The 4 Pillars of Powerful Negotiation with Derek Dombeck

Welcome to another episode of the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast, your source for actionable real-life examples and advice to help you move to the next level of investing. Each week we help you make a quantum leap in your business, your finances, and/or your life. We want to help you take back control, help you thrive during chaos, and lead you through the current crisis to a better tomorrow. For more resources, check out smartrealestatecoach.com and be sure to give us a rating and review on your favorite platform. Good morning and welcome, Wicked Smart listeners. It's Chris Pree, your host again, and I have a special guest today. I know I say that a lot, but this one is really special in that he is part of our team now. This is super exciting news. You may have heard this come out. Here we are just a week or so after— no, gosh, we're a day after QLS Live event. We have Mr. Derek Dombek, who spoke at the event. And everybody there learned that he's not only part of the Smart Real Estate Coach team, he will be coaching some of you should you decide to come into one of the experience levels. Now, why is that significant to you other than being an amazing team member? He left a very, very successful business to be under the umbrella of Smart Real Estate Coach. He's done thousands of deals. And why is this so cool for you as a Wicked Smart listener? Well, We've up-leveled big time. We're big believers of putting A-players on the bus, so to speak, with us. And not only has he done thousands of deals, but he is in the creative space. He's in our space. So it doesn't matter what asset class, he's in creative real estate. This is a big add to the team. It's a big add for you because he's already been shadowing and now taking over coaching calls, mentoring calls that we have at the associate level. Now, I work with a very private group called the President's Club. It's not marketed anywhere. It's by invite only. And it usually comes from the next level down, which is the high 6 associate level. Derek's going to be working very, very closely with me at this higher level echelon because frankly, some of the deals that go on and the pace at which deals are coming at us and the creativity that we can lend to it is super special, thus a chance to increase the 3 paydays. He also has his own podcast. I've been on it a couple times. I'm going to have him talk about that. And you guys are in for a treat here as we unpack his relationship and how he can help you. Mr. Derek, welcome back to the show, buddy. And this is odd because you were on in August and you were on a year ago or whatever it was. You've been on like 3 times now. So this is a special time, as I just said in the intro. So welcome back.

Hey, thanks for having me back, Chris. Got some pretty cool things going on since the last time I was on your show.

Yeah. So, as I said in the intro, there's all kinds of ties that we have together now. But, what I'd love to do is, and we can go in any direction as usual, you and I usually spitball it live. But, look, we're just off a 2-day crazy event in Boston. There are some listeners that were there, some are traveling home, but a whole bunch, of course, weren't there, right? And, this is a big audience. So, Maybe give them like from your negotiating skillset training we did, which was crazy effective, maybe give them some high points and some nuggets, and then we'll give them the same link that we gave the people at the event. How's that? That'd be cool.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I try to kind of go through the same starter steps with every presentation I do, including what we just did. And I think the main thing is I want to point out that people spend a lot of time and money learning how to do strategies, but spend no time or energy learning how to actually learn how to talk to people, right? And negotiate, which negotiations are nothing more than social interactions. So everything you do, every part of your day with everybody you encounter, including your kids, your significant other, And everybody in business, it's all negotiating. So I like kind of teeing it up with if you can control every social interaction you're in to an end result that's mutually beneficial, but something that you're taking them down the path on, that's always the goal. Okay. So I could be, you know, in the elevator at the hotel in Boston and get on the elevator with a random stranger. Going up, you know, 6, 7, 8 floors. And by the time that those doors open again, they can know what I'm doing and I might know a little bit about them all by design, right? And that's all very much learnable. And the more you do it, the more it becomes second nature. Okay. So first thing I want people to try and figure out within the first minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes of any social interaction is what is the personality type of the person you're talking to? And why is that important, Chris? Because if you can figure out, is this person analytical? Is this person really kind of short and blunt, more of a driver? Or is this person more what I call social conscious where they're, you know, they're bubbly, they like talking about things, they care about people. The sooner you figure that out, you're going to adjust how you talk to them. And by the way, you have to know what you are, right? Like I'm, I can be very quick and blunt and make quick decisions. I'm a driver. If I'm talking to an analytical person, I have to slow down. I got to give more data, more details so that they not only listen to what we're saying, but actually hear what we're saying. It's, it's, they gotta hear it for it to sink in.

