Sticking to a Calendar Schedule is Imperative (LA 1316)
Sticking to a Calendar Schedule is Imperative (LA 1316)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Howdy.
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, humid Southern California.
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about sticking to a calendar schedule and why it’s imperative. Boring, but completely necessary and possibly fatal if you don’t do it, I think.
Jill DeWit:
You know what’s interesting, is when we were talking about this topic, I was thinking of a different version of this. This is cool because I think this is how we are different. What I was referring to was being consistent in things, and how you interpreted that is putting it on a calendar because that works for you. Does that make sense?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
So, I’m excited to talk about this a little bit because, just like most men and women, we see things very differently, interpret things differently.
Steven Butala:
That’s people in any relationship.
Jill DeWit:
Or just men and women. I don’t care if you’re related, or don’t have to be in a relationship or not. We’re going to see things… I say whatever. I say teal, and you go, “Hmm, green.” Not you, but…
Steven Butala:
I thought you guys were going to talk about real estate. I thought the show’s about real estate. I’m a first time listener. I’m not here to talk about calendars. I’m here to talk about making money in real estate. Tell me how to do it quickly. I have other stuff to do today. No, I’ll tell you what, the truth is, I’m joking around about it, this topic comes up. It’s one of the top five topics that I deal with inbound from people asking me questions. And it started on our first live event. I did a module about getting organized and people just, we spent three times the amount of a lot of time on that during the presentation in the live event, and it just keeps coming up.
Jill DeWit:
Well, I think people take a step back and go, “How are you so successful in what you do?” And a lot of it is there’s a healthy mix of A, being smart and knowing what we’re doing, and B, just getting up and doing it. That’s the point. And that’s where the calendar comes in.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Well, we’ll get into it in a second, but there’s a huge component of outsourcing when it’s necessary and then managing the outsourcing correctly. And I borderline want to do an education… I want to do a two hour education thing on it because, and I don’t have any formal training in this. I just know from screwing stuff up all throughout my career that, wow, I can’t do that again. Or we got into this and it was too much because of X. 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:
Lucas wrote, “Hey folks, I’m planning my first mailer. And I had an idea, but I’m not sure if it’s a good one or not. I was thinking of adding a professional headshot of myself to the top of the first page of each letter. Not sure if offerstoowners.com prints in color or not, or how well the print quality would manage a photo. I was thinking it’d be valuable to add a personal touch to the letter. Has anyone here tried that? Was it beneficial? What do you think? Thanks.” Do you know what my first thought is? What?
Steven Butala:
I’m talking to the camera.
Jill DeWit:
Oh. Well, I’m over here. Okay. Do you know what my first thought is though?
Steven Butala:
Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
I’m on the fence. My first thought is, do you look like a supermodel and that fantastic? And if you do, I’m still not sure it’s going to send the right message. What do you think?
Steven Butala:
You got to be kidding me. What do I think about this?
Jill DeWit:
I know what your answer is.
Steven Butala:
What is my answer?
Jill DeWit:
No way.
Steven Butala:
It’s way beyond no way.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. That’s what your website is for.
Steven Butala:
I’m not concerned about the actual headshot on a mailer. I’m concerned about why someone would want to do this.
Jill DeWit:
You know why? Because they see real estate agents doing it all the time. Remember the flyers that real estate agents-
Steven Butala:
Everybody loves real estate agents too, by the way. And that works great for real estate agents.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
I’m being totally satirical.
Jill DeWit:
I know that, and I’m agreeing with you.
Steven Butala:
While you’re at it, while you’re putting this headshot on your, I would actually not put it on the top of the mailer, I would add a whole page. So it’s not even that there’s a cover letter, it’s just a picture of you, so that they get a good look at you. Make sure it’s a good headshot. And then since you’re going to do the headshot and get a professional headshot, put it on the hood of your car as a decal.
Jill DeWit:
That’s not the point here. I’m trying to help Lucas. And I understand where Lucas is coming from because we’ve seen it and thought that it must work. And I’m not disagreeing with you. I can understand where this would come from. Hey, every real estate agent I know that hands me a business card has their photo on it. Every sign of the real estate agent has their photo on it. Maybe because I’m a professional, I should have my photo on it. So what Jack is very nicely saying is don’t do that.
Steven Butala:
Where does this come from?
Jill DeWit:
Where does this come from?
Steven Butala:
Lucas, I’m not picking on you. Forget it.
