Jill’s Phone Answering Service JillLive.com (CFFL 399)
Jill’s Phone Answering Service JillLive.com
Jack Butala: Jill’s Phone Answering Service JillLive.com. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don’t even have to read it. Thanks for listening.
Jack Butala: Jack Butala and Jill DeWit!
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about JillLive.com. Jill’s new answering service …
Jill DeWit: What?
Jack Butala: … which we have not launched yet, but she’s pretty jacked about it and so am I. Before we get into it though, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on LandAcademy.com. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Cool! Kathleen asks, “I had a signed purchase agreement sent back to me.” Yay! “The seller is a retired developer and has multiple parcels available”. Okay, this is getting even better.
Jack Butala: I like this.
Jill DeWit: “He signed my purchase agreement for $2250, two-two-five-oh, for five acres. Parcels are selling for eight to ten thousand dollars in this area”. Perfect. “He said there are some ” …
Jack Butala: Hey, you priced it right, by the way …
Jill DeWit: Yeah …
Jack Butala: I mean, it’s not, you didn’t send an offer out for a hundred dollars?
Jill DeWit: For a dollar?
Jack Butala: For a hundred dollars an acre?
Jill DeWit: Exactly, thank you Kathleen, you did great.
Jack Butala: You know what, I’m really glad this questions in here.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, it’s perfect. All right, “He said there are some delinquent taxes, and that he was going to pay them off with a check that I sent him. I checked with the treasurer and there are back taxes and a lien for those back taxes in the total amount of $3000. I’d like to work with this seller, as he has other properties in the area that he wants to liquidate”.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: “Given the prices on active listings boat”. Love it!
Jack Butala: I wish I was on that boat.
Jill DeWit: Ahhh, there’s a boat going out. We gotta go! Hurry let’s wrap this up.
Jack Butala: We can do our show on a boat.
Jill DeWit: We should do the show on a boat. Now you’re talking. Thank you. Okay.
Jack Butala: Next week.
Jill DeWit: All right, something shiny. So, “given the prices on my active listings, my profit margin is still good if I pay off the taxes”. Okay. “I was thinking of calling him back, telling him about the amount of back taxes and saying that I’ll send him 100 bucks with a new deed to sign and I’ll take off the back taxes, what do you think”?
Jack Butala: That’s the way to do this. If you absolutely answered your own question and you answered it perfectly. I mean Jill’s probably going to disagree but I would not send him a check for any reason. That reeks of …
Jill DeWit: We do agree.
Jack Butala: Oh, okay good.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, we do agree.
Jack Butala: So, when you buy property with back, it’s got back taxes on it … It’s totally okay. All you do is you buy it for whatever amount. It’s a great way to negotiate too, if you say, “Yeah, it’s got some back taxes, I can’t really pay what I thought I could”.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: “I need to, you know, I’ve heard Jill do it a million times. I, no, no. So I sent you an offer for 2250, that means 2250 net-net-net. So if there’s $3000 of taxes on it, I’ll send you an offer for a hundred bucks …
Jill DeWit: Yeah
Jack Butala: I mean I’ll send you a … We’ll close the deal at a hundred bucks and I’ll take over the taxes and then …
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: Now you’ve inherited the property and the lien and the taxes then you go deal with it yourself.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: You know, they think it’s the other way around because of houses. When you look at a HUD one when you buy a house, you settle up on the taxes right at closing. You don’t need to to do that here when there’s no loan.
Jill DeWit: Well then here’s what could go wrong. Because even though he says, “Hey, oh yeah, I’ll pay off those back taxes as soon as you pay me”. He’s not obligated by the way. He could change his mind. I’m assuming he’s a good person but let’s just be realistic, he could not.
Jack Butala: I’m assuming he’s a total tyrant, tyrannical crook.
Jill DeWit: Well, that’s where we … You’re so silly. But that’s what could happen. You can send this guy out like “Oh okay” you’re like trusting. He’s gonna pay him off and he might not and then run, or you know, whatever, walk. Anyway and you’re stuck! So the better way is what you’re doing Kathleen saying “I’ll absorb those back dated. You pay it off now”. I mean there’s your choices too. You can say “Hey if you want to be the one to pay it off, great. Let’s make the deal at this price. You pay the taxes and then I’ll pay you”, you know kinda thing. Or “I’m just gonna take on the whole back taxes, you don’t have to send anything in. I’m gonna give you a couple hundred bucks for your time and everything ’cause it’s better than walking away. ‘Cause that’s what the guy is faced with now – he’s either going to walk away, pay it, which I’m sure he doesn’t want to pay it, or get something out of it which often, you know, is the better deal.
Jack Butala: The kicker here too is you wanna do some more deals with this guy. He’s gotta bunch of property.
Jill DeWit: That’s true. Well that’s a whole nother thing. What about that? Okay maybe this is getting interesting too. “Okay I’ll give you a hundred dollars for that one and what else do you have? Okay then I’ll give you two thousand for that one, a couple thousand for that one, maybe you can put together a whole package thing where in his head, “All right I’m getting rid of three properties and I’m getting $3000 when you know your even getting more value out of it. And then everybody wins.
