go ahead and do this and it’s okay to say no to me. Is that all right?

Joe:      Yeah, I just don’t know if I have the money to… Can I just pay you after we find a tenant buyer like…?

Claude:            Joe, if I was a taxi, that would be great. You pay when you get to the destination. The trouble is I’m a bus. You pay when you get on.

Joe:      I got to remember that one. That’s fantastic. So, yeah.

Claude:            Okay, Joe. Let’s first put the money on the side. We’ll work something out. Right now, you got a big problem. You are out thousands of dollars… I’m sure it’s a financial strain on your family. I want to help you solve the solution. I’ll work with you personally closely. I’m going to send you a letter of intent and some information about myself. Would you like some references, Joe?

Joe:      Yeah, sure. That would be great.

Claude:            Okay. You check with these people who I have helped previously. Check and find out who you are working with and then let’s set up a Skype call. Are you familiar with Skype, FaceTime or Google Hangouts so we can have a video call?

Joe:      Yeah, okay. I can do Skype.

Claude:            And, we’ll do that. I’ll send you that information now. We’ll talk at 4:30. And, if you say no to me, God bless you. We are still friends. Is that all right?

Joe:      Okay. Yes, that would be perfect.

Claude:            That’s… There are many different… Off the role play. All I want to do is I got to get your emotion, your EQ, your emotional quotient right now. I have to get you very emotional. Guts is about getting people to make decisions to realize the pain or the fear, the need or the problem, and then rationalize it to IQ. EQ to IQ, okay?

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            It got to make sense to you after you’ve calm down. But, right now, I’ve got to hit that EQ, get you involved, get your wife as part of the decision making process because no husband is going to do this without his wife and I know that ahead of time.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            I’ll send you some information and send… See, I have an appointment now in advance. Now, maybe we’ll do business, maybe not. Maybe, you’ll come back to me in 30, 60, 90 days.

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            But, instead of me doing a free consulting, consultation with you, I found a way to generate income with you. Does it work all the time? Of course not! But, it’s better than free consulting. You know those little…? You and I both know the value of time in our business. You and I go crazy when we are getting up early or working later sometimes, right?

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            Okay, can we afford to do those free consults? Those 45-minute free consultations anymore?

Joe:      No.

Claude:            Is that what a millionaire does?

Joe:      Oh, no.

Claude:            No, we got to put a value in our time. And, if we are giving, we can take our knowledge from all the reading and experiences both good and bad. The bad experiences, by the way, are very valuable, aren’t they?

Joe:      Uh-huh. Yeah. And so, the point is… What you are offering to the seller though is to teach them how to lease purchase their house.

Claude:            Uh-huh.

Joe:      And, you don’t have to be a licensed agent to do that because you are not listing their house. You are not helping them find a buyer. You are not marketing their home in any way.

Claude:            Nope. Nope.

Joe:      You are just teaching them…

Claude:            Teaching, yes! I prefer the word teaching. Exactly!

Joe:      …How to do a lease purchase.

Claude:            Yeah. Or, some other strategy. It may be a wholesale deal. It may be a subject too, maybe a wrap around. There are a million strategies out there and the longer we are in business, the more we learn these different ideas and strategies. Maybe, they just need good advice about marketing. Maybe, we could give them some ideas how to do some social network marketing, how to get the phone ringing. It can be many different things.

Joe:      You could be consulting on how to sell for sale by owner, right?

Claude:            Yeah, I call myself a marketing consultant in real estate.

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            The best part about this is it’s totally unregulated. There’s no regulation on teaching people about marketing. There are laws against agency relationships where you cannot represent somebody in a level of fiduciary capacity but you can teach them. And so, that’s a big distinction for those of you folks listening out there, okay?

Joe:      Yeah. It’s important. It’s an important distinction because…

Claude:            And, nobody is doing this, Joe.

Joe:      You are not filling out their contracts for them?

Claude:            No.

Joe:      It’s just like somebody going to Barnes and Noble to buy a book on lease purchasing…

Claude:            Uh-huh.

Joe:      …Or buying a course on eBay on how to lease purchase their house. But, you are instead offering to help them one-on-one and hold their hand as it were, to teach them how to do it themselves. And, maybe you don’t have to charge 3%. Maybe, you could charge one month’s rent. Maybe, give them a discount if they pay it now. Or, if they want to spread it out over payments, the price goes up a little a bit.

