Seth: Kris, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Kris Haskins: What up, Seth? What up, Jaren?

Jaren: Hey man. I’m excited to have you on the show today.

Kris Haskins: Yes, it’s an honor.

Seth: Yeah. So just to kick this off, maybe you can tell us your backstory, like how did you get into real estate, and what made you decide to go down this road?

Kris Haskins: My backstory is I was in the music business, guys. Living a destructive lifestyle, after I graduated from college. Got fired, couldn't keep a job. I got fired seven times throughout my life. And I'm like, you know what? I just can't keep a job. So, when I started being a producer-engineer and got a few songs out after doing that for five years, I found out that it was a destructive lifestyle: travel and drink and drugs and sex and doing all the craziness that young people are perceived to do. I'm not saying that they all do it. I'll never forget God passing around a plate of cocaine at a party. And then after that, I'm like, I gotta get out of here before it sucked me in. And so, I said, instead of living a destructive life, because we are at a publishing deal, we made several hundred thousand dollars.

And then I found myself on my friend's couch, $80 in my pocket, wondering what happened to hundreds of thousands of dollars gone. I was a hit record producer, doing stuff, traveling now and just broke. I'm like, you know what? I need to learn something. That's when God revealed to me real estate and the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” book. And after that, man, I'm like, you know what? I need to focus my time on things that go up in value as opposed to things that go down in value.

Jaren: Wow, man. It's awesome.

Kris Haskins: And that's it. After that, I'm like, you know what? I'm doing the same thing. This time is on my side as opposed as the time being working against me. So, let's do this.

Jaren: Love it.

Kris Haskins: So here we are.

Seth: Wow. That's crazy, man.

Jaren: I don't even know where to peel the onion back on that one, man. Like that was pretty heavy. So, what about “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” was so instrumental? Like you said, God used that “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” in real estate to really pivot you in a direction. And I hear that a lot, but I'm just curious because everybody talks about “Rich Dad, Poor Dad." Specifically, what was like the key revelation that made it all turn around for you?

Kris Haskins: Yeah. I found that I finally understood that we make money on things that we own, not because of things that we do. When I finally understood that concept, I'm like, okay, I don't have to do anything other than own the crap. And I got a check every month. How am I doing that? And I learned the concept. That book was like, I just became a fan and a student of doing things once and getting paid over and over and over again. The music is cool, but the problem with the music business, as it changes, it's morphing from where I was at from the analog world. Now we're in the streaming world. You can't even buy a CD. I'm so glad I got out of that. But the concept, the model of the business, the music business, has changed so much. So, when I found out you could do something once and get paid over and over instead of sacrificing my time, man, I'm like, I didn't even know people could do that.

Seth: Is it harder to make money in the music business these days or easier or has that changed in some way?

Kris Haskins: Well, Seth, it all depends on how you look at it. Just like real estate. Somebody comes to you and says, “Is it harder to do?” Like, it depends. If you're focusing on that old business model, trying to get records like these with major record labels and waiting for them to write you a check and then do a publishing deal and all that stuff, yes. If you decide to do it on your own and publish it, because YouTube, I don't know if you believe this or not, but YouTube is the new publishing. Every play we get paid, every second of the day. So, if you do the new entrepreneurial way, it's unbelievable.

Seth: Yeah. That actually, sometimes it blows my mind to think about that. The fact that 20 years ago, there were very few people that had a voice. It's like you had to be a major media outlet or a huge multinational corporation to have the masses hear you. Now it's like people can Google the words “land investing” and find me on the first page of Google, which is insane. Who am I to have a voice? I try hard to put good information out there, but you couldn't do this that long ago. So, I don't know. It's a pretty incredible thing.

Kris Haskins: That is cool. I think that's why it's so powerful. I think that's why YouTube is so powerful too, because you can have not only a voice, but you can have a show like this and then just drop in. Imagine how many millions of dollars it took to make their old sitcoms, Seth. Dropping in ads. Now we just make a video, boom. Drop an ad. So, things are changing.

Jaren: And people don't even watch mainline TV anymore. Jimmy Fallon and all those guys, they're not starting to get on YouTube because all their ratings are dropping. I haven't had cable probably in at least five years, man. If I have to guess.

Kris Haskins: Me neither.

Jaren: I don't even watch Netflix. I just watch YouTube. That's all the TV I watch.

Seth: Yeah. I just watched Disney Plus’ Donald Duck.

Jaren: This guy.

Seth: I'm only kind of kidding with that. Like I actually do watch a lot of Donald Duck these days with a three-year-old and a six-year-old. That's like prime-time TV around here.

Jaren: Yeah. Mine is Cocomelon. Cause I got a six-month-old. He's funny. He doesn't like to watch cartoons. He likes to watch music. It has to have some kind of music component in it. Kris, what are the best parts of your real estate investing strategy and what are the worst part? Like let's dive into a little bit of what you actually do. And before we started recording, you said that you do new builds and you do flips and you do a lot of stuff. What's kind of your favorite strategy, your kind of default?

Kris Haskins: Default strategy. So many of them. I like to buy subject to where we take over the mortgage payments. I'm a long-term guy now, but we still do flips in new construction. I call it that's the sexy part. And I'm sure you guys already know wealth is just so boring. Like if I were to take a picture of me collected randomly, you're like, get out of here. It's weird. Because that's the best part, right?

Seth: Yeah.

Jaren: That’s exactly how I feel about land because you'll never see a land flipping show on HGTV because it's just boring. Like what are you going to do? You're going to like, have an episode of me like, sitting on my laptop, looking at a spreadsheet and be like, yeah, I'm going to offer 35 cents on the dollar on this property. It's boring. Most people don't even really consider it a strategy. Like they're like, yeah, that's so like you can buy dirt and then just turn around and sell it? But that's the benefit of that strategy.

Kris Haskins: The big money stuff is boring.

