On today’s episode of Ritter on Real Estate, we speak with Paul Ross, author, speaker, trainer, master hypnotist, and master practitioner of neurolinguistic programming. Our conversation begins with a bit about Paul’s background as a dating coach. Right off the bat, Paul dispels the myth that you have to be permanently positive in order to succeed and he tells us why neutrality and learning from each experience are more useful than a permanent state of enthusiasm. Paul dives into his process of learning from any experience and achieving a neutral mindset through the three steps of self-hypnosis or meditation. We talk about being interested in the deal but invested in your skills and Paul introduces us to five words that can help you to build immediate rapport. We talk about the law of compound suggestion and Paul gives us a powerful metaphor to help us understand the decision-making process and we discuss how negotiation can be a heroic act. As our episode draws to a close, we touch on the dangers of leaving the power of subconscious influence and suggestion out of what you’re doing and Paul tells us how helping people who have never dated to find love prepared him for his career path. Tune in for powerful practical tips and memorable metaphors to help you maximize your influence and develop instant rapport with anyone!
Key Points From This Episode:
- A bit about Paul’s background as a dating coach and how he discovered NLP.
- Dispelling the myth that you have to be permanently positive.
- Why neutrality and learning from each experience is more useful than a permanent state of enthusiasm.
- Paul’s process of learning from any experience.
- Achieving a neutral mindset through the three steps of self hypnosis or meditation.
- How to be interested in the deal, but invested in your skills.
- Five words to build immediate rapport: explore, we, together, invite and share.
- The law of compound suggestion.
- Why Paul allows his customers to see results before charging them a penny.
- How the metaphor of an iceberg describes the decision-making process.
- Why it is important to decide what kind of mindset you want to be in before entering into a negotiation.
- How negotiation can be a heroic act.
- What you miss out on if you leave the power of subconscious influence and suggestion out of what you’re doing.
- How helping people to date prepared Paul for his current career.
Tweetables:
“So, don’t be enthusiastic and don’t be negative, move to neutral. Neutrality beats enthusiasm, each and every time.” — Paul Ross [0:10:31]
“Mistakes are the best learning experiences we have.” — Paul Ross [0:11:41]
“Be interested in the deal, but be invested in your skills. Now, in a breakfast of bacon and eggs, the pig is invested, the chicken is interested.” — Paul Ross [0:17:13]
“If you’re doing what everyone else is doing, then you probably just kind of have to just push harder to get a little bit better results. If you want to blow your competition out of the water, you’ve got to find something different from outside the box.”— Paul Ross [0:17:43]
“Selling is about emotional leadership. You’ve got to capture and lead the imagination, the emotions of the other party.” — Paul Ross [0:18:45]
“We use the metaphor of an iceberg. 15% of our decision making is made at the top of that iceberg, on the conscious level. 75% to 80%, is made on the bottom of the iceberg that you can’t even see because underneath the surface.” — Paul Ross [0:26:17]
“If you’re leaving the power of subconscious influence and suggestion out of what you’re doing, you’re leaving a tremendous amount of money on the table.” — Paul Ross [0:33:18]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
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—Full Transcript Below—
“PR: One of the problems with pumping yourself up is number one, it’s exhausting. You can only maintain it for a certain amount of time. This whole idea that you need to maintain a peak state, something taught by Tony Robbins, who I like. The problem is with Tony Robbins, yes, you do need the peak state if you’re on stage, and you’re talking to 40,000 people. But if you pump yourself up into a peak state each and every time you pick up that phone, number one, you’re not going to be able to maintain it.”
[INTRO]
[00:00:27] KR: Welcome to Ritter on Real Estate, the show about how to passively invest like a pro. On each episode, I interview real estate experts who give their top investing advice, strategies, and tools that break down into insights and practical steps to avoid the pitfalls and make better investments. I want to help you passively invest like a pro. This is Ritter on Real Estate, and I’m your host, Kent Ritter.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:00:49] KR: Hello, fellow investors. Welcome to Ritter on Real Estate, where we teach you how to passively invest like a pro. Today, my guest is Paul Ross and Paul Ross is an author, speaker, trainer, master hypnotist, and master practitioner of neurolinguistic programming. For the past 30 years, he’s taught tens of thousands of people the power of language to persuade, sell, heal, turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones, and pain into passion. Paul speeches in trainings and motivated audiences around the world to discover their power to design their own results. Paul, thanks for being on the show today.
