Working with Your Spouse without Tragedy (LA 1301)
Working with Your Spouse without Tragedy (LA 1301)
Transcript:
Steve:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill:
Hello.
Steve:
Welcome to The Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill:
I’m Jill DeWit, playing with my hair, and I’m broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steve:
Today, Jill and I talk about working with your spouse without tragedy. I’m sure Jill has a lot to say about this. Sure of it.
Jill:
Let’s define tragedy. Just kidding.
Steve:
We can show you what a tragedy looks like on this episode, actually.
Jill:
I guess we could.
Steve:
We can give a great example of tragedy.
Jill:
So, divorce papers? Or just getting into it?
Steve:
Yesterday, and I bit the inside of my lip, we were talking about when to leave your job and I’m thinking like, “We should be talking about when to leave your relationship.”
Jill:
Oh, that’s sad. Don’t say that.
Steve:
Sometimes you’ve got to leave.
Jill:
No, I mean, come on. Don’t leave let’s… careful.
Steve:
All right.
Jill:
All right. Let’s be cool here.
Steve:
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:
Okay. Rebecca wrote, “Hi, Land Academy. Quick question on filtering and pricing lots. The last list I sent out for four to six acre lots/parcels, I filtered out the higher priced lots over 75,000, but kept the lowered valued lots. I filtered them out.” So, she didn’t keep them. Okay. “I received about eight signed contracts from people who I sent offers to for eight to $10,000 when their lots were worth less than $10,000. Should I price by zip code or filter out the lots assessed under 10K or both? Thoughts please.”
Steve:
You should price by zip code, for sure. No doubt about it based on the information that we have, the level of information we now have specifically because of Zillow. So yes, you should price by zip code, for sure. Should you remove any of the top end or the bottom end data? I call it like a bell curve. I keep it all in. We send out offer prices at a million plus now, and we get some of them signed back because you just never know. Over and over and over again what I hear from our advanced group at our live events, is send out more mail. Send out more mail and see what happens. You put yourself in such a position of control when you send out just hoards of mail.
So yeah, maybe some of it’s overpriced, maybe some of it’s under priced, to this day I over and underprice property sometimes, but I’ll tell you, when you’re staring at a pile of purchase agreements that are signed, let’s say 10 of them, you’re going to pick the best three. If you have five purchase agreements signed and you’re going to pick the best three, it’s not as good of a situation to be in as 10, pick three. But yeah, you’ve got to price by zip code now.
Jill:
Well, I like what you said too, careful, don’t limit yourself too much because you never, like you said, you never know what’s going to come back. And if you’re really, really deathly afraid of anything over $100,000, I can understand that, that’s over your threshold. I would download the data. You’re famous for saying the data is cheap, the mail’s expensive and that’s true. So, I would download the data just to have it and play with it and think about it too, but go for some bigger numbers anyway because you can afford to do this. Why? Because we’ll fund your deals and people in our community will fund your deals. You might find something spectacular, Rebecca, that you’re buying it for $83,000 and holy cow, it’s worth 400, that just comes across your desk. And I want you to be able to look at those and see those and act on them. Adding a zero or a couple zeros is not nuts.
Steve:
This group is packed full of people that would love to write you an $83,000 check.
Jill:
Right. My other thing is too, I think what may have happened is sometimes how counties assess properties. That’s why we never look at the assessed value as like a true gauge. It’s all over the map. One property might be assessed at $7,000 that’s worth 40. And then, the reverse could be true. It’s assessed at $40,000, it’s worth seven. Why is that? It’s all based on the taxes. It’s assessed at $40,000, the taxes are $36 a year. We see this stuff, it’s all over the place. You were holding back.
Steve:
Say assessed.
Jill:
Assessed.
Steve:
It turns me on for some reason when you say assessment. I’m serious. I don’t know why.
Jill:
You’re looking at me like did I-
Steve:
When you get all technical about mailers and stuff it just makes me want to give you a kiss.
Jill:
Oh, that’s funny. It’s funny. That’s really cute. Sometimes we’ll be in situations, people have no idea what we do or they know about him but they don’t know about me, and they don’t think I know anything. I’m just a sidekick. I’m just his assistant.
