Why the Truth Works (LA 826)
Why the Truth Works (LA 826)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show: Entertaining Land Investment Talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about why the truth works. But before we get into it let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It’s free. And as you’re listening to us please drop your questions into the comment section below.
Jill DeWit: Ted asks: “I’m a recently licensed agent, and I was wondering if there were other licensees here and what kind of disclosures you add to your offer letters? Thanks, Ted.”
Jill DeWit: Let me first, I would like to interject by saying-
Steven Butala: Jill’s saving me.
Jill DeWit: We are not licensed realtors, nor do I care to be a licensed realtor. And this, Ted, is one of the reasons why, I don’t have to do any extra work, I don’t have to input anything extra, and I don’t need to be a licensed realtor.
Jill DeWit: Now, having said that, do I totally agree with going through the training and learning all about that, and getting all that knowledge, and experience, and information? Heck, yeah! We both sat through and did those classes start-to-finish. All the way up to pushing the button and getting a license. Did not do that, because it’s great, slash, and you really want to know what goes on in that environment, what realtors are taught and told, and that, because you’ll come across them and then also it’s a wealth of information. The other thing is though, remember you’re an investor. Everyone coming into this-
Steven Butala: No, he’s not. He’s a real estate agent right now.
Jill DeWit: Well, that’s true-
Steven Butala: Trying to be an investor-
Jill DeWit: But I’m just saying-
Steven Butala: Instead of the other way around.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. We’re investors-
Steven Butala: The name of the show is Why the Truth Works, so here’s the truth. You made a mistake, so you’re either gonna go get commissions and get in the way of other people’s real estate deals, and in the process probably make an ass out of yourself before you really truly realize that-
Jill DeWit: They’re two different things.
Steven Butala: The people who make any real money in real estate don’t have a license and don’t want a license like us.
Jill DeWit: That’s true.
Steven Butala: We just sold a house to a woman who said, “I think the way you guys have this thing structured is maybe the greatest thing ever. You put it on the MLS, I don’t have to pay a real estate agent. In fact, I have a real estate agent whose helping me find a house, and I found out you’re not gonna pay real estate fees. God bless you.”
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm.
Steven Butala: “You just saved me $15,000.” And she told her real estate agent to take a hike.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: I wish this would happen more often.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: Disclosures are the last thing you have to worry about.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm.
Steven Butala: You as a licensed real estate agent are subject to hundreds of percentage points more of liability than any of us in this group.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Or any real estate investors, for that matter.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: You think Sam’s-
Jill DeWit: Real estate agents-
Steven Butala: Sam’s a licensed real estate agent?
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah. I’m getting confused now too. Investor. Agent. Two different things.
Steven Butala: So-
Jill DeWit: We’re investors.
Steven Butala: The name of this show is Why The Truth Works, there’s the truth.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm.
Steven Butala: A lot of people make that mistake, don’t feel bad about it. But just be prepared to undo it. Why would you be a real estate agent and buy and sell real estate for yourself or on behalf of a small group, that you all, a partnership, lets say? Why would you do that? What would be the only reason you would do it?
Jill DeWit: I have none. Do you have any?
Steven Butala: Well it used to be, well I need access to the MLS.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: But the real estate agencies, the National Association of Realtors has made it ridiculously easy to access the MLS on Realtor.com for free. So why would you be a real estate agent? I’m really asking the whole world. Why would you be a real estate agent? What’s the advantage? Because you want to get in the way of a actual seller and an actual buyer. You think you’re providing a service, ’cause that what your mom told you, probably, ’cause she was a real estate agent. …
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: This is Why the Truth Works.
Jill DeWit: This is me standing back and letting you go.
Steven Butala: No, I think that pause was intentional. Think about that for a second. Why would you ever be a real estate agent? To get commissions? To sponge off of other people’s real estate deals and get commissions. And make your broker rich. You’re a real estate agent, you’re just gonna pay half of that stuff to your broker anyway.
Steven Butala: When you start out to get your real estate license, you’re about five thousand dollars to seven thousand dollars away from earning your first commission, which is usually about three grand. Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you just send a bunch of mail out? Buy a piece of real estate? Let’s say it’s a house, if you like houses. Mark it up $25,000 and resell it. Here’s why, ’cause you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re a real estate agent and you haven’t actually sought out any real group to be involved in, like the group that we’re in, and you don’t get it. You probably don’t wanna learn Excel, you don’t like data, you just wanna sponge off of other people’s success.
Jill DeWit: That’s a slow way, you’ll never get ahead.
Steven Butala: Why does the truth work that I’m saying? I’m telling the truth right now.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Its probably hard for people. This is a show, you know? Its probably hard for people to…what an ass that guy is. God! Who does he think he is to talk like that?
Jill DeWit: It’s the show today.
