Jack Thursday – You Have to Start Somewhere (LA 1477)
| Jack Thursday – You Have to Start Somewhere (LA 1477) |
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hey.
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 Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about it’s Jack Thursday, and you have to start somewhere. Jill and I just started doing Jack Thursday and Jill Friday, and all of our people, our Land Academy employees, love it. For some reason, it’s generating a lot of questions. It’s clarifying a lot of things in a human perspective, instead of talking about data and real estate and mail and stuff like that.
Jill DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Butala:
So, you got to start somewhere. And this is a culmination of me being in this business since the early ’90s and all this gray hair that you see, and then Jill and I starting Land Academy in early 2015, so we’ve got a good six years, a full six years of experience teaching people. I’m starting to feel like we know what we’re doing sort of. Are you?
Jill DeWit:
Your hair is not that gray.
Steven Butala:
That’s what you got out of that?
Jill DeWit:
That’s what I got out of that.
Steven Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com community. It’s free. And if you’re already a member, join us on Discord, please.
Jill DeWit:
Luke wrote, “Mailed a bunch of commercial vacant properties across a couple of states, most of all of the West,” most all the West, maybe not all of the West, but in the West. Got it. “Boy, a lot of them accepted. I’m dreaming of building warehouses, fast food, Dollar General, tractor supply store, gas stations, auto repair shops, storage, trailer parks, medical, et cetera.” This is all commercial stuff here. “Not much of any multi-family or office space-looking ones. I would’ve guessed it was going to be all office space-looking commercial land taking me up on my offers.” Interesting.
Jill DeWit:
“Trying to …” I already have some things to say about this, “Trying to verify lots of the pricing on these with third-party brokers. I think I’m in over my head. Looking for the sweet, obvious ones that are just priced way wrong. I’m sure they’re in here.” You know, it’s funny. I was just reading an article on this, with the whole 2020, how the year went, everybody working from home and now staying at home. There’s still a huge office component. I am seeing and hearing office space not going away. And if anything, it might even be maybe a little bit better because those dear sweet people who still want office space now are wanting more room. The days of cramming people in one room and cubicle after cubicle after cubicle might be gone.
Steven Butala:
I read a similar article that said, “We all know what happened in 2020. And despite that, institutional landlords, specifically multifamily, are killing it. They had the best year ever.”
Jill DeWit:
Yup. Yup, so there you go.
Steven Butala:
So, where’s the tragedy?
Jill DeWit:
I know. I love this though. So, what Luke is talking about is, “Hey, I went into it thinking I was going to get all the office stuff. I didn’t, number one. Number two, this is such a new venture for me, so I’m just looking for the low-hanging fruit,” which I totally get. And I’m sure they’re in there. Yeah. Grab them and go and then figure it out. He’s very good at that. That’s one thing about this person. Luke’s nuts.
Steven Butala:
Luke Smith. If you follow-
Jill DeWit:
He’s like me. He’s nuts.
Steven Butala:
If you follow land investing and the people that are involved, Luke’s one of our-
Jill DeWit:
Long-time members.
Steven Butala:
He’s number 22 or something like that. And he’s taken Land Academy to a place I didn’t even know where it would go, and he’s fearless. And so he obviously said sent out a massive mailer to commercial property owners, which Jill and I have done full shows and mailers on it and had a lot of success with it.
Jill DeWit:
Love it. You can get some good numbers in the commercial stuff. Crazy stuff.
Steven Butala:
Oh, we’ve got a crucial piece of property in Sonoma County right now that I expect will generate a pretty tremendous amount of money.
Jill DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic is Jack Thursday. You got to start somewhere. This is the meat of the show.
Steven Butala:
Surprise, surprise. I’m going to tough love this a little bit. You have to start this. I don’t care how far out of your comfort zone you are, you have to just get started. And it might be painful and look ugly and you might get yelled at and all of it. But if you made it this far where you’re listening to these podcasts and you’re joined or are thinking of joining our group and you understand the data component … And Jill’s going to talk about the people component of this business tomorrow … if that’s all kind of jiving in your head, you just got to get it started.
Steven Butala:
Don’t let fear, don’t let emotion be involved in this at all. Tony Robbins is famous for saying “The single biggest thing that stops people from being who they really are and reaching their potential is emotion.” And I mean, any kind of emotion, anger, fear, happiness, drunkenness, celebratory, anything, all that stuff gets in the way of being emotionless and efficient and getting this stuff done. But you have to start. You have to start by picking a county and pricing it.
Jill DeWit:
I remember I did that. I used to do those on Facebook Live a couple years ago. I had a weekly show on there and that was my tagline at the end. And it was, I was really trying to reach out to the beginners and help overcome these hurdles. And so at the end of every show, I said, “I’m here to help you get started because that’s the hardest part.” And I mean that. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Jill DeWit:
That was my little slogan at the end. You’re not alone in your real estate ambition. Because it is the hardest part for people sometimes. Even just pushing that button, because there’s so many … I don’t know if it’s a fear of the unknown because I don’t think that’s … I want to sound like a professional. I don’t want to make a mistake and buy something wrong.