You just described me and Rick is what you just described.

100%. And I also have to do that when I'm with Rick, right? When we do, uh, calls together or anything like that, I have to, cuz it's not gonna sink in the same way. Yeah. And if we're talking really fast, cuz you and I are both drivers, I already know that we, we can have a quick conversation. We can make quick decisions. We've done this. Together. Yeah. So that's awesome. So if you're dealing with somebody that's exactly like you, much easier conversation, but you gotta be aware of the ones that are, are the exact opposite of you. For me, the exact opposite is a highly analytical engineer-brained person. And, um, so that's first and foremost. Next thing is you want to have total frame control of your interaction. Meaning if the conversation is not going the way you want it, you need to be able to pivot and get it back on track, take control of the frame. A couple examples would be if you walk into a doctor's office and they tell you your appointment was at 10 o'clock in the morning and it's now 10 o'clock and The receptionist says, well, take a seat over there. The doctor will be with you when they can. Do you have any control over that social interaction? None. You are a beta. Okay? So there's either an alpha or a beta. And if you don't know which one you are, you're not the alpha. And that just means you got to take control of those social interactions. Recently, I got pulled over by a police officer. Um, very recently, just before coming to the event. And, um, I have not gotten a ticket in years. And there's no way that you can be the alpha in that social interaction. Okay. Sometimes you just got to play from behind. And, but knowing that you're doing it on purpose. So I basically was on a 2-lane road. I went to pass a car and the police officer was coming over a hill oncoming, and I had to speed up to complete the pass. I saw him put his brakes on. I immediately put my blinkers on and I, I pulled to the side of the road. I waited for him to turn around and come get me. And when he walked up to me, I said to him, officer, I know exactly what I did wrong. I, when I saw you, I had to complete the pass. I know I had to increase my speed to do that. Um, oh, by the way, there's a 9mm on a magnet right by my knee. Here's my concealed carry card. Here's my driver's license. Um, you know, I appreciate you, uh, your service. And he stood by my window. He called it in, looked at my record, handed me my driver's license. He said, well, I appreciate you pulling over and, you know, waiting for me. Have a nice day. No ticket. That whole thing took about 3 minutes. Now that was frame control. Even though I, I could never be an alpha, I could never Um, you know, be over and above his status. I could come at him in a way that nobody else comes at him. Everybody else is going to make excuses and, right? So that's just one, one example of frame control, even playing from a beta position.

Okay.

Um, so then the third thing that we talked about, uh, quite a bit at QLS Live was, was storytelling and overcoming objections. By using stories. And they don't have to be your stories. They can be my stories, Chris's stories, somebody else that you know, doesn't matter. We want to use storytelling in the proper way, which I can teach you, that you're overcoming objections long before they're ever voiced. And ideally they're never voiced because we all know in real estate, what are the common Objections, right? In our business, well, we're taking over people's payments or we're leasing from them. What happens if you don't pay me? What happens if the bank calls the loan due? What happens if you die? What happens if I die? We know all these objections. So why not already have a story in place about a deal you've done or a deal that Chris has done or somebody else has done that talks about all of those things? In some other scenario that was already done, and they'll never bring up the questions because you've already answered it for them. Okay, this gets them that much closer to the close, and that's the fourth step. All this workup and figuring out how to talk to them means nothing if they don't move forward with the transaction. And also got to recognize if they don't move forward with the transaction when you're ready to say. Sign on the dotted line, they still have objections that you did not overcome. And it's time to go back and find out what those objections are. And if they're blunt like you and me, we can just literally say, Chris, I mean, you said you loved everything that we're doing here today, but you're not willing to sign the paperwork. What am I missing? Right? There's something that's still bothering you. What do I got to answer for you? I can do that with somebody that's blunt and a driver like you and I. But if they're social conscious and their biggest concern that they haven't voiced is that they don't necessarily like what you might do with the house, if you're going to keep it as a rental and this is a house that their family was raised in for decades, that may be the reason they're not willing to move forward and you got to pull that out of them. So those are really the 4 main steps. Figure out who you're talking to, and adjust how you talk to them. Control the narrative at all times using frame control. Overcome objections with storytelling, and then ask for the close.

