New Years Eve Episode (CFFL 0058.1)
New Years Eve Episode (CFFL 0058.1)
Jack Butala: New Years Eve Episode. 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, Jack Butala for Land Academy. Welcome to our Cash Flow From Land show. In this episode Jill and I talk about the new year. We’re actually recording this on December 31st. It’s one of my favorite holidays. Probably, actually, my the favorite holiday.
Jill DeWit: I didn’t know you had a favorite holiday.
Jack Butala: Jill and I are going to take a look at 2015 and what we’ve accomplished, and then maybe set some goals for 2016.
Jill DeWit: Okay, I have to ask, so this is the one and only day out of the year it’s not an interruption?
Jack Butala: I got a lot of flak for calling the holiday an interruption in our office.
Jill DeWit: Yes, yes.
Jack Butala: Jill calls it a … What do you call it? A celebration?
Jill DeWit: It is. It’s a celebration. You get everybody together. You have a lot of fun and food and silliness and, you know, it is a celebration.
Jack Butala: One of the many reasons we are partners still.
Jill DeWit: How we differ. Very good.
Jack Butala: No, I love the holiday season, honestly, because of you. You make it fun.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: You do. Jill goes full blown, full out on the holidays. There’s the whole Christmas tree thing, and presents and …
Jill DeWit: Nice meals.
Jack Butala: I learned a couple years ago just to stop making rules about, “Oh, let’s just get the kids one present,” and it just … The one present things happens around December 1st, and then we say, “Great, we’re all done shopping,” and then there’s 1700 presents more.
Jill DeWit: I totally forgot you had that rule years ago.
Jack Butala: Yeah, I don’t even think you listened to it.
Jill DeWit: No, I …
Jack Butala: No, you did it this year too.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Oh, I didn’t … I never even … You know what?
Jack Butala: You agreed to it. You agreed to it, just mechanically agreed.
Jill DeWit: I do mechanically agree to a lot of things.
Jack Butala: Yeah, “Whatever you said this time.”
Jill DeWit: Just say, “Yes,” and then go do whatever you want.
Jack Butala: You do that about everything.
Jill DeWit: I kind of do. It’s a kid … I mean, it starts when you’re a kid. Our kids do it to us. “Just say yes, and then we’re going to go do whatever we want.”
Jack Butala: Absolutely. I was like that too. Were you? I’m sure you were.
Jill DeWit: Of course. Of course. You know, I’m sure there’s part of me that still does that to me too.
Jack Butala: Yeah, it’s just different for men and women I think.
Jill DeWit: Love it.
Jack Butala: I’m a lot more silent about it.
Jill DeWit: Oh. You just kind of pretend like you didn’t hear it.
Jack Butala: That’s true for everything.
Jill DeWit: That way no one can say, “Well, you said yes.”
Jack Butala: All right let’s look at 2015 and what we’ve accomplished because it was a pretty banner year for us all the way around.
Jill DeWit: Oh, my gosh.
Jack Butala: There’s a long list of stuff. I love talking about this topic.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: I know this has got the promise to be one of the best episodes because it’s not so much now, anymore, because 2015 is the year we started Land Academy, or the year that we kind of institutionalized it, and made a program available. Now, we celebrating the success of our members, not just our own success in real estate, so I get a huge kick out of that.
Jill DeWit: Mm hm (affirmative), me too. It’s great. I was walking up to the office this morning and I was thinking, we had such a good 2015. Usually, every year you can’t wait to turn that, you know, start a new year because this one is going to be better. It’s going to be great. We’re going to really kill it this year. Usually it seems like I have that attitude, and this year I’m a little sad. I’m kind of like, “You know, 2015 was such a great year for us …
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: … I’m a little sad to say goodbye.” I can’t remember, I don’t, you don’t often feel like that.
Jack Butala: Mm hm (affirmative)
Jill DeWit: That’s how I am and you’re right, I love celebrating not only our success, but we’re really seeing great success from the people that we’ve been able to help.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: That is even better than our own success.
