We Are Selling with Lee Woodward

Mind Sell - Chris Helder

• Lee Woodward • Season 1 • Episode 190

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We explore how real estate pros can win with mindset, positioning, and influence in a world dazzled by AI. Chris Helder shares the seven-part Mind Sell model, the equalise then separate tactic, and a practical question flow that holds fees and closes cleanly.

• mastering a sales mindset that sees opportunity
• service-first thinking and reading people
• the seven-part Mind Sell framework
• positioning with certainty and simplicity
• equalise, then separate to articulate why you
• rapid rapport tactics grounded in psychology
• strategic curiosity and timeline-driven questions
• uncovering pain or pleasure as true motivation

chrishelder.com.au




Hosted by Lee Woodward Training Systems

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello, and welcome back to the podcast We Are Selling. My name's Lee Woodward, the author of the Complete Salesperson course. Firstly, thank you for everyone's feedback over the last five editions of the podcast, as we've really targeted that strategic real estate team-based thinking that allows us to be a unit, like a SEAL team unit, rather than just a solo agent. So this week, in perfect follow-on, in a brilliant promotion that I saw on Facebook, which brought him back top of mind to my own mind, was the release of the book Mind Sell by Chris Helder. Now, Chris Helder has been having impact on the Australian real estate industry for many, many years as he explains his work in our thinking. He also is the author of Useful Belief. He joins us today, Mr. Chris Helder. Welcome back. Hey, thanks so much again to be back, Lee.

SPEAKER_01:

I appreciate it. And congratulations, you've got a brand new book out. I'm super excited about it. Yeah, mindsell, and uh really excited about where sales is at and yeah, the power of face-to-face influence in this in this crazy time as we head into a AI world. So yeah, excited.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a really good point. And in the caption there, the best little sales book ever. In a world that's gone nuts with artificial intelligence, it's like opening a business called I'll go to the gymforyou.com.au versus when do we do it ourselves? Take us into what the book is about.

SPEAKER_01:

It's been an interesting ride because I I've now done 25 years of working with real estate agents in Australia. And despite my North American accent, I've I've actually lived in Australia all of those 25 years, which is really, really exciting. 25 and 25, I guess it is. But you know, having worked with agents for so long and and you know, having spent a lot of time, you know, helping them with their listing presentations and working with them on negotiation skills and all the stuff we've talked about over all these years and and really wanting to put it in uh in a small book. That's why that's the the name, the best little sales book ever. I thought I was a little cheeky on that, uh Lee. But uh but it is. It's a it's a short book. I want it to be a book that people could put in their glove box. They can mark it up with highlighters and take out their favorite bits and really going into an appointment, they can use that. So super excited to just have a have a book that you know is gonna give people a lot of a lot of quick tips and a lot of uh ideas to win business.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, part one of the book is Master Your Mindset. And I love this heading as I was just working on something a couple of weeks ago about professional thinking. And professional people think different. They don't see it left, they see it right, they see the positive side of something, or how can I improve? But in the book, Master Your Mindset, what do you go into there?

SPEAKER_01:

And sales mindset is probably my number one area of speaking uh at the moment. And uh with the book Useful Belief that I wrote, which is very much about mindset and having a useful mindset towards real estate combined with these with these tools, I really looked at at sales mindset and I believe this. You know, of all the years that you and I have both been training and speaking over here, I think there's one thing that separates out the best of the best salespeople from everyone else. And and I really do believe the best salespeople walk in and see opportunity everywhere. And average people see tough times. And um, most people are average. That's why they call it averagely. But nonetheless, you know, the the reality is when you actually take a look at it, those top salespeople, they walk into every situation and they're looking at it with the mindset there's opportunity here. Where am I going to find that opportunity?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they can see an outcome that there's an expectation that this will go well versus, geez, I hope it goes well. And if it doesn't, and fees come up. And you can just see that you're either adding or subtracting. And to go into a situation of how can I best serve and help these people is very different to, I need to win it. I need to win it. Why do people have that fork in the road thinking?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, it is about service. And and, you know, I spend a lot of time in the book about understanding people and stepping out of that first position, which which is easy to be in. You know, what about me? You know, what's happening for me? You know, where's my commission? Where's my income? You know, to moving, you know, into that shift of service and really spend quite a bit of time in the book talking about reading people, understanding people, matching people and and and different personality types and understanding uh how to adapt and adjust and working at it really in terms of, you know, that being of service and not servant, but being of service and and making sure that uh, you know, we are doing doing all the right things to get an outcome for our vendor.

