How to Develop the Skills I’m Missing to Have a Successful Company (LA 1442)
Transcripts:
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 DeWitt broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about how to develop the skills that you may be missing to have a successful company like Jill talked about. I’m sort of wondering this about you actually.
Jill DeWit:
It’s a long process, but I’m going to share all of it today.
Steven Butala:
As we talked about yesterday at the end of the show, Jill and I host an accountability group. And go ahead, Jill, explain the backstory with this.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, so it’s our first ever Land Academy official accountability group held by Steven and I, and it’s free and voluntary to anyone that enrolled. It was like November, December, last year kind of thing. And we started in January, kicked off in January. So we had a really good question last night or the other night, which was, “I’ve heard you guys talk about how having a past life or being a business owner in some form was a good indicator who’s going to be successful in this world.”
Jill DeWit:
And so we answered that question and then the person said, and I’ll give you the quick answer, which was, “You can afford it. Tenacity. You know how to solve problems. You die trying. You’re going to kick [inaudible 00:01:31] high water. It’s going to be successful.” If you’ve done that, then there’s not much you can’t do I think, so stuff like that. And then the person said, “All right,” and there’s a lot of other things. They said, “Okay, well, how do I develop the skills that I’m missing then to be that person?” And that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Steven Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit:
By the way, if you are a Land Academy member, don’t forget. You can reach us on Discord. So Anthony wrote, “I have been seeing a lot of posts like does anyone know of a good photographer in X, Y, Z County? I was thinking we could add state and county sub farms to the resources forum, so we could share resources by county rather than having to post requests for providers in the general forums. Then, we can share who is good in each county and who we should avoid.” And I personally think this is a great idea.
Steven Butala:
That’s good, but I have a 180 degrees different opinion. Over the years, Jill and I have created forums and we do have forums in Land Investors, in Discord and a knowledge base that I think we’re transferring through different… well it’s knowledge based. The software that it’s being used on is obsolete, so we’re moving into another one. And the heartache that it causes, if you go say in X, Y, Z County, I’ve got this great person who can close deals. I have a great lawyer, closes deals all over the state. They’re based out of this county. It’s going to become obsolete fairly quickly, number one. Number two, we’re going to get a call from that lawyer that says, “I’m getting all these calls from Land Academy members and they’re not asking me the right questions. What they’re asking me is, where should I send mail, things that I’ve never heard of before.” And so it’s title mind all over again.
Jill DeWit:
I was only talking about photographer.
Steven Butala:
And I think photographers get obsolete too. The best photographers I’ve ever had, the times that I’ve gone to use them again, they’re gone. I just don’t think-
Jill DeWit:
That’s fair.
Steven Butala:
It’s like saying air table is the best CRM. It’s not. It’s really good for us. We love it. Jill loves it. It’s pretty. She says it all the time. Apparently, that matters to her and that’s fine. Whatever it takes to get deals done. I just don’t think that sharing this type of information… and this question is appropriate for this topic today. You have to develop these skills, these really creative skills to problem solve when things like this just when data is not readily available.
Jill DeWit:
I still don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. Could we have a my opinion, your opinion agree to it? Okay, good. Because I think photographer, if you’re using for a while, I wouldn’t mind saying, and then when he retires, the next person, if you will, when you pull the phone number down and you say the guy retired or he died for something who knows? He moved. He moved. There we go. Would you just take his name off the list? That’s not crazy. All right. Sorry. Go on now.
Steven Butala:
These things in a strange way have an uncalculated consequence or an unintended consequence of becoming something that you don’t want it to become because for…
Jill DeWit:
Overkill.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic. Today’s topic, how to develop the skills I’m missing to have a successful company. This is why you’re listening.
Jill DeWit:
Pineapple. Pineapple. We have a code word. It’s not that kind of a code word, everyone. So don’t go there with me. But when you’re out somewhere like you’re talking to someone, you realize they’re not getting it or I don’t know, maybe one of us is being a little unruly and it could even be me, the code word is pineapple. You can walk up to them and say, “Can I see you over here? Pineapple. Follow me.”