[00:01:23] PR: It is my pleasure. And as we’re speaking together today, I’m not sure as you’re listening to me out there in the audience, at which point you’ll stop and think yourself, this is really outside the box stuff. I got to learn more. But as we’re enjoying this exploration together, I’m just pleased to be here and to be sharing this with you.
[00:01:45] KR: It’s a little bit of a divergence from the typical topic of multifamily real estate investing. But I think the topics that we’re talking about are so important, to all of us in our everyday lives, how we achieve success, ideas about mindset, just how you communicate. So, really excited to dig in with you more. But why don’t you give the audience little bit of your background and kind of how you’ve come to be where you are today.
[00:02:15] PR: Yeah, so my background is pretty unconventional. Because I started out, believe it or not, in my career of learning how to influence and persuade as a dating coach. I am a retired semi world famous dating coach. I started out as a young man. I was not at least the gorgeous specimen you see here today. I was very shy, very unattractive, couldn’t get a date, well into my 20s, and I stumbled onto a book about neurolinguistic programming. I don’t want to do any kind of deep dive in NLP.
But essentially, they studied how language structures consciousness, shapes our decisions, and most importantly, drives our behavior. Because remember, as a salesperson or an investor, you’re never selling real estate, or whatever it is your product or services, you’re always selling decisions, and good feelings about decisions. So, that’s the same as a date. On a date, you’ve got to do your prospect outreach, got to create rapport, you’ve got to do your sales presentation, you’ve got to go for the clothes, or the trial clothes, you’ve got to handle objections, and you’ve got to close the deal. So, I began to be a coach with this stuff. But first of all, I cured my own shyness, and I began to coach other men and they would write to me saying, “Thank you. There are pictures of my family.” Interestingly enough, about 20 years ago, they started emailing me saying, “Hey, you know what, I found my wife, but I’ve been using your stuff to triple my sales, this stuff can be used for sales.” I thought, “Hey, genius, go back into your lab, figure out how to do this.”
So, I started to teach this, for sales to real estate agents, financial services, and people in the mortgage loan business. But a huge part of it maps over which is about mindset. If you don’t have your mindset, you can have all the technical tools, but without the right mindset, the technical tools, you’re not going to be properly exercised. You know this, and I’ve even advised date traders, if you think investing in real estate requires some mindset and some good control of your emotions, date trading in particular requires that, because you get emotionally invested, rather than looking at the numbers, checking her, you’re getting in trouble, because as we know, the name of the game is cash flow.
[00:04:39] KR: Absolutely. Yeah, I’m glad you said that, because that piece is where a lot of especially newer investors get in trouble is, falling in love with the deal, making the numbers work, making that spreadsheet look nice and tell you what it wants to do. When in reality, they get themselves in a bad situation. So, I think that’s a great piece to hit on. And yeah, everything in life revolves around mindset, right? And without the right mindset, it’s really tough to be successful. So, that’s awesome.
But I’ve spent a lot of time personally and still do, understanding my mindset, working on mindset, daily practices to achieve a good mindset. But something that you’ve hit on is that, in your opinion, a lot of these traditional common teachings about mindset, can actually get in the way. So, what does that mean?
[00:05:33] KR: Well, one of the myths I want to talk about is this idea that you should always stay positive, that if you have a setback and just jump back in and pump yourself up. One of the problems with pumping yourself up is number one, it’s exhausting. You can only maintain it for a certain amount of time. This whole idea that you need to maintain a peak state, something taught by Tony Robbins, who I like. The problem is with Tony Robbins, yes, you do need the peak state if you’re on stage, and you’re talking to 40,000 people. But if you pump yourself up into a peak state each and every time you pick up that phone, number one, you’re not going to be able to maintain it. The person on the other end of the phone who’s not in a peak state, you’re going to not be in rapport with them. We all know rapport is important. And they’re going to probably think you’re a maniac.
And number three, and here’s the really important thing, you’re ignoring the lesson that may come along with that deal that fell through or what you didn’t do so well. On the being too enthusiastic, it can blind us to the information and learning that we need to grasp on to. You can enthusiastically be heading in the wrong direction and keep butting your head against the wall. If you want to sail East but you keep sailing West with all this smile on your face, “I am the king of the world!” You’re in trouble. That reminds me of the movie Titanic. Remember, when Leo DiCaprio is spreading his arms out on the front of the ship and yelling, “I am the king of the world!” No one remembers he was on a ship that was going to sink and he was going to die.
