If a friend or acquaintance said to you "I’ve got a problem" you almost smile before catching yourself, and carefully expressing concern. Admit it we all have problems, most of us don’t talk about it, so when someone admits a problem we’re a little pleased that their problems are worse than ours.

 

"...And I Could Use Your Help!" Oh, my! The Ladies clutch their purse a little tighter, the men squeeze their butt together either to symbolically hold their wallet or checking to make sure it’s still there. Admit it.

No matter how compassionate we are it’s comforting to know other’s have bigger problems than we do. You won’t admit it, well then why do we take such comfort in the old saying "there but for the grace of God, go I?" "I have a problem" gets our attention because it’s comforting!

No matter how compassionate we are "I could use your help" also gets our attention! How much is it going to cost me? How much time is it going to take? How much work is involved?

"I have a problem... and I could use your help," are powerful words especially when followed with a request for help. If your request involves neither money, time, or labor the people will be so relived they feel almost obligated to help.

"I have a problem." I’ve gone five paragraphs and not mentioned my book "One House At A Time / Finding And Buying Single Family Rentals." I write about real estate investment and I use "I have a problem and I could use your help" to recruit bird dogs (people who refer distressed home owners to me) and to request referrals for my mortgage brokerage business. A lot of real estate gurus teach canned sales speeches in order to provide bulk to justify their extraordinarily high prices. I don’t. I’ve been in lending and real estate since 1969, and I’ve never met anyone who ever bought a house repeating someone else’s words, like a parrot. But, I’ve never found any phrase as powerful as those ten little words. "I have a problem... and I could use your help." They won’t buy you a single house, but they can locate more opportunities than any "I Buy Houses" sign.

I wish I could tell you I though this up. I took it from a motivational speaker, Art Fettig, twenty-one years ago. Art credits someone else, and I’m sure it goes on and on.

These words will invoke strong emotions from the people you address. I recently wrote Art (we talked twice over twenty-two years ago, the story is in "One House At A Time") because I credit his tapes and books for motivating me to finish my book, I included a recent example of how I used "I have a problem" was the only thing he saw, his answer was quick, short, and terse, there are few thing you can say that always invoke such strong emotions. I wrote Art back suggesting he reread the letter, and then got a very nice letter from a great man (www.artfetig.com.) "I have a problem" works.

Now to the point of this article. I have a problem, and I could use your help. I wrote this great book about real estate investing, "One House At A Time / Finding And Buying Single Family Rentals." It’s available on the web at: http://www.reii.org would you please look at the site and tell your friends about it.

 

 

William J Archambault, Jr has been in lending and real estate since 1969. A mortgage broker in Las Vegas, NV He writes about up to the minute real estate, tempered with the wisdom of our grandfathers. He is the author of "One House At A Time / Finding And Buying Single Family Rentals" available at http://www.reii.org e-mail: author@reii.org