Now Is The Time To Make Massive Change (JD 011)
Now Is The Time To Make Massive Change (JD 011)
Transcript:
Jill DeWit: Welcome to episode 11 and happy New Year. You know, this show began for me to be able to share tips with you on how to begin flipping the easiest type of property, which is land, because we all know there’s money to be made in real estate and everyone’s doing it wrong. Well, now I realize that whether you’re getting started in real estate investment, or anything else, the getting started part is often the hardest.
Jill DeWit: I am Jill DeWit, co-founder of Land Academy and together with my partner, Steven Jack Butala, we have flipped close to … or completed close to 16,000 real estate transactions of many property types, not just land. Every Wednesday at 2:00, I am here to help you to connect the dots, to get started flipping land, or tackle something that’s not getting done. Today’s topic is now is the time to make massive change.
Jill DeWit: My partner Steven suggested today’s title as we’ve been doing quite a lot of planning and talking and thinking, as we all do coming into the new year. So as we were focusing on our businesses and even personal life, we came up with this mantra that we’re carrying with us right now going into the new year and this is how we are acting. Now is the time to make massive change. So like I said, we are personally and professionally making some big changes right now and we came up with some great plans and ways to move forward and I wanted to share this with you today, and we will talk about land too, but this is even bigger.
Jill DeWit: So think about hitting the reset button and restarting some part of your life. I came up with that little saying and I just love that. I talk even with my kids, sometimes you even need to hit that reset button sometimes. Sometimes it could happen, gosh, as a kid. It might happen when you went to a new school. As an adult, it happens with a move, it might happen with your job, it might happen in a relationship and sometimes you just might need to do it. So you make it happen and make a change, it could be about any part of your life.
Jill DeWit: So as you’re thinking about this and pondering big changes right now going into the new year, we came up with some steps, three steps, to make this easier and to help you with this decision and this process. So the first one is emotional and spiritual. It’s kind of step one and I’ll expand more.
Jill DeWit: The second one is financial, that’s for Steven, I’m the emotional, spiritual one, he’s really the financial one and that’s how we make a great team, by the way. You got to look at all of these things. The third one is really the most important, implementation.
Jill DeWit: I want to talk a little bit more about each step. So emotional and spiritual, okay, you’re thinking about making some big changes this year, moving your life into a different direction. First thing you got to do is think about the driving force. Is this for you? Are you doing something that you want to do? Not that someone else expects of you or what you think you should be doing. Are you doing this for the right reasons? Then also, are you spending enough time on this? I want you to spend enough time thinking about it, but not too much time thinking about it. It’s very easy to fall into a over-analyzing scenario and not getting anywhere, so you want to be sure you spend the right amount of time.
Jill DeWit: So let me give you an example. I talk to many, many people in this exact situation, and they might even be watching me right now. You might be watching right now. You’re thinking about being an investor, right? So you really want to sit down and think about this and starting your own investment business. Is it really the right thing for you? Do you have what it takes to run your own business and be your own boss? Do you have the drive to do this? Is your family on board? Those are a lot of the emotional and spiritual things you’ve got to think through and ask yourself and mentally prepare the people around you.
Jill DeWit: The second step is financial. So you’ve got to be realistic. Can you afford this? Whatever step you want to make, whether it’s starting a new job, starting your own business, moving to a new city, changing a relationship even. All of these, there’s some financial aspect to them, period and you need to make sure that you can afford to do this. Are you going to need to change your lifestyle to do this? That’s a big one. Do you need to save up to be able to do this? These are all important decisions and things you need to ask yourself and think about and plan.
Jill DeWit: Then that leads right into my final step, which is implementation. For so many people, that is the hardest part. So to make it easier for yourself, I want you to think about where you want to be short-term. I want you to think about one year from now, three years from now, five years from now. I want you to really sit down and think about a realistic timeframe and nothing’s crazy. If you say, “I want X amount of dollars,” or, “I want to be this kind of investor, I want to leave my day job,” none of these things are crazy. I have all of these people, myself included, in my world that have done this and we can help you but you’ve got to really think about it and plan it out.
