Staying Motivated is as Imperative as Finding Good Deals (CFFL 0210)
Staying Motivated is as Imperative as Finding Good Deals
Jack Butala: Staying Motivated is as Imperative as Finding Good Deals. 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 from Land Academy. Welcome to our cash flow from land show. In this episode Jill and I talk about staying motivated. It’s as important or as imperative as finding good deals. Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on successplant.com, our free online community.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Luke wrote in and asked, “I can’t find land that I can buy as part of a little group in Ward County, Texas. The location is missing in all my normal places to look. Any clues, guys?” Where did he come up with this, I’m curious.
Jack Butala:
Well, here’s the thing. This is the reason I included this question over a lot of other ones. Texas is not on the same meats and balance survey system as the rest of the country. Texas is completely different.
Jill DeWit:
Good old boys. You know what, those Texas people always joke about being their own country over there. Is this part of that? I have some questions.
Jack Butala:
All kidding aside, it’s based on the survey system where railroads are being built.
Jill DeWit:
[inaudible 00:01:12] Texans.
Jack Butala:
I do too.
Jill DeWit:
No, I know. What’s funny is I love Texas. My folks used to live there, visit there a lot. The people are so darn nice, y’all. You know how they are, but very interesting. They’re not going to change this for whatever reason.
Jack Butala:
No, they never will. If you go to earthpoint.us there’s a special section there to find GPS coordinates all based on Texas. You don’t have to worry. This has caused a lot of problems recently for a lot of people. I’ve seen it at Success Plan, all over Face Book.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Jack Butala:
Don’t worry.
Jill DeWit:
Well, because a lot of people know there’s certain parts of Texas that we can all do very well. That’s, I think, why. You can sure buy large acreage there. Which, I particularly love and do really great.
Jack Butala:
There’s a lot truck drivers that buy property from us in Texas.
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that great? They’re passing by and they like it.
Jack Butala:
Maybe because it takes so long to get through that state.
Jill DeWit:
They wish they could just stop right there and no one would bother them. That’s hilarious. You know what else I think is funny about Texas? Is so many of the counties, there’s a lot of land, but not a lot … I don’t know what it is. You know the counties … Good luck finding a phone number sometimes. It’s a real small operation. It’s really is an old school good old boys. Which, I actually like. Here’s my take on this. My question is, you know if you’re going to do something on a piece of land out there, no one’s going to tell you can’t because good luck getting somebody on the phone. Nobody complains, that’s my whole thing too. No one’s going to say, “You built that too high. You’re blocking my view.” Or whatever like that. You know, well-
Jack Butala:
Well, we think that.
Jill DeWit:
We think that.
Jack Butala:
Now that we said it on the air it’s going to happen for sure somewhere.
Jill DeWit:
Seriously, there’s not a lot of restrictions and things on some of the properties that we’ve owned. It’s been very, “Hey, knock yourself out. Go do what you want to do” kind of thing. Like I said, good like finding someone to tell you that you can’t.
Jack Butala:
This is not the Texas show, but-
Jill DeWit:
Sounded like the Texas show. I’m motivated about finding good deals in Texas.
Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of interesting things about Texas from a land standpoint. There’s two hundred and something counties in Texas alone. Two hundred and thirty four, I think. Two hundred and eighty four, I can’t remember. It’s a state statue that they have a tax sale the first Tuesday of every month. They can if they want to have a tax deed sale right on the courthouse steps and some of them do. There are some people that’s their whole career. They’ve made a complete career out of driving around Texas, buying property on the courthouse steps.
Jill DeWit:
That’s cool. I love it.
Jack Butala:
Don’t overlook Texas. It’s awesome. It’s not that hard to find good property. Hey, if you have a question or you want to be on the show, call 800-725-8816. Today’s topic, staying motivated is as imperative as finding good deals. This is the meat of the show. You know, Jill, I had you in mind when I picked this topic because there’s a lot of people, I used to be one of them, who thought this kind of stuff was just silly.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, or like it was a one off. Here and there.
Jack Butala:
Yeah, you have to stay motivated. If there’s a gap in the amount of time you can spend on this little side career or any of that stuff. Maybe a deal went sideways on you, you’ve got to stay motivated and keep on track. What’s the key to that? You always have good advice about this.
