Richard Duggal on the language patterns behind 51 FSBO listings in one quarter

Richard Duggal00:00

I had an agent that I was training and his mother was in the business longer than him. I said, “When’s the last time you called your past clients? When’s the last time you talked to them?” Some of them was a year. And he goes, “Actually, it’s been a long time.” I’m not exaggerating. She actually came to our office and I still remember, on the corner.

00:15I couldn’t even get her off the phone because she had a better thing to say. She didn’t want to come across as if, oh, now you’re calling me and you want business, or my referrals? She wanted a different script. And I gave her a really nice one. They still brought in business, but in an elegant way.

00:29I’m not exaggerating. She’s on the phone calling everybody. So we have to learn what to say.

Loida Velasquez00:39

What’s going on, everyone? Welcome back to a brand new episode of Vulcan7 Coaches and Mentors, where we bring you some of the best in the industry to share with you their tips and strategies so that you can implement them in your business immediately. Now, before I bring on today’s guest, let me tell you a little bit about his background.

00:58So first of all, just in this first quarter of this year, he listed 51 for sale by owners. So 51 for sale by owner listings. He is an NLP trainer, certified and trained by the founders. He was formerly top 100 in the world in RE/MAX. Now he is with eXp Realty. He’s sold over 3,000 listings. And this coach is someone that you will definitely want to make sure you listen to.

01:27So get your pen and paper ready, because with that being said, I’m gonna bring him on, Richard Duggal. Welcome, Richard.

Richard Duggal01:35

Great to be here.

Loida Velasquez01:37

Yes. We’re so excited to have you on today’s episode. Obviously, I just mentioned so many amazing things that you have been able to accomplish. So I just wanna get right to it because there’s a lot of agents that are listening to this and they probably want to have better communication, better confidence, and just be more influential when they’re meeting with their clients.

02:00So for anyone that’s listening that doesn’t even know where to start, go ahead and just share with us, what is the first step agents need to start taking right now if they want to build the confidence to get more listings and get to your level?

Richard Duggal02:15

It depends where they are, but this particular advice will apply to anybody.

02:20It’s you wanna learn what to say, basically. Because the secret of real estate, and I’m saying it’s a secret because it’s not really being told a lot or talked about, the secret of real estate is mastering the language of real estate, mastering the language. Because if you send out flyers, they still have to call you, right?

02:47If you’re on Facebook, whatever, and you’re advertising houses, in the end, they still talk to you, still talking. So all that money you’re spending on marketing, in the end, we still have to blah, blah, blah. So you have to master the blah, blah, blah. And if you are newer, then you wanna learn the scripts. You have to learn those scripts because you want to learn what to say.

03:09And when you learn the scripts and you get confident in what you’re saying, then what happens is your confidence increases, so they’re both related. So here’s an example. You’re walking by, or you’re driving by, a for sale by owner, you see the sign. And if someone’s new, so remember when you were new and you may have had a bit of anxiety, or what do I say?

03:33And that’s why you didn’t go, right? You kept on walking. You got kind of busy right now because I have to go back to the office to deal with this offer. I’ll be back. Did you really come back? So in this case, what would happen if you actually knew what to say? Now what if that for sale by owner has a sign and on it, it says no realtors, on the door, right?

03:55But if you know what to say, even in that case… The reason I know is I coach people, I train them and I tell them, “This is what you say.” And they go, “Oh, I know I can do it.” It’s really easy. Even past clients. So I had an agent that I was training and his mother was in the business longer than him and she was not prospecting a lot, whatever.

04:19And I said, “When’s the last time you called your past clients?” ‘Cause she has a lot, being in the business a long time. And she said, “Well, I should call them.” And I said, “That’s usually the answer.” And I understand that. And I said, “When’s the last time you talked to them?” Like, some of them was a year.

04:36And he goes, “It’s been a long time.” I didn’t wanna press that. But I said, “Why don’t you call them and say this?” And she said, “Yeah, I can say that.” I’m not exaggerating. She actually came to our office and I still remember, on the corner. I couldn’t even get her off the phone because she had a better thing to say.

04:56‘Cause she didn’t want to come across as if, oh, now you’re calling me and you want business, or my referrals?