Jill DeWit: So once you figure out where you want to be at that … let’s give yourself a five year mark, let’s be really realistic where you want to be. Now I want you to work it backwards and you really need to give yourself realistic financial goals and time goals of what you’re going to accomplish. Then you even need to break it down even more, you’ve got to really schedule yourself out. Not even monthly, but I want you to even schedule out weekly, and down to daily. What do you need to do today to get to whatever goal for this week that’s going to hit you for the goal for this month, that’s going to hit you for the goal for this year?
Jill DeWit: It sounds like a lot but it’s not. Just get out a calendar and do it and gosh, you’ve got to stick to it also. I know for some people that’s hard, and for me personally, I’ll tell you what I do, a little trick because I know me. I give myself some wiggle room. So as you’re doing this and you’ve got this lofty five year goal and you’re working your plan but you kind of know how you are, that you want to push yourself but not too much, give yourself a little bit of wiggle room because I don’t want you to fall down and feel like you’re so far behind that you can’t catch up and if you do, by the way, you can catch up. Just pick up where you left off but like I said, me, I give myself just a little bit of wiggle room so then I know I have time to breathe and pause and maybe reevaluate as I’m going forward.
Jill DeWit: So those are my steps and man, when I do this, right now there’s a few decisions that I’m personally making that I need a little more time to sleep on them. Once I do though, usually what happens is after a night or two of planning and sleeping, I will wake up one morning and it’ll feel right and I will go at it and it’s funny because people around me, are close to me, they know, they’ve seen this happen a lot. When I flip that switch man, I go at it 100%, please get out of my way, you know? But that’s what you need to do and that’s why partially back with the emotional, spiritual and getting your family and your people and your world ready, this is important and you need to go all at it.
Jill DeWit: If you decide you’re ready to make some massive changes too, that’s what you need to do and I want you to do that. This doesn’t have to be at the beginning of the year, don’t think that we have to start off on the New Year’s here and you’re not behind but it could be a month from now or weeks from now, or days from now. It’s just that it happens to be at the beginning of the year that we all kind of, I think naturally, reevaluate and make some changes but it’s never the wrong time, it’s just doing it the right way.
Jill DeWit: So I want to go ahead now and open it up for questions. That was just really important for me to share that today with what we’ve got going on so I want to go and open up to … Well I’m going to open up the questions about Land Academy or just the topic for today, about making some massive changes. All right so let me … I’m going to jump over to questions here.
Jill DeWit: That’s so sweet, we have some people here that were weighing in earlier telling me they couldn’t make the show but they were going to watch later. Let’s see here, all right, here we go. Shane is asking, “Happy Birthday world.” I like this, “One year older. What is … ” this is kind of a Land Academy-based question. “What is the average member’s hold time for selling properties to the best of your knowledge? Do days on market for sold comps play a factor in choosing where you send mail?”
Jill DeWit: Okay so let me go back to the first part, the average days on market for selling properties. Traditionally, it depends on the price range but if you stick to what most of us do, maybe I’m doing $1,000 to $20,000 properties, let’s just give you that example, you can do those in a day and you can … like really fast. Why? Because that amount is something that people can put on a credit card, they don’t have to move a lot of money around. Some people are … The right person who’s looking to invest $15,000 on your five acre property and this gorgeous area, they’ve been looking in that area. They’ve been wanting that property and yours has popped up and they’re ready.
Jill DeWit: So it can happen really fast and also remember too, what we tell everyone Shane, is when you’re completing a transaction on the purchase side, you the buyer, you should already have this ready to go so when it’s … as the deed’s coming back to you, before you have it recorded, you’re already marketing it for sale but you could theoretically … we have done this, realistically I should say, you can have the property sold before you even have the signed deed in your hand. You already have an image of it, your notary did that as they’re sending it back to you and you could already have it sold, so excellent, excellent question.
Jill DeWit: Days on market, now that one is super important for houses in House Academy and infill lots. So I’m not sure Shane, if you’ve got into Land Academy 2.0 yet, that will get answered there. Why? Because we have the statistics on rural vacant land, we don’t have the statistics that we have to look at this the same way with the days on market, if you will. For infill lots and for houses, oh heck yeah and when you get in and watch the program, you’ll see Steven where he goes and gets that data, how he pulls that data in and remember, he’s got a spreadsheet right there loaded for you. You’re going to pop that right in there and be able to red, yellow and green a zip code and with that information, will even better tell you where to send your offers. So that’s wonderful and that’s one of the things that we love about 2.0. It’s bigger transactions and bigger dollar amounts and they’re actually easier to complete because of the data. That’s one of the reasons, because of the data that you have. It’s a great question.
