Deadlines R Us (JJ 649)
Deadlines R Us
Transcript:
Jack Butala: Jack and Jill here!
Jill DeWit: Hi there.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Jack Jill show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I’m Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting today from sunny southern California.
Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about deadlines R us. Everybody needs deadlines, sellers, buyers, children.
Jill DeWit: Us.
Jack Butala: Spouses.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Office brokers.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the jackjill.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Gerald asks, “I want to be able to build listings so that people can just order online, pay, and be done. Where can I get a lot more info online when it comes to parcels? I can find some stuff online, but some of it, some of these have no address or parcel number. Questions like, are there restrictions, water access, well, trees, parcel lines, etc.” One of our members, Luke S. said, “Would love for all buyers to just check out online. You gotta put that info in your listings to get people to go for it.” Thank you.
So, Luke knows. Gerald is figuring it out.
Jack Butala: And Luke knows from experience, and so do we, that-
Jill DeWit: It’s Luke S.
Jack Butala: When you buy a piece of property online with this land asset type, rural vacant land, you need to provide the experience for the buyer the same way you’re selling anything, like let’s say even a book on Amazon.
Jill DeWit: Good point.
Jack Butala: Anything. You need to be able to make it easy for them to check out. They need all the information that they could possibly want online, without seeing the property, right there readily, easily with links, and an easy credit card type processing way to check out.
Jill DeWit: Bingo.
Jack Butala: Otherwise, you’re just causing a lot of problems for yourself and for the buyer.
Jill DeWit: More work.
Jack Butala: Look, people way bigger and more successful than Jill and I, and anyone probably listening to this show, have spent a lot of time, and money, and energy analyzing how people buy stuff, and what motivates them to buy it, and point of purchase, and how they make the decision, whether it’s fast or slow, and all of it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, look at Amazon.
Jack Butala: We don’t wanna fight that.
Jill DeWit: No.
Jack Butala: We wanna play along.
Jill DeWit: If you wanna win at this, you wanna be Amazon Prime of whatever it is you’re selling. You want ’em to go, look right there, and have all kinds of … have a warm, awesome experience. They can see feedback maybe about you and your company, like in the way of testimonials and stuff. Or I’m seeing like on Amazon, the ratings, that’s what I’m lookin’ for. Good pictures, good description, every last detail in there, how much it weighs, when it’s gonna ship, how long it’s gonna take to get there. The more you provide and make it so flippin’ easy for them to click here, one click and check out, then you will win. And it may sound, for some people … I know I still have a lot of people that go, “What do you mean this works for property?” Trust me, it works for property. Just do it.
Jack Butala: Jill and I have done almost 16,000 deals, and the result … And we’ve tried a lot of things with posting, it seems like an infinite number of things to get people to just easily look at a piece of property and buy it. The result of that is on Land Pin, and we force everybody on landpin.com to post their property according to our specs, and that is the true, real, right way to do it.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Exactly. ‘Cause like Jack said, at the end of the day, you’re causing yourself a lot of trouble and work. Do you really wanna get 16 phone calls from tire kickers in this whole week, because all they want to know is something like-
Jack Butala: What is it zoned?
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: All that stuff you can-
Jill DeWit: Can I put an RV on it?
Jack Butala: Spend a half hour, or if you’re actually a gold member with Land Academy, we do it for you. But if you wanna spend a half … You need to spend a half hour, at least, on a piece of property that you’re selling, to look this stuff all up. You can’t be … This is not the time to be lazy. Just look it all up, get it out there. It’ll pay off in spades ’bout the number of questions that you get from potential buyers.
Jill DeWit: I concur.
Jack Butala: That’s unusual.
Jill DeWit: What? Jack.
Jack Butala: Today’s topic, deadlines R us. This is the meat of the show. I have to confess, this is a Jill topic, and I like it.
Jill DeWit: You know, it’s just … Well here’s where this came from. We’re early into February right now, and we had a fantastic month in January with new Land Academy members, and I wanna say it’s because of a deadline. That’s the bottom line. And it’s so funny. So, here’s the thing. We hadn’t raised our Land Academy prices in probably over a year, and we all know the true value. When you get in … And our members know. I mean, I don’t wanna toot my own horn, but let’s just say, what the value, what we provide is amazing. You can’t go get a college degree, you can’t even take a class for the cost of what it is. And what Jack and share is, for many people that they’ve told us is life changing. I mean, we really taught them how to make their own business and start their own companies, and with very little money, and you just can’t do that nowadays.
So, anyway, the point is, so many people now finally got off their rears and are doing something about their lives because of a deadline. That’s it.