05:02She wanted a different script. And I gave her a really nice one. They still brought in business, but in an elegant way. And I’m not exaggerating. She’s on the phone calling everybody.

05:14So we have to learn what to say.

Loida Velasquez05:18

Can you share with us what that script sounded like?

Richard Duggal05:22

Well, in that case, she hadn’t spoken to people for a long time. So I’ll give you the elements of it. So it was like, “Hey, how’s everything going?” More of a personal thing. But she said these words, “I’m calling from my real estate office.”

05:37Well, actually, from my office. ‘Cause then what would happen is that you’re already introducing the fact, I’m in business now. I’m not like cooking things as a housewife. I’m in business in my office. And then I said to her, to update some information, say, “Actually, I just changed to a new real estate office.

05:59I wanted to make sure you have my number.” And she introduced some information. And now there’s a Starbucks nearby as well. So that was part of it, is, come by sometime, wherever, blah, blah, blah. Come by and see me. There’s a Starbucks. We’ll go, we’ll meet. And another thing that I brought into the element was why did she remember them?

06:17So that’s another one, is why did you remember them? And so what she said is, hi Mary, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she goes, “You know what? I was looking at some properties here in Pickering and I remembered you. I gotta come and see you. I haven’t seen you for a while. I was actually gonna come and knock on the door for a cup of tea.”

06:36And I was with these people, my people. And now I gotta call you. So what have you done? You showed them, you reminded them, but you put real estate within that. Now, someone here might say, “But what if I didn’t go, right?” We’re always looking at properties on the MLS, aren’t we? If you’re not, you should be looking at your market.

06:56So you just say, “I was looking at some properties and I thought about you. I haven’t talked to you for a while.” So it’s almost like not a complete apology, but it’s like, “Oops, I haven’t called you.” You know what I mean? So that was one. And then I gave somebody else one, now that you’re mentioning that.

07:12I wanna show you a different one, completely different. ‘Cause I have 82 ways to approach any situation. Any objection? I have 82 answers because I’m NLP. I write scripts. I wrote them for the big companies, like the advanced ones. They still ask me for those. And so another one is, “Hey, Jim, are you mad at me or what?

07:33You haven’t called me.” So you did the reverse psychology. And that’ll be for a certain personality that will do that. Not everybody here is gonna do that. But I gave that to someone who’s kind of more bold and has that kind of sense of humor in their personality, that cheekiness, and they’re kind of known for that.

07:49They just have that. So he did that. He’s calling people instead of saying, “I apologize,” because there’s scripts out there, “I haven’t talked to you for a while.” He said, “Hey, are you mad at me? What’s going on? You haven’t called me. All my clients, they call me, they talk to me, you haven’t talked to me.”

08:04And you know what happens? The person goes, “I know, I’ve been too busy.” That’s called reverse psychology. So there’s a few examples. And as I coach with a client, we actually develop the scripts that will work for them, because there’s four personality styles, right? There’s four personality styles basically.

08:23There’s the driver personality, whose bottom line… That’s the customer when you walk in and you’ve done your CMA, all the presentation on what sold in the area, all the technical stuff. And it’s happened to all of us if you’ve been in business for a long time. The old Italian guy goes, “Hey, forget about that.

08:41How much can I get?” You don’t wanna even see it. That’s a driver, bottom line. And then you get the amiable that wants to get to know you, like, “Oh, Richard, you got children? Oh yeah, let me show you a picture of mine.” And they use the word feel. They wanna feel they have a connection with you and a trust and a comfort with you.

09:01And that’s when we lose listings. So a top agent who’s selling all these houses can say, “I sold that. I sold this.” And then they go with Mary Lou and you go, “What happened? She didn’t sell anything.” But they go, “Oh, we kinda like her.” That’s the amiable, right? And then you get the analytical, the engineer accountant type who wants to know.

09:21He actually knows more than you sometimes about what’s going on in the area because he’s been analyzing it. So that person, you have to speak to them differently. And then you have the expressive, and that’s someone who’s the life of the party, a lot of high energy, talks a lot but doesn’t say much.