Jaren: The boring factor, it keeps a lot of people.

Seth: Yeah. That's okay though.

Jaren: Yeah, it works out.

Kris Haskins: He said, well, babe, I enjoy this league. We do tenant lease options. I love where I own my own stuff. I might buy and sell the same house Jaren three times in a year. I don't mind doing that because we're getting a down payment. And then on my flip side, we are raising a ton of private money so we can buy anything we want right now as long as the numbers work. I think where the paradigm shift for me changed was when I found out I didn't have to get on my knees and beg the bank for a loan. When I got that one, I cracked that net. I'm like, you know what? Let me clean my knees off. So now we raise money. We can buy anything based on paying ordinary people a percentage rate for investing with us.

Jaren: That's awesome, man.

Seth: How does that work with raising money? Who are you talking to? What are they getting out of it? Explain those pieces for us.

Kris Haskins: Yeah. That's a good question, Seth. Well, the thing is, it's so weird. The less you need money, I don't know why the universe works like this. People will give it to you more. So, when I needed it back in the day, nobody didn’t want to give me none.

Jaren: That’s funny.

Kris Haskins: I don't know if that’s the saying for you.

Seth: Bob Hope was saying, “A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it." That's kind of what it boils down to, sort of.

Kris Haskins: That is true. So, we deal with grandma and pop generally speaking, or some younger people. I've got one guy who gave me $50,000. Some people give us $100,000. So, they're interested in getting a high rate of return with low risk. I don't like risk. You say the house is worth $300,000. I'm just thinking about the one we bought this week. It's worth low threes. We bought it for two and I was able to raise that $200,000 literally. I mean, you send out an email and a text to these people because we have credibility from doing a million deals over time. So, they just wire the money to closing. And the good thing about it is we don't touch the money. It goes right to the escrow company or the attorney. They close it out. They are at the back and they get an APR and they're happy.

Jaren: Yeah. That's awesome. What do your terms look like?

Kris Haskins: Yeah, generally speaking, we pay our lenders anywhere from 7% to 8%.

Jaren: Awesome.

Kris Haskins: APR. And we have that accruing. Years ago, I got tired of mailing our payments every month. I'm like, you know what? It doesn't matter if they get a payment this month or that we just hoped to pay them when we sell the house. Does it even matter?

Seth: Do they have to be accredited investors or anything like that or not really? Just anybody that has money can throw at you.

Kris Haskins: They can. I think there's a certain dollar amount. I don't know what it is. I think it's a million. Accredited has a definition.

Seth: Yeah, you got to have a net worth excluding your personal residence of a million or you have to have an annual income of $200,000 as a single person, $300,000 as a married couple. But do they have to be that or not to work with you?

Kris Haskins: No. I don't have any accredited. I don't even know if I hang out with people that have a net worth of that in my circle.

Seth: I don't either, when you come to think of it.

Jaren: I think the legal ease of that though is you just have to have an existing relationship with them. Kris isn't going out on LinkedIn or on Facebook being like, “Hey, come invest your money with me,” because that's where you get into legal trouble. If you met somebody at a networking event or through a friend of a friend and they came and they met you and you have an existing relationship, that's where it's okay to do it.

Seth: If you ever have a deal where you lose money or I don't know the profit, maybe that never happens. But if it does, do these people just kind of have to take it on the chin on that deal and hope for better the next time? Or what happens in that case?

Kris Haskins: Here's the thing I remember before I had any private money, right guys, I'm like, I told the universe and God. I'm like, you know what? If I ever meet some people that will invest with me, I am going to treat their money with utmost respect. I am going to make sure that we pay back every penny we borrow, I'm going to make sure that their loan to value is so low, that if anything happens, they are good. I just beat that into my head, “If I find these people." This was years ago. If I get these people to invest with me, I'm going to treat their money better than mine. So, every deal we do, I put some cash in it, Seth. I want to make sure that if I get struck by lightning, they can liquidate. I'm bringing some of my cash in here and they don't even care if I do, they want to lend more, but I want to make sure that they're completely insulated against any loss.

So, if I bring the money to the deal, that makes it even lower. But yes, that is a possibility. And I will tell you, if you have a private lender, it's not like a bank. Say your lender was going to make $10,000 for that deal. Did you know it's okay to ask the lender if they will take $8,000? It's not against the constitution to do that. So, whatever the scenario is, right? I know I owe you $10,000 Ms. Smith, but would you take $8,500 just for this one so we can kind of move on to the next one? I have never had a lender tell me “No."

Seth: Really? Interesting.

Kris Haskins: They never tell me “No." They're like, you know what? “Thank you.”

Jaren: I can understand that from a private money investor standpoint a little bit. Because it's like if they were taking their retirement account and throwing it in stocks, like there are quarters and there are situations where they're going to take a loss in their portfolio. It's going to go up and down, up and down. And so, if you frame it that way, when you explain it to them, like, look, sometimes bad deals are going to happen. And we just cut our losses and we just turn it over six months, over a year, you're going to make money because I'm in this to make money. And if you have a track record, I think that could be a pretty easy sell. It makes sense to me.

Kris Haskins: Well, I don't want to discourage your listeners for thinking that they have to have it existing. I'm not an expert in the ACC and all these rules, but the term existing relationship, I think that is being challenged by social media, Jaren. I think in the past relationship, I think that definition is changing. That's all.

Seth: That’s some gray area.

Jaren: Yeah. I've talked to some attorneys and some guys that do apartment syndications, I work with accredited guys and they all say like, it's a very loose definition of what an existing relationship is. I got to say, guys, we're not giving any legal advice. So, don't believe anything we're saying. We're not an attorney.

