Title: “The Human Side of Business: Tough Decisions and Leadership with Steve Trang”
Episode: 207
“Sales is not just about making the money. It’s also about how you make everyday relationships better in your life.”
In this episode of Profit First for REI podcast, we have Steve Trang, a sales coach who helped hundreds of clients generate millions in sales over the past few years.
If you want to close more deals, make more sales, and apply the principles to your family and friends, it is the best podcast for you!
Enjoy the show!
Key Takeaways:
[00:49] Introducing Steve Trang
[04:31] The toughest decisions
[09:31] Sales at Home (Mirroring and Labeling)
[17:01] How is it important for an owner to know sales?
[22:11] Steve’s book recommendations
[24:12] What makes Steve different from other trainers?
[34:03] Getting into the sales world
[38:18] Connect with Steve Trang
Quotes:
[04:32] “Systems is pretty easy… vendor relations, that was harder but the most difficult are always people.”
[11:10] “Asking ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions, we create a psychological safety where they can speak freely. When asked ‘why’ questions, they get defensive and shut down.”
[24:19] “People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons.”
Connect with Steve:
Website: https://www.salesdisruptors.com/
Tired of living deal to deal?
If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the ones that we use the most are mirroring and labeling and asking what and how questions versus why questions, right? So whatever they say, you mirror it back the words, right? That’s pretty common. You mirror them emotionally, you mirror them verbally, you mirror the physically. All that stuff is happening all at once.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
If you’re a real estate investor who’s sick and tired of living deal to deal, then welcome home. Hear from everyday real estate investors just like you, and discover how they’ve completely transformed their business by taking a profit First approach. This is the profit first for REI podcast, where we believe revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. It’s time to start making profit a habit in your business. So here’s your host, David Richter.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
We have the one and only Steve Trane sales trainer extraordinaire on today, and he goes through not only just sales and like the foundation of talking with people, but how does this apply at home? How does this apply to your team if you’re talking to them? Because sales is not just about making the money where that’s a huge benefit, but it’s also about how do you make everyday relationships better in your life, which we dive into that it is so good. He tells stories of his daughters and how they’ve used it back on him. You’re going to learn a ton from here, and if you want to close more deals or if you want to make more sales, this is an excellent podcast to dive into. Steve train’s mind. I really rip it back and say, just bear it all. And he does. So you’re going to get a lot of value. Thank you again for being a listener of this podcast. Hey, it is David Richter here, profit first, REI podcast. I have Steve Train back, which I think Steve, you might’ve been one of the first people on this podcast when we started this several years ago. So thanks for coming back on.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Oh, it’s my pleasure. I love everything you do. So I love whatever we can do to help the Profit First community because man, that was something that I needed and I’m slowly working my way back into
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Slowly working your way back into, so it’s been a journey in the real estate and the business ownership world.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Oh yeah. I mean, in case anyone didn’t notice, 2022 was an interesting year, right? Yeah,
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah. And so the great risk we had, the great challenge we had is we started believing our own bs, our own propaganda. And so we were kill It and Profit First in 2020. We were Kill It and Profit First in 2021, and then the market shifted and the funds we had set aside, well, how do I put this? We had over-committed on expenses. The expenses matched the rise in revenue, but the moment the revenue dropped 40 ish percentage, it broke our profit first and there was a lot of scrambling.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
So then did you have reserves at that point that you, because you’re still in business, so obviously you didn’t go out of
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Business. We had reserves,
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yeah, had reserves,
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Had to use all We had reserves, we went past the reserves, we went past the reserves, and now we got a little bit debt, a little bit of business debt.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
So then how’s 2023?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Oh man, I’m loving 2023, so we’re getting back into it. The wholesale business is doing good. Our education business is doing good, so it is nice to be profitable in all businesses. Again, it’s a good feeling.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
When you say you’re profitable again, was it a mixture of revenue increasing, expenses decreasing or revenue finally went past what you were spending before or what’d you dive into get profitable