Jill DeWit:
I think it’s funny. I watch people. Well, you know what? I tell people to sit back and wait and watch. I love watching people on Success Plan. Even on some Face Book groups that they’re in. They’re putting things like, “Gosh, this is not selling. What do I do?” Then two days later they’re like, “Oh, never mind. Sorry. Problem solved.”
Jack Butala:
I woke up this morning and I had the cash.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. That’s exactly what happens. It’s funny, I think. People are a little impatient, maybe. There is a small chance you’re doing it wrong. Just make sure … I guess, maybe they’re staying motivated. Go back and make sure you didn’t do it wrong. We all know what to do. Jack and I, we’ve outlined all the steps, period. You know exactly what to do. If you went back and you redid all the steps, then you just need to sit tight and be patient. That is it.
It’s funny because I tell people this and they don’t believe me that sometimes I’m like, “Okay, I just 2,000 mailers. What’s going on?” I’m like, “Hold on, hold on, hold on.” Then here it comes. It’s the calm before the storm sometimes. I tell them I said, “You’re going to laugh.” They go, “Okay.” I said, “You’re going to laugh because we’re going to talk in a month and you’re going to be saying I can’t … I don’t know what to do. I can’t answer my phone anymore.” You know, my phone’s blowing up kind of thing. It’s great when we talk about it and I tell them, “All right. I know you did everything right. Just sit tight and I promise in a few weeks right now, you’re going to not remember this conversation and I’m going to remind you.” They’re like, “Oh, yeah. Whatever.” Then they go, “Oh, yeah. It’s true. You just got to hang in there.”
Jack Butala:
Is there something right now, that you’re working on in your life that you just keep kind of procrastinating or putting it off?
Jill DeWit:
Always.
Jack Butala:
Me too.
Jill DeWit:
Always.
Jack Butala:
What’s your little secret? How do you keep yourself motivated or keep yourself on track to get it done?
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I’m often not on track. It’s real. You really do get distracted and you just have to get back in there again. I just remind myself that, “All right. I’m going to pick up where I left off. Don’t stop.” There’s always projects that I have going on that I … You know what some of it is, Jack? Sometimes it’s like we all want to do the fun stuff. We don’t want to do the hard stuff. You’ve got to do some of the hard stuff. You just have to. It’s imperative to your business and things like that.
For me, I just push through it. Well, here’s what I do. I take a step back sometimes and one of the things I do is I’ll dangle a carrot at the end for myself. Knowing if you get through this-
Jack Butala:
I’m glad you’re saying this because I know you have little tricks.
Jill DeWit:
I do.
Jack Butala:
That you do with yourself. I was hoping you could share some of them with like you Mantra trick and things like that.
Jill DeWit:
I personally have myself trained where I’ll throw a goal out there for myself. “All right Jill, if you finish this up by whatever day, you’re going to go do X or whatever.” I do, I set my own little rewards. No body knows about them. I didn’t even know you knew that much about it.
Jack Butala:
I know that you do this stuff.
Jill DeWit:
To stay motivated, I guess, keep myself on track I have rewards that I set up for myself. I also take a step back, I do this all the time and I’ll tell you right now I’m going to do this a little bit later today. You and I have so much going on in our worlds right now that my to do list went from 10 things to 150 things in a matter of hours today. You probably noticed me, Jack, writing as fast as I can. Here’s what I have to do. I’m going to, later on today, pretty much sit down with a blank piece of paper and write them all down and prioritize them and break them down into manageable tasks and put them on the calendar with realistic dates.
I think it’s crazy, anyone that sits down and says, “I’m going to do this today and that today and this today and that today.” When they know darn well that it’s not going to get done. All it’s going to do is frustrate them and make them even more unhappy staring at the stuff they didn’t get done. Break it all out and give it, like I said, real dates. Get it done. Here’s a great example. You’re just getting started in this business and you want to get your website going and you want your social media going. You can’t just sit down saying, “This is what’s Monday between 5 and 7 when I get home from work.” That’s not going to happen. You can say, “This week is website week. I’m going to figure it out. I’m going to hire somebody. I might do it myself. I’ve got to do my logo.” Just space it all out. This is website week. Next week, social media week. Monday I’ll do my Face Book. Tuesday I’ll setup my Twitter account. All the stuff that you’re doing for your business. Then you will get it done. It’s tangible. If it’s not too much, then you have a cushion.
