Transcription
All right guys, I've got Cody Hoffine here with me. We are actually going to do a series of videos; get ready and be on the lookout for those. This video is going to be a really important topic. We're going to be talking about the top five seller objections when you're talking to sellers and how to overcome them. Let's go! [Music]
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Cody, my man, let's go. Cody, I've just been having so much fun. You guys that don't know, Cody and I have been doing a live stream every Tuesday. We've done now, I don't know, nine or ten, I think something like that. They go like an hour and a half. Cody usually has an amazing guest; we talk about a deal, break it down, then do live Q&A; super fun. So I've really enjoyed getting to work with you and know you, and and in my mind, in the industry and basically nationwide, as far as I'm concerned, Cody to me is one of the top experts when it comes to wholesaling. And Cody really succeeds with off-market private sellers.
And so we're going to touch on a topic that is really important. I think a lot of people, Cody, have these concerns. But you get on the phone, maybe you're cold calling, maybe they're pre-qualified, and you're going through the process of hopefully getting them interested to where you can make an offer or meet on appointment and sign a contract and get a great wholesale deal. But inevitably, people have objections, right? And so let's talk about how to overcome that. So first of all, thanks for being here.
Yes, dude, it's an honor. It's always fun to be here at the compound, the Norton compound. Guys, this is the good stuff. This was a little tricky, too, because there are lots of different seller objections, so we tried to kind of focus on maybe the top five. So first of all, Cody, how important is it to be able to overcome objections that are gonna always come? How important is that?
It's crucial. If you wanna get contracts every now and again, you can get a contract by just sheer luck, but there's going to be a ton that a new, someone just beginning, they're not going to know what to do because there's these objections. First and foremost, always remember, and I'd write this down, an objection is just simply an unsolved problem. So whenever someone throws out any kind of objection, it's not that they don't want to sell their home, it's not that they don't want to move forward at some point, and even if it means that day, it just means, yeah, I'm still interested in selling. They're not going to tell you this, but you still haven't solved my problem. Like, I don't know if you're gonna buy it as is, like there's things out there, or I don't even know what I owe on my mortgage. And so there's so many things out there that they'll throw out this, this, ah, I can't, I can't sign right now. Well, usually just always remember these objections means you haven't done your job to find all of their problems and find a way to solve and and serve them and overcome their problems.
Yeah, I mean, really, when it comes down to it, you're, you want to be able to uncover what's going on. There's a back story; there's a reason why they're even talking to you. There's a reason why they might be interested in selling their property at a discount, and your job is to kind of find that out and uncover that. People do business with people they like and trust, so it's really more about how you say it than exactly what you say. So I want you to kind of think about that and pay attention to that as Cody goes through and we break down some of these objections. So Cody's got a list here; we've kind of narrowed it down to what we think are the top five. There's probably a whole bunch more, but we're going to just focus on five here. So what's the first one? Any specific order you want? Just go right from the top down.
Let's just go right from the first, first down. You'll hear this all the time, guys. This is, this is not anything new; you've probably heard it for those that have been out there. "I need to run this by my attorney." How many have heard that?
Yeah, I've heard it hundreds and hundreds of times. So should we just go right into it and break it down? How do I, "I need to review this with my attorney." Now this could be, let's kind of think about this for a second.
Yep. It could be, you know, initially up front before you've even gotten to a point where you have a contract to sign, or it could be you've agreed on price, you, you've got your, your offer there, and they say, oh, you know, before I sign this, I really need to have my attorney review it. Like it could be at that point. So, but at any point where they're using, "I need to talk to an attorney" as an objection, how do we handle that?
Here's the thing, guys, they're already selling at a discount. So if we can understand the mindset behind this question, it's usually just a buy-time. They don't really want to run it. I can tell you probably 10 times out of 10, they're not going to run it by an attorney. No one's going to pay two, three, four, five hundred dollars so that someone can look at a piece of paper and say, yep, you're good to go. Now we joke about this all the time: time kills all deals, but attorneys kill more deals. Like it's just, it's just so… How can we help them understand this? Would you ask, um, would you ask this question: "Is there something that, that we haven't talked about that, that's unclear to you that you would need to talk to an attorney about?" Would you ask like a question like that?
