1.4M Offers Sent to Owners & We Don’t Own a Printer (CFFL 0287)
1.4M Offers Sent to Owners & We Don’t Own a Printer
Jack Butala: 1.4M Offers Sent to Owners & We Don’t Own a Printer. 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 with Jill DeWit.
Jill DeWit: Hi.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show, today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how we sent 1.4 million offers to owners, and we don’t even own a printer. Good show, today, Jill. Before we get started, let’s share something interesting that happened to us recently.
Jill DeWit: I was just going to bring up something that we did the other night, because I thought it was really, really interesting. We actually got to put a little picnic together, grab some beach chairs, walk out our front door, plop them in the sand, watch the sunset with a sailboat floating by, and …
Jack Butala: It was pitch …
Jill DeWit: … kid number three surfing, at the same time. I thought, “Who gets to do that?”
Jack Butala: It was right out of a postcard. Every single day, whether it’s in Scottsdale or here in Southern California, I have some, like I stop. Something triggers it. Yeah, I just stop and I think about Detroit, like growing up in Detroit. What a mess I was, and how far we’ve come. I wouldn’t have made it this far west if it wasn’t for you.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: I’d probably be sitting in Scottsdale, still, which is not a bad thing. We go back and forth, but something happens every day around, like geez. Somebody asked me recently like, “Are you over it, yet?” I said, “No, and I never will be.” I think it’s a habit, you know?
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Now, it’s a habit. I just do it once or twice a day. Pull the car over, even.
Jill DeWit: Oh, and have just a brief little …
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Wow. That’s …
Jack Butala: I’m serious.
Jill DeWit: That’s good.
Jack Butala: It’s healthy.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Jack Butala: Hey, let’s take a question, posted by one of our members on SuccessPlant.com, our free online community.
Jill DeWit: Okay. David asked, “I’m currently mapping out, for my next few months’ mailing strategy, and doing county research. Some areas that I really like are in snowy climates.
Jack Butala: Good.
Jill DeWit: “Since we are at the end of summer, some questions crossed my mind. If marketing to snowy areas, is it prudent to do so seasonally, i.e. if I send out mail in September, and start receiving accepted offers in October, by the time I’m ready to start acquiring and marketing, the snow may already be falling. It’s difficult to send someone out to take photos, and the photos won’t depict the property well, so should fall and winter mailers focus on areas with non-snowy climates?” I love this. I think this is such an interesting question.
Jack Butala: It is. I actually had this thought pretty early on in my career. Like everything, I kind of tested it, and I did not see a material difference … I’ll explain why in a second here … with seasonality for acquisitions, for sure. Sales, maybe a little bit different, but for acquisitions, what you’re really finding, and this is the take away from this, probably from this whole show. What you’re trying to locate is the situation, not a piece of real estate. A lot of people get that confused, especially early on.
You want to find a situation where someone just wants to sell their property, period, and really quickly. You don’t want to find the perfect piece of land, and look all into … The more mail you get in there, in the market, the better off you’re going to be. From a seasonality standpoint, I tested it and there’s no material difference between purchasing property based on winter, summer, fall, or whatever. We do a lot of deals in Northern Michigan and the seasonality doesn’t seem to matter.
Jill DeWit: Do you think it makes a difference even on the selling side, or it doesn’t matter?
Jack Butala: On the selling side, I think spring is always a great time. People are making changes. I think January 1st is a good sales time. When people get … What is it? They get a tax rebate?
Jill DeWit: Well, the tax returns, number one, and then another one is when they hit, from the people that I buy from, when they get their tax bills.
Jack Butala: Oh, yeah.
Jill DeWit: That’s always a good time to buy.
Jack Butala: Those are good traders, exactly. Yeah, when …
Jill DeWit: They’re staring at their bill.
Jack Butala: … tax bills go up in the county, and they’re staring at you. I say this in that ebook, actually. Like if you’re staring at a tax bill that you have to write a check for, or if you’re staring at an offer that you’re going to get a check for, it’s not a hard decision a lot of times.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Seasonality from taking pictures and the snow, on a good day, you can take some good pictures.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Even with the snow?
