Phone Won’t Stop Ringing (JJ 642)
Phone Won’t Stop Ringing
Transcript:
Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to The Jack & Jill Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I’m Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how some of our members’ phones just won’t stop ringing.
Jill DeWit: Isn’t that awesome?
Jack Butala: That’s the greatest thing there ever was.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Jack Butala: I’ll tell you about the phone ringing. If your phone’s ringing a lot and you’re not knocking it out of the park, something’s really wrong.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: In my case, if my phone is ringing a lot, I wouldn’t answer it.
Jill DeWit: Well, no, it depends on what … Yes, it depends on what you’re trying to do.
Jack Butala: And who’s around you. I have Jill.
Jill DeWit: Who’s calling you and for what reason.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Hey, maybe they’re selling you that classic car that you offered on. Oh, you’re going to answer those phone calls all day long, correct?
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s true.
Jill DeWit: So, thank you. So, it’s not like you don’t talk on the phone. It’s just your … there’s certain things you don’t like talking about, which is a lot of things. That’s what funny. If you listen to our show, you notice that there’s topic that we just don’t cover because Jack just doesn’t want to go there.
Jack Butala: Like what? What do you think I don’t want to cover?
Jill DeWit: Well, you know, there’s a lot a woman needs that I would really like to get out. Just kidding. If you’re going to ask.
Jack Butala: Women’s issues?
Jill DeWit: You know, I want this to be the Jill and Jack Show once in a while.
Jack Butala: All right. We’re going to start right now. Welcome to the Jill and Jack show.
Jill DeWit: Not today.
Jack Butala: Yeah, yeah. This is a topic.
Jill DeWit: No, because I want to totally change the topic. Do we keep saying that, I’m going to throw one in there sometime. I’m going to do the Jill and Jack Show. Today we’re talking about why women don’t understand men.
Jack Butala: I think that’s what this show should be around right now. I want to hear all about this.
Jill DeWit: Okay, well when we-
Jack Butala: We’ll get to the ringing thing in a minute.
Jill DeWit: Seriously.
Jack Butala: Oh, wait. We have to take a question first.
Jill DeWit: Yes, we do.
Jack Butala: Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the jackjill.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Darold B. asks, “Hi everyone. I just uploaded my first mailer to go out via Offers to Owners. It’s taken me longer than I had planned, and it’s not perfect, but it’s done. I just wanted to thank a few people that have helped me in the short time that I am part of this community. Your calls and emails have provided the support and feedback when it was needed. As I grow in this business, I’ll continue to count on you, and I hope to be able to give back to you as well.”
Do you want me to say any of these?
Jack Butala: He tagged a bunch of people. As long as you don’t use anyone’s last name, I think it’s fine.
Jill DeWit: Rowdy, Curia, Craig, Pete, Kurt, Jason, Nat, and a huge thank you to Jack and Jill for creating Land Academy, the best group of sharing and generous people I’ve come across in a long while. Oh, it’s tearing me up.
Jack Butala: That’s why we did this.
Jill DeWit: I know. Now, we’re getting ready to go to Frisco, Colorado in a couple of days to make some family memories. Snow tubing with our three year old twins.
Jack Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: That’s so awesome.
Jack Butala: We have a really good group here.
Jill DeWit: I know, oh, thank you.
Jack Butala: And, you’re welcome. Seriously, you’re welcome. This is why we do it.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Yesterday, Jill and I talked about in the after show where this is all going. We’re going to get back to our roots and buy and sell property, and film it all for everyone to see.
Jill DeWit: Yup.
Jack Butala: I don’t know what better education that there is.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Not get back to it, because we’re heavily into it now, but really realize what we set up over the last two decades.
Jill DeWit: It’s [inaudible 00:03:26] focus.
Jack Butala: That said, let’s talk about women’s issues, and what women want [crosstalk 00:03:30]
Jill DeWit: Oh, gosh, Jack. Jack, that’s a series of shows. Maybe a month long. A series of shows.
Jack Butala: A month only?
Jill DeWit: No, not just women’s issues, but one of them is women don’t understand men, you know?
Jack Butala: Hold on, let me read this. [inaudible 00:03:45]
Jill DeWit: You men … you want to read what?
