Transcribe your podcast
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This is a bigger pockets podcast show for thirty nine, OK, what can I do with my mail or what can I do on my Web site that just sets me apart a little bit. I don't have to completely reinvent the wheel, but how can I carve out something and be that go to guy in my area?

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You're listening to a bigger lockets radio simplifying real estate for investors, large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from bigger pockets.

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Dotcom, your home for real estate, investing online. What's going on? I want to bring in Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with David Greene in the city yet again, because we literally just recorded two episodes in a row.

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It was last week's with Marie Foleo. And this week, where we're going to talk about that episode a little bit.

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David Greene, what's up, man? Welcome to the show. Again, thank you very much. I'm glad I got to be here. This is still raining also. Yes, it is. It's been raining this entire time. A week later, we haven't been able to leave police and food. We're starving. It never rains here.

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I live in the desert, but it has been raining in the last couple of days anyway. So today, like we said, this show is going to unpack and really go in depth on a few different topics. First of all, we're going to talk a lot about this idea of everything is figure out well, meaning how can real estate investors apply this to their life of like figuring out, asking how do I accomplish this? Not can I accomplish this?

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When we talk about that, we also talk a bit about the idea of calling yourself a real estate investor. If you're not one yet, if you're brand new, like, how do you do you think it's you make it. We talk about that and or do you you don't want to turn people off of your brand new. So how do you build that credibility when you're young? I thought we talk a lot about that. And then third, we're going to talk in depth about marketing, about some of the ways that you can stand out as a marketer.

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And when I say marketing, I mean like, you know, whether you're buying properties, selling properties, trying to raise private capital, try to talk to people that give you money from a private lending standpoint, talking to hard money lenders, doing direct marketing, all of that is marketing. It's basically how to get your business going. It's the fuel that runs your business in every aspect. We talk a lot about that today as well. So that's kind of a roundup of today's show.

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But before we get to that, let's get to today's today's quick tip is very simple, and it's brought to you by our good friend and producer, Kevin. Kevin, welcome to the show, man. What's your quick tip?

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And always be ready.

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Always be ready. I was sitting here. I was sitting here. Yes. This interview is very familiar.

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I was kind of feeling really accomplished for booking such a big name on the show. I was planning out the rest of my holiday and Brandon says, hey, why don't you join us for a little wrap up here? Like know like join us now. You even have a mike now, Mike, ironically. So I'm the producers audio sounds terrible. And all the guests who do this show who have been really strict about their mikes are going to get a laugh out of this.

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So, yeah, we literally gave Kevin like a thirty second. You were like like, I don't know, man. And I was like, we use the method from Maria.

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It's like, is the fear your fear that telling you to go towards it and you did it and you cut you crushed it today, Kevin.

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I hope so. We talk a lot about the basement guy, so stick around for that. And yeah, I get a little vulnerable about my own business challenges here. Yeah.

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And we'll explain a little bit more in the in the episode who you are in terms of like your real estate journey. And Kevin is just an awesome dude. We're honored to have you as a producer on the show, Kevin, so thank you for doing that and for joining us on this episode. Before we get to the show and unpack the stuff that we had talked about last week, let's get to today's show sponsors.

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Today's podcast is brought to you by one of my favorite stores, the Home Depot and Home Depot pro. For more than 60 years, they've helped pros do more by providing professional grade products and innovative business solutions that address the challenges you face every day, making it easier to manage your business, find efficiencies and improve your bottom line. With more than twenty two hundred stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, you can access more than a million products and dedicated services for today's busy pro there your single source supply house for the products and services you use every day.

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The know how you deserve. When tough calls come in and the technology you need to keep your business moving forward. Unlock exclusive benefits with extra. The Home Depot's free loyalty program built just for pros. Enjoy exclusive access to timesaving business tools and money saving programs. Save time, save money and get rewarded. Join today at Home Depot Dotcom slash pro extra. That's Home Depot. Dotcom slash. Pro x. T r a. And now time to get into the interview with Kevin, Kevin, remind me, Leahy or the LILLEHEI?

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Yes, Leahy, that's how I play into myself and set myself apart from the other leading lady in the world. OK, Leahy. Yeah, like a Hawaiian. You have a lei like yodeler you.

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There it is.

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Kevin Leahy that might actually stick is your brand. That's point that it's Kevin Leahy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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That was the yodeller investor.

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Let's remember that when he comes out next time, every time we're going to I think it should be announced every time you do a show with a yodeler that actually announces your presence.

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And I have the traditional assessments, of course. Well, that's that's a given point, Kevin. All right. Let's jump into this interview with Kevin as we unpack this show.

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All right, well, with that said, that was last week's show with Maria, if you guys did not listen to last week's show with Maria, it was phenomenal. It was episode number four. Thirty seven with Maria Foleo. You don't have to listen to that episode in order to listen to this one, though. I definitely recommend it because we're going to unpack a few things she said specifically. Like I said, we're going to talk today about kind of a marketing.

