Why Offers2Owners is Hitting Records (LA 1171)
Why Offers2Owners is Hitting Records (LA 1171)
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 Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about why offerstoowners.com is hitting records. Right before we started the show, I said, hey, do you want to talk about this before we launch the show here, Jill? Oh no. I think we know exactly what we’re going to say. And I think-
Jill DeWit: It might be the same.
Steven Butala: We had the exact same opinion.
Jill DeWit: We’ll see. It’d be fun to see.
Steven Butala: When that happens, it’s just becomes a deluge of fat clothes.
Jill DeWit: Oh, come on. We, let me tell you right now, listener, we always see eye to eye. We, there’s never any disagreements in our work life or home life. Nah, peachy.
Steven Butala: Yeah. If you’ve ever, if you’re a little, if you’re from the generation we are, and you’ve ever watched Little House on the Prairie and Laura Ingalls and that whole thing.
Jill DeWit: Oh, just like that.
Steven Butala: That’s our life.
Jill DeWit: That’s totally our life.
Steven Butala: A little bit of humor on the side. Everybody’s prosperous, a little bit of a struggle, but it’s healthy.
Jill DeWit: Whatever you say goes. I’m home baking and waiting for you.
Steven Butala: Can you imagine?
Jill DeWit: In my long apron, with my hat on.
Steven Butala: I’m out chopping wood outside. I’m not at work anywhere, I’m close enough to settle any disputes that go on with the kids.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, we can come running out to you in the field.
Steven Butala: Their oldest kid is a-
Jill DeWit: When somebody trips.
Steven Butala: The oldest kid’s a school teacher.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Steven Butala: She teaches all the kids around and everybody’s happy.
Jill DeWit: There we go. There we go. It’s beautiful. That is our life.
Steven Butala: And the weather’s perfect every day.
Jill DeWit: Oh yes, that’s true. Okay.
Steven Butala: 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.
Jill DeWit: Jeff wrote, tried an experiment this month. I sent about 400 offers with no phone number. Instead-
Steven Butala: He means that he didn’t include a phone number on his offer.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Oh, okay.
Jill DeWit: That’s what I thought, that’s how I took it.
Steven Butala: I didn’t understand it the first time I read it.
Jill DeWit: I took that like that.
Steven Butala: Okay, good.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Yeah. Trying to see if they email or write, or whatever, back.
Steven Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit: Okay, good. That’s how I took it. So Jeff’s like, I sent about four hundred offers with no phone number. Instead, I offered the seller a choice of accepting their offer on my website, sending me an email, or mail me back a signed purchase agreement. The experiment is still in progress and about 230 of my offers haven’t reached the sellers yet. But out of the other 170, so far I’ve had two people visit my website portal, but not accept the offer. I’ve had one email and no letters. Has anyone else tried something like this with no phone number provided and what was your experience?
Jill DeWit: I kind of like it, it’s like trying to direct them where they want to go. I’m not sure how well that would go, so I’m going to see what one person has commented here. Lori wrote, Jeff, what drove you to try this? I’m curious. I’ve probably had same thoughts. I despise wasting time on the phone. But if I hadn’t made myself available to talk, I would have missed out on being able to buy five properties worth over $100,000, because the little lady who owned them, one, didn’t think I would possibly want four of them and mentioned that in passing. And two, she doesn’t have email and a contact us form is beyond her. Many of the sellers I’ve worked with are old enough that they didn’t grow up with a computer at home and they’re not that hot on leaving a voicemail either.
Jill DeWit: I want to accommodate this demographic and it would be less convenient to did you business with period. Streamlining the process will exclude some potentially motivated sellers.
Jill DeWit: I’m on the same page with Lori, because I’ve had people that they can’t even, they, sending it in, they, yeah, they don’t have email, they don’t have a computer, and so all of our communication has been on the phone and I’ve, I was… One person, I remember too, we had to wait for her grandson to come over after school because I needed a copy of the vesting deed and he had that fancy camera thing on his phone, so we had to wait for him to get home over, take the picture and send it to me. It was a funniest thing, but that’s true.