Jill DeWit: Let’s see here. Let’s see, think I’ve got … I’ve got a long one. I’m going to try to answer this, Jake. I’ll show this to you real quick Jake, I don’t know if this is necessarily the right arena, I’ll try to touch on this lightly to get into this here. So Jake is asking … he was scrubbing some data. So downloaded some data, some assessor data about ownership and he’s got a few names he’s not sure about and he’s asking if I would delete them or keep them. Some of them are an LLC, absolutely would keep those in, don’t scrub them out. Corporations, keep them. Inc., keep them. Church, keep it. Have a bought and sold some great properties from churches? Heck yeah. You know what? As I’m looking at this list that you just popped up here, it looks like you got mostly … might be a trust and LLCs and you threw a church in there, I would keep them all in.
Jill DeWit: What I would do to save money on the postage, because remember, getting the data’s the cheap part but when you send the mail out, even though we have it very cheap, that’s still the expensive part. So I would scrub out duplicates, if you’ve got this property group LLC and you’re in this area and you realize they have 10 properties, they don’t need 10 offers from you, they really only need one so I would scrub that out but for what you’re showing [inaudible 00:14:53] here, I would keep them in.
Jill DeWit: Let’s see here. Oh thank you Shane, I really appreciate it. Shane said, “Well said plans for the restart Jill. Thanks for your time and your motivation.” You’re welcome Shane, thank you very much.
Jill DeWit: All right, Jake, I love it … This is so great we can get this … it’s almost like we have a little dialogue going here. You know what Jake? I’m going to start doing, my team, we haven’t really talked about this a whole lot but at some point we might have this as a call-in and then you and I can really have an even better conversation and quicker conversation, you can just ask me the questions right there. So, “Yes to all with the exception of the treasurer … ” you know what? What it said there, there’s one you said there, the co-op I would leave in and I would keep in the treasurer because it’s not like you’re writing a letter to the actual treasurer. The way it’s worded here, it’s someone who’s acting as a treasurer, it looks like for an organization. So if I’m reading that correctly, that’s why I would leave that in.
Jill DeWit: Let’s see here. Oh, excuse me. I realize that was Steven answering the question about him. So yeah, Steven’s not so sure about the co-op. So trust Steven, not me. “That would be cool,” and thank you, thank you Jake, wouldn’t that be cool if we could have a call-in show? So awesome. I’d love to answer, if anybody has any questions about … How about this? If you have any questions about my topic today, or if you’re willing to share with me what you got going on for the beginning of the year, and what went into your decision, I would love to know that and share that. So please bring it.
Jill DeWit: Trying to think, a few years ago, I’ll tell you … I’m not going to tell you how old I am but I’ll tell you, when I turned 40, I hit the reset button but hard. I think it was built up, so that can happen and it can be scary and it could be exciting, for me it’s exciting. I just love it and what I found is, when I hit that reset button, I’m talking, I made career changes, I made relationship changes, I made where I live changes. I mean, I did them all inside of 30 days, it was huge and my friends were standing around going, “What just happened?” And, “Who is this girl? I just snapped and I never looked back.
Jill DeWit: One thing that helped me, that I learned, was as I was making these changes, if it was really easy and doors seemed to open for me, I went with it. For me, that was a sign that I was on the right path and I never looked back and it was true, it really was. I can honestly say, every time … I was looking to move to a new city for example and I was looking to make career changes and I remember going, “That was just too easy, how did that happen?” I remember looking where I was going to live and going, “My first choice is available? Gosh, they accepted me?” There was times that I caught myself saying this stuff, “Am I missing something here? Is this wrong?” Then I later realized, no that meant it was really right.
Jill DeWit: So as you’re doing this and you’re making some big changes, now coming into 2019 and if it’s all falling into place, don’t question it, go with it because I think that means it is the right thing. All right, let’s see here. All right.