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We'll talk about that, about faking it til you make it. And also a little bit about this concept of everything is figure edible. So, Kevin, thanks for joining us today.

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Thank you, guys. Kind of bringing me out of the shadows here. Yeah.

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So let's talk about the show. So first of all, everything is figure out a bull. When I first heard that phrase, her book came out like a year ago or something like that.

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I heard it and I was like, that's a cool phrase. And then I never bought the book until, like, I don't know, what a month ago or whatever or a couple of weeks ago when I knew she was getting on the show, like, I got to read that book, I read it.

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And Marie is very much you got to notice, if you look back online, she's very much teaches mostly women. And same way bigger pockets is like eighty percent male listeners.

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I think it is. You know, what percentage is it still 70, 80 percent. It's about 80, 80 percent. Hers is like opposite's.

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It's like eighty percent I think female and still like it's not a book I naturally pick up. But I wasn't kidding. It really is one of those books I will probably recommend over and over. It's kind of like the compound effect, not in the in the content, but in the fact that it's like this is like the ultimate development book for like I could you could go read 20 different books, you can read everything is figure out and it has all the things that I'd want you to go read in the other books that make sense.

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Yeah. So it's kind of like, yeah, it's like one ring to rule them all. One ring tone ring to bind them. Yeah. Anyway that's, that's the one book to buy them all anyway.

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But the great stuff with it. Thank you. You hear that beard's definitely influencing your speech here, your communication style by the way.

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I was, I was somewhere yesterday and I said the line that's that. I said you're late. And I said that was with me. Oh is it.

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Yeah. You need to get it right. That's right. You're the one that screwed that up. I was like, bran, it is never late. He arrives precisely when he means to. And David had no idea what I was talking about. Kevin, do you know what I'm talking about? I assume it's a quote from Lord of the Rings. That's a quote from Lord of the Rings.

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They're not nerdy enough for this show. All right. Everything is figure out that the phrase. What are your thoughts on that? What came to mind when you heard that, David? First thing is that it flies in the face of excuses because just everything is figure out a ball. If that's true, then when we tell ourselves things like, I can't do this, then everything is forgivable, isn't true. So the first thing I really liked about it is that it forces you to analyze the belief system you currently have.

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Do you believe everything is figure out well, or do you believe that the system is rigged against you and you can't make it unless fill in the blank? The second thing I liked about it is that it's also an invitation to figure things out. You tinker with things to try to pull them apart. Look at how all the pieces fit together, which I would say that everybody here speaking agrees that's a healthier mindset to approach to something new is yeah.

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Is can I look and see how this all works together. Yeah, that's really good.

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And it's like a it invites your mind to start working cause it's a question, it leads to the question how do I figure that out. Right. So like everything is figure out all these to how do I figure this thing out, which goes to the Kiyosaki quote of like the wealthy say, I can't afford the poor or the rich. The same thing is like like I've been talking my daughter, like, who's four? Right, Rosie?

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I say like instead of saying I can't do it, it's how do I do it? I can't figure this. I can't I always I tell a story once in a while. My daughter, she had this one of those blocks in those blocks where like you put the shapes inside the shapes only fit a certain way. So you got to put the square peg in the round hole. Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't work. The square doesn't go in the round you up, put the run around and this is like a year ago and she's got this box and she's trying to put this shape in the box and it won't fit.

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And she's getting angry and anger. And I'm watching three at the time. So she's like super cute and she's trying to put this thing in the box and she's getting angry and angry.

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She throws it across the room like little three year old Rosie just screamed and throws. And it was just the perfect picture of, like, frustration of what we all go through with different things.

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And she goes, oh, she's like three deep breaths.

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And she stomps over to it. She picks up this box and she takes the piece and she shows it back in there. And this time she turns it a little bit and slides. Right. It it was the right piece was actually just like she just had it turn wrong.

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Right. It was like going in kind of diagonal.

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And so when I saw that, I just thought of this picture, this perfect picture of our life, of like we are trying to push things in this box all the time. I want to get this real estate business going. I'm trying to start this. Whatever you're trying to do, I'm trying to lose weight. I'm trying to improve my marriage. And I just keep pushing this piece and it's not going. And we want to throw it across the room.

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But sometimes it's just a little tweak and it's asking the question, how do I make this fit? If it's figurative, if we take that belief, it's figure out now it's a matter of twisting and all the energy. Like, it's so much easier because now we're not pushing.

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We're just twisting a little bit. So the question I have for you guys is, is it everyone listening? Is there an area of your life right now where you feel like you're pushing really, really hard on something and getting frustrated that it's not working and really it maybe just needs a little tweaking?

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We just need to take some deep breaths like Rosie did and take some tweaks, Kevin. I want to throw that at you. You have an area that you're struggling with right now in that maybe you do. But I'm also wondering where of you in your life use this idea of everything is figure out.

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I think it just like Rosie, when she threw the thing down, she wasn't detaching from the problem that she was looking at. She was so wrapped up in it and so emotional about it. And that little moment of detachment, JoCo talks about that, too. But that kind of stepping back and what I really like about Marie and how I discovered her was through my wife, who I was actually facing the decision about whether I should take the bigger pocket's job or this other job.