Seth: One thing I wanted to get into here, because this is something that I don't know that I'm like an expert at this at all, because I don't have to do a ton of this as a land investor or the types of real estate that I go after. But when it comes to negotiation, I know this is something you've sort of had to develop some mastery at. Particularly when you're talking to a motivated seller and you're trying to get on the same page and get them to accept a deeply discounted offer. How do you do that? How do you convince a person? Is it more important just to be talking to the right person in the first place so you don't have to fight that battle? Or is there some trickery you use or mind games to get the person to become okay? I’m sorry. I'm taking it to extremes here.

Kris Haskins: The positive word is called neuro-linguistic programming. Good gracious. You talk like I’m stealing grandma’s house.

Jaren: A.k.a. manipulation. Tell me about it. Tell me about NLP.

Kris Haskins: Yeah. Well, let me tell you this. This is the reason I wrote this book, “The Real Estate Negotiating Bible," to be honest with you. There was nothing that existed when I was coming up through the ranks. I'm like, how in the hell do I learn how to negotiate? Every book I bought was about a real tour or homeowner trying to negotiate a good deal to move into an owner arc, right? I just want to be what I want to see in the community. So that's what we did.

At the end of the day, building rapport is huge, but you have to identify that problem. Why? And I'm sure it's the same with plan. Why are you selling this thing? The major reason? Why are you selling? Because if your reason for selling isn't big enough, I can't convince you to do nothing. Ask my wife. She doesn’t do nothing that you ask her to do. It's weird. I can get people to sell me, do all types of stuff, I can't get my wife to make me a sandwich.

Jaren: That’s hilarious.

Kris Haskins: If you think about videos on YouTube are good. If you would see what happens in this house, I would probably have a show on it.

Jaren: Dive into that for us for a minute. Like, let's run through a scenario if there's like, an actual real example that you've thought of recently where let's say, you got to lead and the person's not super interested, or maybe they are interested, but they're hesitant working with you. Let's go this route. Let's say they talk to you and they're apprehensive to see if you're actually legit or not because they got a letter from you in the mail. And they're like, I don't know if this is a scam or whatever. How do you gain trust and how do you get the deal?

Kris Haskins: I want to be transparent. That very rarely happens today as it used to be in the past. How old are you, Jaren?

Jaren: 29.

Kris Haskins: Okay. You're still a young guy. We have a huge digital footprint. So now when I show up or if I have any interaction with the deal, they already love me, man. And it's not because of me personally, it's just because they can click a button.

Jaren: It's because of the branding.

Kris Haskins: The digital footprint. Dude, when you show up, they just want to give you a hug.

Seth: Do they know you through Real Estate Roundup or something else? Like you have a separate website with a video and they get to know you that way. How is it that the people know who you are?

Kris Haskins: Just with the digital footprint. They'll see me with my kids. They always type your name in, right? They want to know who you are.

Seth: I got you.

Jaren: Right.

Kris Haskins: When you get there, you're the dad, husband. They love you. If you have the right digital footprint on the internet, it's just unavoidable.

Seth: So, they're googling “Kris Haskins” and they find something that you put out there and they feel like they kind of know you already before you show up.

Kris Haskins: Oh, yeah. That's huge for us.

Seth: Interesting.

Jaren: So, what about back in the day though? Like before you had a big digital footprint?

Kris Haskins: Yeah. That could be challenging. I have something called a credibility kit. Whenever I show up, I've got a bunch of referrals. I never make an offer without a stack of referrals. Like we bought this house there, because you got to make yourself seem legit, but it can be challenging getting over that hump.

Seth: And referrals, it's just like a letter or something? Or what does that mean exactly?

Kris Haskins: Yeah. I've got them right here. So, these are just people that we've bought houses from. They'd say they love you, we take a picture with them.

Seth: Oh, cool.

Kris Haskins: I leave a place where they can write something at the bottom down there.

Seth: Gotcha.

Jaren: That's awesome.

Seth: And people are okay doing that? They're just, “Yeah, take a picture of me and use me for the future?”

Kris Haskins: Not everybody. Some people just, they'll do one of these. I'll type it up and then they'll write something at the bottom.

Seth: Cool.

Kris Haskins: You got to have some type of credibility. Jaren, I don't know if I'm going in the right direction with what we were talking about negotiation.

Jaren: This is helpful. Yeah.

Seth: What other stuff would be in that credibility kit? Is that pretty much it? Or is there other stuff if you're a totally unknown person to them that would very quickly get them comfortable with you?

Kris Haskins: You're unknown. I always, always include a picture of my family when you make an offer. So, family man, you can't be such a bum. You got a wife and kids, right? You're doing something right.

Jaren: It's funny you say that because I actually do that with my direct mail stuff and not a lot of people on land do it. And a lot of our coaching clients, I encourage them. I say, hey, if you're comfortable, some people aren't. Because they're like, more private and all that. And I get it. But I tell them if you can put your picture on there and put a picture of you and your wife, because that's going to make you substantially stand out. If somebody gets a letter and it's just the same generic letter that all the other investors are using. And then yours has your picture on it, you're going to substantially stand out. And they're like, “Oh, this is a real person."

Seth: If a person doesn't have a family, say they're a single person. Do they take a picture with their fish or something?

Kris Haskins: They are in trouble.

Jaren: Their dog.

Seth: You should just give up right now.

Kris Haskins: Maybe the dog, aunt, grandma. I don't know. a picture.

Jaren: Grandma would work. That would be cute – “This is my grandma. She helps me buy houses."

Seth: Picture with your probation officer or something?

Kris Haskins: You’re in trouble.

Seth: Anything else in the credibility kit?

Kris Haskins: This letter of intent, picture, referrals, man. I love it. I'm like, you know what? I always preface it by listening. You don't know who I am. You don't know what I can do. This is before. Here are other people we have served in the community. And if you've never bought a house, I know some of your viewers, your listeners may not have ever bought a house, just get a referral from a friend or family. Just say, “Kris is great. He is a man of his word." A lot of my clients went into this. You never bought a house, right? Kris is great, man of his word, shows up on time. He does what he says. Little things. You would be surprised how many people just don't have any referrals.

