Speaker 1: Hey everyone, today we're going to be talking about the art of negotiation. So this is by far one of the subjects that I get asked the most about. People are always wondering, Brendan, how can I negotiate better? How can I get people to do things or bring them together to do things that I want? So I'm going to take you through 20 years of my experience on thousands of listing appointments, buyer consultations, inspection objections, you know, all these different things of getting people to the finish line. I'm going to tell you some of the techniques that I use that I've had the most success with in this video. So stick around to the end, I've actually got a really cool pro tip that I want to share with everyone that I know you'll be able to use today. Before we jump in, I would love it and it would mean the world to me if you would hit the subscribe button, drop us a comment, let us know your feedback. If there's anything you're looking to see or you have questions about, let me know. I'm going to engage with you. I will be responding personally to you to make sure that we can help you reach your real estate goals. All right. So let's jump in. So when we're talking about negotiation skills, one of the first things that comes to my mind is we have to use options. If you're negotiating, your real goal is to bring one party and the other party together. And if you happen to be one of those parties, you want to come together, right? So we have to provide options. And when we provide options, it allows whoever we're working with to feel like they're in control and that they're making the best decision for them. And they are, but it's a really good technique to make sure it takes it off of you. So let me show you what that looks like. So you can almost break down any scenario into three options. So I'll give the example of an inspection objection. So let's say that you have the seller, you receive an inspection objection, and the buyer and buyer's agent requests 55 items and want your seller to basically build them a new house, right? We've all seen this and we're like, Oh, you're killing me. Come on. Right? So you know now that you have to go and present this to your seller and we have to find a common ground to get both parties to the finish line so you can move forward and get to what they all want, which is a happy closing. All right. So let's talk about the options. So when I'm talking to the seller, first thing I'm going to do is I'm here's the big secret here is anytime you're trying to make sure that if you're delivering sensitive news, make sure you send it ahead of time and then let the other person have time to simmer on it. So a lot of agents call up as soon as they get the inspection report and they're like, Oh my gosh, you're not going to believe this. The freaking buyer agent asked for these million things, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the seller flips because they feed off of your energy. So anytime you're trying to make sure that you're providing sensitive information to somebody and you're trying to negotiate a very sensitive subject like money, items, issues, pain of some sort, we want to send it ahead of time so that way they can take some time to calm down. So if I'm sending an inspection report to my clients, I'm going to send it and then in the report, I'm going to send all the information and I'm going to say, Bob, Judy, I'd like you to take some time to review this and I will be giving you a call at X amount, whatever time that is four o'clock this afternoon. Hopefully that's four to five hours from the point of time right now. This gets them time to review it, come down off of, I'm so angry about the buyer asking for all these items and they get to breathe for a second and come back and then they'll start talking behind the scenes and go, yeah, you know, but we really need to sell the house instead of that initial reaction that goes, I'm going to draw my line on the sand. They can screw off. We don't want that. We don't want that. So send it ahead of time and let them chill. Now when we get into the options, here's the options. So I'm going to call up the seller. So let's just pretend it's Bob and Sue. So, so Hey Bob, it's Brendan with XYZ real estate company. Hey, I sent over the inspection objection. Did you have a chance to review it? Oh my gosh. I'm so mad and it was the, I'm so sorry. I completely appreciate that you're frustrated, Bob. At this point we have a couple of options. Number one, we can terminate, not do anything and tell them that you don't want to move forward with this agreement. Okay. Then we'd have to put the property back on the market, find another buyer. They could possibly have these same issues and some of these issues we might actually even have to disclose to the new buyer once we go under contract because now you know about them. Number two, a number, our second option, Bob, is we can go back to them and negotiate and say that you'd be willing to do a few things, but not all of the things. And that's a little bit risky because if we don't come back with everything, they could walk away and you would lose this buyer. Or number three, we could go back and accept this inspection objection, take care of these items and move forward to a successful closing. Now Bob, which one would you like to do to be able to move forward? And that's it. So those are the three options. Now you can play around with these, you can use it in almost any scenario, but there's always a nuclear option, an okay option, and then normally the best and most logical option. So remember, there's always those three check downs. You can go four, maybe you need four options sometimes. There should never be any less than three because if you give them two options, that sounds like an ultimatum, right? We don't want that. So the three option method is something that I've been utilizing for years. It's fantastic. You just need to practice and work on it. Okay. So the next thing when we're talking about negotiations is never give your opinion or tell someone what you think. So if I'm talking to the client or another agent, I'm never going to be like, well, here's what I think, and here's what you should do, and here's what I think is the best idea for you. Remember, if you're working with a seller, they think that at times your only skin in this game is to get your commission. So when you start saying, if I was you, I think you should do this. They're going, of course you think that, you're trying to get