That's awesome. And before I forget, because I will get gabbing as usual and I'll forget here in a few minutes, um, against my— our team's better judgment, we said we would give everybody the same link that they had at the event, which kind of takes away the, hey, you had to be at the event to hear Derek. But, uh, you— there's just too much value, and I want the Wicked Smart listeners to Grab that for 2 reasons. One, the skillset, they'll be better off because of it, as you know. Secondly though, I want them to get a taste for what they're missing, frankly, because with the associate experience now comes you and I, and why not put your finger on that? Why not push some gas on the fire and push that forward? So go to smartrealestatecoach.com/nomeansnotnow and grab that course. Guys, Ridiculously dirt cheap, but we're going to do it for the exact same price at the event. Couldn't get a better training. I mean, that's a $10,000 program that we could actually explode with, and you're going to get it for 10% of that. So, no-brainer. Derek, anything else? This is interesting. I have 2 questions for you. One is, anything that you have seen so far as sort of an aha or something that the Wicked Smart listeners wouldn't know that you witnessed as you now have jumped into the mentoring calls for, I don't know, a couple months now? You've got a— you've got— you're behind the curtain now, right? And so any thoughts? And I didn't say I was going to ask you that, but I'm just curious.

You know, for me, the onboarding and coming into the organization has been challenging only because I didn't come through the Wicked Smart training. And so what I love about the program, even though it's taking me a while to get used to it, is all the resources. You know, for me, I have to get used to Slack and Asana and some of these things that I don't use in my other business. But when people have a question, the coaches, the other members, just the staff in general, Everybody is so caring and so quick to to help. That's been really awesome because I've been involved in other organizations. I've been through many many different trainings in my couple plus decades of of being in this business, and honestly, a lot of them are are a bunch of BS. You know, they're they're just trying to sell you something, and and this organization, everything that I've seen about it. Including our private conversations and our private meetings, right? Like where we talk about how can we improve, what can we do for the members, the associates. It's been great. I really love that. And I, I'm very glad to be— to have been invited in, first of all, but then also to be a part of this organization now.

Okay. Who wants to be the next apprentice? Pretty interesting, guys. We started this apprentice program back as a July 4th, 2024 promo. That's where it started. And it was so incredibly effective. We were just going to run it for the summer. It was so effective immediately we kept it. It's in place now. And what is it? It allows you to get into the community, the Wicked Smart community, for less dollars than the QLS home study course sells for right now on our site. In fact, when you go to smartrealestatecoach.com/apprentice-pod, apprentice-pod, When you go there, you're going to see that as an apprentice, you're going to get over $13,000 worth of coaching, the possibility for you to touch base with us if you want to, 4 or 5 times a week. And it doesn't exist anywhere out there, frankly. That's why we did it. We did it for 2 reasons. One, no one is giving you the support out there. We keep hearing feedback, which is how this was born, that other educators are not giving support. They're just selling stuff. So it doesn't exist anywhere and nowhere in the real estate education or coaching space. And we want to help you do one thing— deals. So we've wrapped the support mechanism around this. We've allowed you to get into a Slack community with the other associates who previously were protected in Slack, and now you get to jump in there and experience that for 12 weeks. You also get to come to the In the Trenches boot camp, which is private. It's a chance to hang out with the family team and one of the coaches for 2 and a quarter days in our conference room, roll up his sleeves, Get calls done, get deals done. If you come with leads, you leave with deals. Absolutely incredible. I could go on and on. Go to the website right now, check out more information about the Apprentice, and I'm going to give you the In the Trenches Boot Camp site because you don't have to become an Apprentice. It just happens to be free with Apprentice and Associate. So 2 links I'm going to give you, super important. smartrealestatecoach.com/ittb-pod. That's going to give you some information about the boot camp. If you want to buy a ticket to the boot camp, it's more expensive, but you can just come check us out. About 1 or 2 people every time we run it do just that or become an apprentice and it's for free. smartrealestatecoach.com/apprentice-pod. No, I appreciate it. And listen, guys, Derek and I are biased, but come, come hang out with the two of us. You'll, you'll have a great experience and you'll do some deals along the way and make some profits if you want to have a simple advisory call with one of us or someone on the team, just go to smartrealestatecoach.com/action. We'll chat with you. Okay? It's not like we're hiding out somewhere. We want to have you in the experience, all the experience levels that we possibly can. Derek, how about one last thing? Let's— I think I was on a coaching call with you about a week ago. We were mentoring some students and you said, yep, this week I think you put 3 new houses under agreement or whatever it was. What's the latest deal you did? And let's just talk about that for 2, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, and then we'll wrap and give these guys some time back.

