The Most Valuable Dollar Bill
- Christian Bryant
- Apr 7
- 7 min read
My business partner and I recently went on the annual National Real Estate Investors Association Cruise Conference. While there we ran a small sociological experiment to see how many contacts we could make with the exact same $1 bill. We quickly figured out that one of the most valuable sales tools is that insignificant $1 bill just taking up space in your pocket. And you thought inflation was getting close to making the $1 bill worthless. After reading this you will never leave the house without a $1 bill.
If you are in any kind of sales, you know that your success comes down to a numbers game. The more contacts you can create with people the more it will have a direct effect on the number of people you close a sale. As well as increase the number of referrals you will have. Some will spend thousands of dollars on lead systems, informational websites, marketing campaigns, and cold call lists. All with the simple goal of finding people to develop professional relationships with. Why do we spend so much money just to simply meet new people? Shouldn’t meeting someone new be as easy as simply saying, “Hello.”?
I figure that telling a nervous salesperson that making new contacts is as simple as saying “Hello” is like telling a teenage boy that one simple word is the “trick” to getting his crush to have a conversation with him. (run on sentence) Nobody wants to believe this because it is just too easy. Well here’s the secret that all successful salespeople have figured out. Starting the conversation is the battle! If you are an honest and decent person, then people will quickly figure that out during your first conversation. Human Beings are naturally pack animals that want to develop relationships with others. We also have a natural tendency to defend ourselves at first against newcomers. Most often it’s because of a previous experience with someone who took advantage or turned out to be dishonest. There lies the real problem, the stumbling block that gets in every salesperson’s way time and time again. Have you noticed how these defenses are practically non-existent when the person you are engaging believes that you have a valuable reason to be talking to them?
I own a company (www.NWRPM.com) that provides sales, property management, vacation property management, consulting, eviction representation, and many other services valuable to the real estate investor. Everything we do comes down to the quality of our respectful & trusting relationships. 90% of our business contacts come from activities that give potential clients a reason to seek us out for help. We run multiple real estate investor support associations, provide education and training for our industry, and offer free advice to people that handle their investment property portfolio on their own. So basically, more than 50% of my “job” is to work for free helping people learn how to handle their business without paying someone like me. It took me 5 grueling years, but I figured out that the work I have done for free has created a long-term financial return thousands of times larger than all the other sales activities I’ve tried, combined. Why? Because there’s value in experience and when you offer that experience free of charge, people inherently let their guard down.
We recently had the amazing honor of representing the NW Real Estate Investors Association at the NREIA annual cruise conference. We see this as a great honor that is not to be taken lightly. Our goal was to bring back as much education for our members as possible. Surprisingly, one of the most valuable lessons we learned this year was from a random observation while Terry was searching for a cigarette.
My friend doesn’t normally smoke, but after the drinks start flowing he has been known to let his old bad habit take control. He is a very generous person and was happy to offer people a dollar for only 1 cigarette. The very first person he asked not only gave him a cigarette, but they refused to take the dollar and invited us to sit and talk while my friend smoked. We had a great conversation with these complete strangers and they invited us to come talk to them. With any normal conversation between two parties that are meeting for the first time the subject of what you do for work naturally comes up. There’s no need to “force” your sales agenda.
As we said our goodbyes and walked away I did what I normally do; over analyzed the crap out of what just happened. We found a way to get a stranger to invite us over to have a conversation. Our business, how what we do for a living relates to their life, and the exchange of contact information just naturally came up. My friend and I talked about this and decided that we needed to put this theory to a test while we are on the cruise.
First, we needed to get a control group. So, we asked 10 people to simply give us a cigarette. To make sure we were asking people that have cigarettes we stuck to asking people that were in the smoking section of the ship. We had a 50% success rate for random conversation. Not bad, but not great either. Of those that offered us one we rarely felt invited to sit and talk. When you walk up to someone and simply ask for something of value with nothing in return the results aren’t nearly as positive as you would like. People prefer mutually beneficial relationships or ones that lean towards their benefit. Given our way of getting most our clients by first offering to help for free we already knew this about people. Our goal with this experiment was to see if this theory would hold up even on the smallest sales task of collecting contacts and increasing your prospect pool. It isn’t unheard of for salespeople to spend $0.10 per contact to add to their database. So not only do we need to see a success rate above our 50% control, but for this to be financially worthwhile we would need to get 10 or more cigarettes before someone accepts our dollar. We had our work cut out for us.
We proceeded to offer our dollar to 50 people on the ship. We had a 100% success rate receiving a cigarette, being asked to sit and talk, and not even one would accept our dollar. We used the exact same $1 bill the entire time! I must admit that I fully expected this not to work, I was blown away to see it work flawlessly every single time. Obviously, I can’t claim this is a legitimate, or even a well ran experiment. I do love the basic, and probably most important, sales lesson that it demonstrates though.
The fastest way to a long lasting, profitable, and mutually beneficial professional relationship is to offer the other person more perceived value than you will be receiving. We have wasted thousands of dollars in our lifetimes on systems and education all to simply create more contacts and relationships. We have “egg on our faces” now that we see that with a onetime investment of $1 we could gain as many contacts as we have time to cultivate. Most sales trainings are completely centered on how to get a sale as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, most people see through this and instantly put up a defense as soon as they recognize your “sales pitch”.
If you ask someone that is in the top 5% of producers in your industry where they get their business, what typically is responsible for the majority? Referrals and clients that found them. They have been doing good work in their field long enough to establish a reputation that simply attracts business. So how the heck did they get to that point?
It’s truly simple. Make sure that every business relationship you have leaves the other person feeling as though they received more value then what they gave you is worth. Remember to be humble, a soft opening with little or no agenda upfront can go a very long way. Approach all your business relationships with a goal of simply figuring out how you can help them without any expectation of anything in return. So how did the people on the boat get more than they gave? They gave us a cigarette and received nothing in return.
As you know the first impression is the most important. Their first impression of us was that we wanted to pay 5-10 times the value of something they have. Given it was an item of very small value they took the opportunity to feel generous and simply refuse our cash. Given we have shown them that we aren’t looking for a handout they also felt inclined to invite us to sit for a conversation. Then everything naturally progressed from there to a point where they wanted us to have their contact information. There were plenty that we talked to that ended up not being interested in our industry, but they still ended up on our “drip” list. You never know who will refer you the next client.
We don’t expect you to pick up an unhealthy habit, but get creative and try this out at the next networking event you attend. Gum could easily be a substitute for a cigarette. Just remember that the easiest way to lower a stranger’s defenses is to give them a reason to believe that they will get more out of the relationship than you do. Be willing to be that guy that gives away valuable advice or help without asking for anything in return. Some of these relationships will pay off immediately, others can take years to pay off. It all comes back to sales being a numbers game. The hard part is simply making sure that you get to a point of being valuable to those that you meet BEFORE you ask for something of value from them. Value can mean so many different things for different people. It’s up to you to find that connection and recognize what needs the client or prospect may have. There are many places in the world that only do business with those who take the time for the “small talk” before conducting business. We tend to forget this small but vital component. Business is and always has been about relationships. How can you create relationships without conversation and simply getting to know someone? Try it!
Never leave the house without your dollar!
By Christian Bryant
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