So, enthusiasm is nice, but it has to be matched by a state where you’re open and willing to learn from each and every experience. So, enthusiasm, I say, has to be secondary, has to be in the service of a learning state, a state where you believe that you can learn from each and every experience. That’s number one. Number two, you have to acknowledge without getting stuck into it, then when you do something that doesn’t work out, it’s a little bit painful. So, how can we look at a little bit of the pain without getting stuck to it, without making what we see, what we look at our world through. As a change worker, as a hypnotist, one of the things that I have recognized is a big change comes from people, not when you make a little change, someone could come to me and say, “Paul, I’m afraid of public speaking, can you heal that?” No problem. But the big change comes, when you’re no longer looking through your beliefs, when you’re no longer looking through your patterns, you’re looking at them.
So, much more important than this mindset that’s about enthusiasm, and positive thinking is a mindset where you can stay neutral, and balance with your enthusiasm with the desire and the capability of learning from each experience. That requires that you go to neutral first. So, if you’re feeling really, really down, because a deal fell through or whatever it is that happened, and you try to get enthusiastic and you try to go immediately to feeling happy. Problems are number one, you’re going to lose out on what you need to learn to improve your skills. Number two, it’s exhausting. And number three, and here’s the really cool thing, you’ll create an internal conflict. I don’t know if I already offered this before we had to change locations to do all the noise. But I’ll give you the metaphor again.
I’m Jewish. We celebrated Hanukkah when I was a little kid. Now, I’m a little bit older than you. I’m not a spring chicken anymore. This is back in 1966. My sister bought my little brother, CB, a toy robot. I had this habit of liking to break my little brother’s toys. So, what happened was this toy robot could do three things. It can move forward, it can move backwards, and you can make the lights and its eyes blink. Being a very inquisitive and destructive little brat, I press forward and backward at the same time. The robot began to shake the little motor and its butt burned out, smoke came out of it, boom, it fell over. The robot had an internal conflict because a part of it wanted to move forward a part of it wanting to move backwards.
So, if we’re super enthusiastic and not acknowledging our sadness or our disappointment, then we’re going to create that internal conflict, that friction. That’s why if you’ve ever, as you’re listening to me, if you’ve ever felt exhausted moving forward with something, if the process of change or development or growth is felt exhausting, it’s because you have that internal conflict between wanting to move forward and wanting to step back.
So, here’s the point of all this, let me wrap it, and really tie it up into a nice bow. When you have a setback or a disappointment to try to go to positive, it’s like driving 100 miles an hour, and suddenly, you put the car in reverse. You’re going to burn out the motor. First, you want to get to neutral. So, don’t be enthusiastic and don’t be negative, move to neutral. Neutrality beats enthusiasm, each and every time.
[00:10:40] KR: It’s interesting. I mean, I can relate in ways to what you’re saying just the archetype of this entrepreneur, if you’re kind of always going always on, this idea. I mean, people that do that get burnt out in reality. I think it’s great to think about. You see a lot of it maybe on social media, and you think, “Wow, that person.” But in reality, I mean, and what I’ve experienced is, if you’re go, go, go all the time, like you said positive, positivity all the time, how can you stay in that mindset all the time? You do, you get burned out. You have to have like normal ebbs and flows. I’ve experienced that myself. I think it’s about how I think about that is it’s about finding balance, and having balance. I like what you said about if you’re just plowing ahead constantly, which I think a lot of us are kind of taught is like, “Well, move on, move forward, move forward”, then you’re not learning, you’re not really internalizing those lessons, and you’re not really learning. Those mistakes are the best learning experiences we have. Right?
[00:11:44] PR: Well, here’s the thing we’re all taught, just learn from every experience. But does anyone ever give you an exact process of how to do that?
[00:11:52] KR: No. Do you have one?
[00:11:55] PR: Yes, this the difference. One of the distinctions between, and there’s a lot of great, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of great trainings out there on mindset and on selling, and the rest of it. But one of the things I recognized early on when I was training these guys on how to date, and these are some of the most impacted, hurting people in the world about a lot of shame, a lot of negative beliefs about themselves. Imagine being 30 years old, and never had a date. I had to quickly get them out of those mindsets.
So, the idea is how do you learn from each and every experience? First and foremost, you’ve got to get in a state of neutrality. You’ve got to get in a state where you’re no longer looking through your mistakes, you’re looking at them. I can give you a long story that’s a bit too long. So, we’ll skip it. But essentially, it’s about a student who almost got a date but he lost the phone number and he went through this whole thing in his mind. He wound up saying to me, “I can’t even talk to a woman anymore. Why am I such a failure?” Now, he had done a lot of things right. He had rehearsed his confidence. He went out and confidently approached. He got the phone number. He just lost it. He lost the phone number. But I said to him, “Well, what you’re not doing is looking at everything you did right.”