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Again? I mean, we were slashing expenses, right? We slashed expenses, and I wouldn’t say it was surgical, but it wasn’t blunt for us either. I would say it was a mix between, here are the obvious, you cut the fat, that’s easy, and then you start getting more precise like, oh man, how much is it going to hurt when we cut this if we want to cut it? And eventually we held off from cutting those painful expenses as long as we could, but eventually we had to make those painful cuts. So it sucks, but it’s also why we get paid what we get paid. We do really well when business is good, right? What the price we pay for that is to when we’re suffering and hurting is we have to make the toughest decisions.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Would you say the toughest decisions are people decisions or is it systems, or is it people that you like that you just have to let go of vendor relationships? What would you say is if you get into that tough position, some of the hardest decisions to make the
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Toughest decisions? So systems is pretty easy. We went without some systems that was on the easier side, the vendor relations, that was harder. But the most difficult are always people. It’s always people as a person that I want to see everyone rise around me. We say we’re on a mission, create a hundred millionaires, and it always starts at home. So it’s everyone in my organization. And so whenever we come to the conclusion that this is not the place for you, it hurts my heart because that means that I can’t help you create that financial freedom that I wanted for you. That’s where it hurts.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, those are tough conversations to have. Now you are an expert sales trainer. You’re one of the most premier, I would say. It’s definitely in the real estate space. You’re out there just helping a lot of people on the sales side. Do you think those types of conversations, our sales conversations, are they more off the cuff? Do you plan for those?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Oh, they’re not off the cuff, man. You want have a sad drive home, have those conversations off the cuff, okay. No, it is it not written out. I mean, that’s probably the smarter thing to do, but is roleplay in my head over and over and over again. I’m just thinking about it. What are the things I got to make sure I do and the things I want to make sure I do is lay the hammer down as softly and gently as possible. And so I’m going to say, Hey, we’ve got some bad news. There’s something here I don’t want to do. This isn’t working. I wanted this to work. It’s not working, so we’re going to have to let you go. I try to soften the blow as much as possible and look, as far as the leadership component, this is not news. No one I let go where I can’t believe, I had no idea Steve was on the fence. We’ve had multiple conversations about areas to improve, how to improve, sat down with them, created a plan, how can we improve this? We’ve done all those things. So no one was surprised, but even if they’re not surprised, it still sucks as a business owner to do it.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
And you’re always doing these in person?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
I have to. Well, the ones I can, right? The ones that are in my market, yes, I feel everyone is owed. Everyone deserves to be let go properly.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
If they’re not in your market, do you do that over the phone? Zoom? What do you do? If
Speaker 1 (06:48):
It has to be, I haven’t had to do it remotely, but if I did, it would probably a phone call. Phone call. I cannot picture having that conversation over Zoom.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, right. Yeah, that’s a tough one for
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Sure. Unless we’re going to have 900 people in there at the same time. Hey, we’re letting you all go. Those mortgage companies. I was
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Going to say, it’s like one of those bigger companies that you see in the news just don’t come in tomorrow. Okay. So yeah, those are tough conversations and that’s where I feel like you teach people sales all the time. That’s what you eat, breathe, sleep, and that’s where, do you feel like having a sales background helps to have tough conversations or is it still It absolutely. Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Oh, it’s still tough. It’s still tough no matter what. It’s still tough, but the things that we learn about setting emotional anchors, bracing you for impact, it’s the same conversation like, Hey David, as we talked before, we’re going to have to do inspection on your home. And we promised we’re not going to ask for any repairs. Here’s the reality. We estimated 20,000 repairs. It comes back, it’s going to be $45,000. So I’m not sure what to do here. We might have to cancel, right? But I alluded to in a previous conversation, I told you neck I want to hear, and then we had the conversation. So I soften it as much, embrace you for as much as we can. The example we use here is, I don’t know about you, you’re a little bit younger than me, but when I was a kid, when we went to the dentist appointment, they wouldn’t tell you what was happening. You would just hear a worrying sound and then it hurts. And that’s the trauma we get as kids. My kids, we go to pediatric dental and they go there and say, this is going to hurt a little bit or this is going to hurt. Then they kind of tense up and they brace for it. Whenever the dentist does what they said they were going to do, it doesn’t hurt us bad. They were prepared for it. You and I can still hear that worrying sound when we were kids
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Right now.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And it hurt, right? We didn’t know what it was, and now we’re going to fight or flight. But if you prepare another human being for impact, we’re resilient. They can handle it.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, no, I like that a lot. So let’s talk about then sales at home. You’ve got two young daughters and I love interviewing three young three daughters now. Good grief. That’s my bad. So how old are they now?