Jack Butala: For the record, you don’t have to pay his taxes off.
Jill DeWit: That’s true too.
Jack Butala: If you disclose the heck out of it in your posting. There are people though that have this perception – whether it’s correct or incorrect, we don’t know …
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: That when they buy property with back taxes associated with it, that it’s a bargain.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: That “Oh that’s why it’s so cheap! It’s got back taxes on it”. Yeah. Like there’s some people who buy a car that needs work because they have the perception it’s a lot cheaper.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: And there’s some people who just want a turn key perfect, walk in the house and it’s perfect and pay top dollar.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: So …
Jill DeWit: Which one are you?
Jack Butala: All ways are right. House, I want it to be turn key. If I’m gonna live there primary residence, I want my favorite song playing throughout the house.
Jill DeWit: Oh, that’s not what I thought you would say!
Jack Butala: For houses, yeah. [crosstalk 00:05:36] For primary residences. For business, no.
Jill DeWit: Got it.
Jack Butala: I want it to be half falling down. And I want to get it for free.
Jill DeWit: Duct Tape
Jack Butala: And for cars, no. I don’t want a project.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, for cars, I definitely … that’s very true. For houses, I can take it or leave it ’cause I’d wanna make it my own. But I’m okay with that I [crosstalk 00:05:56]. So. Cool.
Jack Butala: Great question.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: I think we answered it, probably spent too much time on it.
Jill DeWit: Good. Probably.
Jack Butala: If you have a question or want to be a show, reach out to either one of us on Landacademy.com. Today’s topic, I’m happy to introduce, is JillLive.com.
Jill DeWit: Not like right now on JillLive.
Jack Butala: So hopefully you’ve heard of PatLive. If you haven’t, PatLive is kind of a real estate based answering service. They do a great job. I talked to one of the executive … We get 20% off there and it’s just not good enough. I want it to be cheaper so …
Jill DeWit: Just not good enough.
Jack Butala: It’s not! You know …
Jill DeWit: That’s kinda a theme for us now, that’s how we roll. ‘Cause if we can’t come in the back door and have access to everything and then set our own pricing for our people, we don’t want to play. What we’re gonna do, we’ll just develop it ourselves.
Jack Butala: That’s what we have with CoreLogic. That’s what we have with UpperStream. And …
Jill DeWit: Otherwise we develop it ourselves which what we’re doing now.
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s exactly right. So. Well it’s half developed ourselves and half, and we will do an agreement with a very experienced team of people that have been doing this for years and years and years in this country, that’s the key.
Jill DeWit: Yes. [crosstalk 00:07:07] Oh that is key. Thank you for saying that.
Jack Butala: So there’s nothing wrong with other countries. It just makes a lot of sense to do business with people that are close to you, not far away. It’s as simple as that. For me, anyway. And they have a personal relationship, you know?
Jill DeWit: I wanna keep it in the US and I want to keep it where we … That is important to me to talk to someone who can really understand me.
Jack Butala: So we toiled though, not toiled, we really … Jill and I discussed who should take this – some companies are mine, some are hers – And it just makes a lot of sense, she likes talking. And I really don’t like talking. So …
Jill DeWit: Despite what you think right here.
Jack Butala: Well they can’t talk back!
Jill DeWit: Oh this is true.
Jack Butala: This is a one way conversation.
Jill DeWit: Oh oh! Wait so you like talking, yet you just don’t like conversing?
Jack Butala: That’s right. I don’t like conversations.
Jill DeWit: That’s it.
Jack Butala: I don’t mind talking.
Jill DeWit: Talking is fun. Yelling is even better!
Jack Butala: I had this theory about arguing …
Jill DeWit: On a soap box.
Jack Butala: I don’t know if I’ve ever said this on the show. I have a theory about marital arguing and it all starts with talking. If you don’t talk, you’ll never argue.
Jill DeWit: Converse. Nice. Yeah. You know, that’s kinda true. I know. Those mornings you are your happiest I can tell when you walked around and for your whole team, you talked and there were nods or yes or okay and you’re happy.
Jack Butala: It’s probably a one way street, now that I think about it.
Jill DeWit: It’s okay. It’s all right. So okay. Back to JillLive. So JillLive … I’m excited for this – this is going to be great. So and that’s the whole thing. The reason we’re doing this is because there’s a need. And once again, like all of our other products, our members have come to us and said “We need help with this. This is something that’s slowing us down. We’re spending all this money on this other service with this other company. We found this is the best but there’s gotta be another way”.
And we talked about, we said “Okay it’s been on our radar for months now and we thought we were going to do it with our personal staff and we hadn’t quite figured that out so now we figured out a way to do it”.
Jack Butala: Yeah I mean, yesterday we did a show called “What the Real Time Commitment Is”. So you don’t have to … Even though our most successful members don’t have time to answer their own phone, it’s just too complicated. You can’t really use your own personal phone because you don’t want everyone in the world to have … There’s a lot of things to overcome. It’s just easier to spend a hundred bucks a month. Let somebody professionally do it with a script and then you can read through, literally read through the script of the people that have contacted you and decide who you’re going call back.
