🧠 Closing Deals is About Solving Problems
Happy Monday!
Here is an Idea, an Action, and a Question to consider this week.
Idea
In tough markets, you need to see beyond the typical outlets for success. In many ways, you need to create your own outlets, ones that weren’t there before. One mental model I’ve adopted to become a problem-solving outlet producer is Pathways Thinking. It’s a psychological term that refers to the ability to create multiple pathways to a goal––to find multiple solutions to a problem.
I was taught this concept indirectly as a fighter pilot. From the very beginning of my training, I learned the importance of planning a mission, and thinking about each step and contingency before you start acting.
In my last year of flying fighters, my squadron went to another Red Flag Exercise in Las Vegas, a two-week advanced air combat training exercise. I was in charge of one of the search and rescue exercises, taking on the role of the overall mission commander for that day.
The scenario for the exercise was that a pilot had been shot down behind enemy lines. He was trying to evade capture, and our job was to rescue him. Red Flag makes these exercises as realistic as possible, so the night before, a helicopter flew one of our pilots out to the middle of the Nevada desert and left him there with his survival gear. Other participants acted as the enemy, even chasing the pilot with dogs. We were told the enemy had anywhere from sixty to one hundred aircraft it could launch and an arsenal of surface-to-air missiles.
Before we executed any actions at all in such a dynamic/complex mission, it was imperative that we planned for the multiple scenarios that could occur.
Here are just some of the questions we discussed: What if some of our airplanes break before we launch? What if someone can’t refuel airborne? What if someone gets shot down? What if there are pop-up enemies at the various known bases? How will we destroy or mitigate the surface-to-air missile threats? How will we accomplish the objective of the mission, to identify and pick up the downed pilot?
For each aspect of the mission, we discussed the minimum package required to greenlight the mission (how small can we go and still succeed), the most likely course of action we’d take (how will the mission probably play out), and the most dangerous course of action (what are the worst-case scenarios). With so many “known knowns” (i.e. issues we knew how to anticipate), we wanted to ensure we talked through the contingency plans.
This concept of Pathways Thinking, or contingency planning, can be directly correlated to real estate! Sure, it’s not a life-or-death scenario (typically), and decisions generally don’t have to be made nearly as quickly as in a military situation; however, you should still plan for those “what if” moments. As an investor or agent, the more you plan, the more successful you will be.
You can apply Pathways Thinking by walking your clients through the transaction from start to finish, talking through each step and a list of contingencies with them. What happens after you get the deal under contract? When is the earnest money due? How will that be paid, and whom do they contact? Is that earnest money deposit protected? If so, how? Can the buyers ever get that money back? What happens if they find a major issue in the inspection? Who fixes it? How does that process work? What happens if there’s a survey issue? What about a cloud on title? How would that get resolved? What if inspections are clean, but you have a low appraisal? Is the earnest money deposit still protected, then?
Try to spell out all these things to your clients, especially first-time buyers or first-time sellers, and definitely if they’ve watched too many home-buying shows on HGTV. They’ll have plenty of questions filling their brains, so you can answer them before they even have to ask––or get frustrated because they were too afraid to ask a “dumb question” and you didn't read their minds to answer it.
It’s important to walk your clients through the most likely course of action in the homebuying process as well as review some potential contingencies that could play out. Do I cover absolutely everything that could happen? No, that would take too long and overwhelm them unnecessarily. Do I try to plan on my own for the extreme scenarios? Definitely. For example, what happens if the title company steals their money? That’s not something that I go over with clients, but I’m ready to react if it does happen, especially since it’s happened to me once before!
If you prepare yourself and your clients, you’re going to make more deals happen––even when deals are scarce.
Action
Imagine: You’re almost to the finish line of a deal. A last-minute discovery shows a dispute over the property boundary with a neighboring property, raising questions about the total land area being sold. You must resolve this dispute to ensure a clear title can be transferred to your client. Use the Pathways Thinking Model to come up with possible scenarios and solutions.
Question
When problems arise, do you problem-solve until the deal is done, or do you fold early?
See you next week,
Matt “Roar” Gardner
Real estate investor-agent, Author of Supersonic Real Estate: Light Your Afterburner to Accelerate Your Investor-Agent Career (Coming Soon!), and keynote speaker.
PS: Last week, I announced my first-ever online course: Thriving in Today’s Unique Market: An Audio Course by Matt “Roar” Gardner. In the email, the price was unclear. To clarify: The Audio Course is $49 and the Audio Course + 1-hr coaching session with me is $350. Hit reply with any questions!