Speaker 1 (09:15):
12, 10 and six 12.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
10 and six. Good grief. They’re just getting older at this point. That’s crazy. I’ve got a 6-year-old daughter. She just keeps growing like a weeded. So okay, you have three daughters at home. How does that sales anchoring help with them? Do you use sales tactics
Speaker 1 (09:31):
On your own? A hundred percent. We use sales tactics. So the ones that we use the most are mirroring and labeling and asking what and how. Questions versus why questions, right? So whatever they say, you mirror it back. The words, right? That’s pretty common. You mirror them emotionally, you mirror them verbally, you mirror the physically. All that stuff is happening all at once. So there’s a mirroring and the labeling, Hey, it seems like you’re really frustrated about this. It seems like you’re really upset, feels like you’re unhappy right now. It feels like you’re overloaded with school. I kind of get the feeling that you feel like we’re being unfair to you, and these labels are putting out there for her to either correct or confirm. Either. They’ll say, yeah, that’s exactly how I’m feeling. And now they feel validated, they feel seen. Now they feel important.
(10:26):
Or they’re like, no, dad dummy, this is what’s going on. And then when they tell me what it is, okay now, but now that they got to voice it, they get to share it, and as long as I’m paying attention, I can’t screw it up. So they feel listened to, they feel validated, they’re seen, which is what every human wants. And so we do that a lot. I do that a lot intentionally. And then the other thing too is asking what and how questions all lot at home. Growing up when I was a kid and I was crying, what did I get? Why are you crying? Stop crying. Especially being the oldest of six boys, you are not allowed to process emotions. But with my kids when they’re crying, how come you’re crying? What’s going on? And asking what and how questions. We create this psychological safety where they can speak freely.
(11:13):
When we ask why questions, they get defensive, they shut down. Hey, why are you’re crying? Leads to a defensive mechanism. Crying is wrong. I’m not allowed to process my feelings. Hey, what’s going on? Or how come you’re crying? And now they get to speak freely without judgment, without filter to speak as however they want, right? So there was a great video I saw on TikTok, I think about a year ago now, where the husband’s talking about how coming home I was like, oh, I’m so overwhelmed. Your kids are driving me crazy, blah, blah, blah, blah. He’s like, oh, why are they driving you crazy? Or why are you overwhelmed? And then now she gets defensive and now they have a fight. So now he comes, Hey, I’m really overwhelmed. Oh, what happened today that made you feel so overwhelmed? Psychological safety. They can have an open and free conversation.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
That’s awesome. So when’s the sales at home book coming out? I feel like that needs to be a book from Steve Tran. This is great stuff because like you said, this is stuff that everyone wants and it doesn’t just work on sellers or the marketplace. It works at home too. It sounds like the results you’re getting, what I just heard is they feel listened to. They feel heard. They feel seen. They feel like, okay, and it’s a safe place to be able to share with dad. You’ve got the range too. Okay, 12 to six, that’s quite the range you’re getting into teenage territory.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
It’s going to get tested, was going to say the skills. It’s getting tested. Yes,
Speaker 3 (12:39):
It’s going to get tested. I wondered though, since you’ve got the 12-year-old, has she picked up or even your six year, any of your daughters, have they picked this stuff up and are they doing it back to you?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
They have picked it up. They are doing it to me, part of it by instruction, part of it, by modeling dad’s behavior. So they’ll hear me doing it and then they’ll do it back to me. Not intentionally, but I’ll give you an example. So my 12-year-old, they’re using Duolingo, they’re learning, the oldest is learning Spanish. The second is learning German, and then my wife is learning French. Oh, the second is also learning Japanese. And so they’re telling me they should learn, we should get the super package so they can have more whatever, unlimited, whatever. And the single person is like 85 bucks a year, but the family plan is 120 bucks a year. So obviously you go to the family plan. So my 12-year-old we’re at Jeremiah’s Ice Cream, and my 12-year-old is talking to my wife about how you want to do this. And she’s talking about the features and benefits we go to.