Yeah, absolutely. So one of them is kind of a boring cash offer flip, so that's nothing fun to talk about. The one I took possession of last week, it started off as a divorce situation. The wife got the house, but she's not on the mortgage. The ex-husband is on the mortgage, but won't talk to the ex-wife other than through their attorneys. So subject to was off the table. My cash offer, I made a cash offer because I always do, but it would only have put enough money in the pot to clear the debt. It wouldn't have helped her any further than that. And this is, it's a rehab project that I don't want to rehab.

Yeah.

I looked at it, you know, I live in Wisconsin, so we've got winter coming up soon and just the time it would take to do a full rehab, it wouldn't be on market very quickly. So I, when I called her back, I said, well, I can offer you $40,000 cash, which is the debt. She wanted $90,000 originally, but in the first conversation she was already down to $70,000. So this was on the phone. I went and looked at the property and ran my comps, called her back and said, I can get you 70, but the only way I can do that is with a lease purchase. And so I'm going to take over control of the property with my lease. My lease payment's going to cover your mortgage because she's— house is vacant. So she's got this mortgage and a mortgage on her house that she lives in. And that's her biggest pain point. Interestingly enough, I did not offer to take over the utilities. So she still has to pay the utilities because winter's coming and I don't want to pay for the heat. So we moved forward with that deal. We have a 1-year lease purchase agreement and I am just, we're cleaning it up and we're doing some maintenance items that need to be done to make it qualify for any kind of FHA financing. So by October 1st, it should be ready to be on the— actually, that date's wrong. Doesn't matter. It'll be on the market and we're going to put it on the market as is for about $115,000. It'll likely sell for $105,000. I get the first $25,000 profit after all of my out-of-pocket expenses, including my rent, are returned to me. If for some reason I net more than $25,000, I told her I would split anything over and above that with her 50/50. I doubt that. I doubt we will.

Yeah, but it's a win-win structure. Just, you know, if you had some over-demand or something and you decided not to stay in that one, but you bridge the gap there. I like it. Yeah.

And I would've kept it if it wasn't for the ex-husband and the, you know, the whole stress of them. Because in her divorce decree, she is supposed to refinance or pay it off. So set— yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Because we had one where one was in the loan, one was in the mortgage. They're fighting. Zach had to play the go-between, you know, psychologist. And we bought it up too. And we literally just cashed out, you know, weeks ago. And that was, gosh, 5 years ago or so. But it's a headache because one of them's always calling you saying something.

In that same day or the next day, I had bought a property from a retired landlord 2 years ago and we stay in touch. I'm paying her because I bought that on terms.

Yeah.

So she called me about another duplex that she wanted to sell me. Her grandson has been living in it. It's a side-by-side, 3-bedroom each side. Her grandson has destroyed his unit. And not paid grandma in over a year. So she's just done with him.

Okay.

After repair value, about $215,000, needs about $40,000 in updating and repairs. I'm buying it from her for $120,000, $5,000 down. And she is taking payments over a 30-year amortization at 5% interest with a 10-year balloon. So the only challenge with that is I still have to have the rehab money and the down money, and I don't like using my own money. So I called one of my private investors, said, hey, how'd you like to get involved in this deal? I need 50 grand from you. For that, I'll give you 6% interest only and 10% of the equity in the future when it sells. So he was all over that. I've not yet closed on it, even as you guys are listening to this, because we have to get her grandson out of the property before I'll close. So I'm not yet closed on it, but already since I'm under contract, I have 3 people, one of which is my painting contractor, would like to lease option it from me, lease purchase it from me, and fix up that unit and live in half.