Jack Butala: Yeah, if it’s sunny and all that. I mean, people get it. The people that are going to buy … I’m going to use Northern Michigan as an example, because we do a lot of deals there. Northern Michigan is what I call vacation property market for us. People who live in big cities like Chicago, and Detroit, and some of the other cities down there, everybody wants to go vacation up there. Wisconsin, and in some ways, Minnesota are like that, too. People go vacation there because there’s lakes, so they want to buy vacation property that they can use. They know it’s snowy up there. They’re pretty smart. The take-away is, Do not let seasonality stop you. Just buy it cheap. Buy it cheap, sell for a little bit more, maybe double, and make sure that person’s going to make some money.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: If you have a question, or you want to be on our show, reach out to either of us on SuccessPlant.com. Today’s topic, we have sent 1.4 million offers out to owners to buy their property over the years, and we do not own a printer. How the heck is that possible? Well, we talked about it in a previous show, an earlier show, probably multiple shows, actually. We try to leave all these little towns to the experts. What we’re good at is data manipulation, and scrubbing data, and doing deals. We find this. The more we sub out these little expert type back office functions, or marketing functions that we’re not necessarily experts in, the more time we have to develop our skill as data scrubbers and real estate deal makers.
Jill DeWit: You know what’s interesting, I was just thinking. There’s some things that you need to learn how to do, before you, you know, hire that out, like doing deeds maybe, and answering the phone from the inbound. Whatever it is, you’ll find, as you go through this, you’ll find what area you like, and what you’re the best at. Maybe you are the acquisition guy, and you’re the best person to call your people when you’re getting these returned offers, and maybe people are calling you. You’re the best at making those deals, and happening, and setting it up. Maybe you’re not.
Maybe you’re the best person on the sales end, you know, telling about the properties and saying, “Yeah, I am the owner, and blah, blah, blah,” selling, whatever it is, you’ll find your thing. There’s some things that it’s worth you digging in and learning about, just so you know. There’s things that you don’t. One of the things …
Jack Butala: What are they, Jill, because this is really, really, really useful.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: This is a great point.
Jill DeWit: One of the things that you really don’t need to know how to do is printing. You want to know … It’s your letter. It’s your message. It’s your words on the page. It’s maybe your signature on there, you know, it’s a stamped thing, whatever. That’s you. It’s not the actual printing. Another … Oh, shoot. I just had another, like a sample. Oh, website. It’s your website. It’s your photos. It’s your message. It’s your properties, but it’s not you getting to learn the back end of how to create and post and do all that stuff. That’s another thing. You don’t need to be that and do it, and do.
That’s just two examples of what I was thinking of, you know, because if you do, here’s the bottom line. Jack is right. We got to this level, and we got where we are, today, because we know what to focus our efforts on, and what not to waste our time on. This really is, if you’re going to be a printing expert, then I would be doing that because I want to be a printer. If I want to be the industry printer here for everybody sending things, I don’t really care about what they’re sending, then I’m going to get involved in getting a printer, and I’m going to learn that. Jack’s right. We don’t even have a printer.
Jack Butala: Well said. I’m trying to think, you know, why we’re so successful, because I really think if anybody listens to the show, and it’s because we’ve focused on the right stuff. We’re choosing [inaudible 00:08:33]. We’re choosing how to spend our time on the right, exact topic, and it doesn’t involve paperwork, file structure, websites. There’s a long list of stuff. It involves knowing how to manipulate data, price it properly, and then closing the deals on the buy side. Sell side’s just automatic.
Jill DeWit: I really think, Jack, that the secret to the whole thing, for us, is you. You’re trial and error, too, by the way.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I know there are mailers that didn’t work …
Jack Butala: Oh, my gosh.
Jill DeWit: … and things that you tested, but not only have you got us to this level where you can look at the data, you know what to sort for, you know all the stuff, but there’s a second step, which is you know how to put it together in a offer. It’s a two page offer. The one page cover … There’s a lot that went into that. I know. You know, the first page is the cover letter that tells people about us, makes them feel good, and gosh, where they can go check us out, and see we’re a real company. We really do things.
