In the course of his career, Jason has trained thousands of investors and 42 acquisition teams around the nation. His specialty is creating an off-market blueprint to grab motivated seller leads in 30+ ways as opposed to the typical 5 ways that everybody uses.
This mentality allows investors to be seen as a solution in the eyes of the seller, often resulting in cash transactions on the spot and a mutually beneficial business relationship.
Jason Palliser Real Estate Background:
- Full-time real estate investor & hedge fund acquisitions consultant
- 25 years of real estate experience
- Has personally closed over 3,000
- Based in St. Pete, FL
- Say hi to him at: www.2dayblueprint.com
- Previous guest on JF1749
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Best Ever Tweet:
“If there’s a cause you need help with, we’re always happy to help.” – Jason Palliser.
TRANSCRIPTION
Joe Fairless: Best Ever listeners, how are you doing? Welcome to The Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever Show. I’m Joe Fairless. This is the world’s longest-running daily real estate investing podcast where we only talk about the best advice ever, we don’t get into any fluffy stuff. With us today, Jason Palliser. How are you doing, Jason?
Jason Palliser: I’m doing well. How about yourself?
Joe Fairless: I’m doing well, and looking forward to our conversation. A little bit about Jason. He’s a full-time real estate investor and hedge fund acquisitions consultant. He’s got 25 years of real estate experience and personally closed on over 3000 transactions. Based in St. Pete, Florida. Today, Best Ever listeners, because it’s Sunday, we’re going to talk about a specific subject and a specific skill. We’re going to be doing Skillset Sunday and today we’re going to talk about Jason’s four-minute seller waltz he’s going to teach us. By the end of it, we will have honed our skill on how to acquire a property through this four-minute seller waltz from a potential seller. We’re talking residential here.
With that being said, Jason, first do you want to just give the Best Ever listeners a little bit more about your background? Because Jason was on episode 1749, so you can go listen to his Best Ever advice there… But just a refresher on your background, and then we’ll roll right into the four-minute seller waltz.
Jason Palliser: Yeah, okay. So I’ve been doing real estate for 25 years and trained thousands of investors around the nation. But specifically what people, individual investors, and hedge fund type players hire me for is how do we build an off-market blueprint to grab motivated seller leads 30 plus ways, instead of the same five ways that everybody does it. So I’ve been doing that speaking for 25 years, all the way down to techniques like how we do free direct mail and how we get on the first page of Google for “sell my house fast”. So basically, I got hired to suffocate cities from a lead generation standpoint. Then specifically here today, when we do a two-day blueprint, on day two we spent about two hours on acquisitions. So I’ve trained 42 acquisition teams around the nation, and besides lead generation process, my favorite thing on earth to do is find a way to connect with the seller, become a solution for them, and do it in such a manner that whether you buy the house or not, that you’re the most valuable to them. I’ve been doing that forever and I enjoy doing it for Kiyosaki, TV shows, you name it. As you said, I’m down here in St. Pete now, moved from St. Louis to St. Pete. Before we even started, you said “I’m jealous that you’re down there.” I absolutely love it down here.
Joe Fairless: It is a beautiful area, that is for sure. Let’s talk about the four-minute seller waltz. How did you come up with this?
Jason Palliser: Basically, it was born over an extended amount of time and it was also kind of spawned out of necessity. What happened was is when these larger companies started hiring me, the average 20, 30, 40, 50 homes a month in a market, because they have some big quotas to hit, they said, “Hey, we also need help training our team.” So if [unintelligible [00:03:41].27] maximize our value to a seller. So I started training their acquisitions teams and I’m in charge to get all the data and the feedback.
What I did was start testing out in multiple cities simultaneously with different teams, “Hey, let’s talk to a seller this way. Let’s present this opportunity to him to work with us. Let’s talk to him about this way that we can be a solution potentially for them.” Then I would have them do it in different orders in, different ways, and basically just filtered all that data back to me. I started to pay attention to what teams were closing more deals and striking deals to be a solution with sellers.
