Joe: Hey, what's up, Joe here, real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast. You're in for a treat today. We've got the one and only. I think Claude Diamond has been. Might've had more guest appearances from Claude Diamond than anybody else on my podcast, which I've been doing since 2011. So 12 years now, 1500 episodes or something like that. Been doing this a long time. I think one time we counted 150 different countries have had listeners in over 150 different countries listening to this podcast, Where did you know there were even that many? I think there's 180, but I went to my stats thing that tracks that stuff and crazy. But today we're going to be talking about sales and Claude is my sales mentor and I'd really encourage any of you listening if you want some help learning how to talk to sellers, better learn how to give better phone. As Claude likes to affectionately say, you need to get hooked up with him and talk to him and get some help. Because listen, sales is the million dollar skill. It doesn't matter if you're doing wholesaling lease options, buying hold houses, land, mobile homes, commercial properties, if you're selling insurance, if you're selling essential oils, sales is the gazillion dollars skill. I was talking to a friend the other day about college and the state of the education, you know, today, and we were talking what would be the most important class if you had to take college all over again? Which classes would you not take again and which classes would you take again? And it was a pretty simple consensus that sales would be one of, if not the most important classes to learn. And at least in a business college, Does that make sense? So we're going to be talking about today that with Claude and specifically I asked him to bring them on because, well, you know what? I'll get to that in a minute. I want to let you know to first, this podcast is brought to you by Joe's. That's me. SimpleLandKit.com, SimpleLandKit.com is this free kit that you get that gives you my direct mail swipe file, some of my contracts, my scripts that I use when talking to realtors and sellers, and it gives you a software that I use to analyze and make offers on vacant land deals. It's very simple, but you get it for free at SimpleLandKit.com. If you don't like it, I'll refund your money. But we are going to be charging for this thing soon so just be aware of that. Go get it for free. Right now it's SimpleLandKit.com. All right let's we bring Claude on Claude Diamond from Winter Park, Colorado. Are you unmuted? Can I hear you all right?

Claude: There he is. Yeah. Live, from Winter Park, Colorado, 10 to 12000 feet above sea level.

Joe: We didn't even plan this. We're wearing the same colored shirts. And if I were to know that, I would have picked a background color that matches those the little better. But you look good, Claude.

Claude: Well, thank you. How are you feeling? I'm so glad. You look great, man. After all you went through the last couple of weeks.

Joe: Yeah, It's been eight or nine weeks now since my open heart surgery. And feeling good.

Claude: I'll show you my stitches if you show me yours. I broke my clavicle skiing.

Joe: Ouch. That hurts.

Claude: I know, don't you? Don't. Don't break your clavicle.

Joe: You don't want to see my. You know, my, my, my microphone's covering it right now. See? There it is right there. I'll show you later.

Claude: How's your wife and 15 children?

Joe: Four, they're doing great. Driving my son to college tomorrow. Holy smokes. And my other one starting school here in Saint Louis Wednesday of next week. And so it's been good. My my two youngest daughters now is a seventh grade and 10th grade, but it's going really well.

Claude: You know what? You know what happened to me when I dropped off my kids to college?

Joe: You cried, boo-hoo.

Claude: Oh, my God. It's like it's such a big change in life. You know?

Joe: I'm excited about it, though. I'm looking forward to them growing up. This is something they really need, that I need. I'm trying to kick them out of the house. Like, go. Get out. Like, skedaddle, Right? Because they're my boys is they're really, really good boys. They're very smart, they're hardworking. They got they have good ethics, good integrity. They care about people.

Claude: Yeah, well, you good kids come from good parents, and you and Victoria are the best. And your adoptive Claudia and I are adoptive parents.

Joe: Okay? Right. Did you daughter kids know one?

Claude: We made one We rented as we like it rent to own. We got David. We got our child from the Soviet socialist state of Southern California. He was in the adoption program and he was four years old. We got him diaper free.

Joe: So as a foster care.

Claude: Foster care. Thank you so much. Wow. Wow. These you know, this is wonderful care. Both my kids are low maintenance and good kids. Yeah, I'm sure all these people wanted you and I to talk about our children for our year.

Joe: I wouldn't mind. Pretty soon we're going to have grandkids, and we'll be doing this podcast and we'll be sharing pictures and making everybody watch us talk about show pictures of grandkids.

Claude: You know, my children. Would you talk to my children? And I keep going. Would you please reproduce? Okay, But. They're millennials. Millennials do things about ten years later than we did it, okay? They're a little they want to do more in life, in their careers and everything. Both my kids. I bought homes in the last 12 months, though. One in L.A., my daughter in L.A., who does voiceovers for Panda Express and everything. And my son, he lives in Colorado, in Severance, Colorado, outside Fort Collins. And he just got his first home. So listening to listening to mom and dad do all that real estate the last 30 years, I maybe it rubbed off.

Joe: Well, good. Good for you. Yes, you are. We're both good parents, I think. I feel like we've done a pretty good job.

Claude: Yeah. Let's pat ourselves.

Joe: Yeah. All right. So the reason I called you the other day, Claude, give me some background of all this, is we have been sending out letters in the mail and postcards that look like this. It's hard to see, but it looks like there's a check showing through the envelope, and this obviously gets opened pretty well. Okay.

Claude: You may have already won.

Joe: Well, for me, all I care about is getting the phone to ring. I want the phone to ring. And so what we're doing is we're sending letters to sellers saying, hey, we might be able to buy you if you're not on the phone. Guys, you're not making money.

