Build an Empire on the Weekend (CFFL 0056)
Build an Empire on the Weekend (CFFL 0056)
Jack Butala: Build an Empire on the Weekend. 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 Jack Butala for LandAcademy. Welcome to our Cash Flow From Land Show. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how to allocate your time in the beginning so you can turn real estate deals without disrupting your whole life. Discipline and scheduling are part of any successful endeavor. Jill, I think this has the making of a very useful show, unlike most of our shows. I think we’re probably going to give some relatively good advice and I bet, as always, we probably have a differing view on this topic.
Jill DeWit: True. I would say discipline, scheduling, organization.
Jack Butala: Organization.
Jill DeWit: That’s a big one. True. You can do it! This is a great topic. I’m excited about this show.
Jack Butala: Me, too. As always, we never advocate dropping everything in your regular life, becoming a member here at LandAcademy, and just disrupting your whole situation. You got to take it step by step.
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Jack Butala: I think you can start a very effective program 8 hours a week in the beginning. Don’t you?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, absolutely.
Jack Butala: I would take Sunday, personally, and just do it.
Jill DeWit: Absolutely.
Jack Butala: I did do it that way.
Jill DeWit: I was just going to say, so did I. That was my first … No, I’m like, “I did it for as long as I could.” I know you did it, too. What is funny is remember what my office used to look like?
Jack Butala: Yes, I do.
Jill DeWit: I had 2 desks pretty much back to back so I could just swivel my chair around, and that’s how I would mentally do … I was working from home at that time from 1 job, while building up what we’re working on here at the site, building up some stuff for LandStay and my own personal thing. I would flip my chair around and work on the other project. It was really funny.
Jack Butala: I never thought of it that way. You were kind of a student when you started.
Jill DeWit: I kind of was.
Jack Butala: A member I should say.
Jill DeWit: I kind of was. You taught me, Steven.
Jack Butala: I was thinking more of you like a just facilitator because most of what you did was on the sell side because we had a ton of property and inventory. You just jumped in and started selling it.
Jill DeWit: It was a lot. That was most of the day.
Jack Butala: Posting it and selling it and dealing with the customers and the whole thing.
Jill DeWit: Then I learned the acquisition.
Jack Butala: Did you do it every day?
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: Was it just on the weekend and you’d manage it?
Jill DeWit: Way, way back when, it was just on the weekends. I would post during the week and have the stuff when I could during the week, have it all scheduled ready to go. Do you remember this?
Jack Butala: Yeah. I do like it was yesterday.
Jill DeWit: Then the auction would close on Sunday, and then I would either send out a payment invoice Sunday night or Monday morning and then do the deeds during the week whenever the payments came in. Yep.
Jack Butala: There’s a ton of tools in The $10,000 a Month for Life: Cash Flow From Land Program on the website where we talk about time management. You never really want to give out, I don’t think … You want to get your ducks in a row in the first place.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: We talk a lot about that in the first 3 chapters, really the 2nd and 3rd chapter.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: Set up a call service. All this stuff is incredibly inexpensive. Get a website, set up a call service, leverage your time so that somebody is answering the phone and they forward the calls to you, so no matter where you are and what you’re doing, you’re getting it. I’m trying to give some hints here. There’s all kinds of stuff you can do that even today, we don’t do deeds 7 days a week. We simply tell people, “Oh, great. Thanks for buying the property. Wednesday and Thursday is our deed day. Expect to receive a deed here.” Even to this day, we don’t do deeds every day. I’ve never done deeds every day.
Jill DeWit: You’d be running around like a chicken with your head cut off if [crosstalk 00:03:49].
Jack Butala: You could never get anything else done if you were constantly … I think a lot of people use their email inbox as their to-do list.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: That’s the fastest way to fail, in my opinion.
Jill DeWit: Right. You have to really learn to manage your time. You are 100% correct.
Jack Butala: There’s tons of resources in the program about that. I think that I can tell in the cost and success plan that there are many, many people who are taking it seriously.
Jill DeWit: I have a really important thing to say, though. We really do help outline with the things that you need to have, or at least thought about, have a game plan for. We don’t advocate wait until your desk is all pretty and you’ve got your business cards here and you’ve ordered your tape and you have your stationery.