Jack Butala: Today’s topic.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: What to do when your phone won’t stop ringing. This is the meat of the show. All right, back to this woman thing. I gotta keep the show going, or else it will be like four hours.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. Throw that in there, it’s really not still on the topic, but we can come back to my thing.
Jack Butala: Women don’t understand men when?
Jill DeWit: Oh my goodness. Most of the time.
Jack Butala: Because men completely understand women, we’ve got it [crosstalk 00:04:09].
Jill DeWit: See? Well, my point is, it goes both ways. That really was my point. We don’t need to get into too much detail, but if you think that we walk around knowing exactly what’s going to happen, and we’re trying to push your buttons, or we’re trying to get something out of you, or we’re just trying to get our way, or just whatever you think it is … most of the time we’re not. We really don’t understand you that well. We may act like we do, and pretend that we do, hoping you’ll believe that we do. It’s like being a mom. We tell our kids we have eyes in the back of our heads. We don’t, obviously, we just guessed right. So, that’s it with guys, too. Half the time, we guess right. That’s it. So, we really don’t understand you-
Jack Butala: I wonder why it got set up like this?
Jill DeWit: You’re not alone in your relationship confusion. To spit on our words, you’re not alone in your real estate ambition, or your relationship confusion.
Jack Butala: Why do you think it’s set up like this? Wouldn’t you think it would all be set up where we all just get along?
Jill DeWit: To keep us on our toes.
Jack Butala: Yeah, I would think. I don’t know.
Jill DeWit: Keep it moving forward. Keep you wanting to do things and grow, and build society, and make it better. Things, like the phone won’t stop ringing. Can we get to that now?
Jack Butala: I have some more questions, and I’ll bring them up in a few minutes.
Jill DeWit: Okay, cool.
Jack Butala: Yeah, so if your phone is ringing, you send out a bunch of mail or whatever business you’re in, your phone is ringing a lot. You realize pretty quick what a good ringing and a bad ringing is. If you’re constantly … here’s an example in our business. A long, long time ago I sent out a bunch of postcards that said I’m interested in buy real estate. All my phone did was ring. Ring, and ring, and ring, and I answered it, and nothing ever happened. So, you don’t want to make your phone ring for stupid reasons. If you took an ad out on Facebook and said, “Free Beer. Call this number.” I think your phone would ring.
Jill DeWit: Probably.
Jack Butala: That’s not good.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: I think this show is about what to do when your phone won’t stop ringing, and you did everything right. Everybody on the other end of the line wants to sell you their property for half of what it’s worth.
Jill DeWit: I’m going to read the message that came in. Jack got a notification from one of our YouTube shows from one of our members. I was going to read the note that came in, because it was so funny, and then I was going to add some comments to it, because it’s really just valuable. So, the message is: “I’m trying to listen to your videos while doing mailers. The phone keeps ringing with land buyers, and it’s 9:00 at night.
I’ve got many different buyers today offering good-looking terms. The back office took the calls as my kids were sick, so now I’m reviewing the offers, and I have 15 of them that look good enough for me to accept. I’ve got to send a lot more mail before the postage goes up. Thanks, guys. Luke.” It was just such a good … he just took a moment out of his evening to say, “You guys started me on this path. Thank you.” And that’s the truth.
Jack Butala: That’s true.
Jill DeWit: It was really, really good.
Jack Butala: What’s your takeaway on that?
Jill DeWit: There’s a couple of things I want to share. Number one is it’s important to be available. One of the reasons this guy kills it is because he is up at 9:00 at night with sick kids, reviewing offers. It just doesn’t stop, you know?
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: So, that’s the thing. He is successful because he takes the time to be there and run his business. You can’t … there’s some things you can outsource, and some things you can’t.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: Right now, he said the back office took the calls, but still reviewing the offers, and looking at them, and putting the money down. That’s the stuff you gotta keep close to the best, and you have to make those decisions, only someone else can. So, the other note I wanted to make about this is this guy, like you and I, we don’t know how not to go at things 100 miles an hour.
Jack Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: Sometimes, it’s not a good thing. But, the best thing that I’ve learned is to really be successful … if you’re going to do it, like Jack has said, even if you’re making a mistake, go 100 miles an hour. Go all in, you know? Make it good, man. So, don’t be wishy-washy. Make a decision and go for it. Commit. Then, one of the things I’ve noticed about this guy is when he takes a break, he doesn’t take a lot, but he does, and he takes 100% break. We all know when he travels.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: We did that, too, just over the holidays. It wasn’t a lot, we just took a few days.