Claude: Rule of five. We're going to talk about it. Talk to five people a day. I guarantee you will live happily ever after.

Joe: Yeah. And guys, those of you that have been listening to me for any period of time, you heard me say that. Well, guess who I just learned? I guess who I learned it from. All right, so this is a letter that basically I know it's hard to read, but it basically says, hey, we'd like to buy your house and we might be able to pay you this X amount of money. So where do you get that number from? You know, out of our but like it comes from county assessed values times 50% or whatever and we get it from price. Now the thing that happens Claude the seller calls is like yeah I want to sell my house for my vacant lot for $12,400. You say, okay, well, let's can we ask you some questions? And then we go in and we ask him a bunch of questions about their house. Yeah. So I want to talk about that setting the agenda. I want to talk about what do we what's the best way to handle? Now, we're also doing another thing where we're sending postcards, and I'm still testing this, but we're giving them a range. We're saying, Hey, we'd like to buy your vacant lot and we'll pay between this and this if you're interested, give us a call. Now, one of the things that this does is it gets us a lot more calls. And the calls that we do get are from more motivated sellers. All right. We're not giving them full retail, but a lot of times, though, we're giving them in this check letter an offer that is higher than what we really can buy it for. And so, you know, sometimes we have to say, look, I'm sorry we made a mistake. You know, after asking you these questions and figuring these things out, we can't be anywhere near that. But if you want, sometimes what I do is I like to say I can refer some great realtors to you that can list your property for you. I kind of pull away. I can give you some realtors I can list your properties for it. Doesn't sound like it's going to be something that'll work for me. So, but like, sometimes though, my acquisition team, they complain to me that I'm they're getting way too many sellers that want too much for their properties and which is normal. That's just the way it's always been. If you want to make everybody happy, offer them whatever they want, give them a full market price for their property. So let's talk about that. Do you mind us? That's kind of the context of why I wanted to get you on.

Claude: Quick question. How do you get the price you're sending these people? How do you determine that price before you mail.

Joe: It to a couple different places? It comes usually comes from a software company called Prycd. And there are a data aggregator that gets vacant land lists and they will look at comps and through algorithms and formulas, they'll say, if you want to make an offer at 25% of what they think it's worth, then you should offer this. But it's 85. It'll get you 75, 85% of the way there. You know, it's 15 to 25% inaccurate. So they can tell you the property is worth a hundred. So you should offer 35,000. Okay. So like when we buy land, we buy it usually by $0.40 on the dollar. You know, like that gives us enough room to wholesale it or to keep it, sell it with owner financing. So we're buying these at much deeper discount than we do typical houses and houses. And we find because land, the sellers are more detached from it, they're not as emotionally involved with it. It's we it's easier to get bigger discounts on these vacant lots.

Claude: Question. Do you always need these big discounts? I mean, sometimes the demand I'm in a town in Colorado right now. I have land here. They used to go for 30, 40,000 half acre. Okay. A couple of years ago I bought several lots, residential lots for 160, 170,000. I just check and we just had a discussion on my group call about land on Monday. This these same lots. They used to go for 3040 than I bought for one 6170 because I could see the trend. Okay, I pay full price for these lots. I could have optioned, I could have bought them. It was okay. Motivated sellers and I just checked the other day. These same lots are worth over 600,000 now each. Yeah. Okay. So I guess they always have to get on way below market because I mean, what's a better investment than a good piece of land and an up and coming developmental area? You know, the developing area.

Joe: Usually we are quick flipping them, we're wholesaling them, we want to get rid of them in one or two months. Okay. You know, I, I've done a lot of deals in Park County, Colorado, which is probably a couple hours south of you, right? Yeah, Every time you can buy land, you know, it's kind of like half desert, half in the mountains, high desert. But you know, there's, there's people that are selling lots there for 10 to 20 grand that are selling today. So if we want to wholesale that thing we need to offer one or $2,000 and then we turn around, sell it a couple of months later for eight or ten grand. That make sense?

Claude: Yeah. I think there's sometimes land can be bought and hold. It'll be the best investment of your life, better than stocks or any materials or anything like that, for sure, you know, or just because supply and demand is so high. Okay, maybe you buy something and then you just flip it for short money, even though it's at full price. Maybe it even has owner financing or an option on it. And even though it's full price, it's still desirable by other investors or developers.

Joe: Yeah, well, there's a place for that, you know, and I have a lot of friends that will buy larger pieces of land with the intent of holding on to it, subdividing it, adding entitlements, maybe clearing it out, getting it ready for a developer who wants to build on it. But for me, what I'm focusing on, what I'm teaching my students to focus on is the fast cash strategies of selling it or will occasionally sell it with owner financing.

Claude: Okay, So let's go back to that objection. A lot of your followers are getting what you're sending them for, what you're sending to them for one offer price and you're getting some kind of objection about it's not high enough or it's too low.

Joe: Or the offer is too high. Like, okay, I'm sorry if I'm not doing a good job explaining this. For the example on this check, I sent this to myself. It was 12,400. After we get on the phone with the seller and we're looking at comps and we're looking at, Oh man, we can't pay any more than five grand for this property. Okay, So now we have to walk them back for like and say, you know what, I'm sorry we sent this. But after talking and after doing some more due diligence and research, we can't pay any more than X right now. Having said this, Claude, this strategy works like crazy. We just did three deals in southern Florida near Fort Myers with this same strategy, and our average profit on each of those three was about 17 $15,000 wholesale profit. So we just made 35 grand on three deals using this strategy. We had to talk them off the cliff. They weren't too happy. Basically, we said, We can't do that. What's the least you would take, right?