Jack Butala:
That’s right. I had on my to do list for quite some time is a calendar. I was going to create a calendar for people starting in the real estate business. First, you should spend this first month in your career learning. This next week, do a website. The week after then … I ultimately decided not to do it because I think that if I have to do that, that really concerns me. It’s the same reason I don’t tell everybody exactly what counties to go to. Instead in the program, the cash flow from land program, I show you the thought process I go through to pick counties. I think that if you need calendar help like that, I’m concerned. You have to develop that skill on your own.
Jill DeWit:
Well, what do you do, Jack? I’m curious. What is your … I told you some of my tricks. What’s your personal, stay motivated? Can I ask a question, because this happens. You walk in, there’s days I know you have all kinds of great projects on your list and then all of the sudden it’s tech mess. I know it gets things upside down. What do you do?
Jack Butala:
What motivates me is money. I’ll give you an example right now on my list is a lot of instructional videos on how to use data to door step, the products that are involved in it. It’s not my favorite thing to do, these videos. It’s not my favorite thing. What I do to stay motivated, right before I sit down to do this and to get myself in a real good cheery, happy mood is I do a spreadsheet about how much freaking money can possibly come in from this.
Jill DeWit:
That’s all it takes?
Jack Butala:
Yeah, and I have to limit myself because I’ll sit there and work on it and budget a spreadsheet for like 3 hours.
Jill DeWit:
Then nothing got done.
Jack Butala:
I have a little red timer. You’ve seen it a million times. A little red timer that I bought at Harbor Freight for like $5. It’s an egg timer, a digital egg timer. I only allow myself 15 minutes to do it, then I’m like, “Okay, these videos are probably going to generate X amount of money.” Then, I kill it or I try to anyway. That motivates me.
Jill DeWit:
Would this work? Let’s just say … Follow me here everyone. This is going to be good. Here’s my thoughts on this now that you shared that with me. What if I came to you and said, “Jack, if you and I went out to dinner at my favorite place, you know what I’m talking about and it’s not cheap, we’re going to go out. We’re going to leave work on time. We’re going to go get dressed up. We’re going to go to my favorite place.”
Jack Butala:
When’s that ever happen?
Jill DeWit:
I come to you ahead of time and I say, “This is going to change everything because the next day I’m going to be up early and in and we’re going to make this much more money. I’m going to do these calls.” I don’t know, whatever. If I come to you with that, how could I come to you and show you that it’s going to pay off in the end?
Jack Butala:
I’m not following. What’s dinner have to do with it?
Jill DeWit:
I’m trying to use a money spreadsheet to get something I want.
Jack Butala:
Oh, I don’t know.
Jill DeWit:
Does that work?
Jack Butala:
Jill, when do you not get what you want?
Jill DeWit:
Well, you know what I mean. I know. Okay, bad example. I was just trying to turn that around and be funny with that. All right. Any other things that I don’t know about that you do?
Jack Butala:
No. I’m going to get to it in a second with the technical too, but there’s a surefire way to stay motivated. In fact, we’ll talk about it now.
Jill DeWit:
Great.
Jack Butala:
This is Technical Two. Two minutes of property investment advice from our 15 year, 15,000 transaction experience. If you can’t stand, here’s my advice. If you can’t stand certain tasks, then hire them out. I’m really serious about this. There’s some stuff about property investing that I can’t stand. One of them is doing deeds, so we hired it out.
Jill DeWit:
To our staff.
Jack Butala:
Well, yeah. In my past, I’ve had other people do it. In my way past.
Jill DeWit:
Heck, I used to do them. That used to be my job.
Jack Butala:
I know. Rather than let it really trip your whole career out or stop you from buying cheap property or any of that. There’s some stuff that you just need to hire out. I’ll tell you there’s a few things you should never hire out, I don’t think. If you’re not a data person, if you really struggle with and don’t care about at all data and how to use it and look at it and manipulate it. This is not for you. That is something that one of our direct land competitors, anyway, recommends that you hire out. He and I, that’s Mark. He and I have differed on that forever. He can’t stand that piece of it and I just think it’s imperative for you to learn. Every time I run data through data to doorstep and submit a mailer, I learn something. I learn some new feature about the product. I look at it a different way. Overtime, the net affect of that is that overtime, years and years of good experience that I have doing that. I’ve become great at it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, you’re right.