So, we need to get into a mindset where we’re neutral. This involves a little self-hypnotic process that I can teach people in like five minutes. Obviously, I don’t want to do it here because I don’t want people who are listening while they’re driving to go into a trance, run into a tree. First and foremost, it involves teaching very simple self-hypnotic process, then it involves asking a series of what are called diagnostic questions.
Question number one, what state of mind was I in when I did this activity? Because the most important thing you can ask yourself is not what do I do first, or what steps do I take, the most important question you can ask is, what state of mind do I want to be in when I’m ready to move forward? What is the state of mind I want to be in? And the second question you need to ask is, when you’re selling anything, and you’re always selling a decision. I don’t care if you’re an investor, or broker or whatever, how can I get the party on the other end? What states of mind do I want them in? So, we need to get in a state of mind where we’re neutral. And I can show people self-hypnotic process. If they’re not comfortable with that, I teach them the meditative process. We get to the state of neutrality. Then you ask yourselves the right questions. What state of mind do I want, would be most useful for me to have been in when I went into this activity? What did I do right? When I coach people each and every call I do, they have to tell me first and foremost, what did they do right in the previous week, or the previous month.
Number three is, if I already knew how to do this with excellence, if I already had all of these skill sets, what would I have done differently? This is a really good question. It’s what we call in hypnosis, an unconscious accessing question. When you ask yourself, if I already had the skills and mastery, what would I have done differently? It forces your unconscious mind to dive deep in to your unconscious resources and imagine different answers that normally never wouldn’t would have occurred to you. So, I don’t want to overwhelm your listeners and your audience. But those are good little gold nuggets to learn how to learn from your every experience. It’s more important to have learning confidence, to know that you’ll either get what you want or love learning what you need to get what you want, or better the next time. Learning confidence is something that no one really talks about. But it is essential to be a champion in anything you do.
[00:15:52] KR: Absolutely.
[00:15:53] PR: Does that makes sense?
[00:15:56] KR: It makes sense to me. I mean, so what I heard you say, if I kind of paraphrase is, mindset is not about being positive all the time, that actually works against you. It’s about you said a state of neutrality, I kind of think of that as like, looking at it objectively, right? Being able to look at things objectively, being able to kind of judge the good and the bad, not hyper focused on either side, but be able to stay balanced. And then then being in a – I thought it was really interesting. So, this idea of understanding, like, what mindset do you need to be to be able to move forward? And being able to get into that mindset? Because I think, kind of common thinking would be, well, in order to be, to be able to move forward, I need to be really positive, I need to be really amped up about it, kind of that typical mentality. And it sounds like that’s not what you’re saying.
[00:16:54] PR: No, not at all. Here’s the key. I used to tell my dating students this, be invested in your skills, but just be interested in getting the date. So, be interested in the deal, but be invested in your skills. Now, in a breakfast of bacon and eggs, the pig is invested, the chicken is interested. Do you understand? So, champions in any field and I’ve worked with, and by the way, my preference is to work with people who are already successful, and who’ve taken every sales training out there, every mindset training out there. But they want something that they can’t get from off the shelf, you understand? And they’re willing to be unconventional in they’re thinking, they want to crush their best day, and maybe even crush their competition. But that requires that you think differently. If you’re doing what everyone else is doing, then you’re probably just kind of have to just push harder to get a little bit better results. If you want to blow your competition out of the water, you’ve got to find something different from outside the box. I’m pretty outside the box. Some people would say I’m that bleep crazy. But I take that as a compliment, not an insult.
[00:18:04] KR: You need all different perspectives, right? So, I appreciate that, your unique perspective that you’re bringing to the table. I mean, it’s different from what I’ve heard. So, I think it’s great to be open to that and understanding and I think there’s a lot of good lessons to take away there. So, you mentioned that there’s like four words that you can use, I think, as we talked about the power of language, right? And then you mentioned there’s four words you can use to really, I don’t know, to build immediate rapport.
[00:18:37] PR: Beyond rapport.
[00:18:37] KR: That’s the right way to say it. So, tell us about this. What does that mean? What are these words?
[00:18:43] PR: Let me preface it by saying to me, selling of any kind, whether it’s you’re selling your idea for an investment, you’re selling real estate, you’re etc. Selling is about emotional leadership. You’ve got to capture and lead the imagination, the emotions of the other party. But you can’t just say directly. Now listen to me, I am going to be your leader, you’re going to follow along with what I say, you’re going to listen and obey everything I say. That’s not what I’m talking about. But I am talking about using the power of suggestion. And those words are explore, we, together, invite and share.