Jack Butala: There’s a right way and a wrong way to take time off.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Jill is really good at that. Just unplugging everything and really taking time off.
Jill DeWit: That’s right. Thank you. I thought you were going to make a joke, like uh-oh, what did I do.
Jack Butala: About two years ago, I was laughing at you all the way through that. Like, eh, I don’t really take a break, and I’m proud of it. But, no, you were right.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: Chalk one up for Jill.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: You gotta unplug everything and just get out of it.
Jill DeWit: You do. There’s times that you come to me in the morning and go, “Gosh, did you see the email?” I’m like, “Nope, haven’t looked yet.”
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s true.
Jill DeWit: I’m still enjoying my coffee, and here, you want some fruit? You know, that’s it. What did you want to add?
Jack Butala: I just think that generally, I am not a fan of the phone ringing at all. For years and years, we ran the company, long before Jill, with no phone number. Literally, with no phone number, and did very, very well. But, at some point you have to take it to the next level.
Jill DeWit: I think two things have changed. Number one, I think if your phone had been available, I wonder how much more business you could have done.
Jack Butala: That’s true.
Jill DeWit: Number one, and then number two, I sincerely think things have changed.
Jack Butala: I do, too.
Jill DeWit: So, and now, like we talk about transparency, you and I, and social media and having your face out there, and your face on your website, we all know what Steve Jobs looks like.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I mean, think about it. We all know what Warren Buffet looks like.
Jack Butala: Sure.
Jill DeWit: We all know what these guys look like. It’s different now.
Jack Butala: Again, your way is better.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: Getting the phone to ring … there’s a window in the history of dotcom, the development, where it was not … everybody wanted to replace customer service, replace phones, traffic, replace everything. There was just an email address, you communicate that way, and it’s over. I think for a while, people got away with that, me included, but that’s just … people need to connect to other people.
Jill DeWit: You are so correct. Remember when the banks … I remember with financial institutions, they were really big into this too. I felt like where did all their people go? They had no one to answer the phones anymore. It was only email. Now, they tried it, and clearly it failed, and now it’s back. Even what I noticed too, is interesting, remember during that phase, they would charge us some things for going so far as to charge you for walking in the bank.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: They were trying so hard to get to have any human contact, so you would get an extra charge. I think that all went away. I haven’t seen that in a long time.
Jack Butala: Me, too.
Jill DeWit: They figured that out. But, back to what Jack said, too, the whole this is doing it right, running your business and getting the right people calling. Man, once you got it, and your phone keeps ringing with the right people, don’t stop. Don’t let your foot off the gas.
Jack Butala: If you have what it takes to make your phone ring, and the other people on the other end of the line are customers … either they’re buying property, or they’re selling property, and they were serious, they’re not just here to chat about it, then I’m going to seriously encourage you to take a couple of steps back and say, “All right. This is what I’ve done with myself. I have what it takes to make the phone ring with sellers of real estate that are anxious to sell their property for way less than it’s actually worth today.”
So, when you really philosophically think about that, should I be answering the phone?
Jill DeWit: Right. No-
Jack Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: You should making … that’s our joke. You are right, half joke and half serious. When I got involved, it was like, Jack, make my phone ring, and he said, “All right. Hold on to your hat.” And he did.
Jack Butala: What I should be doing is installing another phone.
Jill DeWit: And another person.
Jack Butala: And making that ring.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: And then installing another one, and making that ring. That’s what we do here.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: I mean, we’re constantly hiring transaction coordinators for that reason.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: When your phone won’t stop ringing with the right people, don’t change a thing. Just get some more people to answer it.
Jill DeWit: Yup.
Jack Butala: And get the right people, by the way, to answer it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: I learned that the hard way, too.
Jill DeWit: Well, like Luke said, too, it’s so important in our business to have someone answer the phone. We had a consulting call just this week where a guy said, “Just let it go to voice mail first, and then screen them that way.” Nope. I’m not a fan, because again, there’s such a chance of someone that’s the one time they’re going to call, and they’re not going to come back. They’re going to move on. They’re not going to leave a message. You missed that opportunity.