Steve:
Or wife.
Jill:
Right, or that. I don’t know. Anyway, I’m not going to put that down.
Steve:
They have no idea Jill runs everything.
Jill:
Oh, somebody said, they’re like, “Wait a minute. What did she just say? And how does she know that?” I don’t want to explain.
Steve:
There really is truly gender roles still.
Jill:
Yeah, it’s not cool.
Steve:
And Jill just stands there and says, “Yeah, what you’re saying is not right at all.” Not to me, but whoever is doing this gender thing.
Jill:
In their head they’re just patting me on the head saying, “Oh, sweet Jill.” And you know what, I’ll take it because like, you know what, we’ll let you assume I don’t know what I’m doing as I’m buying this property and what I’m going to do with the property. That’s fine.
Steve:
Jill’s an expert at downplaying that and using it to her advantage.
Jill:
I don’t need to prove anything to anybody. It’s fine. You keep thinking that. Okay.
Steve:
Today’s topic, working with your spouse without tragedy. This is the meat of the show.
Jill:
Can you start?
Steve:
Working with your spouse is an incredibly bad idea.
Jill:
That’s not what I thought you were going to say at all.
Steve:
But, if you can figure it out…
Jill:
If you have to, if you’re forced to, if your COVID forced to work with your spouse…
Steve:
If you can figure it out, it can really work to your advantage. Jill and I have obviously done that. Is this show an accurate sample of what really goes on in our life?
Jill:
Hell no.
Steve:
Hell no. We get into it, let me assure you. But here’s the thing, we also get out of it. So, if Jill and I get into it, Jill and I almost, this is just the honest truth here, I can’t remember when you and I have had any type of conflict socially.
Jill:
Oh, that’s true.
Steve:
It’s always work.
Jill:
Yeah, it’s never social stuff, you’re right.
Steve:
So, you just have to expect that, and I’ll tell you, if you’re going to choose to work with your spouse, you need to be able to get into a good argument for less than five or 10 minutes and then get out of it and kiss and makeup literally. That’s the only reason I think this works. And so, she’s not happy with stuff I do, I’m not happy with some of the stuff she does. I’ll tell you, it’s never, ever social and it’s never about land deals or house deals. We always do that together and laugh and have a blast. It’s all these other companies like [crosstalk 00:08:04].
Jill:
It’s running companies-
Steve:
And offers to owners.
Jill:
How we see things.
Steve:
And maybe some of the employees, that’s a big source of issues for us. It’s constantly an issue. We have great people working for us but-
Jill:
We manage very differently.
Steve:
Yeah, we manage very differently. I expect, I think I said this, I’m incorrectly walking around this planet believing that everyone’s an entrepreneur, and that’s just not the case. People need to be managed. I believe that people, this is wrong by the way, don’t do this, I just believe people should sit down on a seat and basically run the thing like they own it. And that’s just not what happens at all. We have examples of people that can and do that very effectively. A great example is O2O actually, Offers To Owners. The guy’s name is Aaron Belt. I haven’t talked to Aaron Belt… the only time I ever talk to him is socially and we always have fun.
Jill:
Or high-fiving him.
Steve:
Yeah.
Jill:
Exactly.
Steve:
So… Go ahead.
Jill:
Well, so one of the things that we do also to share how to do this without tragedy, if you are in this situation, if you are blessed… we’re going to call it blessed… today, to have the opportunity to share this wonderful adventure with your spouse, as we have…
Steve:
You have some satire too.
Jill:
Right? One of the things that we have finally learned, we still trip up, let me just say honestly, we often trip up, is dividing up the roles and staying the heck out of each other’s lanes. That’s one thing that I wish someone had sat us… maybe we should go into this. What do you wish people had sat us down and told us before-
Steve:
This is fun.
Jill:
… we did this venture? I would have been, number one, I have a couple… I’m not done, hold on. Slow down. Number one is divide up the roles and stay the heck out of the other person’s stuff. And even though we’ve done that, we write it down, we put it on spreadsheets, we share it. I put it on my whiteboard. I hand it to him now and then.
Steve:
I erase the whiteboard.