Seth: Yeah. I could see that going along the way. Circling back to the situation you're talking about today with your digital footprint. Do you know specifically what people are seeing? Did you put a website out there specifically for this purpose? Or are they are finding your Facebook profile or any idea?

Jaren: Or YouTube channel?

Seth: Yeah. Like what exactly is making them comfortable?

Kris Haskins: Yeah. All of it. Here's the thing. I don't know if you're familiar with Valuetainment at all.

Seth: I don't know that I am. What is that?

Kris Haskins: They are a huge YouTube channel and they got 200 million views. It's just large. So, I was able to hang out with the owner a few weeks back and he was saying how important your digital footprint is. You have to make your message known or somebody else is going to do it. It’s just going to pop up - “That Seth, he is so and so. Took my money. I sold my land to him.”

Jaren: That’s like Seth's worth nightmare.

Seth: Yes, it is. I will lose sleep about that sometimes.

Jaren: Yeah. We go to great lengths to make sure that our reputation is intact, man. We really want to make sure that people, when they come to RETipster, they're coming to something different.

Seth: The crazy thing about that, I mean, to obsess about it, I'm sure helps somehow. But even then, like you still can't control it. If somebody decides to go off on you, it's totally out of my hands. I think that this kind of practice knowing how to get your message out there to drown out other negative voices if they're there, I can go along. And hopefully there just aren't any but if there ever were…

Kris Haskins: That's true. That's exactly right. You got to print the footprint on all of it. I don't know if you're familiar with Russell Brunson, but he says, you've got to have an attractive character.

Jaren: I ran on Russell Brunson.

Kris Haskins: And so, I'm like, I'm your attractive character. And it's not nothing personal, dude. This is just business principles, Jaren. I mean, you have to have an attractive character in every business, just like you guys.

Jaren: It has to be real. It has to be out there. Like you actually have to be like the guy. You can't be like some fakery stuff. You'll get found out. But I want to go back to NLP because I've always been really interested in neuro-linguistic programming. And do you have a lot of training in that, a lot of background in that? Has that helped you a lot in your negotiations?

Kris Haskins: It's not like I'm a master. I mean I’m just reading a million books. I got one. I keep one right here. William Ury and all these negotiating books he's got. “Getting to Yes” and a whole bunch of.

Jaren: For our listeners that might not know what an NLP is, do you want to give a Cliff Notes version?

Kris Haskins: Neuro-linguistic programming.

Seth: Sum it up into one word.

Jaren: Go. Right now.

Kris Haskins: I wish my wife would let me use it. She has seen me do it to people. So, it's getting them to do something that they ordinarily wouldn't do. You were there kind of pushing them along a little bit. That’s all.

Seth: Okay.

Jaren: Are you getting that to like do a life example? Like convinced me to go work out tonight or something?

Kris Haskins: Well, we could give it a shot. It's just a pain. I mean, in the Negotiating Bible, it's unfortunate, but the pain that once you have that little cut, I took my training with HomeVestors. Are you familiar with the Ugly House guys?

Jaren: Yeah.

Kris Haskins: They have guys, some masters. Dude, when I was in Dallas, I hung out with some freaking master negotiators. These dudes, man, they've been around since the 80s, watching them in action pain. You get that little cut. You've got to take the knife, turn the knife ever so gently. You have to be very empathetic with that. You don't want to overdo it. So, getting you to the gym? Yeah. We could try.

Jaren: All right, let’s do it.

Kris Haskins: I have to find out what you can tell me about your kids for us. I know you've got some beautiful children, Jaren.

Kris Haskins: I do. I have a son who is 16 months old and then another son on the way. I found out that we're having a boy. Did you know that Seth? We're having a boy.

Seth: I didn’t. I knew you were having a kid, but not a boy. So, congrats.

Jaren: Yeah, we are having a boy.

Seth: That’s awesome, man.

Kris Haskins: Congratulations.

Jaren: Yeah. It's exciting.

Kris Haskins: I'm sure you want your son to be here well until your older ages, right?

Jaren: Yeah.

Kris Haskins: Yeah. So, we try to kind of eat healthy. Do you think going to the gym will extend your life or would cut it short?

Jaren: I don't know, man. I feel like if I go to the gym, I'm going to like, curl up in a ball and start crying. Because I'm like so stressed out of my life right now. But I’d have that extra pressure, I'm going to cry. But the truth is I need it. I know I need to work out. I know I need to eat healthy, but it's just so overwhelming.

Kris Haskins: It can be overwhelming. It can be overwhelming. That's why I keep, Jaren, a gym bag right by the front door. It's something called an on ramp that we do use. Right? I don't know if you have any on ramps in the house. So, when I walked by that front door, the bag is, “Come get me, come get me." In the morning I get up, the bags, they're waiting for me. Do you think having a bag by your front door might help you? The gym bag with your clothes and your shoes?

Jaren: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. You know what I think it is, man? I just need to want it bad enough. I really want to be in shape, but I like the taste of fried chicken, chicken wings. I've been on this kick where it's been like Buffalo Wild Wings and beer. It's been terrible.

Kris Haskins: That stuff tastes good.

Jaren: It does. All my family members, they're all having health problems. My brother needs like, some surgery on his thyroid and everybody's having all of these kinds of health issues. And I know it's a ticking time bomb. I know one day I'm going to have a reckoning, but it's not today. So, I go get myself some Buffalo Wild Wings and I feel bad while I’m eating my chicken. I sit there.

Kris Haskins: Listen to this, Seth. I don't know if I could push you. I want you to think about the future and with the children. I would love to kind of hang out with you in about 10 years. If you don't go to the gym, do you see your future any differently hanging out with your kids? My only pain point I can do is with kids. That's all I got on you right now as I'm processing.

