Seller Called Back Mad about Price of Offer – What to Do (CFFL 0139)
Seller Called Back Mad about Price of Offer – What to Do
Jack Butala: Seller Called Back Mad about Price of Offer – What to Do. 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 Land Academy. Welcome to our Cash Flow from Land show in this 8 part series Jill and I talk about. What to do when sellers begin to start calling you back based on the offers that you sent them through direct mail. It’s what we teach here all the time. This episode is 4 of 8. It’s called the seller called back mad about the price of the offer, what do you do? A great show. A great addition to the series here, but before we start, as always, let’s take a question from a caller.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, cool. Paul from Santa Barbara called in and asked, “I am just now closing a deal. When is it okay to start marketing to sell?”
Jack Butala:
What?
Jill DeWit:
Right?
Jack Butala:
Paul, didn’t you listen?
Jill DeWit:
It’s a good question.
Jack Butala:
You should’ve been marketing long before you’re ready to close a deal. Don’t you think Jill? Even if you’re brand new.
Jill DeWit:
Well you can’t sell it, but I’m with you. I go back and forth on this one.
Jack Butala:
Hey listeners, this is a pen and paper moment, ready? Do you have some pen and paper? Pencil and paper, whatever, Jill can make fun of me. Please write this down. Go to Land Watch and start collecting and amassing your database of potential buyers. If you spend more than an hour on this today, you’re probably doing it wrong. You can collect a ton of email addresses based on geography and names and addresses of people that own or represent property all over the country. That’s your buyers list. You don’t have to spend a huge amount of time. Go get a huge list right now. Paul is from Santa Barbara. I’m not going to spend a ton of time on this. You should be doing things like this probably before or during when the first mailer goes out because, boy, when that mailer hits the mail you’re going to get inundated with responses. No one believes me until the first time they do it, then they’re all relieve and happy, but trust me, that’s not the time to sit down and work on marketing, it’s before the storm hits, right?
Jill DeWit:
That’s true. I was going to say, not the specific one, you don’t want to have some person have their photos all over the internet if their property they haven’t sold yet. However …
Jack Butala:
Oh you don’t want to lie or fib.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. We’re in agreement on what you’re saying. Be ready, absolutely.
Jack Butala:
If you sent a mailer out … Hey, Paul in Santa Barbara, let’s say he’s buying a property in west Texas just for fun, and he knows he’s sending a mailer out to west Texas. How hard is it to go on Land Watch or Land and Farm and start collecting email addresses and potential buyer information based on the fact that people have listed or they’re selling themselves property in west Texas? It’s not hard at all. It takes less than a day. You can get probably a couple thousand points of contact. You could even be crazy, send them a note and say, “Hey, I just sent a ton of offers out to west Texas for 40 acre properties. I noticed that you represent or you own some property in west Texas. Do you want to be on my list? I’m going to buy some property there super cheap. If you’re buying more, let me know and I’ll keep you on the list. People love that stuff.
Jill DeWit:
They do. Love it.
Jack Butala:
You send all the mail out Jill, you make a ton of offers, 15 hundred is what I recommend, 15 hundred a month or a week depending on how experienced you are. Then you sit back and wait for the phone to ring and wait for the mail to come back. One of the things that happens is the seller calls back and they’re not happy about the fact that you offered them a thousand bucks for their property. They thin it’s worth 10 thousand, 20 thousand, or a hundred million.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Jack Butala:
What do you do Jill?
Jill DeWit:
That’s my note. Here’s my comment number one, you’ll love this. Were you really too low or did your seller just think his asset is priceless, because sometimes they do.
Jack Butala:
You have priceless assets by the way.
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh, thank you very much. We talk about this in my office- Thank you. Assets.
Jack Butala:
Priceless assets.
Jill DeWit:
Not to be confused with something else. Where are you going?
Jack Butala:
Hey asset, please stop driving slowly in the left lane. Thank you.
Jill DeWit:
Whatever. What are you talking about?
Jack Butala:
It’s a Detroit thing.
Jill DeWit:
Oh.
Jack Butala:
You people in California don’t know how to drive, do you know that Jill?
Jill DeWit:
We forget how, especially when it rains. We’re awful. It doesn’t rain here enough. It’s stupid.
Jack Butala:
It’s shocking to me that people will drive the speed limit in the left lane. People get shot in Detroit for that stuff, I’m not exaggerating.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). You have a lot of different extremes out her. Part of it is, nobody knows where they’re going. Half the people that are here are tourists and they don’t know where they’re going so you have to always be on the lookout of somebody changing their mind last minute. It’s just crazy. Back to the-
Jack Butala:
When we’re done with this I’m going to apply to teach driver’s ed in southern California.
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala:
I’m going to do it for free.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, Steven, you’ll kill yourself. There’s no way. I know you. You will either … Something bad will happen or you’ll start drinking.
Jack Butala:
You’re right.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t recommend that.
Jack Butala:
You’re right. I would probably get through to preschoolers more clearly, whatever message I have for preschoolers, it would be more clearly received than, “Please don’t drive in the left lane at the speed limit.” The left lane is for passing. By the way, the left lane in any situation, except if you’re in England, the left lane’s for passing. It’s not for driving in.