Jack Butala: Oh I couldn’t even … I have so much to say, positive stuff to say about this when you’re done.
Jill DeWit: So, I look at it like … It’s funny. We really helped a lot of people by putting this deadline. So then I took it a step further. I’m like, we all need deadlines. I need deadlines. You need deadlines. Our members obviously need deadlines. Sellers need deadlines. Huh. Buyers need deadlines. I mean, let’s think about this. If we just all float around, and just get to it when we get to it, nothing’s ever gonna get done.
Jack Butala: That’s the single biggest mistake that I see people make-
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Jack Butala: … is lack of deadlines and lack of really just a schedule. How many times … Okay, so you and I know that we record all five shows for a week on Thursday morning, first thing. How many times have we gotten up and there’s some fire to put out on Thursday morning, with one of the companies? And what do we say? The fire can wait.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: Let it burn. We have to do these shows. We have a deadline.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: Which is why we haven’t missed a show. So it’s just, you have to have a deadline on everything.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: All I do is wake up in the morning, I’ve said this before, and look at my calendar, and I do what my calendar says. And it works.
Jill DeWit: That’s true. So, and you can have daily deadlines, like you were just talkin’ about daily, weekly. But I even do like big picture ones. And you know what, let’s talk about this. We’re still early into 2018. I sure hope you set some big goal deadlines. I personally have. I met with a writing coach the other day, and we already, when we hang up … Here’s a good tip too. What we do when we hang up from our calls, ’cause this is book topic stuff that I’m working on, we schedule our next meeting. That’s a great deadline. Talk about lighting a little fire, like you know I [inaudible 00:07:25] … Shoot I got ten days to get this stuff together, because we’re gonna meet again. You have to do that. Push yourself.
Jack Butala: My goal is to buy and sell a billion dollars worth of property this year, and make pretty close to 20% on it for us. Everybody else, there’s a lot more spread in that, but we have to pay everybody else. So, that’s my goal. So what I did was I took that goal, put it in a December 31st slot, and moved it-
Jill DeWit: Moved it backwards?
Jack Butala: Yep.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
Jack Butala: All the way backwards, day by day, so now I know exactly what I have to do every single day. And here’s the kicker, because it never works the way you think it’s gonna work, ever.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: What do you do then? You get other people involved. If you’re constantly over-scheduled, and you have too many deadlines, and you’re pulling your hair out, this happens to us all the time. Hire somebody, or outsource whatever task it is that you just can’t seem to get done. Chances are, the people you’re gonna outsource it to are better at it than you anyway.
Jill DeWit: When you sat down and came up with that deadline, did you really sit and think about, ahead of time, if it was realistic?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay. How much time did you spend on that?
Jack Butala: A lot.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: I mean, two weeks at least, maybe a month. Not full time, sitting there for eight hours, but it all was a spreadsheet.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Jack Butala: I shared it [inaudible 00:08:47].
Jill DeWit: No, but this is good! The reason I’m asking, I’m asking this to help other people, because you can’t just go, “Well I’m gonna be billionaire in a year too!” Okay, let’s-
Jack Butala: Well, let me be clear on that. I don’t wanna be a billionaire.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Jack Butala: But I’d like a billion dollars worth of transaction value.
Jill DeWit: Right. Okay, thank you. But you know what? So here’s my point. So, part of it is, you have to set realistic deadlines. Let’s not be crazy. You can’t sit down and go, “I’m gonna have my first book written and published in 30 days.” Even 90 days. I mean, come on.
Jack Butala: 90 days is realistic.
Jill DeWit: If you don’t have a job.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: See, so that means, what if you have a job? And what if you’re married with two kids, and you travel a lot? That might not be realistic.
Jack Butala: Then you’re hosed.
Jill DeWit: You’re so silly. [inaudible 00:09:36]
Jack Butala: We can say all this stuff on here, ’cause we’ve all been there.
Jill DeWit: I know. That’s true.
Jack Butala: One of my favorite sayings that I’ve ever heard a woman say, and I absolutely believe this, is, “You can have it all, but you just can’t have it all at the same time.”
Jill DeWit: I don’t agree.
Jack Butala: I know. You always never agree.
Jill DeWit: I don’t agree. And I’m gonna quote you. “Lower your standards.”
Jack Butala: We don’t- (laughter) Well you’ve clearly already done that.
Jill DeWit: That’s silly.
Jack Butala: We don’t have little kids anymore, Jill. That’s part of it. So it’s real hard with little kids. It’s really, really hard to have a full time job, two little kids, paying a mortgage, and commuting to a nine to five job that takes an hour each way.
Jill DeWit: So set different deadlines, and different goals. That’s okay.
