Joe: Welcome. This is The Real Estate Investing Mastery podcast.

Joe: All right. Hey everybody, welcome. This is the Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast. Super glad you’re here. And I got a great episode today because we’re going to be talking with Ayo about how to be a transactional engineer. And I hope you don’t mind me using that title, Ayo, but I love the concept. Ayo’s been doing a lot of lease option deals and he sent me an email just showing me some of his deals that he did. And I said, hey, wait a second, let’s get you on the podcast and talk about some of these deals. But the cool thing about Ayo, what he’s doing is he’s not focusing just on lease options. He’s focusing on finding motivated sellers, finding out what their situation is, and then making an offer that works for them and for him as well. Right? So it’s not just one strategy.

Joe: He is, the way he’s doing it, and this is why it’s so brilliant, it’s so important for everybody to listen… that’s listening to pay attention to. Instead of getting one out of 20 or 30 offers accepted, why not get maybe three out of 20 or 30 offers accepted and triple your deal flow just by offering different solutions? Okay, so we’ll get to that in a minute. I want to first tell you all this podcast is brought to you by my book, Wholesaling Lease Options. I wrote this book from just what I’ve been doing since 2008, so over 11 years now. Lease options work in any market and they start work especially well, and things start slowing down. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the market. Things are slowing down. So you can get this book for free at wlobook.com; wlobook.com. Get it for free. Just pay shipping and handling and we’ll ship it out to you. Okay? All right, so Ayo, how are you, my man?

Ayo: I am good Joe. How are you?

Joe: Excellent. I’m really glad that you’re here.

Ayo: No worries.

Joe: So where are you from?

Ayo: Born and raised in New York, specifically Brooklyn, and grew up in the Bronx. And then after college in Upstate New York, I moved to Pennsylvania, suburbs of Philadelphia, and I’m going to say I bought my first duplex after I graduated with my Masters in business. So I’ve house-at off a duplex and then slowly started, you know, I was doing the BRRRR method. Refinance, Buy, Rehab. Was it Buy, Rehab, Rent, Repeat?

Joe: Renovate. No, no.

Ayo: Renovate, right.

Joe: Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat.

Ayo: There you go. Yup. Yup.

Joe: Come on. All right.

Ayo: So obviously, with that method, it’s a nice, short method, but if you’re trying to do it faster, obviously you would have to be creative because all those things, when there’s a bank involved, it’s going to involve your credit, money and a whole other stuff that the banks would like to see. So it kind of forced me and my wife to find a way to be more creative. We were trying to quit our jobs and be financially free. The goal was never to be a millionaire. It was just to be financially free so that just like you and your family have a business that’s automated, systemized, it’s running without us being there so that we can do what we want to do best, which is to travel, create memories, have something for our sons to have and just…

Joe: And keep our expenses low. I mean, is there any other business where you can have, make the money that we do with a low overhead that we have? Isn’t that amazing?

Ayo: Super amazing.

Joe: Talk about, Ayo, what year did you start doing deals in?

Ayo: So, let’s see. So since 2012, but maybe since… okay. So, by 2017 is when I went online. I learned about creative real estate, I’ve heard about it before through Bigger Pockets. I’ve been listening to Bigger Pocket Podcast since 2014. After I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I stumbled on Bigger Pockets. I listened to all their podcasts. I heard, I think you were featured on one and I came across you not too long in 2017 in Fall. I saw a couple of videos you did on YouTube. I think I saw some, too, with Collide Diamond and I was like, I got to reach out to Joe and get more info. You seem like I related with you. You seem really down to earth. There was no upsale, no wait, there’s more.

Ayo: It was pretty simple, pretty straight forward. And I was like, I can relate with Joe, let me get to know, you know, learn more. And so that’s when I reached out to you back in the Fall of 2017. And then not too long after that, we did our first lease option. And when was this? September of 2018.

Joe: Nice.

Ayo: So there was a gap I didn’t give up. I know I’ve reached out to you and Gavin and just from continually learning, listening to more podcasts and all. I think I’m pretty sure you know Whitney Nicely.

