Establishing Trust (LA 828)
Establishing Trust (LA 828)
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 gorgeous southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about establishing trust.
Jill DeWit: I trust you.
Steven Butala: I trust you too. Why is that?
Jill DeWit: Why is that? I can tell you why.
Steven Butala: So can I.
Jill DeWit: In the meat of the show.
Steven Butala: Perfect. Before we get to the meet let’s take a question posted by one of our members. On landinvestors.com online community. It’s free and as you’re listening to us please drop your questions into the comments section below.
Jill DeWit: Joe asks, “The APN mapped on the GIS doesn’t match the property location. The GIS is at least a mile away from where the property says, from where everyone says the property’s located. The legal description is vague, ‘Shadow Valley’. The deed is from 1932 and states, ‘The property was devised to first party under the last will and testament of J.H. Housewright to which reference is hereby made containing 48 acres more or less.’ Now there is. Title agent says legal description and deed are too vague and will not issue title insurance without a survey which is involved $4500.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: It appears that everybody in town knows where the [inaudible 00:01:28] and property is except GIS.” That’s hilarious.
Steven Butala: This is a real world.
Jill DeWit: This is true.
Steven Butala: This happens, this is reality.
Jill DeWit: Totally happens. “My concern is that I spent $4500 on the survey and the property isn’t what I’ve seen or some other issue rises. I feel confident I can double my money even with the purchase of a survey. Acquisition price is $14562. I would list it for about $44900.”
Steven Butala: Which means that’s not retail ’cause we know Joe.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And Joe doesn’t make mistakes.
Jill DeWit: “How would you approach this? Sorry for the novel. Any insight would be appreciated thanks.”
Steven Butala: That economic situation acquisition price of 14 wholesale price of 4500 which means it’s probably worth 80. And it’s 48 acres. I think I would get a survey.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: And that seems really expensive for a survey so there must be some type of, it’s not flat issue. What I would do in the real world is I would find somebody to do on upwork. I would find somebody to do based on the legal description not the GIS and not the county. GIS is county driven. Take the legal description and map it out. Which is called, I would call it a desk survey. A non-field survey where that person who’s very qualified on upwork probably for a few 100 bucks can with confidence say, “This is about the perimeter of the property.” Please don’t go out there and build on that based on what I’m saying, ’cause you need a site survey for that, but I would spend 8 or $900 just to find that. See what it matches up to.
Steven Butala: More important does what the desk survey that you hired out match with what the people in town think the property is? That would give me a huge amount of confidence. Then I would actually probably order the real survey. This is, you know how Jill and I always say, “Forget it, move on.” This is not a forget it and move on situation. This is real money. When we say forget it move on it’s like, we’re gonna buy property for 1500 and sell it for 6.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Chances are you’re in so deep now that it’s not worth $44000 at all. It’s worth 400000 ’cause, and that’s happened to Jill and I. Not that infrequently. This is keeping everybody from buying this property. Whoever has gotten this far.
Jill DeWit: It’s true. That’s very true.
Steven Butala: This is cool. It’s cool stories.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Steven Butala: Man this, in my opinion parleys right into what we’re talking about. Somebody in our group, Joe, who we know now based on the last live event is asking an incredibly intelligent question. Masters degree level stuff, we just spent a weekend with him and 29, 20, whatever, 32 other people talking about things like this. Now I trust him. Let’s parley that into the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Steven Butala: Today’s topic establishing trust. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: As Steven said we just spent an awesome weekend, last weekend, with many many many of our very successful members. Had a great time and we were told this again and part of the reason that they’re with us is the trust. And so I’m glad that we’re covering this topic because establishing trust in your world, in your business, with your peers, with your customers is huge. Huge. If you don’t have trust, obviously, it could sink your business. It will sink your business. So how do you establish trust? I wrote down three, well really two things. One is we retold it recently it takes years to establish trust and it’s years of doing the right thing. That’s really what I think it is. And we are always considering outcomes to make sure that we’re doing the right thing. It’s very true that we tell, we hadn’t talked about it much recently, but it came up. We don’t talk about it a lot, but it came up recently where I’m reminded by Steven’s quote and I love it. “Even if it costs money, you got to do the right thing.”
Steven Butala: Do the right thing.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ‘Cause it will pay off. We, who we are on social media and in person and on this show they all match up by the way. This is really us. If you stopped us-
Steven Butala: This is really us.
Jill DeWit: So that’s [inaudible 00:06:23] shows. if you stopped us on the [inaudible 00:06:24] the way that we talk to you and the way we talk right now are exactly the same. Could you imagine? We’re not phony. Don’t be phony. Don’t be one person in business and then be another person in real life. You know? Be that same person all the time. That’s another way that you establish trust. What do you think?
Steven Butala: I think that there’s a lot of people listening to this and they’re saying some version of this to themselves. “Oh well that’s great Joe.” You guys have done 15000 deals, or whatever, almost 16000, there’s pretty much not a question that you can’t answer you have credibility. You have insta-credibility.
Jill DeWit: It’s easy for you to say.
Steven Butala: So, and all that’s true. So best way to establish trust is to be within reason loud about what you’ve accomplished, but not in a pompous way. Like yeah, let me help you too. We just did it. So the big question is that’s fantastic Jill I just started. How do I do it? How do I establish trust?
Jill DeWit: I’ll tell you.
Steven Butala: Yeah okay go ahead.
Jill DeWit: Do you want to know the answer?
Steven Butala: Absolutely.
Jill DeWit: Okay. The answer is if you don’t know you say you don’t know. You don’t guess and shoot from the hip. If you’re just brand new and you’re trying to establish trust say with your, you’re selling a property and someone asks you a question you really don’t know. “Can I park an RV there?” “I’m not sure.” You know what it’s okay to say, “I don’t know,” and give them the tools or what you do know to go find the answer or if you want to I’m just saying you’re brand new, maybe you want to learn for yourself it’s okay to say, “You know what Mr. Smith I’ll find out. I’ll call you back.” And go call the county and find out if you can park an RV there and for how long.