09:39The lady in the seminar who’s got the big hair and the big earrings and wearing red. And the key to persuasion is not to judge. You just say, “Oh, that’s the person. How do they want to hear this message?” So what I do with my coaching clients, we not only adapt to that person’s way of selling, then we adapt to the customer, but then we move to the… the word is called versatility, where I have my clients be able to speak differently themselves, like change themselves, the way they communicate based on that client.

Loida Velasquez10:20

That’s awesome. And I’m glad that we’re talking about this because sometimes it’s those little things, even the examples that you gave of the agent that hadn’t called the past clients. We hear it all the time of agents saying, “Well, I don’t know what to say,” or, “What if they’re gonna think that I just want business?”

10:37And sometimes it’s just starting a conversation and, just like you mentioned, saying things like, “I’m here in my office. I wanted to update you with my new information.” And also knowing the personalities. It’s extremely important who you’re talking to. So with that being said, at the start of the show, I mentioned you had in the first quarter of this year 51 for sale by owner listings, which is amazing.

11:03And I don’t know if there’s anybody else, probably not. You probably know. You might hold the record for the most for sale by owner listings, probably, at this point, taking them in such a short period. So tell us, how did all of that happen and what has stuck out to you the most in terms of, is there a specific personality type that you see mostly in for sale by owners?

Richard Duggal11:28

This is really interesting because when people come for sale by owner, there’s a meta program in NLP. It’s really useful to know and I wanna make sure that this is not a conversation about blah, blah, blah. I want people to have takeaways that they can go use.

11:47So hopefully they’ve got a couple already. But here’s one. So it’s a way people make decisions. And this’ll happen your whole life with anybody. Forget about real estate and then put real estate back in. So what happens is it’s called external or internal. There’s only two types. And it’s how people make decisions.

12:09So people who are externally orientated, before they make a decision, they’re the ones that ask everyone their opinion. Like I have a friend, he’ll buy an iPhone and he’ll call me even after. Forget about even before. And say, “What do you think of the iPhone versus the Samsung?” And I’ll go, “Blah, blah, blah, blah.”

12:27And he goes, “Oh, yeah, I bought an iPhone.” I go, “Why are you calling me?” “Well, I still got the receipt.” You know what I mean? So what I’m saying is that they’ll call everybody. I’ll give you an example. So I have a mentor, I have coaches myself, and he was in Naples, in a beautiful house I actually went to.

12:44And so he walked in. It’s a true story. His wife told us a story. And he said, “This is it. We’re buying it.” And his wife, who’s Sabrina, said, “You haven’t even seen the whole house.” He goes, “This is the house.” You see, he’s internal. He makes decisions internally. He doesn’t care about anyone’s opinion. So think about a relative like that.

13:05You know they’re internal, they just make decisions. And think about another relative or friend that is always asking everyone’s opinion. They go asking this person, that person, that person. So they make decisions outside themselves. So why is that important for for sale by owners? ‘Cause for sale by owners tend to go more to internal, you know what I mean?

13:27Like, “I know what I’m doing, I’m fine.” In the beginning, especially. And some even continue that. They actually have special ways of speaking to internals that has like a lock. It just opens their brain. There’s actually wording you can use, which is ridiculous. It’s so easy once you know, you just start saying these things and then they go, “Oh yeah, of course.”

13:49So what you wanna do is realize that the for sale by owner is internal at the beginning. Now, whether you’re internal or external, what is the way you’re wired, because some people… there’s also something else. The less you know about a subject, the more external you’ll become. Does that make sense?

Richard Duggal14:08

So let’s say yourself, you want to learn about brain surgery and you don’t know nothing, maybe you do know a lot, but let’s say you don’t, and you go, “How does that work?” But if somebody asks about a subject you’re familiar with, I’m just making this up, let’s say Spanish cooking or Italian cooking, let’s say you went to school, then you’re internal.

14:29No one can tell you. I mean, you know about it. So a lot of it depends on what you think of it. Now, if you look at for sale by owners, they tend to be internal, but it’s called cognitive dissonance. They don’t want to believe that they don’t know, because that means they need an agent. So it causes incongruence in them.

14:49So they actually are selling themselves on the idea that I don’t need an agent. So they tend to be more internal. Does that make sense? Like, “I know what I’m doing.” Now, how about the person that says, “I already sold a house before, three years ago. I don’t need an agent.” See how internal that is? So it becomes even more internal.