Jill DeWit:
Is that for me? Are you telling that to me?
Jack Butala:
No, I’m just trying to break up this show because-
Jill DeWit:
What if there’s only 2 lanes?
Jack Butala:
The left lane’s for passing.
Jill DeWit:
So you go back and forth. You don’t want to go back and forth 18 times.
Jack Butala:
Yes, you go back and forth, back and forth. Yes you do.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Jack Butala:
See? I’m making my point.
Jill DeWit:
What if you’re the leader of the pack and you have …
Jack Butala:
Drive in the right lane. The left lane’s for passing.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, okay. What if I’m passing 25 people in 10 minutes?
Jack Butala:
You still gotta go in and out. The muscle cars from the 60s if you notice, a lot of them, they don’t have 3 mirrors. They have the rear view mirror and then a mirror on the left and the driver’s side, and there’s not one on the right. The logic is, why the heck would you need one on the right? All I ever need to see is because their passing on the left. I’m not joking, this is true.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. I get your point.
Jack Butala:
If you have, listeners, some type of rant about how people drive, send it to service@landacademy.com and we’ll do a whole show about silly things that happen when people drive.
Jill DeWit:
I’m trying to think one of mine. I hate tailgating. Oh, you know what I hate? Oh, I know what I hate.
Jack Butala:
That’s crazy dangerous.
Jill DeWit:
I hate people that brake at everything. They’re non stop braking in front of me like there’s something way down the road, they start to break, I’m like, “What was that for?” There’s no need for that and it makes everybody worried. It’s just non stop braking.
Jack Butala:
What about the guy who drives 2 feet so it’s really just the brake lights are all the time?
Jill DeWit:
All the time. Oh that’s awful. [inaudible 00:07:46].
Jack Butala:
This is a fun show. Talking about land all the time, geez.
Jill DeWit:
I know. Especially driving in southern California here. Oh, and parking in southern California here, that’s even more fun. I thought I arrived when I moved from southern California to Arizona when I could actually park in front of the building where I worked. I didn’t know people had that.
Jack Butala:
I know.
Jill DeWit:
Or shopping.
Jack Butala:
I know.
Jill DeWit:
Gosh, I didn’t know that existed. It was the weirdest thing. I’m like, I don’t have to pay a monthly fee for this and get on a wait list?
Jack Butala:
I know, I know.
Jill DeWit:
Wow.
Jack Butala:
I had similar culture shock issues when I moved here from Michigan.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). You mean just pull up, park, get out and walk in? Okay, this is weird. No shuttle involved? I’m so confused.
Jack Butala:
Right.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, back to my thing.
Jack Butala:
Well speaking of hate …
Jill DeWit:
Oh no.
Jack Butala:
We joke around about this, it begs a topic here. We joke around at the office about this all the time. We have actually have a board, a bulletin board in the office where we hang notes up from people that are just livid about the fact that we sent them an offer for less than what they think their properties worth. You have to laugh about it, just like people driving crazy, or else you get nuts. Don’t you think Jill?
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). You know, it doesn’t bother me.
Jack Butala:
It doesn’t bother me either.
Jill DeWit:
Let me answer my questions and you’ll see why it doesn’t bother me.
Jack Butala:
Okay.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, so here are my things and you’ll understand why. I have 3 things to say about this. One is, were you really too low or does he just think it’s priceless? Here’s what happens: The seller, they hear things. They hear, “There was going to be a mall here,” or “I heard people want these types of properties for windmills.”
Jack Butala:
Oh my God, these are awesome. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
It’s true. I had one, I just talked about it with my staff the other day about I had a guy that had property bought in the 60s because that was the original location for LAX airport and they didn’t put it there. There’s all kinds of things that people hear and think, rumors and, “Gosh, isn’t it coming? Isn’t it growing out this way?” Yeah, but maybe by your grandkids generation. You know what I mean? They get these misconceptions. Sometimes … That’s why they’re so not on the same page. They might be mad and they might truly have misinformation and you just have to kind of help them with that and explain, “Yeah I hear you. Yeah, that didn’t happen after all. I don’t know if you read that,” and just kind of let them know.
My number 2 thing is they’re calling back, they’re unhappy. My first thing is I laugh. I get them to laugh and I just blame operator error and I’ll say, “Hey, it wasn’t me. Did I put that down? Maybe I missed a zero, I don’t know.” You can make up funny things and laugh and calm them down. They’re really not that unhappy.
Jack Butala:
I’ve heard you say this a million times, if they’re calling you back mad, they’re calling you back.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Jack Butala:
You can convert that into a sale. I’ve seen you do that. It’s that old cliché, the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. It’s the people that read it, chuckle to themselves, and put it in the shredder, those are the people that they’re not sellers at all. It’s not the people that call back and start screaming at you and calling you names. That’s a good sign that they might want to sell the property. That’s how I look at it.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep. Perfect, Steven. That gives my only last comment number 3 is, all right, now let’s all talk about this. I’m either going to maybe make a new offer or I’m going to pass or I might do an option arrangement with them, which is also kind of a new offer.