Steven Butala:
And then the other person, usually it’s me, is not allowed to question anything. You just have to listen and kind of give that person veto power on whatever’s happening.
Jill DeWit:
Pineapple’s like, “Oh, I’m too much right now. Yeah. Maybe a little bit.” Yeah. So that was a pineapple moment.
Steven Butala:
So during this accountability group, this person was saying, “Well, how do I then develop these skills to kind learn how to talk to someone on the phone and get to-
Jill DeWit:
Have tenacity.
Steven Butala:
Get to like doing it. Hold on a second. And I said, you don’t learn that. What you do is you find somebody like Jill as a partner.
Jill DeWit:
Or the opposite. Like how do I get to embrace data? Like, it’d be saying, “Okay, I want to learn a skill to embrace data and get as excited about…” Can imagine if I said this to you? Steven, will you please teach me and show me so I’m just as excited about as you are when I get into Excel and I’m downloading data? Will you get me there? It’s impossible.
Steven Butala:
That’s not going to happen.
Jill DeWit:
Because I don’t want it to be.
Steven Butala:
I couldn’t agree more.
Jill DeWit:
That’s why. I don’t want to get to know it like that.
Steven Butala:
And also I think it ultimately leads to, if you’re getting up in the morning and doing things you don’t want to do, that’s only going to last for so long. For certain people, it could be 20 years and then they’ve had enough. For certain people, it could be two weeks and then it’s like, “I don’t care how much this job pays. I don’t care how long I’ve been married. I don’t care, whatever. It’s just like I’ve just had enough.”
Jill DeWit:
How cute the kids are. Just kidding.
Steven Butala:
You don’t really don’t want to start down the path and just try to adjust and adjust and adjust to something that you just don’t want to do.
Jill DeWit:
The point is to me, I really liked this question. That’s why we’re talking about it today. So listener, you who asked the question at our meeting, at our accountability group, I was loving it. Again, I put it in here because that made me think for a minute. And it was great because you and I both had the same answer. It would be awesome. But instead of trying to be that person that you’re deep down not, or you really don’t care about or by the way, you’re not as good at, you’re just not naturally as good at it. There’s some things like that. I feel bad, but I may have… You know what? I may have the most energy and excitement and whatever about being a ballerina, but look at me, I’m not going to be a ballerina.
Jill DeWit:
That’s not going to happen or a jockey or something. There’s physical things. There’s things you just can’t overcome. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And I really am always been a huge fan of, “Hey, figure out what you’re good at and just run with that.” And that’s what this is today for me, this topic. Get real good. Know every part of your company. You want to have a successful company. You want to be a successful investment company like we are. Figure out all the pieces. This is what we talked about. I said from day one, I want you to start writing your own SOP, your own standard operating procedures of all the 23 steps that took you to buy the property. Now, the 23 steps to list the property and then the 31 steps needed to sell it and deed it over or whatever it was.
Jill DeWit:
And that was part of our air table. I was showing our air table example because we put all those… it’s kind of like the whole process is spelled out in air table. So you start with the steps and you can put it into a system and make your life easier. And then as you’re doing that, you’re going to figure out the places you’re really fast at and you’re good at, the places that you’re not good and what you stink at, what you hate, whatever. And instead of hitting your head against the wall going, “I got to get better at posting. I got to get better at posting.” No, you don’t. Find somebody who’s really as good at it. I got to get better at talking to people on the phone. That’s okay. Find someone who is really good at and they love it because I promise you there’s a ying and a yang. And that’s what this group is all about. There’s so many partnerships and companies and businesses that I never expected coming out of Land Academy.
Steven Butala:
Couldn’t agree more with everything you’re saying. I just see a lot of people getting really frustrated, not a lot. I see a handful of people frustrated trying to do something that they can’t. They just don’t want to. And so rather than quit, I really just think you should align yourself with the right people so that you can do it together.
Jill DeWit:
Brilliant.