Jack Butala:
I just think that data is so important and you can’t hire that out.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Jack Butala:
You know when we were flipping tons of houses, not flipping them. When we were renovating houses. We still wholesale all the time now and will forever probably. When we were renovating them, the train stopped. They led us to wholesaling. I can’t stand the interior decorating and the managing contractors and all that. I’m so not set up for that.
Jill DeWit:
Which I love.
Jack Butala:
Rather than not getting that business ever again, we turned around and made it work for us. Now we don’t even go look at the assets, we just have people. We’re releasing a program on that shortly.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, it’s going to be great.
Jack Butala:
Hey, if you have a question or you want to be on the show call 800-725-8816. Jill, inspire us. This whole show is inspiring really.
Jill DeWit:
I hope so.
Jack Butala:
Inspires me even.
Jill DeWit:
Good. Don’t beat yourself up when you have a rough week. Are your numbers down? Kind of like we talked about, so what? Stay motivated, they’ll be fine. I promise. Sometimes it’s like you can get into a bad habit. I watch people doing this get into a really bad habit. Literally beating themselves up like, “I did something wrong. It’s me. I didn’t price it right. I must have screwed it up. I sent it to the wrong people. My letter must suck.” Seriously, trust me. I’ve heard it. I’ve talked to everybody. I’ve heard this. I’m not kidding.
Jack Butala:
I hear it too, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
I am not making this stuff up. I’m like, “Knock it off everyone.”
Jack Butala:
Knock it off.
Jill DeWit:
Knock it off.
Jack Butala:
It still cracks me up when you say that.
Jill DeWit:
So what? It’s a learning thing. You’re only going to do that one once. Let’s fix it and move on. You can spend a lot of time, a lot of wasted time, worrying and fretting and being mad at yourself because you did something. You need to not do that. Just fix it and move on. I know it’s hard sometimes. I know, it’s hard.
Jack Butala:
I learned this the hard way. When something goes sideways or you have a bad sales week like you’re saying. My first reaction to say, “Oh my gosh. I’ve got to change everything. I’ve got to change a website. It’s not working anymore.” You know what, that’s really bad. You really just have to wait it out, be patient. Whether the storm, so to speak. It was working fine, it’s just a slow week. That’s it.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. There are going to be peaks and valleys and all of this and everything. Especially when you’re buying stuff, selling stuff. You may think no one wants to talk to me. No one’s answering the phone. I’m calling back to buy something. Whatever it is.
Jack Butala:
When our sales are down, the first thing I do is check the weather [inaudible 00:18:38]. If they’re having great weather, like a week of great weather that’s the reason.
Jill DeWit:
True, that’s a lot of it. No one’s on the computer.
Jack Butala:
Right. Both in land academy and land [inaudible 00:18:49]. All of it.
Jill DeWit:
Maybe Thanksgiving’s in two days or maybe, you know whatever. That stuff is true. It really, really is. Hang in there. Don’t make big changes. Go back, make sure you did everything right and you’ll be fine.
Jack Butala:
I would like to think that this podcast might be a source of staying motivated for some people.
Jill DeWit:
I hope so.
Jack Butala:
We’re here everyday, seven days a week. If you get stuck, turn it on. Take a look at … Jill will put a smile on your face in the worst case scenario. Trust me. It happens with me all the time.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Jack Butala:
Jill, you crack me up. What do you think of this new studio?
Jill DeWit:
I like this new studio.
Jack Butala:
I love it. I was really skeptical.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, this is working out really great. We have a great view here all the way around. I’m really glad, so cool.
Jack Butala:
Join us in another episode where Jack and Jill discuss how to use information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration, that’s me.
Jack Butala:
To get just about anything you want.
Jill DeWit:
We use it everyday to buy property for half of what it’s worth and sell it immediately.
Jack Butala:
Get there first. Jill, you crack me up.
Jill DeWit:
This is one of those times where it’s a good thing that there’s not cameras in here.
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Because I’m making faces.
Jack Butala:
Jill has a dress that she bought that has rivets in it. Like grommets, like on the top of a shower curtain. There’s a lot of grommets. It’s pretty revieling. It’s cracking me up. She’s just taunting me with it.
Jill DeWit:
It’s funny what you can do with holes in your dress. We’ll leave it at that.
Jack Butala:
Yeah, we will. Jack and Jill, information and inspiration. Let’s go buy some property.
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