Getting that First Customer (LA 1403)
Getting that First Customer (LA 1403)
Transcript:
Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Merry Christmas.
Jack Butala:
Yeah. Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Jack Butala:
Today jill and I are talking about getting that first customer. If you’re listening to this on Christmas, congratulations, you are dedicated.
Jill DeWit:
I got a pain in my eye real quick there. Sorry about that. It was really weird.
Jack Butala:
It’s being in relationship with me pain in my eye. It’s from lack of entertainment, lack of laughing and lack of…
Jill DeWit:
I have these sharp pains all over my body.
Jack Butala:
… familial happiness.
Jill DeWit:
Just kidding. Oh, that’s hilarious. You’re funny. All right. Getting that first customer. This is-
Jack Butala:
Well, before we get into it, I know you have a pain. Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit:
I have a pain, and it’s not the kids.
Jack Butala:
Big, huge pain to your left.
Jill DeWit:
Yes, I do.
Jack Butala:
You know how it is.
Jill DeWit:
My eyes are burning. Okay. Kathy Roe, “We have a property that has many people looking in the first weekend.” Wait, “We have a property that has many people looking in the first weekend.”
Jack Butala:
I think she has a property for sale on Zillow.
Jill DeWit:
On Zillow. Okay. Does anyone know if it’s possible to have people bid up, if a few offers come in and if so, what do you say to get people calling?
Okay, she doing Watchers, I guess you put in Zillow and you could see-
Jack Butala:
Savers.
Jill DeWit:
… people who save it, or like it, or whatever that thing is, and then you want to… Okay.
I’m a first come… I don’t want to play games with people. Let’s back up. First of all, congratulations. You got a property. You got it on Zillow. It’s there and you got people interested.
Yay. Now, do I need to have you reach out to them and talk them into something? Mm-mm (negative), because if you are like us, Kathy it’s priced right, and I want you to be there, and available to… You’re not liking my answer.
Jack Butala:
No, I love your answer. I have some stuff to say.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, and when they call-
Jack Butala:
I love your answer.
Jill DeWit:
… or reach out, you’re just ready to go and make it easy. And, if you have any people that are tire kickers, get them off the phone, number one.
The real people that are interested are going to… You’ll know they’re interested. Like I said, it’s a first come first serve. Here’s the price. When you’re ready to go, let me know, and if you’re ready to go right now, let’s do it.
Jack Butala:
Please remember that, as a property’s for sale in any venue, except eBay, as you go, and as you’re getting questions, and stuff’s happening, you got a lot of whatever, you can change the title.
You can change the description specifically the first sentence of this description. I would say something like, “We now have…” Right in the first sentence so that you can see it without clicking on the whole thing.
“We have 480 people watching this, and we’re sure it’s going to sell this weekend. First come first serve. We haven’t gotten a full price offer yet, but that’s what we’re looking for, and it’s all cash, so call this number, and it can be yours.” Make it a call to action.
Jill DeWit:
You want to put it in the posting?
Jack Butala:
Yeah, or even in the title. You can change this stuff as the-
Jill DeWit:
You could say, “Hot property, checkout views.”
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Hot property.
Jack Butala:
Or all kinds. You can do all kinds of stuff.
Jill DeWit:
You know what, some of the sites will even do that. Have you ever looked on Zillow, and seen on the map? It does say, “Hot.”
Jack Butala:
Right. That’s not good enough. I think that you should really… Here’s the thing, I’ve had a couple of conversations with people recently, and they start like this. “I don’t know why my property’s not selling.”
To which I say, “Well, you’re not selling it.”
Jill DeWit:
That’s the problem.
Jack Butala:
This has been going on since the fifties with hair sprayed real estate agents. They post it on the MLS, and their job’s done, and that is the worst thing that can happen.
Jill DeWit:
Right. There’s a nuance though. That’s the thing that I want Kathy to know, and you’re going to learn. There’s selling, and then there’s overselling. That’s the thing I don’t want to…
You don’t want to talk somebody into something that they don’t want, but… Kathy, if you’re a member, you know in the program, you can listen to it, and you can pick up on buying signals. That’s where you’re to sell them at that point.
The person that calls you and says, “There’s 80 views. I’m really serious.” Say, “Let’s do it.” Just assume it, “Then let’s do it.”
Jack Butala:
That’s what I’m saying.
Jill DeWit:
Don’t let anybody else take this property from you. You know it’s great. I know it’s great. Lord knows it’s priced right. Let’s do it.
