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This is the Perfect Negotiation

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As Thoughtful Real Estate Entrepreneurs, we only propose deals that are mutually beneficial—win-win’s for both buyer and seller…right? Yes, that’s true, but this brings up a very important point. Just because we only propose mutually beneficial solutions doesn’t mean that we frame the conversation with the seller as being “mutually beneficial.” In this episode, Jeff explains that the perfect negotiation is one that does indeed result in a mutually beneficial transaction, but without ever focusing on the buyer’s win at all.

Episode Transcript

I was having a conversation with a coaching client the other day and an interesting little point came up. They said, Well, of course, I wouldn’t propose anything that wasn’t mutually beneficial. And I thought to myself, yeah, of course that’s true. But something about that statement just grabbed me. And it bothered me for a moment. And it took me a couple minutes to figure it out. But once I did, I realized this is such an unbelievably important point about negotiation. And I want to share that little nuance but so critical with you today. So let’s cue up the theme song we’ll jump right into this small but very important point.

Welcome to Racking Up Rentals, a show about how regular people, those of us without huge war chest of capital or insider connections, can build lasting wealth acquiring a portfolio of buy and hold real estate. But we don’t just go mainstream looking at what’s on the market and asking banks for loans, nor are we posting We Buy Houses signs are just looking for “motivated sellers” to make lowball offers to. You see, we are people-oriented deal makers, we sit down directly with sellers to work out win-win deals without agents or any other obstacles, and buy properties nobody else even knows are for sale. I’m Jeff from the Thoughtful Real Estate Entrepreneur. If you’re the kind of real estate investor who wants long term wealth, not get rich quick gimmicks or pictures of yourself holding fat checks on social media, this show is for you. Join me and quietly become the wealthiest person on your block. Now let’s go rack up a rental portfolio.

Thank you for joining me for another episode of Racking Up Rentals. Show notes can be found at thoughtfulre.com/e101. Please do us a big favor by hitting the subscribe button in your podcast app. It really helps fellow thoughtful real estate entrepreneurs to find us; onward with today’s episode.

So recently, I was in a weekly live zoom group coaching call with the members of The DEALS Workshop and a question, a comment actually, just came up kind of in passing and one person said, Well, you know, obviously, of course, I would never propose something to the seller that wasn’t mutually beneficial. And it just struck me and I thought gosh, I mean, obviously that’s true. But there’s something that just ran a little bit funny about that to me. And I started thinking about the words mutually beneficial. And I thought gosh, that means when I use the words win-win to describe exactly what we do all the time, even in describing this podcast, it’s about becoming a win-win deal maker. But what was it there was something in the back of my mind that I thought just struck me as a little bit funny. And then I realized what it was and I was able to articulate it. luckily, in that moment.

What I was thinking, and this is a really, really important point, is it true that we only do deals that are mutually beneficial? Yes. But is that the way we approach the conversation? No, it’s definitely not at all. We don’t approach the conversation framed in that way. Now, mutually beneficial, implies that both parties have shared what their definition of a win would be. And then we have worked to create a win for both parties. But that’s not really what we do as thoughtful real estate entrepreneurs, we make the whole conversation about them about the seller. And if we say things like well, I want to make sure that this is a win for both of us, we are making an assumption. We are making an assumption that they care if we get a win. And I can tell you right now that that is not necessarily a safe assumption. They are thinking about them, we want them thinking about them, we want to put the focus of our conversation and our negotiation on them. And so what happens when we’re doing a really, really good job, with our negotiation skills as thoughtful real estate entrepreneurs, is we are learning what it is that they want. We are having the whole conversation be all about that. And then we are crafting a deal that gives them what they want and gives us what we want, but without ever talking about what it was that we wanted.

This reminds me of a direct quote that I’ve heard from my coach Greg, who you met in a recent episode interview, and I think about this all the time. The best negotiation is one in which the seller gets what they want. You get what you want, but the seller never knew what it was you wanted in the first place. And we accomplish that when we make this whole conversation absolutely about them.

Sometimes after a transaction, a seller might be thinking back and saying you know what? I really don’t feel like I learned a whole lot about that person that buyer and That’s a win for us that is that shows that we are doing our job well, because we didn’t make the conversation about us at all. We made it all about them. And we know that we did craft a deal that worked for us, but we didn’t have any part of the public conversation, the overt conversation be anything about us at all? So is every deal we do mutually beneficial? Yes. Would we ever propose something that wasn’t mutually beneficial? No, we wouldn’t. But is that how we have the conversation? Is that how we lead the whole dialogue? No, it’s not at all; we lead the dialogue in a way that keeps the focus on the seller, what they want. And in the background, we are structuring a transaction, we are solving the deal in a way that also works for us,  but primarily and on the surface really works for the seller so that they feel that they are getting exactly what they want.

Let me give you this line one more time, and I want you to chew on this. The best negotiation is one in which you get exactly what you want. The seller gets exactly what they want, but the seller never knew what it was you wanted in the first place. So get out there and learn the skills to conduct your negotiation in that way. And watch more and better deals come together. That’s it for today’s episode of racking up rentals, a short but powerful message about such a key point to negotiation.

Again, show notes for today’s episode our thoughtfulre.com/e101. Please do us a big favor by hitting the subscribe button in the podcast app and rate and review the show. Did you know we have a Facebook group for Thoughtful Real Estate Entrepreneurs too? It’s called Rental Portfolio Wealth Builders. We’d love to have you join us over there. Just go to group.thoughtfulre.com and the magic of the internet will take you right to that page and you can hit the Join button. If you liked this episode, please take a screenshot and post that to Instagram and tag us; we are @thoughtfulrealestate. I will see you in the next episode. Until then, this is Jeff from the Thoughtful Real Estate Entrepreneur signing off.

Thanks for listening to Racking Up Rentals where we build long term wealth by being win-win dealmakers. Remember: solve the person to unlock the deal and solve the financing to unlock the profits.


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