It would sound something like this, before we explore this opportunity together, I just want to invite you to please share the questions that naturally arise when a great investment is being made, or great decision is being made. Now, let’s look at this. We, what does we imply? Before we, what is we imply? It implies an activity that we’re doing together. Before we explore, what does it mean to explore? When you explore, is that something you’re doing on the opposite side of the table of the other person or is it something you’re doing on the same side of the table? Do you understand? It implies but doesn’t state that you’re in agreement. Before we explore this opportunity together, we explore together. And by the way, in an exploration, for every exploration, there must be a leader. And for every leader, there must therefore be a follower.
So, you’re implying, you’re not saying you are my follower, you’re implying. Whatever you can get, the other person to imagine for themselves will be perceived by them as being their own idea and the best way to do that is to imply it. When you imply something, the unconscious mind will fill in the blank for itself. Before we explore this opportunity together, once again, togetherness implies you’re on the same side of the table, I invite you – so invite. When you invite, who’s offering the value there? Are you offering the value or are they offering the value? You are, and then also again, so that sets the frame that you’re offering the value, and it also once again implies relationship. I invite you to share. I didn’t say invite you to ask the questions. I said, share the questions.
So, sharing once again implies a relationship that naturally arise when a great decision is being made. Notice I didn’t say what the decision is, but that’s separate and apart from those words. So, when you take four or five suggestions, and you stack them together, the power of those suggestions, exponentially multiplies. In hypnosis and I am the hypnotist, we call this the law of compound suggestion, which means that each suggestion multiplies the power of the previous suggestion. So, you’re stacking four or five of them together, and the unconscious mind will say, “Okay, I am now following this person and we already have a relationship.” You know an old saying people buy from people they know, like, and trust? forget that. People buy from people who they unconsciously perceive as being on their side and being their leader.
So, what if you could go beyond know, like, and trust and establish emotional leadership on the unconscious level? Establishing emotional leadership within a matter of seconds, is super powerful and this is totally outside the box but I’ve seen it work in all sorts of contexts.
[00:22:37] KR: That’s really interesting. I mean, it is outside the box, this idea of, because I think, I mean, we spent a lot of time talking about know, like, and trust, how you develop that relationship over that period of time.
[00:22:49] PR: It takes too long.
[00:22:51] KR: It does take a long time.
[00:22:54] PR: It takes too long. And guess what? The person on the other side of that conference call on the other side of the desk, whatever it is, they don’t have time, they’re already focused on other stuff. I almost said a nasty word. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
So, what if my crazy claim, my back bleep crazy claim is forget know, like and trust. Establish leadership go beyond rapport in the first minute of conversation. Instead of taking all that time over two or three calls, whatever it is, do it right away. Now, if that sounds impossible, you just listen to this podcast multiple times, go out and try it. People say, “Paul, what you’re talking about is nuts. I’m not going to buy anything from you.” I say, “Great. Try the free stuff. Try all the free stuff. Watch your results multiply before you give me a penny.”
[00:23:43] KR: Yeah. I mean, it almost seems like it can be manipulative. I mean, that’s a negative word.
[00:23:51] PR: It is manipulative. Thank you very much. It’s super manipulative, but not a bad way. Here’s this distinction between influence and persuasion, manipulate and manipulation. So, the difference between influence and manipulation is this. When you manipulate, you’re withholding pertinent facts, you’re lying about what’s actually going on, you’re hiding your actual intent, or you’re pushing down very hard on people’s pain buttons. We’re not doing any of that. We’re just capturing and leading their imagination, their emotions. That’s all we’re doing. We’re not lying about the facts of the deal. We’re not lying about the numbers. We’re just putting them in a state of mind where they want to believe us from the get go. I’ll use another metaphor because I like to teach in metaphors. It’s how I teach.
This is not a trick question. I have a sheet of gold foil and I have a sheet of cardboard, and I want to conduct electricity. Which one of those two things is going to conduct the electricity, the cardboard or the gold foil? This is not a trick question. Think of the state of mind of the person on the other side of that deal. As being the conductive medium through which you want to pass the electricity of your facts, data, figures, terms conditions, does that make sense? We may as well get them in that gold foil state of wanting to believe us of – notice that I’m saying unconsciously, of unconsciously perceiving us as being their leader, and unconsciously perceiving that it’s their advantage to trust us.
