The Truth about Our Competitors (CFFL 0050.3)
The Truth about Our Competitors (CFFL 0050.3)
Jack Butala: The Truth about Our Competitors. Why We Can Afford to Give Land Away Every Month. Every single month we give away a property for free. It’s super simple to qualify. Two simple steps. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and number two, get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don’t even have to read it. Thanks for listening.
Jack Butala: Hey this is Jack Butala from Land Academy and welcome to our Cash Flow for the Land show.
In this episode, Jill and I discuss what we think of our competitors in the land business and in the real estate education business. Jill, I’ve been looking forward to this show.
Jill DeWit: Me Too.
Jack Butala: I have lots to say but I’m going to be concise about it.
We have a couple of competitors …
What I really want to talk about is our land sale competitors, the people we are in competition with to buy a piece of property from the seller. Which, the thick of it is, we don’t really have any competition.
Before that, I thought it would be fun to talk about the two competitors that we have in the Real Estate Education business, the Land Academy business because it’s such a short conversation.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Jack Butala: We have two competitors. Two competitors in our property niche, I should say. Which is unwanted rural land. One is my first Land Academy student. He’s got a lot to offer in a real specific portion of what we cover. I think he’s more back tax oriented than we are. In fact I know he is.
Jill DeWit: There are just some difference in how he approached things which is great and healthy!
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s a good point. Competitors always keep people honest. The consumer always wins when there’s lots of competitors.
Then we have another competitor that came a lot later to the game. I’m not sure what he offers. I haven’t looked into it a lot but I know that we have a tremendous number of our members are former members or maybe even current member with that group. We would like to think that we deliver the best product at the most competitive price with the best experience I guess.
Jill DeWit: As we were talking before the show about … I always like to come up with some points for the topic. Let me hit on this. What stands out to me in some of our differences is, one is the level of experience, which I love. What you bring to the table, Steven, is, and me for the tale end of it, is now between fifteen thousand and sixteen thousand transactions. I heard Jason Hartman say that one time. Remember when we were on his show a while back, he asked you point blank how many transactions that you had and you said fifteen thousand and it was so great because Jason Hartman said “Oh, excuse me folks, I have to say we’re talking to a bunch of amateurs here.” That just make me laugh. That was really good because people go …
I know you’ve had conversations when you first got to know Seth Williams and you guys were talking an Seth went, “Okay, Got it!” Before he really knew who we were and who we were. When you said what you’ve done, he said “Okay, Never mind. I know you know.” I think that’s one of the things people are drawn to us, because there’s a pretty good chance, whatever obstacle or situation they are facing, we may have dealt with that before and have some experience in it.
At least because of all of our combined experience we have a good idea of how to attack that problem and get past it. I’m sure that if we just started doing this six months ago and said now we’re going to teach it, one of the things they would be saying is “How do you know this.” “Because I’ve got a good feeling” No! We’ve done this. A lot. With that many transactions, boy, you learn a lot and you get through a lot of things and you do a lot of things wrong. That’s one of the things I know from our members that they’ve said “Oh Thank you! I love to learn from you guys, you took all the learning curve out of it for me in a lot of areas that I can just jump in and that’s it.”
The second point I hear and I know is true is just who we are. You and I are pretty no nonsense people. Our friends know that. That’s really who we are. We’re going to walk around and I used to always put my foot in my mouth sometimes because I was a little too honest. That was kind of a joke, and I have to take a moment to go, “do I really want to share that?”. We are very no nonsense, truthful, up front and honest and if we’re not feeling like something is a good thing, we’re going to tell you and we’ll give you some idea about … I just think of our numbers. “Hey, what do you think about this transaction? Here’s what I’m thinking.” People can read it in our success plan, successplan.com, our current member chat forum. I’ll go in and go “I’m not sure I would do that deal and here’s why.” I would say, here is what you are up against, here is why I would pass. It’s always your decision but I’m gonna be really honest with you, I have a few red flags. That’s something else.
My third point about us and the truth and with our competitors is you get two for one with us. This is all based on feedback and what I’ve been told by our members. It doesn’t take long to figure out who’s the analytical of the bunch and who’s the touchy feely customer service one here of our team. You and I attack things a different way. Really and it’s so great having two different experiences, two different view points, two different personalities, two different talents. It really comes out, I’m sure.
Jack Butala: If you lined all three of us up and had to make a decision, I would obviously choose us but do you know why I really would?
Jill DeWit: Why?
Jack Butala: Because of you. I’m serious.
Jill DeWit: Really?
Jack Butala: Yeah. No expanding on it, your last point there but you make this fun, Jill. This can be a lot of work. I’ll be straight with you, if you are going to be really successful in it like we are, it’s a lot of work. There are a lot of moving parts. The product type is awesome and it’s easy and the deals themselves are easy but there’s a lot of stuff that goes on. You make it fun, Jill. I’m serious, and you make it presentable.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: Otherwise, it would be the tree of us, three idiot guys just standing there going, “Yeah I did more deals.” “No, I did more deals” “No, I did more deals” “No, I did more deals”
Jill DeWit: Oh, my goodness, I can see that now, and mine was bigger!
Jack Butala: Exactly! Well said.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala: The truth about our competitors in the Land Academy business is, our other two competitors, I think they give a great overview of what this whole program is about. I think they are both very back tax driven. You know, get the back tax property which I think is real low hitting it through. I think back tax situations change all the time. In tough economic times, there’s more, in good times, there’s less. We teach the direct mail method. You harvest that every month. It never stops regardless. If you follow our stuff step by step, and utilize direct mail, we give you every single tool that you need. Data, a way to run the mail orders and get the mailers out. We have all the answers. I’m not sure the other two competitors provide all the answers. I’m extremely sure they give a really good overview.