Jack Butala:
There’s something about this property, whether it’s the price or how you’ve presented it, or the location, or whatever, that’s making people click on it. That’s massive. That’s huge information to you.
Number one, you probably sent a bunch of mail around there. So, other properties that you’re maybe potentially thinking about buying, this is an indicator that they’re going to sell well, to me.
Number two, this tells me if they’re getting a lot of traction on Zillow just by posting it, if you put it on Facebook Marketplace, you’re got to sell it. Make sure it’s posted everywhere else, because you’re going to get that kind of traction too.
Jill DeWit:
Is it easy for them? I do have a question. What do I do to get the people calling? I’ve had people put postings up, and forgot to put their phone number in.
Double-check, and make sure your contact information is in there, and easy and available. Hey, if you want to talk to them, a lot of them, but just a way to… They do need a way to reach you and, or check out.
Jack Butala:
You did something right. I don’t know if it was you bought the right property for the right price. Hopefully it’s that. Maybe your listing is so fantastic that people can’t resist. I don’t know, whatever it is, just make it your business model. That’s what I’m saying.
Jill DeWit:
Good, good work.
Jack Butala:
And improve on it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Jack Butala:
Today’s topic getting that first customer. This is the meat of the show. Jill and I get pitched new business ideas constantly, from all places. We get emails. Developers are constantly saying, “Wow, there’s an easier way to do this. You know, I’ve got this, how you should do this dashboard.”
Or our friends. Some of our friends that call. They text us and say, “Hey, do you have some time on Tuesday? I’ll buy you a drink, and I got this idea.”
99% of the time, Jill and I listen to it, and the whole thing. One person came to us, and this is years ago, and pitched this idea, actually two sets of friends, from different worlds, pitched an idea about a…
It was an app driven idea. I listened, and you can tell there’s idea people that during their pitch, it starts to escalate, and escalate, and escalate, and they’re sweating, and talking fast, and they’re real excited, because they’ve been thinking about this for years.
And, they’ve done exactly nothing about it. Nothing. They haven’t even taken step one. They haven’t even called an app developer. They haven’t done all the stuff that you would do as a Land Academy member to go from A, to B, to C, to D until you make some money.
They haven’t thought for a second about getting that first customer. It’s just an idea. You see this on Shark Tank all the time. Oh, this is an idea. It’s not a business.
Please don’t make that mistake. Especially with real estate. Real estate, how it’s constructed is maybe one of the easiest, if not the easiest startup that you could ever hope to do from a money standpoint, and a time standpoint.
Buying a huge apartment building, a hundred unit apartment building, or even a four unit apartment building is out of most people’s reach.
Well, wouldn’t it be easier just to buy one unit at a time?That’s what real estate is. You’re concentrating on one unit, and whatever you’re going to do with it. Maybe you’re going to sell it on terms. Maybe you’re going to buy it, and resell it.
Then you’re going to do another one. Then maybe you might do three at a time, and four at a time. So, it’s baby steps. Pay as you go. You don’t have to finance anything.
Maybe it’s houses for you. If you just buy that first house, repackage it, do whatever you need to do to it and resell it, and congratulations, you’ve got that first customer.
You were infinitely farther than 99.9% of any of those people that I just told you about. These app people, and I want to try to do this business, and I want to buy this convenience store, and I want to start a bar, and on, and on.
I’ve heard it all, all of it. All they’re doing is dreaming. You want to make sure you’re not a dreamer, and just get to that first customer.
Jill DeWit:
In our world, how do you do that? You buy a property. You make it look great. You get it out there, so people know that you have it for sale, and you price it right.
It’s funny. It’s very hard to sell something, if no one knows it’s for sale. So, if you buy a property, you got to post the property. You got to turn around. You got to do that, and we’ll help you. That’s what we do.
What pictures do I get? What do I write? How do I make it look good? Where do I post it? That’s all Land Academy. You just have to take the steps and do the action, and that’s how you get your first customer.
Then just be available. Don’t be afraid too, to answer the phone, respond to the email. I think with that very first customer, a lot of us are like, “This is my first customer!”
I don’t care what it is. You’re like, “I don’t want to sound like I don’t know what I’m doing. Especially in this industry.” They don’t know what you know, or don’t know.
Most of the people, this might be their first time doing this kind of thing too. So, don’t worry about it, and you’ll figure it out.
You know what’s involved. When you’re selling a property, you know what’s involved because you bought the property. So, you’ve already done this before.
Now, all you’re doing is putting yourself in the seller seat, and this person’s the buyer. Really easy just to repeat what you did.