Jack Butala: Something’s gotta give there. We’re really lucky.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, maybe it’s the kids.
Jack Butala: We’re lucky that the kids … We’re doin’ all this stuff and the kids are grown up. I mean, one of ’em’s half left here, but, you know what I’m saying.
Jill DeWit: Oh, we half parent, so it’s good. It’s all good. But you know what’s so funny about this? It’s I … Oh, god. This is one of the beautiful things about my life, and having you in my life, Jack, is-
Jack Butala: Oh, there we go.
Jill DeWit: You have, good, bad, or otherwise, and I’m gonna go with the good-
Jack Butala: Sounded like you’re on the fence. Anyway, go ahead.
Jill DeWit: I still am, ’cause my life was a lot less chaotic when I was just kind of floatin’ around and doin’ what I wanted every day. But I also wasn’t getting anywhere. So, Jack, to compliment you, you have successfully trained and taught me to make goals and deadlines, and stick to ’em, man. And I thought I was, but you know what? Here was my old way of doing it. I had these goals, and I’d be like, “Oh, it’s gettin’ closer. It’s gettin’ closer. It’s gettin’ closer.” And then I would throw it all together at the end. And it wasn’t necessarily the right way. Or I would snap, because I just would push things, kick my own plan, you know, whatever, down the road and waste my own time, and I’d finally snap and go, “What am I doin’?” And both were wrong.
They’re not the right thing, and all that results is more chaos, and you’re beating yourself up, or stressing, or worrying and whatever. And so you have done this with me, and what I watch you doing with especially kit number three, is I watch you sayng, “Get out your phone right now. Open up your calendar, okay, and put it on there.” And you even do, “Get out your phone right now. I want you to set a timer. Okay, thank you very much.”
Jack Butala: Yeah. It’s timers.
Jill DeWit: There’s a lot of timers in our world, even so much that you time me. We’re gonna talk for five minutes! And you do that. But that’s okay.
Jack Butala: It just sounds so weird when you say it outta context, but yeah. That’s exactly what happens.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, that’s exactly how it goes. Hey, hint. Here’s a little excerpt into my life.
Jack Butala: I think now’s a good time to bring up accountability. So, accountability is so incredibly important. And when you were telling the little story about get mad at yourself and snap at the end, that’s lack of accountability. And I’m not-
Jill DeWit: Well in my mind, I was accountable because I did it.
Jack Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: I just didn’t do it well, and I was like a mess at the end, and I had to-
Jack Butala: Doing it is not accountable. Having the desired result is where there’s an accountability.
Jill DeWit: Right. Well, I got the desired result.
Jack Butala: You know, we did a show, we recorded a show anyway, it’s gonna come out later, about that whole office space concept. And you have this thing in your head, and that has … One of the reasons I’m not a big fan of spending a lot of money on office space, it doesn’t get to accountable result at all. All it does is really just make you feel good for a few minutes. So, everything, and I don’t know if there’s some gender differences with this about accountability, and I don’t wanna get into it all, but for some reason, accountability is really high on my list. And I don’t really care how I look on the way to this accountability. Whatever I’m holding myself accountable for, that goal, I don’t care it looks, if it looks sweaty, and stupid, and silly, and there’s hepatitis involved-
Jill DeWit: Crying.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Tears.
Jack Butala: When you listen to the show, you’ll understand.
Jill DeWit: And hair falling out.
Jack Butala: That’s not really my goal. My goal is the actual goal. Hair falling out is, man you hit the nails on the head there. You hit it on the head.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: Hit the nails on the head. It’s two cliches in one.
Jill DeWit: That’s really good, I like that. Oh my gosh. Cutting off your nail to spite your hammer.
Jack Butala: Your nail.
Jill DeWit: That’s really good. I used to have … Oh my god, I love this. I haven’t thought of this in a long time. It made my think of this guy that I work with. He was from … Shucks, where was he from? I wanna say somewhere in Central America. And he was constantly mixing cliches. So my favorite one is, “We’re gonna burn that bridge when we get to it.”
Jack Butala: Yeah, me too. I heard that too.
Jill DeWit: I love that. That’s good. I kinda wanna do that. I like the way he says it better.
Jack Butala: Oh we could do a whole show on cliches. I think cliches are so funny.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Jack Butala: Usually ’cause they’re reared in some truth.
Jill DeWit: That’s true. You’re right.
Jack Butala: Well you’ve done it again, wasted another twenty minutes or so listening to the Jack and Jill Show. Join us tomorrow, where we discuss our forgotten real estate acquisitions.
