Mailing Offers to the Same County Twice? (CFFL 602)
Mailing Offers to the Same County Twice?
Jack Butala: Mailing Offers to the Same County Twice?. 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 with Jill DeWitt.
Jill DeWit: Happy Tuesday.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about mailing offers to the same county twice.
Jill DeWit: Why would you do that?
Jack Butala: You’re cracking me up. Before we get into it let’s take a question placed by one of our members on the LandAcademy.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Cool. All right. Katrina asked … This is actually one of our weekly calls. This is a really good question, so we wanted to throw it in here for everybody. This is the kind of stuff we talk about by the way in our weekly member calls.
Do you recommend outsourcing the initial incoming call from sellers to service like if you’re working full time? Should the calls be answered live?
This is a really good question.
Jack Butala: Go ahead, Jill.
Jill DeWit: Because most of our members are in that situation.
Jack Butala: Yeah. Nearly all.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. They have a day job.
Jack Butala: As they should be.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Nobody is quitting their anything yet if they do, and if they do do quit their day job it’s not for a very, very long time until it makes no more sense to have that day job, so I’ll get off that soap box. Anyway, the answer is yes, and there’s so many good cheap offerings out there.
Jack Butala: There answer is yes and yes and yes. There are three questions in there.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Do you want to take it?
Jack Butala: Yeah. I mean, the last question is do you need to answer your phone live? The answer is not, it’s hell yes. There’s huge statistics out there, and that’s not coming from just me. That when somebody answers the phone there’s a much better response, and a much better yield to whatever you’re trying to do. Whether it’s sell or buy or whatever.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Even if it’s somebody that’s an assistant or somebody in another country that you hire or whatever, so like everything we’re solving this problem for our members by getting a contract with people who do this. They outsource answering the phone.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Don’t wait for it. You should absolutely find somebody to do that.
Jill DeWit: There’s plenty of services out there month to month, and you give them a script.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: They’ll do exactly what you want, so it’s really easy, so you could do something like have them answer the phone, say your company name, hey thanks for calling us, what kind of property do you have? You know, and they can take all the information down and say, “All right, well cutanea will be calling you back after 5:00, or if that’s not convenient would you rather her call you this weekend?” Whatever you set up, and they can make that happen for the people, and make it real easy for you.
Jack Butala: It solves two problems. Number one, what will end up happening is if 15 people call you while you’re at work you’ll get a script. You’ll literally get 15 scripts back of the conversation that the caller had, and of those 15 a few of them are going to be real angry people because they think that their property is worth more, so now you’ve avoided the hate. You’ve outsourced the hate, so you’re not going to call those people back. Throw those scripts aside. A few more of them are going to be, “You know, I got the letter, and my husband and I have been thinking about that, but we don’t know yet. Can you please call me back?” Put those in the middle. Then some of them are going to be, “Heck yes. Thank you so much. Please call me to make arrangements to close.”
A tremendous amount of work is outsourced for not a lot of money. If you go in SuccessPlant.com, or the Land Academy online community and ask this question, “Who uses what?” Because there are three or four of them out there, and I don’t really want to plug one at all. Ask them what to use and ask them why, and then be prepared … You’re going to get a real straight answer, and then be prepared to put your scripts together. I see that on the Land Academy community a lot where people ask about scripts. This is, again, it’s like having me tell you exactly which county to go …
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Make it your own.
Jack Butala: Yeah. Make it your own.
Jill DeWit: It’s better if it’s your own.
Jack Butala: Flavor it yourself. It’s an ongoing thing. You’re not going to use the same script forever.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: It’s probably going to change that week because if you’re not getting the responses then you can tailor it. Based on the scripts, what you’re getting back from the people who are calling you back, you can tailor it to get a better response even from there.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
Jack Butala: The answer is yes, yes, and yes, and do not quit your job until there’s like half a million bucks in the bank.
Jill DeWit: Perfect.
Jack Butala: That’s a funny story.
Jill DeWit: Perfect.
Jack Butala: If you have a question or you want to be on the show reach out to either one of us on LandAcademy.com. Today’s topic, mailing offers to the same county twice? Who the heck?
Jill DeWit: I like this question.
