ThinkBiz Podcast
ThinkBiz Podcast is your go-to show for real conversations about building and growing your business. Hosted by Garrett Hammonds of Hammonds Media and Nolan Rogers, we dive into the challenges, wins, and strategies that matter most to small and startup companies. Tune in for expert advice, inspiring stories, and actionable tips to take your business to the next level.
ThinkBiz Podcast
Negotiation Tactics: The Three Tools Every Entrepreneur Should Know with Dr. Shannon Wildman
How does a former college professor with a doctorate in education navigate a sudden career change to become a successful real estate agent? Dr. Shannon Wildman joins Garrett Hammons and Nolan Clay Rogers to share her remarkable journey and the negotiation wisdom she's gathered along the way.
Shannon's path to real estate began with a serious medical crisis when her boyfriend needed emergency open heart surgery after a tooth infection spread to his heart. Facing mounting medical bills while teaching college, a colleague suggested real estate as a potential side income. Despite initial skepticism, Shannon discovered not only financial opportunity but genuine passion in helping clients navigate one of life's most significant transactions.
Drawing from her teaching background, Shannon breaks down three powerful negotiation tools that apply across industries: mirrors (repeating the last few words someone says with an upward inflection), labels (acknowledging emotions to encourage openness), and dynamic silence (the strategic use of quiet after making a proposal). This last technique proves particularly challenging for most people—Shannon shares how she once maintained silence for nearly five minutes during a negotiation before the other party finally agreed to move forward.
Perhaps Shannon's most valuable business lesson came from learning when to walk away. Early in her career, she felt personally responsible for ensuring every contract closed. Over time, she realized that not all deals should go through, particularly if they don't serve her clients' best interests. By understanding clients' true needs versus wants, Shannon can evaluate whether a transaction genuinely serves their goals or if letting go is the wiser choice.
For anyone considering a career pivot, Shannon offers living proof that professional reinvention remains possible at any life stage. Having started her real estate career in her forties, she emphasizes that finding work you love brings fulfillment that transcends age barriers. Connect with Shannon at 405-436-5642 or ninenorth.com for real estate guidance, especially if you're a first-time homebuyer or investor looking to enter the market.
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Hello, hello. We are kicking off episode 3 of the Think Biz Podcast. I am one of your co-hosts, Garrett Hammons, and I have here with me my other esteemed co-host, Nolan Clay Rogers, and our guest today is Dr Shannon Wildman. So we're excited to be able to talk a little bit today about what Shannon does in the real estate industry, but also probably dig into some negotiation types of tactics. Is that kind of along the lines of what you were thinking, Nolan?
Speaker 1:Sounds pretty good, Garrett. It sounds pretty good to me. Shannon had a great presentation this morning at our Think Biz Solutions networking group, and it's also a great week for a number of things that you can get up to in your business. If you don't mind me giving a little spiel, about some fun stuff going on in the Business Almanac.
Speaker 1:Now I have a bunch of old books I pull from, as a lot of people will know, and so some of the things are is understanding that different days are good for one business aspect or another. So, for example, tomorrow, wednesday, april 23rd, it's gonna be better for any cold emails or admissions or advertising stuff that you need to do against your competitors or any stakeholders that are being really finicky the past couple weeks. So get those cold emails written tomorrow morning and then send them whenever you want. Thursday on the other hand, we've got a really good day for love and binding of contracts If there's any new people you want. Thursday on the other hand, we've got a really good day for love and binding of contracts If there's any new people you want to partner with or collab. Really focus on Thursday. That's going to be a great day for just asking new people for some contract options, just doing those cold reach-outs to some people maybe you haven't talked to in a while and see if you can make something happen.
Speaker 2:Woo-hoo.
Speaker 3:I know it sounds happen. Woohoo, I like it. No, no, no. This is the first time that Nolan's getting to bust out some of what he does, and he's incredible. We'll just give a quick introduction of ourselves. You know, if you've listened to other episodes, you've met us before, but I'm Garrett Hammonds and I do digital marketing, so a lot of the things that I think about on a day-to-day basis has to do with all the changes happening online, which is crazy right now. And then, what about you, nolan? What's kind of your day-to-day? Look like my day-to-day is.
Speaker 1:I say prayers for lots of different people that crack open a lot of different holy books, and so I make sure to give some spiritual advising that we really don't have access to anymore, even your favorite preachers and everything else. They're going to be scared to answer some questions that I have some really old books that can help us out with. But then we have one of the most important industries over here that Shannon takes care of is our home and hearth itself. So, shannon, how are you doing this morning?