Let’s get it going in the first minute, I don’t have time, I’m lazy. I’m a lazy ass. I hope that’s not too vulgar for your show. I don’t want to waste time, because time is money. Focus is money.
[00:25:40] KR: Yeah, on both sides, right?
[00:25:42] PR: On both sides. So, why waste time trying to establish know, like, trust and report over two, three calls or weeks or months? It’s ridiculous. Get it right away.
[00:25:53] KR: It sounds like, if I could say it a different way. It’s kind of opening them up to being – I guess, opening him up to hearing whatever it is you have to say.
[00:26:04] PR: Going beyond that. It’s opening them up to believing what you have to say, on the unconscious level. I want to make this very clear. They don’t perceive it consciously. It’s unconscious. We use the metaphor of an iceberg. 15% of our decision making is made at the top of that iceberg, on the conscious level. 75% to 80%, is made on the bottom of the iceberg that you can’t even see because underneath the surface, does that make sense?
[00:26:33] KR: It does. Yeah. Yeah, it does. Absolutely. It’s fascinating. It’s definitely kind of counterintuitive to what I’ve heard. It’s a unique technique. I think that’s why you’re here, right? To give us a unique perspective.
[00:26:49] PR: This is why I say what I have to offer, if you’ve taken every sales training out there, and you’re stuck, and you want to go beyond that. You need something that you can’t get from off the shelf, you need something that’s coming from outside the field. And that’s a little bat bleep crazy. As I’ve said before.
[00:27:07] KR: But let’s say you have a deal, and you’re looking to raise some capital, you want to bring investors into your deal, you believe in the deal. It’s a great deal. But you’ve got to get – maybe it’s just your friends and family on board to believe in it. What’s the first thing that you need to focus on in that call, or in that conversation to be successful?
[00:27:31] PR: First and foremost, what state of mind are you going to be in? To me, the whole idea of negotiation, and selling being about states of consciousness is, again, it’s nuts. But that’s the power in it. So, first of all, what state of mind do you want to be in? Are you going to be desperate? Are you going to be over enthusiastic? I say neutral with a little bit of enthusiasm. Second question is what state of mind do I want them to be in? Before you deliver the facts, figures, data, numbers, you have to consider what state of mind do I want them to be in, and how can I rapidly, naturally, effectively create that state? Those are the most important questions you have to ask yourself. Then you can align yourself with the numbers and the data and the deals, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Back to it.
[00:28:25] KR: Yeah, so I can see like something, I’m thinking about this, as you know, I guess framing this in a way as you’re helping folks kind of get out of their own way, if you will, where you could have someone who – you never you never know what what the person you’re talking to just got done doing or has to do afterwards. They could they could have been in a terrible meeting and be in a bad mood, and for no fault of your own be closed off to maybe is with you have the best deal in the world and it’s incredible opportunity. But because they’re closed off to it, from the get go, they’re in the wrong mindset, they can’t really hear that. So, that so this is a way, it sounds like to kind of reset their mindset and get them into the right mindset to be open. Again, to what you’re saying and believe what you’re saying, and in some ways, maybe help folks, get out of their own way.
[00:29:17] PR: Exactly. And people are in their own way and I’ll tell you why. People nowadays, even very sophisticated investors don’t have the focus that they used to have a great deal of making good decisions have to focus to look at it. Nowadays, people are just too distracted. They have the attention span of goldfish, we have Facebook, instant Messenger, we have Twitter, we have Instagram, we have this thing. This is the thing, to any good decision, right here. People don’t have the focus so you’ve got to get them focused in order to believe they can make a good decision. Second, the person on the end of that phone or the other side of the desk doesn’t come to you with a blank slate. They come to you with all their beliefs, their limiting beliefs about what they deserve, what’s possible for them, what they’re capable of doing. So, your job is to expand their mind outside of all that, which is a very heroic thing. If you stop and think about it, when you can take people who are stuck or confused, expand their mind, to get into a state where they really can believe that they can benefit and move beyond where they were before. That’s a heroic thing to do. You probably never thought of yourself as someone who’s doing a heroic act. When the person on the other side of that phone, or the other side of the Zoom call or whatever, really can’t benefit from what you’re doing, and they couldn’t see it before, you’re doing them a favor. It’s a heroic thing to do.
[00:30:51] KR: Yeah, I know. that does resonate with me, because I mean, a lot of – so I personally believe that, that what I do, investing in multifamily, I mean, really is the best way to to get a great risk adjusted return, meaning being something that’s pretty safe and stable, but but provides better returns, and you’re typically going to get in the stock market, right? I firmly believe that that’s why I do what I do.