Joe: Yeah.

Ayo: I checked out what she was doing to join her course and I kind of like put everything together. And before I knew it, we were making some deals.

Joe: I like Whitney, she talks about buying happy houses.

Ayo: Right.

Joe: So Ayo, what do you… how many deals a month do you average right now or in the last few months? What have you been doing?

Ayo: So let’s see. So wholesaling because we started off first, I started my first wholesale… I received my first whole check rather in March. This was the lead that came in late last year and through, with this seller, she lives in New York, I have, let’s see, I sent her a ringless voicemail and from one property, it turns out I was able… she gave, she had three properties she wanted to get rid of. Out of those three, two were lease options that I currently have and one was a wholesale deal that we closed on this past March for close to 14,000. And then, so,,, sorry, to answer your question, we did for lease options, we were able to do, let me see, we have one lease option in September ending. Then we had another one in October and then another one I believe in early December.

Ayo: And then this year we had wholesale and we had our first wholesale check for that in March. Second one we closed in… what was that, March? So I think it’s like, it seems like every month and a half and I’m trying to be much more consistent. And that’s where like now that we’re starting to see, because I already have one pending. After we’re done, I’m going to call the title company to find out are we closing this week or next week? And we have two that are currently two contracts signed that goes to also wholesale. I already have the buyers lined up. So now that I’m seeing consistent flow, I’m trying to now move on to hiring a VA.

Joe: Yeah. Good. So I’ll talk about why, you know, you mainly make wholesaling offers, right? When a seller first comes in from your marketing, you approach it like a cash offer, which I think is great. Talk about why you do that and then how do you, you know, if they can’t take your cash offer, how do you transition it into a more creative offers? Does that make sense?

Ayo: It makes sense. And I learned this again from you when I reached out to you and join your course back in 2017. As you know, Joe, there’s a plethora of ways of getting into real estate a number of ways. So rather than try to figure everything out, I just like to just know enough so that I approach each deal, like I’ve mentioned, I told you before, I approach each deal with intention to wholesale it. Depending on that seller situation if wholesaling doesn’t make sense because they don’t have the equity is just a bit too slim, but they are very motivated then that’s where, and I learned this from you, where I offered three offers. It can be cash, which is the wholesale, or at least finance, some of the lease option or sandwiched lease option or financing. So it depends on the situation. Sometimes it could end up being a subject two, which is very advanced or in other creative ways. So it all just starts with the intention to wholesale it and then depending on that, seller situation will determine what exit strategy we will use.

Joe: What would you say, at what percentage of the leads that you get would take your cash offer or take a more creative financing offer?

Ayo: So I have noted percentage, for the ones that would take the cash offer, it’s usually… I’ve seen that it’s usually people who are out of state and the property is, it’s in need of serious work. But people who do, the sellers who do take the creative one, the house doesn’t need that much work. They may be in state or out of state, but I mean, when I talk in numbers, I would say it’s like right now kind of like 75 to 25 with the 75 being wholesale and at 25 being lease options.

Joe: I used to… I’ve tested this before, too. I used to send out marketing. Well, first I started with the typical direct mail marketing that everybody does. Hey, I want to buy your house. And I get good responses from that. Then I changed it to, hey, I want to lease option your house. If you’re a tired landlord, then I’d be willing to lease your property with an option to buy it. So I changed my marketing message to be more of a lease purchase message and I saw my response rates dramatically drop. And I did the same with my text messages and emails to Craigslist and Zillow. I used to send out, hey, if you want to sell your house, call me. I’d like to talk with you or whatever. And that worked good, right? Then I changed it to test it and I did a lease option message, but my responses went way down.

Joe: I pref… excuse me. I prefer the approach I think you’re right on. Sending out marketing is really clear and simple that we’ll get the most responses back. Like, hey, I want to buy your house. Call me if you’re interested in selling. Right? And if you talk to enough sellers and you make enough offers, you’ll find the sellers that are motivated. That’s all you need. You don’t need equity, you need motivation. Right? And that’s a great thing about being a transactional engineer. It’s you’re just out there finding motivation. You don’t care about equity at all.