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm doing great. Thank you guys so much for having me. Most welcome. I love to have you here.
Speaker 1:You had a great presentation this morning. Thank you, I'm curious, Shannon. So what actually brought you to the business of real estate in general? Was it solving your problem? Was it solving somebody else's?
Speaker 2:What got you into it? Actually, I had a problem to solve About seven years ago. My boyfriend who's still my boyfriend now, but at the time he had an infected tooth. They went in and lanced it. They didn't give him any antibiotics, we didn't know, but the infection spread through his body into his heart and they had to end up giving him and he was only 40 at the time they had to give him open heart surgery, repair a valve, a whole bunch of things just starting out, so definitely take care of your teeth.
Speaker 3:If you have an infection, take antibiotics. The little PSA for today.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 2:Take care of your teeth so we had medical bills and he wasn't able to work and I was teaching college at the time and a professor that I was teaching with did real estate part time and said this might be a good way for you to earn extra money. And when he first said that I laughed. I didn't know anything about real estate. We had bought a house, but I was not. You know a whole big part of that and so I didn't really know anything about it. I thought it must be terrible. He was such a nice, solid, down-to-earth English professor-looking person and I thought, well, if he can do that, you know, then it might be a good idea to look into it. Good idea to look into it. So, you know, I went ahead and met with his mentor and very knowledgeable, and got me really excited. So I took the classes, took the test. Uh, eight months later I was doing real estate full-time wow and I will never be able to do anything else.
Speaker 2:and you know, I'm still teaching teaching people how to buy a house, teaching people how to buy a house, teaching people how to sell a house, and so glad that I had the chance to get into this industry.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. A big shift, then, from being Dr Shannon to now the doctor of your home.
Speaker 2:It was it was, but it's actually a little less cutthroat in real estate than it is in academia.
Speaker 3:So oh, fair enough.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 3:So okay, what were you teaching originally? What was your?
Speaker 2:Education classes, teaching future teachers.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, the pedagogy kind of.
Speaker 2:Yes, my doctorate's in historical, social and philosophical foundations of education.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:And my focus was international education and multicultural education.
Speaker 1:Now is there a specific framework that you still keep in your back pocket as far as educating people now about real estate and buying their own home?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, really, the teaching future teachers necessarily doesn't lend itself directly to real estate. However, teachers necessarily doesn't lend itself directly to real estate. However, education in general, um, you know, knowing where people are in the process, you know, knowing how much knowledge they already have, how much they need, uh, also, just knowing how to break the things down into easier to understand things. So you know, definitely teaching has really helped with being able to do real estate and I'm sure your clients are very, very thankful for breaking down that process for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and definitely teaching has really helped with being able to do real estate and I'm sure your clients are very, very thankful for breaking down that process for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and I have some that don't want to know anything about the process they're like I have this home to sell, I just want you to sell it, I don't want to have to deal with it. You know, I just want this out of it and want to be done. You know, and that's fine as well too. But then I have people where they want to know every single step of the process Okay, Even the things they would normally be part of, like some of the negotiations with another agent. They want to know what all was said and want to know about the process and everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember my wife and I we got our first home goodness about six years ago now five years ago, something around there and it was intimidating. When we there's a lot like escrow, what does that mean? It's all kinds of different things that, as a first-time home buyer, it's kind of scary.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah it is, yeah, it is. It's kind of scary, you know. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah it is, yeah it is. And if selling your home especially if you've been in there for 20-30 years, it's the only home you've really known for most of your life, I mean selling it can be, you know, a traumatic experience. So not only do you not understand necessarily the whole process, but you know then you've got all the feelings behind it too. So yeah, it can, yeah, it can be intimidating.
Speaker 3:Now, a lot of the folks who listen to the podcast are business owners and folks who are trying to be able to figure out how to be able to run the day-to-day of their own companies, and I know that there's so much crossover in the conversations that you have with folks every day on things like negotiations that you were talking about in your presentation today. Can you tell us a little bit about some of those methods that you were sharing with the group earlier in our ThinkBiz referral group?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, the negotiation tools that we use.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the negotiation tools that we use. Yeah, and there's really for just a quick discussion. There's really just three tools to use. We have the mirrors, which is where you really just repeat the last part of what somebody says. So you know, if somebody says I think the price is too high, you'll repeat the end. You know the price is too high and you'll raise your voice. You'll want it to feel like a question because you're going to want them to talk.