Jack Butala: What a reward. I used to think that when I started in the business it was always about revenue and revenue goals. We’ve long since accomplished that, and certainly accomplished it in 2015 at LandStay just in real estate. Now, my whole thing is, “Let’s get other people, let’s spread the word.”
Jill DeWit: Isn’t it? I get a bigger kick out of that too.
Jack Butala: Yeah, me too.
Jill DeWit: I’m like, “Oh, you made how much? Awesome. Okay, what do you stand now? That’s fantastic.” I get a bigger kick out of that now too.
Jack Butala: Maybe it’s our age, or my age. I’m not going to talk about your age.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Maybe it’s your age, not my age. We won’t ever talk about Jill’s age.
Jack Butala: No, we won’t. There will never be an episode called How Old is Jill Really?
Jill DeWit: Hey, it’s Jill’s birthday. No, we might do that because my birth month is pretty big, but we never discuss the year. Thank you.
Jill DeWit: What happened in 2015 that’s totally memorable for you?
Jill DeWit: As it stands right now, with LandStay, I ‘m so low on inventory I can’t stand it. It’s hilarious. Things are … it’s like it’s flying off the shelves. Things, the economy is clearly doing great. People are buying land. They are so excited. It’s amazing, the response and the numbers and where I stand with that. It’s wonderful, so that’s big for me.
Jack Butala: Some people think that we started Land Academy as a, I’ve heard a couple of people say this, as a venue, or as a mechanism to sell property.
Jill DeWit: That’s funny.
Jack Butala: Isn’t that funny?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: That never … it was never even …
Jill DeWit: That never even occurred to us.
Jack Butala: That never occurred to me when we started it.
Jill DeWit: No, but what did occur to me was a way to add more property to my inventory, but not that way.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Just another way to get more deals? For us?
Jack Butala: Yeah, to buy more property potentially, and we do that with our members. We do deals with our members, but not to sell it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: [It ended up being that 00:05:52]. We have a lot of members who, well, you know this, we have a lot of members who are really interested in buying property. They just want to buy it from us and then sell it on terms, which is cool.
Jill DeWit: Mm hm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: We’re in the process of revamping the website so people can just check out …
Jill DeWit: I’m so excited.
Jack Butala: … We don’t have a … Up until now it’s like you’ve got to call us and do some stuff, but it’s been so popular that we’re going to revamp the site so you can just click, click, click and buy the property.
Jill DeWit: Check yourself out, deed information in there.
Jack Butala: Fill our your own, you can fill out your own deed.
Jill DeWit: You know? That’s such a good thing. I was telling it to one of our members the other day because I was thinking, “Watch my site because you’re going to want to do this. It’s going to make your life much easier.”
Jack Butala: How did they respond to that because we haven’t … I haven’t really …
Jill DeWit: Oh, they thought that that was cool.
Jack Butala: Good.
Jill DeWit: I’m like, “Yeah, it is cool.”
Jack Butala: That’s going to be so cool to click on the property, complete your own deed …
Jill DeWit: Wouldn’t that be awesome? It’s going to be great.
Jack Butala: … complete the deed how you want it to read, see the deed right there.” I mean, that’s got the potential to like really to change the way real estate is sold on the internet.
Jill DeWit: Mm hm (affirmative). It’s so great.
Jack Butala: I personally, you know this, Jill, I’m personally taking on this project. We could hire some, this all out and everything. I am personally going to oversee this because I’m that excited about it. I think it’s something too, that we can share. If it ends up that we do sell a lot more property because of this, because it’s so easy to purchase it for our buyers, then it’s something that we’ll teach.
Jill DeWit: Mm hm (affirmative). Absolutely. That’s really good. What other things do you have for 2015?
Jack Butala: I super proud of Success Plan, which is kind of your brainchild. I never thought it would take off the way that it took off.
