How Much Does it Really Take to Start Land Business (CFFL 0064)
How Much Does it Really Take to Start Land Business (CFFL 0064)
Jack Butala: How Much Does it Really Take Start Land Business. 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: Jack Butala here for LandAcademy. Welcome to our cash flow for land show. In this episode Jill and I talk about a question that each of us answer every single week, if not more. How much does it really cost to start in the land business? In this episode I’ll break it all down dollar for dollar with some great, sincere accuracy. Jill, I’m glad we’re doing this show. I think it’s going to help a lot of people and help a lot of Land Academy members and maybe inform some casual listeners. How much did it cost when you started? This is a trick question.
Jill DeWitt: It is a trick question.
Jack Butala: Because I think it was pretty close to zero.
Jill DeWitt: It was pretty close to zero. Let’s be honest, if you have support and knowledge you could really start with not much money.
Jack Butala: I’m going to …
Jill DeWitt: That’s a trick and I know.
Jack Butala: Very briefly describe how Jill started. I had a bunch of property left over from a huge acquisition that it was in the middle of the real estate downturn and I just said knock yourself out. These properties are not I don’t think … They weren’t selling that well. They sell great now.
Jill DeWitt: You were testing me I think.
Jack Butala: During the downturn. I just wanted to see if you were into it or whatever and she did. She put a whole system together and started selling it and making some good money. You were making enough money so that I’m like maybe I need to …
Jill DeWitt: he was like did I just give her all of those?
Jack Butala: That’s what, I was what the heck?
Jill DeWitt: You were whoops what did I just do?
Jack Butala: I created a monster.
Jill DeWitt: Totally, you just gave me a little bit of guidance like a toddler. You taught me to walk a little bit and you sit back to see if I could actually walk and run and then I took off that was really cool.
Jack Butala: Yeah, behind closed doors I was there’s no way this is going to work. Then, you just, you did. You killed it.
Jill DeWitt: You’re like, “You sold another one?” I’m like, “Yeah.”
Jack Butala: It ended up she spent 2 hours after her regular job making a couple thousand dollars a night.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah, it was awesome. It was really cool. It was really funny.
Jack Butala: I said alright we’ve got to make this; this was a long time ago.
Jill DeWitt: It was.
Jack Butala: It was fun. That was a fun period.
Jill DeWitt: It really was.
Jack Butala: It’s fun now too.
Jill DeWitt: Yeah, because I wasn’t looking to leave. I didn’t realize what else was out there at time. I wasn’t in the right mindset and so this was just gravy.
Jack Butala: How much does it really take to start your land business? Like everything in life, you have to start with education. It cracks me up about real estate. You go on BiggerPockets and I answer a lot of questions on BiggerPockets and talk to new investors all the time. They all think that it starts with buying a piece of real estate. It really doesn’t at all.
It starts with education. Just the way that a brain surgeon doesn’t start his career by doing brain surgery they go to school first. Learning is the absolute first step. Step 2 is, in my opinion, aligning yourself the same way a surgeon does in an internship with some people who actually know what they’re doing, have some experience and you get some on the job training. You can watch their mistakes, learn from their mistakes and just get a generally a real time feel for what’s going on.
The other thing about that period is and I don’t think this gets talked about enough you get a feel for what the rest of your life’s going to be like. There’s a lot of people that I think should say during this internship period or during this period where you’re actually doing it, that maybe should say you know what? This is not for me.
Jill DeWitt: Right.
Jack Butala: I think there’s some other stuff that I’d rather do. There’s that and then the third period is you eventually cut yourself loose and you go do it on your own or you become a partner with the people that you were doing the internship with or that you’re learning from or mentor; although, mentor’s a silly word these days. I don’t or maybe it is for me. Education, experience and then go off on your own. It’s real simple stuff.
Is education free? No.
Jill DeWitt: Right, but it should be. No.
Jack Butala: Jill put it great one time she said because we always every day around the office we’re like we’re going to give this away again. I know it. We are in this constant discussion about the fact that we give away too much stuff and then we end up giving it away.
Jill DeWitt: Exactly, I know its scary true.
Jack Butala: It’s a good thing the land business has, our actual real business that we’re supposed to working on at this very minute instead of doing this show.
Jill DeWitt: Right, is up and running.
Jack Butala: It subsidizes LandAcademy.
Jill DeWitt: Exactly.
Jack Butala: There’s a little bit of money up front regardless if where you choose to get your education. Make sure you get it. Jill says that great saying. She says, “You know you can listen to all of our podcasts, read all of our fee stuff and do it all and 2 years later you’ll have all the information you need and you’ll be ready to start.” We have members who do that.