Steven Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: And what the rules are. That’s how, now when you call that guy back you have that guys trust.
Steven Butala: Here’s another way.
Jill DeWit: You didn’t say, “Oh sure yeah, oh gosh leave it there for three years.” And the guy buys a property and finds out not only can you not park an RV there for three years you can’t park there for more than one week.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Or it’s not even allowed at all. That’s how you don’t establish trust.
Steven Butala: Another way you can establish trust is surround yourself with the right people. In a lot of cases, especially with the way the internet is that doesn’t cost anything. Heres a few examples. Guy graduates from college or a woman graduates from college as an air space engineer and with a resume in their hand and a suit on. Great congratulations. You’re just another schmo, oh wait, but NASA just hires you so you go from a schmo with a resume in their hand to an associate at NASA. Instant credibility-
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:08:51]
Steven Butala: And instant trust there. It happens and I’m not picking on aerospace. You know? I was a schmo with a resume in my hand until KPMG hired me and then I was a whole different thing. You know just ’cause of that hat that the guy the golfer wears. So-
Jill DeWit: It’s good.
Steven Butala: Surround yourself or get yourself in with a group that really carries some momentum with it already. Jump on the right train. You know Land Academy, our group’s like that. You know we’re out there with land investors, if you go onto Land Watch or any of that it cracks me up every time we look at real estate. To get comparison values it’s like, “Oh that guy’s a member,” all the property that’s listed, “Oh that’s a member, that’s a member, that’s a member, that’s a member.” After a while if 80% of the property that you’re trying to price through regular for sale property it’s all Land Academy members that’s some serious credibility that this thing works.
Jill DeWit: It’s true. I was going to bring that up. Since you brought that up I was going to remind the listeners who are our members that we have a little logo that if you ever want to put it back on there just reach out to my team at supportlandacademy.com and they’ll send it to you that says, you know, certified Land Academy member and that kind of makes a difference. Just what you’re saying is totally true. I’ve had land buying customers track us down to ask about our members-
Steven Butala: Yeah. Use us.
Jill DeWit: To make sure that this is legit.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Do we know ’em? ‘Cause they see us as credible just like you’re saying. They see us as credible so if I say, “Oh my goodness yes I know that guy. I know Joe.”
Steven Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: You know in Atlanta. Absolutely they’re going to go, “Okay now I trust him.”
Steven Butala: Sales is out this whole dress up and be at the salesy showman so not even that long ago maybe 20 years ago it was very appropriate for, the generation before Jill and I they put a suit on in the morning and present themselves to the world.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And they shine their shoes and drive a nice car and that culture and that back in that time, that was how you lent yourself credibility. You know you weren’t … There were people like that and then there were people that didn’t put suits on and went to jobs that didn’t require that and so that was all before the internet. Maybe it was two generations ago.
Jill DeWit: Dress for success. Remember hearing that.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: And all that. That’s a bunch of malarkey now.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: Everybody wears jeans to work. If you don’t you should and it’s just about what comes out of your mouth and how you present yourself. Is this reality based or not? People do that now. I even see older people, I’m not picking on older people, just generation before I’m old. Generation before me-
Jill DeWit: You’re not old.
Steven Butala: They still approach things like that. Like they think they need to sell you. They’ll sit there and say, “Have you had a chance to really really understand, well do you have,” and they have a line for every thing you say and I’m like, “Just get out of my way. Nothing will crush trust faster than a salesmanship crap. So-
Jill DeWit: That’s true. I don’t like that.
Steven Butala: Nobody does.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. That’s a way to not establish trust. Walk up and start selling somebody on something. Don’t do that.
Steven Butala: A great way to establish trust and I learned this from my sister is just word of mouth. Pure word of mouth. We have, probably half the members we have are because they talked to other members.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: Other members are like, “Oh yeah those guys are for real.”
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: “They’re for real we buy and sell a lot of property,” or, “Oh yeah they’re for real we haven’t gotten to it yet, but that stuffs real.”
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: We have some pretty high powered people in our membership group. People that are buying large commercial properties for a living that have been doing it for years and years, but they just never understood how to send out mail. Like a right way to do it. So they’re in our group for that reason. That’s some pretty serious credibility.
Jill DeWit: You’re right.
Steven Butala: They lend credibility to us ’cause they’re part of our group.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala: We don’t talk about that stuff enough which is probably why people trust us.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. That’s good.
Steven Butala: There’s two other groups, two other companies out there that directly have membership type groups to buy and sell land. One is Mark [Podolsky 00:13:01] and one is Jack Walsh. Now I would encourage you to review along the lines of establishing trust. Look at both of their internet presence and how they present themselves and you decide.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: The pause was intentional.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: Join us next time where we discuss, you know what’s interesting … Oh I was gonna blame some stuff on the producer, but it’s really my fault. Well you’ve done it again. You spend another 15 minutes or so listening to the Land Academy show. Join us next time where we discuss, there’s no real place for emotion in real estate investment.
Jill DeWit: And we answer your questions posted on our online community landinvestors.com. It’s free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. All right did I do it again?
Jill DeWit: Do what again?
Steven Butala: Jill thinks I pronounce discuss like disgust.
Jill DeWit: Yeah I didn’t pick up on it that time. You were okay. There’s a few times, there’s a few times that I think you really are saying disgust.
Steven Butala: By the end of the show?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, yeah. “Where we disgust.” Yeah. That’s awesome. Share the fun by hitting the subscribe button on YouTube to stay up to date on our podcast or if you’re 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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