SPECIAL SERIES CRE Brokerage Training with co-host Brett Swarts with Jon Dwoskin

When Jon turned 43, he made a career out of being himself. He is an executive advisor, business coach, sales coaching, training and management coaching, training keynotes, and Founder/Chief Executive Officer of The Jon Dwoskin Experience.

He’s been called the “business whisperer” because he can see what you cannot see and hear what you cannot hear at your company. His passion extends to myriad non-profit organizations including sitting on the board of Hebrew Free Loan and, as an 18-year cancer survivor, being a mentor with Imerman Angels.

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Brett:

Welcome everybody to a joint kind of podcast/workshop. My name is Brett I’m the host of the Capital Gains Tax, which is a podcast, also a Commercial Real Estate Broker with eXp, I’m with my good friend,?Jon Dwoskin. Jon, can you introduce yourself.

Jon:

Hey, I’m Jon Dwoskin. I am a business coach. And I work with solopreneurs, to fortune 100 companies, and everything in between, and used to be in the commercial real estate space for about 13 years. And you and I decided to kind of jump on and do this interactive workshop. So I’m looking forward to it.

Brett:

Absolutely. And Jon is being modest there, he was a manager of the number one or one of the top real estate, investment firms?Marcus & Millichap. And that’s actually part of our beginning with myself as well in my training, we learned a lot of Marcus and Millichap, Jon about what to do, how to close deals, I could say it’s like the Navy Seals of the investment brokerage business. And it’s the foundation of my entire career learned a lot of great things. And so we’re gonna be talking about the fundamentals of commercial real estate brokers, just a few things we obviously can’t cover too much. But the first one, Jon, is the value of representation. Yeah, Jon, when, when you hear that what comes to mind? And what is, as a commercial real estate broker, or somebody who’s looking to level up their game? What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the value of representation?

Jon:

Yeah, well, I think when you’re when you’re talking about a value prop, it’s really, really important to connect to a couple of things. One, the value is based on benefits, not features. I think many salespeople sell in features versus benefits. And so I think it’s, that’s first and foremost is really kind of like saying, as I speak, am I speaking value benefits? Or am I speaking of features, which don’t really work? Next, what type of value am I actually bringing to the table? Meaning am I are people able to understand and quantify, what I’m saying? Next is understanding kind of the benefits of you and the benefits of the company. They go hand in hand, sometimes people weigh too much on themselves. And they’re important, but they need to talk to be able to talk about why them and why the company. And here’s a really big one to the importance of speaking in stories. Too many times, we learn through stories and lessons and through clients’ perspectives. And so we don’t necessarily want to talk about, Hey, I think this and I think this and you should do that. If we’re doing all the things that we just talked about, then the conversation and the consciousness in the frequency in the vibration of that talk is much higher.

Brett:

Absolutely. So you talked about features and benefits, right. And then talking and seeing things in stories, as well as not just selling yourself, but selling the entire company, right. And the other part about the value, the value piece, something I learned early on a Marcus & Millichap, was one of the mentors in the office. And he said, the moment you know more about a person’s property that you’re calling on, or about some properties next door or something that’s going to solve their challenge, that’s the moment you start to add value to that person that you’re reaching out to, that you’re trying to represent, it’s the value of representation, meaning that you have a chance to actually solve a problem. So talk about that Jon when you first started out, or when you’re training brokers in your office, with cold calling, and reaching out and connecting with somebody tell us how detailed and specialized everyone was?

Jon:

Well, I think I think one of the things that’s important to remember, Brett is that the goal of a cold call is simply to get a meeting. And you know, it’s nice to be able to say where we are right now that meetings are back. We’re in this and pandemic, where meetings, people are starting to go on meetings again, which is great. I mean, I’m loving it, and I’m loving it for people because I think people are really missing it. But to be able to articulate what you specialize in, and how you can specifically help someone, I think starts with a lot of the questions that you ask to position yourself as an expert. And so it’s not necessarily telling. It’s asking and understanding the questions that get the conversation moving. So people know you’re an expert just through the questions that you actually ask. If I do it right. I don’t have to tell I’m an expert, it shows through my questions and then my backup questions because I understand what I’m talking about. And then I can not only answer, what’s coming at me but I can also kind of incorporate a lot of my expertise, as I answer a question.

Brett:

So in the beginning, when you don’t necessarily A know the questions or B have the track record, right, and you’re just trying to get your business going Jon, what were the questions that were asked? Are you are you? Are you encouraging the brokers who are getting trained to ask? And how are they leveraging their mentors, right to be able to move the business forward to get that meeting, because you’re right, the goal, the cold calls to get a meeting, right. And the beginning of my career, biggest one of the biggest mistakes I was having, as I was trying to have a meeting on the phone. I’m so excited about this new piece of knowledge that I know or this deal that clothes are these ways to raise rents. So this way to market better, there’s tax deferral strategy, or whatever. And I’m just telling the whole meeting on the phone, and they’re on the other line going, Wow, this guy gives me some really cool stuff. Great. I’m gonna take that to my other guy over here that they already know, or my CPA or whatever, right? Thanks for the value and boom, hang up, right? So connect that, of asking the question, listening for the window of opportunity, and then leveraging the mentor to get the meeting.

Jon:

Well, I’m gonna work backward, because leveraging the mentor is where it really starts. If you don’t have a mentor, you gotta get a mentor. And if you can’t get a mentor, then you need to hire a coach. Right? I’m not necessarily that’s not self-promotion, but or you got it, you’ve got to do something because I don’t think you can grow in the business without mentorship. It’s it is, there’s, there’s a lot of great books, but no book you can read, other than doing the work every single day and being mentored and all the different nuances. And so it starts with the nuances. It starts with role-playing every single day. To me, anybody in the commercial, anybody in the residential real estate space needs to be role-playing every day, whether it be 5 10 15 minutes, that is absolutely key. Because as you’re role-playing, you’re getting prepped for the calls. So before I hit the calls, I’m always role-playing a little bit to get kind of my muscles moving. So I know, okay, I’m role-playing with somebody. And I’m testing out the question. I wrote out three questions that people asked me yesterday that I didn’t know the answers to. And then I wrote them out, I went to my mentor. And I said, hey, how would you answer these questions? And then how would you ask questions to get in front of them having to ask you these questions? So right and then, and so that’s kind of like the first step in my opinion. Because if you don’t, if you can’t do that step, it’s much it’s very hard to understand to listen to the windows of opportunity. Do you know what I’m saying?

Brett:

I absolutely, Jon, I want you to want to walk through all of this? We’re gonna rely on roleplay here in a second. Do you have a live link? Because we have people that are trying to get it.

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