How to Flip the Switch in a Slow Market with Josh Cadillac

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:00:41

Well, hello everybody and welcome to another amazing episode of the Unstoppable Success podcast. I'm your host, Jaclyn Strominger, and today I have an amazing guest that I cannot wait for you to meet, and that is Josh Cadillac.

Let me tell you a little bit about Josh because it's very appropriate right now.

He is an award winning international speaker, he's a real estate coach and he's the author of author who trains real estate professionals how to close for life by by building lasting success through extensive knowledge.

His unique method combines education real estate professionals need to survive in this industry with tools to convert that knowledge into a rapport, credibility and trust, which is really important in the industry.

ucer since going full time in: 2008

It's a simple guide that explains how investing works and Close for Life, the story of how he learned that top spot just earning commissions and started winning customers for life. And he also has a new book coming out called Success for Life. There's a lot of success, a lot of life in here. So welcome Josh.

Josh Cadillac: 00:01:58

Thanks, Jaclyn, so much for having me here. It's great to be here with you.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:02:02

Yeah, so it's so great.

So, okay, so don't normally start off asking this question, but it is like totally top of mind right now because you are in the real estate profession and you are somebody who obviously knows how to close, know how, knows how to go after business.

So for people who are in a position in, and I'm going to take obviously real estate, or maybe it's in another industry where there is lots of talk of, oh, it's a slow market or this is a slow time. How do you actually tell people to flip the switch?

Josh Cadillac: 00:02:47

The switch flip is this.

We are coming through a stretch here and not all markets have kind of moved to being more of a buyer's market, but we're seeing more and more of that throughout the US and it's been more of a crisis of consumer confidence because of all the things that are going on. With this uncertainty, consumers tend to kind of, I don't know what to do.

We're still fundamentally in real estate, have an under supply of real estate. We've been building far fewer homes that we need every year. So we're between four and a half and six million homes behind.

So there is an undersupply that exists. But right now we have a little bit of a crisis of consumer confidence. It's causing a pullback. I say to everybody, what are you talking about?

This is the greatest opportunity that you've had in 25 freaking years. I mean, buyers have had no leverage in the real estate market for a really long time in most markets.

mean, even if you go back to: 2008

People do. I mean, while home affordability is an issue, people have the money. You can. You ready for this, Jaclyn? It's crazy.

You can go to a seller and rather than deal with 50 other offers, you can offer them 10% below asking price and ask them to give you points back to pay down your mortgage, to lower your mortgage payment, and they're taking the deal. You have leverage. The holy grail is having the buyer today.

And it's just real estate is so slow, kind of for the people in the industry to recognize what the change is and where the opportunity is. For me, go where the opportunity is. The opportunity. Have the buyer show people, here's the opportunity. You could stay in cash.

CPI just came in at 2.7%. Your cash is getting killed. Or you could get long in real estate, where there's very little competition to take and get a deal.

You can get good terms, you can get a good price, and when interest rates soften and whenever they do soften, you refinance and take advantage of that. But you locked in your price. Great, great place to be.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:04:55

You know, it is. But so there's so. So listeners, this is actually something that. That, That I think is really, really important. It's.

It's having the mindset and also looking. Looking at where opportunities happen to be.

Josh Cadillac: 00:05:11

Absolutely. I mean, it's a fascinating time. I was literally just writing a class on this, like, identifying where this is. Every market seeks equilibrium. Right.

And when anything changes, it throws it out of equilibrium and it creates opportunities. And also things that get discouraged, they're not as good to take and invest in.

What we have the benefit of right now is there's lots of things that are being changed all at once, which that equilibrium is being thrown more out of whack than normal, which there's. There's more places for opportunity. So I think it's actually a really good thing.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:05:43

Yeah, no, and I totally agree, but. And the key thing is actually is to, you know, you can. You can do what the Industry standard is. Or.

And in general, like, and say, oh, the market's slow. I'm going to take the time. Time off over the summer. And it's the da, da.

Or you could be the person who actually keeps working and does things consistently and changes the mindset of. Of, oh, my God, this is a great time. And. And looked for the opportunity, you know, because we're not.