Nice.

He's a 23-year-old painter with his fiancée, you know, a good starting property for him. Yeah. And I have 2 other people that are asking to do the same thing. So most likely—

Is that grandson now, Derek, a you or a she?

She is.

Yeah, she is.

Yeah. Cool.

Real cool. If you guys have not heard Derek and I, we could talk deals all day. It's part of why I want you to dig deeper and use some of those links we gave you into some of the stuff we're working on together now. And by all means, get your butt, as I'll remind you 10 times here probably, to the In the Trenches bootcamp so you can just roll up your sleeves with us and get some of these deals done. And then watch the Deal Structure Sundays on YouTube. We will be, Derek and I, ripping apart some of his deals there in the coming months. So Derek, get some rest, buddy, from your travels from the event. And awesome hanging out with you, but even more awesome To be hanging out with you for the next few years. I love it.

Yeah, awesome. Thank you, guys.

Okay, guys, that wraps up our time together today with our new teammate, Mr. Derek Dombek. I will tell you guys, if you missed Derek, as a reminder at QLS Live, go get his product. You know, you do yourself a disservice not to. SmartRealEstateCoach.com/NoMeansNotYou. Yet. Secondly, huge call to action for you. I would strongly suggest you get to the November 3rd, 4th, and 5th In the Trenches Bootcamp, as it is the last bootcamp of 2025. So whether you were at the event yesterday and the day before or not, and whether you're planning on doing something big or not in 2026, why not give yourself the opportunity to be exposed to what we do here at the In the Trenches Bootcamp? I've talked about it almost every podcast. We have a brand new training room actually starting at this November boot camp. That's another reason for you to be here, where we're going to be able to do live calls at a higher level than before. We're going to be able to structure deals for you and we're going to be able to send you home with appointments or deals locked up under agreement. How do we do that? Prior to the event, we're going to host a call. We're going to show you who and what to bring to the table here. For more information on that, please email support@smartrealestatecoach.com. Tell them you heard Chris say it on the podcast that there might be a few seats left for the November, the last one, the Inner Treasures Bootcamp, and that you're interested and they'll get you in touch with me. All right. So I want to chat with you. All right. Make it an outstanding week and we'll see you next week on the next Wicked Smart Workshop. Hey, guys, are you simply sick of juggling a dozen different software tools for your real estate business? I know I was, and I know I'm not a tech person, so it was frustrating. A subscription for this, you get a subscription for that, and they don't even work together out of the box. That's very frustrating, especially in the real estate world where your best time spent is going to be out in the field or on the phone with sellers. And now you're stuck hiring a tech guru just to make all that sync up. So let's ditch the chaos and let REI BlackBook handle everything. Automate your lead follow-up, track every deal, analyze things quickly for you, make offers all in one platform. In fact, with the Wicked Smart platform, we now have access— if you're in the Wicked Smart community, to all the other associates' properties. Can you imagine that? So you're brand new in the business perhaps, and your seller looks on your website and sees 20, 30, 40 properties, instant credibility. So you're going to get everything on REI Black Book from our custom workflows for lead generation all the way to closing. It has it covered. Try it today for just a buck. $1, guys. Visit smartrealestatecoach.com/reibb. hyphen DD. smartrealestatecoach.com/reiboy-dog. All right. Thanks for tuning in to the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast. If you got value from today's episode, guys, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a future episode. It literally takes one nugget to access some of the things we're doing. And when you're talking the amount of the size, rather, the paydays, it's an opportunity cost that you can't let go. So don't miss an episode. And for goodness' sake, share it with someone who needs to hear it. If you're ready to find your best path for getting started on your real estate investing journey in general, head over to smartrealestatecoach.com/getstarted. We're going to help you take the guesswork out of your next steps. See you in the next episode.