Jill DeWit: You know, I gotta add something to it. There’s a little added level of professionalism when they think you have a team and you have a staff that’s answering your phone for you and that’s what they’ll think.
Jack Butala: Oh yeah.
Jill DeWit: That it’s your staff.
Jack Butala: I mean that tested and over tested PatLive and several other companies. I mean, you can overdo it. PatLive is too … I mean, I love that company, I really do. They do a great job and they’ve been around for a long time.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: I mean you have the sense that they overdo it though, let me just put it that way. Like there’s just, “Oh hi, how are you?” You know, come on man.
Jill DeWit: God, you don’t wanna do that. You wanna be friendly and professional. And then you want to be efficient and that’s my thing too I want. ‘Cause these people, they don’t really want to chat. They’re calling to sell you their property and let’s be honest and they might be calling on there … Heck I answer the phone. Yeah, they’re calling on their lunch break or whatever. They’re so excited they got an offer in the mail and they’ve been carrying around their in their briefcase for a week and they now have time on their lunch break and they now have time to give you a call and you’re not there, okay. But at least you have somebody that can answer the phone and take down all the information and schedule a time for you to really call them back.
Jack Butala: And hopefully it’s the same person. You know, that’s kind of a criteria too when we find who’s gonna fill these orders.
Jill DeWit: Figure that out.
Jack Butala: It should be you know …. Obviously can’t be 24/7 the same person but it can be predictable.
Jill DeWit: We’ll figure that out. As long as it’s efficient, that’s my thing. It’s gotta be efficient. We don’t want your people holding for that person ’cause they’re on a phone call. We won’t let that happen.
Jack Butala: I see.
Jill DeWit: We won’t let that happen. And we’ll make sure that it’s good and I’m gonna personally weigh in. You’ll be able to choose my script, modify your script, submit your own script, whatever.
Jack Butala: See, you’re the right person to do this.
Jill DeWit: Thank you! Cause I’ve done this! Well I’ve done this for like companies but I personally did this for us. I’m used to answering our own phone.
Jack Butala: And now it’s our people.
Jill DeWit: And now it’s our people so I trained our people how I want our phone answered. And I trained our people with the script or the questions that I want. And I trained my people how to – gosh – how to work with these people ’cause some of these people they sell those, they call back. You know, they’re very timid, they don’t own a bunch of properties, they may only own the one. And they might be, you know older and they don’t even …. It’s the funniest thing. They might literally lay the phone down, I’ve had this, and you can hear rummaging through papers while they’re looking through the parcel and they’re looking for that letter, “I just had it” kinda thing. It’s really cute. But anyway, we’re gonna help with all that. I’m really excited.
And this JillLive, I’m sure it’s going parlay into other things that we can do you know …
Jack Butala: Like close the deal.
Jill DeWit: And let the mail maybe. Are we going to do the mail thing?
Jack Butala: Yeah. Yes.
Jill DeWit: So okay. Good.
Jack Butala: Yeah, it’ll like every single one of these products that we roll out, they’re all driven by what our members say, “Hey it’d be great if we could do this” and that’s how it all starts.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. That’s how it all starts. “Hey, it’d be great if you can teach me this whole plan thing”. That’s how it all starts!
Jack Butala: That’s how it all starts!
Jill DeWit: There we go! Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala: Join us in another episode. Where Jack and Jill discuss hotties information, that’s me.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration, that’s me.
Jack Butala: And 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. You think about this video thing versus just audio in the studio.
Jill DeWit: We’ll see what the whole … Is it just going to be on YouTube or how you gonna host it?
Jack Butala: It’ll be on our website too.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
Jack Butala: No, it’ll be everywhere. It’s gonna be syndicated. Seriously.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Oh no.
Jack Butala: Is it just going to be on YouTube?
Jill DeWit: Do I look okay? [inaudible 00:13:19]
Jack Butala: How do you think I roll? Do you think it’s just gonna be on YouTube.
Jill DeWit: I gotta tell you something funny. This is reminding me … I don’t know if it was last summer or summer before, it was last summer! We did a webinar from our couch and I had a surfboard behind us, I don’t know if you remember this – and we sat there sweating and it was the funniest thing. Cause then I had this cute dress on but the sweat was just dripping down me and I know we looked like a hot mess by the time it was done. We sat in the living room sweating but we were there for our people and it was really fun. We had a lot of people that were just hearing about LandAcademy and we let them call in on our big webinar and ask us all these questions so they could … they typed in a question and we were on video and the whole world could see us. And made me think of this.
Jack Butala: And it did really well.
Jill DeWit: And we did really well. It was a blast. But it was like I’m like having flashbacks to that right now. That’s so funny.
Jack Butala: Maybe the video part of this will never …
Jill DeWit: See the light of day?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: No I know you. You tend to do that.
Jack Butala: Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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