Jaren: You know what it is, man? What eats at me when it comes to my health and my fitness, I know that influence requires me to look a certain way. Influence really drives me. I know that if I ever want to rock a stage, like actually be like a motivational speaker, I can't do it fat. It's not going to happen. I can, and my delivery will be like, okay, but I'm going to go work out right now. I'm going to go work out. Because I got to go like do a run or something, man. Because for me, that's the motivation. I'm not going to tap into my full potential unless I lose weight.

Jaren: Gotcha. So, I needed to take all the conversation off the kids and onto the future. Sounds like you're entrepreneurial driven as opposed to family driven. And I'm not saying that you don't have that, but it's hierarchy.

Jaren: My major driver in life is impact and influence. And I want to like, impact people. I want to make a difference. That's my driver.

Seth: One thing I’m just noticing there is that Jaren almost kind of just convinced himself there. All Kris was doing, he was just asking questions. Kris wasn't saying it's a problem. He's not saying, “Jaren, you got a problem. You're in trouble." He is just asking questions. Granted, that was a fake scenario. So maybe that's not a hundred percent real. But I think that's actually the sign of a skilled negotiator is that what this Socratic teaching where it's like, you ask questions that prompt a person to answer it themselves.

Kris Haskins: Oh, man. I love the questions, man.

Jaren: This is really good stuff. This is like a master class. I love this. This is really good.

Kris Haskins: Questions. I love it. I wish I could marry questions, man, because people just don't ask enough. I sit down with people. They don't ask me. I'm like you asked me for a meeting, you don’t ask me questions, I'm gone.

Jaren: Yeah. It's funny that they'll sit down and then they'll just talk for like 40 minutes and tell you all about everything.

Kris Haskins: And no questions asked. When I met with Patrick Bet-David, the guy who owns Valuetainment, I took 40 hours. He told me he takes 20 hours before he meets with his attorney. So, I'm like, I took 40 hours before I met him. I had pages of questions for the dude. I think that's what winners do though.

Seth: Come prepared. Yeah.

Jaren: That's interesting. So really what you're trying to do with NLP is you're trying to find their driver and through asking strategic questions and through relationships and you have to be settled because you can't spook them. The minute they feel like you're manipulating them or you're trying to pull something over them, then you lost them. You got to establish trust, be kind, be patient. And then when you find their driver, then you leverage that driver towards the end desire that you're trying to get them to do towards the sale or what have you.

Seth: Now, how does that work? Is there ever a point where you just kind of give up? Like you stop trying to convince or even ask questions to get somebody to take your offer because they're not the right person, they're never going to say…

Jaren: Yeah, he said that about his wife.

Seth: There you go. So that's one example.

Kris Haskins: We still could do that. Yeah.

Seth: How do you know when you're dealing with somebody who will or won't consider an offer, that's going to work for you? Like when do you just cut it and say, “Nope, not working. Talk to you later.” Because for me, that's what I do immediately. If somebody doesn't say “yes” I'm like, “Okay, see ya, you'll be back, but we're done now." I'm assuming that's not how you work. How far do you push it? And what are your telltale signs that we're not going to come together on this?

Kris Haskins: Well, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir. Time and circumstances will change every seller, right? If you say, no, it just means not right now. But I always leave with the one question, “Ms. Smith, if you don't sell this thing, what are you going to do? What are you going to do?” That's the key. If they say, “Well, you know what I should? I should just keep it forever.” If they say “I'll just rent it out." Then you can kind of tell I'm looking for, “I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't sell this thing." If you don't get $80,000, what are you going to do? Well, I'll lower it to $60,000.

So, it all depends on what their rebuttal is for that. But yeah, a lot of times we don't get them on the first try. I very rarely just go out there, get a contract, and come back. It takes time. We'll call it the slow dance. Usually, they say no, but then we always give them something in writing so they can go home. Nowadays you gotta have something in writing.

Seth: Yeah. If somebody starts off the conversation or early on, they sort of very confidently state what they think the property is worth and it's really high. Whatever rationale they're using for that, whether it's an appraisal or assessed value or the house next door or whatever, is that something you should be discouraged by? Or should that number mean anything to you? How do you get to the bottom of what role that number plays in your conversation or do you just completely ignore it? And if you do ignore it, how do you get them to realize “No, your numbers are actually totally wrong and here's why. Here's a lower number that's more realistic." How does that conversation look?

Kris Haskins: It can be challenging depending on where that valuation came from. Generally speaking, they don't have an appraisal, they have the assessed value and I love it. I love it. When they say it's worth, I've yet to meet the seller that says, you know what? I don't want top dollar for my house. I want you to buy it at a discount. When you show up at the door, right. It doesn't happen. So, it is our job and our responsibility, our obligation to paint the picture for them, Seth, as you were saying. So yes, I always agree. Whatever they say, I'm always like you're right. If I know it’s worth $50,000 and they say it's worth $200,000, “Ms. Smith, you know what? You have the full right to believe your house is worth whatever you want it to be. I mean, you are absolutely right. I can't deny that. And in fixed upstate Ms. Smith, you know what? Probably it could be worth that. It might be."

So, as long as I'm just agreeing with them, I'm just stroking their ego, as we're going through, then I would bring up the repairs, cost to sell, all that stuff that’s going to chop it down. But we always agree Seth, man.

Jaren: Because that's how you establish trust. That's really interesting.

Kris Haskins: There you go. “You're right. Ms. Smith, sure. At the district it could be worth $200,000." Then I kind of go down with that one. I've never caught them off though.

Seth: Those next steps of bringing up the repairs and cost of selling and stuff like that, are you just sort of in passing when you're talking to them like, “Oh, it looks like that roof's going to be $10,000 to replace that." And you sort of just make subtle mentions of that so they can hear it. Or I don't know, how do you introduce those numbers in the conversation so that it means something to them and they can sort of come to terms?