100%. That's a quality question because that starts to unravel if there's another concern. Remember those objections are just unsolved problems or unsolved concerns that they're like, we haven't solved everything yet. I can't sign this because I feel like there's things still that I don't know about. Most times a simple one is they don't know their payoff on their mortgage, and because you haven't talked about that or asked questions like, hey, what do you even owe on this home, they're saying, hey, I need to run this by attorney, but what they're really saying is, I can't sign this because I don't even know what I owe on the home, and so now I don't even know what I'm going to do, what my proceeds are.
Yeah, I don't even know how much money I'm going to walk away with on this deal, and I don't even know if I have enough money to go to plan B. And so that's really… and they don't want to tell you that; they just say, you know what, I got to review the contractor, I got to have my attorney review it, when nine times out of ten you'll see that it has nothing to do with what they say. Whatever they tell you, it's actually something else; you just gotta dig deeper. It's never the face value. But I think it's fair to say the "my attorney" thing is kind of a blow-off.
It is. It's, "I need, I, I'm not quite, you know, I don't, I don't want to commit right this minute," you know, but there could be something going on where they're like, I don't have an answer to this; I need to find an answer to this, like a mortgage payoff or, you know, can I even actually close in 30 days? I don't know what it might be, right? So that's awesome. Okay, so attorney, that's a great one there. What's our next one?
Next one: "Need some…" This kind of ties into it: "Needs some time to think about it." Need some time to think about it, would I need to talk to my spouse or my brother or the decision-maker? I'll sit there saying, I make the decisions, I wear the pants, right? Yeah, and it's like, okay, I go out to the appointment, they're like, well, I gotta run this by my wife, and I'm like, yeah, dang it, I should have had the person out here, right? But this happens all the time. "I need some time to think about it." I like and respect that, and I always honor that. So show them that you validate that, you honor that, but then give them a time frame. So instead of saying, "I need some time to think about it," what does that mean? A week? Time kills all deals, guys. Our mindset and our business is we're getting the contract today or it doesn't exist, and that's, we live and die by this policy because too many times someone has come in and got the deal because we didn't stay there long enough to ask the quality questions and get the contract that day. So when someone says that, "I need some time to think about it," this is one we use all the time. So write this down; rip off and duplicate the heck out of this, and you're gonna love it. We literally just say, "I'm heading to the store right now. I happen to have… I had to go to a store on this particular deal. My wife said pick up dinner, so I'm like, I've got to go pick up pasta, some spaghetti sauce, I've got to go pick up garlic bread. I'm going to Smith's right now. That's the grocery store in Utah. I'm going to Smith's right now; I'm going to pick up all this food, and you know what, I'll even pick up a $500 gift card, and I'll swing back around; it'll take about 20 minutes, and if it ends up being something that you want to move forward tonight, I'll even leave you the $500 gift card." And this individual literally said, "Okay, yeah, 20 minutes is fine." Do you know what he really said? "For $500 bucks, I'll sign tonight."
Yeah, that's really what it came down to.
That's awesome. Wow, that's cool. That's a really cool technique. You know, um, I want to point out something you mentioned in the very beginning of this, of this one, as you said, you'll agree with them. Now I see you do this quite a bit, and this is a really powerful technique. I forget to do this sometimes. If you challenge their objection and you kind of say, well, that's a bad idea, they're going to close down, right? But when you say, you know what, that makes a lot of sense that you want to think about it, it's a big decision; of course you, of course you want to think about it. Acknowledging that objection automatically helps them feel more comfortable, feel more trusting; you're not shooting the power…
Yes. And then say, "How's 20 minutes?" Right? That's right. Or, "I'll be over there in 20 minutes." Knowledge and just put the time frame; you get, you control the time frame, but acknowledge that they need time to think about it. Don't shoot that down as a bad idea, or they'll close down.
Awesome. Love that one. Okay, what's our next one?
Next one is, I hear this all the time, and you guys are gonna hear us all the time, too: "If you can't pay X amount of dollars… if you can't pay $270, if you're a dollar less than $270,000, don't even come out to my property." How many have heard this?