Josh Cadillac: 00:06:17

I don't want to just take and limit this to real estate because it's not just a real estate thing. So I want to take him and, and broaden the appeal. Step one, know what the hell you're talking about.

Like, actually, most people in sales focus on sales techniques and never figure out why the hell the product is actually good for. Like, why would or would somebody want this? And how do I show them what the benefit is really?

Well, and more than that, Jaclyn, how do I show them in selling this to them that I'm looking out for them and would never sell them anything more than what is the right thing for them? Because most people, most people in sales have been trained to do what I'm going to call Tinder Sales.

Tinder sales is hook up with the customer, get what you want, and never call them the next day. Right. I don't buy that. I don't want that. I want to do every deal they ever do. I want to be. My father's originally from the. I'm from New York.

In New York, I got a guy. How do I get them to say that about me? How do I handle myself in sales? Because if I do that, I haven't closed the deal. I've closed the customer.

And that pays dividends over and over. Maybe it means I take a little less because I don't sell them the upgrade that they never needed. Right? Maybe. No, no.

Look, guys, I could sell that to you. I know you want it, but I'm telling you, like, never going to use it. We can always upgrade you later. It's not going to cost. Try it without it.

Let me be that guy because that guy's different nobody else. And that guys, when you, when you do that now, you're a scarce resource. That's the place to be. So be paying attention. Help them do the work. Right.

I think the biggest thing when I say that is people haven't quite picked up on the fact that we have too much information now.

And what I mean is, let's say you and I, Jaclyn, we were going to go to Rome and let's say we had never been right or we're going to go someplace we've never been. And because I'm a closet fat kid, I always want to know wherever we're going to go, where's the place we're going to eat? Like, where.

Where are we going for food? All right, the thing is, if I go Google search, where is the place I gotta eat? If I go to Rome, there's gonna be 5 million things.

It's gonna take hours of research, and I'm still not gonna be clear on where I want to go when it's all done. That's what people have access to right now.

What I really would like as a consumer, as a person going to Rome, I'd love to have a friend I could call up who goes to Rome five times a year and has lived there for and say, hey, I'm. Where should I eat? Because you know what that friend's gonna say. All right, Josh, here's what you do.

You go to this street, look to your right, there's a little alley. Halfway down the alley, there's a little canvas. Knock three times, ask for Antonio. Tell him I sent you.

He'll give you a meal that'll change your life. People don't want more information. They want insight.

They want somebody who already knows it well enough to cut through the crap and give them the actual answer they need. And so knowing your product well, sitting here, oh, look, that's what you need. All right, here's what you really need to know.

That conversation is so valuable, but most people in sales can't have it because they're too focused on sales techniques rather than actually being good at what they do.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:09:35

You know, it is so true and all of what you're also saying, too, and I think it's very important, and I feel like a lot of people have lost it, is know the people and know and create relationships. You know, the. It's. It's really unique when you find people who aren't there to actually pitch you, but are there to actually get to know you.

And maybe my product is going to be good for you, but maybe not. At the end of the day, what matters to me, what. What should matter most is did I listen to what you need? Did I listen to what?

Maybe, you know, maybe it's a pain point, but maybe you don't even know. But what are you looking for? What you know? And is there somebody or something that I could be that connector for? Because it's going to come back.

But you do want to be the guy. You want to be that guy or that girl, that someone's going to say, hey, you know what? Josh might know somebody.

And then, like, let them keep coming back to you. Oh, you know, I want to pick up the phone. I got somebody for you. Be that person.

Josh Cadillac: 00:10:50

It's interesting, Jaclyn, because what you're talking about, you know, figuring out their pain point, it's an important part.

But I think the sequence, because of how cynical people have become to sales, we actually have to kind of flip it on its head rather than finding out about you. I think the better way, actually to approach things is to anticipate you well, because that's what people are not doing.

So I'm sure you've had the experience. I've had the experience of where you go someplace and they send a car to the airport to pick you up. They send a professional driver.

You know, they got the little sign and everything. And if the driver's any good, what they do, if it's a good company, they'll call you the day before.

They're obviously confirmed your flight information, and they'll ask you a question. Do you have any bags? And if you tell them yes, a good driver will always be there and have a luggage cart waiting.