Jill:
And he erases the whiteboard. He goes and rips it up. I’m like, “Stay out of my thing and I’ll stay out of yours.” It’s it is hard sometimes. And like you said, it’s not about deals. It’s about who’s doing the deals. He’ll come in, and I’m not picking on you, but he might go, “What do you got going on?”
Steve:
Now’s the time to pick on me.
Jill:
Okay. He’ll be like, “What do you got going on?” And you know what happens? I incorrectly tell him, so I’m already at fault right there. He’s at fault for asking and I’m at fault for sharing.
Steve:
You know what? The commonality is there? We actually started talking to each other.
Jill:
That was part of it.
Steve:
All arguing starts with talking. So don’t talk.
Jill:
Okay, thanks.
Steve:
You asked me what I wish somebody would have told me, that’s it.
Jill:
Okay, yeah, that’s part of it. Yeah, don’t talk.
Steve:
Talk less.
Jill:
Yeah, that’s true.
Steve:
If at all.
Jill:
I would have said too, better boundaries about… I’m just thinking of this stuff now.
Steve:
You’re so politically correct.
Jill:
It’s just coming to me right now.
Steve:
I’ll offset that in a minute.
Jill:
Okay. Better boundaries in your home.
Steve:
Yeah, physical boundaries.
Jill:
Yes. We, for way too long, used our beautiful bathroom as a boardroom.
Steve:
What? Oh, our master bath.
Jill:
Yeah, our bathroom. Not like hey-
Steve:
Get up and get out of there.
Jill:
Yeah, like I’m brushing my teeth, he’s getting ready to shave, and the next thing you know we’re sitting, we have like a bench-
Steve:
And then there’s talking,
Jill:
… in there, and we ended up-
Steve:
And then there’s arguing.
Jill:
And then someone brings you coffee, it all starts off very sincere.
Steve:
It all starts with happiness.
Jill:
“Hey, I have coffee for you.” “Oh great, thank you.”
Steve:
And it ends tragically.
Jill:
“What do you got going on today?” Again, that was problem number one. Problem number two is the second person answers. “Well, here’s what I’m doing today.” And then it goes downhill from here.
Steve:
Do you really need to do that?
Jill:
Yes.
Steve:
“You seem unhappy. Are you unhappy about what you have?” “Oh really?” “Yeah.” “Actually, I don’t want to do it today at all. I hate doing that.” “Then why do you do it?” “Why are you arguing with me?” That’s what happens.
Jill:
So, that’s the second thing I wish someone had told me. Don’t do that. The third thing I wish someone had told me…
Steve:
How long is this list?
Jill:
Oh, it’s a lot. I’ve been saving. I had no idea I was saving it up. Hey, get comfortable, we’re going to be here for awhile.
Steve:
Longest episode ever.
Jill:
You just said I get to vent.
Steve:
I thought you guys are supposed to talk about real estate?
Jill:
Without tragedy… this is sounding pretty bad. So, the third thing too is create fun time that doesn’t involve work. We spend too much time outside of our work environment and outside of our offices talking about work. But that’s okay. There’s still a little yin and yang that we’re comfortable with because we are nuts. And I’m here to tell you we live, eat, and breathe this stuff because we really do like it. We really are passionate. When he says to me on a Sunday afternoon, “Hey, you want to go drive this area? I kind of want to see what’s going on and get eyes on it, because I’ve got an idea of what we can do over here.” I’m happy to go, “Heck yeah.”
Steve:
It’s what we did this weekend.
Jill:
Yeah, and I do enjoy that. But then, there’s a point where I’m like, “Okay, now our friends are waiting for us. We need to go have some fun and shut this off.” And usually it’s you, not me. I’m like, “Can we call this done?” And he’s like, “No, one more area, one more area.” Because you really get into it, which is really good. So, what do you wish someone had told you?
Steve:
There is no such thing as co-CEOs. Go look at the stock market and look at Elon Musk. He doesn’t have a co-CEO. So, memorize that if you’re going to choose to either work with your spouse or with a partner. A lot of this, we could have easily called this working with your partner without tragedy, a business partner, we chose to do spouse. So, you can’t sit in an office with two desks and lead a team of people or lead transactions or whatever it is that you’re doing, and talk about it all the time and make a group decision. Here’s the deal. There’s some companies that I run, all the tech companies I run them, because there’s not a lot to do. Maybe there’s one or two people that work there.