Claude:            We can do whatever we’re comfortable with. Max, my mentor, used to always say, “People earn exactly what they are comfortable with.” Somebody is flipping burgers for $8 an hour at a Burger King and then switches to McDonald’s. He is not going to go to $50 an hour. They are probably going to go $8 or $8.50. They are going to stay in their sphere of influence or sphere of comfort level, okay? So, you charge, but you see, here is the thing, if one… And, this was an epiphany for me, a revelation. When I had one person on a very expensive property, I think I charged him $2,500 in the early days.

I had literally saved them $60,000 by the advice I gave them for what they were going to pay their Realtor or what the lawyer would have might have charged and all these other things. I saved them $60,000. So, what do you think I said to myself, Joe after this were all said and done?

Joe:      I should have charged more.

Claude:            I should have charged more. So now, I’m comfortable enough to maybe increase my rate to $3,500 or $5,000 or even $10,000. If I can save someone $60,000, is 10,000 a fair…? Is that a good value for that? It’s all about value, isn’t it, Joe? What is the perception of value?

Joe:      I love this because you can now do this across the country anywhere in the United States from your home.

Claude:            Other countries too.

Joe:      From other countries, exactly.

Claude:            Yeah.

Joe:      And so…

Claude:            You can do this from Prague, Joe.

Joe:      So, let me put it back to you like… Well, someone may say, “Yeah, but I would rather do the deal and make $6 grand instead of $3 grand or something like that.” But, how much time are you actually spending with each client? So, maybe this is a way to make it even more money per hour offering consulting than if you were to do the deal yourself, right?

Claude:            Oh, do I have to give away all my secrets today?

Joe:      We’ll talk about it like on an average client who wants your help to lease purchase their home or to sell it with owner financing or whatever. How much time do you spend with them?

Claude:            In some cases, it’s as little as an hour. In some more extreme situations, it could be 10 hours, 15 hours in maybe a 15, 30 minute increments, multiples. Also, the people I consult text me a lot and e-mail me a lot and we do use Skype for maybe some meetings and things like that. I want to differentiate though the difference between consulting and coaching in real estate. Okay, we are not teaching them how to be in business in real estate. We are teaching them how to alleviate a problem in real estate. Some problems are very simple basically and I would charge accordingly to that problem.

That problem might be so minute that I might charge a very small flat fee of $500 or $1,000 accordingly. If it’s a million dollar home and they were ready to pay a real estate agent 3% to 6% and I can help them solve that problem, I’m going to charge accordingly. I’m going to charge depending on the work I put in, how complicated the situation is and how good or fit I am between the two of us. The question to ask is, “Should you consult with everybody, Joe?”

Joe:      No, but, I think it could be a good option to offer to everybody, right? Because there have been a lot of times that I have been talking to a seller about a lease purchase and they bark at me keeping the… The way I do it is I keep the assignment or option deposit as my assignment fee. They may…

Claude:            Let’s role play that. Joe, you are a pretty smart cookie and I know that you have a problem with me assigning it and making all the money. And you know what? You have a good point there, Joe. I’m not going to argue. That’s how I make my money. But, you are a pretty sharp guy. You have a pretty strong background in finance and everything. And, you are probably thinking right now and tell me if I’m wrong, that you could do this yourself to a certain extent, couldn’t you?

Joe:      Yeah, I think so. I mean…

Claude:            I agree, why don’t you? Now, at this, off the role play. To people listening to this right now, it sounds like I’m selling myself out of a real estate deal, right?

Joe:      No, you are just asking…

Claude:            No…

Joe:      You are asking them the right questions to make them think well because I really don’t know how to do it by myself.

Claude:            See, part of guts is to understand the psychology of the situation. I’m stroking and nurturing you sincerely because you are intelligent and you are thinking like I would. Hey, why do I want to pay this guy to take over my house and make money when I can do it myself? I just have a few gaps. I don’t know about the contract. I don’t know about the marketing. I don’t know how much to charge for option money or assignment fee or rent credit. So, I would then, going back in the role play, I would then segue or switch to the consulting mode. You know, Joe?

Joe:      Can I just ask you a few questions about how all of this stuff works?

Claude:            I would love to… That’s a great idea Joe. Do we want to do this on a professional level where you can ask me as much as you want? We can record it so you can review it for your notes and I can help you with… Maybe, I can give you some materials. I can answer your questions and help you design a marketing plan and you keep all the money. Does that make sense?

Joe:      Well, sure. Why don’t we just…? I’ll take you out to lunch and pick your brain and we can talk about how this stuff works.

Claude:            Can we go to Paris?

Joe:      No.

Claude:            There’s a great restaurant near the Eiffel tower.

Joe:      No.