Jill DeWitt: That’s very true.
Jack Butala: Or you can pay a little bit of money and …
Jill DeWitt: Have all the answers.
Jack Butala: Let me cut to chase maybe a week later you have all the answers and …
Jill DeWitt: And then on the weekends …
Jack Butala: A week later you’re ready it jump in and go to Phase 2 which is get involved. Our version of Phase 2 of that is the success plan where we’re all talking to each other and doing that. Right now that’s free too, but that’s about to change.
Jill DeWitt: Creating deals and all of that.
Jack Butala: So far we are pretty close to zero.
Jill DeWitt: For what?
Jack Butala: For cost. How much does it really cost?
Jill DeWitt: Some education.
Jack Butala: Yeah, my point is I personally would. I got an email from a guy recently and he said you guys are out of your mind that you charge this amount of money for it. Did you see that?
Jill DeWitt: I did see that to. It made me laugh.
Jack Butala: Actually, I’m paraphrasing. I’m saying it nicely. He was not as nice about it.
Jill DeWitt: It made me laugh because I think we charge too little.
Jack Butala: That’s what I think, Jill. That was my first reaction. My first reaction was what? It costs $200,000 a year to go to college.
Jill DeWitt: We have rolled an entire college business degree into our program.
Jack Butala: I think so too.
Jill DeWitt: We talk about not only our business, but business in general. We talk about setting up your company and some legal things to consider, all of that stuff. We’re not attorneys. We don’t tell give you that much advice, but we tell you want you need to think about, what you need to research and where to get some answers and who to consult.
Jack Butala: I’m not plugging our stuff.
Jill DeWitt: That’s hilarious.
Jack Butala: The big difference between what we provide from an education standpoint and what I think everybody else provides is the fact that we sit down and show you exactly how to do it. We show you where to go on the Internet to get the products and the resources that you need.
Jill DeWitt: To be successful.
Jack Butala: To start doing it almost overnight. Jill and I constantly get emails from people in the middle of the night that are I can’t stop watching this.
Jill DeWitt: I know.
Jack Butala: I can’t wait to get started.
Jill DeWitt: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Its 10 hours. The program that we have right now is 10 hours long on video and then probably another 10 hours of research and stuff that you probably have to do.
Jill DeWitt: Do you know what?
Jack Butala: In [crosstalk 00:07:14] you could get it all done.
Jill DeWitt: I’ve got to say something. Someone could actually take our training and learn from us just to do a business in some whole other capacity because of what we roll in there. What made me think of this is because there’s a person in our office right now who is young and in college. We are setting her up and she is all in. we’re working at getting her her own little side business. We’re talking to her about when to make the transition. We’re talking to her about getting her own LLC. I told her I’ll help you get your EIN, get your business number going, get your bank account going, all that good stuff. Her eyes are just huge. It’s so cool.
Jack Butala: She’s going to do great.
Jill DeWitt: We are good at that stuff. We should do that at some point.
Jack Butala: There’s another person in our office who’s no longer in our office any longer who was offered the same …
Jill DeWitt: Opportunity.
Jack Butala: This is what I say and one way or another it’s everybody who comes in and out of here who works for us in all the companies this is maybe the best opportunity you’re ever going to have, in your life, to make a ton of money. How you handle that and I would say 80% of the people they just look at me weird and say yeah. When does my paycheck come?
Jill DeWitt: Exactly, isn’t that funny? S
Jack Butala: No, this one though I think is going to.
Jill DeWitt: This one gets it.
Jack Butala: Yeah, she does.
Jill DeWitt: She’s seeing it and she gets it.
Jack Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWitt: Yeah, most of them don’t.
Jack Butala: How much does it cost? There’s 3 stages, the education, internship/whatever and then going off on your own. You’re going to pay some money for education. If you buy our packages it’s, I don’t know, I think. I don’t know where it’s priced right now, somewhere around $1,500. You get a free property.
Jill DeWitt: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: if you time it right you get a free property and some consulting with Jill and I. Jill runs promos all the time. Sometimes we’ve given away 10 acres with the program in the past.
Jill DeWitt: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Right know its a quarter acre in New Mexico, so that offsets, if you do it properly, get the property and resell it. That offsets a good portion of the cost of the education. Then, Jill and I also, we’re rolling out a program where we are a licensed seller of First American Title real estate data which is I know it’s the best data in the country, highest quality data in the country. You’re going to set yourself up to pay about between and 3 and 5 cents a record for that data and then if you use our mailing resources you’re going to pay less than the price of a stamp per unit to send some mail out.