You know, real estate … realtors know this one. Most realtors answer … well, not everyone. No, that’s not true. I’m trying to think now. I thought realtors were good at answering their phones, but now I’m thinking of a handful that aren’t good. If you’re a good realtor, you answer your phone, I think. You need to be there. Don’t you, Jack?
Jack Butala: I think that answering your phone and providing an experience for the person that’s on the other end of the line, you’re either born with that or you’re not.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: I am not.
Jill DeWit: Jack, what kind of experience would you like to get on the other end of the line? I gotta ask. That is pretty … hmmm.
Jack Butala: Where is your mind today?
Jill DeWit: What the heck kind of sentence is that? Where did you just go? Who are you calling, and what are these charges on our credit card bill?
Jack Butala: I was watching a well-known comedian talk to another comedian on a television show about when they’re not being a comedian, when they’re walking down the street, and how everybody just expects you to be that person. One comedian said, “Are they wrong?” Are they? If you’re going to walk down a street in New York City, and you have chosen this path in your life to be incredibly famous, are you going to bitch about it and say, “You know what? Today I’m not going to perform while I walk down Fifth Avenue. I’m just going to be my regular old self.” No, no. You can’t do that.
Jill DeWit: You can’t. You signed up for it.
Jack Butala: That’s honestly, I love where you’re going with this whole customer experience. However, the truth of it is, if you did all this stuff to get you where you are, and your phone is ringing like kooks, answer it the right way. Put a show on.
Jill DeWit: It’s awesome.
Jack Butala: Whatever version of that is, provide that experience that the person wanted to call. Here’s an example.
Jill DeWit: I’ll put a show on for the caller.
Jack Butala: The caller. If Mrs. Sally Jones wants to sell her house, and she got your letter, and the price is acceptable, but she’s really concerned about cleaning the garage out, the person that works for us has been trained, by Jill, to say, “Mrs. Jones, I will make sure that somebody in our group-”
Jill DeWit: Will get you set up, whatever it is.
Jack Butala: “Whatever you’re concerned about in that garage that’s bugging you-”
Jill DeWit: Don’t worry about it.
Jack Butala: Yup. Here’s the thing. We do this all the time, and basically makes that person really comfortable. Obviously, it goes without saying, without selling them anything, or taking advantage of the whole thing. That’s all I’m saying.
Jill DeWit: I appreciate that. Thank you, Jack.
Jack Butala: Join us tomorrow, where we discuss coach seat rash.
Jill DeWit: That’s mine. I picked it. And we answer your questions. Should you have one, post it on jackjill.com, our online community is found there.
Jack Butala: When Jill sits in coach, she gets a rash.
Jill DeWit: Oh, gosh. We’ll explain.
Jack Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: Okay. So, we went a couple of different directions on that, but I think we got our point across. There’s a lot of ways you can take it.
Jack Butala: Yeah, I agree.
Jill DeWit: What was your most important point of the phone ringing?
Jack Butala: You know, we don’t ever talk about it. We don’t talk enough about Jill separating our responsibilities, and how freaking lucky we are, both of us.
Jill DeWit: That’s true.
Jack Butala: Because, the point that I was making here is that I’m so lucky I don’t actually have to, anymore, take calls at 9:00 p.m.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: To sell property.
Jill DeWit: Or at all.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Or before 9 a.m.
Jack Butala: I’ve proven myself.
Jill DeWit: Or a 1 p.m.
Jack Butala: I’ve proven myself that I can make the phone ring with the correct people, and that other stuff is just [crosstalk 00:16:15] processing within reason.
Jill DeWit: More importantly, we just want you to sit in the back office and make our phones ring. Let’s be honest.
Jack Butala: I’m telling you.
Jill DeWit: That’s the goal.
Jack Butala: If you own a company, and you’re annoying, you can get out of doing a lot of stuff.
Jill DeWit: Share the fun by subscribing on iTunes, or wherever you are listening. While you’re at it, rate us there.
Jack and Jill: We are Jack and Jill.
Jack Butala: Information.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration.
Jack Butala: To buy undervalued property.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at jack@jackjill.com.
The JackJill Family of Companies include:
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.