Jack Butala: This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: This seems to come up often because we have a lot of people in our world who we are attracting because of our data, and they are not necessarily land flippers, but they’re agents and brokers and SFR people.
Jack Butala: They’re attracted to our data.
Jill DeWit: They’re attracted to our data.
Jack Butala: Hey, baby. You like my data?
Jill DeWit: You like my data? Oh, I want to get a shirt, data queen or something.
Jack Butala: Oh, my God. That’s perfect.
Jill DeWit: That would be awesome.
Jack Butala: I’m writing that down.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: A lot of people come to us from the SFR, from the single family residential flipping scenario, with their tail between their legs. Some people are extremely successful at that for whatever reason. Maybe they’re contractors, and they like that stuff, but they want to enhance it. They want to enhance how they buy houses. We have a product called OffersToOwners.com, which does that. It provides just the data without any education, and it’s cheaper.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: There’s a lot of overflow with these single family residential mailing concepts. With houses apparently people have had success mailing twice and three times and four times. Mailing different like, “Hey, I want to follow up.” We’ve never had to do that with land, and I’ve never heard of our members doing that because we just get such an overwhelming response every time we send a mailer out the first time. To directly answer this, no we don’t do it, but a lot of people do, and very successfully.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I also was thinking even though yeah it’s very common like … That’s in my notes, too. That it is really common for flippers. I think that’s why they think that we should be doing it, but I’ll tell you what we do. Well, number one, follow up could be beneficial. I mean, we’ve talked about that. If there’s really a county … Say you’re doing this for the purposes of finding your dream property to put your cabin on, then I would do this. What I would do is I would send a bunch of mailers out to my … I’ve isolated the exact properties and the exact criteria that I want with some offers. If I didn’t get what I wanted out of that I might circle back around with a follow up saying, “Hey, I just want to let you know I’m here, and I’m available. I’ve got the cash. You know, I’m really serious about buying your property.”
The reason I’m doing it would be because I really only want that area, you know? I’m trying to really get those people and smoke them out, but what we usually do is we just find it easier just to move to the next property type or the next county, so we don’t have any deal flow issues.
Jack Butala: Yeah. On the by side or the south side.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: In fact, the more diverse the properties that we have, the better.
Jill DeWit: That’s a good point.
Jack Butala: You know, with houses you pick a ZIP code, and you nail it because you already have buyers and put it on the MLS. It’s much more traditional. With land, if you have one property in each of the 50 states you’re going to sell them all. If they’re priced the way we do it you’ll sell them all that week.
Jill DeWit: You just brought up-
Jack Butala: You don’t want 50 properties in one little ZIP code.
Jill DeWit: That’s it. That’s probably the key right there because those flippers are stuck with that ZIP code because they’re in that ZIP code, or they can get to that ZIP code every day because they have to because they’re actually doing a renovation. That makes a whole lots of sense. They can’t venture out like we can. We’re venturing out all of the country. You know, I think I’m going to check on the east coast. Now I’m going to try this property in this area, you know?
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Too easy for us to just move on there, and our goal too is take the top one. Just like we take the cream off the top. Seriously, and then move on, you know? Then the next level, they’ll call us later on. It’s funny how they reach out to us not right away, but six months or a year from now, but it’s good.
Jack Butala: There’s a lot of questions we get from former SFR or recovering house flippers, and here’s a few more just for fun since we’re on the topic.
Should I only mail properties where there’s out of state owners?
You can see in a long list of … Let’s say you pick all the five acre properties in the county somewhere, and you’re staring at a list in Excel getting ready to the mail out, and you notice that a lot of people are out of state. The tax bills are being sent out of state, and the answer is no. That’s a very popular …
Jill DeWit: That’s true.
Jack Butala: You know, if my mailing address-
Jill DeWit: Absentee owners is what they call it.
Jack Butala: Absentee owners. That’s right. Thank you, Jill, and so no that doesn’t matter with us. I don’t know why. I guess with houses you’re really trying to … How much money would you really save if you did that? On mail and data and the whole thing? Not very much.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: That’s always my answer to this. Well, are you trying to save $200 on this mailer?
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: If you are I’m not sure you’re ready.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: You want to just really send everybody a letter, and they’ll find you. They’ll call you back.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Here’s another one.