Claude: You read my mind. That's one of my opening first call questions to people. Mr. Mrs. Prospect, I know we sent you that. Let me ask you something. What's the best price you could give me if we did a deal today? And the emotional word is today the speed, you know. Yeah, the speed of the transaction. You couldn't use money for your trip to Disneyland or pay off some bills or visiting grandma on Thanksgiving or something like that. Could you just for the right if you think you could what's your best price today.

Joe: You got to get there right? So I, I sometimes I think okay maybe we're making this too difficult, you know, but we send we send letters saying, hey, if you want to sell your vacant lot, call us. And we get a lot of calls from that. But we the truth is we get more calls with these check letters and we get more deals from this thing, right?

Claude: It ain't broke.

Joe: So yeah, but I want to get our sales process better. I want I want to be able to train my students, my acquisition guys, like how to talk to these sellers, you know, how to set the agenda, go through the gut staircase and, you know, ask the probing questions, you know, because they're thinking, All right, well, this guy, I got a bunch of offers from other people for seven grand, and this guy's offering me 12. You know, let me call him and see what he has to say. That make sense?

Claude: Kind of.

Joe: Okay.

Claude: I'll get in the flow of this once we role play it. So your object, your objective is to get the best price you can and get a contract or a letter of intent or something. And you want to you want that within the 24 hour period that that signed contract. Okay. And then you send them. So you get on the first phone call. What's the typical so you don't know. They give you you've got a price. You send them an offer. Do you know ahead of time if. Or do you have to do deal with due diligence after that phone call on the pricing?

Joe: Well, you know, we send 500 of these a week. Okay. We're sending a couple of thousand, 3000 a month on the low end. So we're getting a lot of calls. When the call comes in, they tell us the reference number on the letter and we look it up briefly. So we don't spend much time at all. That is what I tell everybody to do. Just find it up. Look it up on Google Maps and maybe look it up on Redfin or Zillow. Okay. Get on the phone, call the seller. And I tell people all the time and I show them the cold call that we did when I was in the car that one time on a lease option deal. And all you wanted was a phone number. And I've showed that video a hundred times. So I tell people, like the less you know, the better. So you going to ask more questions when you have them on the phone?

Claude: Right. My three favorite words, Joe. I don't know. Don't know. That's right. It's a great question, Mr. Prospect. You must have asked that for a reason. Help me out a little bit here. You know, don't feign it's called feigning ignorance. What we really want to do is psychologically turn the prospect into the salesperson. Yes. And we use a lot of redirection. I call a little reverse psychology. You know, Mr. McCall. Thank you. I'm so glad we're talking. You don't really want to sell it. How long have you own this lot, sir?

Joe: Okay, we've owned it for ten years.

Claude: You probably want to own it another ten. You wouldn't want to sell it today, right?

Joe: Well, if the price is right, but, you know, I'm not going to give it away.

Claude: Okay. What's the best price she could give me to do a deal right now?

Joe: Well, I really like this offer you sent me for 12,400.

Claude: Yeah, we have a problem.

Joe: What's that?

Claude: Well, you know, I represent. I work with a group of investors on this real estate. And the trouble is, there's not enough room for us to make a profit on this deal right now. But I. I'd like to do a deal with you today. No fuss, no bother. If you think you know, if you could come down, if you could give me your best price right now, maybe week, we could do a deal right now. I'll send you the agreements and everything. So what's the best you could do for me if we for us to take an action today?

Joe: Well, I don't know. I got a bunch of offers. I got some offers from other people for, like eight grand, and I turned them down.

Claude: Why didn't you? Oh, you can call them back and take it then, right?

Joe: No, no, we're not going to sell it. I'll just. We'll just listen with the realtor or something. We're not in a hurry to sell this thing.

Claude: Okay, well, maybe I could refer you to some realtors to help you out. Here's the thing. Realtors charge commission at least where I live. How about by you?

Joe: Oh, yeah.

Claude: Look, you wouldn't discount that commission off that price, and maybe we could do a deal right now. What would you do with that money? You know, if you got that money over by the end of this month, what would you. Would you imagine? You got that nice check at the end of this month? What would you do with that money?

Joe: Well, we'd go to Tabernash and go skiing at Tabernash.

Claude: Lovely Tabernash. What's so funny? If you ever saw Tabernash, it's a one horse town as one little post office and a marijuana store. That's it.

Joe: I'm looking at it right here in this. Funny.

Claude: You pick that one little town, it's 5 minutes away from here. Well, let me ask you, Joe, before I go, because, you know, I got a lot of calls. I'm ready to make some offers and do business today. And you could take that trip. Imagine you could take that trip to Tabernash with your beautiful family. And as a result of us doing this today, no fuss, no bother, no real estate commissions to pay. Imagine we could do that. How would you feel about that?

Joe: Well, that'd be pretty cool. Yeah, I'd like that.

Claude: Well, boom. And you got it off the role play. I don't know the number or what we're working on. On your what level of numbers you're working on.

Joe: Well, can I. Can I do this? Can I kind of walk through? Maybe you'll be the seller.

Claude: Okay.

Joe: And here I'll make a fool out of myself.

Claude: Now we've got to get a level of motivation from them, that's why. What would you do with the money? You know, I get to keep score in my gut sales method. It's called the EQ, the emotional quotient. Are they a ten to the ten means they need the money. They really want to sell it as fast as possible. Or are they? You just played a guy who was a two or three before. Okay. And basically when you're a two or three, you know, we get out my little three minute timer and we ended politely. Maybe I'll send them a follow up offer. By the way, do you do you teach about the follows people change their minds.

