Qualified Sellers will Call You in Droves Cold Calling is Dead (LA 1311)
Qualified Sellers will Call You in Droves Cold Calling is Dead (LA 1311)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about qualified sellers will call you in droves, and cold calling is dead. Cold calling’s been dead for a long time.
Jill DeWit:
You know, isn’t that funny? But that came up recently. I saw somebody talking about that. I want to say it was in social media. I’m like, “Hold on a moment. Please don’t go there,” and here are the reasons why, and so we’ll talk about it here. I wanted to bring it up here on the show.
Steven Butala:
So why do you think this cold calling or driving for dollars or, like, what’s the root of the person that’s saying … Like, what’s the story? Tell us the story.
Jill DeWit:
I’m guessing they either have too much time and too much money on their hands.
Steven Butala:
Right.
Jill DeWit:
Which I can’t imagine, because that’s what it takes. I don’t want to take from the show, but you know, honestly, I’m asking too. Or you know what? I’ll tell you. They just don’t know there’s a better way, because that’s the reality. If you knew there was a better way to get customers, I don’t care what kind of business you have. You would do it.
Steven Butala:
So throughout my entire career-
Jill DeWit:
Correct me if I’m wrong.
Steven Butala:
No, I think you’re a hundred percent right. I think it goes way deeper than that, but this is kind of the show, so before we-
Jill DeWit:
You think … Oh, you’re going to say more about it?
Steven Butala:
No, that’s in there. It’s the topic of the show, and it comes down to personality type.
Jill DeWit:
Alright, well we’ll talk about that.
Steven Butala:
There’s people who start systems-
Jill DeWit:
Sorry. I got us to close here. My bad.
Steven Butala:
People who I think start systems in life who are just systemic. You know, just people who start systems and are people who just want to get through the day, and I think cold calling, it’s so unnecessary now and so ineffective and so annoying and just, there’s nothing good about it, but it still happens.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Butala:
Then there’s warm calling. So if I was writing this title I would have said warm calling’s dead.
Jill DeWit:
You know what’s funny? The only cold calling I get now today, right. In today’s age, I don’t know about you. Two things. One, “I want to give you money.”
Steven Butala:
That’s it. That’s the one I get.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, well and there’s two. I get one, “I want to give you money,” and two, “Hey, could we talk about the upcoming election?”
Steven Butala:
Oh, I don’t get that at all.
Jill DeWit:
I get both of those. That’s it.
Steven Butala:
Wonder what list I got off of.
Jill DeWit:
Lucky you. I’m not off of it.
Steven Butala:
Oh, you know what? I know why.
Jill DeWit:
Why?
Steven Butala:
Because one of us just registered for party affiliation and one of us isn’t.
Jill DeWit:
Oh. Poop. I goofed that up. Oh, so they don’t know. That makes sense. So if you were registered for any party, that party would be calling you-
Steven Butala:
I think so.
Jill DeWit:
If they want to talk. They know how you feel about it.
Steven Butala:
Well that, and I’ve really spent a whole day about five years ago-
Jill DeWit:
Undoing it.
Steven Butala:
Contacting the federal do not contact list. Not political. Anything. Just, don’t ever call me ever, registering all the numbers I can think of in my life.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Mine’s all goofed up. Okay.
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about … I already said that. 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:
Luke says, “Hi everyone. I’ve been searching through CountyWise tax sale reports and notice that all the sale and posting dates are from 2014 and the 2015 range. I haven’t seen anything in the 2018, 2020 range. Is this because the data isn’t automatically updated, or am I misunderstanding what the date column means? Should I go ahead and pay for TaxSaleLists.com? Thanks.”
Steven Butala:
I created CountyWise.com around 2016, 2017 personally, and it was in response to, we were getting a lot of questions from people like, “Hey, in this thing that Jill did on a live event, she was referring to population heat maps. Where can I find those?” Like we we’re getting 20 these types of questions a day, so I decided to put … And same about tax sales and everything. Decided to put it into a free county by county, state by state, almost down at census track website. It’s called CountyWise.com, and one of the things that I put in there that ended up being very, very popular is lookup any county in the country and you can see what their type of the tax sale activity is.