Kris Haskins: I love it. It's exactly why I wrote this book. This is exactly why I wrote this book, Seth.

Seth: By the way, I’d be linking to that book in the show notes at RETipster.com/81. Just so you're aware.

Kris Haskins: Man, you talking, Seth. I love it. Well, when people say the repairs, I never just say, “Well, what about this? What about that?” I always once again, I'm going back to my questions. Your questions are your secret weapons. They are just your bullets in the gun, right? Ms. Smith, what do you think it would take to do that roof? How much do you think it would take? What'd you think of the bag? I always ask them what they think because it's irrelevant. Like I'm so irrelevant in this. I'm there just to kind of stroke them on. Because I love it when they give me these small offers, I just love it because I know they're going to say, “The roof? That's $2,000. The central heating and air? I've got a guy that can do that for $1,500."

And I just love it, man, because I know that I'm like Colombo. I'm like, “You know what? I'm so glad you have somebody to do that." I pull out my phone. I just wanted to get that guy's phone number so he could do that because I'm going to claim this house. I'm going to do this deal. Would you mind if I could hire your guy when I buy it and we’ll give you what you want and he can do that work for us that cheap. Because my guys are going to be three times that. So, I'll leave it there and then I let them. They can't answer that one. Generally, they can't even come back. So yeah, that's how we beat them. Not beat them. That's how we are able to negotiate the number down. No way in hell you can get this stuff done for the prices that they usually say.

Jaren: Very interesting.

Seth: Yeah. Some people might like when you were mentioned earlier, the idea is to twist the knife, just get a little bit of blood, kind of thing. Like some people might hear that and think this is manipulative, this is evil and wrong.

Kris Haskins: My wife is one of them. Go ahead.

Seth: Well, I can see why one might think that, but what are your thoughts on that? Is that misguided or inaccurate? And if so, how is this not manipulation?

Kris Haskins: Well, you know what? When I was writing the book, Seth, I had a lot of soul-searching to do. I had a decision to make, as I'm writing the book. I learned from some masters, dude. I'm a peon when it comes to those dudes that are HomeVestors. They teach people all around the country, dog. I had to make a decision. Am I going to make this user-friendly for everybody? Or do I want to arm the new real estate investors with precise tools that they need to go in there and get the best deal for them? I struggle with that Seth, when I was writing it because I don't want a homeowner to feel taken advantage of. On the other hand, I don't want my trainee to go in and try to overpay based on the emotion. So, I chose to arm us investors, Seth.

Seth: Yeah. I've known some pretty skilled sales people in my life. And this is a narrative that they're very well aware of. It’s that salespeople are almost seen as like, scum of the earth. Like nobody, nobody when they hold their newborn baby for the first time thinks, “Oh look, this is going to be a salesman. That's who my child's going to be." It's just kind of seen as, in general, like somebody who's not trustworthy. But I think a skilled salesperson sort of sees it as I sort of help people see what they don't realize. And it really serves them in the end. The idea is not to get what I want. The idea is to help them see the light. It sounds like a similar thing here. Would you agree?

Kris Haskins: Similar thing. With houses for me, you have to have some type of negotiation strategy. If you don't, man, you're just shooting in the wind.

Jaren: I think it really boils down to the investor's personal integrity. The reality is when we get a house, that's dilapidated and we make it better and we resell it. If we talk about flipping or ultimately even through like wholesaling. Even with land, we're buying and then we're turning around to selling it to somebody who's going to develop the property and make it better. We're serving the community. We're serving the world in that. We're taking something that is not good and we're improving it in some capacity.

And so I think at a high level, we need to take a step back and say, “Okay, well, if you, as an individual have integrity, here are tools that you can use to help make the world a better place, to make money along the way, help the seller." Because a lot of these motivated sellers, they're actually in a position that they need to sell this property. They need help. They need the finances to move quickly. To be honest, I've been in a spot where I remember when my wife is from Kazakhstan and we were separated for a year and a half when we first got married and finances were tight during that first year. I promise you, if I added an inherited piece of junk rental property, I'd sell that thing for $10,000 with a smile on my face. I would be out of here.

And so, if you're talking to the right person who has the right situation, you can come in and really help them. And if they're like, caught up in their head trash or trying to latch onto it, these tools can help you serve them and ultimately serve the community. There can be a way where you do it in full integrity and win-wins. And that's where I like a lot of the marketing stuff. You mentioned Russell Brunson earlier. There's a lot of things given like the tone of your voice, like asking certain questions that they are influence tactics. I think it's manipulation when it branches out to like, you're trying to convince somebody to do something that ultimately is going to hurt them. And if that's your motivation, that's on you man. Like that has nothing to do with NLP. NLP is a tool. These psychological sales tactics, they're just tools. If I have a hammer, I can build a house or I can kill somebody. It's not the hammer's fault.

Kris Haskins: Good point, Jaren.

Seth: Yeah. Has there ever been a situation where you've talked to somebody you know they can get a better deal than what you're going to offer them. Like, they're not the right fit and you just tell them, “Look, I'm not your guy. Just listen to some MLS and you'll sell it tomorrow for twice as much as what I'm going to pay you." Like, does that ever happen or are you always kind of just trying to get the best deal you can and leave it up to them whether or not they say no to that?

Kris Haskins: Oh, no. We are always a consultant when we show up at the property. Matter of fact, the first thing out of my mouth, when I made it there, Seth, is like, “Listen, I don't even know if I'm going to buy this house or not, okay? So, we'll walk through here. I'll make a new friend and we'll look at the property together. Is that okay with you?” Always frame it up as a question. You guys know.