Jill DeWit:
Oh yeah, yeah.
Steven Butala:
Hold on a second. I’m not knocking on Lucas at all. He asked the question, we’re answering it. It’s good to try new things. That’s the truth. But where does this put my face on a sign, on a billboard?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Who started that? I don’t know.
Steven Butala:
What goes on psychologically in your head that you need to put your face on a billboard just to buy and sell some real estate?
Jill DeWit:
Remember it used to be on a bench, a bus bench.
Steven Butala:
I understand branding. Joe and I brand stuff every day. We try to brand it through intelligence and commitment and committing to do a show and doing the show, regardless of whether or not we feel like it. And there’s a million other ways to brand yourself, let you into our lives and see the beach in the back and share all this stuff. But a glam shot, who the hell wants a glam shot of me or really Jill?
Jill DeWit:
That’s funny.
Steven Butala:
Again, Lucas, I’m not picking on you. I just-
Jill DeWit:
Glam shots made me laugh.
Steven Butala:
I don’t understand the psychology behind that.
Jill DeWit:
I do. I just told you. And hey, I think it’s a worthwhile question, and we answered it.
Steven Butala:
Then, let’s think about this. Let’s say that is effective. What would you look like that would make them sign it? Could you imagine these people that get, the rural land people are already cowboy hat wearing. They come from that.
Jill DeWit:
Well, here’s what I’m thinking of. I’m thinking of companies that have a photo and don’t. Does Pepsi have a photo? Do we know what the guy looks like? No. Does Apple put Steve Jobs’ head on there? That would be funny. No. Does Microsoft put Bill Gates on there? No. So I kind of look at things like that.
Steven Butala:
I think you’re right.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. So for me, it might take a little bit of the professionalism out of it-
Steven Butala:
That’s a nice way to say it.
Jill DeWit:
And making you look too much like a, that’s my only thing. I don’t want to be misconstrued for a real estate agent. Because I’m not. I fight that all the time. I have to tell people all the time, “I am not an agent. It’s not a commission thing. I really do own the property. I get to call the shots.” And then they go, “Oh, it’s a whole different thing,” and in a positive way.
Steven Butala:
What I do think, and we’ve long said this for years and long done it for years with a huge amount of success, is put your website on there. The first thing they’re going to do is research you. It’s going to pop up. They’re going to go to your website, or hopefully if you’re doing everything right, they’re going to Google you. No one’s going to type in your URL. They’re going to Google you. They’re going to find you hopefully quickly, click on it, and there’s going to be a cool, not a glam shot or headshot, a picture of you with your dog or your woman doing something that’s very normal, that says, “Hey, I’m a regular person. We buy and sell land. It’s nothing special. This is real, and we’re going to get you the money that you want.” That’s what they want to know. You have to do it right there on the, I can see the thousands of people that open that letter and just, it’s what Jill said.
Jill DeWit:
You know what I would do? I would toss it because I would think it’s another real estate flyer, now that you mention it.
Steven Butala:
So would I.
Jill DeWit:
That’s what could happen.
Steven Butala:
Here’s what I, Jill was dead right when she said, “Well, everybody else is doing it, it must work.” I’ve been looking at images of real estate agents on their cards and in their marketing stuff since there were only only black and white pictures. They’ve been doing it that long. Anytime something is that old, from a marketing standpoint, I mean, think about what’s changed, the vehicles that have changed from a marketing perspective, since 1970. There’s the internet, first of all, and all the ways to market on the internet, and track traffic and click throughs and all that. That didn’t exist back then. There were printing presses, literally, with carbon copy back then.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. At the end of the day, I’m not going to pick you Lucas because of your picture. I’m not going to want to sell my property to you because of the picture. I’m going to want to sell my property to you because I need the money and you hit me up at the right time, and I like the price.
Steven Butala:
Thank you, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
That’s the bottom line.
Steven Butala:
In fact, it’s going to have the opposite effect.
Jill DeWit:
So you don’t even go there, and it’s true. It might piss people off.
Steven Butala:
And color printing is about 14 times more expensive. We own offers to owners. Color printing is at least 10 times more expensive than monochrome. So, kudos. I love that you’re thinking out of the box and I hope you continue to do that. But I think that focusing on yourself instead of focusing on the real estate deal and the economics of the real estate deal specifically is not how to advance yourself in this career. That’s as nice as I can put it. Again, not picking on you. Today’s topic, sticking to a calendar schedule and how it’s imperative in your real estate career. This is the meat of the show. As I mentioned in the pre-show, this is a very, very popular topic. And I enjoy it. That’s the truth. Jill does not.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t enjoy what?
