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SHARPEN AND AGREE: Step 6 in The Y.E.S.S.E.S Framework

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In this series of episodes, Jeff dives deep into each step of the Y.E.S.S.E.S Framework for Getting Off-Market Sellers to Accept Your Offers. In this episode, Jeff does a deep dive into the sixth and final step of the framework, the letter with S, which stands for SHARPEN AND AGREE. Listen in and learn how transition from making the proposal to getting the deal signed, through the collaborative process of receiving feedback from the Seller and making any needed adjustments to the proposal. Once you’ve completed this step, you’ve gotten an off-market property in contract to purchase!

Download the Y.E.S.S.E.S. Framework now!

Episode Transcript

Did you know that in thoughtful real estate entrepreneurship, there’s no such thing as a counteroffer? Because first of all, we don’t make offers at all we make proposals as we’ve recently discussed. But when we make a proposal, we already know it’s pretty close to hitting the target. So what do we need? We need feedback. And that brings us to the sixth and final step of the YESSES framework, sharpen and agree. Let’s dive right into this as soon as we get through theme.

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 or just looking for “motivated sellers” to make lowball offers to. You see, we are people-oriented dealmakers, 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 a 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.

Hey again, thanks for joining me for another episode of Racking Up Rentals. This is 50th episode! 50th episode, that’s kind of a cool little milestone. And I got to say I didn’t even plan it this way, but we are wrapping up our discussion of the YESSES framework today. So it’s pretty cool how that worked out. Show notes for today’s episode are at www.thoughtfulre.com/e50. Please do us a big favor and hit the subscribe button your podcast app. It really does help other people who are fellow thoughtful real estate entrepreneurs who are out there searching for the right voices to listen to, to find us. Alright, onward.

So, in today’s episode, we are going to go over the sixth and final step in the YESSES framework. Now the YESSES framework to give you a reminder, if you haven’t listened to the previous episodes, is our framework for getting off market seller leads to accept our offers, or in our case, our proposals. So at this point, we’re on the sixth step. So let me recap briefly for you. The first five steps, the first step is Y, and that stands for YOU. We first have to know what you are trying to accomplish in your own investment philosophy. Secondly, the letter E stands for engage thoughtfully. And that’s how we start to reach out to sellers through our marketing and start to intake new leads and build rapport with them. S stands for solve the person because we have to be able to understand our audience very, very well before we can possibly crack the code on the deal. But once we do that, we go on to the second s, which stands for solve the deal. And in solving the deal. We use our deal architecture skills, and we bring our left and right brain together to figure out exactly what it is we should be proposing. And then in the fifth step, he stands for empathetic proposal. And that’s what we talked about in the last episode. And in empathetic proposal step we make not an offer, but a proposal that we know pretty closely as well as it possibly can hits the target of what the seller is trying to accomplish. And also works for us too. And that brings us to today, which is the letter S for sharpen and agree.

Hey, by the way, you can download a PDF copy of the YESSES framework at yes.thoughtfulre.com, and you can have it handy to refer to and think about as you’re looking at your own deals. So, at this point, in our sixth and final step, we have figured out what we want we’ve engaged with our sellers, we’ve figured out who the seller is and understood them we’ve crafted a deal that really makes sense and works, we think for them. And we have proposed it to them by sitting down with them face to face, and explaining the rationale behind how we arrived at our proposal. And now comes the point where we get a sense to see what their reaction to our proposal is. Now in normal real estate, the rule of real estate brokerage or real estate investing main circles, we would of course, say that we made an offer. And either at that point, the seller can accept the offer. They can reject the offer or they can counter the offer. Well, like I said in the intro. There’s really no such thing as a counter in thoughtful real estate entrepreneurship because we have done such a good job of understanding our audience before we ever put a proposal in front of them. And we’ve delivered it in such an empathetic way that we’ve explained our rationale. It doesn’t feel to them like they’ve received something that they have to take or leave or counter. So there’s really no such thing as a counter, there is just a thing called feedback. Now, sure, they could accept the proposal right off the bat, that’s awesome. If that happens, they could reject it right off the bat. But that’s extraordinarily uncommon in this case, because again, we’ve, we’ve already made really sure that the proposal we’re putting in front of them is going to be something that resonates with them, because we’ve taken the time to very carefully and thoughtfully crafted based on a lot of knowledge and insights about them. So that’s really, really rare. What’s much more common is that we get some feedback. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