A couple of people on one of the teams was like — once we implemented it, they’re like, “Wow, we’ve increased our closing ratio by 27%. They’re like the seller waltz.” That’s kind of where it came from. They’re like “This seller waltz is insane.” That’s kind of where the seller waltz came from. It’s training the teams, presenting multiple solutions to sellers, seeing which ones resonate with them, which ones maybe didn’t resonate with them, then tweaking the order that we say the things in, and then – I’m a data guy, so just paying attention to the data. Now if you fast-forward nine or 10 years, 42 acquisitions teams trained… We kind of have our rhythm, shall we say? Or have it kind of down to a science on what do we do to connect with the seller on a level, show them multiple ways, and have them come to the best solution for them that works for both parties.
Break: [00:05:10] – [00:07:11]
Joe Fairless: Please start us off with how to have this conversation.
Jason Palliser: Okay. Before we go into the different techniques, what we always train the team to do – we set priorities, like what do we need to be on the appointment. We also lay the foundation before we go into the seller waltz. The first thing that we teach everyone, and for everybody that hears this, is that you have to be the most valuable to the seller. Most of the time, as I’m quite certain you know, all things remaining equal, most of the time, it truly honestly doesn’t come down to price. It comes down to are you the most valuable to them? So if everything remains equal and somebody is 1,000, or 2,000, or 3,000 off, the seller is going to work with the person they feel the most comfortable with. So what we always teach everybody, as the foundation for you getting really good at becoming a solution for homeowners and being a negotiations expert, is that you have to be the most valuable to them. That’s the foundation that we lay.
Then before we pull back the curtain on the waltz, then we say the second step is to make sure that you set the stage. You want to set the stage the right way, so that it flows effortlessly with the way that you engage that homeowner about becoming a solution for them… Meaning this – there are certain things that we put in place before we go into the waltz, which is we usually blame it on our boss or blame it on our partner. As an example, we would tell the homeowner, “Hey, look, I appreciate you having me here. We love the area, super-excited to see the house. I’m in charge of walking around, asking you a few questions and taking some pictures. I have one more appointment after this. I’ll be with my boss or my team lead in about 30 minutes, and we can hopefully find a way to become a solution for you.” One, I blamed it on my boss. So now in the appointment when I’m talking I can speak freely, and nothing really sticks to me, because I’m not the boss, essentially. Secondly, I also said, “We have one more appointment, give me about 30 minutes.” We always set the expectation of, “I’ll call you back XYZ, and then we do it ahead of time.” So if we say 30 minutes, we call back in 20. Because we want to plant inside that homeowner’s brain that we always do what we say we’re going to do, which subconsciously when you call them back on time, that’s what happens.
Now, I don’t want anybody to lose in translation. We close deals right on the spot. We say that we have one more appointment. But if everything sounds good, “You know what? I’m going to hit my boss up right now and see if we can just get this squared away right now and be a solution for you.” It’s just a technique just in case that you can’t come to terms, you’ve left an open loop to call them back. Lastly, before we go into a seller waltz and kind of [unintelligible [00:09:49].00] that open, we always put them at ease by saying “We don’t buy every house, but we try and help every homeowner that we talk to.” Meaning if we don’t come to terms, then we’re going to offer several ways to help you. Does that make sense, Joe?
Joe Fairless: I love it. Yup.
Jason Palliser: Before I go into the negotiation side, I’m going to give you some things about, “Hey, we don’t buy every house, but we try and help everyone that we talk to, so here are some things that we do to try and help them that separates ourselves from anyone else that they might speak to…”, because we don’t buy every house. That’s what we establish with them.
So we offer things like free appointments over the phone, “We’re in the area, and we saw the house needs a little bit of TLC. We don’t buy every house, we’re trying to help everyone we talk to, so if we set an appointment that works for you, whether we buy your house or not, we’d like to help you out. Well, if you’d like, we’ll go ahead and offer to cut your grass, so that you stop getting fines, judgments, liens, and violations.” It usually stops a homeowner in their tracks, they’re like “Seriously, you do that?” “Yeah, we love the area. We try and help. We certainly know that we don’t buy every house.” That’s one thing that we do.