Like some counties in Idaho never have tax sales at all. They just don’t. They’re for whatever reason [inaudible 00:04:34] or it didn’t get reported. I’m not sure. Anyway, Idaho is a no tax sale state. Arizona, tons of tax sales. Thousands. In some cases, tens of thousands of properties get auctioned off in some version, whether it’s lien or deed. So it became and still is sort of a way to look at where you can buy cheap real estate, and where inexpensive rural land is moving. The provider of that, which is a TaxSaleLists.com since then went out of business. They went out of business in 2016. They stopped to reporting the data, and so it stops in 2015 and that’s the real reason. I was having a conversation with Jill recently. I’m very in tune with-
Jill DeWit:
Joe, or me?
Steven Butala:
Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, me. Okay.
Steven Butala:
Did I say Joe?
Jill DeWit:
I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t know which one. Is that someone named Joe, or is it me?
Steven Butala:
Really recently about tax sales, and I’ve never known a source, a national source. People who are into tax sales stay local. They stay in little areas, me included, and it’s very hard to get national data so that portion of CountyWise will not be replaced.
Jill DeWit:
Is it a deal breaker?
Steven Butala:
No. No, there’s so much more. Great question.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
So much more sophisticated ways to pick a county now, because in the world of data, five years old, which is back to 2015, is like 80 years old in the world of manufacturing. So yeah, everything has changed. There’s so much.
Jill DeWit:
It’s easier. I would argue easier type of thing.
Steven Butala:
It’s way easier. It’s way easier, and it’s more in tune with the skillsets of real estate people and not back tax people.
Jill DeWit:
I would argue though one of the great things about the evolution of Land Academy is that it’s like learning to drive a stick. Nowadays, you might have a stick. You might have a stick that a car that’s kind of can be a manual or automatic transmission very easily, like our cars. So the kids don’t even, you could bike. You don’t … How do I say this? It’s hard to buy a true automatic nowadays. Manual. Now I’m getting myself goofed up. Correct me if I’m wrong. Isn’t it hard to buy a true manual transmission? You seek it out. It’s a race car.
Steven Butala:
It’s a race car.
Jill DeWit:
And even then you have Tiptronic and paddles and it’s very, very different, and it’ll still kind of shift for you. You could play with it or not play with it, whatever. So where are you going with this, Jill?
Steven Butala:
I want to talk about cars now.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Butala:
I can tell you exactly, exactly where you can buy a $150,000 manual transmission car.
Jill DeWit:
Oh. Well, there’s that too. Okay. My point is this whole question goes back to how it was, and even though yes, it’s changed, I would argue it’s easier and I still like you to know where it came from, what that’s about. I like you to know. I want you to be able to … I don’t want you to have your cell phone battery die in your car and not be able to find your way home.
Steven Butala:
Well said.
Jill DeWit:
Because you’ve never got home without Waze.
Steven Butala:
Oh my gosh, Jill. That’s brilliant.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
That would happen to half the population right now.
Jill DeWit:
Could you imagine? Like, our child included. So you know, they’re so dependent on getting around that way, and I want you to learn the old school way, so I’m glad that you know this and I’m glad that you learn this and you have a feel for it.
Steven Butala:
There’s a lot of good ways to pick a county or a ZIP code to send mail, and that is probably untouched and looking up tax sale lists and the back tax activity of that county is not one of them any longer. In fact, I put this question in here to make this point. We are in the process of updating all of our education and it’s in my schedule to do it and to address some of these things that are a little bit antiquated, and unlike now, tell you the right way to do it. Because just, we’ll run out of time here.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Alright.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic, qualified sellers will call you in droves. Cold calling or warm calling is dead. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
Used to be a thing. Well, I’m sure it still is a thing for lenders, for people giving money clearly, and politicians, but it’s not what it used to be. Isn’t that interesting? It used to be that would be like, all kinds of things would just cold call you. Travel agents would cold call you.