Yeah, guys, this is like all the time. So it could be also… what if, what if, Cody, you go on appointment, okay, you get through everything, and now it does come down to price, and they go, oh, well, you know, I need to be here, and you're here, right? So could be at that point, couldn't it?
Yeah, or it could be, it could be, "Don't even come out and meet with me," or if you're doing a phone close, like we do a lot of phone closes, we're not even going to talk unless you're at least right here, or the number I need has got to be right here, right? So price as the objection. And the big thing behind this is just understanding that we're not looking for price. Price is a deceiver. Nine times out of ten, in fact, let's call it 99 times out of a hundred, that makes it 99, right? It's a deceiver, most cases. So we're really looking for four things. So if you're thinking about pillars of motivation, the first one is time frame, so they need to close quick; condition, the home's in bad shape; the other one's price, but price again, remember, guys, maybe a one percent chance that price actually is like, oh, that's a deal as is, I'm going over there. 99 times out of 100, though, everyone, they're going to fly a kite; you're going to set an anchor, but they're going to fly a kite. We call it Zillow; they're going to look up the Zillow number, and that's the number they're going to say, just because that's all they know, right?
Right, and Zillow is so off in Utah, and I know it is in almost every state in the nation… uh, but then the fourth one is the driver: so behind on taxes, going through divorce, behind that mortgage… yeah, the pain. But guys, if they have any of these other motivations, time frame, condition, or driver, I don't care about price. So when someone tells us, hey, you got to be at 270, if you're a penny less, don't come out, we're still going out, and usually we just don't make it about price; we don't talk about price where most people, I hear them, they'll usually stay with them like, well, I can't pay 270, and I'm like, don't do this. Do that face-to-face. People don't lower the price over the phone unless you have to because you're virtual, right?
Yeah, Jerry does a lot of virtual, so there's things that he has to do. I don't, I'm face-to-face, and I can get people to come down all the time with the price once they get to know, like, trust, respect me, and people do business with people they trust, like Jerry said, right? So it's asking the right questions and making sure that if any of these other pillars of motivation exist, it's okay, I'm still going on that appointment, and we'll see people drop prices all the time. And then when you go, and then when you come back and you say, "If I'm able to… if I'm able to," and then you list out all the things that you've just covered that were concerns… yep, "If I'm able to close when you want to… do the trash out and all that myself, all these things, what would an… what would a price like that look like? What would an offer like that look like for you?"
That's right. Right in that qualifier now you've built a case. Yeah. "What's that worth to you? You know, what would it take to get that done for you? What does that look like for you?" So that's, that's awesome. All right, good. What's our next one?
Um, "We are considering fixing it up or listing it with an agent." Oh, I love this one. I love this one. Good. We hear this all the time. Yeah, I love this one. In fact, one of the things that I'll do, Cody, and I'd love to hear how you handle this, but um, a great way to build a case for your cash offer is to show them, uh, to, to allow them to contrast the difference. So what I'll do is I'll say, "Oh, so it sounds to me like what you're looking for is a retail buyer, and to get the highest price that the market will bear, is that, is that what I'm hearing you say?" "Yes, I want to get the highest." "Okay, well, let's talk through that. This is what I do for a living; let me explain to you what that would look like. Would you like to see what that would look like?" I ask that question, "Do you want to see?" "Okay, yes." And then I go through, "Okay, you're probably going to need to hire a real estate agent; that's going to be some commissions. If you're okay with that, great, pay some commissions. They're going to put it up for sale; they're going to want you to do some stuff to this property; you're probably going to need to clean this up; you're probably going to need to fix some things… um, then you're going to have a lot of showings; you're going to have a buyer that's going to want to get a mortgage, more than likely, that means they're going to have to have a mortgage inspection, a property inspection; they're going to come back and ask you to do some things, you know, all… but it probably takes six months. You know, but hey, if you do all of that and you spend $25,000 fixing this place up, you could very well get $300,000 for this house. That's a great idea; I think you should do that. If that's what you're, if that's, if that's what you want to do to get the, the most out of this property." That's an awesome way. In fact, I can even help you; I know real estate agents; I know contractors; I can help you get all of that done. Is that what you're looking to do? And you know they're not, they don't want to do all of that. Are you kidding? They don't want to do any of that; that's why they called you.