(13:43):
The family plan is cheaper and this and that, and she’s doing a really, really good job of pitching. If I was not a sales trainer, I was like, man, that’s pretty good. So when she was done, I say, Hey, Amelia, I just want to let you know that was pretty good. I give you an eight or eight and a half out of 10. And she’s like, well, what would you do differently? And I said, okay, well, let’s take a step back here. If I were you, here’s how I would say this. The reason why mom’s learning French is because her dream is to go to Paris and be able to speak French in Paris. So we know this. So I would say, Hey, and I was talking to her as if she were me. Hey, imagine next year on your summer vacation, your whole family, you guys are in France, and your wife, you can overhear your wife negotiating with a shop owner over a dress in French. How’s that going to feel? Right? So I’m telling her right now, you can picture it or you can picture it. You can associate the feelings with it.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
The feelings, yep.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Right? Yeah, I want that. It is only going to cost me 120 bucks to get that. Yeah, right. Where do I sign up? So I say this to her and she looks at me not absorbing it because she’s a 12-year-old not absorbing any of it. And she says, dad, you’re telling me that Donald Miller is wrong? And I was like, what are you talking about? And she’s like, well, in StoryBrand, Donna Miller says you have to sell based off survival, and we’re going over the survival. It’s like, well, I don’t hear any of this is survival, but she’s shoving Donald Miller in my face. Oh my gosh. I was like,
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Oh, I love it when it’s at home. And they’re just like, well, this guy’s, what about this guy? Oh man. But I love that she did say, what could I do better? She did give you that question that’s open to the feedback. And then she was like, no, what about survival?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Then she
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Shut you down.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Oh, she was like, yeah, I think, are you telling me you’re better at sales than Donald Miller? I said, look, I’ll be really clear here. I think Donald Miller is clearly better at me at marketing, clearly better at me at marketing
Speaker 3 (15:55):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
But I think I might be able to give him a run for his money on sales. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Yeah.
(16:02):
Oh, that’s great. Out of the mouth of babes, right, man, that’s good stuff. But I love hearing this because okay, if you’re listening to this now, you can look up Steve. He’s got the Real Estate Disruptors podcast. He’s the sales trainer extraordinaire. He’ll teach you the step-by-step. But I like hearing here, how does this apply to real life? Because you interact with your family every day. You don’t interact with the same seller or the same whatever, or you have to interact and have tough conversations with the team. Because right now, just in the general marketplace, things are going just crazy all over the, it’s like elections next year, big election. We’ve got so many things happening that I think this is a core skill just for people to have. So I guess that’s for someone, if they’re a business owner, where would you rate sales skill on the skills that they need to develop as an owner? Obviously there’s marketing, there’s sales, there’s operation, there’s finance, but how important is it for the owner to know sales and to be able to sell?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
I would say as an owner, probably is top two or three. So the evolution I always talk about is marketing is the first skill you must learn. You must be good at marketing because the phone doesn’t ring. Nothing else matters. Game one, step one, you got to figure out marketing, but marketing, you don’t have to master your marketing. You just have to be decent at and you just copy and paste it. Sales, you have to be good at, you don’t have to master it. You have to be good at it. If you can’t close contracts, you can’t get contracts signed. Again, nothing matters. And then after that, it’s leadership. As you grow, you need to lead people. And as you’re leading people, if you can’t lead effectively, then they leave and compete against you or whatever. So I think leadership is probably the most valuable skill.
(17:46):
And then after all that finances, you can have all the leadership, marketing, sales you want in the world, but if you can’t figure out finances, then it’s all going out the back door. It just doesn’t matter. So there’s all these skills you need to learn, I believe sequentially, but had a conversation with someone recently and he’s like, leadership and sales is the same thing. It’s influence, the ability to persuade. And so seeing it as that way, I would say if you’re looking at leadership and sales in a matter of persuasion, I would say that’s the most valuable skill of all the skills. But separately, leadership’s probably more important in sales, but if you combine ’em, it’s the most value, most valuable. And if you can’t get finances right, then you’re going to be same spot financially forever.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Good. I’m glad you’re saying that on this podcast, what we want to teach people, it’s like it doesn’t matter how much you make if you’re not keeping any on the backend or have a plan, plan when stuff hits the fan, when you’re doing the sales and everything’s going great, and then it’s not. It’s like, okay, what do I do now? But I appreciate you telling your story though, because during tough times, I like how you have to use sales tactics, then you have to use sales tactics in the great times. Like you said, I like what that other guy said, it’s influence. That’s really what you’re practicing is that influence over others. But okay, no, I want to ask this. Do you think you use sales every day of your life in some form or situation, whether it be in business or family or whatever?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So here’s where I figured out that I need to use sales more. So I worked so hard on my sales craft and I could use it well in the living room. And then I realized, crap, I can do it when I’m with a homeowner and money’s on the line, but then I turn it off when I’m dealing with my colleagues, my leadership team, and I turn it off with my spouse and what happens, wife doesn’t feel listened to, wife doesn’t feel validated, leadership feels abandoned at times. Then I have this epiphany, it’s like, oh crap. Every conversation is a high stakes conversation. So now you have to build this mental stamina to be able to have high stakes conversations with your wife. It doesn’t matter what’s going on. You got to pay attention. High stakes conversation with the wife, high stakes conversation with the leadership team and high stakes conversations on every sales appointment.