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The other job offer was actually real. And it wasn't just an executive with you. Look at it. I didn't know. I wondered if you were just playing with me.

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Yeah, I don't think you. But you were buying it. Israel and you know, the bigger pockets one. Now, of course, it looks great, but at the time it was more risky and the other one was a little bit of more of a sure thing kind of mainstream. And my wife said, you know, I know this woman were very for Leo and she has this trick that she does whenever she's facing a big decision or feeling a little too close to something and has to make a high level decision.

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And what she does is she takes a step back and ask yourself the question or writes it down and says, does this let me see how my body actually reacts to this? Does my body actually expand? And like, do I take a deep breath or do a contract and hunch my shoulders up and kind of feel like in a defensive crouch? And I did that and I was like, man, that is so good, because it takes it it brings you to step back from the thing that's making you emotional and you're swept up and allows you a little bit of detachment.

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And same thing with writing things down as she talked about in the show. I think it just gives you a little bit of perspective and allows you to kind of slow down and think about things. And so I think that's kind of my own real estate investing business. I've done the thing where you send direct mail, you don't have a clear strategy. I've heard thousands of people on the podcast say you need to be consistent about direct mail. And somehow I think I'm going to be the one person who's different and send it once and get a reply.

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Right. But a lot of times you just get wrapped up in that and everyone else is getting deals on social media. I'm not there yet. But if you take a step back and you think and you write it down, OK, what have I done? How many pieces of a cent how many people have I sent those two to three times to what have I really said to them? If you just sit there and write all that down, it just doesn't look like a personal thing anymore.

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It's like you just your strategy hasn't been good enough for you haven't given enough time. So I think that's kind of how I apply today to a real estate investing example.

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So in other words, the the reason you're here is because Omary, we omori everything. Absolutely. Thank you, Mary. Thank you for the offer for bringing Kevin to our to our life. David, what you think on that?

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Before we move on to the second kind of note today, what I was thinking when this is being discussed is that intensity can be a red flag that you need to slow down and detach when you feel yourself with intense emotions, trying to shove something in. What I think about is when your phone freezes and your screens are responding, what do we all do? We smash on it. Right. Just even more. This isn't working. Let me do more of what doesn't work, because there's a I don't know where it comes from.

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There's a piece of us that just feels gratified by intensely trying to push through a problem. That's real quick. My dad, my dad, my mom and dad are visiting right now here in Hawaii. And my wife was just laughing at me. Yes. Or joking with me yesterday because she watched my dad try to answer his phone and he grabs his phone and it's ringing and he can't press the button. It's not answering like it's not answer.

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It's not like just hitting Smash and smashing his phone until it stops ringing.

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Hang up finally or it goes to voicemail and like, he just goes, like, all I want to do is like, Dad, Dad, we want to be like, Dad, just just slowly put your finger on the button and then slide it to answer.

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That's all you got to do. But it's pressing harder and harder. So it would have taken detachment for him to see. Right. He had to be out of it. There you go. So, you know, people are always going to have intense responses, monitor yourself. And when you're feeling that emotion, say, OK, wait a minute, I'm doing it. Let me take a step back. I've seen this a lot of time from new investors trying to force a deal that's not going to work.

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So I get the question of how do I make this seller take my offer? What's the negotiating strategy that I can use to convince them to sell this to me for way less than asking price, even though they have seven other offers in asking price? And I just tell them you're working on the wrong deal. There's intensity is not going to get this thing solved. You need to step back, find a person in a different situation. So that's the advice I'd have for everybody here is when you find yourself frustrated and responding with intensity, remember Brandon's beautiful voice and Kevin's great example?

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Detach for a minute and ask yourself if this is the best tool to use to solve the problem.

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Let's get out of. The second thing I want to pull out from today's interview was this idea of calling yourself a business owner, in our case, a real estate investor before you actually are one. And I wanted to get your thoughts on this, Kevin.

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I know. You're you've started your real estate, by the way, you want to give, like a 10 second background in your real estate real quick, what are you doing? And then I answer the question like, what are your thoughts on that? Like, is it misrepresenting yourself to telephone your real estate investor? But first, let's give you a back.

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Give a little insight who you are. Yeah. So I kind of I skipped straight to the rental property kind of phase of the real estate investing career. So I turned my primary residence into a rental, then bought a house. And so I do own three units in Washington, D.C., which is like nothing that given the values here. Yes, but but I have less confidence in can I go out and negotiate a deal directly with someone in their living room?

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Right. I kind of skipped over since I always had an agent helping me with the title and escrow process. And the contract said, do I actually know how to do all the steps involved in writing a book contract and figuring out someone's paying point, figuring out ways around that? And so that's kind of a phase of investing I'm in where I'm trying to find market tools. And there's a lot of there's a lot that comes with that that that you haven't done before.