Claude:            Well, you see that? That lunch wouldn’t be practical. Instead, why don’t we do this, Joe? Why don’t I charge you a reasonable flat fee that you pay me so that I, in an unlimited capacity will help you do this deal? And, believe me, the option money, the assignment fee or the positive cash flow or the profit at the end of your deal will be so much more than what you pay me and you don’t need to bring a third party to do your deal. I think that’s a brilliant idea, Joe. What do you think?

Joe:      Well, I don’t know. I mean, can I just pay you for your contracts?

Claude:            Or, you can pay me for my time and my contracts. That I can agree to because I’m sure you are going to have questions, Joe. Do you have…? You want the contracts? Do you know how to market this? Do you know how to qualify people? Do you know maybe you want to set up an escrow? Maybe do you know how much option money to charge or rent credit to give? These are all questions that are going to come up after the facts, Joe. Would you agree?

Joe:      Yeah. Uh-huh.

Claude:            I’m going to charge you a very reasonable fee, Joe. You are going to pay me up front. And, I’m going to show how to turn this property around in the next 30 days if you listen to me and give you all the information you need and you will keep all the money. And, you don’t have to share with anyone, much less myself or a Realtor. How does that sound?

Joe:      Well then, how do you get paid again?

Claude:            You pay me up front. I have a pen. What card would you like to use, Joe?

Joe:      Uh, yeah.

Joe:      Off the role play. That is what happens. And, I either fire the prospects because they give me the, “I’ll think about it,” and you know what I say to that with a lot of, “I’ll think about it.”

Joe:      A lot of, “I’ll think about it.”

Claude:            Oh, that gets their attention, Joe. That’s a guts move. I know it’s uncomfortable for a lot of people but I use it all day long. I also get, “I’ll think about it. I have to talk to my spouse.” Claudia and I were in the car yesterday and somebody did this and I said “No.” I said, “Let me check with my spouse first to see if it’s okay to sell you.” He laughs. It changes the whole demeanor of the conversation and we get to the real core problem. And, I either fire the prospect or we get back to the issues and try to get him up to a seven, eight, nine or 10 in the Claude’s barometer.

Joe:      It’s important…

Claude:            Do you see how viable this is?

Joe:      Oh, it’s amazing because you are getting them to make a decision today and you are giving them permission to say no. It’s okay to say no, but I need to make a decision today because my time is valuable. And, I mean, they are going to help you or I’m going to help somebody else. And it’s okay to say no, but I need to have a decision today.

Claude:            What is the…? What is going on in the mind of the prospect when you are just answering all their questions for 30, 40, 60 minutes, God forbid, and you get answering all their questions and they say, “Gee, Joe, you’re a great guy. I’ll take you out to lunch someday” and they hang up the phone? What’s the value of your time? Is this a business or is this a hobby, Joe?

Joe:      It’s a business. I can tell you. I fall into that trap. I get so frustrated. Because of the podcast, a lot of people e-mail me and call me and wants free advice on how to learn how to do the business but also the same with sellers. They’ll call you and they want to pick your brain and I come to them with an offer. I want to buy their house or I want to lease purchase their house.

And then, they just complaining about how much money I’m going to make out of that deal. And, one of the things I found is when I give them another option, another alternative and say, “Listen, you can keep the entire option deposit. I’ll just teach you how to do it. That probably wouldn’t interest you at all, would it?”

Claude:            Yeah.

Joe:      And normally, when you bring that up, they’ll say, “Yeah, I want some more information.” And then, you just explain very briefly. “This is how going to work.” Make it real simple and if they bark even at that, “How much are you going to make?” then you are going to answer them the question with, “Well, how much are you going to pay your realtor? You are going to be paying them so much more.” Go ahead.

Claude:            How many people in our life do we pay because of their professionality? Doctors, lawyers, accountants, taxi people or people who save us time. Why is Uber, the taxi replacement service that is in most major cities? I don’t know if they are in St. Louis. They are here in Santiago.

Joe:      Yeah.

Claude:            Okay. Why is Uber a major phenomenal success? In a couple of three or four years, it’s a billion dollar company. It’s not about another taxi cab service. It’s about the value of time. If somebody can look at their IPhone and say, “Hey, I can be in a cab in three minutes and they’ll pick me right up.” Okay. It’s all about time, Joe.

Joe:      And, saving money too.

Claude:            Saving money. A blockbuster video, I think I said it in one of the other videos. They are not there anymore because people don’t want to get in their car and drive there, drive home and drive back again to return it. They want to stay home and watch on Netflix. It’s always about time in business. Can we save people time? Can we save their money? And, that is the point of consultation. Going to someone and saying, “Listen, sir. I’m sure sooner or later, you could do this yourself, but you might make mistakes and they might be costly or it might take you months or even a year to do this. Can I show you how to do this based on my experience very quickly?”