Joe: Oh yeah. Sellers sometimes just need time to cook. Yeah. Like I always even after the phone call if you're not on the same page, if they reject your offer, send them an offer in the mail anyway and follow up with them every 30 days.

Claude: I send them a video offer right away, and then I'll attach a PDF or something, a short letter of intent or something like that. And I might even set a time for, Hey, if you can call me back in the next 24 hours, I'd like to continue our negotiation and maybe make you a better offer or talk some more about it. Answer your question. We'll leave. How many people come back to me when I when I do that follow up. It's so important. You can't just call them. And sometimes they're busy. They're doing something, you know? We don't always speak to people at the best time either.

Joe: Yeah, but you got to follow up and yeah, we did us. We did a still study of our own deals. And I think in that in the 12 month period we did 50, 48 deals or something like that. And of those 48 deals, only three came from that first phone call. You know, they called us or we called them and we agreed to a number. The other 45 came from it on average, six or seven follow up attempts over an average of 2 to 3 month window. Some were eight months, ten months, some were just a few weeks. But that is so important people forget about because it's all about doing what nobody else is doing. Nobody else is picking up the phone and talking to people. Nobody else is sending offers to every seller in the mail, not just by email and nobody else, practically, especially in the land investing business, is following up consistently. They're letting leads fall through the cracks or, you know, I think it's a more important to let no lead left behind. That's our philosophy. Right.

Claude: And you know, the gut system, my system, we just closed somebody. Somebody called me out of the blue. I believe in attraction marketing for my business where people call me or zoom me all the time. I by the way, I always want to get people face to face if I can. It's the perfect selling environment. Yeah, you can. You can read there. You could see me. I use my hands a lot and everything. I lean forward when I'm real interested. You can really read people. I use zoom and face time. I used to use Skype a lot. I use the technology we just closed. Somebody made a $25,000 profit on one phone call. They called me. I used the gut system. We set that agenda. We qualified them. We used a little redirection or reverse psychology. Imagine a little imagery. True. Imagine. And boom, they said yes. It was about a 28 minute phone call for $25,000 profit. I mean, that's nice. Sales is the million dollar scale. You and I are famous for these conversations about sales. You know, you can do all the mechanicals, the mailers and everything else, but where do you really make the money in the in the conversion and the conversation? And that's where a lot of people that's where, you know, that's where the practice comes in. I'm speaking, we're going to get stalls in objections. Gee, I want more money. I find other offers and everything. How do you get them to know I can trust you in that first phone call, right? Yeah. So important.

Joe: Well, let me. Can we do this? Can we. Can I pretend to be the investor? And then you're the homeowner and be gentle on me, and you just got this letter from me that's like offering you $12,400 for your quarter acre vacant lot in. I don't remember where this Costilla County, Colorado. Let's see. Okay.

Claude: Okay.

Joe: And so I'm going to I have my script here. I want to try to go through it. Ring, ring.

Claude: Hi, this is Joe Blow.

Joe: Hey, Joe. My name is Claude, and I'm. I'm calling you back. I got your voicemail here about a property that you want to sell .24 acres in near Costilla County, Colorado. I catch you at a bad time?

Claude: Yeah, I'm walking my five Chihuahuas right now, and it's just not a good time.

Joe: Five chihuahuas. Yeah. Wow.

Claude: We are so sure we. We have a chihuahua, a dog training school.

Joe: Well, good for you. I've never owned a chihuahua. I'm sure they're beautiful dogs, but, you know, listen, if I caught you in the middle of something, I can call you back.

Claude: Go ahead. Is this about my real estate, I think, or.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah, I'm calling you back. You got you. You left me a voicemail. You called me the other day about this property. We sent you something in the mail about your property, and I just wanted to ask you some questions.

Claude: Yeah, the check. That check for. Yeah, that was in that envelope. Yeah. Yeah, I think. Oh, that was a pretty cool mailer.

Joe: Okay, well, good. I'm glad I got you to open up. It worked. Well, listen, I'm an investor, and I just want to ask you some questions, and one or two or three things may happen after I ask you some questions. Right? Number one, you like our offer. We like your offer, and we'll send you the paperwork and we can get this thing closed today. Or number two, you can say, Man, no, forget it. And that's totally fine. I don't want to waste your time. I can refer you to some agents. Or the other thing that might happen is I'm going to do some more research. I'm going to ask you some questions about the property, and I might find something that's wrong and I might need to renegotiate that price that we sent you on this check. Will that be okay? Is that fair? Yeah.

Claude: Well. Well, that was a lot of us. Those were, what, three or four conditions or something.

Joe: Okay. All right, Next time I won't do that many.

Claude: Joe, Keep it simple.

Joe: Keep it simpler. Okay. All right.

Claude: I just want to ask you a few questions. It's okay to say no to me.

Joe: Okay. I'm just going to ask you a few questions. It's okay to say no, but let me. I know I made you an offer for 12,000 bucks. Okay? You know, after I ask you some questions, and if I find something wrong with the property, I want to do some more research. Is your price negotiable at all?

Claude: Well, I got a little bit of room.

Joe: A little bit of room. Okay. I got your property pulled up right here on Redfin, and it's point two, four acres. Is that right?

