3 Things Your Property Website Needs to Do (CFFL 323)
3 Things Your Property Website Needs to Do
Jack Butala: 3 Things Your Property Website Needs 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 with Jill DeWit.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show. In this episode Jill and I talk about the 3 thing your property website needs to do.
Good show today, Jill. Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on LandAcademy.com, the online community, it’s free.
Jill DeWit: Cool. Kevin asked, “I have an accepted offer but the seller is an LLC.” Cool. “What do I need to obtain from the seller besides the articles of organization for the LLC? What, if anything, do I need to record at the county besides the deed?” That’s a good question.
Jack Butala: It really is a good question. It comes up a lot. People don’t judge LLCs the way they judge trusts and in fact, they’re actually the same. It’s just an entity that can legally hold property, just like a trust or just like you as an individual or married people or anything else. You’re totally started off on the right foot with the organization of the LLC. What you really want to make sure is if the signer, the person who’s signing it, is a signer for that corporation. That’s almost, 9 times out of 10 I think, maybe even close to 10 out of 10 now, you can find that out online for free.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Just do a quick corporate commission search where … In the state where they’re incorporated, not necessarily where the property’s incorporated. A lot of times, and I’ve seen Jill do this, Jill and I are a little bit removed now from acquisitions and sales, but I’ve seen Jill in the past ask the seller for these documents. If they’re organized as a point of establishing trust that they say, “Oh yeah, hold on a second. I’ll email it to you right now. Page 16 is where it shows I’m a signer.” That’s a really good way to qualify the fact that everything’s going to go well.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Mostly I use that for trust because I don’t have that online. The LLC, even if they send me all the documents, I need to see for myself. I look it up on line, just verify yep, okay, John Smith, managing member. Got you.
Jack Butala: Then to answer your second question, what do you need to do to record with the county, the answer’s nothing. There may be some exceptions or some states that require it, or sometimes there’s rogue crazy recorders, county recorders, that they like to mess with you. Not often. I think it happened 3 times in my whole career where they just, “Who the heck are you? Why are you doing that?”
Jill DeWit: Exactly, because we buy in an LLC. All of our properties are held in an LLC. It could be us.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Is it me?
Jack Butala: Yeah, it could be. On that note, Jill and I have, for a lot of reasons, Jill and I have separate companies and stuff so we keep things all separate that way. If you’re in a organization stage for that, consider doing that. If you’re in it with your brother, get 2 LLCs. They’re cheap.
Jill DeWit: You can hold property in your name and in your together name and then his name and whatever.
Jack Butala: Your kids, the whole thing. If you’re married it’s a little bit more complicated, but that’s not what this show’s about.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Please don’t bring up marriage, please don’t bring up marriage.
Jack Butala: Marriage is complicated, isn’t it?
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh, I wish it were as easy as an LLC.
Jack Butala: I have so much to say about that. Can this show be about that? I have a lot to say.
Jill DeWit: Marriage versus an LLC? Why you should- that’s it. Don’t get married, just form an LLC together.
Jack Butala: That’s what I mean.
Jill DeWit: Bingo. That’s a really good plan.
Jack Butala: I’ve been saying that for years.
Jill DeWit: How many people you think would do- The men are all over that, women would be like, what?
Jack Butala: These agreements-
Jill DeWit: I’m not against it.
Jack Butala: I agree. Agreement and marriage, I don’t know what the problem is. I think compromise and agreements, that’s what marriage is.
Jill DeWit: I think this makes way more sense. Like our home, just put it in the LLC. The car, assets that we want to share … I like this. We don’t have to get married, let’s just put them in an LLC.
Jack Butala: The article should say, if one person passes away, the other person gets everything and vice versa.
Jill DeWit: Perfect.
Jack Butala: Or, if everybody says this just isn’t working anymore, then there’s a procedure to go about it, instead of allowing the state law that you’re in to start dictating these awful, terrible things that possibly can happen that are very one sided in my opinion.
Jill DeWit: Can we put kids in an LLC?
Jack Butala: Yeah. Look, you can put anything, unless they’re in harms way. No, you can agree on anything as a contract. Anything that’s legal.
Jill DeWit: You’re signing your kid into school … Here’s my thing, that your contact form, and next of kin is the Smith family LLC. Who’s the whatever the … What’s the term I’m looking for? The … You know what I mean?
Jack Butala: Yeah. You can agree to anything.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Jack Butala: I can agree to kiss you on the cheek on Tuesday at noon and you give me a quarter and we can put that down and sign it, and that’s an agreement. People don’t realize this.
Jill DeWit: I don’t pay for kisses. Maybe you do.
Jack Butala: I thought I said I pay you.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, there you go.
Jack Butala: That may be considered-
Jill DeWit: Maybe you pay me.