Joe:      Yeah, that’s real good. We’ve only got a few minutes left here, Claude.

Claude:            This is fun, Joe. I love these topics.

Joe:      We can talk about it for a long time. And, nobody else is really teaching this or doing it.

Claude:            No.

Joe:      But, I’m telling you… And, you can even create notes with your consulting clients, right?

Claude:            Yeah.

Joe:      And, how much easier, how much nicer is it to get $500 a month in passive income… It’s mostly passive, from consulting notes rather than owning rental properties and getting a couple of hundred dollars a month and dealing with trouble, termites, tenants and what are the all of the Ts?

Claude:            Oh, yeah, tenants and toilets.

Joe:      Tenants and toilets, yes.

Claude:            Yeah. And, that’s how you started and I started. Originally, we were rehabbers and sweat equity and all these and eventually, you find out that the value of your time is not to be a contractor or a bill collector or a lawyer. I just got into real estate because I love it. I love finding deals and turning them over. I like finding multiple streams of income and consulting is one of those streams that nobody is doing, ladies and gentlemen. So, if you are good in marketing and if you have acquired the skills of guts, asking questions and qualifying people, now, you have a new source of income.

Joe:      That’s excellent. That’s excellent. Well, good. I’m actually… In three minutes, I have a consulting call…

Claude:            I love it. I love it.

Joe:      …With a client right now. So, I do have to get going.

Claude:            I’m going to let you go.

Joe:      Claude, how can people get a hold of you and get more information on this consulting product that you have?

Claude:            They can go to my web page. There’s a big package, by the way, ladies and men. It’s digital so we can send it to you right away. It’s in our Dropbox. It’s $595 and it does come with the training session. It’s on my web page ClaudeDiamond.com. If you have a question, give me a call (970) 281-5151. You want to pull me up on Skype. I will answer a few questions.

Joe:      Right. And, Claude is really nice on the phone.

Claude:            I try to be and thank you. You have a beautiful family, by the way. Wait, there were only two kids. Don’t you have another five or six somewhere and a little cute dog?

Joe:      Yeah, five or six. Every time I talk to you, I get more kids. Two of them, my boys are upstairs doing school work. And, yesterday was a big day. We ordered a bunch of books. We homeschool our kids and we just love this curriculum that we have. We ordered about $1,000 worth of books and we spread them all out on the table. These are going to be the books for the next, I think, year or maybe the next year and starting… My wife likes buying the books early, but these will be books that start in… I don’t even know. But, I…

Claude:            We have bookshelves all over our houses in Colorado, in California. It’s all over the place.

Joe:      But, I love… I was looking through these books and think, “Man, these are awesome and incredible books like ‘Ancient Greek History as Told for Kids.'” Like, who…? Did you ever read…? Do you remember in school ever reading a book about ancient Greek history for kids?

Claude:            The one thing I didn’t like in school is that you can never… You always had to study things that were not of interest to you instead of the things… I was really interested in the civil war and things like that and naturally, we would be studying some other war or some other part of history. And, the beauty of homeschooling is you can direct… You can keep children curious. I don’t know if this is on the podcast still but…

Joe:      Yeah, it is.

Claude:            The greatest thing… The greatest gift you can give a child is to remain curious so that they are self-perpetuating.

Joe:      Uh-huh.

Claude:            You don’t tell them to read. They beg you, “Oh, can I stay up another hour and read? Can I take a book with me in the car?” And, when you’ve created that in a child, there’s… They are on automatic.

Joe:      Oh, yeah. They’ve got some amazing books and they are books that I want it read and I wished that I would have had them. Anyway, okay, thanks, Claude.

Claude:            Bye, buddy!

Joe:      Guys, go to ClaudeDiamond.com. And, hey, Claude, real quick. Maybe, we can give them… Do you have a special PDF that we can give to folks if they go to Real Estate Investing Mastery podcast to get more information about being a consultant? You always have these really good free books.

Claude:            I’ll send you a free book. I’ll put it to you in… I’ll send it to you today and just give it away to the folks for free.

Joe:      Yeah. So, if you go to the show notes, look up Claude Diamond and go to the notes. There will be a button in there and you can get this book from Claude that will be a free book. He’s got a couple of really, really good ones and you can get that for free. Go to RealEstatesInvestingMastery.com to get that information. Go to ClaudeDiamond.com to talk to Claude and hopefully, you guys do some business together.

Claude:            Or, talk with Joe. He’s a great guy. He’s full of information. Thank you folks.

Joe:      See you, guys. Take care. Buh-bye.