Another thing that we do is beyond just saying “We’ll help you move”, which is what everybody does, we also establish with them, “If there’s anything that you can’t move or don’t want to move, we work with nonprofits and charities and people that are really in need… I just want you to make sure that we can help you with anything that is at your house that maybe you can’t move or don’t want to move and make sure that it goes to a good cause.” Those are just a few things… We’ve got like eight or nine things that we show them that we can do to be the most valuable.
Lastly, and then we can go into the seller waltz… The last thing that we do is always tell them, “We just appreciate the fact that you’re not using a realtor to save money. If we don’t come to an agreement, which I think we can, but if we don’t, if you’d like, I’ll help you market it for free, and help you put it on 20 or 30 different real estate websites. All I ask in return is if anybody ever needs help, that you think of our company first. If we help you find four or five people that may buy your property, you can only sell to one and we’d like to work with the other buyers.” It works like a charm with sellers, because then there’s no pressure to strike a deal, and are you going to lowball me, and all those other things that most of them think. So we put them at ease and offer things of value to them that, quite frankly, most people never even enter into the conversation.
Joe Fairless: I love that. Thanks for giving those examples.
Jason Palliser: So now having said that, on the negotiation side and the seller waltz, here’s what we do – we tell them after viewing the property, getting to know them, taking pictures, and as we’re going into the seller waltz, we always ask the question, “If we can become a solution, and if you don’t mind me asking, we deposit the money in your account, and you’re a happy seller, what are you going to do with the money?” We always try and ask them what they’re going to do with the money, because if we start to uncover the real motivation of what they need the money for, then we can craft our conversation in solution around making sure that we anchor in on just reminding them that we can’t wait to help them solve that.
Now, for those of you listening, a lot of times a homeowner will be like “Well, why would you want to know what I’m going to do with the money?” This is where some of the waltz stuff comes in. You just need to be prepared for that, because you’re trying to find out the real motivation, so that you can provide a real solution. If they say something like “Well, why would you need to know what I’m doing with the money?” “Because, look, we invest in real estate, but there are also things outside of real estate that we also invest in. So if you’re doing something with the money to make more money or whatever, I’m always all ears, because I may be open to doing that, too. I’m always looking to expand my horizons.” So it’s basically saying, “I’m not trying to pry. It’s just that we’re always looking for a way to create wealth and create security for our families, just like we’re trying to do for you. So just simply seeing what your motivation was so that if there’s a cause that we can help with, we’re more than happy to help. And if you have something that you’re going to do with it that’s going to produce more security and wealth for your family, we’re always all ears for that.” It’s just a polite way of just kind of digging a little deeper to find out what their motivation is.
Joe Fairless: Okay. It does.
Jason Palliser: Okay. So then when it comes down to the seller waltz, I’ll run through it, and then I’ll go back and dissect a few things for everybody listening… Because if you do it correctly, you can really drill down to how motivated the seller is or isn’t without them even knowing it’s happening. What we typically do is this, we say, “Thanks for your time. Let’s go ahead and talk a little bit about numbers to see if we can find a way to solve some problems for you and be a solution.” They say, “Okay.”
So what we do, the first thing we do is we always tell them, “Most of the time when we do a contract, we pay cash.” So I’ll start with, if we can come to an agreement, maybe what a cash offer would look like. “So having said that, Mr. Smith. if we can close on a date that works for you and I sit down with my boss, and my boss says, yeah, let’s go ahead and be a solution for Mr. Smith…” And for the sake of argument for everybody listening, let’s say the house needs a little bit of work and the seller was hoping to try and get 100k out of it. So they’d already mentioned that they want to try and get 100k… So we’ll say to them, “If we can close on whatever date you want, it’s cash so you don’t have to worry about loan approvals or anything. It’s just straightforward, closing day, and you’re done… How low could you go if it was cash? You don’t have to worry about moving a single item, fixing anything, taxes, or insurance anymore.” And then we zip or mouths and just see what they say. Sometimes they’re like, “Well, I really want 100k.” A lot of times we’ll say, if it’s cash, and I’ll just use the example of they say, “Okay, well, if it’s cash, maybe 95k.” We always follow that up with, “Okay, as I said, cash. When I sit down with my boss, is that as low as you can go? Because I’m just making sure that we can come to an agreement and that we’re good to go.” A lot of times, they’re like, “Well, if it’s cash…” and they’ll go down a thousand or two. Sometimes they hold strong, they’ll stay 95k, or 100k.