With that …
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: We can move on to competitors and going about property.
Jill DeWit: Yes!
Jack Butala: This is what I’m talking about. Jill is more familiar with it these days than I am. You send a bunch of mail out. A lot of people call you back. Every once in a while, someone will call you back …
The reason I’m addressing this on this podcast is because a lot of people, a lot of members who are thinking of getting involved with this ask me this question about competition. ” I want to go buy this forty acre property for a thousand dollars”, or whatever it winds up being, “but there are six other guys throwing stuff at them, it’s a bidding situation” and the answer is categorically, no.
Let’s say, this last year, how many sellers that you’ve talked to have said “Yeah, I got your letter and I got another offer here and I’m wondering if you can match it.”
Jill DeWit: Never.
Jack Butala: Never? No, there’s got to be..
Jill DeWit: I mean in the last year. Not in the last year I haven’t done that.
Jack Butala: Wow! Never?
Jill DeWit: No, I really don’t. Well … No, no one’s said it. [crosstalk 00:09:38]
Jack Butala: Okay, so it’s less than three.
Jill DeWit: Okay let me think about it. Nothing is going to match it. No one has started off like that.
Jack Butala: How about I’m talking to another person. How about I’m thinking about listing it with a real estate agent.
Jill DeWit: Uh-huh.
Jack Butala: That’s a competitor.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: I didn’t ask you the question right.
Jill DeWit: No, you’re right.
Yes slash however, that doesn’t bother me. It’s so rare, and even if it … It doesn’t come up. That’s my main thing.
Jack Butala: That’s my point. When it does, my answer has always been, I wish you the best because I have sixteen more phone calls to do here. Nine times out of ten I think maybe they are just trying to negotiate. There is no competition, let me put it that way.
Jill DeWit: I love what you are saying, I was thinking about your realtor example. I think every person, not every person, but a lot of people. Okay, I have a piece of property to sell, however I got it, I inherited it, whatever it is. I need to call a realtor. That’s the first line of thought for a lot of people, but yet then they have our letter in their file. They are toying with that. Part of it is they didn’t even know they could sell it this way. A lot of it is to, and it bums me out because I think … I don’t know. I don’t want them to have false hope. We all think our asset is priceless. I don’t know where I’m going here.
Jack Butala: You have some priceless assets.
Jill DeWit: Oh, my gosh.
Jack Butala: You’re just talking about, how am I not going to take that. You got to walk through the door when it’s open.
Jill DeWit: Thank you, you saved me on that. I don’t know. I was starting to …
Jack Butala: Here is my take on it. The vast majority of the people who receive our offers, who are going to sell it, you nailed it. They get it, and they are like “Ach. I forgot about this property. I don’t want it. I’m never going to use it. My dad wanted it, but I don’t know what he was thinking. He’s not here anymore. I am going to call these people back and see what they have to say and yeah, if I can get a couple thousand bucks out of this thing and I don’t have to call a realtor and I have too much stuff to do and my sister is over here doing this other stuff. She needs my help. If the person on the other end of the phone”, which in our case is Jill, “is nice about it, they are going to make it easy for me and send somebody over to my house with a cashiers check and a deed for me to sign, like hell, I’m going to take that deal”
It’s the old gallon of milk convenience store thing. Even if there is another person, and ninety nine percent of the time they are not talking to anybody else or even thinking about the property, they are going to do it because they want to talk to you. They want to pick up the phone and look at the caller ID and know it’s you.
The gallon of milk situation is this. I’ve said this lots of time, we can use water this time because I think you brought up a water situation. If you go to a convenience store and buy a bottle of water and it’s $2.50, you don’t yell at that the clerk and say, “this is ridiculously over priced.” The guy is going to pound you on the head. You have a choice. You can go to a convenience store and pay $2.50 for a bottle of water. You can go to Wal-mart and buy a whole case for $2.50, or you can go to a grocery store and it’s somewhere in between. What you are really paying for is a convenience. You don’t want to deal with all the traffic and walking through the whole store with Wal-mart. You just want to get in there and get out of there.
It’s the same thing with what we deliver. That’s the product we deliver, too. The easy way out of selling some real estate without going through all the hassle. I do not know of a competitor that makes it as easy as we do to turn real estate into cash for a lot of people, for all our customers.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
I agree.
Jack Butala: There’s two ways to look at this. Number one, for whatever reason, this product type is ridiculously overlooked. It always has. I thought that it would over time but it hasn’t. No one wants rural property. No one makes it a business the way that we do, and the way our members do.
Jill DeWit: I agree and I love it because it’s great. The more people that I talk to that are stumped by it and don’t understand it and don’t even see how there’s a profit there, I’m like, great! Less competition for me! I’m very happy about that.
Jack Butala: You get a handful of members that really do get it. I ask people all the time, are you running into anyone else that is doing it? No, I can’t! There’s no one else doing this here.
Jill DeWit: It is wonderful.
Jack Butala: Another thing to, I have to say this and I’ve done this before, what ends up happening, I call it the [inaudible 00:14:41]. If somebody send a bunch of mail out, and we send out offers with actual dollar amounts in there, if somebody a month before you sends a postcard out that says hey, I really want to buy your land …
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