Vinny The Bird is popular for solving problems in the bird community. Image by Jan Tik

If you’re new to this real estate investing series I’m writing, the purpose of it is to show you as an entrepreneur that learning your trade well and opening your mind to endless possibilities can help you achieve your goals.

I have a passion for creativity in business and I love investigating intuitive ways to invest in real estate.

When investing, I typically buy and sell differently than most Realtors suggest or know about. I listen to everyone, but ultimately I’m the investor, I’m the entrepreneur, and I make the decisions.

Today I want to show you how by thinking creatively and solving your customer’s needs you can create a win-win situation and ultimately get what you want (in this example the customer will be the seller of a house I want to buy). It just takes a little creative thought.

The first thing I do when I meet with a seller is just get’em talking. I not only listen to what they are saying, I listen for what they are meaning they want to do (i.e. read between the lines).

Why is she selling? What does she want to do with the profits? What kinds of hobbies does she have? Talk about family, sports, vacations, etc. Not only am I learning what she needs from the sale of her house, I’m also becoming more personable and not this big scary real estate investor.

To parallel this for a moment, this is a great way to interact and connect with your customers in your business, especially new customers.

When late replying to emails, for example, let them know why you were away. If you took the kids to the zoo, tell them. Show them you’re a normal guy or girl who is flesh and blood and not some corporate VP of a web hosting company. In time, they will see you more as a friend and connect with you on a certain level. Also, while they talk, you’re learning more about this customer and their needs as well.

So now that you’ve listened to the seller talk a little, you have a better understanding of where she’s coming from.

To overcome the mental block most sellers have when it comes to accepting a non-standard way of buying their house, it is important to first begin with showing them how your goal is to make sure their needs are satisfied. Like with any company, if you screw enough people over (I don’t usually put it that way) no one will want to work with you. Through examples, show them how there are different ways to buy and sell real estate and emphasize how even though most sellers think they know what the best solution to their needs are, many times there are better ways.

For example, if I wanted to purchase and flip the seller’s vacant property using the example “option” method in this post here (a very profitable method), I would show the seller how allowing me to buy in such a way would benefit her the most. I’d show how if I failed to buy, she’d have a renovated house and I’d of lost a lot of my time and money . . . which is reassurance that I will close on the house.

People feel more comfortable when they know how much they have to gain and how much you have to lose. If you were to hire us to design a website for you and you knew if we didn’t satisfy your needs our company would go under, you’d know we would probably be a company that would give everything we got into designing you the best website ever.

If, however, you knew to us you were just another number and our primary focus was on larger corporations with big spending limits, you might feel the job you’d get from this company would be a little less personable and the attention to your specific needs aren’t as important (not always the case, just an example).

So whether it’s investing in real estate or trying to grow your small business, solving your customer’s problems and being a little less corporate is a great way to achieve success. Just keep in mind that many times your customers think they know the solution to their problems, but often times they don’t.

If you own a business, I’m willing to bet you have experienced this before.