Steven Butala: Keep going.
Jill DeWit: No, that’s, that’s it. So, I completely agree.
Steven Butala: You’re absolutely right. Lori nailed it. Absolutely nailed it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: I have a few things to say here. Men, for whatever reason, and I absolutely include myself in this, love efficiency. I don’t know why we’re hardwired that way, but we just are. And Jeff’s proposal here is making some, what I would call a single point of failure, which had men love. Men love to create a single point of failure, just naturally. I don’t know why. Why would you exclude, what’s the point of this?
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: What’s the point to not including a phone number, driving some traffic to a website? I can say, I don’t know Jeff at all. I don’t know, he’s a member, not a member. I’m not sure. This is actually online investors, but I can tell you how old he is. Or how old he’s not. There are people that have never seen a computer. Many, many of our customers have owned properties for 60 years that they inherited from their parents or their grandparents and don’t want anything to do with the computers or phones, like smart phones.
Jill DeWit: They have a land line. That’s the funny thing too. I’ve talked to sellers where, I’m asking them, they’re calling me back and they’re saying, hi, I got your letter, I want to sell, right? They can’t even find the letter. Whatever it was they wrote the phone number down, it’s something kind of funny. And you hear them lay the phone down, walk their little feet into the other room, did get a file, walk their feet back. Maybe I’m asking about the taxes or something like that. And it’s just the sweetest thing. Yeah, you, I understand. I do understand what Jeff was trying to go. He’s thinking everybody’s like him. We just thought, we could text this whole thing and be done with it, and, or some easy solution like that and not have to spend money. And it all ties into what Lori said and we’ve all experienced, you’re missing out on a lot of people.
Jill DeWit: That’s one of the reasons too, that we’re really strong advocates of having a phone answering service like PATLive, all of our members get 20% off a PATLive. We get nothing and they get the whole discount by the way, because I want you to use it. It makes sense. Even if you have a great Google Voice or your own voicemail set up, a lot of people are afraid of leaving voicemails. They may not even know how to do it. They may not get it. The punch here, push this, they just don’t like it. So, you’re missing out all those people. I always want you to have somebody answer the phone, even if it’s not you.
Steven Butala: People ask me often, what’s, what’s it, what does it take to get it? It all starts with this. What does it take to get into the advanced group? I want to get in the advanced group. And so, I start with, and I don’t, my answer is, well, you got to send out a lot of mail. You have to be real active in our communities, verbally and everything else. But it all ultimately leads to me saying something like this, but I will tell you every advanced member that we have fits this profile, and it starts with being in love with the phone and being in love with presenting themselves. Whether they then present themselves online or they present them, they’re just on the phone all day. I go, I use this emotion, up and down to my ear. I’m not one of these people and I understand where Jeff’s going here.
Steven Butala: This is why I chose this. I’m not a phone person, I’m a data person, but I used to be. And I used to not like it until I met Jill. Then I didn’t have to do it. And what did I give up for that? 50% of everything, gladly. That’s how much I don’t want to talk on the phone all day.
Jill DeWit: You, you gave up, you don’t see the benefit? Wait a minute, what did you gain?
Steven Butala: Well, I believe that, this is a conversation I had with myself when I, this is what, 10 years ago.
Jill DeWit: You share 50%.
Steven Butala: I said-
Jill DeWit: To get 200% more.
Steven Butala: Well, that’s what happened.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: What ended up happening was, I was just going to say that. I looked at it like giving up half, and really what ended up happening as our revenue quadrupled in, inside of a two months, I think.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Steven Butala: So, you have to be on the phone in this group. This is one of those moments in the episode where if you’re half listening, or please hear this, you have to be a phone person or have a phone person partner-
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Steven Butala: To be in this. That’s what this all is, sales. On the buy side, and the sale side. You can get away with it a little bit by having PATLive and somebody answering the phone. But in the end, if you think you’re going to do a real estate deal without talking to anybody, it’s just not going to happen.
Jill DeWit: They’re going to have questions too. I mean, that’s all-
Steven Butala: They want to have a feeling.