Speaker 2:All of these tools are going to be designed to get your counterpart to talk, because what you're wanting to do is uncover really what they need, what they want. You know, so you can meet them. You know if they have a certain price that they don't want to go over, but they don't want to tell you. There are ways, you know, to get that out of them. You just you really want them to talk. So mirrors, you know saying the last, repeating the last things that they said. Then there's labels and that's where you're going to want to deal with the emotions that they're having. So if you're getting a repairs list that is many pages long which actually just happened to a seller of mine yesterday almost every single item in the inspection report, which was 72 pages. It's a historic account 72 pages. And then there were like three pages of repair requests. And then the first thing the seller says is there's no way that I'm gonna do all this. And so you just say, you know, it sounds like you're upset, you know that this list is going to be this long. You know, feels like you're frustrated with the fact that they're asking for. You know, all these little things on top of major things. And you know, right away the seller started saying well, you know, I do understand why they'd want this, you know, and really just getting them to talk through it, you know, they really started seeing the things of why the buyer would want this. You know that it's really a wish list of everything they'd like to have done. It doesn't mean that every single thing on the list is going to be done. But you know, talking about the feelings you know really led to what the seller really just didn't want to see three pages worth of stuff and nobody really does.
Speaker 2:And then the last tool is dynamic silence, and we used this earlier. Nobody likes silence. It's uncomfortable. You want to try to fill it.
Speaker 2:So in negotiations you present something or you ask your question and you have to be quiet. That was the hardest thing for me to do when I first started out. I would want to fill the silence, silence. You know, back when I first started, I would have given the seller this list of repairs and they would have said, no, there's no way, I'm doing all that. And then I would have just filled the silence of well, you know, it's not really that bad because it's this and this and this.
Speaker 2:But I'm really telling them, you know, I'm not hearing them, I'm not listening to what they need and what they want. So now I will just present it. I will not say anything. That I will let them say first, and that was that we're not going to do any of this. And then, you know, it sounds like you're, you know, frustrated with this. Don't say anything again, you know. And then they start saying well, you know, I do understand this and I do understand this. So you know, you want to talk. You want to talk less, you want them to talk more.
Speaker 3:And guys, it really is. This is the tough one. In the meeting earlier, shannon brilliantly demonstrated this method and we had one of our group members who he's also just a stellar business and sales guy, and he made it like 10 seconds in before he was like can't do it, can't do it, it's three, it's three seconds.
Speaker 2:That was the quickest that's ever happened to I've done this before, and sometimes it can take up to a minute, but somebody says something.
Speaker 1:And that's the funny thing is, I can't. It was a cambridge or a harvard study, but they literally took the business school findings of understanding that to close the sale after you present your findings or whatever it is you're trying to negotiate, if you don't wait at least eight seconds, you are so much less likely to actually get the sale itself. And so eight seconds is really that that time frame. We've got to learn to train ourselves to just let it sit, because it's like you said, sometimes minutes, minutes need to go by for something to either process or sink in and get the other person to really unpack what they're dealing with.
Speaker 2:And I've had one that I timed it. It was almost five minutes, oh goodness. And then, finally, they said okay, we're going to go forward.
Speaker 3:And that's it.
Speaker 2:That's it, and they just needed that time to process, to think.
Speaker 1:You know, without my saying anything, and that's using all your tools especially, and so I'm sure they continue to serve you well if you're willing to present them to the whole of our group, because I know I use a number of them myself. But would you mind sharing a time where things kind of went sideways for you, something that I know we talked about, your mentor and giving you all?
Speaker 2:these business books but what's?
Speaker 1:something that you had to learn kind of a hard way, that none of those books can actually teach us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had to learn to let things go. When I first started in real estate, when I'd get a house under contract, I felt like, as the real estate agent, it was my job to make sure that deal went through. Instead of now I realize not all deals are good and not all deals should go through, and you know, sometimes you have to just be able to let those go. But when I first started I thought I looked at it as a failure. You know my job is now that this house is under contract, you know, to see it to the closing table and that's really what I'm there to do. Okay, but you know it's not really what I'm there to do. What I'm there to do is to get my client you client the best deal that I can and one that they're going to feel okay with when they're done, so being able to let go of the bad things.
Speaker 2:I just had to do that over the weekend Got a contract, got a great contract under place. We just had to let it go. We had to let it go, they to let it go. They already had taken a lot off the purchase price and then they wanted too much other things done big ticket items and things like that, along with a big discount on the purchase price, and that just wasn't going to be the best for my client right, and you know they, they are wanting a quick deal, but they also need the right deal. So once I learned to let things go, that was the easiest. I didn't see that in a book.