(20:07):
So in order to get that going or keep that muscle or stamina up, every conversation now is a sales conversation. And the reality is most people have a negative perception of sales. Everyone feels like salespeople have this mal intent. The sales we teach is really understanding what is going on in the other person’s world and understanding such that there’s no ambiguity inside our conversation. So if every conversation I have with another human being gets us to the point where I understand exactly the message you’re trying to tell me, how is that not a high quality conversation? Right?
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, that’s great. And like you said before with your daughters, you’re trying to create that safety, the safety for them to tell the truth. So it sounds like when did you have that epiphany and have you been practicing that with your leadership team and with your wife and
Speaker 1 (21:04):
On the regular? Yeah, it was in the last two or three years. It was the last two or three years. It was like, man, I’m really good at understanding homeowner’s problems, but turns out I’m not so good at understanding my wife’s problems or my leadership team’s problems. Well, that’s more important than what’s going on in the living room. And so yeah, I’ll say sometime in the last two or three years and is with that, I’ve been able to strengthen those relationships.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Those relationships. That’s awesome. That’s what I love about it. It’s like I totally understand the perception of sales and having that negative connotation because for a long time sales was, we thought of the used car sales, but I love sales in this context where you’re having conversations to get to the real relationship with people and what they’re going through. You’re just trying to create safety for them, which I think one of the best sales books I’ve ever read that is totally not a sales book and marketed like that. It’s how to talk. So kids will listen and listen, so kids will talk. It’s
Speaker 1 (21:56):
A great book.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
It’s a great book just to talk to human beings to make them feel safe no matter what their age is. So it’s like, do you have any ones that are kind of off the wall that you’ve read where you’re like, this is really good and I
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Recommend Yeah, I mean, I would say that one, I would say that book was really, really impactful for me. I read it when I had my kids and then later on I learned Sandler. I was like, oh, this is just using on your kids,
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Right? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
But yeah, I mean that book was really, really impactful. One of the best lines, it’s not a sales book or a sales concept generally, but one of the best lines I ever picked up was from a poker book, and it was, what you see depends on where you stand. That’s really good. And it really comes down to perspective. And one of the things that we preach, again, our sales process is seeing the world from the other person’s perspective. Because again, if you can see the world through their perspective, through their eyes, this is how you are able to understand what they’re going through and you can articulate back to them what they’re going through. And this is again, how you earn their business. Trey Taylor just spoke at Family Mastermind last month, and his big message in that presentation was, I see you like, Hey, I see what you’re going through. I see what you’re doing. And man, that really cuts to the core of what we all want as humans. We all want to be seen.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, that’s really good. I really love that statement. What you see depends on where you stand. It makes me think of listen to understand, not just to respond, some of those core messages, and it’s like we hear them throughout our life. But that’s a really good statement, and I love that you got it from poker book. I was not expecting in a kid’s book where I’m like, oh, this is good. I should just apply this to every single person in my life, not just my child, but other people. And then I love that it’s from a poker book, getting one of the things that you even share on a podcast now, it’s like affected you so much. I absolutely love that. So, okay, if you had to boil it down into five minutes, would you want to just go over high level? What are the core tenets that you teach from the sales trainer perspective that makes you different maybe than other sales trainers?