Claude: Yeah, it's beautiful. We just had the lawn mowed. It's. It's pristine property. It's got a view of the Chucky Cheese Pizza Palace. It's. I mean, it's a great piece of property.

Joe: I, by the way, offer only I only sell. I don't send mail to commercial properties in the cities. I like more rural recreational property, but. All right, we'll go with that. Okay. So how long have you owned the property?

Claude: I got it from my grandma out of probate about three years ago.

Joe: Okay. So have you tried to sell it before?

Claude: No, not really. But it's funny. You sent me that letter because we just got the tax bill on this property.

Joe: I'm sure it's not that much right now.

Claude: It's about $3800 a year for this. This lot?

Joe: $3800 a year?

Claude: Yeah.

Joe: So why have you kept it so long?

Claude: Well, you know, it was Grandma's, and I got busy with the Chihuahua dog walking service, so. I don't know. I just didn't get around to it.

Joe: Okay. All right. But you're not in a hurry to sell it, though, right?

Claude: You know, for the right price. I guess I could do business. You know, I, I, you know, truth be told, we want to expand our dog business so it wouldn't hurt to get some extra money.

Joe: Now, Claude, you're not making this easy for me at all.

Claude: I'm so. I'm so. I keep it. I keep it real, man.

Joe: Okay. All right.

Claude: So I give you motivation.

Joe: Okay. All right. All right. So you gave me great motivation. Taxes are high. I got it.

Claude: And that off the role play in Colorado here a vacant land. Taxes are enormous for small lots in the developed areas. They're really high now. So you got I need the money for my business and there's no sentimental value on. It's just raw land. And I think I said 30 $800 a year and I've had it for three years, so do the math and put me in a little pain. And you said, use the million dollar clod word. You know what that word is one word.

Joe: Imagine, imagine.

Claude: Imagine for a moment you didn't have that bill. You know, if you keep it another three years, it's going to be another 12, 13,000 for you. I mean, that's almost what the properties worth. I mean, you must you must be you must have a lot of discretionary income, you know, put they had a little pain and make me an offer and watch what happens.

Joe: Okay. Well, I'm also trying to get more information about the property. Okay. So, like, should I go straight quicker to the motivation or should I dig a little deeper to find out what the property is like? And is it in a good area? Is it next to commercial properties or should I keep on going back to that?

Claude: First, I always the analogy I always use is we could always fix it later. Okay. Right now I want to know, can I do a deal with this guy and can is he the right person to talk to? Is he what's his level of motivation? Can I get some the numbers? And I got Graham on the dog walking and the taxes I got. That's good information. But my real concern is can I get a commitment today? Okay, You go out to go out on a day with a is my analogy your you know our and go going you go out on a date with a pretty girl and she laughs at your bad jokes and she closes her eyes and tilts her head at the doorstep. What do you do? Say, I'll think about it. I'll call you in two weeks. Or do you kiss her?

Joe: I think you kiss her.

Claude: Well, let's ask Victoria.

Joe: All right.

Claude: I think I say go for it. You get a commitment. Yeah, you get, you know, and you're honest. You're in the. You're in the kill zone. You're in the beautiful place. You're doing business, you know. Or do you want to have 45 minutes of logical conversation? And then they say, I'll think about it. No, I tend to be and this may be personality, I tend to be a little I tend to be friendly, but aggressive, assertive. I try to get to the it's a New Yorker in me. It's a I have an extra chromosome or something. It's just I just like to get to the point.

Joe: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, Scott Joe, you're paying $3800 a year in taxes, is that right?

Claude: Yeah. You know, and it's, you know, the Chihuahua dog walking and raising dog walking. It's not as glamorous and as prosperous business as you think you might think it is.

Joe: You're right. And so you've owned it for ten years now. That means you've paid, what, over $10,000 in property taxes on this thing.

Claude: $3800 a year. It's more like 38,000.

Joe: What, you owned it for three years, right?

Claude: Oh, you said ten years. Okay

Joe: I'm sorry. Sorry. Okay, well, whatever. So you've owned it for.

Claude: Yeah. So we've wasted almost $12,000, and that's the value of the land.

Joe: Okay, well, then listen, if I made you an offer, how quickly would you want to sell it today?

Claude: I'm listening, man. I'm. If you give me a fair offer, I'm ready to do business right now.

Joe: What do you think properties are worth in the area?

Claude: I think 12 to $15000.

Joe: 12 to 15000. You think that's a fair price for this crazy market right now?

Claude: Yeah, I think that's what it's. Well, that's the valuation on the last tax bill I got.

Joe: Okay. Now, the area that it's in, is it on a commercial? You said it's across the street from what did you say, Taco Bell or something like that.

Claude: The worst pizza in the world. The Chucky Cheese pizza.

Joe: Chucky Cheese pizza.

Claude: Yes. Yes. Right.

Joe: I'll put that down.

Claude: But it is a residential zone.

Joe: Okay. What about your property? That close to Chucky Cheese pizza has got to be worth a lot more than that, right?

Claude: I don't know. You know, it's just. It was Grandma's property, and, you know, I don't know that much about it. I just pay the tax bill every year. I'm kind of sick of it.

Joe: Okay. All right, so what is the least you'd let it go for if I could make you a cash offer close today?

Claude: You know, if you gave me, I think your letter said 12,000. We couldn't do it for that amount. Huh?

Joe: Well, I don't know. I'm looking here, and there's other properties similar in the area that are currently for sale for less than that. What's. What if? What's the least you could take?

Claude: How about 9800? Mm. Oh.

Joe: Well, I don't know. Is it?