Jill DeWit: Mm hm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Our site visits, in the amount of time, that’s how websites are gauged, the amount of time that people spend on that site and the number of new sign-ups is way, way, way higher than I ever had hoped, and the site is what? Like four months old, or five months old?
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Can you imagine next year what that’s going to look like at the end of the year?
Jill DeWit: Yes, it’s wonderful, Mm hm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Success Plan was a huge thing, successplan.com.
Jill DeWit: That’s really good.
Jack Butala: I don’t know, I mean it …
Jill DeWit: What about personal successes? Do you have any personal things that you’re pretty …
Jack Butala: Yeah, and it used to be all about revenue, but I’ve said this before, I should probably write a whole blog about it. I will actually. After $20,000 a month that’s it. I’ve always had in my head, even when I started out back when, after 20, and obviously no debt in any way, we have no debt. Not even mortgage debt. When you have no debt like that, nothing hanging over your head, and you’re making 20 Grand a month after tax, and I don’t mean like salary money. I just mean, you know what I mean.
Jill DeWit: Mm hm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: I think that’s, you know, that, you can stop talking about money then. We really, that’s it, we don’t really talk about that any more. All the extra money just goes to like savings accounts and stuff.
Jill DeWit: You know what’s funny? I just thought of something funny. Remember when you were a kid and you were out late and your parents tell you nothing good happens after 10:00? I feel like nothing good’s going to happen after 20,000.
Jack Butala: Yeah, it’s true. I’ll start making stupid decisions.
Jill DeWit: Because that’s what they do. [crosstalk 00:08:56] You’re like, “Yeah.” Then there’s yachts and this and that.” You’re like, “Let’s reel it back in everyone.”
Jack Butala: Exactly. Sports cars.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, you can get in trouble.
Jack Butala: Warren Buffett has a great saying. He’s had a million great sayings, but one sticks out right now in my head. He said, “All the bad financial decisions I’ve made in my life were when I had a pocket full of cash.”
Jill DeWit: Oh. Boy that makes sense. I can totally see that. Yeah, you’ve got to reel yourself back in a little bit when you get up there. It’s like, yeah. It’s fun to get excited a little bit, have a little fun, but reel yourself back in a little bit. Don’t go crazy.
Jack Butala: Our kids are doing great. I’m proud of all of them. Really proud of them. They all seem to have their heads on straight. I don’t know how that happened. I swear it’s luck.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. I think there’s a lot of that.
Jack Butala: Usually there’s one bad one. You know how there’s one person in an office that’s just a bad seed?
Jill DeWit: Don’t say that, shh. Now, it means it’s coming. Knock it off. Don’t jinx it.
Jack Butala: What is that guy, like in school, there was always one person who was just, “Man, if this person wasn’t around our life would be so much better.”
Jill DeWit: Dude we are so …
Jack Butala: We are just ridiculously lucky with these kids.
Jill DeWit: Our employees too. I mean, when you really think about it.
Jack Butala: Yeah, you can fire them though. I’ve done that. Not this year though.
Jill DeWit: I know, but we have really good people, and the one that scared us, we ended up not hiring anyway, so it worked out fine.
Jack Butala: You know we got to cut the audio out of this.
Jill DeWit: No you don’t.
Jack Butala: Yeah. It wasn’t just one. Let’s just say that.
Jill DeWit: It’s really good. All right, so let’s think. That’s 2015, you want to look at …
Jack Butala: Oh, what about you?
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Jack Butala: What about your personal stuff? Like what do you, what, you know?
Jill DeWit: I tackled acting.
Jack Butala: Yeah, how’s your acting career?
Jill DeWit: Very funny. I tackled acting. I got in there. I proved I can do it to myself, and got to be in a couple of plays. I did what I set out to do. Now, I’m working on something else.
Jack Butala: She was in a play, and she played an 80 year-old woman.
Jill DeWit: Oh, my goodness.
Jack Butala: The make-up portion of that really concerned me a lot.
Jill DeWit: I was scary.
Jack Butala: It was scary.