Ayo: Nope.

Joe: To traditional wholesalers, 95% of the investors out there, they’re looking for motivation and equity. Well, what if there was a way you could do deals if you had motivation, but very little equity, right? That’s a great thing about this. So I like how you’re approaching this marketing with more of like, hey, do you want to sell your house? Let’s talk. Right?

Ayo: Right.

Joe: What are some of the questions that you ask them, Ayo, to kind of feel out where they’re at and what kind of deal that would be best for them?

Ayo: So, because I do… I cold call. My marketing strategy is a combination of cold calling slash ringless voicemails, which is because I know for certain states, [inaudible] have a certain flag. So I make sure mine is very targeted. It’s those highly motivated, less like pre-foreclosures or probates or was it pre-foreclosure probates, a house that’s seriously distressed, things like that. And sending postcards through a deal machine where it has a picture of their house. I’m actually taking a step further where I’ll actually put like a selfie with me in front of their house. It’s not like they’re getting a picture of their house, but now it’s a guy and the house.

Joe: That’s a great idea.

Ayo: And I’m like doing like pointing at their house, like smiling. You know, I do a thumbs up while I’m pointing at the back of the house and it’s like, hey, you know, it says the traditional thing, like how a deal machine would have like, I’m interested in buying your house and I’ve noticed that works. Now, only do that method only if I try to skip trace and the numbers don’t work, like I’m not getting anything back, then I will use that as another means.

Ayo: But that definitely works. And when they pick up the phone or when they call me, it’s like, hey, I got your postcard or I got your voicemail. Usually it’s which property are you talking about? And then after we go through all that, it’s like they tell me, I’m interested in selling, you know, what do you have in mind? And I tell them, well, you know, I have a couple of questions to ask you first before I can give you an offer. Then we go through the whole breakdown, so you know, have you done any work to the property recently? It usually comes down to, I know Brent Daniels mentioned this, his four pillars: qualification, price condition, motivation to sell. And I know I’m missing one. I always miss one price condition and motivation to sell and time… was it timelines?

Joe: Timeliness, like how quickly they need to sell it.

Ayo: Right. So I’m asking them all the… I ask them all four of those within that first few minutes of talking and if all those four are checked off, then I know it’s a deal. And then from there, I kind of put the house aside and I’m just trying to build that rapport and say, so tell me more like, what’s your situation like?

Joe: Ah, what a great question! I care about their situation, their motivation. Why do they need to sell this house? How quickly do they need to sell their house? Right?

Ayo: Right.

Joe: Very good. When you start talking to them, they start telling you their situation.

Ayo: Right.

Joe: Where do you go from there?

Ayo: They tell me their situation. I regurgitate it back to them. I would say so from what you’re telling me, and I’ll just throw an example. So for what you’re telling me, you’re trying to sell this house because you live out of state, it’s too far.

Ayo: You’re tired of going back and forth to trim the grass. You don’t want to be an out-of-state… like whatever it is they tell me, I regurgitate it back to them so just to make sure like we’re on the same page and when they say yes, that it. That’s exactly what’s going on. That’s when I say, okay, so if we can come to a number that makes sense for you and me, how soon would you be ready to move forward if I send you an agreement? I always say agreement rather than contract; Agreement’s friendlier, contract seems so constrictive. And when they tell me, hey, yeah, I’ll be ready now, I just tell them, okay. Then depending on a situation I can just say, you know, when can we meet? If they live at a different state then obviously I’ll just go check on it.

Ayo: But I’ve already done my research on the property. I would ask them, well, you know, what number did you have in mind? A cool technique that I’ve done recently when I am going to meet with the seller because a lot of sellers would like to, you know, put a face behind the voice on the phone and if the rapport has been built, you know, I don’t say no. I’ll tell them to show it to me. I look for the place in the house where it has a lot of bad damage. This happened last weekend where this guy’s duplex, on the first floor, the kitchen ceiling caved in.