Let’s just say that they say, “I think 95k cash is the lowest as I can go.” What we do is we go next into a part of the waltz where we just simply tell them, “Okay, just so that I’m on the same page with you. If I sit down with my boss in half an hour and he says let’s close on the date that Mr. Smith wants to, so whatever date you want, and he says 93,000. Are you saying that we can’t do business together?” Here’s why. A homeowner wants their house sold, but they don’t like the negotiations part, just as much as most people on the other side of this that are listening right now. It’s not their favorite thing on earth to do. I’m a little bit sick in that regard, because I like it… But having said that, they don’t like it on there. So it’s really hard for them, because now they have to talk with somebody else, they have to set a new time to meet with somebody. All those things run through their head, so they really don’t want to say “No, we can’t do business together.” So what most of them will say is, “I know I want it 95k.” “So if my boss says 93k, we can’t do business together?” Most of the time, the homeowner will say, “Well, I’m not saying that.” And we never let them finish their sentence. Because they’ll say, “Well, I’m not saying that… But I really need 95k.” So when they say “I’m not saying that,” we just say okay, “I was just making sure because I don’t want to waste your time.” We’re incrementally kind of working them down a little bit.
Once we’ve established that, I usually tell them – and what we teach is that, “Even if you do want the house at 95k, or you do want it at 93k” in our example, we always tell them that, “I think my boss might be lower, because we do a lot of these.” So we establish that, “I’m not saying that we are, because nothing sticks to me in the appointment, because I’ve got to talk to my boss.” So I we’ll say, “We do a lot of these. I think my boss might be closer to 80k. But I’m not sure. So I could be wrong. But having said that, Mr. Smith, there’s other ways we could work together.”
This is when we go into a few different techniques. We tell them, “If this works for you, great. If it doesn’t, no big deal. I’ll just tell my boss.” Because that’s what we established at the start the appointment. I’ll tell them, “I know that my boss may be willing to give you the 100k that you’re looking for if you’re willing to be the bank.” Meaning you guys owner finance the property to us, you get all your money over time, we just start making payments to you, and we’re responsible for taxes, insurance, and everything, all drawn up through the title company.” Some will say yes, some will say no.
Let’s just say they said that they are open to that. I’ll say, “Okay, well, I’ll talk to my boss and just let them know that you’re interested.” I don’t go down a rabbit hole with them unless they ask me more about it. But I just want to establish whether they’re interested or not, if that could be a solution.
The second thing that we do post cash offer is to tell them, “I don’t think I’d be here if you had the roughly 50 grand I think it might take to fix this house. So if you’re interested, my boss may partner with you. He may agree to give you the first 100,000, and then we’ll come in with the 50,000, and fix it and try and sell it for 200k, which will potentially net 50 grand. My boss may agree to give you 10 grand of the profit on the back end… Meaning you get the 100k that you were looking for if you’re open to potentially partnering on it, and you might end up with more than what you’re asking for, because we’ll give you a part of the profits on the back end.” The reason we do that is because now all of a sudden the seller’s like “Wow, I get more than what I was originally asking for.” It’s really hard for them to say no to that.
Joe Fairless: Right. Yeah, of course.
Jason Palliser: So let’s say they do; they say, “I’m interested.” Here’s why, everyone listening, you should at least offer it, because you can structure the deal, do the deal yourself. You can structure the deal and sell the terms of the deal to somebody else on a partnership deal. I always tell everybody, if you don’t have to buy it for 80k, 90k, 100k, and put 50k into it to make 50k (that’s a 30 something percent return), if you can put in 50k to end up making 40k, because you give them a little bit of the profitability, then that’s an 80% return on your money. Oh, and I didn’t have to buy it, so I’m already saving a few thousand in closing costs. So when we teach that, we also teach how to structure that deal, how to properly protect the investment, stuff like that. But I know we’re on a timeframe here.