Jill DeWit: They colored my hair, they put all kinds of stuff. You know what’s really good? This is what’s good for me. When they have to spend that much time on you to make you look old you know you’re doing something right.
Jack Butala: Yeah, very good. Gosh, [you looked ter- 00:11:33] any situation and make it possible. Any situation; it amazes me.
Jill DeWit: They could have had me in the chair for a long time, and it was like, “We’ve got to stop; we’re on.” You know?
Jack Butala: You could get in a car accident and see something good in it. If you got in a car accident how would you spin it?
Jill DeWit: You know how I would spin it? I would be like, “Yay, I was done with that car.” That’s exactly what I would do.
Jack Butala: How about a plane crash? If you just walked … [crosstalk 00:11:58].
Jill DeWit: Hold on a moment.
Jack Butala: What if you walked away from a plane crash? [crosstalk 00:11:59]
Jill DeWit: You’re getting a little grizzly here.
Jack Butala: No, I’m trying to think of worst case, worst situations, so you can just spin it as positive.
Jill DeWit: That’s a little scary though. I would be grateful that for all the … I would be grateful that everyone survived.
Jack Butala: Mm hm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: Yes, and it was meant to be. Maybe it was a wake-up call for some reason. How’s that?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: How many times do you do that. I roll up to an intersection and there’s a car accident, and I’m like, “Oh, my Gosh.” I’m first looking around making sure everybody is okay. My next thought is, “That could have been me. Thank goodness I was running late.”
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Because you love it when I’m late.
Jack Butala: yeah.
Jill DeWit: Just kidding. All right, all right. That was my …
Jack Butala: It’s fun not talking about property on the show.
Jill DeWit: It’s kind of weird.
Jack Butala: Isn’t it?
Jill DeWit: It is a little weird. You know, I have had nothing but good stuff. I’m excited for next year.
Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWit: I’m going to put book stuff together, and other things together, new programs together. I know you’re working hard on the data piece for our members, and I cannot wait for that.
Jack Butala: What a tool.
Jill DeWit: Oh, my goodness. It’s going to change a lot of things.
Jack Butala: What an incredible tool.
Jill DeWit: For a lot of people, not just our members. I can see a lot of people in the real estate world wanting to have that tool at their fingertips. It’s going to change.
Jack Butala: Yeah, so we’re releasing a data pack. We’re calling it The Data Package, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s a membership based situation where you have access with username that we provide, access to the exact data that we have, for much, much less than you could if you just walked in and bought the data on your own, which a lot of our members are doing right now. I’m sure that they’ll transfer over because it’s just way cheaper.
Jill DeWit: Mm hm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: It’s the exact same data.
Jill DeWit: Mm hm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Also, we have aligned ourselves with two mail merge mailing companies that are, same situation, making it way cheaper than if you just walked up off the street. Our members are running out of excuses for being successful.
Jill DeWit: This is kind of true. Hey, I like that. That’s great.
Jack Butala: There’s no more excuses.
Jill DeWit: There’s no more excuses.
Jack Butala: I mean, aside from me standing over you at your desk and telling you, “Do this, do this.”
Jill DeWit: Push the button. Push the button.
Jack Butala: That’s about it.
Jill DeWit: Right. Just do it.
Jack Butala: I never thought that I would ever be in front of a microphone like this.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: If somebody told me a year ago, “Yeah, you’re going to have a podcast,” I would have said, “Neigh, you’re crazy.”
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: People seem to like it. Our numbers are really strong [crosstalk 00:14:38].
Jill DeWit: I’ve seen at least three positive comments in that iTunes thing. I’m just kidding. [inaudible 00:14:41] three.
Jack Butala: You know, that sort of happens when you give away free property.
Jill DeWit: That’s true. That’s exactly right. That’s hilarious.
Jack Butala: It’s basically extortion. If you give us a review, you know what, why don’t you do the PSA right, Public Service Announcement, so go ahead.
Jill DeWit: Service Announcement. I love it. Since you brought that up, we do give away free property every month. That is 100% true.
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