The mail company I run, Land Academy I run, and Jill is an expert at buying and selling real estate and she runs that.
Jill:
Thanks.
Steve:
And I stay out of her way. If she asks me, I’ll go into the database, like usually if she’s on the fence about whether or not we should buy a piece of property or what the price is, I’ll get involved. But even reluctantly, nine times out of 10 I’ll say, “Look, do you really need me to make…?” When’s the last time you made a bad decision about an acquisition?
Jill:
Oh, I’m good there.
Steve:
Ever?
Jill:
No, I don’t worry about that.
Steve:
I mean, so I don’t need to be involved with that.
Jill:
I’m not hesitant.
Steve:
All I do is hold her back when it comes to acquisitions and sales.
Jill:
Thank you. I appreciate that. I got this.
Steve:
Really, I’ll tell you, the only time we really talk about or make a decision together, is really with enrollment, like Land Academy stuff, not even with the SAS companies.
Jill:
Some of our promotions. [crosstalk 00:16:06]. Like, “Hey, we need to do something, what do you got? What ideas you got? What can we do more to help these people?” Brainstorm stuff like that. But you brought up something very smart.
Steve:
More education, like should we do a live event, stuff like that.
Jill:
Right. Another thing really smart that you just touched on, which is holding the other person back. Sometimes if you get in there and you are working together too much, you’ve got to check your fire, you might be holding that person back a little bit. I was going to say to you, one of the funniest things that you said to me when we first got together, and I love this, I still to this day, this is my favorite definition of the word compromise. You said, “Compromise, great, now nobody’s happy.”
Steve:
I didn’t learn that somewhere. I actually made that up from experience.
Jill:
Remember, I’ve had two bosses that did this a long time ago when I first worked for these developers here in Orange County, in Santa Ana. And it was these two guys, they had their desks in one big office facing each other. I don’t know how they survived, but it was almost like a married couple. Imagine if you and I had our two desks facing each other in the same room and we made decisions together, what would happen is one person would compromise. Everybody’s compromising, it’s never 100%/0%. Compromise is maybe if you’re lucky, 80/20, you got your way but the other person still had to get something in there. Fine. I’m going to let you do this, but I get this, this and this. Am I wrong?
Steve:
That’s not how to do it.
Jill:
And that’s how it goes. And it’s stupid.
Steve:
And it’s terrible.
Jill:
It’s bad. You can’t do that.
Steve:
It’s ineffective. And everybody ends up upset eventually. And then, you start keeping score. No, you just got to stay out of that person’s way.
Jill:
You have to step back.
Steve:
This inspiration information thing is not a joke. I am all technical about this stuff, Jill’s a little bit more inspirational, a little bit more art and finesse about how she does stuff. She’s great on the phone with these buyers and sellers. She’s great with these real estate agents and escrow agents and stuff. I can do it. I did it for a lot of years before we joined forces. I don’t like it. And then, when you do stuff, and I wish somebody would’ve told me this, when you start doing stuff that you don’t like over a long period of time, you become just an angry, bitter person. You become my father.
Jill:
Resentful.
Steve:
I don’t want that, yeah.
Jill:
Mad.
Steve:
Nobody wants to do anything that they don’t want to do in a relationship or at work. You end up being bad at it. You want to do the stuff that’s fun.
Jill:
That’s good. That’s a good one.
Steve:
I was actually explaining this to somebody about Jill and I, for some reason. People come up to us and say, “What is it with you guys? You seem happy. What’s the trick? What’s the trick to having a relationship with somebody where you’re happy?” And my answer is, “You know what? We don’t talk about stuff that’s serious, number one. We just screw around all the time, horse around.”
Jill:
That’s true.
Steve:
And if we didn’t, I mean, I do all the stuff at work that I want to do.
Jill:
That’s true.
Steve:
And you do too, don’t you?