Jill DeWit: Question from Ricky, “Any specific tax situations I should be avoiding or paying extra attention to when purchasing my first plot? Appreciate help.” Yeah, actually check the taxes, that’s a very good question. You want to … As a member Ricky, you have access to a lot of that stuff already. All of our members, you have TitlePro247 access, full access, which is like AgentPro247 but on steroids because it’s fully designed for title agents so you can do everything. So you could pull lien reports in there, you can do all kind of things. You want to check all of that. You also want to check with the county directly and don’t just check, when you’re checking the taxes on a property, even though you talk to a seller and they say, “Oh yeah, they’re current.”
Jill DeWit: I still do my own due diligence and you can … Some of the counties, you can go right on their website and check online. Some you need to pick up the phone and call and just make sure you’re checking all of them. You want to make sure and say, “Are there any outstanding for this year or any prior years?” That’s it for taxes, just so you know.
Jill DeWit: Then again too, Ricky it’s a good question. Say you’re a seller, you send in an offer and you found out your seller owes $400 in back taxes on a property, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to do it. That means you’re going to call back your seller and say, “All right, I realize now, I know I made you an offer of $1,200 but I found out there’s $400 in back taxes so how about you don’t even think about that, I’ll catch them up, I’ll make it $800 and I’m paying all the closing costs and everything as I originally promised and we’ll do the deal.” Usually they understand and that’s perfect.
Jill DeWit: All right. Shane asks, “If you’re working land buys in a more populated area, would you consider offering more per land parcel?” Yep, “Assuming more competition, faster flips,” yep, ” … and a higher percentage per offer than way out in the boonies?” Yes, you absolutely do that. So you do price … You still want to be competitive. I still want to come in … Gosh, I really want to come in a nice chunk below the competition. Gosh, say you’re in an area Shane, that things are selling for $30,000 to $40,000, okay? I don’t need to be exactly half but maybe $20,000, maybe that’s my ceiling. So I really want to still buy things for $10,000 and sell up for $20,000 because everything else over in that area starts at $30,000.
Jill DeWit: So like I said, not exactly half price because it’s all a bit of a hotter market, maybe higher dollars but you want to get in and out quickly. It’s really about the volume, so not maximizing it here because if you want to maximize profit, that means you’re sitting on it for a while and it’s harder to build up your cash as fast.
Jill DeWit: Let’s see. Oh, hi Richard. Richard says, “I just joined. I need to sell about two sections of … ” nice. If anyone doesn’t know what a section is, a section is 640 acres, one square mile. ” … two sections of rural land that I’ve inherited to generate investment capital for the Land Academy method. I’d like to know if the Land Academy training materials can help me sell the inherited properties at market price, or will the Land Academy method only be valid for selling land that’s at a big discount?” You know what, Richard? Both, it’ll help you for both because what you’re going to learn is the right way to present your property, the right photos to have, the right description to have, the description, what needs to be in there. You’re going to learn about where to post it and reach, because you need to reach those people. So the only thing you need to think about is do you want to be a wholesaler like we do, or do you want to be retail?
Jill DeWit: So if you’re going to be retail, especially something that big, you’re going to put it on the MLS and we help with that and we talk about that in our programs, about how to do. It’s really easy for a flat fee, you don’t need a realtor. Basically, it’s $300 for a flat fee, you could put this in the MLS and for land that big, that’s traditionally what we do also. So it’s really now about quickly, it might be price. So that’s the only thing that you might want to consider, do you want to hang out for a while? Because some of our people do.
Jill DeWit: We had members, one in particular, Claire, she was with us way in the beginning and she started out doing a lot of smaller properties until she built up a big, big account and she transitioned to doing much bigger transactions. They were in the $100,000 range and she decided that for her, she’d rather do four of those a year, one a quarter and she knew that they took longer, but they were much bigger profits. So that’s just for you, kind of personal preference there but we do help with both.
Jill DeWit: Hello, Autumn, I was just reading a note from you Autumn, I can’t remember … I know you’re on our radar and I know you’re getting ready to join us and I don’t remember if you were able to jump in or not, but I saw a note from you, so I’m glad you’re here, Autumn. So Autumn asks, “On average, how many days, how many letters, and how much money does it take using the land resources you have for newbies to buy and re-sell their first parcel? Let’s use 2018 data since the year is complete. Thanks.” Okay, I just had a discussion, I think Steve and I did a show about this too, on our podcast. If you don’t know, by the way if you found me here on Facebook, you can also find me every day Monday through Friday with my partner, Steven Jack Butala on iTunes and Spotify, just check out the Land Academy podcast.