Joe: Really?

Ayo: Yeah. So we went up and down looking at the house. I wasn’t even saying much about the house. Like while he’s showing me the house, I’m listening, I’ve learned to just keep quiet, let them talk, let them sell me.

Ayo: And then while he showed me the house, I’m asking him, you know, why sell it? Why not sell it with a real estate agent? You know, why not sell it yourself? Why not fix it? And when he’s answering all those questions with, no, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money. I’m already gearing him up to let him realize like I’m your best bet when numbers are in exchange. So I made sure we negotiated right in that kitchen on the first floor where it was in bad shape. So when we met at the kitchen, it’s like, so you know, what price did you have in mind? And while I’m saying, I’m not looking at him when I said it. I’m looking at the kitchen, at the ceiling. I’m like, so what price did you have in mind? Because I know you said you wanted this number, you know, where are you now? And he’s like, you know what, I think… And now he starts negotiating on himself as opposed to me having to go below that first number.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. Just asking a lot of questions. Right?

Ayo: Correct.

Joe: Probing questions. In fact, God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason, you know?

Ayo: Right.

Joe: We need to listen more than we talk.

Ayo: Right.

Joe: And I found this so true. If you have to… if you find yourself convincing a seller why they should sell their house to you or convincing a seller why they should do a lease option, you’re talking to the wrong seller. They’re just not motivated right now and ready to do a deal. And that’s okay. Right?

Ayo: Right.

Joe: It’s okay. All right, Ayo, so talk about some of the marketing that’s working good for you today. I know you talked a little bit about driving for dollars, but what other type of marketing are you doing?

Ayo: So in the beginning, what I did, I spent probably tens of thousands of dollars on doing direct mail, yellow letter, and I wasn’t really seeing a return on my money back only because I was pretty much pulling lists from people that weren’t really motivated. This is me, you know, just learning and doing what everyone else is doing. So now I kind of scale back on that and my best marketing strategy honestly is I find, and I learned this, okay, I mean this is maybe a shameless plug, but it is what it is. Like I learned the creative side from you and it just trickled down from other mentors that I’ve learned along the way like Whitney Nicely, Joe Bodek and such. But I looked at how the zip codes in my area where the cash buyers are buying properties and I just go and drive in those areas with my deal machine app and this, nine out of 10, you’ll find houses that’s not even on list that you can buy online. So as opposed to the old Flintstone method of yellow paper writing down the address of the house, maybe even taking a picture with technology like deal machine, I just take a picture and now it’s all done and I just keep it moving. When I come home, I’ll export that list, I’ll skip trace it, and then I just start cold calling.

Joe: That’s good.

Joe: You mentioned mentors, and I think this is important to talk about because we have one of my mentors on the line with us here and I’ll get him on in just a minute. I feel like a radio DJ host but, so I’m going to get Claude Diamond on.

Ayo: Yeah. That’s cool.

Joe: Come on, Claude Diamond. What is going on?

Claude: I’m glad I got a haircut.

Joe: Yes. How are you, sir?

Claude: I’m good, man. I enjoy listening to you, guys. Very good stuff. Very informative. I love that you’re talking about sales and negotiation and questions to ask and everything. To me that’s the lifeblood of this business.

Joe: It is. Learning how to talk to sellers is really important, but Claude, we were…

Claude: Worth a million dollar skill.

Joe: It’s a million dollar skill. Yes.

Claude: You could have the best leads, the best computers, the best employees, but it all comes down to, can I get on that phone and make a connection with that person?

Joe: Right. Right. So, Claude, we were talking about how to talk to sellers, but Ayo mentioned something there that I thought was really important. I’ve often said the most important real estate you’ll ever invest in are the four inches in between your ears, right? You’ve got to invest in yourself and invest in your education and Ayo has done that. And that’s one of the big reasons why he’s successful. He’s doing deals, he’s bought my stuff. He’s bought other courses and programs from Joe Bodek and Whitney Nicely and some other people. Maybe you, I don’t know.

Ayo: Yeah, I did.