15:10So you have to know who you’re dealing with. So there’s three parts to being an influential person. It’s a good time to bring that up.

Richard Duggal15:17

And anybody here may have never heard this before, because no one teaches persuasion in real estate properly. Not to the level that I’m gonna talk about here.

15:28So number one, there’s three parts. If anyone can think, what would they be? Okay, here they are. So number one is who you are. That means who you are, your own competence, your beliefs, how you are behind the camera. Are you the same? Are you consistent? In other words, discipline, self-disciplined.

15:48So how are you as a person? How do you come across, your energy level? Some people are playful, some people have charisma. It’s who you are. Does that make sense? ‘Cause you can have three people on the stage with the same script, whether they’re singing or they’re doing standup comedy, but it’s who they are.

16:05They have the same jokes. Do you see why it’s important who they are? And then number two is persuasion and influence, like language patterns. Like the one I mentioned before this call, the more you X, the more you Y, is a language pattern, right? The more you prospect, the more money you’ll make, right?

Richard Duggal16:23

The closer you listen to my advice, the better decision you’ll end up making. It’s the more, the more, the less, the less. It’s a language pattern. I got hundreds. So what happens is that’s the persuasion part, the scripts, the persuasion, what you say, and even the strategy of sending a pre-listing package before you go on the appointment, things like that, that’s called strategy persuasion.

16:48What we think about influence, but there’s a third part, which we brought up earlier, which is how to size… I just call it sizing people up. You notice people who are very good at selling and moving around and being influential, they know what you need to hear. They know this person needs this, this person needs recognition, so you’re gonna give them some recognition.

17:09And this person is a pity person. They’re feeling sorry for themselves. If you want rapport, you go, “I don’t know how you’ve done so well with the obstacles you’ve had.” So you get that rapport, right? So it’s like you know how to deal with different people. It’s sizing them up, the analytical, there’s different categories of reading people and actually profiling people, which I teach too.

17:31We had a little test of it there. So what happens is that you’ve got now three elements. Now, which is the most important? It’s actually number one, which no one… how anyone’s working on it is yourself, your voice, voice control, your confidence, your mindset, the way you move, the way you present, your body language, all that stuff is working on yourself.

17:52So there’s three parts to being influential. And the sizing people up, that’s where we talk about the personality types, internal versus external. So this person, if they’re really adamant that they are going to do it themselves and they don’t need any help, just saying those scripts that we get online, like, “If I can show you a way, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

18:15It turns them right off, and everyone’s using them. So the key that I do is… a person actually, he’s number 13 in his national company. So he’s really good already. Number 13 ranked. And it’s actually C21, so he’s number 13. And he was taking a FSBO every now and then, one every two months.

18:38I’m not exaggerating. I had a 30 minute coaching call with him, 30 minutes. I got him from that to three FSBOs a month, taking three FSBOs a month immediately. And basically, I can tell you what I just told him right now. We practiced it and how to do it. And this was it. You don’t make them wrong.

19:01You don’t make them wrong in your conversation and even in your own mind. Because in your own mind, if you go, “That guy’s an idiot trying to sell privately,” then what happens is that I don’t care what comes out. Remember, who you are shows up. So what happens, they can tell, right?

Richard Duggal19:20

So my attitude is this.

19:22Hmm, this person’s selling privately. They’re doing the best they can based on the information available to them that they have access to or they decided to listen to or watch. So based on their information available to them, they made that decision. And then I tease myself. This is a little while ago.

19:43I say, “You know what? I’m pretty good at selling.” Like I sold the encyclopedias, I sold vacuum cleaners, where it’s like a one and a half months mortgage payment for each one. Door to door, by the way. I sold a lot of things. You’d be surprised. Even stun guns. I sold stun guns door to door.

20:00You know stun guns?

Loida Velasquez20:01

Oh wow. Yes. Yeah.

Richard Duggal20:02

Yeah, because where I am, it wasn’t illegal to sell them. You didn’t have, no license necessary. So we used to go into offices and businesses, not houses, and sell them, sell stun guns. So, and then one day they said it’s banned. Like, you know how the government some