Steven Butala: Here’s who I think I am.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Uh oh.
Steven Butala: I’m Steven Jack Butala. I’ve done 15 thousand, almost 16 thousand real estate deals. This year, Jill and I will clear, in excess of two million dollars buying and selling real estate, equity created without ever having to go see the properties with very few exceptions, houses and land. We have this group called Land Academy, and soon to add, House Academy to it. We have this show which is show number what- this is-
Jill DeWit: Eight hundred and something.
Steven Butala: Eight hundred and twenty-six.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: I’m extremely qualified to say these things. With very, very few exceptions I have ever met a real estate agent who’s helped. And if you get two beers into most real estate agents and you asked them questions like this, they’ll say, “Yeah, we’re all against each other in the office. We’re all trying to find a seller and a buyer in the same market and get away with something. Not really adding any real value.” I’ve met one real estate agent in my life who was fantastic. Her name’s Anita Best in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and she added more value to the transaction than I ever could’ve imagined and it wasn’t in the form of price. So, disclosures. Jill’s just letting me go. She’s like-
Jill DeWit: I am.
Steven Butala: Jill said this sentence to herself probably ten minutes ago, “Just let him embarrass himself.” She’s no real reflection of me. Even though we’re together, it’s not a reflection of how I think or the views shared-
Jill DeWit: On this show-
Steven Butala: On this show are not necessarily the views of-
Jill DeWit: Of myself.
Steven Butala: Jill DeWit.
Jill DeWit: Yup, that’s exactly what I said.
Steven Butala: Today’s topic: Why the Truth Works.
Jill DeWit: Wow!
Steven Butala: This is the meat of the show. Now I’m going to tell you what I really think!
Jill DeWit: Oh no! In case you didn’t know, Steven doesn’t know what a filter button is.
Steven Butala: Not on this show. The title-
Jill DeWit: No. I’m just kidding. Kind of.
Steven Butala: Carla, the producer of the show could not have placed that question more appropriately.
Jill DeWit: Man.
Steven Butala: I mean she just knows- thank you Carla.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I don’t think she knew it was going to go to that.
Steven Butala: Why does the truth work? What I just said- why does it work? Maybe it doesn’t.
Jill DeWit: Maybe they’re off.
Steven Butala: Maybe you clicked your iPhone off. I don’t know.
Jill DeWit: I thought about this for a few minutes before the show. Like, two. I’m just kidding. But I really did. I did think about this and I thought, I started to write some notes. I wrote three notes. One was: who doesn’t want the truth? And then I took a step back, and I went, “You know what? I know there’s people that don’t want the truth.”
Steven Butala: I can’t wait to hear this, seriously. This is good.
Jill DeWit: That was the thing. Who doesn’t want the truth? Not every wants the truth. There are some people that think they look really good in those pants but they don’t. And they don’t want the truth.
Steven Butala: Well what do they want to be told?
Jill DeWit: It’s great- sometimes they won’t even ask. They are so proud of their haircut, they’re not going to say, “What do you think of my haircut?” They’re just going to walk around with their head held high thinking-
Steven Butala: So they’re pretending.
Jill DeWit: And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. They have their own confidence, they don’t really care. They don’t care. They don’t necessarily want the truth. Don’t mess with my word.
Steven Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: I’m happy the way I am. So there are some people that really don’t want the truth I believe that.
Steven Butala: I mean there’s no way you can really truly be successful if you’re lying to yourself like that.
Jill DeWit: I don’t disagree.
Steven Butala: Let me put it this way-
Jill DeWit: I don’t disagree with that but they don’t care about that.
Steven Butala: They’re not holding themselves to a real standard.
Jill DeWit: They don’t care!
Steven Butala: Or their standard is so low-
Jill DeWit: They don’t care.
Steven Butala: In the universe of how you look in jeans there’s people who look fantastic, there’s people who look like movie stars!
Jill DeWit: Steven, that’s not what they care about.
Steven Butala: I know!
Jill DeWit: They don’t care one way or the other!
Steven Butala: They’re not gauging themselves on that scale.
Jill DeWit: They don’t care one way or the other, seriously.
Steven Butala: They why do you even think about it? I’m not trying to be difficult. I really want to get to the bottom of this.
Jill DeWit: No, because the topic is “Why the Truth Works,” right? And for some people, it doesn’t matter at all. I wanted to get that out of the way.
Steven Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: They don’t care.
Steven Butala: Alright. Okay. Point taken.
Jill DeWit: I have three points here.
Steven Butala: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.
Jill DeWit: That’s one of three.