Yeah, yeah. But now you're helping them see what that looks like if they want to go that route. And then when you come back and say, "Or I can make this totally convenient for you, totally easy; you don't have to do any of that; you don't have to put a dime into it; I'll pay all the closing costs; no commission," you know, then you can kind of contrast a little bit there. There's a… I mean, exact scenario. I go on about one appointment a year, guys. I have a team do a lot of it, but they were down in Lake Powell… What are you doing with all your time, Cody?
Lifestyle, bro. Lifestyle, lifestyle. I don't have quite the lifestyle that Jerry Norton does, but I'm working to it. This is, that's what I aspire to be. So you, the deal had to go on. I was literally the only one in the office besides, uh, an assistant that took a cold call. She's not even a cold caller; she's not an appointment setter, and she's like, "Cody, I got something; I got something." I'm like, "Perfect; I'm just gonna go out" because I love respecting the team; if she's that excited about it, I don't care if it's a deal or not, go out because get a big smile out of her. So I go out, and I call David; I said, "Hey, I just need, I just need you to give me just a ballpark; what is the ARV, what's the after repair value on this?" He says, "$250." So I go out there; they said, "I need 220 for this." I'm like, like in my head I'm like, this isn't gonna work; I'm gonna throw out the $120 anchor, right? So I'm like, "You know what, we're right around like the $120 mark; what if I could do… I, I can't do 220, but what if, what if I could be able to do some of these things and, and pay 120, how would that work?" And it was like, "Uh, uh… I think we're just going to fix it up ourselves." I said, "The thing is here, I'm going to serve you regardless if I'm optioned up, so it sounds like I'm not an option, so let's pull out a piece of paper," and they only had an envelope, and I gave them a pen; I said, "Let's walk through this, and I'll just jot down some notes. If I were rehabbing this and fix and flip it and put it back on the market because I got to compete with the home builders right now, so even though it doesn't sound like granite should be on these countertops in this neighborhood, believe me, buyers want everything when you get on the retail market. So let's go through this. What do you think about the kitchen? How do you feel about it?" And like, "I think everything looks great." I'm like, "I agree with you, but buyers…" and I blame it on the buyers, "buyers, they want everything; you're gonna have to do new countertops; you probably either have to new face doors on the cabinets or just get brand new cabinets, and then the flooring, although the tile looks good, they're gonna want new school flooring; they're probably gonna want some laminate flooring or some kind of wood product in here." Let's go to the next room, and they're like, "Oh, man, no way!" I'm like, "I know; those buyers, they're crazy!" And then we go to the next room… like…
What do you need here? Like new carpet, like perfect now? If you redo carpet here, there's no cutoff point; you're gonna have to do the whole hallway, the living room. So you're gonna do this whole upstairs. Oh man, then we go downstairs.
And I said, "Correct me, help me understand this." And there's like little paint marks, like little circles. I'm like, "If I was a betting man, has someone lived here beside your parents?" Like, "Yeah, my sister." Usually when I see paint like this, I'm not saying that's the case here, usually there's meth done in the home. Do you think your sister would do meth? And he's like, "No way." And the cis other siblings, the sister, there's like, "Don't lie to him; we found a crack pipe yesterday." And I'm like, "So I'm like, now that we already know I'm not the buyer, it's okay, don't worry about this. If you choose to fix and flip this, you're gonna have to mitigate this. Everyone gets meth tests now; they're 35, they're cheap, they don't cost a lot. You're gonna have to mitigate this; this could be five to ten grand to mitigate this." They're like, "Oh, so what's your offer again?" I'm like, "Yeah, I'm probably around the 120," and I knew my max allowable offer could be about 150. And ultimately we got to about 145.