Claude: Listen to him struggle. This is a really good author. Role play. Struggling is the most wonderful thing in the world. You know, the amateur person would say, Yeah, 9800. That's wonderful. The professional gut salesman struggles because he knows he can get it even lower.

Joe: Yeah, well, I just. I don't know. You know, if I. If I could. If I could pay you cash. Is that the best you can do?

Claude: When you say I mean, can you do cash today?

Joe: Well, if I could give you cash today, would you be negotiable on your price? Would you be willing to sign an agreement today.

Claude: If you could do cash today with some kind of opening escrow or a deposit? I I'll drop it down the seven. Can you close before Labor Day?

Joe: If I can close before Labor Day. Would you sign a contract today?

Claude: I would do 7500. A final offer if you could close before Labor Day, end of this month.

Joe: All right, well, let's do this. Let me sharpen my pencil. Look at this a little bit more. And are you available? It's like almost 3:00 now. Would you be available in about 30, 45 minutes? Can I call you back?

Claude: Yeah. Yeah, I'll be finished walking the dogs in. Okay. You know, I can't wait to tell my wife about this. We could, you know, we could go to Tabernash Colorado with this money.

Joe: Well, imagine what you could do if you got these. This $3800 tax bill off of your back. You could buy five more Chihuahuas and buy some nice property in an area that's not right across the street from any Chucky cheese places.

Claude: You're going to call me in a half hour because I want to tell my wife.

Joe: Yeah, I'll call you right back. Thank you very much.

Claude: See off the role play emotional. The million dollar role, Joe? Yeah. People make immediate business decisions emotionally. You know, you get stuck on facts and figures. This is a guy who doesn't want to pay this. And this is a troop thing in Colorado. A vacant land. Taxes and residential neighbors are really high. Yeah. So you go to somebody, imagine you don't have that bill anymore. You don't have to. And you can use the money for that vacation. Pay off your bills, take your wife to Hawaii and that Maui, unfortunately, you know, can you imagine if you could have that money in the next 30 days? So are you speed and emotional immediacy, You know, and that gets people to really be flexible a lot of times.

Joe: To a you have gone the route of like, you know, let's say you said final offer, $7500 I could have gotten you. Maybe I could have tried to get you down lower. But would you have said something along the lines of, listen, I don't know if I could do that, but what if I could get you $7500? You wouldn't consider taking, you know, payments over time for that. I'll take care of the taxes. Would you consider receiving your 7500 with payments over time? Would that be a good angle for that?

Claude: Well, it's always about what are you going to do with that? Let's say that they agreed to something like that owner financing. I mean, your intent is to is to flip this land real quick, right? Yeah. Well, that what you negotiated with them today, will that be attractive to the person you're selling it to?

Joe: Owner financing. Yeah. If I could sell it as an owner financing package.

Claude: Yeah, maybe some to another. And let's just do that. You got the deal for 7500. It's got a street value of 12 for this development in the area. And I'm the new investor, the neophyte investor. I'm looking for my first deal and you have financing built into it. So I don't have to I don't have to pay you the whole 12 or 15,000, whatever you're selling it for, you know, so that that financing can make it very attractive. Oh yeah. And other to, to your, to the person you're selling to.

Joe: Yeah. So I could, you know, if I find an investor who would want that deal, I could assign it to them for $5,000. I'm iffy.

Claude: Yeah. And what's the big selling and what's the big selling point? The owner financing? No bank. Yeah. I mean, that's attractive to people. Yeah. You have the built in financing. Even. Even if maybe the price, there's no, there's no equity in their property. It's a full price but they look at it as long term and. Aspen is owner financing in it five, ten, 15 years from now, maybe that land will be worth 25. 50,000?

Joe: Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Okay, so to do somebody just asked a question here. Could the higher priced can you see that? Could the higher price you offer be tied to if they would take their money over time? Okay, we just answered that. Otherwise the price would be less. Yeah. So you could offer them more if they accept payments.

Claude: When I'm negotiating with somebody, I always look for the level of motivation. I used a little reverse psychology. I use the word imagine to fulfill their dreams or things in their head. You know, the sell the sizzle, not the steak on the property. But there's two things I always look for when I negotiate. Price We all want the best price or terms, so I get either one or the other or sometimes I get a hybrid, a little of both. So I'm thinking of, especially in wholesaling, I want to make it more marketable. I want other people to want this land from me. So I either have to give them a great price and sometimes there's just not a lot of room in these deals to get the assignment that you want. But if you have the terms and say, Hey, you know, owner finance or we have an option on this property, you know, you got five years and you just have to pay the small amount, you have to buy the contract from me. You pay this small amount per year, per month or whatever, and you can buy it whenever you want or you can let the option expire. So you're giving them that flexibility, price or terms to two words to remember.

Joe: All right. Very good. So let's say we're talking to a seller then, and maybe we could role play again. You're stuck on that 12 grand. You won't go any less than that. Yep. But I might say, well, I. What if I could offer you that? Not saying I could, but what if I could offer you 12,000 for it? You wouldn't be willing to take that with payments over time, like owner financing or something like that. Would you?

Claude: You know, I just read a book about that out of Jimmy Napier invests in debt and yeah, what would it be amortized? Would it be interest only principal? Only. What kind of offer are you talking about?

Joe: Well, I don't know. It just depends. You know.

Claude: I could then be a struck. Give me a cookie.

Joe: You've really done your homework. You. Right. That's a great book. Thank you for asking that question. Great question.