Jill DeWit: We estimate you need to have set aside like $1,000 a month to afford to get access to the tools, download enough data to send out 1,500 units. So think about that because remember the tools and all that’s $250. You need to download the data, it’s another couple hundred dollars and then getting it into … Not even that, probably less than a hundred dollars since we have it so cheap, but then getting the mail out on 1,500 unit mailer is about $700 or $700, $750, so you need to budget for that. So if you think about that, that will help you get going.
Jill DeWit: So, “How many days … ” and how many days does it take to get the first parcel? I think you saw Autumn, if you do it very calmly and methodically while working a full-time job, I did two shows at the end of last year where in six weeks, you could start with nothing and be all the way sold on your first property. And that’s doing it like four hours on a Sunday afternoon, where you spend one week and all you’re doing is picking a county and you do nothing. So then the next week you get it in the mail and scrub the data and price it and then the next week, now you’re buying it, then you’re selling it and so on. So can you do that faster? Heck yeah. Theoretically, and I know people that have .. we have quite a few members that have, it’s so funny, they’ve called us and said, “Thanks a lot, I didn’t get any sleep this weekend.” You know, in a good way. “I was so excited and I binge-watched and it’s 3:00 AM and I’m pulling data and man, come Monday morning, I’m going to have that to offers to owners and they’re going out.”
Jill DeWit: So if you want to go that route, which you can, and pull a couple of all-nighters, you could get the program and in 48 hours … get the program going into the weekend and then come Monday morning, be sending your data and everything and your template to offers to owners to go out in the mail. Then the only thing that takes the time is just waiting for the mail to hit and that’s … Okay, so while you’re waiting for the mail to hit, that’s when you’re getting all your other ducks in a row and be ready to do deeds when these come back and answer the phone and get your systems set up, posting the property and learning about that. So you could do it really fast.
Jill DeWit: The best thing too, Autumn. I would say it’s talk to some of our members, if you haven’t done it yet. Spend some time in landinvestors.com, our online community, they are so happy to share. You can say, “Well all right everybody, I work part-time, what’s the best plan?” I’m sure a lot of people raise their hand and said, “Here’s what I did, 20 hours a week and how I got it done,” and they’ll share more.
Jill DeWit: Let’s see here. Oh thank you Justin, nice to see you. Happy New Year, I hope you’re warm. I saw your awesome photos out hunting with your son and that looked so fun. I’d love to hear what you guys caught. I imagine you have a freezer full of deer or something right now, that you guys are going to be living off of for a while.
Jill DeWit: Oh thank you Shane, this is really cool. Shane says, “I have been listening to your podcast from the start.” Yeah, it actually was 2015 so if you found us in ’16, you probably went back a little bit, that was good. “I LOL a lot of you and Steve on your podcast, funny stuff. For me it was feeling comfortable with the concept, timing is always tough. It was time for a restart. Not getting any younger and want to succeed, it’s time to make the time to succeed for me. That discount helped a lot too, thanks.” You’re welcome Shane. I am really glad you’re here, so that is really, really good to hear.
Jill DeWit: You know and that’s true, Steven said something the other day and I wrote it down and he’s right. He said, “The reason you’re not doing that is because you don’t want to.” When you really take a step back it’s true. How many of us are not … it’s the New Year. The reason you’re not losing weight, or the reason you’re not going to the gym is because you don’t want to. You can make the time and you just have to and sometimes you have to force yourself and I understand that.
Jill DeWit: Stacey Richardson asks … oh and she’s new, ” … and by the way, thanks so much for the great deal on joining,” she kind of added here. So Stacey said, “Not sure if this is the right forum but I joined recently I have a few questions. I don’t seem to have access to 2.0 … ” okay, it’s probably clearing a cache and cookie thing, so if you haven’t reached out to my team, they can help you with that, because I’ve seen that happen, it’s just something simple like that, and you can’t figure out how to get access to RealQuest.