Jack Butala: Stationery?
Jill DeWit: You know what I mean. Do you hear where I’m going with this?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Some people, though …
Jack Butala: My stuff’s all taped together.
Jill DeWit: That’s what I’m saying. That’s the right way. Some people, though, go a step too far. We want to be sure that everybody knows there’s some important things that you need to address and be ready for and handle ahead of time. You’re really good at saying that in our program. “Hey, do this now because trust me, in 3 months, you’re not going to have time to think about it.” It’s so true. Don’t go overboard. Some people do that, and then they never start. You know what I mean?
Jack Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: Like your analysis paralysis kind of thing. Some people can go a little too far getting everything good, so I want to make sure everybody recognizes there’s a healthy balance. Okay, I’m ready to start answering the phone. You don’t have to have the right cell phone and the right whatever and the perfect thing, but you do want to have a good idea. Don’t change your phone number. Have a few things figured out. The rest will come.
Jack Butala: What I say in the program is, and this is a great point that you bring up, “Get your ducks in a row within reason in the beginning long before you send out your first mailer.” When I say ducks in a row, I mean things like this. Get your website up, all right? Doesn’t take long. It’s very inexpensive. You can hire somebody to do it or figure it out yourself. It’s not hard. Get a call service established. If you go to the resources section on LandAcademy page, and we talk about it directly in the program, get that stuff set up, because once you send that mailer out, you are going to be shocked.
If you do it properly like I instruct in chapter 5, you are going to be inundated with phone calls and opportunities and that’s going to start to consume your life. You have to really know when to say when, and pick and choose the right … All this stuff is covered in the program. You just got to stay organized because if you try to do all that stuff after you’re getting calls and you’re doing deals it’s hard.
Jill DeWit: There’s a reason to do it in that order, too. One of the things that we talk about often on our Weekly Ambition Call is the value of having a website and credibility and having your Facebook page and all that stuff. All the things that we don’t necessarily think about as necessary, but that is important because it leads credibility to you and your business. People need to be able to see you and know you’re real and see your business website and that stuff as an afterthought. It could hinder your numbers. I don’t know what to say, statistics or sales or whatever it is. It could hinder it. I know that people go and check us out. Not even LandAcademy stuff. I’m just talking our side wholesale business, LandStay. I know that people go and look up and see who we are, what are we doing, are we really buying, are we really selling, what’s going on here, before they even pick up the phone to call.
Jack Butala: Yeah, I think you have to establish some kind of internet credibility. The first thing that somebody’s going to do when they’re selling you your property is they’re going to check you out on the internet. They’re going to type your name in. They’re going to type the name of the company, if you’re taking that route. You have to have some credibility, so get it all established before you send your first mailer out. It’s just another short little step towards success.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. As I said, back to the building the empire on the weekend, what’s great about our whole business model is you can just have this be your second income. If you’re in love … Maybe you’re a pharmacist, I don’t know, and you love it, and you’re doing great. Gosh, it would be fun to have … I have free time, or I kind of want to build up my real estate empire, my portfolio, whatever. You can keep this as your second income, build up your properties, and just have payments coming in, and just sit back and relax.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: That’s the nice thing about building this empire in the weekend, you can make it work whatever you want it to be. It can just be our vacation fun money, and gosh, having payments coming in and all this money goes into a side account so when the kids go to college someday, that’s a no-brainer. It’s already there. You can take it to the level that we have and make it your thing.
Jack Butala: We have a handful of members who are uninterested in acquisitions. They’re pretty vocal about it. They don’t say this directly, but this is what they mean: “I only watch the last half of … I’m only studying the last half-”
Jill DeWit: I got bogged down.
Jack Butala: “Of your business model.” The last person that said it to me, it got me thinking. They said, “Look, I’m not going to send a mailer out. I’m going to find some super cheap property that’s already listed and I’m going to pay cash for it, and then I’m going to sell it on terms. I’m going to increase the price by 10 and sell it on terms.” They’re very successful at that. In fact, that is actually the housing model. You go find a house, you buy it, and then you rent it. There is no acquisition to own in that. You flip through the internet, find the best house, and sell. If you want to cut to the chase and get some cash flow going, you can do that. We have members who do that all the time. In fact they buy property from landstay.com, which is our land company, how we got into this mess. That’s probably why our inventory is LandAcademy is we’ve got like-
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala: 25 properties left.