Steven Butala: Alright, I’m sorry, go ahead. No, no, I understand now.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Then-
Steven Butala: ‘Cause I will fight some of this- not with you, but I will fight-
Jill DeWit: No, I believe-
Steven Butala: ‘Cause I’ve been on both sides of this fence.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: I will fight some of this to the top, to be hon-
Jill DeWit: So here’s my second point. My second thing I wrote down is, I went, “You know what? Our folks, our community, our friends, our members, our listeners, our viewers, get it. If you don’t, just like the question that Steven answered at the beginning of this show, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to hear how Steven really felt about it, and the truth. And that, I think is cool. And it works for all of us.
Jill DeWit: Then my final point is: it’s who we are.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: You know?
Steven Butala: That’s for sure.
Jill DeWit: Good, bad, or otherwise, we don’t know how not to tell the truth. Sometimes it’s bad.
Steven Butala: That’s true.
Jill DeWit: Again, like the beginning of the show.
Steven Butala: That’s for real.
Jill DeWit: Don’t know how not to tell the truth. Gosh, everyone knows where they stand. If you set out Why the Truth Works for me, is if you set out telling the truth, good and bad, everyone knows where they stand. Everyone knows that we’re sincere and genuine. Everyone knows that we’re not making stuff up. That’s kind of the same thing. There’s no questions. There’s no phony. There’s no fake. For us, that’s why the truth works. It’s who we are. Our people get it, and the right people are with us and they’re truthful back and it’s awesome. No one plays games.
Steven Butala: You know what? You actually answered the question. Why does the truth work? It only works for some people.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: You’re right. Jill you answered it.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: There’s a lot of stuff that I could say but I think there are people who want a sugar-coated version of reality.
Jill DeWit: Think about people in your past relationships that you know that you’re not with them, ’cause they didn’t want the truth, they didn’t like the truth.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: They’re like, “I’m out.” They don’t want to be friends with you anymore. You’re too honest. You might be calling them out. Maybe they’re happily going along in their life and their relationships and you’re calling them out going, “Why are you doing this? This isn’t what you want. This is what you told me.” But they don’t want to hear the truth and so instead of dealing with it, they cut you out.
Steven Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: That happens, a lot for us.
Steven Butala: It sounds like you have some personal experience with this.
Jill DeWit: I do! Don’t you?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I’m sure you-
Steven Butala: Of course I do.
Jill DeWit: This is where you say, “I had a whole marriage like that.”
Steven Butala: When you’re younger, you’re still trying to find out who you are and find your way and what you’re truly interested in and where you excel.
Jill DeWit: Right?
Steven Butala: What you’re good at. It’s harder then. If the person who asked this question earlier is twenty-two or something, okay I get it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: You know, he became a real estate agent. I was a licensed real estate agent for commercial real estate in Detroit in the super-early 90s, like 1991, ’92, ’cause that’s what I thought you were supposed to do. I immediately tried to look at technology solutions to stop cold calling. You’re just constantly trying to seek the truth to get to the bottom of why stuff works and how it works so that you can do it more efficiently. So, if you’re lying to yourself about how your rear end looks in a pair of jeans that you just bought, that’s-
Jill DeWit: You like my-
Steven Butala: That’s just a gateway to the myriad of problems that are going to go on.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: In fact, I would wonder why that’s important to you anyway. If you’re concerned about how you really look in a pair of jeans-
Jill DeWit: You like that?
Steven Butala: This is not your show. This is not your career. This is not- we are-
Jill DeWit: This makes me want to stand up-
Steven Butala: Our group doesn’t spend any time on that.
Jill DeWit: But we talk about the truth in a lot of other ways.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: It hurts sometimes, too. I think one of the hardest things about the truth and why people shy away from the truth, they don’t want to know the truth, ’cause they might be wrong, and it hurts.
Steven Butala: Or they can’t do it.
Jill DeWit: And they can’t take it and they can’t recover.
Steven Butala: They can’t recover because you can do it!
Jill DeWit: You can, sure.
Steven Butala: The biggest single reason that stops people in their tracks, stops people from succeeding at what we all do very successfully in this group is Excel. It’s not the concept of a mail merge, it’s not that they don’t understand. Everybody can understand this. Everybody can understand these few things. If you send a bunch of blind offers to people-
Jill DeWit: It’s amazing.
Steven Butala: Some of them are going to sign it, and some of them are going to through it away, and some of them are going to get mad, in very predictable numbers. If you can’t understand that, go watch Sesame Street. That’s as simple as it is. Now, to take that concept and actually put your name at the bottom of a piece of paper and send out 10,000 offers: I understand that! ‘Cause I didn’t get that either. Now you start down the path of acquiring the skills which we’ve made incredibly easy, mostly because of the other members in our group, not us, where you just go ask those guys, ’cause they just went through it and got over it, and they’re doing it successfully. That’s the problem. What they’re really saying is, to people who can’t do this is, “I’m not smart enough.” And that’s just not the case.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: I’m extremely confident you’re smart enough. You’re just lazy or you failed at some stuff in the past that makes you think you can’t learn it.