Claude: Listen, I still read books. I just finished a book from Grant Cardone on sales and stuff like that. I watched Joe. I love your podcast, Joe. You know, nobody has a monopoly on all the knowledge in the world. There’s always new ideas, new techniques and things like that. But you know, you never stopped learning. And if you think you know everything there is to know, you’re not going to keep moving forward in this business.

Joe: I just spent, I’m not going to say, but it was in the multiple thousands of dollars in figures to go to a mastermind in… Are you in San Diego right now, Claude?

Claude: No, I’m in my summer home in Colorado.

Joe: I’m flying to San Diego tomorrow.

Claude: Okay. Watch out for the earthquakes, Joe.

Joe: Yeah, I know. But I still invest in my education myself.

Joe: It is so important because it’s important to kind of stay on the cutting edge and figure out what’s working well. And one of the cool things that you get from other mentors is like these mentors are coaching other people all around the country as well and we pick up on things that some of our students are doing that are really working well right now.

Claude: It’s a secret. Don’t tell them that.

Joe: And we get to share that with our other students. Right? I mean, I do this all the time. Some of the best stuff that I’ve learned have come from other students that are doing deals like Ayo, right? He does a little bit of driving for dollars and he does a selfie with the phone with the picture of him with the house behind him and sends that picture in the direct, in a postcard through the driving for dollars app to the sellers.

Joe: And what a great way to add like a little personal touch to your marketing. Right?

Claude: Every person I talk to, I usually send either an audio or a video emails follow up with the contract attached or a letter of intent or something. I try to make it very personal and put a face.

Joe: Yeah.

Claude: A face with the offer all the time. I think that’s just good. That’s smart marketing.

Joe: Yeah, it is. So, Claude, we were talking about kind of how to talk to sellers, right? Could you walk through real quickly, because I think this would be good for everybody listening, the stairstep… you cover from a high level the stairstep you take sellers through and the guts sales system where you set the agenda from the very beginning. Could you cover that?

Claude: Sure. I’m a big believer, I study a lot of psychology.

Claude: Okay. Dealing with what, how do I persuade a total stranger to see me as different from my competition to say, hey, this is a good idea? This is a nice guy. Maybe this is a trustworthy, honest person. Maybe they have that, they can give me value. Maybe they sound different. And so, rather than give presentations, which everybody else does initially, I do, too, what Ayo was talking about. I go into a question base. The first thing I do is set a roadmap or something like that. We call it an agenda and say, you know, Ayo, can I ask you a few questions? Maybe we can do business today. And you asked me a few and I’d love to see us somehow figure out a way to solve your problem and maybe we can do a contract today. And then you asked me a few questions and if we have a meeting of the mind, let’s do business.

Claude: And if not, I want you to feel comfortable enough to fire me. Can you do that for me? And boom.

Joe: That’s good.

Claude: So I’ve just set that up. That’s the preamble of the premise. It’s called the agenda step there. And similarly, I’m going to fit that in. Then I’m going to do what you guys were just talking about; the qualification for the timeframe. Is this something you or do you want to buy or sell your home now? In the next 30 days or 30 years? You know, I don’t want to waste time with somebody who’s going to, you know, not ready to do business today. I’m a today guy. Do they have the money or the ownership of the home, the asset, to do that deal today? Do they have the authority to make a decision today? Do they have the… is there motivation?

Claude: Is it a one, two, or three or an eight, nine or 10? If it’s a four or five, can I make it an eight, nine or 10? And do they have the character to give a commitment today even for another meeting, for an appointment or something? This is the qualification step on a little staircase. And this is really the most important part. Can you learn to ask questions without sounding like you’re cross examining them? Can you have that nice, you know those comfortable conversations like we’re having right now? Just nice conversations and everybody… and when you have a conversation with the person, I call it the adult to adult conversation, I think you get true rapport, respect, mutuality, and then you can move to the third step and that’s where you get commitment to close.