Jill DeWit: If you’re not, you’re not into this, Jeff, the [inaudible 00:08:36] gets, as, like you said, get a partner who is and they will help you, because you need to talk to them. They need to hear what’s going on with the transaction. There’s so many questions they need to hear from you about. Here’s what’s going to happen. The notary’s going to come out on this day and I’ll have the document ready and what, how do you want the check made out? Doesn’t have to be a lot of phone calls, you could do it in three phone calls, but you need it. You need to have that connection with them.
Steven Butala: And I would even take it a step further. By the time Jill is done with a buyer or seller, we do pretty big deals now. So, it’s not just a small piece of land somewhere. They’re dazzled.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Steven Butala: They can’t wait to talk to her, and they’re afraid, they want to impress her. She takes it to a whole different level. I can’t imagine doing real estate deals without you. Just me, if I did it, I mean, I would, the first thing I would do is I would try to find some somebody else to do this with ,that could slightly 1% replace that phone piece.
Jill DeWit: Thanks. I’m going to add to this too. Building that rapport with them and having that relationship will save so many deals. I have had people go dark from title companies. I’m doing a deal. It’s going through the title company. I’m like, what’s going on? They’re like, I can’t get in touch with the person. I’m like, hold on a moment, I’ll call them. And I call them up and she’ll say, how oh, Jill, I’m so happy to hear from you. Susie said she needs this form and I don’t know what they are and I don’t understand. I’m like, okay, hold on one moment. Don’t worry. I will help you. I’ll walk you through it. Here’s what you need to do, and I saved the deal because they trust me and we have that relationship.
Jill DeWit: And if, and there’s times too, they might be getting cold feet about selling or whatever it is. If you have that relationship, they’ll call you and go, Jill, I thought we agreed this and then the taxes are going to be this, and now I’m finding it’s that. I’m like, you know what? Let’s fix this together. Absolutely, whatever you need, we’re going to make it happen. And all this stuff is because I’m on the phone.
Steven Butala: That’s right.
Jill DeWit: It all ties together. So, yeah, I hate to think not even on that initial contact, but down the road, what you give up by not talking to these people.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Today’s topic, why offers to owners.com is hitting records. This is the meat of the show. What do you think, Jill?
Jill DeWit: What, my number one reason is, I’ll show you, duh. It’s January.
Steven Butala: It’s totally different than what I was about to say, and will say.
Jill DeWit: That is my number one, duh. January. Come on. We’re all, everybody, we’re on a diet. We are kicking this. We are in now.
Steven Butala: Are you on a diet?
Jill DeWit: I am on a diet, as a matter of fact. Are you on a diet?
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I didn’t know this.
Jill DeWit: I am on a diet. I’ve been on the elliptical Monday through Friday. I’m on the elliptical now, so I’m doing all kinds of things. It’s January, it’s 2020, this is even a bigger one for us. It’s 2020.
Steven Butala: So, then I got invited to speak in Dallas. I don’t, if you’ve ever heard of the Radio Guys. It’s a long standing radio show. Been around for ever, for probably 20 or 30 years. I think they’re on, they’re obviously on online now, but they used to be out of Texas, but they’re on Sirius Radio. And so, it’s a huge honor. So, the first thing I think of in my head is, I’m too big to go on the show.
Jill DeWit: That’s not what I think. That’s funny. So, I think, so, but January, we’re all excited about it, and I’m glad, it’s really good. What you got to do with this, by the way, this is not what the show’s about, but keep, do whatever you have to do to keep this momentum. But I think O2O is hitting record numbers because number one, is January. Number two, we are making it easier right now and faster to process orders. We have made some changes we did in November on the front end of the website for anybody who sees it. And then on the backend, when you’re submitting your offers and getting them approved and things like that, we making changes there.
Jill DeWit: We are now been starting to text people to let them know, because not everybody reads their email when they’re out, but you’ll get a text, hey, can you quick approve this order? We’ll get it in the mail today. We’re starting to do things like that. So, just better processes. And the third thing, I think why O2O is so going bananas right now is word’s getting out. I know that people are really, come on, we’ve been doing this for five years now.