It’s very important that you actually not just accept feedback, but that you invite feedback, we know when you deliver a proposal to somebody, and then you actually proactively ask them for feedback. The mere act of doing that is a powerful thing, the mere act of asking for their feedback says, between the lines, it says, I care what you think about this, I care if this works for you, if this doesn’t work great for you, I want to know, because I want to make it better. Just the fact that you’re asking for feedback conveys all of that without you needing to say it. The second thing that makes this process unique is that it’s a very collaborative process. So the feedback is coming to you from them, right. That’s kind of a one direction communication. But at that point, once you’ve received the feedback, the process after that is extremely collaborative. And that’s another big difference about making offers and counteroffers versus proposals. And then sharpening those proposals together. In a counter, they say, No, I don’t accept what you offer. But I would accept this slight variation. And in this case, we’re saying, let’s talk about the feedback, let’s make sure we understand the feedback. And then let’s work together to see how we could massage the deal. If how we could refine the original proposal, how we could fine tune it, sharpen it a little bit, to make it better. So really, the question to the seller after you’ve delivered the proposal is, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, does this feel like it hits the target for you, as well as I thought it might? And then maybe you just be quiet and listen to their, their response to that. And then you might say, so tell me, is there anything in here that you feel could be better in terms of, you know, reaching the objectives that we have discussed and that you shared with me? And the fact that you were asking this question, again, is super powerful, but then the insights you get are the final things you really need in order to create an agreement. And the fact that you’re doing it this way usually makes the seller very, very comfortable, and appreciative. But at this point, you’ve developed so much rapport, and you’ve spent a fair amount of time together, getting to know each other, that they feel that it’s safe. And it’s totally acceptable for them to tell you, honestly, what they think could be different or better.

At that point, you take in their feedback, you work together to figure out what could be slightly different, maybe it’s maybe the purchase price needs to be adjusted a little bit, maybe the interest rate or the down payment. If there’s seller financing, maybe the closing timeline needs to be a little bit different to accommodate some other thing that they hadn’t really shared with you yet. But at that point, you’re massaging it, and you’re fine tuning it, and you’re coming to an agreement. On a very important side note, in anticipation of receiving feedback from the seller, it’s really helpful if you come into this conversation, knowing what types of flexibility you feel like you might be able to offer, and still have the deal make sense for you. Right? So, let’s say you have proposed purchase price of $245,000, a 10%, down payment, and an interest rate of 5% for 10 years, and maybe some of the feedback from the seller is that they, they really would like to get a little bit more for the property. They’re not as hung up on the interest rate. And so it’s really important that you know, that in that case, you might be willing to spend up to $255,000. If the interest rate would come down a little bit to say 4%, or four and a half percent. If you have to think about that on the spot with them. It’s not quite as ideal, as if you already have your own flexibility in your own parameters kind of mapped out in your mind. One thing you definitely do not want to do is say Hold on a second, let me get out my calculator. because really what you’re saying there is, well hold on a second. Let me crunch some numbers to figure out what’s better. For me. It’s much, much more effective if you can smoothly deliver a response to their feedback and know what you would be willing to do. So some preparation in this part is really important. You know, in the last episode, I said that an empathetic proposal is sort of like a performance of thoughtfulness. Well, part of preparing for that performance is knowing some of these little parameters in the back of your mind that you might be willing to go up a little bit in this way, you might be willing to go down a little bit of this way, which areas do you feel more flexible in so that you can respond in a way that is smooth and seamless, and doesn’t look like you are stalling or have to think too hard about it. So there you are, you have just presented a proposal received some feedback, worked collaboratively with the seller to fine tune or as I say, sharpen the proposal with them to a point where you’re both looking at each other, smiling and your heads are nodding. And that means it is now time to go ahead and formalize your agreement. So this is the point at which you get out your purchase and sale agreement. And you write up what you and the seller have just agreed to. Again, to contrast this process to traditional real estate, your original offer in traditional real estate would be written as a purchase agreement, and you’re just hoping that the other party signs it or that they submit a counter, which is another written response. And that’s just not how this works. We have already created an agreement that we both know, we’re happy with. And now we’re going to write it up and document it. And now my friends, you have a property in contract to buy that you found off market and negotiated directly with the seller. And that is something to celebrate. This concludes our conversation about the YESSES framework, I would encourage you to go back and re listen to these episodes in quick succession you know kind of binge format because now that you’ve heard them every few days, if you go back and listen back to back to back and you’ve downloaded and printed out or have up on your screen, your PDF copy of the YESSES framework which again you can get at yes.thoughtfulre.com, then you will really grasp this and the whole process will start to feel super, super normal and natural and comfortable for you.

That is it for today’s episode of Racking Up Rentals, the big 50-episode milestone. Thanks for being with me on the show, I’m so grateful for that. Again, notes for today’s episode are at www.thoughtfulre.com/e50. Please do us a big favor, hit that subscribe button in your podcast app rate and review the show I would be so appreciative of that.

Did you know also that we have a Facebook group for thoughtful real estate entrepreneurs as well. If you’re not part of that, we would love to have you in there. It’s called Rental Portfolio Wealth Builders. And if you just type in group.thoughtfulre.com will take you right to that Facebook page. And you can hit the Join button. If you liked this episode, please take a screenshot of it and just post that screenshot to Instagram and tag us in your screenshots. That’d be so cool. We are at thoughtful real estate all nice and spelled out on Instagram. That, my friends is it, I will see you in the next episode.

Until then, this is Jeff from the Thoughtful Real Estate Entrepreneur and I’m signing off. Thanks for listening to Racking Up Rentals where we build long term wealth by being a win-win deal makers. Remember solve the person to unlock the deal and solve the financing to unlock the profits.


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