Jill DeWit: Same thing, it’s probably … depending when you joined though, I will say this Stacey, in a very good way, my team was completely blown away by the response from our end of year promotion and how many people came in our group and we are so happy and so excited, it’s going to be awesome. So I know that today there was a little bit of catch-up, so there could be some of that going on too. So hang in there, the best thing is just reach out to my team, support@landacademy.com, and they will get right on that. So, thank you.
Jill DeWit: Also you know I forgot, one more thing too, sometimes there’s questions that can be answered on our website, so if you go … actually you know what? Stacey I’m going to show you something here if you haven’t seen this yet, I’m going to show you the website real quick. So here on the website, if you see this, this right down at the bottom, see this green lifesaver ring, buoy, whatever you want to call it here? That is where you can go and get a lot of answers to questions. So I’ve clicked on it [inaudible 00:32:27] I want to know about … I have a RealQuest question and it pops right in here. First thing right away is RealQuest login. “When I pull records, looks like there’s a limit, how do I fix that? How am I billed?” Even little things about the APN and the formatting. All kinds of great tips. So if you haven’t, check that out. There you go, so thank you Stacey.
Jill DeWit: Oh wow, thank you Justin, “Seven coyotes.” What are you going to do with them? That’s the next question, that’s awesome. Okay, I have a question that’s popped in here about our enrollment is closed. So for anyone watching right now wants to know … If you’re watching right now and you want to know what is up and why you cannot get in. We did close it. So it happened this morning and it’s going to be closed for approximately three weeks. Why? Because Steven and I are reevaluating the pricing structure and we are looking at the next programs that are coming up and we’re looking at bringing back our levels, if you’ve noticed from a while ago we used to have a silver, gold, platinum and they were different things that they were offered and we took that down temporarily while we figured out how we wanted to align that.
Jill DeWit: So a version of that is coming back and also we are discussing a tools only product. What if you are happily investing, been doing it forever, but gosh you would sure love a cheaper way to get RealQuest Pro because you’ve been paying a la carte for that on your own at $250 a month and boy, you could love to get your hands on TitlePro and maybe ParcelFact, I’m not sure what else we’re going to … for finding the properties what we’re going to throw in there I don’t know. Hey, maybe some member pricing on mail because that always helps. So those are all the things that we’re throwing around, so that’s what we’re working on, so we’ve got a couple of weeks to put that together, so excellent question.
Jill DeWit: Jake says, “I know I’ve been a slow starter … ” since when Jake? I think you’ve been at it here. So, “I’ve been a slow starter … ” oh good, ” … but Umar is working on my first mail out right now and it should go out today or tomorrow.” Yay. Okay and you got your website up. All right, Jake I hope you don’t mind, I’m going to pull it up right now for us all. So that is so cool. “BuyBuy [inaudible 00:35:12].” Let me hide that real quick here. Sorry, one second. If I go back, there we go. All right, now I can properly show your website. Jake, this is awesome and this is what you need to do to get started.
Jill DeWit: You want to have something when your mailers go out so people look you up, because they will, and they want to know you’re legit, you’re a real person, this is your business, this is fantastic. So here’s Jake, he’s got a nice description, what’s going on. Already working on his FAQs, this is wonderful. So when people look at this … because you don’t want to them to call you 25 times, right? To ask you these questions, you want to be able to get them answered here. So this is so good. Contact Us, boy is that important. I love that you have a real phone number and I love that you have a way that if I can’t call you or I don’t want to call you, I can just send you a message. So, all right. Jake, this is awesome, well done. I’m really, really impressed, and I’m sure you’re already doing that too. I’m sure you probably already have BuyBuy Land for your Twitter and you probably have your BuyBuy Land Facebook and put that on your LinkedIn, that is fantastic. All right and I can’t wait to hear now, this is exciting too, I love when the mail goes out.
Jill DeWit: Okay, let me warn you Jake, because it’s going to come up on a member call every time it happens. It’s easy to be impatient, we’ve all done it. Like, “Okay, when is the mail going to hit?” But hang in there, you’ll know it, when it hits it will … and the first wave, if you did everything right, your first wave is going to be a lot of people that are not happy with your offers, it’s just traditionally how it goes, but that’s okay. You just wish them well and say either, “Thank you for letting me know, I’ll take you off the list. I’m so sorry I’ll take you off the list.” Dream it up, for me now it’s funny, we laugh about it.