Jack Butala: That may be considered as something else.
Jill DeWit: I pay you 5 dollars every Wednesday to kiss you. We’re not even going to go there.
Jack Butala: Every Wednesday’s not often enough.
Jill DeWit: Now we’re getting paid for stuff and we shouldn’t be doing that.
Jack Butala: That’s what I mean. It has to be legal.
Jill DeWit: Oh boy.
Jack Butala: In Nevada you could probably. That’s a legal contract.
Jill DeWit: Okay. What’s the show about?
Jack Butala: Three things your property website needs to do. This is the meat of the show. What do you think Jill? Three things your site’s got to do.
Jill DeWit: Okay, here’s my 3: One is, your website needs to tell who you are, showcase you. You’re a real person. Transparency, whatever it is, I’m looking up your company, that means I’m looking up you, so that’s 1. Number 2, your website should sell your property. That’s a thought.
Jack Butala: Let’s go into that. Seriously, what does that mean, it needs to sell your property?
Jill DeWit: Have your postings there. Have all your available inventory there. Photos, everything that I need to decide if I want to buy your property should be right there and smack me in the face. Oh, and a way to check out and pay for it. I shouldn’t have to call you or negotiate something, send you an email. If you want to do this right, I should be able to see it, fall in love with it, and while the moment is hot, I’m going to give you my payment.
Jack Butala: You should build your website just like you’re selling shoes. It’s hard for new people to understand that because we’re just not taught that. We’re taught that you need an escrow agent and all kinds of other things that go on with traditional, historical real estate transactions before the internet. So yes, if in the middle of the night someone wants to buy 40 acres in Colorado, they can click on it, fill in the credit card, and get a deed processed.
Jill DeWit: We have members that are doing this. It’s the greatest thing. They wake up and they see, like us, now they’re doing it. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, these guys purchased X properties.” I think it’s going to be one of our testimonials on our new site coming up. They hit their, they thought they hit their record high of 3 properties sold in a week, they just said we had 4 properties sold in a day. They’re like, “What the heck?” I’m like, “Yea. It works, you’re right.” They’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is so fantastic.” Like Jack said, you want to give them, whatever time of night, whatever it is, be able to, like buying shoes, put them in a check out cart and pay for it and have it link to your account and there you go. Thank you.
Jack Butala: All set.
Jill DeWit: You want my third?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay, here’s my third: You should be collecting buyers with a list, collecting a buyers list for upcoming properties. You want these people loving you, liking you, “Oh my gosh, I just bought this. I want to buy more from you. What else do you have?” You need to be collecting all these buyers so you can keep them.
Jack Butala: Exactly. You will be shocked at how many people really want to receive notice the next time you buy something. Jill and I are at that point in our career right now where the mail comes in, we look at it, we say there’s a 40 acre here, there’s a 20 acre here, there’s a vacation lot in Michigan here. Okay, this goes to buyer X, this goes to buyer Y and this goes to buyer Z. There’s very, very little communication that goes on. We don’t ever do the work anymore, we just send a couple of APNs out to our people and that’s it. That will happen to you. You will find 5 or 10 class triple A buyers out of thousands. Build a list is how everybody talks about the internet.
Jill DeWit: Because you know how buy right. Because you learned from us. That’s it, that’s my list. Do you have any other things that you …
Jack Butala: Yeah, I have one thing. It used to be that you build a website and that’s it, but there’s a lot more to it now. It has to be connected to everything else in the internet that you do. It’s got to be physically and theoretically connected to Facebook and all the other social media sites. It’s got to be connected from a credit card standpoint. It needs to, even if you’re going to get real organized about it, after you’ve established a revenue stream, you need to have an app. When something gets posted, when people that have opted in, that are serious buyers, when something new gets posted on your website it pings them and they get a little buzz in their pocket and they look and they say, hey, this 40 acre property just came up. You can be the first one to get it if you want.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: That’s ever changing. I love technology.
Jill DeWit: Isn’t it funny? It used to be, yeah, okay, there it is. You’d set it up and walk away. It’s there.
Jack Butala: It used to be, for a really long time, it’s like a bricks and mortar store where it’s like, I wonder who’s going to walk through the door today? Let’s roll the dice. There’s no dice roll to this. You can predict what’s going to happen.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, and you can do this from anywhere. That’s my favorite, favorite thing and I know that a lot of people love it because of this, because it’s 24/7 anywhere in the world. Does it get any better than that?
Jack Butala: Nope.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: A huge part of this is automating the back office stuff. We all want to be deal makers. We don’t want to answer our phones and all that. That’s what we do at Land Academy. We try to eliminate the stuff that you don’t want to do so that you can just go and do the stuff you do want to do.