Speaker 3:It took me time to realize you have to be able to let things go and I think when we're talking about that's cross applicable for any business out there, and it's just as hard as this the dynamic silence may be letting go of a deal that's right in front of you because it's not the right one. Oh, that's hard, that's hard, you know. So what, um, what is kind of the flags that come up that you use to be able to know, okay, this is one that we just we can't do. You know, what are the standards that you kind of, or is it just a gut, a gut thing?
Speaker 2:It can be a gut thing, but also I sit down with people at the beginning and we determine exactly kind of what their bottom line is. You know what they're needing to do. If they're needing to sell a house, do they need to buy another house? You know, if so, how much are they going to need to do that, because you know that can change everything. You know, are you just wanting some money out of it, do you?
Speaker 2:need a certain amount of money out. You know what are your basic needs and, like this deal, my seller is moving to be with family buying a house on the beach in Mexico and they need a certain amount of money to get there and we had an appraisal done on their house so we know what it's worth and we know what they can expect to get out of it. So if if they take too much off the purchase price and too much off repairs and can't buy the house in Mexico, then that's not going to work for them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so one of the keys is just knowing what costs you have in order to be able to actually evaluate how much you can. You can sell something for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And if it's a buyer on the buyer's side, you know you do needs and wants. What do you need out of a house and need out of price, and what do you want out of a house and want out of price? And you know you definitely have to meet the needs and then you want to see if you can meet some of the wants.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now is that something that a client that's wanting to sell their house can kind of figure out beforehand, or do you also walk them through that process?
Speaker 2:Well, they can, and I do have some, especially like investors who will know you know, this is exactly what I need, you know, and you go get that.
Speaker 3:And then there's some where they don't even know for sure what they need.
Speaker 2:I had a client she was a great, great client. She had property on five acres in Jones. Her husband had passed away and she wanted to move closer to her kids and this was an extremely unique property. There was really no comps around to value it, so we really just had to sit down and say, you know, we'll have to throw it out on the market. See what happens. You know, if it doesn't get any traction then we might be above.
Speaker 2:And so we put it on the market for $200,000 and sat there for quite a while, quite a while, and we lowered it to $160,000. And then we finally got it under contract and then the appraisal came in at $100,000. Because this property it was on five acres, it was a nice little two-story building but we had called it a one bedroom, but technically it didn't have a dedicated closet up top, so it was not considered a bedroom, so it was more considered like a storage building or a garage instead of like a one-bedroom home. But what we did find out is that the home that she wanted that was going to be by her son she would be able to buy even at this new appraisal price. Okay. So you know we got down to and we did this before she said no or yes. I was like well you know, let's just see where we're at.
Speaker 2:And you know the buyers couldn't come up with the extra money over appraisal. So you know it was either this or keep it on the market. And it had been on the market for almost a year and so we were able to get the house, just had to take the appraisal. But you know we met her needs, we got her house sold and we got her into the house that she needed. And sometimes you don't know that you, you think you need more than you do yeah, so really just working out your needs, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:And now that's kind of how you serve all of your clients, and so I'm really curious. You said originally got into real estate right For the money needs and financial purposes, but now you can't conceive of doing anything else. I would never do anything else. What's the bigger picture for Shannon? What is real estate now doing for you that you want to keep doing?
Speaker 2:Oh, I love real estate, especially the first-time homebuyers, the families. When they get their second showing and their kids come in and say, oh, this is going to be my room and this is going to be, I mean, it's wonderful. Yeah, it's wonderful and you come in and say, oh, this is going to be my room, this is going to be. I mean, it's wonderful. It's wonderful you don't get a whole lot of stories like that in higher education. Real estate is much more fun. Also, I am going to invest someday.
Speaker 2:I keep saying that and do maybe a few rental properties and things like that. But I don't know, I might be one of those crazy little old 80-year-old ladies who are still doing real estate.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There are quite a few of those. I might end up being one of those.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you're going to do something, do something you love. The passion has to be there. We all have daily needs as people. We have to be able to pay the bills, you know. So sometimes you're working a job that you don't love. But I mean for anybody out there, if you're in a job that you don't love, don't do that forever. You know, find, bide your time if you need to take care of what you have to, but find something like what shannon is doing, where she loves going to it every single day. Um, you know, otherwise you're just gonna, you're gonna limit your happiness, you know, um, I'm going off on a on my own little diatribe here, so so you all cut me off.