Jill:
That’s true. Well, we’ve got to a point now, this was where I was going to add onto that is, when you’re starting out you may not have a choice. So, divide up the crappy stuff. Let’s be fair. Not one person should do all the crappy stuff because you’re going to be resenting the other person and that’s never going to work. So, there’s got to be a little bit of a, “Hey, I’ll tackle this.” This is kind of what you do when you start out. “I love this job. I want this one.” “Well, great. I love this job. I want this one.” It’s like choosing up Dodge ball partners, seriously, and then at the end, come on, there’s a fat kid.
Steve:
Somebody gets picked last.
Jill:
There’s going to be a fat kid and the kid that can’t see.
Steve:
So much for political correctness.
Jill:
Sorry. It’s just [inaudible 00:20:07]. It’s not fair to take them both onto your team. Here’s what you do. You each get one. You rock, paper, scissors it, however you got to do it. We’re big fans of rock, paper, scissors. We haven’t talked about that in a while, but that’s how you do it until you get to the point where you can hire somebody that can manage the fat kid and the kid that can’t see it.
Steve:
You nailed it, man.
Jill:
That’s the goal.
Steve:
So, I’ll tell you, this would not be possible for me personally. It would not be possible if we didn’t have assistants. I’ve got an assistant, Jill’s got more than one assistant, actually, and depending on what role they’re in. And here’s why, because there’s all this administrative crap to do and all these companies, I don’t care who you are, even if you’re just buying and selling land, there’s a lot of paperwork and there’s a bunch of stuff that you don’t want to do. And I can’t stand doing that stuff and it’s not fair for me to ask her to do it.
Jill:
Thank you.
Steve:
And it’s kind of a male/female gender… we tend to… especially people our age… tend to slip into that. You’re my assistant.
Jill:
You’re the woman.
Steve:
Yeah, you’re the woman.
Jill:
You should do this. No.
Steve:
And that’s insane. That is so antiquated and silly, but I catch myself doing it once in a while. Not so badly in the last few years actually.
Jill:
No, you’re not bad at that. Oh no, you don’t do that. You really don’t do that.
Steve:
All of the people that work for me happen to be guys. I don’t know why that is, it just is.
Jill:
I know why that is.
Steve:
And I picked all the people that work for you are women, for you are women, all three of them. I don’t know why that is.
Jill:
We have a guy in there, well, that doesn’t report directly to me though. But you’re right. I understand. I think that’s good. That’s kind of interesting. I don’t think it matters. You know What’s so funny about that though? Well, actually I do know why. Here’s my-
Steve:
Oh my God.
Jill:
How long have we got? Okay.
Steve:
Oh, we’re way over now. Just forget it.
Jill:
Funny you bring this up and here’s why it’s this way.
Steve:
We’re like 20 minutes over.
Jill:
I choose, in a professional setting, I love being in a man’s world. I like making decisions like a man. I love running a company. I’m drawn to that. Like flying, a man’s world. I love all this stuff. What’s interesting is the reason that I have women working for me, because we think the same way and I know women can multitask and get more stuff done for me.
Steve:
That’s true.
Jill:
That’s the bottom line.
Steve:
I need, for people to be real effective on my team, I need them to be entirely and completely independent and free thinking and self problem solving, like a totally separate, I guess this is a man/woman thing. I need individual separation of if it’s on fire, call me. Otherwise, I expect you to hit your numbers and be happy. And if you’re not, just let me know, and schedule a time we’ll talk about it. And you can either work here or you’re not. Right? That’s just how I look at it.
Jill:
That’s hilarious.
Steve:
I’ve said this before-
Jill:
They think I’m the hard ass. That’s what’s so funny in the big scheme of things. Right? If you’ve been watching us for a while, you kind of have a good idea who’s the softie in this relationship. So, which is me, but sometimes it comes up… I don’t know how I do it, I come across like a hard ass and I don’t mean to. It’s just the few times I [crosstalk 00:23:38].
Steve:
I know why.
Jill:
Oh, why?
Steve:
And it’s not you specific, it’s me too. I was going to ask you on the air here, do you think you’re a good boss? Do you think you’re a good supervisor, let’s call it, not boss?
Jill:
I think I am a good boss, slash however, I’m not a great boss and I have a long way to go to be even better. I have a lot of work.