Jill DeWit: People are starting to set up and pay attention to, oh, wow. They’re not going away.
Steven Butala: Well, we’ve been doing Land Academy and House Academy for two years.
Jill DeWit: Five years.
Steven Butala: Five years.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, we’ve been doing this since, well, you before me in the 1990s but this whole-
Steven Butala: Sending blind offers since the early 1990’s.
Jill DeWit: Right. So, that’s been there, but our whole community, we’ve had five years of successful Land Academy members that people, now you’re going to say, oh, I guess this does work. Ya think? So, I think word’s getting out too. That’s great. So, I don’t care. I’m going to say right now too, you don’t have to be a Land Academy member to use Offers to Owners. There are other people out there successfully getting, wanting to send direct mail and send offers to people. You don’t have to be a member. Please use Offers to Owners. We can help save you a ton of money and time.
Steven Butala: Offers to Owners is hitting records now because it works. Sending blind offers to owners works. 80% of the people who submit an order on any given day, it’s their repeat customers. Because they’ve sent offers out in the past, purchased real estate, and they look at their numbers and they say, well, I sent out 1,000, I bought a property. If I send out 2,000, I buy two properties. If I send out 10,000, I buy 10. These are numbers that are round numbers. Some are better, some are not as good. So, it works. And Jill and I have spent the better part of 2015 and 2016 fielding this question. Does what you guys work, or is this a bunch of BS? We don’t get that question anymore at all. So, I decided to title this show, because it works. Well, the questions we get now are how do we do, how do you do it?
Steven Butala: What’s the most efficient way to do it? Like the question today, do I have to answer the phone? Yes. So, in a word, or in a phrase, this really, really, really works. And what Jill said, we’re making it easier. There is no other, that I know of, bulk mail printing company out there that specializes in exactly one thing, which is what we specialize in, which and we kick out one product, either a two page letter or a one page letter. So, that makes it real cheap, because we’re not printing catalogs for a department store. And because exactly what Jill said to reiterate, and I’ll leave it on this, the people that are taking your orders have done mail mergers themselves and they understand that it can be intimidating the first time you do it. And we’ve-
Jill DeWit: We’ll do it for you.
Steven Butala: Set up a whole company and a whole product to take that fear away, so that we’ll hold your hand the first couple of times if you need it, and then you can do it yourself and make it a lot cheaper for yourself.
Steven Butala: So, I think it’s a, I love it. I love O2O. I’m actually the, at the head of O2O, Jill’s at the head of a lot of other these companies like Land Academy and stuff. I choose to, I love going into O2O and watching it happen, and watch people submit orders, and I hear the people on the phone with O2O customers, this is my favorite O2O moment. When they call back and they say, I want to do another order. This time I want to try to do it myself. The mail merge myself, because we just bought two properties and this thing really works and I really want to get good at it. That’s my a-ha moment with O2O. I love this little company. I really do.
Jill DeWit: I know. I’m glad. Happy you could join us today. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show. Tuesdays and Thursdays, don’t fret, you can find us on the House Academy Show.
Steven Butala: Tomorrow, the episode on the House Academy Show is called House Academy Member Bay and her house acquisition ordeal. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. Bay’s a longtime House, Land Academy member. She’s buying some houses and she’s doing really well and she’s, in my opinion, utilizing the community. This is a person who’s been with us since she’s, since the first couple of weeks, I think.
Jill DeWit: A long time.
Steven Butala: She’s really utilizing the community to get her from a super comfortable, super profitable, exceptional land investor, to a house investor. And you know what I love about Bay, she’s not afraid to ask any questions and get people involved. That’s great.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Thanks. The Land Academy Show remains commercial free for you, our loyal listener, wherever you’re watching, wherever you are listening, please subscribe and rate us there.
Steven Butala: We’re Steve and Jill.
Jill DeWit: We’re Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: Information-.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration-
Steven Butala: To buy undervalued property.
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