Steven Butala:
The calendar aspect of this and the scheduling and the doing stuff on time and…
Jill DeWit:
I do.
Steven Butala:
Well, I’m not sure you enjoy talking about it like I do.
Jill DeWit:
That I don’t. That part’s true. I’m like, “Just do it, everyone. Why is it so hard? Just put it in the calendar.” We don’t need to feel it. Just put it in there and move on.
Steven Butala:
Every single minute of your day, including free time and horsing around, should be in your calendar.
Jill DeWit:
That I don’t do, because it changes.
Steven Butala:
That’s the problem. That is the, you nailed it.
Jill DeWit:
I’m going to put free time all over my calendar.
Steven Butala:
Here’s what I see. I see people scheduling. I’m just going to give you a brush overview of my schedule. In the morning, there’s a time to get up. There’s a time to exercise. And then there’s a pre-time to check your email and stuff in the morning. And then there’s let’s say mailer research, on and on and on it goes down. And the first mistake I see people make, the first rookie mistake is whatever you schedule between 10 and 11 o’clock in the morning didn’t go as planned, because nothing ever goes as planned. Ever, ever. So between 10 and 11, 11 becomes 11:30, 11:30 becomes 12. Now the schedule is wrecked. So if you’re scheduling it all, you’re moving stuff around. And what you need to do, and what I do I think with a pretty high degree of success, is I stop.
At 10 or 11, if it’s not done, I stop. And I go onto what’s scheduled at 11 o’clock to 12 o’clock. And I move what was unfinished to the next day. And so it becomes a slotting. From 10 to 11 every day, I’m working on mailer research or whatever. After five o’clock, from five to eight or nine, let’s say, or 10, it’s horsing around time. Or if you need a break, I don’t know what your personal thing is. But if you need a break in the middle of the day, schedule it. Schedule lunch time. I heard an episode of Ellen Degeneres one time, a long time ago, had an expert on her show about weight loss. And she said to weight loss, “Oh, that’s simple. All you got to do is have a little notebook or on your phone. Write down everything that you eat. And you’re going to find out exactly why you’re gaining or losing weight.”
And Ellen looked at her and looked at the camera and said, “That will never ever happen, ever. No one who’s watching this show will write down what they eat and be honest with themselves about it.” And the whole audience started clapping. That’s the same thing with scheduling. The vast, vast majority of people, and I believe that Jill’s in this group, are repulsed by organizing themselves this much and holding themselves accountable to this level of performance.
So people constantly are asking us, usually in interviews, “How can you guys get all this stuff done?” That’s how. By scheduling. I won’t leave my desk at the end of the day if there’s nothing in my inbox. Your email inbox is the biggest source of distraction there ever was. I know most people use their inbox as their to do list. So if stuff comes in, it’s like, “Oh, I got to deal with that. Or I have to deal with that now.” And I think that’s really not good. What I do is it all comes in and I schedule it out, and I deal with it in a block of time in the future, unless it’s some kind of fire. And even then, I got to move stuff, you move it across, not down.
Jill DeWit:
I think what makes us different from other people, it’s more than just a schedule. It’s more than just it’s three o’clock. It doesn’t matter. It’s sitting down and doing it. We can sit down here and argue for two hours and not have a show. We have done that. It started to happen today.
Steven Butala:
It’s not going to happen on this show, for sure. But some of those shows, I don’t mean the arguing, I mean even the high ratings. So far, our highest rated shows are you and I yelling at each other.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. But you can always tell how close we’re sitting together, or not. So if you’re not watching right now, you should check this out on YouTube.
Steven Butala:
Are we far apart?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, we are. Yeah, we are. I can tell where you put my chair when you set up today versus where you often put my chair. Oh, you didn’t put my chair right next to you, baby. My chair’s a few inches away.
Steven Butala:
That’s because you wanted a camera angle that was more suitable to your torso.
Jill DeWit:
That is not the reason. Anyway, but my point of this is-
Steven Butala:
100% of the reason.
Jill DeWit:
It’s sitting down and doing stuff. You’re sitting here. You just have to do it. It’s hard. I know.
Steven Butala:
It’s not hard.
