Brett:

Welcome everybody to a joint kind of podcast, workshop. My name is Brett. I'm the host of the Capital Gains Tax, which is a podcast, and also a Commercial Real Estate Broker with eXp. I'm with my good friend, Jon Dwoskin. Jon, can you introduce yourself.

Jon:

I'm Jon Dwoskin. I am a business coach, and I work with solopreneurs, fortune 100 companies, and everything in between, and used to be in the commercial real estate space for about 13 years, and you and I decided to jump on and do this interactive workshop. I'm looking forward to it.

Brett:

Jon is being modest there. He was a manager of the number one or one of the top real estate investment firms Marcus & Millichap, and that's part of our beginning with myself as well in my training. We learned a lot from Marcus & Millichap. Jon, about what to do, how to close deals. I could say it's like the Navy Seals of the investment brokerage business, and it's the foundation of my entire career. I learned a lot of great things, and so we're gonna be talking about the fundamentals of commercial real estate brokers, just a few things we obviously can't cover too much. But the first one, Jon, is the value of representation. Yeah, Jon, when you hear that, what comes to mind, and what is, as a commercial real estate broker, or somebody who's looking to level up their game? What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the value of representation?

Jon:

I think when you're talking about a value prop, it's really, really important to connect to a couple of things. One, the value is based on benefits, not features. I think many salespeople sell in features versus benefits, and that's really like saying, as I speak, am I speaking, value benefits? Or am I speaking of features, which don't really work? Next, what type of value am I bringing to the table? Meaning, are people able to understand and quantify what I'm saying? Next is understanding the benefits of you and the benefits of the company. They go together, sometimes, people weigh too much on themselves, and they're important, but they need to talk, to be able to talk about why the company, and here's a really big one on the importance of speaking in stories. Too many times, we learn through stories and lessons and through clients’ perspectives, and we don't necessarily want to talk about, I think this and I think this and you should do that. If we're doing all the things that we just talked about, then the conversation and the consciousness in the frequency in the vibration of that talk is much higher.

Brett:

You talked about features and benefits, and then talking and seeing things in stories, as well as not just selling yourself, but selling the entire company, and the other part about the value, the value piece, something I learned early on a Marcus & Millichap, was one of the mentors in the office, and he said, the moment you know more about a person's property that you're calling on, or about some properties next door or something that's going to solve their challenge, that's the moment you start to add value to that person that you're reaching out to, that you're trying to represent, it's the value of representation, meaning that you have a chance to solve a problem. Talk about Jon, when you first started, or when you're training brokers in your office, with cold calling, and reaching out and connecting with somebody, how detailed and specialized everyone was?

Jon:

Well, I think one of the things that's important to remember, Brett, is that the goal of a cold call is simply to get a meeting, and it's nice to be able to say where we are right now that meetings are back. We're in this pandemic, where meetings, people are starting to go on meetings again, which is great. I mean, I love it, and I love it for people because I think people really miss it. But to be able to articulate what you specialize in, and how you can specifically help someone starts with a lot of the questions that you ask to position yourself as an expert, and so it's not necessarily telling. It's asking and understanding the questions that get the conversation moving. People know you're an expert just through the questions that you ask. If I do it right. I don't have to say I'm an expert. It shows through my questions and then my backup questions because I understand what I'm talking about, and then I can not only answer what's coming at me, but I can also incorporate a lot of my expertise, as I answer a question.

Brett:

In the beginning, when you don't necessarily (A) know the questions or (B) have the track record, and you're just trying to get your business going Jon, what were the questions that were asked? Are you encouraging the brokers who are getting trained to ask? How are they leveraging their mentors, right to be able to move the business forward to get that meeting, because you're right, the goal, the cold calls to get a meeting, and the beginning of my career, biggest one of the biggest mistakes I was having, as I was trying to have a meeting on the phone. I'm so excited about this new piece of knowledge that I know or this deal that clothes are these ways to raise rents. This way to market better, there's tax deferral strategy, or whatever, and I'm just telling the whole meeting on the phone, and they're on the other line going, this guy gives me some really cool stuff. Great. I'm going to take that to my other guy over here that they already know, or my CPA or whatever. Thanks for the value and boom, hang up. Connect that, asking, listening for the window of opportunity, and then leveraging the mentor to get the meeting.