Claude: Now I like now I like you. You acknowledged to me this scale much psychology charismatic selling, I call it. Yeah, yeah. So what happens when someone likes you and maybe you don't have the best deal, but they really like you.

Joe: You're going to do more business with them.

Claude: The forces of the universe are in your favor, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have financing. I'm very interested in that. I just read a good book about that.

Joe: Well, okay. That. That I'm glad you reading books about that. That's really good. How would it work? It just depends on the numbers. If I'm trying to think of where to go next.

Claude: Hey Joe let me ask you something I want. I want to. I'd like to get it for. I'd like to get it for 9500. You want 12? Is there somewhere? Let me ask you this. We couldn't meet in the middle, could we possibly.

Joe: You know. What do you mean? How does that work?

Claude: Well, I want 95. And you want 12. What's the man who wrote that? Never split the difference. Yeah. Yeah, I always split the difference? Yeah. Why don't we say ten five? I'll give you ten five. I'll send you an agreement today and I'll send you. I'll put 500 down and I'll send you 250 a month. Principal only payments. That way you're getting your price. You're saving real estate commission. I'm responsible for the taxes and it's all done.

Joe: Off role play for second. Can I pretend because there's this thing called imputed interest rate and I don't know how it works, but I've heard people say you can't technically pay a seller principal only payments because then they're going to still have to report. They're going to have to pay taxes on the interest they would have gotten called imputed interest. Have you ever heard of this note?

Claude: I'm not an accountant. I have a very good one. But how much would it would? It's only 250 a month. Okay, here's the beauty of it. We got leverage here. We got a $12,000 property. We negotiated a better price and we're only paying 250 a month principal only payments. Now you divide the price 10,000 by 250. What does that 41. What does that 40 months or something like that. Okay. Can you sell. Yeah. Low interest principal only payments.

Joe: Yeah. 3.3 years.

Claude: And how many people do you really think are going to be? Is that going to be an objection because of imputed interest. I mean on a 250 a month and you know and Yeah. And if it's a senior couple I'm going to say the words they love. Hey, can you imagine if you got an annuity just like your Social Security and like you're on and you get that nice little 250 a month check for the next four years. Mr. McCall, what would you do? Do you have any bills that are around 250 a month, like a Verizon bill or a car payment or something like that?

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. I've got a. My AT&T cell phone bill.

Claude: There you go. A word. I'm going to pay that for you. The land is gone. It's off your back. You don't have to worry about it. You have to pay the taxes. And we can do that right now. Or you can tell me to get lost farming. But I only make the offer once, sir. I like you. I like the property. I'm sorry. I have so many other people to talk to today. It's a busy day, but I'd like to. I'd like to make you that offer. Can we move forward or should I leave you alone?

Joe: Let's move forward.

Claude: Let's do it. You're a gentleman, sir. Thank you so much. I'm going to send you a DocuSign. And you're the decision maker on this property, right? Is there a spouse or significant other?

Joe: I got to do it.

Claude: Yeah. Okay, I'll send you that agreement. Could you do me one small favor? Yeah. Could you get that back to me by 530 this afternoon so I can call my attorney and we can facilitate this, and I can start sending you those lovely checks.

Joe: Yes, very good.

Claude: You're a you're not going to call me tomorrow and tell me your wife's mad at you. Your changed your mind right now. You don't you you're old school. You're a man of your word, aren't you?

Joe: Oh, of course.

Claude: Yes, I knew that. I knew I. How come I knew that about you?

Joe: I don't know. I don't know.

Claude: Good. You'll get it. You'll get it back. You'll get the document, DocuSign. You'll get it back to me before 530 today, and then I'll. I'll send you a follow up tomorrow on the earnest money and on the beginning. The payments will begin in September 1st.

Joe: Sounds awesome.

Claude: I love doing business with you, sir. You have any other properties or land we want to talk about at question?

Joe: No, I don't, but that's a great question. Yeah, well, that's generally good. Yeah.

Claude: That's honestly, that's the way I would sound on the offer. I would I'd love it if I could structure a deal. Interest free principle. Only my value increases on that property every my equity grows every month on that property. And here's the other thing. If we want to wholesale that deal, how easy? Hello, Joe. Joe, the investor.

Joe: Yes, Hello.

Claude: Joe. Just got a great deal here. Got this beautiful couple acre property in East Bumble, Colorado. With owner financing. You can build on it. You can hold it. I mean, this it's in a nice area and we got owner financing on it. Yeah. Where do you see here? This Joe? 250 a month and no interest. I'm calling all I'm calling all my investors on the list. You're on the top there and it's okay to say no to me. You wouldn't be interested in a great property in a good neighborhood that'll probably appreciate over the next 510 years with owner financing. Would you?

Joe: Yeah, I would be interested once you send me some details.

Claude: I'm down right now, Joe. Let's go on Zoom and let me out. Now I can send you the prospectus, the contract and everything we're looking at for. We're looking to get 15,000 for the assignment. Be on this, on this, on this particular transaction. You would you be comfortable on would that be something you'd be comfortable with.

Joe: Yeah, that'd be great. Let's do it.

Claude: And you have the liquidity right now if you decide to move forward, right?

Joe: Yeah. So. Well, how much would the how much do you want for the property.

Claude: Oh, okay. Well it's, it's $12,000 property. I'll tell you what, since you're an old client, we were looking for 75. I'll make it $5,000 if we if we can do business today and make a commitment, I'll. I'll give it to you for $5,000. Great piece of property. I just sent you the prospectus. The pictures, the drone video and the. It doesn't need any upgrades or any maintenance or anything on it. And you have all the information there, Joe.