Steven Butala:
Most of the world gets up in the morning and does stuff wrong, and here’s what they do. They wake up. If you’re a real estate agent, most real estate agents wake up and they say, “I got to go get a listing today. I got to go out there, walk out my front door, or get on the phone, and get somebody to list their house.” If they’re smart, they have a little database of people they’ve talked to in the past. “Hey Sally, we talked last month. Are you thinking about selling your house yet, because we’re all ready to go.” That’s warm calling. So what they’re doing is they’re going out in the world to try to get business, and it’s not just real estate people, although it’s fun as hell to pick on them. It’s salespeople. We’ve all had, or if you’ve ever been in sales it’s like, here’s a pile of leads. Flip through them, call them, and see if they want to loan you money and-
Jill DeWit:
Oh yeah. Go to school.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, go to school.
Jill DeWit:
Buy a car.
Steven Butala:
That’s all wrong, and that would’ve been great before data, but now we have data, so what do you do instead? What we do. We send out 5,000 letters and say, “Look, we want to buy property.” We’re not asking them. We’re asking to give them money for an asset they don’t care about anymore. So 5,000 people are going to get this message very clearly and very uniquely, like, “Hey, Sally Jones, we want to buy your property for $28,000. Doesn’t look like you’ve …” Whatever. It’s very unique. It’s not, “We’re buying property in the area. Please give me a call.” That doesn’t work at all. So 5,000 people get this unique message and a very specific number of them are going to get the message, and they’re going to hunt you down. So now, instead of me going out to try to find land to buy on tomorrow morning, I’m fielding these. They’re not cold. They’re not warm. They are untouchable hot. They’re not even leads. They’re people that are dying to sign stuff and asking you for directions on how to sell you their undervalued property.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
What’s better than that from a sales standpoint?
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that funny? And wherever this question was, I thought, you know better. I’m like, why is this coming up? I don’t really understand, and my thoughts are, here I’m like, even if they know direct mail. Maybe they’re just trying to think about this. I’m like, and I’m trying to save you time and money. By sitting and cold calling, I’m really cold calling. Like, here’s how this can happen. We have a company called NeighborScoop, and in NeighborScoop, you can draw a polygon, circle, whatever you want. You can put a shape around a property. You can do a ZIP code. You can do a neighborhood. You can do a census track. You can do a subdivision, whatever it is. You could download that data with all the ownership information, with phone numbers.
So then, so I know why people can say, “Why wouldn’t I just call them all?” Well, here’s the problem. You’re setting yourself up to waste so much time and so much money and just be in a negotiation mess. I mean, and so sure, I understand you want to buy every three-bedroom, two-bath house or every five-acre property because you had one that did so great in this area, and you might think that the best way to do is pick up the phone. I know you have it. I know what you spent. It’s just going the wrong direction. By … You have something to say.
Steven Butala:
No I don’t.
Jill DeWit:
Oh. It’s just, and every person that gets your call, it’s too easy. Here’s my fear. Every person’s going to say, “Yes, actually I do.” Everybody’s going to say yes that they want to sell at a certain price, and the problem with this is you can’t weed them out. You’re not weeding them out. You’re touching on every person. It’s just so much time and energy to reach everyone to maybe find the three that you are really on the same page, and I can’t even imagine how long and how much money it would take to figure that out, versus even what we do is say, for example we send neighbor letters to people to pick up more properties and/or sell properties. That is so much more effective than picking up the phone.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
So I guess-
Steven Butala:
It’s unscalable. What Jill’s talking about is not scalable.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. That’s it. Save me. I’m trying to … It’s not coming out right.
Steven Butala:
A single person, if they’re just a calling machine, like a politician can maybe make 60 phone calls and have a meaningful conversation.
Jill DeWit:
I could do 100.
Steven Butala:
Okay, 100.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I could blast out 80 to 100 phone calls-
Steven Butala:
That’s impressive [crosstalk 00:13:41].
Jill DeWit:
In an eight-hour day period, but not reach them all. Like, leave messages and stuff.