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And so that's kind of right now, the phase that I'm in is trying to figure out how to make a direct seller business work.

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And so how do you feel that when you're talking to a seller, if you're going to reach out to them like you're not, you're like if you were to say, yeah, I buy houses all over the D.C. area, like that would be probably misrepresented because you don't buy them all. So how do you how do you sell them without lying, without misrepresenting yourself? How do you also communicate that you're somebody to be trusted as a real estate investor, even though you're just getting started?

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And I think it makes it worse when I show up and they see that I look like I'm 16 years old. And James David talked about that on his show with us rather than later. And he said, dude, at the time I looked like I was 12. And so it's hard to get people to take you seriously. But, you know, I think the the authenticity I think a lot of people are going to see through it. If you're going out and saying we've been in this business so, so long and we flip this many houses.

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But I also think, you know, if you're someone like me who's going out and looking at deals and you might either be doing a joint venture with someone because I don't have that much experience in renovations or you're possibly looking at wholesale in the deal, I think it's good to just come out and be honest about that and say, hey, I work with various investors who have cash that they want to deploy and they actually need to deploy and they need projects.

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And so I have various people we may close in in their name, but I'll put down this big earnest money deposits so that you're secure. And so I think a lot of people get into wholesaling or trying to dig up deals and they feel uneasy about that because they're like, well, I'm representing myself. Is this cash buyer. They might know I don't have six hundred thousand dollars sitting around. But if you just represent yourself as, hey, I'm involved in the real estate game, I have some rental properties, we're always looking for more.

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We work with other people who have flipping businesses. Joe Osmo is a guy that I could buy. I could buy a deal with him. So why don't I just represent myself that way with the with the seller? And I think everyone knows that in businesses there's a marketing side. I can say, hey, my partner handles the financing side, so I'll ask him about that. Right. Instead of saying, yeah, I have the money myself.

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So, yeah, I think it's being being open about that and kind of thinking to yourself from the other person's side. Does it make any sense if I show up to them and I say, yeah, I have cash ready to go buy a house right now? I think they're best detective is going to start firing off a little bit if I do that. But if I said, hey, I work with investors, I go out and knock doors and get deals that make sense.

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Yeah, yeah. I think I think you're exactly right there in that. Like, if you're they're going to read through your if you're lying like, yo, I got hundreds of thousand dollars in here. But if you're like honest, like I've got private lenders or I got two partners or I'm a piece of the deal, like they're going to be like, oh OK, great. They want to solve their problem. So they don't they don't care as much about anything on that.

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The fake it till you make it versus you know, be honest, I'm not a fan of fake it till you make it. I'm a fan of the truth. Well told. So you explain to somebody what you're doing without ever lying, but that doesn't mean you just poorly throw it out there. Actually, I don't have any money at all. I just pray that I can find someone that would buy your deal. And if they don't, sorry, man, but I'm not going to buy it.

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Yeah, OK. Well, it really comes down to is how you communicate what you're looking to do honestly, which is what we talked about in today's show. Marketing. Yeah. Marketing is your ability to communicate. And I think that is the secret. And you said something when we got done that this isn't talked about enough, but it's probably the most important skill anybody can have in any business. Agree. And that's actually the third thing. Yeah.

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I wanted to talk about here today here at the ending is is just that idea that of marketing being a marketer.

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A lot of people might have heard Marie say that they're just thinking, well, Murray has an online business. You teach these people how to do online business. That doesn't apply to me. But like marketing is everything to me. The example of how I use marketing in my real estate, like at a at a big level, at a small level and is a big level. But for example, so my fun, I have a real estate fund we raise a lot of money with.

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Mobile home parks, right, but if I just say I've got a fun, I'm just like everybody else, right. So how do I communicate what my son does better than other funds or other syndication project? How do I how do I communicate that better? So I find ways to do that. I come up with new branding or new names or I find a special a special niche that I think we have a really unique angle at. That's what when I think marketing from real estate, that's what I'm talking about.

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The same thing could apply to, hey, I want to be a better marketer for my first duplex. OK, well what does that mean? Like maybe you are like really good at if you decide you want to be the duplex person in Cincinnati. Great. So get really good at that. How do you market to people who own duplexes? Well, maybe that means going to like source or going to one of the other one prop stream and getting a list of all the duplexes in Cincinnati and then writing a letter.

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What's that letter going to say? That's market is how do you communicate? You're the one that they should be talking to that they should buy from or sell to. I was really the same thing here, and that's what a marketing is. So I think marketing and communication is just so under used and talked about in real estate because we just think of real. We don't for some reason, we don't think of real estate as a business, you know, like it's crazy, but it is business.

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But why don't we think of it that way?

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Because we call it investing. That's that's a delay. When you're buying stocks, you're not really running a business. You're just pushing a button. And I think because a lot of people take that stock mentality into real estate, by the way, have you noticed that, that there's a lot to get into it that think that the goal is to buy low and sell high, which is how you make money with stocks, but it's not even it's one way you make money with real estate was not even the biggest one.

