If you’re trying to sell something important, like a house, a classic car, or a big contract, what’s your main concern?

Your number one concern is that you won’t find a buyer.

You’ll spend on advertising, carefully set a price, and possibly hire agents and brokers to help with marketing, and after all is said and done, you won’t get an offer. Or, if you do, it won’t be fair to you.

So, imagine meeting a person who says, with very little delay and without guile, “I’ll buy it!”

What a high it will give you, a great feeling of satisfaction will arise in your psyche, and a sense of redemption will well up within you, so much so that you will minimize the following sentence that the willing buyer utters:

“It’s just a matter of finding a fair price” or “It just depends on getting favorable financing.”

Of course, that second part is essential for the buyer. It’s his influence and his “out,” an escape clause that will allow him to back out if the terms aren’t right.

That weasel phrase about “price” or “financing,” a seemingly incidental condition, will still have the effect of making the salesperson almost giddy with joy.

I used this at the listing broker after briefly touring the house I am happily writing this article in. I told him in no uncertain terms, “I’m ready to buy it right away. I don’t have anything else standing in the way like another house to sell. I’m pre-qualified for a 100% loan. So it just depends on coming to a fair selling price.

She lit up, knowing he was serious, and a few days later I told her I really didn’t mind arguing. This is what I think is a fair price. If the seller agrees, we have a deal.”

And that he did.

Within a few hours, I received my reply. The house was mine.

There is a school of thought that says that we should be shy about whether we are willing to buy. I do not agree, completely.

There is much more to be gained than an apparently sincere person who is fully qualified to honor the terms of a deal.

Provided, of course, that it is fair to everyone!

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