Jill DeWit: Then right after that, the next wave you’re going to start getting calls back and then it starts and then it doesn’t stop because they’ll put it on their desk and they might pull it out a month from now or something will happen and they’ll go, “Oh yeah, I know how to get some quick money.” So congratulations. All right, Autumn says, “Since you’ve been sending letters to sellers for so long, have you found that perfect frequency of how often you send letters to the same list over and over again?” Nice to see you again, thank you Autumn.
Jill DeWit: You know, we traditionally don’t hit the same list. We just move on to either a different property size in that county, or a different county. So I believe some of our members have tested this and done this a little bit and I know, I think for people with especially the houses, that’s kind of how they warm them up kind of thing, but with us there’s just so much out there I haven’t needed to and I just want to get a bunch out there, so that’s really how we have traditionally done it. So, good question.
Jill DeWit: Thank you Stacey, all right. I think we are out of questions so thank you so much. Oops, I have maybe one more popping in here. Thank you Stacey for asking. Stacey Richardson’s asking, “Any tentative schedule for the 2019 live events?” We were just literally Stacey talking about that last night, Steven and I, so I’m still looking at first quarter, Scottsdale. Exactly how it’s going to be presented and if it’s a one day or two day, it won’t be more than two days. We did three last time and we realized that was harder for people and think some people couldn’t squeeze it in so we’re going to actually make it two days and we’re looking at Scottsdale some time in the first quarter and I hope to make an announcement on that in the next two weeks. So I’d like to have an announcement about it, even as early as next week. So I’m going to meet with Steven on … We have a lot more meetings coming up the end of this week and I might get some out here real quick.
Jill DeWit: Oh okay, we got one more, Jake’s asking me, I’m going to sneak one more in here, he’s got a long one. So I’m just going to read it Jake, and go for it here. It said, “In the greeting … ” oh and you’re welcome for the website review, it looks awesome. “In the greeting in the letter, you use first name. I am my wife’s campaign manager and use the outbound calling technology to place calls. I have done this for two of her re-elections.” Oh okay. “I have made over 33,000 calls and left 8,000 voicemails.” So basically, Jake’s telling us a lot of experience with voter databases.
Jill DeWit: “When I first started, I would have used the first name on the dataset, that pops up when they answer the phone, ‘Hello, is this Jack?’ If a spouse answered, I would say, ‘Hey is Jack available?’ What I found was many times the name I used was the proper name. So if Jill answered the phone a couple times, things might happen. A, I didn’t respond because maybe it was the Steven Jack thing,” got it, ” … meaning I was warning her husband that there’s a telemarketer on the phone or B … ” and it typically starts you out on a hold, okay so you’ve got to build credibility, I understand. “Or B, they would say, ‘I’m sorry I don’t know that person,’ but they do because you just got the name wrong.” We’ve all done that too, I totally understand.
Jill DeWit: “So what do we do? So what do you want?” Oh, that’s another response that they have, “Calling me because it’s not the right name, ‘What’s going on?’ So I start addressing each person as, ‘Hello, is Mr. Butala there?’ And there was almost no pushback.”
Jill DeWit: So he’s wondering, “Why don’t we do the same in the letter and address the person by their last name and not take the chance of using tips?” You know, I’ve already got them to open the letter. I understand and I hear where you’re going with that. On the letter, I didn’t address the letter to John on the outside of the envelope. It already was Mr. So and So, Mr. John Smith. Then when they open it up and it says, “Dear John.” So we’re already over that hump, so I don’t think you need to be that formal. All these years we never have and it hasn’t changed anything and I personally think, and maybe because you’re doing it in a different way, a telemarketer, or just even cold calls are very different than what we’re doing.
Jill DeWit: So I think that’s it too, I don’t really see us as the same. When I get calls back, by the way, on our offer letter they have a way to email me and call me, or just sign it and send it back and never do they call me and say, “Hi Jill DeWit,” or, “Hi do I speak to Ms. DeWit?” Or something like that. They don’t do that. They say, “Is this Jill?” And I’m like, “This is Jill.” and I might even answer the phone that way too sometimes. I’ll answer the phone and just say, “This is Jill.” And it just calms everybody down right there. They know who they have.