Jack Butala: Right. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Then, the second page is the real offer. I know there’s all kinds of little things in there, so it’s all front to end stuff. Then, now it’s the right thing is reaching the right people, and triggering the right response.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: You have done everything great. Basically, Jack, you make my phone ring. I don’t mean that in a sexual term.
Jack Butala: Wow. I just … coffee just went in my nose.
Jill DeWit: Just kind of came out, but you do know how to …
Jack Butala: Geez. Coffee in my nose. That’s hilarious. I ring your bell, sweetheart?
Jill DeWit: Something like that. You make the phone ring with the right people holding the right things in the right mindset, ready to make these deals. I don’t have to do much work at that point. This is my whole thing. If you do it right, by the time, now you’re looking at these deals, the work is done.
Jack Butala: All these …
Jill DeWit: Now you just get to pick them and close them.
Jack Butala: All these questions are great, you know?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: They really are, and we answer all of them, all of the time. Jill and I have gone back and forth, and we’re … This is going to push us over the edge, positively, I think, about hiring somebody full time just to answer questions to SuccessPlant. There’s a lot of people that are members that are very advanced at this, and they do a great job, but what we see is a lot of people getting hung up on details. We don’t want that. We want to steer you in the right direction, like any good teacher would. You don’t want to do this. You want to do this over here. Yeah, we did that, and it was a mess for a year. We want to save you all that aggravation.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Yeah, I mean don’t sweat the details. Just become a data expert and a deal maker. It’ll feed you well.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, because then everything else just falls into place, because once you have the … It’s just buying it right. That is the bottom line, buying it right.
Jack Butala: That’s what this is all about.
Jill DeWit: Jack, you know, we haven’t said that in a long time.
Jack Butala: This whole career.
Jill DeWit: Remember you said, “Solves all the problems.”
Jack Butala: This whole career …
Jill DeWit: Potential problems.
Jack Butala: I don’t care if you’ve done 100 deals, or 1,000 deals, or 15,000 like us. It’s all about buying undervalued property, one sentence, and as inexpensively as you can within reason. Then everything after that’s easy.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: Selling it’s easy. Posting it’s easy. All of it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Doing a deal’s easy.
Jack Butala: You want to streamline that process, you know?
Jill DeWit: Exactly. The more you send out, like Jack, with our 1.4 million, I mean that’s … Sure, you get … Don’t mess around. I mean, even if you really only want to buy a couple properties a month, or a year, why would you not blast out a ton of offers, so you really have good ones to pick from?
Jack Butala: That’s the whole thing. That doesn’t happen enough. I mean, we don’t talk about that enough. If you blast out a few thousand offers, and now you’ve got 19 deal opportunities, you’re not supposed to do 19 of them. You’re supposed to pick out, especially if you’re new. We try to do those 19, but we’ve been doing this for decades. You want to pick out that top, top, top, easiest, most profitable, let’s say, four or whatever it ends up being.
Jill DeWit: Maybe it’s one. Maybe you put them in order and you do one at a time.
Jack Butala: Maybe it’s one deal that you know you’re going to double or triple your money on, and you do one a week or one a month.
Jill DeWit: Because you’re testing this, too, by the way.
Jack Butala: Yeah, right.
Jill DeWit: This is a good thing.
Jack Butala: Lot of ways to go.
Jill DeWit: Test it. Don’t buy 19 to test it. Buy one to test it. Buy 3 to test it, maybe. Buy three if maybe you’re a thousand dollars in, you know. Flip them quick and go, “Okay, I got it.”
Jack Butala: Or I get hung up on, I just spoke with someone recently who is very, very hung up on the map piece of this. You know, you’ve got an accessor’s parcel number, everything worked. I’m sitting, staring at offers. How do I get the mapping piece of this done so that it looks good. Bless you.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: It looks good on the internet. It’s those little things, that’s what SuccessPlant’s for. You’ll get past it really fast. Everybody in there is really helpful.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, that’s the thing, too. Don’t just set in … That’s a good point. I don’t want this number to scare anybody, you know. Do whatever level. Buy what is comfortable for you. Our magic number we came up with is 10.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Once you’ve done 10, then you’re going to feel a lot more comfortable, and you’ll get it. You’ve mapped 10. You’ve posted 10.