SPEAKER_00:

And one thing I love about the book is you've really stripped it back to what you would need to know. And when someone reads a book like this, they get those 25 years you've had slugging the streets, grinding the events to read the audience. But I really liked the enter the mind cell model. Take us into that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, I really looked at at seven key areas and thinking about how this, you know, the all again, of all of all the stuff, how can I boil this down? How can I boil this down? I I mean, I I I first of all, I've I've watched so many salespeople buy so many, so many books, so many self-help books, and uh, you know, there they are. Um, you know, they're big books and they never get read, or the first chapter gets read, or, you know, so I really did want it to be a very um uh you know, a very brief book. Um, but you know, it is just going through those those things. Master your mindset, you know, uh, number one. Because uh, you know, before you can effectively influence others, you you have to gain mastery over your own mind. The second is power of positioning, which is why you. And uh obviously this is hugely important uh to stand outside of the competition and and know the answer to that, really making that happen. Uh tailored influence is is that reading piece that we talked about. That was step three and taking a look at that. Uh stage four, strategic curiosity. How do we ask questions? What are the great questions to ask? You know, making sure that we're doing that and leading to that all important yes. But I talk a little bit about it, number five, winning the short game and winning the well. And also uh, number six, goal setting and ultimately be in a situation where we can gain number seven rapid rapport. So it was seven stages that I felt like if we master these seven stages, seven areas, uh, and put them into play, that it's our influence skills are gonna go flying through the roof.

SPEAKER_00:

You also talk about the power of positioning, and it always comes down to that question every salesperson must be able to answer instantly. And that's why would I go with you? Why would I choose you? And in a world that's gone nuts on giveaways, this is the most important question, Chris. What do you feel about that? This is absolutely the most important question.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think the reality is so many salespeople do get stuck in in this area. And I think also then it becomes a then it becomes a contest on price, which of course is what we not, what what we don't want. How do we how do we express our value? How do we add value? How do we add value outside the the box that ultimately allows us to uh not only get chosen but hold our fee? I'm a big believer in these two words, certainty and simplicity. I'm a big believer that you know you have to be certain about the message and certain about what separates you out, and then deliver that with simplicity, just like the book. It's a short book. Certainty and simplicity. The book is absolutely certain about things that work, and it's a simple book because nobody buys when they're confused, and nobody reads when they're confused, and nobody applies when they're confused. So, you know, certainty and simplicity, I really do believe that's that's the key.

SPEAKER_00:

And you also engage the technique of equalize, then separate. What does that mean? Well, that's my favorite. That's my favorite.

SPEAKER_01:

I was gonna keep that a secretly, but all right, fine. You want to go down that path. I've talked about equalize and separate for years and years and years. And and and the idea is it is absolute, you know, it it just works so well in terms of clarifying your why you. What most agents do is they separate then separate. So they say, we gotta, you know, we got all these, uh, we got it, we got great auctioneers, we have great experience, we got an office on the corner, we've got terrific people, we've got a great database, we've got a network, we've got all that says the exact same thing. The third person comes in and says the same thing again. And ultimately it all seems the same. So the idea really in Equal Asset Separate is how do we get the vendor, first of all, to get their wall down to have them recognize that, you know, as an agent, I would walk a lot of people who can sell your house. In fact, you know what? We take a look at our competitors, we all have this, we all have the corner office, we all have great experience, we all have a good auctioneer, we all have the network, we all have a database. So we can do all those things. However, what truly separates us out and what nobody can compete with us on is boom. What is that thing for you? And maybe it's one thing, maybe it's two things, certainly not more than three things, but ultimately, you know, what is that thing that is the platform for which people go, yeah, but the thing about that company and the thing about that person is that they separate themselves out because of that.

SPEAKER_00:

I absolutely love this, Chris. And I remember this incredible salesperson from NUSA, of all places, because that's where you're living yourself. Is that correct? Yep. That is correct. And this guy was a senior professional who'd seen his winters, he'd been in thousands of listing presentations, and he would go in and say, Oh, you've had other agents in? They go, Yeah, yeah, we have. Is there any reason why you didn't appoint them? They go, No, no, he's wanting to meet you. Well, they would have spoken about internet and the marketing and the colour brochures and the beautiful locations. We've got all that. Let me just tell you one thing I I think and he would just nail the uh I don't need to spend an hour speaking to you. He he actually did it because Lee, I just grouped it up because mine's probably not as good as theirs and it's got more things. So it was just a powerful way of looking how that all comes together.

SPEAKER_01:

Perfect application of equalize and separate. Yep. Awesome. It's great, it is terrific. And also that when you can deliver it that way, you're delivering with that level of certainty that I was talking about earlier.

