Asking “Dangerous” Questions Without Derailing the Conversation

Mike: Welcome back to the flipnerd.com REI Classroom, where experts from across the real estate investing industry teach you quick lessons to take your business to the next level. And now, let’s meet today’s expert host.
John: Hi, my name’s John Martinez with Midwest Revenue Group and this is REI Classroom. So today, I want to talk about a very specific topic, a very specific type of question, actually. These are questions that I call dangerous questions.
Mike: This REI Classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by theinvestormachine.com, FlipNerd’s private investor coaching program and your blueprint to investing success.
John: Now, we all ask dangerous questions. Be might not think of them that way, but in the course of any sales conversation, especially when we’re picking up properties at a discount, we have a series of questions we need to ask. And some of the questions we have to ask make us and our prospects a little uneasy. This is what I call dangerous questions. So do you guys have any types of questions you ask, questions like, “How much do you owe on the property? What’s your asking price?” Things like that, that you just don’t know how your prospect or the seller’s going to respond?
Sometimes they might just openly give up that information and it’s easy. You move on with the conversation without thinking twice about it. But sometimes, these types of dangerous questions cause your prospect to go, “Why do you need to know that information? That’s none of your business.” And the whole conversation’s derailed.
So you know what your dangerous questions are because . . . you know it, because every time before you ask, you get this pit in your stomach. You go, “Here we go, I don’t know how they’re going to respond,” and then you ask. So if you want to avoid having that pit in your stomach, let me give you a quick tip on how to ask those questions, get answers more of the times and you probably currently do, and do it in such a way that the conversation never gets derailed, you never lose rapport, you never lose that track of your conversation.
So, the way to ask these dangerous questions, again, questions like, “What’s your mortgage balance?” or, “What’s your asking price?” The way to ask is simply not to ask at all. What you can do instead of asking that question is to make a statement. And you don’t want to just make any statement, you want to take the opposite of what you’re hoping to hear. So here’s an example. Instead of saying, “Oh, do you owe any money on the property?” Simply make the statement, “And you don’t owe any money on the property”. And then you just be quiet. It’s as simple as that.
So let me tell you what the outcome of what we call using a takeaway to ask a dangerous question is. There are two possible ways that that prospect’s going to respond. They’re either going to confirm the information or they’re going to correct you. So, “Hey, you don’t owe anything on the property”. “Yep, you’re right, free and clear.” You’ve confirmed it and now you’ve just built a little bit more rapport and the conversation is smooth, you didn’t derail it all. Or they’re going to correct you and go, “Oh actually you know, I owe $30,000 on it.” Really? It’s much simpler.
Or, “What’s your asking price?” Instead of saying, “What’s your asking price?” where you sometimes get some pushback, you might want to just use a take away, state the opposite. Instead of asking, “What’s your asking price?” State you don’t have an asking price. “Hey, I’m guessing you haven’t put much thought into what you actually want for this place or what you want to walk away with.” Then pause.
You didn’t ask the question and two possible things will happen. Your prospect, the seller, they’ll either confirm that information, “No, I haven’t put a lot of thought into it.” That’s okay, they’re not pushing back, you didn’t ask them a question, you’ve maintained rapport and you’re moving forward. Or, they’ll correct you and go, “You know, I have put a lot of thought into it. Houses are going for $100,000 in this area. I was hoping I could get $80,000.”
So that is a very simple way you could take those dangerous questions that stress us all out and sometimes cause our prospects to push back because they feel like we’re asking too much. We can take those and we can still get that information, but do it in a way where we get it more effectively, and we do it in a way in which we never, ever derail that conversation. So my name’s John Martinez with Midwest Revenue Group and I’ll see you next time.
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