Jack Butala: Did deeds for 10.
Jill DeWit: Did deeds for 10.
Jack Butala: Then you can start say, “You know what? I can’t stand this deed part. Where can I do a deed that can solve that?”
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: The paperwork piece of this, I was hung up with it on Day One, and I’m hung up with it on Day whatever this is, 20 years later. Paperwork’s not my thing.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Join us in another episode where Jack and Jill discuss how to use ‘Information that’s me.’
Jill DeWit: And ‘Inspiration, that’s me.’
Jack Butala: It’s just about anything you want.
Jill DeWit: We use it every day to buy property for half of what it’s worth, and sell it immediately.
Jack Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. What have you got going on, today? You got some good stuff to review?
Jill DeWit: I do have some good stuff to review, actually, yes. I have two deals sitting in my thing. One’s a five top. What’s the word? One’s a quad. I have quad property deal.
Jack Butala: I saw that.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I can’t wait to … I love those when those come in.
Jack Butala: There’s one in Wisconsin, too. There’s a property in Wisconsin. I think it’s got a house on it and stuff. I like to get in there before everybody, and look in the data base and see what’s going on.
Jill DeWit: You know what’s great about those? People run from those. “Oh, I don’t want to. I’m worried about it because there’s a structure on it.” I’m like, “Well, don’t worry about the structure. Just buy it for the property, and that’s a bonus.”
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Like we had a whole well conversation, remember the other day, on our weekly call?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: We’re like, “Okay, don’t think about the well as an income stream. Think about this as a bonus and price, then act accordingly.”
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Good stuff.
Jack Butala: It’s hard to communicate that, but anyway, what else is going on? Like are you doing anything fun stuff, today?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I’m going to be riding my bike, later. How about you, Jack?
Jack Butala: Oh, man. You know, I’ve thought …
Jill DeWit: Living the dream.
Jack Butala: We’re working … No. We’re working on launching this printer company, and like always, it’s going to be awesome when it’s done.
Jill DeWit: Yup.
Jack Butala: We’ve given ourself a realistic time frame now, and all that. It’s good for us, likewise. Like always, it’s good for us, and hopefully for the people who use it.
Jill DeWit: It’s going to be great for everybody.
Jack Butala: It’s at the request of our members, as usual.
Jill DeWit: At the request of the members: “Hey, Jack and Jill, can you please, even if you have to start your own printing company to undercut the competition?” Okay, here we go.
Jack Butala: That wasn’t the request. It was more like it’s just solving a problem. You know, there’s …
Jill DeWit: It’s going to work out that way, anyway.
Jack Butala: It really is. It’s interesting. These questions come in waves, huge waves. The first wave is, “This is … What the heck?” Then the second is, “Oh, my gosh. This work’s not what I do.”
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: That’s these little off-shoot things that we do are solving all those problems.
Jill DeWit: You know what? That would be a good series that we should think about doing one week: the waves of our people in our group like the, “Are you sure this is real? Okay, I’m testing this now.” Then the, “Oh, my gosh, my phone is ringing off the …”
Jack Butala: What do I do now?
Jill DeWit: … or “I’m testing this. The phone’s not ringing, yet.”
Jack Butala: Yeah, the silence.
Jill DeWit: Then the, “Oh, my gosh, my phone won’t stop ringing. Now what do I do?” Then, yeah, the radio silence, because they’re swamped.
Jack Butala: Because they’re doing deals.
Jill DeWit: Then they come back to us like, “Yeah!”
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Then they come back at the very end like, “Okay, I need this, this, this, and this, because I’m taking this to the moon,” like, “Yup, we got it.”
Jack Butala: Or it’s a bottle neck. Everyone experiences some type of bottle neck in this process. For some people it’s, you know, like I just mentioned, the maps. Some people, it’s paperwork. Some people, it’s you know …
Jill DeWit: Talking to people.
Jack Butala: Talking to people on the phone.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: There’s just a lot. They’re all solvable.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Every company’s like that. Every little start-up company, in everything, there’s always something.
Jill DeWit: Yup.
Jack Butala: It’s all solvable. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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