What to Expect on Your First Mailer (LA 1049)
What to Expect on Your First Mailer (LA 1049)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steven and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hi!
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I’m Jill DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about what to expect on your first mailer. And usually I come up with these topics by myself in a dark room somewhere and Jill just plops down and does it with me. But today, and actually this week on all five of these episodes, we’ve got our camera guy, Daniel filming a behind the scenes, you know, video/I don’t know what it’ll end up being. We never know when it’s going to end up being.
Jill DeWit: It’ll be good.
Steven Butala: So you should check it out. The episodes may make little bit more sense when you see the back, behind the scenes part of it. Before we get into the topic today, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Sean asks, “My first mailer went out on July 15th and I have started receiving my first calls today. So 10 days later.”.
Steven Butala: Perfect.
Jill DeWit: “I have a Vember number that I’m forwarding to PATLive. So all my calls get automatically recorded in Vember. Based in the seller responses so far, it’s safe to say I didn’t overprice.” Good for him. [crosstalk 00:01:15] That means good response. “Oh, I didn’t over price. Does that mean it’s a lot of not happy people?”
Steven Butala: Well this whole today’s topic, well let’s just say it. Today’s topic is what to expect from your first mailer. This is kind of what triggered it all. So congratulations on getting your first mailer out.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: That’s the hardest part.
Jill DeWit: That’s good.
Steven Butala: Getting the first mailer in the mail and then beginning to deal with it and develop your business from there is what this is all about.
Jill DeWit: And I think it’s cool that he’s recording all the calls so you can go back and listen to them later and get better with what he’s doing over time. Maybe you get better at the questions that he’s asking based on the seller responses.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I think that’s all. Or even just to laugh at later because I’m sure you have some good ones that are coming in.
Steven Butala: Yeah. We do the same thing. We record everything. We use a system called … What’s it called?
Jill DeWit: It’s … Well, streams and I can’t think where it comes through, but Pentara.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Okay. This is the meat of the show. So it’s 19 … No. For you, it’s like 2008-ish.
Jill DeWit: For me?
Steven Butala: Yeah. So I’m going to ask you a question.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay.
Steven Butala: It’s 2008. the first mailer goes out that you and I have done together.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And so what’s going through your head?
Jill DeWit: Bring it. I’m not scared at all. I’m like, “I want to see this in action.” I was never afraid of it. I’m like, “Bring it. Make my phone ring” and I’ve always been like that. “Make my phone ring.” Seriously because whatever it is, I’ll do my best to turn it into something. That’s always how it’s been. And if … And it’s funny because I really do set out, make it my goal. If they’re mad and hate our offer, I want to find out, “Okay. What is it about you hate? Is it the price? Is you don’t want to sell anyway?” Whatever it is. If you never wanted sell, I always wonder like why are you even bothering calling me? But if you are calling me, I think that there’s some reason there and you’re just not happy with the price. So let’s figure it out together.
Steven Butala: So what, then I’ll ask you the question.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: What’s the title of the show?
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: What can people or what did you or do you expect from a mailer?
Jill DeWit: Activity. Period. Good, bad, or otherwise I expect activity. All activity is good. I don’t care if I, you know, in a perfect world I would rather weigh accidentally under price, you know, have offers go out and you’re so good. It doesn’t really happen, but I’m just saying for like the new person. Under priced, you can work a little more than overpriced. Everybody calls you back and you’re like, “Great. I might as well just said … I might as well have just sent on a campaign that said ‘Fill in the blank’ and send it back to me because I’ll buy it” kind of thing because you don’t want that, but, and then under price you can really kind of work with them like, “All right. Let me look at this again and see.” And it’s not negotiating that’s different. It’s, there’s times that you’re like, “You know what, I miss that. Okay, I get it.” And you still know in the back of your head what you could do with it kind of thing.
Steven Butala: So my piece is this, obviously, is to actually get the mailer in the mail to price it, analyze the data. And speaking of underpricing, I just released a house mailer for House Academy for ourselves and I’m staring at it. You know, there’s that moment before you send it off for sellers where if you’ve ever done your, bunch of mailers, you know this and you’re just like, “Am I’m ready to send it or not?” And I was like staring at it, flipping and toggling between, “Do I want $50,000 in margin in each one of these deals or 30? 35,000? 40? 45,000? 50? 30? 50? 30?” So I torture myself and this person [crosstalk 00:04:49] I just do.