And the reason why is, while they didn't ask you whether you wanted them to get your luggage card, they just assumed a person coming in would appreciate having a luggage card. The cynicism that exists for sales puts me in a position, Jaclyn, where I have a dearth of integrity in the customer's mind.

On the way in, before I really start asking you questions, I have to take and build up enough respect and trust to get those honest answers. Because if I was to sit here and say to you, all right, Jaclyn, what's your budget? Well, you're not going to.

Usually somebody that's being asked that by a salesperson is not going to tell the truth up front. You don't want to buy a used car, they say, hey, how much you got to spend on a used car today?

If you got 10 grand in your pocket, you're saying 6,500, right? And I know that this is me not anticipating the country.

So if you were my customer coming to me, Jaclyn, I'd say, all right, Jack, look, here's what's going on out there. Here's what you got to look out for. Here's what you were.

Whether you work with me or anybody else, Jaclyn, I want to make sure that you understand what's going on so that nobody can pull the wool over your eyes. After I'm done talking. If you want to work with me, cool. If not. I'm not everybody's cup of tea. I get that.

But at least I'll know that I've given you the lay of the land and you probably won't make any mistakes along the way. And so that opens up a conversation where I'm able to show that I understand that I bring value to the table. And when I circle back to now Jack.

So what is it exactly you're looking to do? Where did you want to be?

That conversation now is more likely to yield me the kind of answers from you that are going to help me really serve you as well as I can to identify the real pain points and get past what I'm going to call the. What I'm going to call the. The girl at the bar. No, and what does that mean? You walk up, you go talk to the girl at the bar.

You don't realize 49 other people just got done bothering this poor galaxy trying to take her. She's got a. No dusted off, polished up, ready for me. That's got nothing to do with me.

It's got everything to do with the 49 other people that try to sell her stuff or try to take and ask her out earlier. Right. I've got to get past that initial defense mechanism.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:13:43

Right.

Josh Cadillac: 00:13:44

Because it's just people have been sold to so much. It's. It's part of what we have to kind of.

I think it's the, the adjustment that sales has to make to just how much getting smacked in the face with sales people have now.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:13:57

Right. It's like, how can you bring. Bring in almost like the. Create the calmness about it and sort of like just not be.

You know, don't come at it from the standpoint of sales, but just come at it with being with an authentic self of actual curiosity to, to know about you're, you know, that you're in front of. Yeah.

Josh Cadillac: 00:14:17

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just like anything else. If you've been to the.

If you've been to the restaurant, if you've been to the place, you've been to the thing and somebody's coming who's never been for the first time. All right, you go to Disney. All right, here's the. Here's the rides to avoid. These were dogs. These are the ones you want to go on.

This is the way, like, everybody wants to get that inside track. And most people aren't talking about that. Oh, where do you want to be? Oh, what A lovely family you have. Oh.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:14:44

Oh, what?

Josh Cadillac: 00:14:44

Nice. I love your blouse. To me, that is the dating equivalent of, you know, hey, baby, what's your sign? You know what I mean? It's like, it's so used up.

It's so far gone that the customer has just this knee jerk reaction.

What usually happens, Jaclyn, is the person they wind up going with, they just reach a level of, like, desperation or it's just, all right, we need to find somebody to work with. And this is not the right person. It's Mr. Or Ms. Right now, the one that just happens in the right spot. And trying to get past that.

If you sound like everybody else in sales, they will treat you like everybody else in sales. So how do I sound different while making them respect what I've. What I've done to be worthy of their business?

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:15:35

Yeah, no, that's. So that's. That, you know, the. What. What will you do to help differentiate yourself from other people? Sure.

So, Josh, you know, your new book, Success for Life, is coming out. So talk to us a little bit about, you know, because, you know, a lot of people think, you know, well, what is success? And how are you defining it?

Josh Cadillac: 00:16:02

Yeah, there's actually a really good chapter in that book. There's.

The book is an anthology, and I wanted to do an anthology because there's so many things that people put out to just make money that bother me, like, oh, follow this 27 step program and you too could be successful. You know, not every form recipe is delicious to everybody. Right. There's different paths for different people.

So I got a bunch of people together that were successful in different venues, different industries, and I had them right a chapter in the book.