Steven Butala:
Let’s kick this up a few thousand feet. Let’s get to 30,000 feet and think about advertising and marketing. If in the beginning of television, there was three networks and the people that advertised on those networks were like toothpaste companies because everybody needs toothpaste. Everybody. There’s no specificity to it at all. Then people started putting billboards up, because they determined that most of the people that are driving out of that subdivision, there’s only one way to go to work, needed dry cleaning. So great. That was a great place and an effective way to advertise. They all needed that, and then just fast forward to like Google where people are purchasing AdWords. They’re purchasing words like “speargun,” and-
Jill DeWit:
Cabin property.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, cabin property. But speargun’s better, because it’s real specific and there’s this very predictable number of people that are typing that word in because they want to buy spearguns, and then throw in the fact that they’re John Deere members, and so you can build on accuracy. They are still not coming to you.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Butala:
They’re still going out.
Jill DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Butala:
You’re still trying to like, “Our way’s better.” That’s why I was interested. We look at a group of topics every week and because again, I come back to these guys that interviewed us. These guys are semi experts at Google AdWords.
Jill DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Butala:
Figuring out what they’re searching for and putting together a profile of somebody that’s a bunch of dough that’s going to make a decision, and then they send them a buy from them, drive them to their website. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s very competitive, and so they’re in our group looking at our low, very, very low tech way to get a customer using the US Post Office. I don’t know what’s older or more low tech than that. You know, I’ve joked around. It’s like, we’d be kind of hosed if a post office closed down, but I don’t think there’s a-
Jill DeWit:
I think we’re okay.
Steven Butala:
Big, huge danger in that.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
So if anybody out there has a better way to send. You know, there’s several people in our advanced group who have other companies and every once in a while they reach out to me and say, or when they join they contact me and say, “You know, I’ve had this company for 20 years. This is the greatest way to market anything I’ve ever seen,” meaning our idea. And so cold calls and warm calls and calls in general, you can’t scale it. If you send out 2,000 letters and buy a piece of property, send out 4,000.
Jill DeWit:
You know what I was going to say too?
Steven Butala:
Send out 90,000.
Jill DeWit:
What you need to do is what we do. No matter what your business is, you just got me thinking. Be specific. Instead of like … Dry cleaner’s a good example. I know how much percentage off I’m going to get. I know how much it costs to dry clean the shirt on the postcard that you send me. Don’t send me a postcard that says, “No, I’m not kidding. We want your business.” I’m not going to go there. That’s stupid, but if I see on the back page how much you charge for a dress and a shirt and a slacks, whatever, and I know that my first time people get 50% off, done. I’m in. It’s specific. I wish that that would happen everywhere.
Like, could you imagine? What if colleges did that? If I got something in the mail that said, “We want your kid to come to our college. Here’s how much it costs here.” You know, comparing maybe their colleges in state, out of state. “We know your kid’s a math whiz.” Could you imagine? If we had a letter, this is actually not bad. I would be interested in this, honey. You may think I’m nuts, but, “We know your kid’s a math whiz and we know he wants to go to architecture. We know where you live. We know the schools you visited,” because of all the data that they have, which is probably true, right? Then they send us a letter. Very strategic. “Here are the top architecture programs in the country. Here’s where these guys get jobs.” Give me some statistics, and then back it up with how much it costs and maybe some incentive.
Steven Butala:
I’m going to one up it, so think about all that and the architecture example-
Jill DeWit:
I’d pay attention.
Steven Butala:
Is real. It is real. Now what if it says, “And we’ll pay you to go there?”
Jill DeWit:
That too.
Steven Butala:
“Based on your academic performance.”
Jill DeWit:
“Oh, and by the way, you have a kid. We already know he qualifies for this.”
Steven Butala:
That’s what we’re doing. So we send a letter that says, “We want to pay you.” We’re not saying, “Hey, pay us [inaudible 00:18:03].”
Jill DeWit:
True. True.
Steven Butala:
We want to pay you. We want to send you a check in this amount. Like, this week we want to pay you for an asset that might as well be an old broom in a garage that you’re never going to use.
Jill DeWit:
Right. I like this.
Steven Butala:
I didn’t pat myself on the back about this, until I got interviewed by those two guys.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. This is good. Really gets me thinking. Hope it gets you thinking. Happy you could join us today. Don’t forget, Monday through Friday, you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy Show is called How to Recuperate your Land Academy Investment in 60 to 90 Days. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. This is one of those topics where, what is it called? Truth time?