Speaker 1 (24:19):
I would say the biggest things, so we already touched on it multiple times, just understanding the other person from their perspective. The example I’ve always used is Battleship, if I could play battleship with you and I can see your ships and I could tell you where your ships are, that’s the best way to kind of give you this image. But I think the first and foremost is we have to set proper expectations. I’d say that’s where we’re different. Not to say that some trainings don’t do that, but we we’re really, really big on setting proper expectations, outcome. I’ve you do
Speaker 3 (24:51):
That and you’re incredible at that of just setting great expectations and along the whole process. So yeah, I Kudos that. Sorry to interrupt. Keep
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Going. No, no, you’re good. So setting proper expectations, and it could be like, Hey, after this, we’re going to have a conversation with your wife, or it could be we’re going to put everything in writing, or we’re going to talk to your siblings, whatever it is. But we’re just setting proper expectations for what the agenda is for this appointment. After that is, I would say we go really hard on really understanding their motivations, whether it’s pain or it’s upside or whatever. But we’re really harp on understanding their motivations because people don’t buy for logical reasons, they buy for emotional reasons, and we’re going to get all those emotions out there. We’re going to get the stress, the cortisol, we’re going to max it out. It’s not something that I want to do truthfully, I’m a former engineer. I would rather talk to you straight with logic and do something together for logical reasons.
(25:51):
I would love that, but that’s not how we’re wired. I’m going to play the game the way the game has to be played, right? We’re going to go with motivation, cortisol stress, and this and that. Then after that, I would say the other thing we really harp hard on that separates us is we don’t focus on the price. We focus on how much you need. We focus on how much money you need to fix your problem. That number generally, not always, but it’s generally less than what you want for the home. So we figure out how much you need to walk away from the sale. Then at that point I could say, okay, based on how much you owe and how much you need, is that more or less an MAO? And it’s less an MAO. Great. So we’re buying at a good price. If it’s more than MAO, hey, I’d love to give you all that. I have a problem. Can’t give you all that. So what do you really need from the sale? So I think just focusing on how much they need to walk away with versus the price.
(26:46):
And I think the other thing we do a good job of is preventing remorse. One of my favorite things I took was from a Dave Ramsey book, and we all generally don’t care for Dave Ramsey in this industry, but he’s one of the most successful, he is the most successful realtor in the country. He makes more commissions in real estate than anybody else in this country. No one knows this, of course, unless you’re in the real estate industry. But one of the lines I took from him was I thought was really good, was setting the expectations after I signed contract is, Hey David, sometime between now and we close, you’re going to have this thought of, did I make the right choice? Should I have done this? And I want you to know that feeling is totally normal.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
Oh, that’s good.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
So then later on we’re like, did I make the right choice? Well, he did say I was going to have this feeling. So yeah, I guess I did make the right choice. It’s just cutting it off before it starts to seed and cause all these issues later on.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
And it is, I love that you’re building that relationship and you’re telling people it’s normal to feel this way. And it’s like, I keep thinking of that kid’s book. It’s like it’s a falling, a lot of that of like, Hey, you’re, because a lot of those people aren’t in the world of whatever it is that you’re in, whether it’s real estate or outside of it or whatever. And it’s like, this is not what they do on a day-to-day basis where it is for us. And it’s like you said, you have to stand in their shoes. So man, this is really good. So this is what sets you apart. So you said you set proper expectations, really understand the motivations, don’t focus on price, focus on what they need, and then prevent remorse. Those are some key points right there. This is good stuff. I mean, I honestly could listen to you talk all day on sales.
(28:27):
I’ve been at these meetings and masterminds where you’re at, where you give the masterclass up on stage and it’s like, I love it. I love hearing it each time because it just is another tool I can put in my tool belt of how do I make these relationships better? Because I know this is not just for our industry for when I go and talk to my wife in just a couple minutes in the kitchen, or if my daughter comes home from school today, how do I make sure she’s listened to? I think you are teaching people to be better communicators and just better relationship builders. And the byproduct of that is if you’re in business, you make more sales because you’re really helping the other person with where they’re coming from, but in being able to create that safety. So I love it. I love what you’re doing. I love that one guy did equate it to leadership and influence as well, because that’s something we have in all of our lives, especially if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re probably a little different anyway. You care about the financial side, you care about becoming a great human being, a great business owner, and Steve can help you get there. This is good stuff. So I just have a couple final questions here.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Before you do that, if I could just do a couple real quick things. So first you mentioned, hey, after school. So one of the things we always struggle, how was school today? It was good. And we’re like, ah, okay, where do we go from here? So for us, am mirroring good or good? How? And then they have to complete their thought. There’s this awkward silence, so they have to elaborate on how it was good. So there’s that. And then the other thing, just another illustration, you talk about someone going to buy a drill. So if you go to Home Depot to buy a drill, you’re going to encounter one of three different types of salespeople, probably not the third one because the third one’s going to be really high paid. So the first guy is like, Hey, I need to drill a hole in a tree.