Jill DeWit:
Please let me finish. I let you speak.
Steven Butala:
Wow.
Jill DeWit:
Come on. Let me finish.
Steven Butala:
Why is it hard?
Jill DeWit:
For a lot of people, some of these tasks surrounding our business, surrounding any business are hard. You say you want to open an online store tomorrow and you’re learning all about X. I don’t care what it is. It could be gopher traps. We talked about that. We have a friend that had that company. And there’s an element of learning about gopher traps. Who buys them, what the market is, what they search for, and then pricing the product correctly. So, you’re starting this online business. You got to sit down and figure out what’s all needed. And then the hardest part, I think, is the putting the list into action and holding yourself accountable. That’s the piece. I was listening to somebody’s podcast the other day. They’re trying to start a billion dollar company. They’re here in Southern California. And to be marketing experts for several other companies. The main guy who’s driving the ship and paying the bills happened to be in a similar business as ours.
He kind of took a step back. His bank balance was doing just great. So he took a step back and started looking at other things. And what was interesting about this podcast I was listening to is that they had to bring in operations people, because there’s three of them that are real high level visionaries. They have all these great ideas. They put all this stuff down. But then they don’t act on them, and they don’t hold themselves accountable. They’re not picking dates. They’re not showing up. So they actually had to bring in a separate operations person who’s not this good-
Steven Butala:
Surprise, surprise.
Jill DeWit:
Right. To kind of hold their feet to the fire. So I don’t care who you are or how smart you are, what level you are in your business, if you’re just this visionary, you still have to get the stuff done. So for you, it’s putting it on calendar. So I argue too, it’s more than just the calendar. You have to have that, for me, it’s having a conversation with myself and saying, “I know it sucks, Jill. Here’s what you’re doing today. You’re going to get up and do X, Y, and Z. That’s it.”
And you know what, it may not be perfect, but you’re going to do it. Maybe for the gopher company, the website has to get done. You can’t just say, “I need a website,” outsource it and let somebody do it by the way. You have to hold them accountable to your timeline. Make sure it’s good. I mean, there’s so many moving parts. So I love that it starts with a calendar. That’s what I think. It starts with a calendar, I think, maybe for you. But like I said, for me, it’s really deeper. And if you can’t do that, I don’t care what it is.
Steven Butala:
Well, the name of the show is Sticking to a Calendar Schedule. I think that implies doing the stuff that’s in your calendar.
Jill DeWit:
I know. But I keep going to you have to have a conversation with yourself, if you’re not sticking to a calendar schedule, why you’re not.
Steven Butala:
What do you think some reasons are that you’re not sticking to the calendar? Let’s say you watch a program, I’ll use us as an example, land investing as an example. You watched the program, it’s all there. We all know it’s all there. There’s no questioning that. There’s hundreds and hundreds of people, over the years thousands of people, that have succeeded at this with this education program. So you watch the program and you sit down and follow it step by step by step, stuff that we’ve outlined. What are some valid reasons why it doesn’t happen?
Jill DeWit:
They don’t do it. You know why? I’ll tell you why. Because today, I’m doing mailers. Mailer Monday becomes Mailer Tuesday becomes Mailer Wednesday becomes Mailer Thursday because Mailer Friday.
Steven Butala:
Why?
Jill DeWit:
Because they don’t hold themselves accountable. That’s my point. At some point, you can’t keep doing that. You can’t say, “Mailer Monday is now Mailer August, and now it’s Mailer September.” You can’t do that. You got to hold yourself accountable. That’s really kind of it. And if you can’t do that, if it’s too big of a task, that’s what I think some people do too. Now it’s too big of a task. Fine, break it into chunks. And make that your new calendar. I’m really trying to help people and get them… If you’re not, because it’s really easy to sit up here and talk about it. But for a lot of people, they just can’t do it.
Steven Butala:
I think it’s really, really important to decompose what needs to get done, whatever you’re trying to accomplish, into the tiniest of little tasks and schedule everything out. And then if it doesn’t happen, because again, stuff goes wrong. It takes some people a really long time to do a mailer, which I can completely understand. It takes some people a really long time to get the phone answering system in place. Maybe for those phone answering people, it doesn’t take that long to do the mailer, or vice versa. That’s why I say from one to two, two to three, three to four, not, “Oh, I’m not as good at the mailer. It’s going to take me a lot longer than two hours.” All right, reschedule it. You will get it done. You’ll get all that stuff done if you can decompose it into the tiniest little steps.