Jill DeWit: It’s okay.
Steven Butala: There’s a lot of good that goes into it in my dark little room.
Jill DeWit: We talk a lot about a dark little room.
Steven Butala: What I ultimately, and this is it, so it’s not that dark actually.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I was going to say. Yeah.
Steven Butala: What did I choose? 50 and here’s why. The first three positive responses came back in the last two or three days. In fact, that’s this week’s episode of House Academy of us talking about these deals. And I chose 50,000 margin, which is a cheaper offer. I went in hotter and cheaper than I, and my gut told me too. And every single one of those three deals, that price didn’t matter.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: They, all, the sellers all said, “You know what, thank you. I do want to sell my house for this price.”.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: And yes, we’re … there, you know, and there’s some caveats and we’ll talk about it in the House Academy show, but so what do I expect from a mailer? All the stuff that Jill just listed about expecting from a mailer, I don’t expect at all. I look at it like I better buy X amount of properties for the number of mailers that I’m sending out. I look for success and response and the analytics when it’s over. So these three houses on this mailer, if we do end up doing all three of them and we probably will, these are the just the very beginning of the mail. There’s mailer, there’s many more that are going to come in. We’ll make, oh, well over $100,000. So-
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:06:08] What about the land one? Want to talk about the land ones that I got going on right now?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Because that’s coming back right now too.
Steven Butala: Yeah, I mean we just did a huge land mailer in New Mexico for large acreage property and every day, we’re getting a property in and I priced that at $127 an acre.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: So we’re getting 40s in for, you know, under $5,000 which will sell for 20 to 25.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: So yeah, you’re right. I should, it’s land man.
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:06:36] Thank you for saying so. I don’t have to. See that right there? The shirt may say House Academy. The mug in front of you says Land Academy. You know what I want to do? I’m going to do that from now on. I’m going to put a little sign here that says what shows we are doing at the moment. That’s what I’ll do. This is, and then you know what, when it’s not, I’ll turn it around. So that’s how you know. [crosstalk 00:06:59] You know what that reminds me of?
Steven Butala: Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: I’m so serious. I have this friend of mine, this is totally off topic, that the way the husband would let the wife know that he wanted some action that night is he would light a candle and so she would come in the bedroom and find it. There’s like this one candle, this big candle, like on their dresser that would be lit and she would tell them about the number of times that she’d come home and the candle would be lit and she didn’t feel like it so she’d blow it out.
Steven Butala: So that’s their communication?
Jill DeWit: Exactly! The candle’s. It either stays lit or she blows it out and then he knows what’s going to happen.
Steven Butala: Wow.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: What did he think about that?
Jill DeWit: Well, they’re not together anymore. It’s totally true. I feel really bad because I think in the bitter end, the candle got blown out a lot and I think that was the writing on the wall.
Steven Butala: Yeah. I don’t think, I guess you could try it. I don’t think that kind of form of communication is not what I would prefer.
Jill DeWit: No. I don’t think so either.
Steven Butala: I think I know you’re talking about, and I think I remember this guy and he’s a very timid type guy.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, poor guy.
Steven Butala: Instead of just kind of making it happen.
Jill DeWit: Like throw her over your shoulder?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, yeah. I’m not going to take a blown out candle for an answer.
Steven Butala: You know, you’re saying all the things that I’m thinking.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: There’s like a millions of years of biology that brought us to this moment. All of us as humans, candles are not in my-
Jill DeWit: No.
Steven Butala: That’s not …
Jill DeWit: That was really good, yeah. You’re right.
Steven Butala: I don’t think that’s what women want anyway. They don’t want some subtle little thing, do they?
Jill DeWit: No.
Steven Butala: What do they want?
Jill DeWit: Throw me over your shoulder.
Steven Butala: That’s what I thought.
Jill DeWit: The hotel room’s booked. Your bag is packed. Get in the car.
Steven Butala: Yes.
Jill DeWit: That’s what I want.
Steven Butala: That’s what I … I know that’s what you want.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: [inaudible 00:08:46] confuses me about this little story, but that’s fine. What does that have to do with the mailer?