But ultimately, as is, serving them, it genuinely is serving them, knowing that, okay, I may not be the best fit, but I'll still serve you and help you understand what you need to do if you want to put it on the market. Yeah, one of the things to go along with that, as you're going through those items, I'll ask, I'll say, "So what do you think it would cost to do new kitchen cabinets, a new..." and then they don't know, right? But they might throw out a number: 1500 times 10. Yeah, so kind of what I do, if they're like, "You know what, you tell me you do this," I'll say, "Well, you know I do do this, and I know these numbers really well. Let me tell you what this would cost." And if they're open to that, right? And then what I do, just kind of a rule, is whatever I pay, I double it. Why? If they got to go hire somebody, it's going to be retail, and they're going to pay double or triple what I actually pay because I know how to get investor pricing. So if my number is 25 to rehab the whole house, I'll, as we go through it, I'll say, "You know what, all of this to get that 300 number you want is probably around 50,000. But hey, if you're willing to do that, I think it's a good move; you should do it, you should totally do that." Now, agreeing with them, right, helping them. And what you're, the other thing you're doing is you're saying, "Hey, it doesn't matter to me which way you go; I'm just here to serve you. You know, if if you want to go retail, let me share with you my opinion; I'm an expert at this, you know, it's what I do for a living. Or if you want to not have to deal with any of that, I can help you there too." And by doing that, now you've just lowered that guard; you're giving them all their options, knowing that option B, retail, is just there's just no way they're going to want to do all of that.
Yeah, right. And that's the benefit, I mean, right, isn't that what's so amazing about what we do? We're solving a major problem because they're, it's going to take so much resources for them to actually get out of that deal if they go retail, that your solution of buying it as is, no closing fees, exactly the way it is, is a major solution to somebody's problem. That's what I love about what we do.
Last one, you ready? Yeah, we are considering... Oh, we just did that, the fixing up and listening, need to review contract. Okay, I need to review the contract, so that could be kind of like the attorney one. But sometimes they just say, "You know what, I need I need to think about it, or I need to look over your contract." Or for a virtual setting, here's I think where the biggest curveball is: If you're doing virtual, or you're deciding to like, "Hey, I don't need to go out there; this person's like super motivated, so I'm gonna just send a DocuSign." I think this is the one where we can help people the most because this can go wrong so many ways. You lose power instantly the moment you send over a DocuSign contract to their email if you don't do this process that we're gonna talk about right now. So that's a huge... I think this is not just, "Review it, send over the DocuSign, and and uh, yeah, I'll sign it." So let's say they don't even need to review it, send over the DocuSign, I'm gonna sign it. If you fall in the trap and sign it, or send it, seven, eight times out of ten, you're not gonna get it back. Here's how we can overcome that. Do you wanna attack some of that, or do you want me to attack some of it?
Yeah, I mean, guys, the thing is, if you think about it, you know, it happens two ways. One way it happens is they say, "Yeah, yeah, your price is awesome, great, great, great, um, but you know what, I I'm not in front of my computer or whatever, call me in half an hour, call me in an hour," and then we never hear back from them, right? Or we send the contract and we never hear back from them, or they don't, you know, they ghost us. Nine times out of ten, all they did is print off your contract and show the next buyer that, "Hey, well, I've already got an offer at 160. So unless you can beat that, I'm gonna go with this guy." And they just snipe you. They, when you taught me that, I was like, "No way, wait a minute, dude, that's what they're doing; they're totally doing that," because you know they're talking to they're talking to five other investors. So now they're shopping you with your contract. It's one thing to shop and say, "You know what, I talked to another another buyer, and they said 150." And you're like, "Yeah," but when they actually have your written contract and then they go to that other investor and they say, "Here it is, dude, can you beat that?" "Oh yeah, I'll beat that by a thousand bucks." You're cut out for a thousand bucks.