And actually, after I had cobbled together everybody and I had all that I wanted, I actually added one more person in for a different perspective, which was my brother, who's a philosophy professor. So he's got a couple of master's degrees. He's a sharp guy, he's got a big job, and, you know, whatever. He's very successful guy.

And his chapter was very much on that. Like, what is success? And can you enjoy the journey along the way to success, or does it require, like, preparation, perpetual misery and grinding?

Every. You know, the person that comes to mind is. Is Derek Jeter right there. Always talked about the problem he had.

His father would always be, look, Derek, you got to enjoy, you know, what's happening right now. I mean, I know you want to win. You want to win the World Series.

You want to go back to back, like I know you want the next thing, but you're the shortstop for the New York Yankees, you know, like, like savor that just a little bit. And so I think that I was happy with the project, with the idea that I cobbled together this different group. And they all.

I just told them the general idea. Like, what do you think is the thing?

If you had a pick, you had a kid, you know, your own, like, you're telling your kid, hey, look, this is the thing for me that really made the difference. So every kind of has their story or how they took that.

And when I was reading the Maze, like, wow, this is way different, like, way further out than I thought it was going to go, because they really all came at it. It's amazing, the creativity that people have and just kind of where they take ideas.

But yeah, it, for me, like, when I was writing mine, mine was very much about things my father said to me. Since I was a little kid, my father started as soon as I could talk. He was dropping these pearls on me all the time.

And, you know, I'd ask, and he'd keep giving me the answer. He'd explain. And.

asically losing everything in: 2008

But what should have been a fairly insulated position got wiped out because of a black swan event that made all the safety margins no longer sufficient. So I want to overextend it. I, you know, even though I, I was what normally would be just fine, and I had to start from scratch. And so I went.

When I, When I went to real estate, I, I was like, I, I don't know this as well as I need to, to really be worthy of people's business in my mind, like, I know what, what people should expect me to know. So I immediately took everything I could.

Like, every class, if it wasn't nailed down, I took it all, got designations and certificate, whatever, for days, just because I was afraid to make a mistake. Like, I'm going to ask you, Jaclyn, to make the largest decision of financial decision of your life, possibly.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Like, maybe I could get you to do it, but I shouldn't feel good about that, right?

And so even though that's what our industry actually encourages people to do, like, oh, you can get them to work with you, then do it. You'll Figure it out as you go. Like, how was that? Okay.

Anyway, yeah, so I realized that all these things I was being told in these class of how to be successful, when I started to actually be successful, it wasn't those things that was getting me there. It was all these lessons from this old man who had been successful in business. You know, my father was old when I came along.

All these old lessons that he told me of. You know, this is the way you do things, and this is how you think, and this is how you build a business. That's what actually made the difference.

And so it was a much more classical view of business. My father was. His business was based basically on the docks of New York, Manhattan. He was an exporter.

And all these interactions with the lawnshoremen, the mob guys, the police had to get an envelope. I mean, there was the. When he told me what the biggest success. What. What the biggest key to success is, he said to me, not, hey, look, you do this.

It wasn't something he says, you got your word. You compromise that for nobody.

And it was those kind of lessons, you know, these idea that you have standards that you hold yourself to, regardless of what you can get away with, that was what actually helped separate me and allow me to build what I did.

I built back everything I lost and then some, and built all these great operations and all these cool things that we've been able to do, all the funds that I've run and all the successful transactions that we've been able to be part of as both principals and also bringing investors to. And so I think the easiest thing I could say is it works. It just works.

And I want people to know that doing it the right way works if you really commit to do it the right way. Yeah.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:21:49

So if someone said to you, all right, so, Josh, what's the right way?

Josh Cadillac: 00:21:56

What's the right way? So I'll give you what I wrote in my first in my book, Close for Life. I think that in real estate, there's two jobs that an agent has. Just two.

Know what the hell you're doing, then market yourself as somebody who knows what the hell they're doing. Most agents skip job one to go to job two and never get it back around to doing job one. Most agents don't know.

I mean, people have been the business 20, 30 years. I literally did an event for somebody today.

The broker had been in the business for 27 years, had no idea how to transact business in the world that we live in today as far as how to take and fill what. What forms we need, securing, compensate. Look just for the changes from the NAR settlement that occurred. No. No idea.