Jill DeWit: It’s hilarious.
Jack Butala: Out of 16,000, there’s probably 25 left.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala: I’m not advocating go to LandStay and buy property at all. I’m not.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: I’m just saying there’s a lot of different ways that you can build an empire on the weekend. If you’re interested in cash flow quickly, buy some property and take our advice and our contracts and all the stuff that’s in there and get some cash flow going.
Jill DeWit: Just do that. Exactly.
Jack Butala: Buyers love terms property. They love to pay $100 a month forever and own property.
Jill DeWit: They do. They’re really happy.
Jack Butala: It solves like 19 problems. There’s no bank.
Jill DeWit: I can move on it right now.
Jack Butala: I can start vacationing on it right now. We have tons and tons and tons of customers who do that. They thank us every single month.
Jill DeWit: They do. Yep, it’s great.
Jack Butala: The other way you can build an empire in a weekend, and this is my personal favorite way, this is how I got all hooked into this, is send a mailer out, get some super cheap property or find some tax sales, buy some super cheap property and wholesale it out to a handful of people that you accumulate relatively quickly, a handful of wholesale buyers, who then go sell it on terms like I just described. You’re out of it. You buy a couple of pieces of property for $500,000, double, triple, your money, you put 5 grand in the bank, and you’re moving on to the next one.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Get in, get out.
Jack Butala: It’s that easy.
Jill DeWit: It’s very true, which is our LandStay business model, which I love. As a wholesaler, I’m not trying to maximize revenue. I know what I want to make off of it, and then the next guy’s going to make even more. Great. Everybody wins!
Jack Butala: How much handholding do you think is appropriate?
Jill DeWit: In?
Jack Butala: The people that are involved in LandAcademy, they’re adults.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: Do you think that they are relatively organized when they get to us? You’re more on the front lines than I am.
Jill DeWit: I do. I do. The questions that I get and see are really well thought out and good. Gosh, sometimes I don’t get a lot of questions, which is interesting.
Jack Butala: The questions that get to me are very technical, which I really appreciate.
Jill DeWit: Right. Some of the ones are really, really out there, and I love it. They’ve got so much knowledge from our program that they’re tackling deals. That’s what I think is funny. They are confident and working on tackling some deals that might be a little confusing. When I say, I’m talking about the straightforward just a buyer, just a seller, [inaudible 00:13:00] live. It’s really, really easy. Sometimes they’re coming to me because they’re already feeling really comfortable and confident. “I’ve done so well, Jill. I think I’ve got this.” There’s a trust involved and this and that. I’m like, “Okay, well hold on, everybody. Let’s make sure we’re doing it right,” kind of thing. Then I just have to remind them, “If it’s going to take you X amount of hours to do this one and you could have spent X amount of hours to do 12 over here, is that the best use of your time?” It’s funny. Those are the only kind of questions I get, and they’re always good ones.
Jack Butala: Right. When you send a mailer out, you get lots of calls back and lots of interested people who are ready to sell their unwanted property. A lot of times, a certain percentage of the time, they’re calling you because maybe a partner who owned the property has passed away, or there’s a hitch in, let’s say, on the deed conveyance part. Jill gets a lot of questions like that. We advocate, right in the beginning, making it super simple. If you’re staring and 10 deals, and some have some hitch like that, like a deceased partner, move on to the next one.
Jill DeWit: Don’t get hung up.
Jack Butala: We do deceased partner deals all the time, and we solve a lot of problems and buy some cheap property that way. There’s no secret about it. Even today, we pass on deals where it’s just like, man-
Jill DeWit: It’s just too much.
Jack Butala: I don’t want to chase 6 partners all over the country to get a signature, even though they’ve all said yes. It’s just too time consuming and silly.
Jill DeWit: That’s it. Time is money. The time I would spend on that, I can do 6 more deals and make even more money, so why do that?
Jack Butala: All right, what’s your top 2 suggestions?
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