Mailers that Yield Results and Ones that Don’t (CFFL 314)
Mailers that Yield Results and Ones that Don’t
Jack Butala: Mailers that Yield Results and Ones that Don’t. 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.
Speaker 1: Jack Butala with Jill DeWitt.
Speaker 2: Hey.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about mailers that yield results and ones that don’t. I love this topic. Before we get into Jill, let’s talk a question posted by one of our members on Land Academy’s free online community.
Speaker 2: Cool. Kathleen asked “How much slope is too much slope? I’m looking at a 40 acre parcel that is literally on the side of a mesa, has great views but a gradient of about 23% which equates to,” she’s a math pro here “13 degrees throughout the parcel. Is this sell-able?”
Speaker 1: Kathleen, you’re brilliant by the way. We were talking about you this weekend. We were talking about strong women.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were.
Speaker 1: Professional, intelligent women. Jill’s literally making a list because she’s putting together an inspirational group of women for women. Am I supposed to not talk about that, maybe?
Speaker 2: You kind of did!
Speaker 1: Anyways, your name came up.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: May I answer this question?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: 40 acres is massive, by the way. We don’t know that. There’s 43,000 square feet in an acre. 4-3-5-6-0. Think about your house. If you’re a normal person you live in a 1,200-2,000 square foot house. If you’re crazy rich, you live in a 4-8,000 square foot house. An acre is 43,000 feet! Multiply that times 40. It’s 1.7 million square feet. Do you think that you can find a pad that’s flat on that piece of property? Yes, or you can engineer it.
Speaker 2: Work with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can engineer it to put an RV or a structure on there, or whatever. I don’t want to sounds silly but I actually think this is a positive attribute than versus a flat property that you know, looks like you’re on the moon.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: I think this is, 13 degrees or 23% gradient, it sounds like a lot but no, I think that there’s people that specifically seek this kind of property out.
Speaker 2: Right, we talked about that a little bit too recently. We had a property that was very similar and Jack you were brilliant, you be upfront and you’re honest. Somebody marketed it as it has a protective ridge.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Everybody loved that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They really did. When you look at it that way, there is a ridge to protect with some wind and people aren’t going to build right there.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: It’s like you back up against gorgeous scenery.
Speaker 1: You can picture it, it’s right out of a Western. If you see a lot of the little cabin-like Western frontier houses have protection like that.
Speaker 2: Exactly so that, what you’re talking about Kathleen, in our world is an attribute.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We bought a property one time a long time ago on accident. This was before Google Earth and it was literally the side of the Grand Canyon and a rock climber bought it. For whatever reason, that guy wanted to climb on land that he owned.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: I don’t know if that ever happened. I asked him to film it and stuff but we just never reconnected after I sold it. This was a lot of years ago. If you have a question or you want to be on the show, reach out to either one of us on Land Academy’s free online community. Today’s topic which is the meat of the show: Mailers that yield results and ones that don’t How do we know this? Because I’ve done it all wrong. Now we do it right.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and now we save you.
Speaker 1: Jill, take it away.
Speaker 2: I wrote down 3 examples of mailers that do yield good results and 3 examples of one’s that don’t. I think going to start with the don’t because some of these are misconceptions that people have I want to save you and explain why. Here, first of 3 examples of mailers that do not yield good results.
1. Any mailer you send out that says “Dear Resident,”
Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah. You know what, that’s a great point. Do not do that. You’re wasting money.
Speaker 2: Exactly but a lot of folks see that as, but wait, I can cheaply and more efficiently not have to do a lot of work and just send it to this whole zip code. You’ve wasted a lot of money there.
Speaker 1: You’re upsetting people and it’s junk mail. You’re sending junk mail.
Speaker 2: No one’s going to look at it.
Speaker 1: Don’t send junk mail.
Speaker 2: You just threw money, that was just throwing money away.
Speaker 1: Send an offer. Oh, I’m sorry I’m getting ahead.