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I think that's the problem is that's a really good point.

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David, I brought that up because I think that's where the virus comes from, is that and then that's why people get frustrated with real estate, too, because it's not as easy as pushing a button to buy a stock like this comes up all the time. Stocks are real estate. And I hate this argument because it's always worded like which one will make you more money, but they're not apples and apples. No, stocks are a lot easier. There's a lot less that you're doing.

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Yeah. You can get a lower return in stocks and it still could make sense because you're not doing all the work. Real estate has more more work going into it.

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So that's one of the reasons that you and I have been slowly, steadily working in business into real estate because we want people to start thinking of themselves as a business owner and identifying as a business owner instead of a passive investor, which is why we're bringing on people like Ed, my let in for Leo and like these guests that are coming on the weekend shows because like this is a trade, this is what you need to succeed long term at the business of real estate is you need to understand these concepts.

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Kevin, what do you think on this whole idea of marketing, like how to use your business?

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How do you see people using it correctly? Well, first of all, I love bringing great marketers on the show because there's this moment on the show where they say, OK, I have this concept that I like to call it, and I can see Brendan and his face starting to get jealous because he didn't think of that. And that happened with Marie today. Right? It goes everything is figure out. Well, I love this concept, but I can see the jealousy on his face.

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You want to get to these phrases first, right? So I. I think once you turn on this, we talk about the reticular activating system and how you if you're looking for to buy a truck, trucks everywhere. I think once you turn this on, you will see it everywhere with any kind of marketing. I was walking to the mailbox the other day and I saw a truck with a contractor and it said the basement guy, and it just had a picture of his face.

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That was all. There was no like fancy branding or anything like that, but it was like he's the basement guy. And now, like my mind, he has associated himself with basements and all the properties out here in D.C. basements. And he probably deals with moisture and probably pretty does pretty dang well for himself with his little business out of his F one fifty. So I think once you start noticing that marketing stuff, like on the business podcast, the Bigger Products Business podcast, number three, we had Brent Underwood, who's fantastic marketer brand, your friends is probably one of the best marketers on the planet.

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He's awesome. And he does little things like he has a hostel that he runs in Austin. But I guarantee you, he asked himself, how can we be different from all the other hospitals in Austin? And he got a goat and the goat chews the grass on the property. And there's probably all kinds of tax benefits and stuff that come with that. But but also, everyone probably takes selfies with the goat and stays at his place and then posts them online.

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And he's the go postal guy. And so once you start seeing those things, you can think to yourself, OK, what can I do with my mail or what can I do on my website? That just sets me apart a little bit. I don't have to completely reinvent the wheel, but how can I carve out something and be that go to guy in my area.

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Do remember Tucker Merrihew back the first time we had in the show? He talked about he had a dog. His mailer was like whatever his dog's name was, I don't know, chief or something. That chief buys houses and it was like this big mastiff. I think it was like that was the postcard with a dog.

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And I think even I think even said that he would choose the areas of Portland where people are really into dogs and he would use that. There you go, and that's just taking that extra step to think about what the person on the other side of marketing spending two bucks on the piece, isn't it worth spending a little time thinking what's going to stand out to them and what's going to stick in their mind? Because they're not going to probably be ready to buy their house, to sell their house the first time they receive a letter.

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It's really good.

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Hey, let's take a quick break from this episode. We'll continue in just a moment. But first, let's hear a word from our sponsors. Hello, everybody.

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Know one thing I've been thinking about lately, and I'm just trying to put like a framework behind this and I'm still talking through this.

[00:28:11]

I'll talk through with you guys real quick is like I was talking to somebody who had kind of a commodity type business. I didn't remember who the person was or what they were doing, but it was like selling some product. And we were talking about like, how do you differentiate yourself to sell that? Real estate is very similar. There's a lot of people trying to buy a house right now. We are a commodity business in a way in that like if I was a motivated seller, I could sell to you or I could sell to David.

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I thought, OK, Kevin, I could sell to one of the listeners on the show this anybody could solve my problem, probably just like if I were going to buy a toothbrush.

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There's one hundred companies I can sell my toothbrush. So how do you differentiate yourself?

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And I came up with a couple of thoughts. One, think of bulletproof coffee. So bulletproof coffee is an example of marketing in which it's not really bulletproof, bulletproof. It's a type of coffee where you add coffee with, like grass fed butter and with oil or MTC oil or whatever it is, like the oil. It's like basically coconut type oil. And then there's like there's something else you do to it anyway. The point being, like it's like just like a formula of like three things.

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You add your coffee, it's supposed to make you more awake and aware. It's got more fat content with the butter.

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But bulletproof was like the guy. Dave Asprey, I think is his name. Like he basically created this new thing, which was like butter with sars-cov-2 with like fat in it. Then he labels that as like bulletproof coffee as a thing.

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And then who are we going to buy your coffee? I thought, well, I'm going to buy it through bulletproof coffee company. In other words, he created a category.