Jill DeWit: Right. That’s beautiful, and it’s true.
Steven Butala: I’m not trying to recruit you.
Jill DeWit: No, it’s true.
Steven Butala: If you get anything out of this, really, stare in the mirror and say, “Do I really want to live in this zip code? Is this really who I am, married to this person? Do I really, really need to go back to this job, even another day?” These are all conversations I’ve had in the mirror and it’s usually ended poorly for the person on the other end of the relationship. This is all about the truth. I’m milking this topic.
Jill DeWit: Wow!
Steven Butala: I’m admittedly milking this topic.
Jill DeWit: Have you been holding this all back?
Steven Butala: You know what the truth is?
Jill DeWit: Tell me!
Steven Butala: Since we’re talking about telling them the truth?
Jill DeWit: Yeah!
Steven Butala: This is the kind of crap that I think about all the time.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Steven Butala: This is how I walk around but you don’t want to hear that from me all the time. No one does.
Jill DeWit: To be truthful, I really don’t. That’s good. Steven, please just stop telling the truth about what’s in your head every moment.
Steven Butala: “Please stop,” she says, “Stop. When is it going to stop?” When Jill’s quiet like this, she just lets me bury myself.
Jill DeWit: And I’m out.
Steven Butala: You’ve answered the question. The truth works because it only works for some people. That’s the real answer to the question.
Jill DeWit: It’s true. The right people.
Steven Butala: And it works for me.
Jill DeWit: It works for me.
Steven Butala: Because I’ll tell you, it’s not a one-way street either.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: Jill comes to me sometimes and says stuff like this, “You keep repeating the same- and you should stop it because it’s now lost its meaning and you kind of look like an idiot.” Or-
Jill DeWit: Oh I thought you were telling me this.
Steven Butala: No, no, you come to me.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven Butala: In a very sweet, nice Jill way, and the reverse is true, so it’s not like I’m sitting around saying I know it all, or any of that. That’s not the case. I need to be told the truth too. That’s why we are in relationships so one person says, “You can’t walk out of the house. You look like an idiot. Change your clothes,” or whatever. However that manifests itself, that’s one of the reasons. You, yourself inside, don’t know the truth. You need other people in your life or in a group like we have, our membership group, to have other people say, “You might be a little bit off here.” Then your responsibility is to be open to it. We have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of members now, there’s probably been about five members who can’t handle the truth. You can’t handle the truth.
Jill DeWit: Hm.
Steven Butala: Can’t handle it, and they flip their lids. They’re such narcissists internally. They can’t handle someone saying something like this to them: “You don’t know Excel. You will never ever get past getting offers in the mail unless you learn Excel.” And they blow up. We all know people like this. Blow their tops, destroys their ego, and that’s everybody else’s fault, and the first in the line of fault is me because I’m telling the truth. “Well, you don’t make this easy enough Steve. This is hard. How would you expect me to get an offer campaign in the mail when you make it this hard?” You know what my reaction is to that? I just had it. I just crack up. Go out on YouTube, it’s free, and learn Excel. All the smiling in the world can’t make up for my crap right now Jill.
Jill DeWit: No, no. It’s okay.
Steven Butala: Well, you’ve done it again. You’ve spent another fifteen or twenty minutes listening to the Land Academy Show. Join us next time where we discuss the three moving parts of a successful business.
Jill DeWit: And we answer your questions. Post it on our online community LandInvestors.com. It’s free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: How long you been waiting for that?
Steven Butala: I’m not joking around.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: When I sit down and write a book or write a blog or write anything, it all starts like this and I have to tone it all down. I’m constantly toning things down.
Jill DeWit: That was toned down?
Steven Butala: No, that wasn’t. I let it all out there.
Jill DeWit: Oh okay. I was going to say.
Steven Butala: That was not toned down at all.
Jill DeWit: That was not toned down.
Steven Butala: The title is “Why the Truth Works.” The numbers will come back on the show like two weeks from now and I’ll look at it and I bet you the numbers will be up.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Have you ever listened to AM radio or these huge talk shows. All those guys do is talk like I just did. They’re disgusted. They’re absolutely disgusted with people’s behavior and I’m not sure they’re wrong. We just have chosen, Jill and I, actively chosen not to have a show like that where we sit and rant and say awful stuff about people.
Jill DeWit: Until today.
Steven Butala: One show out of eight hundred and twenty-six is not that bad.
Jill DeWit: Share the fun by hitting the Subscribe button on YouTube to stay up-to-date on our podcast or, if you are new to our channel, like us and comment on what you would like to see in future shows and if you’re listening on iTunes, please rate us there. We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: We are Steve and Jill. Information-
Jill DeWit: And inspiration.
Steven Butala: To buy undervalued property.
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