paid, right? That's not what we want. So you got to remove those words from your vocabulary and either say, here's your options based on the information. Here's what the market's telling us to do. I spoke to the other agent and what the other agent and buyer are requesting is that we do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So never ever, you got to almost think about you have this imaginary dog collar. Anytime you say, I think, my opinion, whatever, you're getting zapped. You're like, well, right. You just get this little zap because you don't want to use those words because what will happen is if it goes wrong, they're going to come back and go, you told me that you thought that was the best idea. You told me we should have went to that price. You told me to counter with that number. You told me not to include the washer and dryer. You didn't think that I needed to include the washer and dryer. Don't ever put yourself in that situation when we're talking about negotiating. It's always trying to make sure they understand. Remember, you got to put on your consultant hat. I'm a consultant. That's all I'm here to do is consult and bring parties together and get you, Mr. Seller, Mr. Buyer, Mr. Agent, Mrs. Agent, what you want, right? That's what we really want to do. Okay. The third thing is we want to block objections in our negotiation process before they're vocalized and we have to use handlers. So objection blocking is much different than handling. In objection blocking, I'm going to be trying to do everything I can to prevent any objections from coming up. The best negotiators, to be very honest, it's not that they're like the smoothest and they've got the best lingo and all this stuff. They did the work ahead of time and made sure that they were hyper-focused on removing any blocks that could come up before they could actually come to reality. So if you know that a seller is wanting to list at 700 and you believe it should be at 600, in the art of negotiation, I'm going to make sure that as I'm presenting the market analysis, I'm hitting every single point that they could possibly vocalize that ahead of time before they say it. In negotiation, if they say it out loud, it's 80% or 80 times more difficult to get past than if they never say it out loud. So just think about that, right? You've got to make sure that you address it. So in a pricing situation, if I know that they think their view is better than somebody else's view, I'm going to bring that up before they bring it up and I'm going to address it, neutralize it and show them why. All right. So if I know that their biggest concern is that they have more square footage, I'm going to address that, bring it up, show them the data and address it before they bring it up. So all we're doing is taking them from a high level of resistance down to a low level of resistance and then usually acceptance and a smile. That's what we're looking for. So block so you don't have to handle. Think about every negotiation you're going into, right? Like on the movies, right? You're trying to get this person to come out of the building. Well, you've got to be thinking 10 steps ahead of why do they want to come out of the building? What's the situation in there? All of these different things. You just don't go to the hostage situation and you're like, so hey, yeah, you want to come out? Of course not. It would be ridiculous. You're going to go in with a plan to make sure that hopefully you have the best options available for them to get what they want or in successfully. So and then here's the pro tip. So now we've covered a lot in here. Here's the last pro tip that I really want you to think about. Anytime we're negotiating anything at all, we need to make sure that we're building instant rapport with the person that we're negotiating with. So the pro tip is, and you're going to hear this a lot and you're going to think, okay, yeah, duh, I get that first part. Use their name a lot. So Susie, John, look, here's where we're at. I appreciate that you're upset, right? Always use their name as much as possible because every time I hear my name, it makes you think that I care about you and I do care about you, but I'm just saying in my brain, it triggers this notion that they care, they care. So use the name a lot. Number two, and again, when we're doing this, you want to take any sensitive information and you've got to whisper and not like, Hey, like a whisper like this, like more like a, Hey, Hey, Hey, I understand you're upset. Look, I get it. I get it. I would be irritated with that price as well. Or Hey, Mr. Buyer, I get that you want to put in an offer $100,000 under what the seller's asking for. Okay. I want to always come from comp. I don't want to be like, so you want to come in $100,000 less than what the sellers are asking for? No. So I get it. You guys want to come in at a hundred thousand, right? So try these techniques. They're huge. So let's recap it real quick. Right? So we want to make sure that we're always using options, options, options, three or four minimum anytime we're negotiating or negotiating. Never give your opinion. Number two, never give your opinion. It's not what you think, your recommendation, any of that. Never give your opinion. Then block objections in your presentation or prep work so they can never be vocalized. That's the big thing. Block them before you have to handle them. That's a lot easier than having to handle them. Okay. And then remember, use their name a lot and always whisper when we're talking about sensitive information. And I whispered, use a lower calm tonality, like you're like the Sunday jams on the radio. It's like smooth jams tonight, right? Whatever it is, right? You got to go into calm mode. Anytime we're negotiating, we have to calm people down because emotions are at an all-time high. Money's involved. Feelings are involved. Oh, they didn't like my purple bathroom paint. Well screw them. I get it. I appreciate that they made it, but they said they wanted the bathroom painted. Let's talk about the couple of options here, right? That's all it is. You're just whoosah, whoosah. So I hope you enjoy it. Please make sure you hit that like button, subscribe button. If you have some comments, let me know. If you have some special negotiating skills that you have that you think work magic, let us know. I'd love to hear about them. I'm always wanting to know what's going on out there as well. Let us know what you're doing. And as always, I wish you great success.