Now that's a couple of years old and still doesn't know how to take and transact. Right. How can that go on on your watch? You know what I mean? That's just not okay.

And then other agents are depending upon you, yet it's so ubiquitous. So what I would say is, you know, really commit to understand your product well and then commit to do the right thing for your customer.

I think a great relationship in sales is built on rapport, credibility, and trust. Overwhelmingly, rapport is what everything. Agents, salespeople are pushed to build that relationship, all that kind of stuff. But I want a relation.

Would you. I'm sure you would agree, Jaclyn. There are relationships and there are relationships. There's some that I should be in and some that I shouldn't.

One of the indicators of a relationship that I should be in is one where there's mutual respect. And so what I would say to people is never expect respect when you walk in the door.

Expect the opportunity to earn the respect by what you do once you do walk in the door. Right. I'm going to sit down and I'm going to negotiate that first by having something to say of value to the people that I'm going to.

By anticipating what their needs are going to be. How am I going to know how to handle that? I have empathy. If I was them in the situation they're in, what would I want?

And then I'm going to pre negotiate that respect in by having a meaningful value. Valuable conversation when you're prepared to do that. I don't care if you sell widgets. I don't care what it is.

If you're prepared to do that and to show them throughout that, that you're going to take and deal straight with them, that you're going to take and not try to push them to do something that's more than what they need. They'll come back over and over and over again.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:24:24

Yes. You know, I totally agree. I mean, it's. It's one of those things, relationships, you know, you. You've got good ones and bad ones.

There's right ones and wrong ones. But it's also the ones where you feel that it's a. It is the mutual respect and it's. And it's enjoyable. You're not, you know, it's.

And going back to like the dating thing. It's like, you know, if. If it's so painful, like if the person doesn't call. Right. If, you know, they sit. Right.

They said they're going to call, but they don't call. Yeah. Guess what? They're not the right one. Right.

It's like, you know, and if you have to, if you're sitting there waiting by the phone and like say was going to call what, you know.

Josh Cadillac: 00:25:04

No, absolutely, I would, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's a nuance to it, which is this. There's a lot of people in sales that kind of put themselves in the victim role. Oh, I guess they weren't very motivated.

Oh, I guess, I guess the question always on the post game has to be what could I have done to have anticipated them better and to have pre negotiated out whatever stopped them from performing?

So, like, maybe the best example I could give is if I was going to try to get somebody's property to give them, to have them give me the right to sell their property, to list their property for sale. I'm going to go out on a limb, Jaclyn, and anticipate they're probably going to want to sell it for more than they probably should.

They're going to try to put, because you don't want to know something, I don't know how many thousands of these that I've gone on.

I could count on one finger the number of times people have actually been like, no, no, let's price it at the price where the market shows it should sell at. Everybody wants to try a little bit more. We'll try. Well, right.

So if I want to do what's best for you, I know if it's overpriced, it winds up actually getting less money at the end of the day. So I have to walk in and tell you this message that you're not going to want to hear.

I have the ability, though, to frame that any way that I want to.

Should I not have used every single one of these thousands of presentations I've been on to tweak and tweak and tweak the snot out of it, to help help you make the best possible choice for you while still not getting the blowback on me? Like I'm the bad guy telling you, hey, look, you can't get 8 million for your property when the highest close sale in the neighborhood was two.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:26:49

Right, right. Oh, my God.

I, I, I'm, I'm hearing conversations in my head about some of my friends about when they've wanted to put their house on the market sometimes. And I'm Just like out of your mind, but whatever. But yeah, but I get it.

So, you know, Josh, success, you know, it's, you know, we're talking about relationships. We're talking about, you know, doing the right thing for the people, you know, and not.

And a lot of this, obviously, I'm going to say probably came from your.

Came from your, your dad and some of the things that you said, you know, but to somebody who's new, who maybe didn't have that, you know, looks like that one thing that you could say to them that might be like.

Josh Cadillac: 00:27:36

So I'll take.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:27:37

I'll take it this way.