Jill DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Butala:
Truth time.
Jill DeWit:
Truth time.
Steven Butala:
This industry that Jill and I in, the Land Academy industry, is horrific. This like, education industry, and join our group and pay us.
Jill DeWit:
There’s a lot.
Steven Butala:
It’s just 99% of it’s just garbage. It’s absolutely unfounded, and you can almost without a doubt tie the level of garbageness with the age of the person that’s talking to you on the camera.
Jill DeWit:
Are they too young or too old?
Steven Butala:
They’re too young. They just don’t have enough experience. You know, maybe in 10 or 15 years after they’ve done what they’re actually selling you might want to listen, but so recuperating your Land Academy investment in 60 to 90 days, it’s not a sales pitch.
Jill DeWit:
I like it.
Steven Butala:
It’s stories about how people have done it, and you know, why it’s possible.
Jill DeWit:
Could you imagine? I would have not been as successful as I am at 19 if it weren’t for these three things.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. What can a … You know, and everything I said, unless you want to learn about video games.
Jill DeWit:
Then, now we’re talking.
Steven Butala:
Because don’t ever listen to me or Jill about video games.
Jill DeWit:
That’s right.
Steven Butala:
If we changed the show to Video Game Academy, you better run like hell.
Jill DeWit:
You better be 19.
Steven Butala:
You better run because I am here to tell you, I am not very good at playing video games.
Jill DeWit:
I love it. That would be so funny. Video games and like, I would not have graduated by showing up so little to class if it weren’t for these three things. I would listen to that guy too.
Steven Butala:
Here’s a few more-
Jill DeWit:
How to get a 4.2 and not show up.
Steven Butala:
Here’s a few more titles of things. If I start a show called Understanding Women.
Jill DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Butala:
Don’t listen to what I say. That show won’t work. I’m not qualified for that show.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
What’s a show you’re not qualified for?
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh. Boat repair. What to do in an emergency on the high seas.
Steven Butala:
This is good. There’s a lot of shows I could never pull off. How to buy a car dealership brand new and sell it five years later for more. I know there’s a show somewhere like that. That’s the stuff I see. That’s the stuff I see in this space.
Jill DeWit:
That’s so good.
Steven Butala:
Like, you know, become a millionaire in 20 seconds doing nothing.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. How about-
Steven Butala:
The four-hour work week? I’m telling you, the four-hour work week is stupid. It’s truth time.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, it kind of doesn’t work. Truth time.
Steven Butala:
That is ridiculous.
Jill DeWit:
We all got into it, and then we all excited about it and we realized it kind of is not working.
Steven Butala:
There’s another one. One-hour body or something. He did another one.
Jill DeWit:
Oh really? There’s a body one?
Steven Butala:
Yeah, like … I don’t know.
Jill DeWit:
Oh. That’s easy.
Steven Butala:
Look, stuff takes time and it’s hard. Stuff takes a lot of time. You got to put a lot of work in, and it’s hard, and you’re going to be disappointed.
Jill DeWit:
I know exactly.
Steven Butala:
That’s the show I’m qualified to teach.
Jill DeWit:
I know exactly how to lose weight, but I choose to eat.
Steven Butala:
I’m qualified for that show.
Jill DeWit:
Alright.
Steven Butala:
Here’s another show I’m qualified for. It’s Saturday night and I told myself I wouldn’t drink this much.
Jill DeWit:
That’s good. How to guarantee a horrible hangover on Sunday morning. Oh, we’re good at that, too. Okay. Thank you for tuning in. One of us has to call it. We hope you find all of this content valuable and we do appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, please zip over and check out our YouTube channel and hit the subscribe button.
Steven Butala:
And your comments and suggestions help us create the type of content we think you’re here for. Hitting the like button on your favorite episodes helps support our channel’s algorithms and gauge your interest for future shows. We are Steve and Jill.
Jill DeWit:
We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Information-
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration
Steven Butala:
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.
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