Lastly, we tell them, “If you give us time to buy it, we’ll give you a down payment, start making monthly payments to you, which is just a lease option.” Now, having said that, for everyone listening, let me deconstruct it a little bit. One, anything that they say yes to, “I’d be open to a down payment and making some payments to me. I’d be open to partnering. I’d be open to maybe being the bank if you can tell me a little bit more bout that.” If they say yes to anything after the cash offer, then what they essentially just told you is that they don’t need to sell right now. They’re willing to go on a ride with you to get their money or get more money. So I always tell people, “Then why are you going to try and beat them up about the roof and the foundation like most investors do, to anchor in on your cash offer, when they just told you they don’t need to sell. It doesn’t make sense to do that.” What does make sense is to offer to market their home for free, cut their grass, help them move. If they’re in a bind financially, I’ll be like “Look, we’ve come to an agreement on the house. I just want to let you know that the day we close, expect an email from me because I’m going to go ahead and pay for your credit repair, because I want you to get back to where you want to be as fast as possible. We can buy any house; this isn’t about just buying a house, it’s about helping you.”
So when we teach the full seller waltz, those are some of the items that we go into. If they say no after your cash offer, no partnering, no owner financing, no giving you time to buy it, they’re essentially telling you “You know what? I am more motivated and I do want to sell now.” And that’s really where you just go back in and anchor in on trying to iron out a cash offer.
Joe Fairless: So if you had that cash offer initially stated, or when you state it, do you always do the other two options?
Jason Palliser: Yes. If the cash offer that you negotiate with them is something that you want, and you know you’re going to lock up the deal, you always pretend that your boss may be lower on price, so that you can go over the other options… Because you can start to see their real motivation.
We always go into the other options, because you can always go back and say, “My boss said let’s just make this clean and do the cash transaction,” because you’ve already negotiated that. But the reason you do that is this – every deal is different. If you find out that they’re willing to do any of those other options, well, that relieves you with coming up with a bunch of money upfront, which allows you to do more deals. Because you can always still execute on a lease option, you could execute two months from now instead of a normal 30-day contract, two months from now to buy, because you just bought yourself time to buy it.
Joe Fairless: Anything else, as we wrap up, that you think we should talk about as it relates to the seller waltz that we haven’t already?
Jason Palliser: Just that if you make sure that you center everything around, “We don’t buy every house, we try and help everyone that we talked to.” And you say, “I just appreciate the fact that you’re not using a realtor to save money. If I don’t come to terms with you, I’ll help you market it for free to try and help you” – that technique wins us a lot of deals. Here’s why. Here’s the last tip that expands on that. That’s what we do on day two of our blueprints after we set up all the lead generation… It’s that when we market it for free, all we do is market it for free for them. No realtor, we’re doing it for free. We didn’t ask for anything. But what we do is we set them for two weeks of follow-up. When nobody wants their property and they mentally know that it’s on 15 to 20 different real estate websites at the price that they want, what we do is we call back and say “I just want to let you know I’m going to refresh your ad. I’m still trying to help you. But I haven’t had anybody that’s hit me up with a phone call or email yet.” That’s very heavy on their end, and a lot of times they say “You know what? Let’s just sell it. What’s your cash offer again? Let’s just do it.”
Joe Fairless: Jason, how can the Best Ever listeners learn more about what you’re doing?
Jason Palliser: All they have to do is go to 2dayblueprint.com and there’s information on there on what we do to help people take over their cities. Or you can simply email me, jason@goseejason.com. I would be happy to help you.
Joe Fairless: What a valuable conversation that we just had for the Best Ever listeners. Thank you for being on the show again. I hope you have the Best Ever day and we’ll talk to you again soon.
Jason Palliser: Okay, sounds good. See you guys.
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