Claude: And that’s where in one phone call you can actually get another appointment, another meeting, a contract or the magic word, YES. Three simple steps. But you’ve got to learn the baby steps and you’ve got to learn to ask questions that don’t feel abrasive to people in my, you know, nobody wants to be questioned like a cop just pulled them over. But they love to have a nice honest dialogue.

Joe: That’s good.

Claude: Three steps. That’s all you need.

Joe: That’s really simple. I love it and that’s why I wanted Claude on here, right, to talk about…

Claude: I didn’t mean to interrupt you, bro. You guys were great to listen to. I was listening.

Joe: Claude, let us ask you one or two more questions. I know you’re busy.

Claude: Sure.

Joe: We were talking about at the beginning like Ayo’s doing some marketing, he’s getting some leads coming in and one of the things I like about what he’s doing is he just doesn’t have one offer to give to the seller, right?

Claude: Right.

Joe: Like he’s not looking for equity like so many investors out there are looking for high motivation and high equity, right?

Claude: It’s a needle in a haystack sometimes.

Joe: Right. So, he’s just looking for sellers with motivation. Then you can make multiple different offers depending on their situation and what they need, right?

Claude: Right. Exactly.

Joe: Claude, what are you seeing right now from, you know, 30,000 feet in the market in terms of creative deals like lease options or owner financing…

Joe: and stuff like that? Is it becoming easier to do it now in this market? Or why aren’t more people doing it, which is kind of blows me away thinking about it, you know what I’m saying?

Claude: Yeah. This is, I thought last summer… in the old days, summers used to be a little slow for us honestly. Last summer was very good. This summer is spectacular for a [inaudible]. We’re having… we’re just coming off the best June in the history of my company and July, we’re off to a really great start right now. I think here’s the way I look at it. Real estate is a big field. We have buyers, we have sellers, we have investors, we have other professionals in it. People have problems in real estate. I look at this as I’m the doctor of real estate. I have solutions to your problems. You go to your doctor, he’s not just going to always give you the same cough drop. He might give you penicillin, he might give you physical therapy. We have to get enough information from people and offer them multiple solutions where we can, hey Mr. and Mr. Prospect, I can give you price, I can give you terms. You want full price, I can give you full price, but I need you to hold the mortgage subject to the existing mortgage. Or maybe if you’re comfortable, we could structure a rent to own, whatever makes you comfortable. So I’m working with people. Some people want cash, some people want price, some people want a little passive income, some people just want to get out of the deal. The ones we all love. We have to be versatile enough to offer multiple strategies. That’s why we can never stop learning. And we have to ask the questions so we can qualify this prospect and then say, Mr. or Mrs. Prospect, if I could help you get that price, but I ask in return that you are flexible on these terms. Do you think we could move forward today?

Claude: Mr. or Mrs. Prospect, what would you like to see happen today? Are you looking for cash? Are you looking for a price? Are you looking to save real estate commission? I need information. I need to find motivation, create motivation and exacerbate motivation. And if they’re just living in the house, oh well, we are not really interested, we’re in no rush or anything. That’s someone who is so low on what I call the guts scale or the motivation scale. I’m probably going to get off the phone very quickly. Maybe I’ll follow up with them in 30, 60, 90 days because the motivation could change. But I tend to try to not be on the phone, every phone call, 45 minutes with every person explaining how a light bulb works. You know, I really want to find out what’s their needs and are they ready to take an action today?

Joe: That’s good.

Claude: I’m a today guy. Was that too long winded? I’m sorry.

Joe: No, perfect. Ayo, do you have any questions for me or Claude while we’ve got you on here?

Ayo: I’m just absorbing this. This is like, I’m like kind of pinching myself. It’s like, I have Claude and Joe, like, I’m just listening, absorbing everything.

Joe: Well good, good. I met Claude, well, I’m trying to figure out where I found you first come out on. It was probably on YouTube.

Claude: Where did we meet? I don’t know.