Jill DeWit: So like I said, I wouldn’t change the letter because it works great, but on your end, when you answer the phone, if you want to … That’s how I am and I’m trying to befriend the sellers. I don’t want them to think of me as a corporation, I want them to think of me as a real person, as an investor, and I’m just making them a nice offer on their property and they see me as that and then they sell it. Honestly, and I think too that by this casual-ness, not formal way that we do things, they’re seeking me out on purpose, versus ABC Investments LLC and you don’t even get to talk … you’re passed around from six guys.
Jill DeWit: A lot of sellers don’t like that, especially some of the elderly ones, it’s like calling the bank. It’s terrible, they’ll walk into the bank to talk to people, let alone call the bank and deal with all the push stuff. But I hear you and it’s a good question and thank you, I’m glad you brought that up. This is great, we have a few more in here, I’m going to do another one here.
Jill DeWit: Thank you Tyler. Tyler said, “Hey Jill, sorry for the late question, enjoy your show.” And mine and Steven’s podcast and Land Academy, thank you. “Watched all the training videos over my Christmas vacation, how does the credit card processing work for potential buyers? I’ve heard credit card processors won’t allow you to utilize your services until you prove you’ve been in business and process a decent amount of payments. Is this true? I know your team offers a credit card related product but have not yet had a chance to look into it. Might be jumping the gun here.” You are not jumping the gun Tyler, and that’s the next thing for Jake, as he’s doing this by the way. Jake already has his website set up. He’s got a place to sell his property now, sell your property, doesn’t have any property for sale yet on here posted, but when he does, he’s going to want to have a way to check out and pay right away.
Jill DeWit: So, our credit card processor, we spent a year developing this product and basically the relationship with this company, it’s called Heartland, anybody can use it. Go to landinvestors.com and you’ll see it on there, the Heartland credit card processing. It might say JillPay on there, you can search for that, it’ll pop up and it’s right on the front page.
Jill DeWit: Actually, I’ll show you, while we’re here, I will show you real quick but about that, one of the reasons that we have them is because they understand us and our product. Because you’re right, if you went to let’s just say, I don’t know, Stripe, tomorrow and said, “Hi, I’m brand new, I just started this business, I want to do this.” Most likely they’d say, “Call me in a year, I need more than just that to hook you up.” You do need to have a relationship with them.
Jill DeWit: From a lot of credit card companies, I think Stripe’s one of them too, they don’t necessarily understand our property type and a lot of them, especially PayPal and … there’s so many that will not process credit card payments and again, that’s part of what took us a year to get this relationship with this company that we can now do it, and you don’t have to be a member, it’s for everybody by the way.
Jill DeWit: So go check it out on our page, I’ll show you right here, on the right hand side. Here it is, JillPay credit card, so you have to scroll a little bit down, JillPay is here and there’s a form, just click this form and there you go. Credit card processing, fill it out. Tells you all the information that they need to get you started and again, see credit card statements, if available, they’ll work with you because that’s the point of being here and that’s why we developed this relationship with this company.
Jill DeWit: That’s one of the things about being a Land Academy member. We’re getting you access … Gosh, I can’t tell you how many times Steven and I have said, “Boy, I wish I had us. I wish I had us five years ago.” I would have had ParcelFact, finding things would have been so much easier. I would have known all the places to post a property and had an easier way to do it. I would have this credit card processor, boy, that would have saved me time. Oh, I would have had TitlePro, that would have saved me a whole lot of time too, when I’m doing my due diligence and looking back on the chain of title on these deeds. So this is one more thing of why you’re here, that we have negotiated these relationships, or created the products ourselves, so you can jump in and have access to everything the pros use and not have to wait five years until you have the track record and the money and are that established that you can do it. So great question, I’m glad you asked that, so thank you Tyler.
Jill DeWit: Well thank you for joining me today. Please feel free to leave any other comments or topic ideas, or suggestions for me here. If you’re watching on Facebook, or if you’re seeing this on YouTube, put it right in the comments, I promise to read them and YouTube viewers, we are working on getting that up and running quickly this year. That is really high on my list that I can do a YouTube live show for you at the same time, that is coming. Also, if you haven’t got our free ebook and you’re just now learning who we are, please go get our free ebook. I am Jill DeWit from Land Academy, I’m here to help you get started, that’s the hardest part.
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