(30:22):
Okay, great. David, let me show you all the drills we have that can drill holes in the trees. That’s the first guy. That guy’s base pay. Second guy. Okay, so what kind of hole do you need to drill? And they’re going to talk about. So the first guy’s pitching features and benefits, this guy, this guy’s talking about how the benefits of this particular drill. So the first guy’s just telling you, here’s the features. It’s 12 volts, it’s cordless, this and that. The second guy’s telling about the benefits of the drill, well, here’s why you want to go with this drill. This drill can do A, B, C. They can kind of separate drill A from drill B. The third guys is going to be like, Hey, you need to drill holes in trees. Why are you drilling holes in trees? And like, well, I want to build a tree house. Oh, building a tree house for what? Well, I read this book and it says, you have only 18 summers with your kids, and I want to create memories with my kids. So you want to drill holes in a tree, create a tree house. So you create memories with your kids. Got it, okay, here’s the drill to do that. And there’s almost no price tag on that drill that you’re willing to pay to create memories of your kids. So that third one is what we teach in our sales process.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
That’s a great analogy. That’s a really good one. Then you’re getting to the real reasons of what they’re doing and then tying the product to their end result and really creating the win for them. And I like that sometimes you have to lead the people to their own wins. You lead that person and sometimes they don’t even know what they want. Would you say that’s one of the hardest things to get out of people, whether it be ourselves or others, just what they really want,
Speaker 1 (32:05):
What they really want, man, what they really want. That’s really hard, and that’s probably the hardest thing to extract in talking to someone what they truly want. Uncomfortable, because A, no one’s ever asked you these questions. Most people don’t really ask you this question, so it’s really hard to answer it. It’s weird. It’s uncomfortable for a lot of people because the other thing too, you have psychological baggage. A lot of us unfortunately feel like we don’t deserve success. We don’t deserve to get what we want. So whether it’s programming money is evil or the schools taught you to follow the track, whatever, most of us have a hard time dreaming big because we feel like it’s wrong. So pulling out what someone wants, that is one of the hardest things to do. The other one, not as hard, but also difficult, it’s getting a homeowner to realize what their true circumstances are because they shove it all down into their stomach.
(33:05):
Yeah, I’m in foreclosure, but it’s no big deal. No, this is a major deal. The bank’s going to take your home and this is probably affecting your credit card, your ability to get a car, ability to get an apartment. It’s affecting you in a lot of places. So to get someone to understand the reality of the situation is also really difficult. And that goes back to asking questions the right way, creating the safety for them to share. And then once they share it, now they can process it so they haven’t truly processed the reality of their situation usually until we show up.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Awesome. That’s so good. You’re getting to the core. Get to the core of where they really are and why they really want, and sometimes you have to lead them. You have to lead that horse to water so that they can actually drink it. Do. Okay, one final question. What made you start all of this? Why sales? Why all this stuff? What made you dive deep into it?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
So I never had an intent to go onto the sales world. So prior to 2018, I was kind of resigned to the fact that I would never be good at sales. I about somewhere in the first half of 2018, I had resigned myself again to never be good at sales. I was always pretty good at marketing. I was pretty decent in business. And so for the longest time I was like, you know what? I hate being in the living room. I suck at sales. I’m good at marketing. I’m just going to spend money on marketing, give the leads to my salespeople, hire pushy salespeople and have ’em close deals. That was my business model for the longest time, and it was a profitable model, not something I could say I’m proud of, but it’s a model that works. And there’s probably a lot of models out there that are like that.
(34:55):
And it wasn’t until 2018 where Pace Morby, who you probably know at the time, he was my general contractor, and I was a real estate broker, so I’m a real estate broker. He’s my general contractor. He has a home investor franchise, so he’s getting deals. I’m wholesaling, flipping as a side hustle, but not really intently. And so I keep saying to pace, send me your deals, send me your deals, send me your deals. He’s like, I, I got to send ’em to Jamil. It’s like, I know, but we’re friends too. You can also send ’em to me. And he was saying how, look, if you really want to get deals, why don’t you go where all the home guys are? We hang out every Friday. And I was like, hang on a second. Now you mean to tell me there’s a room where all the home investor guys hang out every Friday?