Joe: Well, I'll take a look at it and get back to you.

Claude: Can you get back to me in the next 30 to 60 minutes only because I've been doing some marketing and this I think this thing is going to be gone by the end of today.

Joe: Yeah, I'll do my best.

Claude: Your best means.

Joe: I'm walking my five chihuahuas and.

Claude: You can't use my own jokes against me.

Joe: Yeah, I'll get back to you. I'll get back to you in 45 minutes.

Claude: And in that role I was a good role play. Nice going in that one. I used a little bit of Mr. Robert Cialdini's scarcity. Yeah, okay. You know, it's got to go. But in the today I got a call. A lot of people you're on the top of the list, social proof. Also a lot of people are interested. That's social proof. We only have this one property. It's going to be gone by the end of the day at scarcity. Okay. And then we can do other things, likability and trust. And there are many different psychological ways. I mean, when I say that I get a commitment, I close people, I get another appointment or a contract in the first phone call, my word of honor. This is what this is what you can do with knowing how to sell people the right way.

Joe: I love this. You know, I'm writing down we got to wrap this up, but the some of my big takeaways, Claude, from this has been get them to imagine their pain being taken away. Yeah. The other big takeaway for me was like, don't forget to congratulate them or compliment them, stroke them, pat them on the back.

Claude: Nurture and empathy.

Joe: Yeah. The other big takeaway was I was trying to set the agenda and I use too many words for that upfront. All right. I got to keep it simpler.

Claude: You know, what's our problem in this business? We love this business. We know all the vernacular. We read all the books, got all the seminars. They may not be as astute as us. They may not know all the terms and everything like that. And what do you think? People's attention span is longer today or shorter?

Joe: Shorter?

Claude: Not much shorter. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I'd like to make you an offer on your property. And please feel free to say no to me.

Joe: Boom. Yeah, that's really good. Now, the big takeaway was just keep on asking a lot of questions. Right. And the scarcity at the end, you were talking about, you know.

Claude: Oh, yeah. Pulling it away. Yeah. And the reciprocity. We didn't know, you know. Could you do Joe this first? You stroke and nurture them. Joe, I really enjoyed talking to you. You're, you know, you're. You're old school like me. You're a man of your word. Could you. Can I. Could you do me one small little favor, then? You. What's the one thing we want? We wanted to get money today or we want to get the contract today. Or we want to get a decision today. So that's reciprocity. You compliment them, you stroke and nurture them, and then you ask a favor while you're on that honeymoon. That's when you ask for the one thing you really want. That's how you close people or get commitment in the first phone call.

Joe: It's really good.

Claude: We had a good you got a good comment there in your comments section, by the way.

Joe: Somebody well, they can get your free book and mind map. Is that what you're talking about?

Claude: No, no. Facebook user says the seller could avoid long term capital gains taxes if they take their profits over time.

Joe: I don't know where that comment went, but I lost it. I'm glad you saw that.

Claude: And I do have I send it to you? I do. I have a free gut sales book. Anybody wants to go to Claude Diamond dot com or you have a link there. They can now get the book, but a mind map on the gut sales method. So they know the system, the three steps and the. Yeah. And the questions to s it's to me I we love this business, Joe, but it's so sales centric, even more so today. You and I have been talking about sales and real estate for 20 years now almost.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Well, here's the thing, too. You know, like, you don't have to be. I tell us all the people all the time. Like, don't think that you have to be like me or you have to be like Claude Diamond to learn how to sell, Right? Is just talking to five people a day. You're going to practice, you're going to get better at it, you know, and just being nice, being genuine, being yourself, asking a lot of questions. Remember, you know, sometimes the three best words are is like, I don't know. That's a great question. Why did you ask that? Right?

Claude: You must ask that for a reason.

Joe: You must have asked that for a reason.

Claude: Would you like Joe? Could you do me a favor? I'm here for you. I want to do business with you. And I want to make sure if you're not comfortable with this deal, you don't have to see. You'll think about it or anything. Just tell me, Lord, you're fired. Would you do that for me?

Joe: So when you do that, it's like it takes away the pressure of trying to lives have to sell them anything. You're not selling him anything. You just ask him questions.

Claude: So important to set the tone, the environment, to get people. It's charismatic selling. My mentor was like that. People fell in love with this guy in the first phone call. You know, when we like, when we know, like, and trust people and we remove all the anxiety, it's such a it's, you know, this is a tough business. And this that can be a lot of rejection in this business. And think about it's an and imagine if we can remove all that and just talk to nice people have nice pleasant manifold conversations every day. That's a one person giving good phone can achieve financial freedom. Yeah, you and I are living proof of that. We give good phone.

Joe: Very good. The guys. The link for Claude's free book and his mind map is Claude Diamond dot com Slash light slash book. I'll put that link in the description below the video but it's Claude Diamond dot com slash light slash book. You get his free gets sales book and his mind map talking about this sales stuff super good super helpful Claude I appreciate your time I really do.

Claude: I appreciate you Joe you're one of the you're one of the good guys in this business.

Joe: Thank you very much. And we are so cool that we match shirts. You think it's St Patrick's Day or something like that?

Claude: I asked my wife, what color should I wear because I have 20 of these Under Armor shirts. I love them. Today was green day. Not the band.

Joe: All right. Thanks again, Claude. Hey we'll see you guys later. Take care, everybody.

Claude: Best to your lovely family. Bye bye.