Jon:

Well, I'm going to work backward, because leveraging the mentor is where it really starts. If you don't have a mentor, you gotta get a mentor, and if you can't get a mentor, then you need to hire a coach. I'm not necessarily saying that it's not self-promotion, but or you got it, you've got to do something because I don't think you can grow in the business without mentorship. It is, there's, there's a lot of great books, but no book you can read, other than doing the work every single day and being mentored and all the different nuances, and so it starts with the nuances. It starts with role-playing every single day. To me, anybody in the commercial, anybody in the residential real estate space, needs to be role-playing every day, whether it be 5, 10, 15 minutes, that is absolutely key.

As you're role-playing, you're getting prepared for the calls. Before I hit the calls, I'm always role-playing a little bit to get my muscles moving. I know, okay. I'm role-playing with somebody, and I'm testing out the question. I wrote out three questions that people asked me yesterday that I didn't know the answers to, and then I wrote them out. I went to my mentor, and said, hey, how would you answer these questions, and then how would you ask questions to get in front of them, having to ask you these questions? That's the first step in my opinion. If you don't, if you can't do that step, it's very hard to understand, to listen to the windows of opportunity. Do you know what I'm saying?

Brett:

I absolutely, Jon. I want you to want to walk through all of this? We're going to rely on roleplay here in a second. Do you have a live link? Because we have people that are trying to get it.

Jon:

I just put it in the chat there.

Brett:

Let me do this.

Jon:

Well, I have people who are in, but they're only putting people on-screen whose pictures are here. The screens are not covered with just empty screens?

Brett:

There we go, Andrew.

Jon:

This is a show-your-face? I think we're live link here.

Brett:

We're talking about the interest generated. Some folks may not even know what that is. But Jon, define interest generator, and then we're going to do a roleplay with that interest generator to show people what that looks like. Can you define what that is Jon?

Jon:

Well, an interest generator is a line that basically creates interest. It creates a spark of something, and if somebody's saying, I want to learn more, this is something I want to learn more, and that's the key. It's really important that if you. We want to get somebody's attention today, it's really, really hard. 80% of people don't answer the phone. 80% of calls don't get returned. We are all in the business of getting people's attention. We're all in the business of trying to capture people's attention, and so if we don't do it in a way that we can create interest, that it's going to be really, really hard to get them to want to engage in a discussion with us. an interest generator, for example, especially right now in the commercial space. Could be Mr. Mrs. Client with everything that's going on in the market today, many clients I'm talking to because of the tax changes that are happening, specifically potential 1031 thing's about to change and potentially changing. If they don't see themselves holding on to a piece of property over the next one to three years. They're thinking about selling.

Brett:

I was just going to say that's exactly right, and so you need to have something that's (A) going to grab their attention,n (B) that's going to be actionable. Is the other part about it, they start to do something about it or start to plan to do something about it? For example, right now, Biden is proposing to eliminate or limit the 1031 exchange to a certain number, guess what? It's a great interest generator. Jon, I saw you've owned this property for five years. Curious, have you thought about buying or selling anything in the last six months and Jon might say?

Jon:

Maybe? I've thought about it with everything that's been changing in the market.

Brett:

The reason I'm asking you is that I know, you get a lot of brokers that are asking you about buying or selling, but Biden is proposing to take away or limit the 1031 exchange. How might that affect your plan with your Capital Gains Tax Deferral? Should you sell?

Jon:

Are we role-playing right now? I'm not really sure. I haven't really thought about it, but it is something that I probably need to think about, but I don't have time to think about it right now. I'm just so busy.

Brett:

Now at this point, someone might say, let me close for the meeting. But he just said he's so busy. This is the point I might want to bring up a little bit more pain. Jon, you say you're so busy. Management? Time? What are you referring to in his frame? So busy, because maybe I can help you out?

Jon:

I just don't have time to think about it. My days are just swamped right now, especially with the world's coming back.

Brett:

You own all these apartments, and all the rent control laws, and all the challenges with trying to evict people. I have a property on the street with a client, and he's got like four tenants that haven't paid rent, and he says they could pay on, they could pay, but they're just not paying anything. Are you having challenges with renters just kind of squatting and not paying and taking advantage of the system?

Jon:

No, not too badly.

Brett:

Back to the sales part. That didn't really go anywhere. That little thing didn't go anywhere. Now back to the sales thing. If you were to sell Jon, to get out of this business of life, why would you sell him? Is there a reason even to sell right now?

Jon:

I mean, I don't know if I have the energy. I'm older and I just don't have the energy to go through the next cycle.

Brett:

I don't blame you. We just, we just closed the deal for a similar client, and he's on it for 2030 years. His biggest thing was wanting to spend time with the grandchildren. He wants to de-stress the life he's made as well, and he's just ready to retire. Would we be looking at how we help craft that deal for him and where he's at? Would that be of value to you? If I sent you the deal that we just closed?