Jack Butala:
We don’t want to explain option, it’s beyond the scope of the show today, but if you have questions about options, options are the original and still fully functional zero down real estate way to get a deal done without any money. It’s legitimate and it works great. Please go onto Successplan.com and ask about it. Success Plan is online community that Jill and I put up for all of our members, it’s free, even non-members. You can go ask any questions. Questions about these programs that we have, see if it’s for real, if it’s not. If you’re skeptical, go out there, ask anything. The current member there making money, they’ll talk to you all about it.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala:
My final point on this is that one of the consistent questions that Jill and I get all the time about what we do is … Well, it’s more of a comment than a question, and it goes like this: “Hey, all you guys do is talk about how great this is. Can you tell us some of the downsides? We’ve heard 55 shows about what’s so positive about it, tell us what’s negative about it. What’s the pros and cons?” I always say that it’s this topic. The worst thing that happens with this-
Jill DeWit:
What?
Jack Butala:
You have to have one con, Jillian. There has to be a yin and a yang. The one negative thing, I don’t even think it’s negative but I have to come up with something, is that when you send a mailer out, I don’t care what happens, I don’t care if you’re sending it out to buy cars and you’re pricing whatever the asset is under the value of what the retail value is, you’re going to get some kickback from some people. We wouldn’t be in business very long here if we wrote offers all day for the retail value of real estate. We right them for less than we think that it’s worth retail. In exchange for paying less, the seller gets a tremendous amount of convenience. Sometimes we sell their estate problems. Sometimes the owners have passed away and we’re buying it from the kids and we’re helping them out with that. It’s just a heck of a lot easier and faster and they get a check in 5 days. I think that’s the biggest, if you can even call it something negative, that’s really the only thing wrong that I can find with this. Are you doing your nails?
Jill DeWit:
No. Do you want to know my thing? I just was going to share.
Jack Butala:
Please.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t see that as a … I apologize, I don’t mean to give you a hard time, but I don’t see that as a con at all, it’s a sale. It’s just part of doing business. You’re going to have customers that aren’t happy, period.
Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit:
It’s kind of a thing, what I see in this business is it comes back to the thing that we joked about that time with Seth Williams, it’s a teaspoon full of effort. There’s a little bit of learning curve. Just like anything, some people think that you can just jump in and be a pro overnight, no. You gotta learn how to do maps. You gotta learn how to find stuff. You gotta learn how to work with people. It’s still not a con. I honestly don’t see a huge con in any of this, other than maybe you just don’t like it, it’s not for you. Done.
Jack Butala:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. When we say con we mean pros and cons, not like a con job.
Jill DeWit:
Oh no. Yeah.
Jack Butala:
Yeah, Jill, I completely concur, but I had to come up with something. I don’t think there’s anything bad about his at all. I don’t know why everybody on the planet doesn’t completely do this all the time. It really blows my mind.
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t it funny? I know.
Jack Butala:
Hey, join us in another episode where Jill and I discuss your all important success in property investment and in life. I think we’re trying to … What do you think?
Jill DeWit:
About what?
Jack Butala:
This whole pros and cons thing.
Jill DeWit:
Everything has pros and cons. I’m happy either way. Everybody expects that. Dream it up. Can you think of one perfect investment opportunity or occupation that doesn’t have a con?
Jack Butala:
No, that’s what I’m saying, but I think it’s a very valid question that people might have, like, “Hey, it’s all peaches and cream? Come on. Give me a con,” and I think that’s totally a valid question and I answer it that way. Look, here’s the thing, Jill. You and I are a little bit different. Some people, they just don’t have thick skin at all. They get a call from somebody that says, “I’m going to come over there and kill you because you offered this prop-” that kind of thing, it really upsets them. They’re just not set up for that. I live for things like that. That doesn’t rock me at all, I think it’s funny. I get a kick out of turning their attitude around and talking about their kids and stuff, which is almost always how it ends.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), exactly. I just think it’s approach and if you’re going to get … It’s probably the same thing for everything. If you’re going to get hung up on some things then maybe you shouldn’t be a business owner. Maybe you shouldn’t be doing something like this. I hate to state the obvious, but stuff’s going to happen.
Jack Butala:
I think that’s a great point. We have some friends who are just, they’re happy as heck in their corporate jobs and they love it.
Jill DeWit:
They do.
Jack Butala:
That baffles me. That sends me … I don’t understand that, but you’re right. Well said. Everybody’s different.
Jill DeWit:
That’s a bigger question, is really what are you best suited for? You’re right, there’s some people that love getting a paycheck and knowing that their health insurance is taken care of, and they’ve got a 401K and they’ve got 2 weeks of vacation every year. That’s all they want and that’s okay.
Jack Butala:
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Jill DeWit:
Hey, just because it’s not you doesn’t mean it’s not okay.
Jack Butala:
I’m not judging anybody. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Jack Butala:
Hey, let’s go buy some property.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steve@LandAcademy.com.
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.