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This is what I'm getting at with this is he created a brand new category and then happened to fulfill that category. So that's one really good way of marketing. I did that in a way with my with my find is we created a cash growth fund. It's a growth that like I mean, I don't need to go into it, but basically we have a dip, like we created a brand new type of real estate fund. And then I'm I'm the only guy that does that.

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Now, in reality, it's yes, there is a spin to it. And yes, there's other funds that are great. But our unique thing that's we created the category. But another way to do it would be like Tom shoes. So to Tom's do Tom's is buy a pair of shoes, give up.

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They give a pair of shoes to somebody in need, like in a country where they don't have shoes like. So in other words, shoes are commodity. You can buy shoes from anybody there. All of you go to Wal-Mart talking buy shoes. Why would you buy from Toms? Because now you're doing something good. People want to do good for the world. So that's another way that you can differentiate your product is by what? How can you make them feel better?

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It's kind of assignments to start with. Why? Like they want to buy. They don't want to buy what you have. They want to buy. Why you have a. I've heard that phrase before, and then sometimes it's just the cheapest option that can give people the best deal ever. Like, some people are really good. Like, this is just either a superior product or the cheapest product. So really, there's four things in this framework, right?

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The best product you're offering. So you can offer a seller the best price or you can sell a house that's better than every other house in the market. There's the cheapest option. I can give a better deal than anything else I can, whatever that is on offer, buying a property. And then there's the category section being a category, you create your own and then there's I don't know what I just mentioned, whatever those like the four of like how to differentiate yourself.

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So anyway, this is the fourth has been in my head. I've been trying to put that into a framework. What do you think on that?

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I think this is why you're the best marketer that I just came up with. All of that on the fly. Well, thanks. It's been in my head for a long time, much longer than it should have. So thank you. But, yeah, you're you're absolutely right.

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You do do you do have to differentiate yourself. But I want to highlight it doesn't have to be something radical. I agree. It doesn't have to be. I'm the goat person. Right. Like, I think I did that with my real estate team by saying we are real estate agents that help that think like investors. So we approach this from a perspective of I am protecting your income and helping build your wealth through real estate, which was different then.

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I'm the local blink expert, or I hold your hand better than everyone else. We said no. What we're good at doing is making you money through real estate. That's what we're going to help with. And then I built a team around that because that's what the needs. But what you did there and you may not even know that you did it.

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You implied everyone else, all those other agents out there, they are not going to make you money.

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Well, that's exactly right. And they're not. We're going to make you money. We're the only ones that can make you money. And I would even say that that fits in the category thing. We are a category that's unique in this area and that we are investor agents that understand investing. And as a category, we need a name for it. Like we are a we are in green investors and it's investors who understand greenies. Yeah, but what about the greenies.

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Yeah. Like that. You put a name to it. Now you're bulletproof coffee. You invented a brand new thing and not that you're the only one in the world doing it, but to the client that you're talking with. My world, your world, you're the only one. And that's the secret. Like when someone wants to sell their house, I'm saying, listen, we're going to do it this way because this is going to get net you the very most you could possibly get.

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I'm not going to be the cheapest one. I'm going to be the best one. But in that world, I'm the basement guy for those people. And that's really what you have to do to be successful at whatever business that you're starting. Is your sphere of people, those that follow you, those that know you have to see you as Boardwalk and Park Place on the Monopoly board you are that you own the real estate of that thing that they're looking at.

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And what Kevin is getting into is he's trying to figure out, well, I want to buy houses in Washington, DC. How do I differentiate myself from the other buyers? He's starting that process of going down that road. And Kevin, at a certain point, you're going to hit it, you're going to pick up traction and boom, you're going to be picking up lots of properties.

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And I think it's such a good point that it doesn't have to be a extreme thing. Right? It doesn't have to be. We'll buy your house and we'll donate to this charity. Correct. It's like Toms is like a radical idea. But I've I've thought of kind of a couple of subtle ones, which, like I know David, a lot of times, if you're choosing between giving someone, there's a seller right. Nickname they're price and you're representing your client and you're either going to give a full price offer and right that offer, but then you're going to ask for some concessions and closing like help with closing costs.

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That seller feels so much better about selling your house at the full price and getting that full price from you, then doing it the other way around. Let me let me undercut you by five thousand and then pay for closing costs. I think that's interesting to think about. When you're dealing with directly with homeowners, too, is like there's a guy named Jerry Green. If he's in Ohio and I heard him on a podcast, he talks about how he always would do the standard thing of set an appointment, go to the appointment, walk through the house, point out things that might be wrong with the house, then give an offer.

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Then he switched it and started giving an offer on the phone and then sending a professional inspector to the to the house afterward. And I think it's just a psychological thing with sellers where they like that that surety of having the offer over the phone, even if later they're going to ask them for some concessions on the price because you didn't see it. And so I think for him, that was a small thing that kind of exploded his business not saying is going to work in every market might not work in my market.

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But, yeah, it's basically the same steps just in different order.