Yeah, so how to overcome this, guys, this is crucial. You have to have to have to, if you're going to be doing a DocuSign or something where they just say, "Yeah, send it over," right? You're going to say, "Perfect. Here's the thing, if I'm able to do this..." because you're still saying... If you gotta act, you gotta act standoffish, because they're gonna be like, "Yeah, I gotta review it. Listen, I've gotta review my offer too; I really gotta make sure that I can make this work. I'm gonna be talking to my business partner," however you wanna do it, so that you also are standing back. Don't keep chasing the dog; you chase the dog, the dog keeps running; you run away, and the dog chases you. You've got to step back. So when you say, "Yeah, I do more than you need them," that's a hundred, that's at least the mindset. Yes, you have to have. So what you're gonna do is you're ultimately gonna say, "If I'm able to do this," not, "Okay, hey, I'm planning on paying you 240. I plan on doing this; I plan on doing this. So can we send over the contract?" And they're like, "Um, yeah, send it over." That's the no-no. I'd say, "So if I'm able to do 240, if I'm able to do this, if I'm able to do this, if I'm able to do this, if I send over this contract DocuSign right now, is it something that we could put this agreement together right now on the phone?" So this is the agreement before the agreement. Yeah, I want that commitment right now. Yeah. And when they say yes, I'll say, "Perfect, it only takes like five minutes to do these DocuSigns, so you're putting together right now," and you're like, "Perfect, are you in front of your computer?" If they're not, say, "Tell me when you're in front of your computer," and just hold off with them. Don't say, "I'll call you back in 10 minutes," otherwise you're going to come into that same problem where they're like, "You call back in 10 minutes," and now they're not answering. You're already on the phone. "Perfect, you're in front of the computer now. Awesome, I'm signing; I'm putting this together right now. Okay, I just sent over your email; pull that up right now. Awesome. Okay, let's go through this together. So bullet point one is this, bullet point two is this, 4.3 is this," and then see that button down there, it says "Adopt signature," just click on that, adopt that signature, sign there. That's the first page. Perfect, only a couple more pages. The second page is this, this, this, this, this. The third page, this is... You're walking it through with them. Yeah. And now if they have any kind of hiccups, any kind of questions, you're right there on the phone versus waiting on the other side saying, "Gosh, I hope they call me back; gosh, I hope they sign this contract; gosh, it's been 10 minutes; they haven't signed anything." These only take like two minutes to sign. Why is it not coming back? And then you try and call them and they don't answer. You've got to have them in front of the computer, ready to open it and sign while you're on the phone with them right now, or you will lose probably over 70 of those contracts you send out. Even if you've got to wait, I've had I've had where they said, "You know, I'll be in my in front of my computer in 10 minutes." Great, let's stay on the phone. Hey, how about the Super Bowl? How about the weather? I do not want to hang up that phone, and I'm listening to them open the door and they're, you know, "Okay, I'm in front of my computer; oh, it's booting up right now." Awesome. Do not hang up that phone because time kills all deals, right? If you you've got them there, they're ready, everything's good, stay on the phone, get it all done all at once.
Yeah, quick tip here, Cody, this is something I try to do. Um, in the world of wholesaling, we always say contract, we talk about as a contract, and then we say the word sign a contract, and something I've learned is, "sign a contract," that verbiage, that language can be intimidating; it evokes this idea of legal binding, you know, attorney. Instead, what I try to say is "approve agreement." Yep. So think about the difference: "sign a contract" or "approve an agreement." Yeah, much less intimidating to say "approve an agreement." Right, "agreement's" a key word because it's me and you came up with this; it's not my contract that you have to abide by; it's we came up with this that we're going to pay this price, close on this date, do this; we agreed on this, and all I need to do is just have you sign and acknowledge that that's exactly what we just talked about this agreement.
Yeah, love it. All right, guys, so hope you found this helpful. These are objections you're inevitably going to run into; the top five, there's probably more; we could do another video on, you know, 27 other objections that come up, but these are kind of some of the most common ones that you're gonna see. I really hope that was helpful. Remember, it's more about the way you say things, right, and building that trust, helping them feel comfortable, asking those qualifying questions so that you can really understand the situation. And I think ultimately, Cody, it's just have us have a serving mindset about it, right? You're here to help them; you're here to serve people, and when that's your attitude, it comes across, it comes across the phone, it comes across in person, and that's where people will really just kind of feel good working with you. And you'll have times where I know this happens, you Cody, where they'll work with you, and you may not even be the best price, but they like you, and they trust you, and they feel safe with you, so they go with you even though somebody else is offering them more money.
That's right. Okay, that's what it's all about, guys. So hope this was helpful. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to the channel; this is the number one channel on YouTube for all things wholesaling and flipping, and we'll see you on the next video.