Speaker 1:No, it's a great diatribe, because Shannon you talk a lot about how this kind of meets not only what you're good at, but also something that is a desire and a passion for you to just keep going forward. Now curiosity how long did it actually take you to feel like you were good at real estate? Because you were talking about that eight-month training period and then some of the early hiccups. But when did you feel like, all right, shannon's got this Okay well, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you when that happens. I learn new stuff every day. I learn new stuff every day and I think I'm good at it. I think it's going to be almost a lifetime before I'll consider myself great, but you know also, I do want to say it's never too late to start something new I mean, you know, I was in my 40s when I started this.
Speaker 2:I know people who start things in their 50s and so you know, do you want to be, you know, a certain age, doing something you don't like or doing something you love? So exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, you've kind of already hit on one of the main affirmations I give to some of my clients that are really concerned about their business health and their spiritual health kind of going hand in hand. It's a quote from florence scoville, that book I recommended to you earlier. But she says that if you say this to yourself every morning it's going to help you move towards that place, to where what I'm good at, what I'm passionate about, comes a little easier. And the quote goes I have wonderful work in a wonderful way and give wonderful service for wonderful pay.
Speaker 2:And it sounds like you've kind of already hit that I love that it's really good.
Speaker 3:Oh man, if anybody's out there needing a narrator for a children's book too, nolan, I'm just going to put his name up on the availability list. I feel like you need to read a children's book or something I can do that.
Speaker 1:I'll make it work. I'll make it work somehow. I'm just happy to be here with you guys. This is a fun podcast.
Speaker 2:We're doing this every week now. Yeah, this is fun.
Speaker 3:This is fun, I will say, for that imposter syndrome.
Speaker 3:I feel like in digital marketing, it's just built in with the job.
Speaker 3:There's so many people I know that they didn't get their degree in marketing but somehow, over a series of events, unfortunate or not, uh, they became a marketer, and but we, like our whole careers, were like am I really, though, do I do I know what I'm talking about, and uh, to hear you say you know, learning is a continuous process of what we do, that resonates so much with me. I know that for sure. Even the labeling that you were talking about earlier, like one of the reasons why that has to be such a powerful negotiation tactic is because we don't know how to label our own stuff so often, and even if it's say, even if it's not accurate, it helps us figure out what we are feeling and that gives more information to you know us as negotiators, but it also helps you know the people we're talking, to recognize oh yeah, that is what I'm feeling, or no way you know. And so I think that's there. I think there's just some really cool things that come along with those negotiation tactics you were talking about earlier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like I was saying earlier, mislabeling sometimes you know deliberately saying things wrong or the other person will correct you. You know those can be really effective as well, because you really just want to get them to talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, you've gotten us talking. Is there any way we can get some clients sent your direction as far as website, preferred email phone number, something that they can come collaborate with you and, ideally, is there anything in particular you'd like to be working on?
Speaker 2:Let's see. Well, I do work heavily with investors and enjoy it. It's also fun when new investors are getting in. I love to work with them as well. Really, anybody has any questions at all. They can definitely reach out to me. Give my phone number.
Speaker 2:It's 405-436-5642 and I have no problem just answering general real estate questions. You know you don't have to be buying a house or selling a house. You know I love to just answer questions and I love the hard questions because I'm one of those people where I will seek out something new to learn every day. So if you have a hard real estate question that I don't know, I'm going to love it. I'm going to go find the answer for it, excellent.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful to hear. Can you give everybody your phone number one more time and any way else they can find you so we can put it down in the description afterwards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a 405-436-5642. And I'm also Shannonannon at nine north okaycom and our website is nine north okaycom. Nine spelled out n-i-n-e perfect amazing.
Speaker 3:it's been so good talking with you today and just there's so much knowledge that shannon has about real estate just in general. And um, check us out on youtube. We have a, a channel that will have the visual piece of things and and me and Nolan, you know we're we're not that great to look at, but but Shannon is is just filled with style and and all kinds of goodness. So go check us out on YouTube and come come check out think biz resources in general. At thinkbizsolutionscom, we have all kinds of different resources we're trying to be able to set up for businesses so that way we can be just a community of professionals trying to help each other grow. That's the heart behind all of what we do, and so, shannon, thank you so much for being with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for having me. You guys are great.
Speaker 3:Wonderful. We have kind of a sign-off that we like to ask people to help us with. We're going to say stay sharp. And the second portion is think biz. Would you say the think biz piece for us?
Speaker 1:Absolutely Excellent.
Speaker 3:All right, nolan, stay sharp All right.
Speaker 1:No one Stay sharp.
Speaker 2:Think Biz.