What’s the math like on that? I don’t know let’s say you start sending out 100 -200 letters a week, so 5 cents per data for that and mailing it’s probably 60 cents maybe, probably closer to 50 cents a mailer, so maybe $100 a week to begin after that. You’re going to get a bunch of properties back, between 5 and 20% if you listen to us, respond and you’re going to purchase those properties and resell them. It’s not so much about the actual cost? I don’t know. After the cost of everything probably $2,000. If you spend $2,000 I think that’s probably on the higher end.
Jill DeWitt: To get up and running?
Jack Butala: Yeah and even with the education probably.
Jill DeWitt: That’s pretty good. If you do it with education I’m going to say, yeah, because you’re going to get some money back from you’re going to sell that property. If you spend $2,000 – $2,500 compared to what’s a degree nowadays? If you’re lucky 40, 50, maybe higher.
Jack Butala: Right and you can spread to out over time. Are you going to make $2,000 – $3,000 on that first property you turn? Go on a success plan and ask our current members. I think you’re going to be shocked.
Jill DeWitt: At what their numbers are.
Jack Butala: Yeah, it’s amazing. You’ll recoup the cost of all this education in the first couple of months if you take it seriously and listen to what we say.
Jill DeWitt: Mike Dugan, he said it on a podcast that we talked about.
Jack Butala: Right, yeah.
Jill DeWitt: We did a podcast.
Jack Butala: That’s right.
Jill DeWitt: You’re looking at me like no we shared all that.
Jack Butala: What did Mike say? I don’t remember.
Jill DeWitt: He did one test one to prove it to his wife and then by his second transaction he bought 10 of these properties in this area that time remember that? After the second one he already reimbursed himself for every last dollar.
Jack Butala: He’s cleaning up.
Jill DeWitt: He had 8 properties left over, 8 5-acre properties is this area.
Jack Butala: For free.
Jill DeWitt: Right, that was all gravy. It paid for the program. It paid for the property I mean all. It was just insane.
Jack Butala: I just got an email from him. I don’t know if you got it because we’re releasing our data program here in a few days. One of the things that I harp on in our program and to steer away from is heavy intercity houses. He sends me an email and says I own a bunch if houses in Wayne County, Michigan and collect a lot of rent. All the data that I’ve been using up until you guys doesn’t provide data in that county. Our data is in 99% of the counties in the country.
Jill DeWitt: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: I’m proud of that. Its way cheaper, all of our stiff is way cheaper than if you just walked in off the street. The value of being a LandAcademy member is pretty strong.
Jill DeWitt: Yes.
Jack Butala: That’s how much it costs. That’s the real deal. I’m telling the truth. I have a couple of other students, they’re not students. They’re members or more colleagues. They’re actually not LandAcademy students or members. They’re people who invest in houses and they flip houses and they started out with nothing. What they do is they use this data to locate to source super undervalued property and then do a deal with somebody who does have a ton of money in the market. If you have zero money that should not stop you.
Jill DeWitt: I agree.
Jack Butala: I’m not saying zero, maybe a couple hundred dollars or $200 or $300 a month to start for mailer data and sending out mailers. You’ve got to be real smart about it.
Jill DeWitt: You do.
Jack Butala: Start with that small amount of money you’ve got to be real bright about it. You’ve got to spend a lot of time teaching yourself, burning the midnight oil, staying up late and really learning how to do this because all the information that you need to that we have and it’s available.
Jill DeWitt: Right, I made some notes about this show before we started. I was thinking about to be successful.
Jack Butala: Wait, wait, wait you made notes before a show?
Jill DeWitt: I did. Wait, wait, wait.
Jack Butala: I never …
Jill DeWitt: I do that.
Jack Butala: I never knew. This is what happens before these shows. I spend a couple hours putting this whole thing together and Jill comes in, usually running.
Jill DeWitt: Rolling in, that’s right, that’s true.
Jack Butala: Staring at her watch saying I was 2 minutes early this time. She sits down and she’s ready to do it. I’m like what the heck, man.
Jill DeWitt: Ready, go.
Jack Butala: Since when are you just the hired talent?
Jill DeWitt: You like this? I thought if I …
Jack Butala: I’m like what? You made notes on this.
Jill DeWitt: I did make notes on this, but by the way, I figured why not start it off on the right foot? I want to have [inaudible 00:14:31]. Let’s just get everybody used to where how I roll.
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