Speaker 2: That’s okay! So that’s one, “Dear Resident.”
Number 2, only sending to back tax properties. This is a huge misconception in our world. I can’t tell you how many discussions we’ve had about this and the number of people, when they line up the numbers and they go and they test it they go “Oh my gosh, I didn’t even realize I was doing that.” My numbers are so much better, the responses are better, the deals are better, my return on investment is better. All these things by not just focusing on that.
Speaker 1: When you go car shopping, do you only shop for cars that don’t work or have something wrong with them?
Speaker 2: Dents.
Speaker 1: You can buy them and fix them up? Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2: Good example!
Speaker 1: No, you shop for the coolest stuff that’s the cheapest.
Speaker 2: The person just wants to sell it, it doesn’t matter why.
Speaker 1: Don’t seek out problematic property. Foreclosure property.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: This is true with houses and apartments and everything. Don’t buy a problem, buy something that’s awesome really cheap.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Don’t date ugly girls. If there’s 20 girls out there, do you want to just only date ugly ones?
Speaker 2: What about … okay. You know, never mind. Anyways-
Speaker 1: No, I want to hear this man.
Speaker 2: You know what, it takes me back to, there was a Sex in the City episode where Samantha picked this wealthy man that just, he needed a lot of help physically. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Speaker 1: This is awesome. No, I don’t.
Speaker 2: She did seek out the ugly guy, but she sought out the ugly wealthy man. She gave him a make-over and made him look good and everything like that.
Speaker 1: Did it work?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah! Then all her friends were jealous. He was still ugly but she had to point out that he had a lot of other attributes.
Speaker 1: Why do women-
Speaker 2: I don’t know.
Speaker 1: -pick out projects? Project men? That’s a topic for a different show.
Speaker 2: Oh that’s a whole other show.
Speaker 1: Don’t pick … Don’t buy problematic property.
Speaker 2: Mates. Back tax property is like picking out a problematic person.
Speaker 1: THat’s right.
Speaker 2: That’s good-
Speaker 1: That you have to fix.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Don’t do that.
Speaker 2: You’re right, thank you.
Speaker 1: You want Prince Charming with a ton of money in the bank who’s respectful. Start there and if doesn’t work for whatever reason, move down from there. Don’t move up.
Speaker 2: You know what, you just might get a hot girl!
Speaker 1: Yeah, this world is packed full of women with super low standards. I’m in the studio with one right now.
Speaker 2: This is so … Oh my gosh. Well, you know what, this actually ties into my 3rd thing perfectly, which is up your numbers. A mailer that doesn’t work, you didn’t send out enough volume. It’s like a dating analogy, just like you just brought up Jack. If you’re just going to hang onto that 1 guy and try to make it work, that’s silly. You need to send out a lot offers and then you’re going to pick the best ones.
Speaker 1: That’s right.
Speaker 2: Mailers that don’t work are the ones that didn’t have enough volume going out. “Gee, I sent out 100, I don’t know why,” because you needed send out 1,500 to have some stuff to really work with.
Speaker 1: I have a 40 year history of failing at female relationships and Jill and I are finally figuring it out.
Speaker 2: It took you how long to get to that? How many numbers?
Speaker 1: Yeah, 40 years.
Speaker 2: How many women was that? We’re not even going to go there! [crosstalk 00:08:37]
Speaker 1: Not Wilt Chamberlain.
Speaker 2: I don’t know the reference and I don’t want to know the reference.
Speaker 1: Wilt Chamberlain?
Speaker 2: Did he date a lot?
Speaker 1: Wilt Chamberlain is famous for-
Speaker 2: Discarding women?
Speaker 1: No he had sex with like 9 million women.
Speaker 2: Oh seriously?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn’t know that. Okay. That’s a little before my time, I know who he is but that was a little before my time so i hear.
Speaker 1: Can I add a couple to “Do Not Do’s?”
Speaker 2: Yeah, give me some more bad ones and then we’ll go to the good ones.