Ayo: I might’ve brought some earlier videos with you guys earlier this year and I called. I know you get a lot of people calling. We actually spoke earlier this year because I have it right here, your three steps as you’re explaining it. It’s always right here. I have my little hourglass when I’m talking to a seller. If none of those things are there, well before the hourglass, you know, I have mine still. So I already know like if we have a deal on or it’s no deal, I kind of gently, politely say, hey, I got to go. I have another call to make. Let’s follow up maybe in a few days. But yeah.

Joe: Which is so good. Why is it so hard for people to pull away? You know, it’s like, I’m coaching people constantly all the time. Well, the seller wants $25,000 down. What do I do? It’s not that hard. Just pull away.

Ayo: Right.

Claude: Or make them offers.

Joe: Yeah.

Claude: Say, you know what, Mr. Prospect Joe, you know what? $25,000, if I was in your position, I’d feel the exact same way. Here’s the problem right now, I’m involved in so many other deals and that’s a great deal of capital up front and I’m not arguing with you. Is there some way we could finance that 25,000? 5,000 down now, another 5,000 in six months, another 5,000 in the following six months, and then a balloon in 18 months. That wouldn’t be comfortable for you, would it, Joe? Same deal, but we just spread out the money a little and make this happen right now. How do you feel about that?

Joe: Oh, I like that. I like that.

Claude: I can always negotiate or it can’t hurt to ask.

Ayo: Right.

Claude: That’s the thing. Stay on the phone. Ask a lot. Well, I can’t do it this way or I really respect you asking for that, but that’s not as comfortable for me. Could we try it this way or that way? And this is why having a lot of different strategies.

Joe: Yeah.

Claude: And the thing about it is I think psychologically we have to get comfortable on the phone. If I love talking to strangers, my mom said the same thing you guys’ mom said, don’t talk to… I love getting on the phone with people and seeing if I can turn garbage into chicken salad. Okay? There’s another way to say that, but I won’t say it. It’s a family show. But the thing about it is if you look forward to getting on the phone and you don’t have that nervousness or hesitation, and it just comes from learning systems like we’re talking about and practicing, the more people you speak to, statistically, the greater the chance that you’re going to make a deal happen today.

Joe: Yeah.

Claude: That’s why I love talking to people every day. I talk to all kinds of different people: texting, email, phone calls, appointments, things like that. The more people I talk to, the greater the opportunities.

Joe: How many a day?

Claude: Minimum five.

Joe: Five sellers a day.

Claude: And it can be a lot more than five. See if it’s fun, if you enjoy it. I could have been retired years ago, honestly. I love this business. This is so much fun for me when I talk to a total stranger and we have that, you know that when you have that nice comfortable conversation when you’re talking to… it gets that mutual adult to adult respect and, you know, there’s certain things that I do that I teach about the psychology of persuasion and influence. But if I can make it a comfortable conversation and the person starts to, I feel there’s this trust or likability between the parties, it’s so much easier. Even if they say no and I get off the phone and I know I tried my best, I have enough enthusiasm to make that next phone call and the one after that, too.

Joe: That’s good.

Claude: My greatest fear, Joe, is that people are not making enough marketing phone calls.

Joe: They’re not talking to enough sellers, right.

Claude: Yeah.

Joe: It’s a numbers game, kinda. But it also just takes a lot of practice and the more you do it, the better you get, the more practice you get.

Claude: And do your credit, Joe. You are so good at teaching people how to generate leads, how to automate that lead system.

Joe: Yeah.

Claude: How to get quality leads. You’re fantastic at that. But can they take those leads then and get on the phone and get into those discussions where offers and negotiations are being made?

Ayo: Right.

Joe: By the way, everybody, if you want to learn the best way to get leads, go to zCodeJoe.com; zCodeJoe.com. Just created a course and released it about a few weeks ago called the Z Code. And it’s all about how to get more leads than you can handle on Zillow. So make sure you go check that out. Just a shameless plug and I guess I get to do that, isn’t it? Because this is my podcast.

Claude: It’s your show. You can do whatever you want.

Joe: Claude, what do you do when you’re doing a deal out of state?

Claude: I try to find somebody, one of my students, a mentee who I’ve done business with before. I’d love to let them share in the profits, but they have to do the legwork and stuff like that.