So, I don't even know if I'm going to buy the house and if I can't do it yet, we just refer it to a broker. I would much rather not buy the house to give somebody a bad deal because I don't get a referral. I need that referral. I say it every time, listen, I need you happy because I need a referral. I need you to sign a referral when we are done. To answer your question, Seth, we refer to them all the time. So, I don't care, man. I don't need anything, man. I do not need another house. We've got more than enough. We're blessed. And I want them to know that too.

Seth: Actually, along those lines, what are your most effective ways for finding deals? Where are you getting these houses from?

Kris Haskins: We've got a team that does social media stuff. I got to tell you if I had to put my dollar on it, social media, I'm just starting to do text messaging, Facebook ads. We still do bandit signs. I still do a little bit of direct mail, but social media, Seth. I just think that it is the state of the internet. So, if you can get ads in front of people.

Seth: When you say social media, you mean like if you got like a Facebook page and you're creating ads that send people to some kind of landing page or something, or what does that look like?

Kris Haskins: No, we don't want to take them off of Facebook. It's a landing page, but it's within Facebook. So, if you click on the ad and Facebook has its own little... I don't know the name of it.

Seth: Is it just showing people a phone number or they can send you a message through that? Or what does a person do to respond to that?

Kris Haskins: Yeah, they can call. Usually what I found out is social internet people, per se, as opposed to direct mail. Like direct mail people they're ready to get on the phone. I don't want to drive them to the internet because it's the wild, wild west. I don't know what popups are going to show up and somebody might steal them from me. But on the internet, a lot of them want to stay on there. They want to text you and do all that geeky stuff. So, it's a little different communication barrier, but yeah, they're staying online texts. Very rarely do I have a phone call from an internet lead. I mean, that’s why they're on the internet, I guess.

Seth: In this Facebook ad, is that like a video or a picture of you or something? Or what does that look like?

Kris Haskins: Well, I do run some pictures of me, but what I found out, I did not know that if I was this popular people would contact me around the country and want me to coach them or want to get to know me a little bit based on the ads. So, we had to take my face off the ad and put another.

Seth: Yeah, gotcha.

Kris Haskins: But yeah. You have a face “I buy houses” and it's just generic, it's really just something to get them to click.

Seth: Cool. Interesting.

Kris Haskins: It ain't cheap though.

Seth: There is a lot that goes into the Facebook ad stuff in terms of like, who do you target and what do you say and what do you tell them to do. And when they do it, what do you say then?

Jaren: And it's a lot of testing, man. If we can Seth, let's go ahead and put that blog article I wrote about Facebook ads in the show notes because I went at a very high level explaining what is happening with Facebook ads for the layperson. At the end of the day even if you hire a professional ads agency, all you're paying for is somebody to figure it out for you. They may have a lot of experience, like they figured it out a lot of times for other people, but at the end of the day, you're still paying them to figure it out because I've literally seen campaigns running in Indianapolis and convert great. And then they take the exact same campaign and run it in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And it doesn't convert because the demographic is different and there's all these variables that go into it. So literally from day one, all you're doing is you have a funnel and you're testing ads and try to find the right ad that's actually going to get people to do it.

Seth: Maybe it's because that Fort Wayne ad said “Sell your Indianapolis house."

Kris Haskins: That is funny.

Seth: Your YouTube channel and your website. What made you decide to start doing that? Why? Is it just something you enjoy? And you've been doing it for a long time and you've got a huge following. So, I'm just curious how that came into the picture.

Kris Haskins: Yeah. We're blessed, Seth. I have been doing YouTube for a long time, but I didn't do it seriously until July, 2017. That's when I met Valuetainment with Patrick Bet-David and now I get to hang out with the guy. So, I'm telling you this dude, he's amazing. He was doing it teaching for entrepreneurs, right? I'm like, you know what? I could probably teach real estate investors. July, 2017, man. If you just go back in my career, it just blew up when I took content creation seriously.

And Seth, you don't know this, but I don't really like social media. I just do it because you have to do it. If you don't do it, you don't even exist. So yeah, I took that time, I'm like, you know what? I've been grinding since 2004. Let me just kind of share what I've learned and let's see if anybody likes it.

Seth: Yeah man, it looks like it's helping a lot of people. Kris, it's been very enlightening. Very interesting. We haven't had a whole lot of conversations about negotiation specifically. And I know this is a huge thing. I picked up a lot of helpful stuff just listening to this.

Seth: And your credibility packet. That was some really good insight there.

Kris Haskins: Yeah. You guys are masters too, man. I'm picking up some gyms from you too.

Seth: Yeah. When I heard about your book, I was kind of like, ‘Oh cool. Whatever. Everybody has a book.” But after hearing what you were saying, I actually think I’m going to read it. Because I feel like this is the tip of the iceberg of what we've talked about here. So, I'm going to take a few days I think and go through that and see if I can glean anything else. Because think of what you can accomplish in life if you're a master negotiator, that's unbelievable power.

Seth: Yep. You got it though, Seth. Well, I take it back. I don't know if I can make an offer and be like, “You don't want my offer? Okay." I don't know.

Jaren: Yeah. I mean land is so unique, man, where deals happen by accident. I mean, I still have calls coming in from six months, seven months ago. And people were just like, “Hey, I got your offer. I want to move forward." It's just different because the asset class is just…

Kris Haskins: You're the only deal in town.

Jaren: Well, there are some places where there's competition, but it's a different type of property. It's similar to like, if you own the boat or you inherited like, a boat. Like it's nice to have if you use it. But if you live in Canada and you own property in Florida, that you inherited from your great grandmother and you have to pay property taxes on it, you don't know what to do with it. It's like, you don't even know how to sell it half the time. So, the people are just a lot more motivated.

Kris Haskins: Now I'm going to just hire you all to find me some, Seth. I need a lot for my house, for my family.

Seth: Yeah, man. I know. And we can find you something. When you were talking about that Jaren, it makes me think we don't have to negotiate a whole lot, but what if we did?

Jaren: That's exactly why I want to read his book.