Speaker 1: This one happens a lot. Do not send out postcards.
Speaker 2: Great one.
Speaker 1: With anything on them.
Speaker 2: Great. It doesn’t matter what color it is.
Speaker 1: I know it’s cheaper.
Speaker 2: Whether it’s yellow.
Speaker 1: I get it. It’s cheaper.
Speaker 2: Or red.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: Or green.
Speaker 1: You do the math, it’s a little bit cheaper but it doesn’t work. Do not send out letters of interest.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1: “Hey, I would love to buy your property. I was thinking about it, I looked at it. Hey give me a call, we’ll talk about it.”
Speaker 2: If you’re interested.
Speaker 1: That’s exactly what’s going to happen. Oh thanks Jack, and you’re going to get 7 million phone calls with people saying “I would love to sell you my 40 acre property fro 9 million dollars.”
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Now you’ve wasted all kinds of time and money and you didn’t buy a thing. I’m sure Jill’s going to cover this in the positive list but you want to send an offer out where they can sign it at the bottom with a real specific purchase price and a closing date.
Speaker 2: Do you want to jump to the good ones?
Speaker 1: Did I take away your thunder?
Speaker 2: No, you’re good! Do you want to jump right into the good ones?
Speaker 1: Yes, well go ahead. Were you done with the what not do?
Speaker 2: Those were some of my 3 hot ones on the bad list. If you have another one for the bad list I’d…
Speaker 1: Do you have anymore? I don’t.
Speaker 2: No, those were my good ones. THat’s it for now.
Speaker 1: Go ahead.
Speaker 2: Here are good offers, the ones that do yield results, and good results. Like you said Jack, a real offer it’s realistic, it’s actionable like you just said. I can sign it, I can send it back. I can call this number, I can look this person up. I can send them an email.
Speaker 1: It’s actionable.
Speaker 2: It’s a real, legitimate, actionable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s good.
Speaker 2: A price in their offer.
Speaker 1: I never use that word in this. That’s great, Jill.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: It’s actionable.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: It’s prompting them to take action.
Speaker 2: They can do something.
Speaker 1: You don’t take action, they do.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Love it.
Speaker 2: Exactly. My 2nd point on good things is sending to all owners in or out of state. I see people getting hung up on that little detail that they’re searching for owners that aren’t necessarily living there.
Speaker 1: Absentee owners.
Speaker 2: They think that’s going to make a big difference.
Speaker 1: It’s not.
Speaker 2: The more you discard these people, you’re missing a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absentee owners is left over from whatever somebody learned, a new real estate investor learned on [inaudible 00:11:31]. For whatever reason you see it, I’ll see it all the time on social media, send it only to vacant houses.
Speaker 2: Absentee owners, back taxes.
Speaker 1: There’s a reason. That’s an ugly girl. Now you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Speaker 2: Ugly girl, can’t get a date, and can’t even hold a job. What else do you want to throw in there?
Speaker 1: Oh there’s a lot. Red flags. Can’t cook.
Speaker 2: Oh there we go! Bad in the sack.
Speaker 1: Can’t solve her own problems.
Speaker 2: That’s right. It reminds me of, we have a girlfriend who’s British.
Speaker 1: We have a girlfriend.
Speaker 2: We have a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: That’s hilarious.
Speaker 2: We do have a girlfriend, who’s British and she uses the term sacked.
Speaker 1: She’s your girlfriend.
Speaker 2: Okay, she’s my girlfriend.
Speaker 1: I just tag along.
Speaker 2: That’s true but she uses the term sacked. Some people kind of go “Sacked? That’s like fired?” They hear sack as in something else.
Speaker 1: Half the time I don’t even know what the hell she’s talking about.
Speaker 2: I’ve noticed. You know what’s so cute, we were at a dinner party the other night and I’m literally in the middle of you two and I felt like I’m translating for both of you.
Speaker 1: I can’t hear her, first of all.