Jill DeWit:
That’s what I do. And I like that.
Steven Butala:
There’s a second component to this. I know this show is going long, but it’s really important. This is actually really important for me. It’s what changed my life when I met Jill. I didn’t realize it, but I was doing a lot of stuff that I despised. And so there’s only so long that you can do that before you just either give up. In my case, it ended because I met a business partner and a life partner who was truly, truly, I’m not talking about salesmanship, interested in doing the stuff that I wasn’t. And so now, my calendar’s got half as much stuff to do. I removed half of the stuff and put it onto her calendar, and she was happy doing it. She went off on her way. I didn’t have to explain anything to her for some reason. It was just a very good partnership from start to finish.
And it still is. Regardless of how far apart we’re sitting from each other today, because she’s got some concept on that, we really are better together. So, after you learn how to do all this stuff, whatever you’re trying to do, look at medical school for example. People go to medical school, they have an academic portion, an internship portion, intern portion. Then they start to work under somebody for a while. And they do all the stuff that doctors are supposed to do when they become an I’m done with medical school doctor, they graduate. They have four levels of nurses that help them do stuff, the stuff that they had to do in the beginning. So you need to do that too. You need to get yourself a partner to do the stuff that you don’t want to do.
Or if you don’t have enough money to fund the deals, put it in your schedule. Find a money partner. From two to three today, Monday through Friday, I’m going to find a partner on Land Investors or Land Tank or House Tank or wherever you find money partners. If that’s not a priority, there’s all kinds of stuff that needs to get done, and it needs to be scheduled and followed through on. And eventually, stage two is you realize, “You know what? The stuff that I do from three to four every day is horrific. I hate it.” Then you got to put it in the schedule, “Find somebody else to do it.”
It’s nothing wrong with that. People have a real, especially in the Midwest, have a real, real issue with-
Jill DeWit:
Handing things over.
Steven Butala:
No, no, no. Looking at themselves in the mirror and saying, “I hate this, and it sucks doing it every day.” We are all, most of us, at least in my generation, from the Midwest, and probably East coast too, taught that suffering is just part of life, and there’s good with the bad, and just all these cliches that don’t have to necessarily be true.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t have that problem.
Steven Butala:
I know. I’ll tell you the truth. Jill doesn’t stick to much of a schedule. She doesn’t.
Jill DeWit:
No, and it works out fine.
Steven Butala:
You’re half does. What you do I think works out great.
Jill DeWit:
Oh yeah. Because sometimes I’m ahead of schedule.
Steven Butala:
She also has-
Jill DeWit:
I’m going to say that too. I look at my calendar. You know what I’ll do? I’m going to be honest. I’m ahead of schedule sometimes. I’ll take Friday off. I’m going to work late tonight so I can take Friday off. So sometimes I’m ahead of schedule. So I don’t think it’s a bad thing the way I do my schedule.
Steven Butala:
So let’s just start, this is my experience when I talk about this, I ask this question. I saved it for last for a reason. How many people, I do this at the live event, how many people even have a schedule? And maybe less than 10% of the people raise their hand. So let’s just start with that. Get yourself into Outlook, or that works for us because it’s company wide and we can all see each other’s schedules. Get into Outlook and give yourself a schedule. And you’re going to be shocked and amazed, if you stick to it, the stuff you can get done.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. Happy you could join us today. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you can find, or Monday, Wednesday, Friday, how about five days a week? Every day now, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy Show is called How We Created Professional Land Investors for Individuals with Zero Experience. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. This was a show created by Jill and her staff because it’s a very hot topic for our customer service people.
Jill DeWit:
People are going, “How did this happen?” And we’re going to talk about it.
Steven Butala:
So I just talked myself dry on this topic. We’re going to listen to Jill tomorrow explain to us how to create pros.
Jill DeWit:
You’re cute. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you find our content valuable and we appreciate your support. If you haven’t already done so, please zip over to our YouTube channel and hit the subscribe button.
Steven Butala:
And your comments and suggestions help us create the type of content you’re here for. Hitting the like button on your favorite episodes helps us support our channel’s algorithm and gauge your interest for future shows. You know me, it’s all about the data. We are Steve and Jill. Information…
Jill DeWit:
… And inspiration…
Steven Butala:
… To buy undervalued property.
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