Always Peel the Onion

I was chatting with a lady this week who had had an unfortunate real estate experience. We are working with her to turn that around.

She was pretty frustrated with herself because she fell for the story - the highest appraisal and flashiest pitch. Her BS meter was not working properly up front.

This is not just a real estate phenomenon.

I remember the sage advice from a great manager I had way back when - he said to me once “Son” (it was waaaaay back), “always peel the onion”.

I have always used this when interviewing people - you can use it too:

Ask a question.

Get the initial answer.

Then peel the onion.

Go deeper. Ask for details, get the response. Go deeper again. Keep going. As soon as you get generalities and washy statements you know you’re getting BS. They don’t actually know the answer - which means it wasn’t them, they didn’t actually do it, they don’t actually know.

Catch them once, they know you got them. Catch them twice, move on. You know they don’t learn and can’t be trusted to give you the facts. The details are important. Peel the onion layers until you get to the detail. Then you know you are dealing with the facts and a person that knows them.