Josh Cadillac: 00:27:39

I'll take a couple of things because I mean, the, the life lessons that are. That are in the chapter, the one that comes to my mind. I mean, the stuff, the kind of stuff my father would say is, by the inch, it's a cinch.

By the yard, it's hard. Well, if that's the case, it doesn't mean you don't have to go the yard. It just means that right now, let's just take and move the ball forward.

If you're starting out, you're not how you want to end up. But you need to do something today to be more like that salesperson that you want to be, Right? What am I doing to move the ball forward?

It is unacceptable to look at the distance and sit there and be paralyzed because you'll never get there. The reality of it is there is a better version of us within us that we all have not seen.

If we choose not to pursue that, we all run the risk of dying with our best work. Never seen our magnum opus left unperformed. And what's the worst part of that?

Not only that the world is denied that you never get to see what you could be. Right? So what I'm trying to be, I'm going to identify who I want to be like. I want to. I want to know what it's like.

So, like, what are the secret fears of real estate agents? Let me let you into the back room. Most people don't necessarily know that.

Most agents are terrified of walking into that room where the seller or the customer knows more than they do. Because when that happens, you're irrelevant. You are an order taker. Just take a notepad and just ask what they want to side of fries with it.

Because you're a waiter or waitress at the. You're a server at the restaurant.

When you start in this business, it is very likely you could walk to a room where somebody knows more than you do about this thing? Are you doing everything you can to take the subset of people that could eat your lunch and shrink that by becoming better and better and better?

So I can't get there in a week, but within a year, I would say in my business, I was the place where there was maybe 2% of the population that could hang with me in a conversation about real estate. Now, Jaclyn, frankly, I'm in the place you stick.

George Perez, any of the biggest developers in the world, I will be able to have a conversation that's interesting with them, that they're going to enjoy, and I'll bring value and stuff they haven't heard to the table. Why? Because this is my craft. My integrity is such that I need to be better than this at this, than the hobbyists that come in.

Anybody that comes in as a hobbyist, if they can eat my lunch at what I do, shame on me. Now, that's not a standard for anybody else. That's my standard for me. Nobody else is enforcing that but me on me.

And so that takes and has me always pushed to be better at what I do so that the end result, 15, 17, actually, 17 years in the business. The guy I am, I never could even imagine getting to when I started. How did you get.

It's like how I say to people all the time, how did I want to be in the business for 17 years? As it turns out, just not leaving is what got me here.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:30:51

You know, I started.

Josh Cadillac: 00:30:53

It was like two years in, and people like, I've been in the business 15 years. I'm like, man, how'd you be. Want to be? It turns out, you know, you stick. So, yeah, guys, that time.

And just continuous inch at a time making progress. That would be the thing that I would say.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:31:10

I love that. And it's, it's. And, you know, keep moving the ball forward and always be learning.

I mean, it's always, you know, it's like that, that cliche, but it is true. Always be learning. Always be learning. You know, Josh, you have a wealth of information.

I love the fact that you, you know, you're, you know, closing for life. I mean, that's like, that's people. Everybody needs to know that. Success for life. These are all, I mean, these are all great things.

So how can our listeners get more of you? Learn more about you, get your books?

Josh Cadillac: 00:31:38

Sure. So close for life dot com. Spell it any way you want to close with the number four or the word F O, R, however you want.

It all takes you the same place. That's we have our mastermind. That's where we have a lot of the books and all that other stuff.

You can find me on social media pretty much everywhere. I think on Instagram, it's Josh D. Cadillac. Otherwise, it's Josh Cadillac pretty much every place else. And, yeah, you know, feel free to reach out.

I'm always happy to talk to people and see if. If I. If I can make a difference.

I. I love being able to help people actually get this thing better and kind of improve their life, their family's life. Like, there's just so many benefits when you can help people.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:32:18

Yeah, that's so great.

Well, listeners, please do me the favor of reaching out to Josh and connect with him, and do me another favor of hitting subscribe and also sharing this with your friends and colleagues, because these are key lessons that everybody in life needs to know, and they will all help you have unstoppable success. I'm Jaclyn Schminger, your host, and thank you for listening. And thank you, Josh, for being an amazing guest.

Josh Cadillac: 00:32:43

My pleasure, Jaclyn. Thank you again.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:32:45

Thanks.