Joe: Yeah. That’s a good idea.

Claude: You know, the way you learn this business is by doing it. So I’d rather contact one of my students. Sometimes if I don’t have a student or this is a deal that needs a certain amount of expertise, I might find a local realtor, easier said than done. Or on some occasions, I’ll actually hire an attorney.

Joe: Yeah. Okay. One of the things that I’ve done before is I’ve gone to Craigslist and looked for somebody advertising. If it’s a lease option house, I’ll go to Craigslist to look for somebody who’s already advertising lease option properties and I’ll contact them and I’ll say to them, listen, I’ve got a deal here. If you can help me find, market the property and find a buyer for it, could we split the deal and work something out? And I’ve done that more with owner financing subject two deals, right? Because if it’s a subject two or an owner financing deal, I’d rather close that with a good title company or an investor friendly attorney and a lot of times the guys that are already doing those deals have those resources already. So my big advice is find somebody that is already doing it in that virtual market and partner with them, contact them and say, hey, listen, what if we did something together here where I get the deals under contract, give them to you and you do all the legwork of selling it and showing it and all of that. And then you know, you can share in the profits of the deal. But you’ll also at the same time learn how they’re doing the deals in that market. You know, maybe they have a special lease that they use that they have to have in that local market. Maybe there’s special rules and regulations that you wouldn’t be, you wouldn’t know anything about.

Claude: Good advice.

Joe: Yes. All right. So, Claude, how can people get a hold of you? How can people get a hold of you real quick?

Claude: Oh, if you’re a handsome and intelligent audience, all they got to do is Google Claude Diamond and they’ll find me. I’ve got almost a thousand videos on YouTube now.

Joe: I’m going to pass you someday on that. I hope, you know.

Claude: I love doing YouTube videos. It makes the phone ring and stuff. That’s just good social media marketing. It’s my method of choice for marketing and just Google Claude Diamond and go to my web page. I’ve got three books and stuff there and thank you so much for inviting me, Ayo and Joe.

Joe: Thank you, Claude. It was good seeing you.

Claude: You guys are great, man. Thanks for all the good information.

Joe: All right, we’ll see you later. Bye.

Claude: Bye-bye.

Joe: So Ayo, thanks for being on this call today. I know this is, this podcast took a strange direction. I saw…

Ayo: It’s fine.

Joe: I thought it would be good for you to actually hear some of what Claude was going to be talking about.

Ayo: That went well.

Joe: But congratulations to you man for taking action like you are, investing in your education, investing in yourself and just getting out there and making it happen. Not taking any excuses and just doing it. Right? Good for you, man.

Ayo: Absolutely. I’ve heard about this book, I just finally bought it like two weeks ago, Never Split the Difference.

Joe: Oh, good book. Yeah.

Ayo: I like listening to that before I make my calls even before meeting with sellers over and over like some chapters I have to play it again because it’s an audible, I actually read through it much faster. So if anyone who hasn’t read that book and get the audible, Never Split the Difference. Great book. I recommend that.

Joe: I recommend that, too, as well. Very good book. Ayo, how can people get a hold of you if they want to?

Ayo: Sure. So like my name you can find me on Facebook. I’m also on Instagram, LinkedIn, all those formats.

Joe: Nice, good. Go to, that’s how I found you I think, or you messaged me and we communicated in Facebook. That’s good. Okay, well thank you, Ayo.

Ayo: Thank you.

Joe: Sure appreciate it. If you want to get all my previous podcast episodes, guys, go to Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast and just Google that and you’ll find it. One more thing here, if you want, I talked about it before. If you want this course that I created called the Z Code, it’s just $97 to learn how to get tons of leads on Zillow. Go to zCodeJoe.com and if you want my free book, go to wlobook.com and get it for free. Just pay shipping and handling. And thanks again, Ayo. I appreciate having you on the show, man. Have a good one. Take care.

Ayo: Thank you, Joe. Take care.

Joe: We’ll see you guys later. Bye-bye.