Seth: Yeah. I think if I don’t want more deals, we can make it happen. We're just not trying to because you don't have to.

Jaren: Yeah, that's true.

Seth: I feel like there's something there.

Jaren: I hundred percent agree.

Seth: So, Kris, if people want to learn more about you, we're obviously going to link to your YouTube channel and your book and your website. What is your website?

Kris Haskins: You can just go to either krishaskins.com really right now. I mean, I need to think bigger and get a bigger vision.

Seth: And this Real Estate Roundup, what is that?

Kris Haskins: The Real Estate Roundup. That's what I started up in 2010. I started just interviewing people. I was like, you know what? Let me round up the best real estate people in my town. That's when I started kind of like seeing the vision of surrounding myself with the best, but it ultimately turned into coaching and training. So, that's just my inner circle people. It is a website too and I have the domain. I don't have it quite set up to where you can kind of go in and join. Always a work in progress, right?

Seth: Awesome. Well again, I appreciate you taking the time to come on the RETipster podcast. And again, everybody check out RETipster.com/81 where you can find all the details about everything we talked about here and go check out krishaskins.com. That's krishaskins.com. Thanks again, Kris.

Kris Haskins: Thanks, guys.

Seth: So, there you have it folks. That was our interview with Kris. I thought that was very, very enlightening. I’ve read like similar negotiation stuff in the past, but I feel like there's lots of different spins people can put on it and I kind of liked the spin he put on it. So, what did you think, Jaren?

Jaren: Yeah, I thought it was really insightful. I think at a high level, if you just go in there with the intent to just help, you're going to uncover a lot of pain points and you're going to do a lot of the tactics without even trying. So, if you guys aren't trained, don't have this interview be a reason to feel like, “Oh, I need to go out and spend a bunch of money to get training or whatever." It's good to just listen to podcasts, read some books and have some further advanced instruction on different subjects like negotiations and stuff like that. But if you just go in with the intent to just create win-wins and to help people, you're going to get there.

Seth: Cool. Well, in usual fashion, we're going to ask a random question here of Jaren and myself. So, the question is this. If you could have any object or place in the world completely to yourself for one day, what would you choose?

Jaren: Object or place.

Seth: Yeah.

Jaren: You go first because I always go first.

Seth: I don't know why, but for some reason the first thing that is coming to mind is either like Disney World or some other amusement park, which is funny because I don't want to do amusement parks these days. At least I haven't in a long time, but I just remember thinking that when I was at Cedar Point several times in Ohio, as a kid waiting in line for like two hours to get on a ride. And I don't know, that'd be really cool to just like run on every ride and just do it. You don't have to sit and wait all day.

Jaren: Yeah. It would be awesome to like, rent it out for an entire day.

Seth: Yeah.

Jaren: I think that it would be really cool to… I don't know. What comes to my mind is there's this place called Mount Athos, which is like an entire island of just monks. Like women I think are allowed to visit the Island, like during the day, but they can't spend the night there. Don't quote me on that. I don't know exactly how that works, but I think it would be really cool to go to Mount Athos. But I guess that's not to yourself because you have the monks there, so maybe that doesn't work.

Seth: Amusement part probably wouldn't be there because people have to help you get on the ride, right?

Jaren: Yeah. I mean that's the only one that comes to mind is I think it'd be really cool to go there and be like the sole visitor and talk to all the super high-level monks and then the hermits and stuff and bug them and stuff. That would be fun.

Seth: Yeah. It's kind of a tricky question because most places anywhere that I can think of, the existence of people is sort of a crucial component of what gives it value. Like if you a hundred percent eliminate all other bodies, I don't know. In some way it would be lacking. You'd be like truly in the wilderness by yourself or something. So, I don’t know.

Jaren: I mean I think an object would be easier. An unlimited supply of Chick-fil-A. That would be pretty dope for a day.

Seth: Actually, I fantasize that someday in heaven we'll be able to eat anything we want and it will never get full and it won't make us fat. It would just be like, perfect.

Jaren: That'd be awesome. I mean, I definitely think Chick-fil-A is going to be in heaven. I heard a meme or like a joke on it. It was a meme on Facebook and it said about 2020 and all the crazy stuff that's been going on. I don't know if you knew, but there was this big competition between Popeye's new chicken sandwich and then Chick-fil-A.

Seth: I did not know that.

Jaren: Yeah, it was trending on Twitter. It was like this huge thing. Somebody said, “Listen, when I started messing with God's chicken, all this started to happen. I'm just saying.”

Seth: Do you really think Chick-fil-A is…? I mean, I agree. It's very good, but like every fried chicken on Earth, is that really the best there is?

Jaren: Well, I mean, I think that it's from a fast food restaurant, yes. And it's very good. When they call it God's chicken it's because they don't work on Sunday and it's more of their brand. It's not necessarily the quality of their chicken. But I think that they're probably within the top three for me. When it comes to fast food chains, they're the best. But when it comes to like, mom and pop shops, like you can definitely find some better chicken.

Seth: You hear a lot of people hate like, McDonald's for example, like it's a garbage hamburger. Like anybody can make something better than that. It sort of is by one measurement. But if you measure it by consistency, you can go to any McDonald's on Earth and order a double cheeseburger and you know what it's going to be. Somehow to get all of those different variables and people and ingredients and everything working together so that it's the same everywhere. Like that's actually a pretty amazing feat. So, cool, man.

Jaren: Yes, sir.

Seth: Well, again, folks, if you want to check out all the resources we talked about, go check out RETipster.com/81 to see the show notes. And if you're listening to this on your phone, take your phone out and text the word “FREE." F-R-E-E to the number 33777. You can stay up to date on all the things we got going on.

So, I want to thank Kris again for coming on the show. It was awesome talking with him. And for everybody out there listening, I hope you're doing well. And we'll talk to you next time.