Steven Butala:
So for every person that can’t stand doing data, there’s a-
Jill DeWit:
A me.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, exactly. So partnership is one of the most valuable things that I’ve seen come out of Land Academy.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. And there’s a couple of ways you could do this. So my first thoughts are I would make it task driven because I don’t want to go out there and spend months trying to find a partner and be trying to work with this partner and splitting things 50/50. I think that will come down the road when you start doing deals with people. So what I would do short-term is start doing it by task. So as you’re going on your business, you’re doing your first 10, 20, 30 deals, I love this job. I hate this job. All right. Where can I outsource this part of my company? Maybe it’s… Bookkeeping. I don’t know about you, but that’s one of the things that I can’t stand. I don’t want to take care of bills and keeping track of things like that. Not for personal or business. I don’t like it.
Jill DeWit:
I do stuff I have to, but outsource that. Find someone that can do it. And it doesn’t mean you have to bring on a full-time employee. This is a beautiful thing too. You could just do it by task. That’s one example. What about just building a website. You’re brand new to this. Do you really want to get and spend all weekend and maybe spilling into next week, learning how to create, develop, host, build out, put checkouts on whatever it is on your own website? No, you don’t need to do that. And that’s great. And I don’t need to hire a partner and say, “Hey, by the way, I’m looking for a guy that can do these 16 things, and then you’re in.” That’s going to be hard to do too.
Jill DeWit:
So go on Fiverr, Upwork, there’s all kinds of great places that you could find someone to do these. So there’s one-off tasks like that. There’s maintenance tasks. You’re going to need someone to help with that down the road. And then there’s big picture like I never want to talk to a tile agent again, something like that and you could hire a transaction coordinator even part-time that can take that off your plate and then down the road. So that’s how you start. So you know what? In a way you’re developing your skills and with your skills, you’re hiring the right people and I would argue that’s a better skill.
Steven Butala:
I would argue that… I was just going to say that. Jill talked earlier about the 15 steps to buy, the 15 steps to list it and the 15 steps to sell it. The first time you go through that, you do them all yourself because you can’t afford it. And honestly you should-
Jill DeWit:
You need to learn.
Steven Butala:
You should learn. The second time you do it, maybe it’s not 15 steps. It’s 13 steps because you didn’t realize you could combine them or improve the process in some way. Land Academy was intended and designed for it to be a springboard for all that, so that you can skip that big, huge first step. Understand the mail, understand the data, understand the process, and then after awhile, make it your own. And there’s going to be things you just don’t want to do or that you can outsource or you’re going to decide for yourself.
Steven Butala:
That’s one of the reasons I answered the question today the way I did. There has to be your signature on all of this. This isn’t Domino’s pizza. We talked about it last week. This is not a franchise where there’s only one way to make the pizza and that’s it and one way to hire, and here’s the employment forms. That’s not what this is. And the people that can embrace that are going to do fantastically well at buying and selling real estate, or really quite honestly, anything they put their mind to. It’s that mindset.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it. I mean, so many wealthy people, they don’t do this stuff. They just know how to find the right people and empower them and let them run, and that’s how you’re going to [inaudible 00:14:04].
Steven Butala:
Or that and fail.
Jill DeWit:
And then you replace them and that’s okay too. Yeah. That’s good. Yeah. Boy, that’s one thing that… Truth time. Life lesson. Fire faster. I’ll end it on that for me. As you’re doing this, figure it out real quick and then don’t feel bad and just move on. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode of the Land Academy show is called, are you a one deal a month person or a one deal a day kind of investor. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
This is awesome. We should like not answer this yet and let’s answer it together tomorrow because that’d be fun. I’ll do a one, two, three thing and we’ll each give our answer.
Steven Butala:
Sounds good.
Jill DeWit:
On that. By the way, if you are interested in learning more about us or what we do, please check out landacademy.com or houseacademy.com. We provide the education, tools, and support you need to be flipping property like the pros.
Steven Butala:
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.
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.