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You know, my brother recently was talking to me because he got a real estate license. Now he's talking about becoming an agent. And he was saying, like, how do I, though, differentiate myself? Because I don't have any experience. I've never done any deals. I'm careful of your answer on this one. And this does apply to both investors as well. So keep listing. If you're not, you don't care about agency. But he said, how do I differentiate myself?

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And I said, well, you don't have the experience. You can't pull that card back on those experienced agents. So what can you do? Well, if you don't have any clients right now, it means you got twenty four hours a day that you can serve those people.

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So I was like, I would honestly make a guarantee and brand it with something. It's called it's called the ten minute guarantee. I will return your phone call in 10 minutes. Twenty four, seven guaranteed, or I'm going to pay you one hundred dollars gift card to whatever restaurant you want or something like that. Right.

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So, like, I guarantee you, because what's one of the biggest frustrations people have with agents is I can't get hold of agent time or but if you're like I twenty four seven, you call me at 3:00 in the morning, OK, I will return your call in 10 minutes or less guaranteed or I'll give you one hundred dollars. And that would make me want to work with an agent. Like if I was like oh yeah, he owns the category of like that, that's a special thing no one else has ever done.

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And so if you don't have the experience in a business, you're going to start what do you have your lack of experience you can make up for in the amount of time? And if you promise a guarantee like that, like that will mean that would mean the world to especially to those who have dealt with frustration that people are calling them back to someone like me that might not expect you to that wouldn't go that really far. But, oh, I'm in pushing this square peg in this round hole.

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They won't answer their phone. I'm so sick of it when you see that boom, it's going to draw you right there. So imagine him. Not that he would do this, but imagine getting a billboard on the highway. It just says we guarantee to call you back in 10 minutes or less or we'll pay you a hundred dollars. The response of realtor.

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The responsive realtor, right? Yeah. And you put that on the thing guaranteed. Call back in ten minutes or we can show you any home in 30 seconds or 30 minutes or less or whatever that thing is, right? Yeah. Not 90 percent of people won't care about that. They haven't had that pain point of struggle with an agent that will come back.

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But thousands of people in an area have had that pain point. So you can become the basement guy to those people and that's how you market to those people. And so whether it's real estate, you're investing, you're building the business, you're an appraiser. It doesn't matter what can you do that set yourself out and then how you show that is what really Mario is getting at with marketing. So we do a whole show on marketing. This is cool.

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I mean, the next level is you can even back into what are those things that are fresh. Yeah, I cleaned up and you can go on bigger pockets forums and type in agents, you know, frustrated or something like that and see what people are saying and then and then tune into those, you know, find whatever forum is going to is and use that exact language. Right. Are you are you tired, your agent never picking up your call?

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This is a guy name like Deyn, something another came about. I heard him on a smart passive income podcast like ten years ago. Probably he did an episode with Pat and he has he had a thing called the foundation don't even exist anymore. But their whole model of building online businesses was to go to an industry and then just did not. You don't have to be in the industry, but just dig in. What's your problem? What's your problem?

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What's your problem? And like you find what their problem is like. For example, you are the dental world and you go and talk to dental hygienist and say, what is your problem? You really dig an interview, a dozen of them or two dozen of them, and really find out what they're struggling with. And then you go create a product just for them. And then that that idea is like you're solving a problem. And I was love.

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That was one of the better podcast I think I've ever listened to because it was so like. Yes, like this is so good. So if you're how applies to real estate, I would say, yeah. What are the problems that if you try to buy from a motivated seller, what are the problems they have with the things that they get frustrated with, for example, and mobile home parks right now, the biggest problem the sellers have is people not be able to get financing.

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OK, so he's not for all cash. Like, we raised enough money that we can offer our cash and then we just burn the properties. We immediately go and refinance them with the lender after we buy them. But we we are offering all cash on properties because that is one way that we stand out because that was a problem we just kept hearing over and over. Was that because of covid, all these sellers were getting jerked around because they thought they could close and really couldn't.

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So anyway, again, asking what's the problem that your customers are having or that potential customers are having just such good business?

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If I could boil down what is an entrepreneur? It's a professional problem solvers. Yeah. Like, I'll just give you a couple of examples. I found out last week the mortgage company I started has been in business for about six months now. We're in the top one hundred loan originators in the country on our six month of business. That's crazy. And you probably want what's the question you're wondering?

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How did you how did you do that? Right. I asked every loan officer I knew. What slows you down? What's your biggest problem? What would you guess that they said? Paperwork really close, it's collecting documentation from the borrowers who don't want to do it. OK, then I went to borrowers and I said, what's the worst part of the loan process? Having to give all my paperwork, having to take the time to do all this stuff.

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And I don't know if I'm getting an answer. Then I went to people and I said, hey, you're a loan officer. What is your biggest struggle as a new one? I don't have anyone to teach me what to do. I have to figure this out on my own. And I just came up with a system that solved all three of those problems. We are going to take junior loan officers are studying to get licensed or they are licensed, teach them ways to successfully get documentation from the borrower by communicating very clearly why it's so important and making it easier.