[00:31:17] PR: Absolutely. It’s totally true.
[00:31:19] KR: But a lot of the conversations I have with, especially if it’s folks that are first time investors, a lot of those conversations revolve around their preconceived notions of investing in real estate. Because everybody knows somebody that invested in a real estate deal and it went bad or they tried to be their own landlord, it didn’t work out and so people come in with these preconceived notions. I really hadn’t thought about it that way before. But that’s what I’m trying to do in these conversations is open them up to understand a different way of doing things and how it works to kind of get past those things. So, what you’re showing is a more effective way to do that.
[00:31:57] PR: Can I make a call back to something I said before? Remember, when I said please feel free to share the questions that naturally arise when a great decision is being made. That last part of the sentence, great decision is being made, did I say what the decision is? Did I say how they’re going to come to a great decision, or when or why? I left it blank. When you leave it blank like that, at the right time, in a good persuasion, a good act of influence, a good sale, there’s a time to be specific when you present the numbers. But there’s a time to be vague. Because when I’m vague, when I say a great decision is going to be made. I’m not saying who’s going to make the right decision, why it’s great, when, the unconscious mind will dive down and it will find its own meaning.
I’ll demonstrate. I’ll say, as you’re watching and listening to this podcast now, I don’t know all the ways you’ll stop and think to yourself, “Wow, this is really innovative. This is new. I want to learn more from Paul.” But as that’s taking place, I just want to say, “I’m so happy to be leading you on this journey today.” That is so vague. Did I say anything specific?
[00:33:11] KR: No.
[00:33:11] PR: You can’t even remember what I said. But unconsciously, I dropped in the suggestions that I’m leading them, that they’re going to make a great decision. I said, “I don’t know all the ways.” When I say I don’t know all the ways, what does that imply? It implies that there is a way. In fact, there are many different ways and that their unconscious mind will come up with all those reasons why they should view me as an expert. So, look, if your current investment or sales process is working for you, okay. But if you want to supercharge it, if you’re leaving the power of subconscious influence and suggestion out of what you’re doing, you’re leaving a tremendous amount of money on the table. Tremendous amount.
[00:33:55] KR: Yeah, and taking a different tilt on that, there’s a tremendous amount of people that could be benefiting from a good opportunity, who aren’t able to, because of their own limiting beliefs and their preconceived notions, right?
[00:34:09] PR: How many people are you cheating because you don’t know how to influence and make a better decision? If you don’t do this, you are hurting people.
[00:34:18] KR: Now you’re really hitting on it. I got to sign up for this course.
[00:34:24] PR: Hey, you know what, afterwards we’ll talk about training you. We can talk about you becoming a client. I’m serious.
[00:34:28] KR: I love it. I love it. I think this is really interesting. I wouldn’t say I knew exactly where this was going to go today. But I think it’s fascinating. I mean, just the techniques and the power of that.
[00:34:40] PR: Thank you. I had to learn all of this by the most difficult, almost a dangerous, it’s not dangerous, but the most difficult job in the world, which was taking the most stuck, negative thinking, shamed and powerless people in the world. 30, 40, 50, 60-year-old men who never had a date in their lives. Imagine having to teach men who are incapable of communicating in a way that was emotionally evocative and having emotional intelligence. I had to do that job. So, compared to that, teaching competent people how to move forward in the world and be more influential. I could do it in my sleep.
[00:35:19] KR: Very good. So, you have this other topic of counter examples. I want to understand what counter examples are?
[00:35:31] PR: Sure. So, if someone says, I’m going to increase everyone’s investment opportunities right here, may I share a gold nugget, a diamond for free?
[00:35:38] KR: Please do.
[00:35:39] PR: Oftentimes, you’re going to hear I need more time to think it over. You ever hear that one?
[00:35:44] KR: Oh, of course.
[00:35:46] PR: I’m going to eliminate it forever. Here we go. And I have a whole training on destroying objections. It’s free. I’ll tell you more about that at the end. Here we go. When someone says, I need more time to think it over. I say, “I totally understand. Can I ask you a question?” Have you ever taken a long time to think something over and it still turned out to be a bad decision?
[00:36:04] KR: Of course.
[00:36:06] PR: That’s a universal counter example. It’s a pattern interrupt. Everyone in their mind, suddenly they go screech on the brakes and go –
[00:36:15] KR: Yeah, that’s what I did.