Steve:
I think I’m a tragic supervisor. I think I’m a good teacher, and I am good in this role in front of this camera. But I think as a supervisor, and a motivator, I think a good boss or good supervisor is motivational and rewarding and involved-
Jill:
I’m dropping the ball there.
Steve:
… and cares.
Jill:
Well, I care.
Steve:
And truly, I care too, but I just don’t want to be there. I mean, that’s the truth of it. I do not want to be, for the mechanical stuff that goes on day to day like marketing, order taking like with O2O, customer service, new member sign ups and all that stuff, that’s tragic for me to be involved in all that. The real estate deals I love.
Jill:
That’s true.
Steve:
Doing the real estate deals, not so much, but I love getting the mail out, getting the purchase agreements in, reviewing the numbers and all the math and the budgeting and all that stuff. I love all that.
Jill:
Right. It’s funny to the point where like you said about supportive and things, I know that it’s hard. I don’t know why it’s hard. I’m like in my head, “Hey, good month team,” but that’s it. It should be a party and we need to… we’re working on that. We need to up our game.
Steve:
We are. We’ve made some recent changes with that.
Jill:
Exactly.
Steve:
These companies are really successful. And the stuff that we provide our employees, I think we have like eight employees, ish, it needs to-
Jill:
Get to know your staff.
Steve:
We have nothing. We should be walking around just saying, “Gosh, I feel so fortunate and so lucky to have the people that are,” and it just doesn’t come off that way sometimes. And we all fall into that. So, the reason I’m bringing this up-
Jill:
We end up with bad habits.
Steve:
… is it’s really easy to do that with your spouse, too.
Jill:
That’s true.
Steve:
You’re not sitting around, “I’m the luckiest guy there ever was ever with her,” and that’s how it should be. It should be communicated frequent, like daily.
Jill:
That’s true.
Steve:
And it’s not,
Jill:
It’s not.
Steve:
I don’t know why.
Jill:
I know, right? I’m going to end mine on that. That’s the last thing I wish someone had told me, “Hey, take a moment and thank the other person now and then.” And I’m not saying that to you, I’m saying that to me even. I know I need to thank you more. So, thank you. Happy you could join us today. Every day, Monday through Friday, you can find us right here on The Land Academy Show.
Steve:
Tomorrow the episode on The Land Academy Show is called, So You Made a Hundred Grand on That Land Deal, Now What? You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill:
Holy moly. Look how long that… this is going to be a long show. Kind of funny. Guess we had a lot to say. Thank you for the therapy session and hanging in there with us.
Steve:
There’s maybe three or four couples that are in The Land Academy group, husband and wife teams.
Jill:
Successful.
Steve:
And every time we talk to them, we’ve interviewed them a few times…
Jill:
Like Aaron and Liz.
Steve:
Yeah, we’ve interviewed them a few times, the Ailons, and I was surprised that that they’re still doing it. They’re still together.
Jill:
We should have a show with them. We should do that. That would be really funny. Let’s just get the couples together and really talk about it. It’s funny when we do our live events.
Steve:
Would he be honest you think?
Jill:
It’s fun to have the couples. We’ve had several couples come to live events and I’m so happy and it’s great. What’s interesting is there’s only one other couple that I know, kind of in our space, everybody else, they’re not couples. It’s just really the guy. It’s kind of funny.
Steve:
Oh, the Bosches?
Jill:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. They’re the only ones.
Steve:
You know what I find that’s interesting about Jack Bosch? He’s a native German speaker, I think, and his wife’s from South America. So, she probably speaks Spanish.
Jill:
Or Portuguese.
Steve:
Native, yeah, right. So, I wonder how what language they argue in?
Jill:
That’s a very good question. He’s yelling in German and she’s yelling in I don’t know what.
Steve:
Or if they learned each other’s language. We should have them on the show.
Jill:
That would be funny. We should.
Steve:
Jack’s a good guy. He’s been around for a long time, as long as I have.
Jill:
Yeah, cool. The Land Academy Show remains commercial free for you, our loyal listener. So, wherever you’re watching, wherever you’re listening, please subscribe and rate us there. We are Steve and Jill.
Steve:
Information…
Jill:
… and inspiration…
Steve:
… to buy undervalued property.
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If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