Jack, should I only mail owners of land where it’s vacant?
What?
Jill DeWit: Meaning … oh, because it doesn’t … Well, we search for no improvements.
Jack Butala: No, this is a joke. I got this question twice in the last month.
Should I only mail the people who own land where the land is vacant?
Like a house. Well, I’m sorry.
Jill DeWit: Meaning nobody lives there?
Jack Butala: All the land’s vacant.
Jill DeWit: Okay. This is such an odd question. I’m confused.
Jack Butala: Well, because in houses some people think because you’re driving for dollars and stuff that it’s not occupied. There’s somebody on the internet who’s making a huge deal out of this. Unoccupied houses are better acquisition [inaudible 00:10:02] which I absolutely disagree with.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: It’s not an informed decision. It’s I’m right. Not wrong.
Jill DeWit: I know. I have such a track record of people … People don’t believe me when I say this, but the majority of the property that we’re buying is that people that they have it. They’ve lovingly cared for this property. They faithfully paid the taxes because they didn’t know they could not pay the taxes, and they’re just happy to say, “Oh, thank you. Sally and I were just talking about this over coffee again today. We’re just not going to retire there, and the kids don’t want it.”
Jack Butala: Yeah. I’ve said it a million times. You’re looking for a situation. The piece of real estate’s really not that significant. What you’re looking for is a circumstance.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: What Jill just described … I just got an offer. We really should sell this, so we can just check it off of our life list.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That’s it. That’s what happens.
Jack Butala: The price doesn’t matter.
Jill DeWit: It doesn’t. Thank goodness. Now I can just close that chapter.
Jack Butala: I have a friend who just-
Jill DeWit: Get it off my driveway.
Jack Butala: Just sold a vehicle, and he called me to say … He was all excited. “I just sold this vehicle. You know, I’ve been thinking about selling it, and I called a dealer and said do you want the vehicle?” The dealer came over and offered him a price, and he’s like, “I’ll take it. I just want it out of the driveway.”
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: “I don’t care what the price is. Just take it, please.”
Jill DeWit: We haven’t talked about-
Jack Butala: He was happy, happy, happy, and that’s how we buy real estate.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: He didn’t care about the price. He just want it out of there. He was done.
Jill DeWit: We stopped talking about the little green car for a long time, but that was the little green car.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: We were just happy to get rid of it. Paying it forward. Here you go. Now it’s your problem. Just kidding.
Jack Butala: Should you mail the same county twice when you’re doing land? It’s up to you. We don’t do it. We don’t need to. We usually move on to the next county for diversification purposes.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
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: 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 are not alone in your real estate ambition. Good show, Jill.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. I love these questions that people are coming to us, and they’re seeing the connection between all property types and data.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Who knew?
Jack Butala: Mission accomplished there.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. That all the data that we have access to and all the mailing and all that stuff can be used for everything, and people are now getting it, so that’s why they’re asking us some of these interesting questions.
Jack Butala: That’s a good point. I think it used to be that social relationships kind of dictated real estate deals. You know, before the internet, and before you could really manipulate data.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: You’d have to go to somebody like the town socialite and ask them, “Hey, who’s thinking about selling their house?”
Jill DeWit: You know what’s funny about that? You made me think of one more thing. I was talking about Grant Cardone on the show yesterday. One of the things that he told people was when you’re getting started in something, one of the reasons he said was just get to know some people who are already doing it because he said let’s just cut to the chase here, folks. It’s not not what you know. It’s who you know. He said that in his world out loud. It’s on Facebook live right now. Seriously. He said it’s still who you know, and I’m like oh.
Jack Butala: I love when people tell the truth.
Jill DeWit: I know, and I love it. Exactly, because I’m like he’s clearly saying go out and meet some people and make some connections. It’s going to help you out. Period.
Jack Butala: It’s still hard work.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Jack Butala: There’s no tricks. There’s no secrets. There’s no secret county.
Jill DeWit: That’s true.
Jack Butala: You don’t have to spend a ton of money at all.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: You just have to get organized, and you have to state motivated. Get organized, and do whatever it takes.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: That’s it. Information and inspiration to buy under valued property-
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