Jack Butala:
Think about starting a company like Uber, and all the seed capital in the first, and second, third rounds of financing, and debt and equity financing that you have to do, and how much development goes in. Years of development before you can launch something like that to get drivers and customers.
Then there’s a huge mark back in marketing piece. You’re talking about a decade of work just to see if you’re going to ever get that first customer. You don’t know. This is so much easier.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Jack Butala:
You can do this on Sunday. If you have a full-time job, three kids and an angry wife, you can do this on Sunday and get yourself out of that. Pretty quickly.
Jill DeWit:
What the heck?
Jack Butala:
Pretty quickly. I’m just calling it like it is here.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Not everybody has an angry wife, I hope. I’m teasing you.
Jack Butala:
I wonder how many people, as a percentage have angry wives.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t know.
Jack Butala:
More than 60. We’re in the 60%.
Jill DeWit:
Because that’s your percentage? That’s your number?
Jack Butala:
I have zero angry wives.
Jill DeWit:
No, I mean in your lifetime.
Jack Butala:
Everybody I talked to has got some version of an angry spouse with very few exceptions.
Jill DeWit:
We call it Mad Dad. When Dad’s mad, it’s Mad Dad. Like, “Watch out, Mad Dad-”
Jack Butala:
In our ebook to finish on this, in the ebook that I wrote a lot of years ago, and I’ve been editing it, and amending over the years, if you go to Land Academy, if you haven’t read it, one of the first things that I say is, I tell my story.
Then I say, “This is what I want you to do.” It’s chapter two or three. I want you to go to Craigslist. This is all free. I want you to do a posting that says some version of this.
“We are active real estate buyers. We’re just a mom and pop. We’re active real estate buyers in the area. We want to buy your unwanted land, and we’re pretty comfortable paying between X and Y per acre. Here’s my phone number. Just give me a call.”
Don’t put up a website, don’t start… Just use a Gmail, some Gmail account that you have. You can do it in five minutes. Maybe put a picture of you and your spouse, or you and your dog or whatever’s important to make you a real person to them.
I am shocked, and then I say, at the end of the chapter, “Congratulations, you are in the real estate business.” So someone’s going to call you, and they’re going to say, “I do want to sell my property. I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t think my price breaker’s in the range that you said, but how about this?”
So, you’re going to start to go through the motions of deciding whether or not to buy that property. I don’t care if you have no money, if it’s a good deal, call us, we’ll pay for the whole thing. Or, there’s a million people in our group that’ll do it, all you’ve got to do is put it on Land Investors or on Deal-
Jill DeWit:
Land tank.
Jack Butala:
Land Tank, or Deal Board, [crosstalk 00:12:33] if you’re a member.
Jill DeWit:
It’s Land Tank, or House Tank.
Jack Butala:
You don’t have to even be a member to do this. That’s how easy it is to start down the path of getting that first customer. I would argue that maybe your first customer at the very beginning is the person you buy it from, not sell it.
Then you’d start down the path of selling it. I don’t know any other business that requires so little effort, and energy to begin with than this.
Jill DeWit:
That’s interesting. That’s true. That’s very true.
Jack Butala:
Certainly not buying any brick and mortar store or any of that, and starting an app, forget it. Unless you have huge capital behind you. That’s a long path to success versus 15 minutes to actually finding out.
Jill DeWit:
When you get your first customer celebrate it, like today, because it’s Christmas. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us right here on the Land Academy show.
Jack Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode. You’re not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
Are you having a good Christmas?
Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit:
Did you get everything you wanted?
Jack Butala:
Well, this episode was recorded a week earlier, so I don’t know that.
Jill DeWit:
I’m winging it, just pretending here. You could say, “Yes.”
Jack Butala:
She’ll have never had a bad moment with you, and that’s the truth. In our deepest, darkest worst moment, I still am completely happy, and proud to be with you-
Jill DeWit:
Me too.
Jack Butala:
… and I love you. I don’t know what else to say.
Jill DeWit:
Me too. Thank you, sweetheart. Merry Christmas.
Jack Butala:
You too.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you for tuning in. We hope you find our content valuable, and we appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, give me a Christmas gift by going over to our YouTube channel, and hit your subscribe button, and give me some love on the new show.
Jack Butala:
Your comments and suggestions help us to create the type of content you’re here for. Hitting the like button on your favorite episodes helps us support our channels algorithm. Engage your interest in future shows.
Jill DeWit:
We are Steve and Jill.
Jack Butala:
We are Steve and Jill. Information…
Jill DeWit:
… and inspiration…
Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
—————————————-
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.