Jill DeWit: And that brings in money.
Jack Butala: Yeah, the stuff that you’re good at. You think that covers it? Is that what your website’s supposed to do?
Jill DeWit: I think it’s great. I’m trying to think about … Ours is building up a community too. You could do that if you wanted to. I think we have other members that do stuff like that in social media.
Jack Butala: I had a real … Somebody asked me an extremely intelligent question about a month ago. They said, “Hey, listen. I’m thinking about getting together in your group, but I really need to know how much of this is that you’re successful because you have a podcast? I’m not going to have a podcast, I have a job.”
Jill DeWit: I thought he was going to say because you have me.
Jack Butala: I’ve had that question.
Jill DeWit: How much of this is successful because of Jill?
Jack Butala: I want to answer that question in a second. The answer is zero. The podcast doesn’t sell property, or maybe it does. We’ve had the same triple A list of buyers for a really long time so that’s not what this is about. It’s all about having … It’s fun. I like doing a podcast and it’s our way to give back.
Jill DeWit: Okay, answer the second question, it’s better.
Jack Butala: Second question is, somebody asked me that. One of our star performers in the group on a deal review call asked me, he said, “How does that … My wife wants to quit her job, we’re totally there financially. How did it happen with you and Jill and what’s the positive, what’s the negatives?” I said, “Tell me about your wife,” and he described you. He said she’s been a sales person her whole life, she’s totally organized, and he’s like, “We get along great.”
Jill DeWit: Did you say then you don’t want to blow that so don’t do this?
Jack Butala: No, because that happens.
Jill DeWit: If you guys have a great, healthy relationship, you might not want to do this.
Jack Butala: She needs to live in another house a block away.
Jill DeWit: There we go. Don’t forgot the LLC thing.
Jack Butala: No, he’s a … People have asked me that, how does that work with you guys being together and then together at work? You just have to have … You can’t go the first week, the first week there’s going to be issues. You just have to work them out.
Jill DeWit: You know, it really comes down to that I just have so much patience. I am the glue that holds us together.
Jack Butala: No, the answer is, if you’re … Oh my gosh. The real answer is, if you have the exact same talents that’s not good, but we seem to naturally do the stuff … The other person does the stuff that the other person doesn’t want to do. I do all the data scrubbing and you’re sales.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: You talk to people and I’m on the computer.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Works out great.
Jack Butala: Yeah, until it doesn’t.
Jill DeWit: Love it.
Jack Butala: Join us in another episode where Jack and Jill discuss how to use information, that’s me …
Jill DeWit: … And inspiration and keep your family together, that’s me …
Jack Butala: … To get 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’re not alone in your real estate failure, I mean, ambition, because you asked your wife to get involved.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh. Yeah, let’s all think about this. Do you really want … No, I’m just kidding. We have a number of couples that are doing this together and it’s exact same reasons. Even little things like, “Hey, she’s home during the day so she answers the phone calls …”
Jack Butala: Yeah, that. Absolutely.
Jill DeWit: “… And does all the … Queues them up for me and I go close the deals.” I’m like, brilliant. Then you cut the deal and she arranges the notary and all that good stuff. It’s brilliant. You should work together, it’s awesome.
Jack Butala: There’s a potential for conflict, but it’s just like everything else. You got to have some respect and boundaries and the whole thing.
Jill DeWit: You know what I’ve found? It’s interesting the number of couples that the wife wasn’t into it until they realized, oh, this is profitable. Then they’re all in. How can I help dear?
Jack Butala: It’s not just a wife too, the husband … Because I understand that. We’ve talked about this a lot. There’s a lot of BS out there in real estate and real estate investing. The vast majority, it’s a sea of BS actually …
Jill DeWit: A sea of BS. I love it.
Jack Butala: … So it’s hard to communicate. Fortunately we don’t have to do this.
Jill DeWit: No you’s right.
Jack Butala: Hey, if you don’t want to join, that’s fine.
Jill DeWit: That’s okay. You’re just here for the entertainment value. That’s good too.
Jack Butala: There’s a sea of BS out there. Jill and I, for fun, because during the day we look for stuff to do sometimes, we go to these, in the hotel seminars or whatever they’re called. What do they call those from a sales standpoint, seminars?
Jill DeWit: I have no idea.
Jack Butala: Then we look at the crap these people are hocking and it’s a joke. It’s like … I have a big ongoing pad of paper that says what not to do at Land Academy …
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala: … Like the dingbats at the Marriott.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: It’s a pretty big list.
Jill DeWit: It is. I love it.
Jack Butala: Don’t have a seminar at Marriott, that’s the top of it.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I’m sorry. It just comes out, I don’t mean to do it like that. It just comes out. It’s my fun.
Jack Butala: Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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