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By doing that, they made themselves very valuable. They got a job. They supported the senior loan officer who knew what to do once they had the paperwork. That one little solution that I came up with that fixed all three people, boom, the pipeline flooded. And I'm just using this as an example that this is how every single business owner should approach every single thing that they have. What's your problem? I don't have enough people coming to me asking me to fix up their basement.

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OK, do you think people know that you do basements? No. Why don't you brand your F one fifty with basement guy? Now he's gonna have another problem, right? I'm growing too fast. I need people to work with me. Well, how are we going to solve that problem? There's people that need to work that need to learn the business. They don't know it yet. Come up with an apprenticeship model. That's all entrepreneurs are doing.

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And real estate is a form of that. And this is we're just giving these examples so other people can kind of take what I did apply to their situation, plates of their scenario and understand and be grateful for problems. That's what creates opportunity. Entrepreneurs solve problems. Don't when you throw the thing across the room like Rosie did, go pick it up and look at it from a different angle and say, how do I solve this problem? As opposed to I don't want to deal with problems, how do I make money without it?

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Kevin, any thoughts on that last closing down here, which is a good one for real estate investors? I lost I lost out on a huge deal to one other person and price was not the problem. And I wound up finding out from the seller like what the difference was, which which is a great thing to do, super painful to do. And I was aware of both problems that she had, but I just didn't come up with a good solution to solve them.

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Whereas the guy who beat me out put an addendum to the contract saying two things. Number one, I'll pay for your moving services with a local company. That's an easy one that I just kind of overlooked. Now was her one pain point. The other pain point was she had to talk to one more person, which is a classic thing. Hey, I'm ready with this price, but I just need to run it by my step mom. She had to do that for me.

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I said, OK, well, let's talk tomorrow for him. He said, let's sign this contract. You can cancel the contract and forty eight hours if you want to for any reason whatsoever. It's really good. And what happened is he got the signature on the paper. She must have checked with her and it was OK. And then there you go. So that's just a perfect example in stark terms and a painful lesson of really seek out those problems and then think hard about is there something that I don't know how to do to solve that problem?

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And you can conjure that up in a moment. That's really good.

[00:42:36]

That one tip probably is going to make a lot of people a lot of money. Just getting let's get the contract signed. You can cancel in 48 hours. I love that. It's it's like because people are much less likely to cancel. Yeah. That's why I like the whole like free trial. Just dollar for trial. Just give us your credit card number. Just get a chance within 30 days. Not a big deal. So true. You know who else uses this technique very well was a you when you're writing you are a better writer than me because I just give people information.

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You pull them in. But thanks by giving one sentence at a time that creates more and more interest, you get them committed to the to reading it and then they actually read it. And you do more good for people because they get the they the spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, whereas mine so dry, I don't think people read it as much as yours. I thought so that this is an example.

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Right. This principle works in many, many different things. I can see like you want to get somebody into working out, going to the gym more often. Hey, just come with me to spot me when we're here, right? You want to get someone to jujitsu? Hey, let's just like wrestle around for ten minutes. I'll just show you some easy stuff. Like you get them committing to tiny little pieces and moving forward.

[00:43:36]

I know they call this the puppy dog clothes and negotiations over there. A couple of different negotiation books because they or the pet shop, pet shop clothes anyway, the idea being you at a pet shop and they just take the dog home for the weekend, like just bring them back on Monday if you're not into it.

[00:43:49]

Not a big deal. No one brings the puppy back in on Monday. Like, you just you don't do that. That's not a thing, right? You get like what's it's in your house. You fall in love with it. So the more you can get people like you take the puppy home for the weekend, but the significantly higher chance you have of getting them to convert to whatever it is you're trying to do, whether trying to buy a property, sell a property, whatever.

[00:44:07]

Hey, let's take a quick break from this episode. We'll continue in just a moment. But first, let's hear word from our sponsors.

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So if you caught my interview on the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, you know that I used to be a disaster with my personal finances. No, like the word disaster is literally in the title of the episode and my real estate investing. Didn't really take off until I figured it out the hard way. Why not skip the hard way and use a powerful tool like you need a budget so you need a budget is an award winning app that teaches you how to gain total control of your money and build wealth.

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Dotcoms, much bigger pockets. That's you need a budget dotcom slash bigger pockets. Yeah that's good. Kevin, look at Kevin bringing gold today.

[00:45:09]

We'll have to get back to that in the show. I'll grill him on the show. Yeah. There you go. Yeah.

[00:45:12]

The guy who beat you out of it. Hi, guys. This has been a fun kind of wrap up and yeah, would have been really cool. So thank you for joining us, Kevin. We'll have to do this more often.

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I like you, John. Thank you. Can I take us out please do for Brandon Turner and David Green. Oh, I screwed it up.

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We've got to leave that in there.

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You're listening to a bigger pockets radio simplifying real estate for investors, large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from bigger pockets. Dotcom, your home for real estate, investing online.