Speaker 2: She’s Italian.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: It’s this British, Italian so that makes it even funnier. You guys are on the same page, you guys are totally on the same page with everything but it’s just a little translating. What did she say? Yeah, yeah, okay. Got it. So funny. Oh my gosh.
Okay here’s my 3rd thing. I had the real offers, all owners, and use current and correct information and data.
Speaker 1: You really thought about this show.
Speaker 2: I did! You want to send a real offer with the right property. I mean, what’s going to get someone’s attention is that. Hi Bob and Suzy Smith, i see you own XYZ property that is 1.3 acres and here’s the legal description and the APN and I want to buy it for this amount of money. You have my attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what you want to do and this is really the main point to this. If you remember one thing, please remember this. Send a mail merge. If you’re very new to that, if this is the first time you’ve heard of it, please do some research. You don’t need to learn how to do one, we earn a printing company that’ll do it for you, all you need to do is submit the actually offer that you want to use, the template and then the data. We’ll do it for you but it has to be a mail merge.
Jill referred to it earlier as ‘or current resident.’ You don’t ever want to do that, you want to make it look like that’s the only letter you sent out. The only offer and that person is all special.
Speaker 2: You have everything correct, and right. You did your homework.
Speaker 1: It’s easy. Don’t be afraid of mail merges please. I’ve heard people stay out of this business because they can’t figure out mail merges. You don’t have to figure it out.
Speaker 2: Ah, it’s not hard.
Speaker 1: There’s people out there that’ll do it for you.
Speaker 2: It’s really easy.
Speaker 1: Like us.
Speaker 2: Right, and it’s a respectable offer too. It’s not “I’m going to give you $1.” Let’s be realistic here, folks.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It’s lower than obviously because this is the business that you’re in but they respect that.
Speaker 1: Be respectable I mean, you’re sending out offers that are way less than what the property is worth but be respectable about it and polite about it. Some people do get upset. You say “You know what, I don’t mean to offend you but this is the business I’m in and I obviously made a mistake. I made a mistake, you know what. I mis-valued your property and let’s just go about our lives.”
Speaker 2: You know, I usually don’t have that so much, Jack. My whole answer is take it or leave it. I don’t say it like that but that’s what’s in my head because I’m ready to move on. That’s the thing and I very politely tell people, “Hey, here’s the deal I’ll give you $4,000 for that 40 acre property, totally understand if that’s not in your thing and if it’s not great, have a nice day. If it is, here’s how we do it.” Be ready to move on and that’s really okay. What I find more often Jack, these people are just excited to have a real offer. Here’s the realistic thing, they’re actually … You don’t realize how often they’re taking a step back an d going, you know what, we bought this property, I really wanted to see it for 10, but no one’s going to come along. DO I want to hang out for 10? I’ve got someone right now who really has money in the bank and they will hand me a check tomorrow.
Speaker 1: That’s right.
Speaker 2: THey’re legitimate so they are really seriously considering your offer and you don’t even know it. You need to give them that time and let them process that. You’d be surprised.
Speaker 1: There’s the numbers if you do it right. IF you send 100 mailers out, you’re going to buy a property. I’m not saying send 100 because you’re just really diminishing your chances. Send 1,500 out a month ballpark, is what we recommend. For land, ever 100 you should buy a property. If you’re doing everything wrong, it’s like every 200. Not everything wrong but rookie mistakes, which we can help you avoid.
For houses it’s about 2,000. For every 2,000 offers, you’re going to buy a house. This is about 40% of what you think it’s worth. 40% of the lowest equal property listed, lowest priced property. I don’t want to get all complicated-y.
Speaker 2: You just, because I came up with actionable now you’re trying to come up with another.
Speaker 1: Complicated-y.
Speaker 2: Complicated-y. I love it.