[00:36:18] PR: And their mind goes blank, and their mind goes blank. In that moment, where their pattern is interrupted, you have a Windows suggestibility where they’re totally powerless and open to being led. So, then what happens is, you say maybe it’s not about time, but about the clarity, you need to recognize this is a great opportunity. So, now you’ve reframed is no longer being about time, but being about clarity. That implies that of course, it’s a great idea. You just need to clear it up and that you’re the leader. That’s going to do it. You see that?
[00:36:53] KR: I do.
[00:36:53] PR: Guys and gals listening to this, I’m pleading with you. Don’t give me a penny, just go out and try this. I don’t expect anyone to buy anything. Because this is so crazy. Just go out and try it. Look at the results. I’m going to give you free stuff. Use the free stuff I’m giving away. Go see what it does, feel it, because it’s so nuts, I don’t expect anyone to give me anything. Go try it.
[00:37:16] KR: But if you really do think about it. I mean, you’re exactly right. It has nothing to do with more time. I mean, they could take a week, if they don’t, look at it again. They’re not having any more new information. They’re not thinking about it. They’re not going to make a better decision. It really is about the clarity and putting the thought into it, the understanding around it.
[00:37:39] PR: By the way, please forgive me, I have a hard stop in five minutes. I mean, no disrespect.
[00:37:44] KR: No, that’s fine. Well, we’ll wrap up here. That was really the last question I wanted to get to. So, I think that’s fascinating. This idea, this counter example, that is a golden nugget. Paul, man, you’ve brought a ton of really interesting ideas.
[00:38:00] PR: I told you so.
[00:38:03] KR: I believe you. I mean, it’s just a really interesting way of thinking, I think you’ve got me thinking, thought provoking questions and some new tactics. I’m definitely going to try out. Before I let you go, we want to move on to our keys to success. I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask you.
[00:38:18] PR: Okay, let’s fire through them, because now, I have three minutes.
[00:38:20] KR: If you’re someone who is in a situation where you’re being sold to, and maybe someone’s using the techniques you’ve just described, what is the question that you should ask, as the buyer in the situation?
[00:38:33] PR: So, you sense that they’re using these techniques?
[00:38:36] KR: Yeah.
[00:38:39] PR: I would say, “Wow, have you been brilliant enough to learn from that guy, Paul Ross. That’s fantastic. Let’s continue on with looking at the facts and the data.”
[00:38:48] KR: Fair enough. Paul, what are you most proud of in your career?
[00:38:51] PR: I am most proud of getting people to have those transformational moments when I teach seminars or do trainings or talk to people one on one or train small groups. I just trained a call center in the Philippines of all things. I am most proud of being able to transform the entire way people look at selling and influence, not just giving them one technique. But I’m proud of being a transformational teacher, someone who can change the entire way people look at their world, so they can never go back to the old ways of understanding. I am most proud when people say, “Paul, you are the best teacher I’ve ever had in my life.” That’s what my parents instilled in me. They were both teachers.
[00:39:28] KR: Gotcha. No, that’s awesome. I know that you’re crunched for time. So, let’s skip ahead because I want to give people access to these resources. Paul, how can folks get a hold of you if they want to learn more about what you’re doing?
[00:39:42] PR: Very easy. I have my rapid sales accelerator training. How it applies to you guys listening, is it has a section on destroying objections. It has a big section on mindset. It has a little audio training on some of these techniques I’ve been using since I was, believe it or not, nine years old, that made me millions of dollars that you can to. Go to paulroosbook.com. It’s all free. You don’t spend a penny and again, the reason I do it, I have a selfish reason. If you’ve taken every sales training out there, if you’re ready to crush your best day and crush your competition too, because quite frankly, this is not for everyone. Go to paulrossbook.com, it’s totally free. I do it because there’s no reason that now totally believe that you want to buy from me until you’ve used it for yourself and you’ve seen the dollars come in, then come back to me.
[00:40:37] KR: Thanks, Paul. Appreciate the free resources and thanks for coming on and bringing so much value today.
[00:40:43] PR: Thank you. My apologies for the technical issues and the noise outside, that’s why we had to make the jump here to a different location.
[00:40:49] KR: No worries.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:40:49] KR: Thanks for listening to another great episode of Ritter on Real Estate. Hit the subscribe button and make sure you don’t miss out on the content that will make you a better investor. Also, visit kentritter.com for articles, videos, and tools curated just for passive investors. Until next time, this is Kent Ritter with Ritter on Real Estate. Now, go out and invest like a pro.
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