Jill DeWit: And we answer your questions, should you have one. Post it on jackjill.com
Jack Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: So important.
Jack Butala: Accountability is … Scheduling, and timers, and all that stuff, that’s like half the battle.
Jill DeWit: It’s [crosstalk 00:15:33] easy.
Jack Butala: People come up to me and they say, “You know, people talk about doin’ a podcast, or they talk about buying real estate, but they don’t get it done.” How many people do you know, Jill, who started, who bought a house, then they’re renovating it, and tow years go by and they’re still renovating it?
Jill DeWit: I know, it’s not done.
Jack Butala: And it’s not ’cause their lack of talent or time. It’s just organization, and accountability, and scheduling, and deadlines.
Jill DeWit: You know, I admit it. Sometimes you have to … Sometimes it’s hard for people, myself included, to just say, “Well, it’s done.” And you just have to let it go. You know what I mean? ‘Cause we could perfect … What if I wanted the perfect taupe paint? And I could paint it 16 times, because I wanna find the right one, it’s not the right warmth, it’s not the right … At some point, you just have to go, it’s done, and then move on.
Jack Butala: Of all the issues I have, this is not one of them.
Jill DeWit: Paint? Or me? Or what?
Jack Butala: Deadlines.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Jack Butala: And just getting stuff done, calling it done, moving onto the next thing. Next topic, you know?
Jill DeWit: Right. Well, you know what’s funny? I have to say, of all the personality types that there are out there, I think that the personality type that has the most difficulty with setting specific times, and little deadlines and everything, happens to be my personality.
Jack Butala: Tell me why. This is interesting.
Jill DeWit: It is so hard for me!
Jack Butala: Why?
Jill DeWit: I don’t-
Jack Butala: I had never heard, I never knew this.
Jill DeWit: You know it! You see it all the time, ’cause you’re like, come on!
Jack Butala: But what is your personality type that’s … What’s stopping you from doing this?
Jill DeWit: I just feel like-
Jack Butala: I mean, you’re ridiculously successful, first of all.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: So it can’t be that big of a problem.
Jill DeWit: I feel like I’m getting things done, but sometimes I need to … In my mind, I rearrange them, and I do things in different orders, not necessarily by the schedule or by the book, because it flows better for me, or I found a better way, or something. I’m gonna get there in the end. I’m gonna get … I mean, it’s stupid I’m harping on it, but the most current example I have is this office thing. Like this last one went as fast as possible. I mean, the way I’ve done it would make people like, “Woo. That’s amazing. Wow.” But I didn’t have set little timelines. I just pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and pushed. Kinda did it my way. So, your way of scheduling and how you run your life was very, very difficult for me in the beginning. It’s so difficult.
Jack Butala: Is it still?
Jill DeWit: It’s still difficult, but I’ve accepted that it’s my personality type, and that’s just all it is. But that’s okay.
Jack Butala: Well then why are you playing along? Why don’t you fight it? ‘Cause you never fight it. Not fight it. Why don’t you say, “Look, this just doesn’t work for me.”
Jill DeWit: ‘Cause you know what? I do for my things. So, what I do is, when it’s other people involved, or there’s something that you need, meaning you Jack, then I do it your way, and I try to show up and be there, and do it all for you. But if it’s my side project, I tweak it. The way my personality is, I need to have all that freedom to move things around sometimes, ’cause then I’m more effective.
Jack Butala: I’m not gonna touch that. I believe that getting stuff done is effective. That’s all in accountability.
Jill DeWit: True.
Jack Butala: So, that’s effective. It may not be the greatest quality stuff, but it’s done.
Jill DeWit: Well, my point is … You know what is … Here’s my point. You put things on the calendar, and you put A, B, C, and D, right? I put A, B, C, and D, but then I look at it, and I wake … The next day, I’m looking, I’m going, oh no, no, no. I actually have to do A, D, C, B. That’s how it’s gonna work the best today. And I don’t think you see it like that.
Jack Butala: I don’t see it that way at all.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Jack Butala: I’m not inflexible. Flexibility’s a huge part of this. When you’re doing work, flexibility is correct. But here’s what I don’t do. I’m just gonna offer this suggestion. Here’s what I do not do, which I think attributes to why I’m so good at it. I do not have any emotion about it. If I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and look at my schedule, I just do it, like a dog.
Jill DeWit: Well you know what? I’m an-
Jack Butala: Like telling a dog what to do.
Jill DeWit: I appreciate Jack, and I’m gonna end on this. I’m a girl.
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Jack Butala: We are Jack and Jill. Information-
Jill DeWit: And female inspiration-
Jack Butala: … to buy your valued property. Thank god you’re a girl.
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