Speaker 1: Here’s some other things that I do not recommend. Some people have luck with it, I don’t understand it, I’ve tried it, our numbers are not as good. Yellow letters. Okay, don’t send a mailer that’s tricking anyone. You’re not using a font that looks like handwriting. No one’s fooled by this stuff and it’s disrespectful. Send a business letter out please in a windowed envelope. It’s inexpensive, it’s respectful, and with nothing on the front. I did a blog about this and it got a great response. Don’t put something like “Offer inside for your land in Arizona!” This isn’t a game, it’s really not. It’s respectful business letter from a company that you own to a property owners where they can sign their name and exchange money. I see a lot of juvenile, silly little stuff like lipstick on an envelope. Seriously, none of that.
Speaker 2: I’d say too what makes me really angry is when people send mean, scary things like “This is your last chance. It’s going to go back to the county.”
Speaker 1: I can feel myself getting angry. That really, really bothers me.
Speaker 2: “If you don’t act on this-and take this and take this.” “You can get $100 from me or nothing” or “They’re going to come after you.” People come up with, they invent mean stuff to scare people and that makes me mad.
Speaker 1: It’s disrespectful. Just have some respect.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Those are bad. No one is going to act on that and you don’t want to be that person.
Speaker 1: Right. What else?
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jack. I’m trying to think, just if you think about what you want. Here’s another thing, here’s a good point. If you send a really good, respectable, professional, nice offer, if they don’t act on it now, they’re not ready for it, they’re at least going to file it away and save it in your file. That’s a huge thing that I want people t take away from this because I can’t tell you how many people are calling me back after 5,6, 8 years with an old offer that was so real and respectable and legitimate they hung onto it.
Speaker 1: They don’t keep postcards.
Speaker 2: No, they don’t but this letter, they kept it.
Speaker 1: It’s got a price in it.
Speaker 2: Now they’re calling. It has a price in it. They’ll say, “I don’t know, I know this was 2008 but what would you give me now? Are you still interested?”
Speaker 1: Right. A lot of times they pass away and the kids are calling you because they’re going through all the paperwork and they’re trying to settle the estate and they could check it off the list.
Speaker 2: They found the letter because dad saved it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: Join us in another episode where Jack and Jill discuss how to use information, that’s me!
Speaker 2: Inspiration, that’s me!
Speaker 1: To get just about anything you want.
Speaker 2: We’ll use it everyday to save you from our mistakes and buy property fro half of what it’s worth and sell it immediately.
Speaker 1: You’re not alone in your real estate ambition! Good show Jill.
Speaker 2: I liked that too.
Speaker 1: Great work.
Speaker 2: That was really good.
Speaker 1: I think that was actually really helpful.
Speaker 2: I didn’t get on my soap box. I didn’t get on my rant about, because I get mad about some of the mean offers people send.
Speaker 1: You know what we didn’t mention is we own a lot of property so we get letters once in awhile on the properties that we own.
Speaker 2: That’s true because sometimes I’m not current on my taxes.
Speaker 1: A lot of that crap that we get, that’s how I learned not to do this. It makes me mad. I open it up and I’m like okay, I literally got lipstick on a-
Speaker 2: Was it about a property or was it about something else? I’ve kind of got to ask!
Speaker 1: It was about a property!
Speaker 2: Are you sure? Did it smell pretty? Did they put perfume in there too?
Speaker 1: I don’t know.
Speaker 2: Maybe I should do that.
Speaker 1: I put it in the shredder.
Speaker 2: Do you know what’s interesting, there’s another one that I thought people do. I forgot. I’ve heard of people sending money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, put a dollar in there.
Speaker 2: I think that’s silly.
Speaker 1: It just comes back to his trickery thing. Send a business letter.
Speaker 2: What are you going to send a next? A coupon for a car wash?
Speaker 1: We didn’t mention it but we send a cover letter and an offer, so 2 pages. We don’t try to save money on double sided printing.
Speaker 2: It’s very true. Or funny colors or anything like that. We don’t come up with anything silly.
Speaker 1: Or 6 fonts.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Oh, let’s make it look handwritten. No, we don’t do that too.
Speaker 1: Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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