SPEAKER_00:

Chris, writing a book's a big effort, and the book writing process is done from an itch of yourself, people asking you questions, things going on, and you think I should write this. And when you did useful belief, I had the opportunity to do the book review of that. And uh the digital live ride was going on at that time, and you shared your time. In doing these books, what's the book writing process for Chris Helder? What makes you do it and how do you bring it together?

SPEAKER_01:

I have to say, I'm glad we're talking about useful belief and mindset, because they're my two favorite books that I've written and my two favorite things, and probably useful belief is what I'm most known for. Useful Belief was was it was an idea I had. It's different than every other book sort of out there, and that it's a fable. It's actually a story. It's a story about a man who goes from Melbourne to Barcelona and uh meets three people along the way. So it's a little bit different, uh, which is which is really cool. And that's uh, you know, that's why that sold so many copies as it did. I think it just really grabbed people. Again, a short book. That idea of useful belief was really great. That book I had an idea for, and actually, I went to a speakers' conference and I went to Canberra and I went to the opening of the speakers' conference. It was so bad, the opening, that I literally decided I'm not gonna go to anything else. I locked myself in a hotel room for three nights, better part of four days, and I literally just wrote. And I literally, I don't know, I don't think I knew if it was day or night. I said I was gonna eat when I was hungry, and that was it. And I and I had a really almost, I mean, I had it 80% done by the time I finished that four days. So that was cool. This book, mine still was a little different. I, you know, I really enjoyed taking a look at all the pieces of over all the years and sort of put them together. In some ways, this is a greatest hits album for me, which that's sort of funny. But uh, but why not? Like, why not, you know? I mean, yeah, I'm at the place 25 years in. I my goal at the end of the day, my intent, my outcome is is to help people and and help as many agents as I possibly can. And uh so why not why not really give them everything that I think is wrapped up important in one place that's totally consumable?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, one part of the book that is very relevant right now, and a big reason we wanted you on the podcast, is create higher level of connection. Take us into that.

SPEAKER_01:

In talking about that sort of piece of rapid rapport and you know, the importance of how do we gain connection quickly. Uh I've taken some stuff from psychology, taking some stuff from sociology, which I I studied at university, and I've taken some stuff from neurolinguistic programming, and I I studied under an amazing NLP guy, and just taking some of those those tools of how do we gain quick rapport? How do we gain rapid rapport with people that puts them at ease and makes them comfortable? And part of that is going to be physical in terms of the body language, and uh part of that is gonna be our approach and the questions we ask that are really uh helping us understand where they're coming from and our ability to adapt to that.

SPEAKER_00:

My final question for you, and I absolutely love that answer, is uh one of the chapters and topics you picked is right in the art of being one of the the real estate greats or the sales greats, as we call it. And it's the art of asking questions, but strategic curiosity. And we've mentioned on this program many times that questions get answers, statements get judged. Take us into strategic curiosity.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, this is probably the most scripty of the book, and and in that I I really um and which by the way, this book is on audible now. So for those of you who like to listen, I know that that that might be better, particularly for this part, because um it is a series of questions that that really work logically. So again, I see a lot of agents that are that are, you know, one person asks a question, they go into a group of two, one person asks a question, then the director comes back, he asks a different question. I I see all the time that two agents are gonna go on an appraisal. The one comes in and goes, Hey, I'm gonna go appraise this one at Smith Street. Can you come with me? And they have no strategy meeting, they have zero plan, they just go in and wing it. And again, I mean, Lee, if I put$50,000 on the table or$20,000 on the table or whatever someone's fee is,$100,000 on the table, you know, we would make a plan, you and I, to figure out how to get that money. We would actually have a strategy. What questions are we gonna ask? And uh, you know, I see so many agents winging it. So what this tries to do is really bring it to what is a logical process to ask questions. And and the logical process is is very timeline driven as well. So again, having an understanding of their past experiences in terms of real estate um interactions, uh, understanding where their present situation is, what's what's going on, sort of creating a uh what I call a sunset, but creating a uh something they can picture uh to make sure they're associated to uh the outcome once they do sell and why they're selling. Um, you know, I talk about, you know, the the bottom line is every single person is selling their house for really, you know, either they're either it's either pain or pleasure, really. They're either trying to gain something or they're trying to get out of something. And and ultimately, you know, can we understand exactly what that motivation is at a deep level?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, Mr. Chris Elder, you are a professional speaker and author. And this is your seventh book for those people that haven't read some of the others. And Chris, I've seen you many times where we've been booked for the same events. You're incredibly engaging and energetic. And I know you're looking forward to getting this talk out there as your brand new keynote. But for all of us here at We Are Selling, I want to thank you for joining us. Congratulations on the book, and we look forward to our listener being a reader. And I'll put the link to your book in the show notes. But Chris Helder, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, thanks so much, Lee. I really appreciate it.