Jill DeWit: It has to do with the turning around, the turning around the mug so you know what you’re doing. Lighting the candle, not lighting the candle. It might be too subtle for you. I might have to have a, “Hey it’s about land man.”.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: As you’ve put it.
Steven Butala: We have a show coming up later this week called No One Understands Land and Everyone Understands Houses, so we’re going to talk about, I started to lead into that because if you are a member of Land Academy or thinking about it, you are in the huge minority. You know, once you learn how to buy and sell land effectively, you can move on to any other product type.
Jill DeWit: Definitely.
Steven Butala: Rural vacant land,, in my opinion is probably the highest profit margin, little niche you can get into as a beginner and then your whole careers laid out in front of you. You can start to niche yourself out. Buy houses, not buy houses, buy infill lots, buy large ranches. There’s a million different ways, but once you get a bunch of 10, let’s say 10 real vacant land deals under your belt, you’re home free and you like it and you liked actually to turn in deals. Why do I bring this up? Because it’s, this is what to expect at your first mailer. You got to get the thing in the mail. Congratulations, you’re way over the bell curve. Number two, get that first deal done. Congratulations again, you’re moving yourself further down that bell curve. And then third, you’ve, after 10 deals, you’re going to end up like Joe Martin, making 1 million bucks a year.
Jill DeWit: It really is true. I haven’t talked about that in a while. That was my thing. I came up with a long time ago as get 10 and then you get 10 bought and sold all the way done, recorded everything and then you have a real good feel for what this is all about. And if you like it and you know how you want to tweak it going forward.
Steven Butala: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: And most people, if you get through 10, by the way, you’re on your way. You probably won’t look back.
Steven Butala: If you get through 10 and you’re making between four and eight I don’t know, four to $8,000 a unit. That might be real heavy for a brand new person. If you already own your own businesses or if you already are in the real estate business, your margins are probably going to be a little bit higher.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: But you do 10 deals, you make 5,000 bucks each. She made $50,000.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: You can do that pretty fast, easily within your first six months.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Crazy person who had probably push it in the first, actually do it in one month.
Jill DeWit: Get it done. Get it done.
Steven Butala: Just get it out of the way.
Jill DeWit: Because it’s true. Once you do 10, you can do a hundred and if you can do, go a hundred you could do a thousand. We haven’t said that in a while too and I really mean it and I got people doing it. We were talking with our new transaction coordinator right now about how many deals we have done and can do in a month and a week and a day and he went, “What?” And I’m like, “Yeah, hold onto your hat because it’s true.”
Steven Butala: You know what else? During that same conversation I, what I said is this, and it’s completely true. We have complete control over what we buy. It’s limitless to what we buy.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: If there is any bottleneck in this, it’s sales. And we’ve got members who have worked that out, that pulls banks of sales people moving property all over the internet until it’s sold like a whip. They don’t over with the whip kind of thing. [crosstalk 00:11:55] I know. I know we do. At the height of it, we were selling 30 properties a day back before the downturn and now we’re approaching, we’re [crosstalk 00:12:06] approaching. We’re not … It’s not that far off yet.
Jill DeWit: Well, now it’s because you have so many … It’s fun. I like it too. It’s more exciting with the different property types. We have the land. We have infill lots. We have houses. It’s fun. It’s never, never a dull moment around here, that’s for sure.
Steven Butala: Hey, we know your time’s valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us today, anyway. Join us next time for the episode called No One Understands Land.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, we answer your questions posted on our online community found at landinvestors.com. It is free.
Steven Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: For the record, I wouldn’t blow out your candle.
Steven Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: Wherever you’re watching-
Steven Butala: Oh wait, that’s it?
Jill DeWit: Oh? You want to add to that? Go for it.
Steven Butala: Everybody’s like, everybody’s staring at the thing waiting for something to happen.
Jill DeWit: Okay. What do you want to say?
Steven Butala: I had … That candle things, that’s not how I would approach that at all. That’s not how I do approach it.
Jill DeWit: I know that. Wherever you’re watching, wherever we are listening, please subscribe and rate us there.
Steven Butala: We are Steve and Jill.
Jill DeWit: We are Steve and Jill.
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Jill DeWit: And inspiration
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