(35:43):
He’s like, yeah. It’s like, there’s no way I don’t do more business hanging around a room full of home investor guys every Friday. And so I figured out where he went and it was Sandler. So I go to the Sandler sales trainer and talking to him and listen to him. I was like, this guy has figured out sales. This guy is able to fill all the holes I’ve had for more than a decade ahead in sales. I bought my first property in oh five. I got licensed in oh seven, and from oh seven to 2018, I was at best average on sales, but I started with a really low floor. I was an engineer, but this guy was able to fill in every hole I ever had in sales. After doing that for a year. And fortunately, I was in a point in my career where I can go and hang out with this guy five hours a week, two hours on Tuesdays, 90 minutes on Wednesdays, 90 minutes on Fridays for all his different class time. Every time he had an opening, I was there and I was there for two years.
(36:51):
Once I did that, I think you’ve seen me present a collective genius. This is not going to sound humble, but it is what it’s my superpowers are learning and distilling what I’ve learned into an understandable way of understanding it. And so I took everything I learned from him, and I had a lot of people in 2019 say, Steve, I want you to teach me what you guys do. So I said, okay, no problem. And so I started teaching it, and in teaching it, I’ve gotten deeper and deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of sales, and I am learning as much as possible in sales, negotiation, psychology, and this and that. And so I never intended to go in this direction, but since I’m in this direction and I see how much opportunity there is, and I’m passionate about it, I really enjoy learning. I’m going all in on it. So why did I go down this route? I didn’t choose this route, but once I saw it, I could not unsee it,
Speaker 3 (37:55):
Right? Yeah, it was a calling. It sounds like it’s a calling at this point. Well, you’re helping a ton of people, so I want to land the plane here with aton of value here today. I love you. Even the step-by-step of some of the things that you’re doing and how people getting their appetite wet and some of the things that you do inside of your sales. How do people get ahold of you or how do you want ’em to find you?
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, I would say there’s a few different places. If you want to digest our free content on Instagram at Steve dot t, Trang, realestate, disruptors on YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify, and then if you want to work on sales, for me, I look at sales. It’s not something you just do once. Look at it as a mastery type of deal. If you want to get really, really good at sales, then we invite you to join our sales community@salesdisruptors.com. We have three live trainings every single week, and everything I’ve ever recorded that we charge thousands, thousands of dollars for, it’s all there included inside our community.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Awesome, and where’s that again? What’s that site?
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Sales disruptors.com.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Sales disruptors.com. I mean, if you liked today and you’re listed to this and you’re like, this is something that you could apply to all areas of your life, not just business and making them more money and having it roll in, obviously that’s a huge benefit, but what does that money mean to you? It means that now you have the time to be able to spend it on other things as well. Maybe if you’ve got a spouse at home, being able to communicate better with him or her, you’ve got your children. If you’ve got children, it’s like all those relationships in your life. I think, Steve, you’ve helped a ton of people here today and breakthrough the sales stigma too, and I love how you said it, engineer, you started lower than most other people because you’ve got the logical brain and just filling in a lot of those holes.
(39:38):
So I love it because as a person who grew up with the same mindset around sales myself and being this nerdy just looks like the engineer, looks like the accountant, bookkeeper person, I’ve gone down this hole too, and you’ve been a huge help with that of helping me overcome a lot of the mental baggage I had around it as well too. So if you want to get around a great community, go to sales disruptors.com. I can’t endorse Steve enough. This is good stuff. So Steve, thanks for being on today. Always an incredible guest. Then I also want to say too, if you’re listening to this and you need help on the sales, go to Steve’s stuff and learn to make the money, but then once you’re making it, if you need help keeping it, because a lot of us make money but feel broke, then you need simple CFO in your life. Go to simple cfo.com. We can help you get someone on the team that’s focused on your profitability. So that’s what we do. If you want to head over there, if you’re making the money hand over fist, but you’re like, oh my gosh, all of it’s going out the back door, or we’re going through some tough times, then we can help you at that side. But Steve, again, thank you so much for all the value provided here today.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Oh, thank you for having me on, and it’s always a pleasure hanging out with you.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yeah, likewise.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
This episode of The Profit First for REI podcast is over, but there are plenty more where that came from. Are you ready to learn how David and his team can help implement the Profit First system in your business? Schedule a discovery call@simplecfo.com right now. We’ll see you next time on The Profit First for REI podcast with David Richter.