Jill DeWit:
You know, there’s all kinds of things that are, sure, running through your head before you do this. But the good news is having this group and this community, I had no idea it would grow into this too. We did not set out-
Steven Butala:
Oh man, jeez.
Jill DeWit:
We didn’t set out knowing we were going to have a community. The community said, “We want a community.”
Steven Butala:
That’s what happened.
Jill DeWit:
We’re like, “All right, I guess we’re all going to do this together. I didn’t know we were going to do this all together.” And here we all are, and what a wonderful thing because I can tell people, like, “Don’t worry.” I tell everyone here, I’m going to tell you, like I tell our kids, “We’re not going to let you fall that far,” but you have to ask. I’m not going to babysit you. I’m not going to micromanage you. But if you have a question, I don’t care what it is, it’s not stupid, and it’s not too small. Just ask it. We’re here, but you got to get going.
Steven Butala:
I think I notice with our own kids and with a lot of people recently is that they think everything’s supposed to be perfect right out of the box. And I think that’s the … My generation had that because television made things, everything, look so pretty and easy. You know, I grew up-
Jill DeWit:
Brady Bunch.
Steven Butala:
… watching people surf and picking up a guitar and then 10 seconds later on the show, they’re picking out a tune, and that’s just not how life is. This generation has to endure 10 times that, maybe a hundred times that, with the silly internet and YouTube and all of this noise about how everybody [crosstalk 00:07:35]
Jill DeWit:
How easy and great things are. Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, and fast.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, you too can have one of those stupid money shooting machines, that’s dumb, and sit on a Lamborghini. That’s dumb. Really, do you know what we should do? I was just thinking, we should make it a game. Maybe our next new accountability group, the game should be, How Fast Can You Fail? Let’s brag about it. We need to get those first couple of failures out of the way. They’re going to happen. Just be ready for them.
Steven Butala:
Well, Matt, yesterday, is an aerospace engineer, he’s a rocket scientist. If you go through, get a master’s degree in something like that, or you have any type of technical background, you know what it takes to study. You don’t breeze through programs like that, or like accounting. You study and you have to put your time in it and you’re going to fail at it. You’re going to get some Cs along the way. Whoever started this, “You need 4.0,” I want to crush that person.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Butala:
Because it’s so silly. That’s just not … Perfection is not why we’re here. We’re not here to send out a perfect mailer or price it perfectly, or be perfectly successful. We’re here to trip over our own feet as much as is required, and so you start to have a little bit of success and then some more success and maybe some medium amount of success. And then maybe you can actually feed yourself and fill in the blanks from there, until you’re where you want to be from a financial standpoint up to and including a couple million bucks a month. We have many members that are doing that, but Matt’s been doing this for four years. He’s finally got a team that is allowing him to approach addressing his W2 job. Four full years.
Jill DeWit:
He did the slow, methodical, good, solid, not go crazy way. You don’t have to spend four years on it. But some do, some don’t.
Steven Butala:
I would choose that way over just-
Jill DeWit:
Oh, yeah. That’s what I’m saying.
Steven Butala:
Okay.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, no. It’s good, consistent growth, that kind of a thing. No, I’m not pooh-poohing it. I think it’s great, but I just want to, you know.
Steven Butala:
Well, he chose that way, like, “What other choice is there?” Because you implied, there’s a faster, easier way.
Jill DeWit:
Go nuts, Luke Smith it.
Steven Butala:
Or Jill DeWit it. That’s what she does.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, that too.
Steven Butala:
Jill’s a huge fan of sending out 10,000 mailers and just dealing with what comes in.
Jill DeWit:
I do. I’m okay with that.
Steven Butala:
And she will find a deal in there.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I will.
Steven Butala:
She’ll pick through it. She’ll sweet talk these people. She’s going to talk about this tomorrow.
Jill DeWit:
I do things a little bit backwards sometimes.
Steven Butala:
And that’s okay. I mean, that’s what makes us good partners, I think.
Jill DeWit:
I almost bite off a little more than I can chew at times, because then that makes … I pull myself up to the occasion.
Steven Butala:
Do you know what? If you want to ensure your success, and you can follow through, bite off more than you can chew, and follow through and deal with it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. You-
Steven Butala:
Are you out of your comfort zone on the phone with these people anymore?
Jill DeWit:
No. I got to tell you, I love the fire hose.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, you do.
Jill DeWit:
Some people will freak out about it. I mean, I love the fire hose effect, sincerely, and here’s why. It’s so much easier to sift through 50 phone calls and letters and put them all into a spreadsheet, spend the weekend, put them all in the spreadsheet, line them all up, do all the five As, figure out which are the best ones, pick the cream of the crop, and buy those. You’re going to sleep great, because you know, I reviewed 50. I picked the best three. These things are awesome. I have no concerns.
Steven Butala:
I mean, those are amazing numbers.
Jill DeWit:
Right? Versus-
Steven Butala:
You’re going to get wealthy.
Jill DeWit:
Right?
Steven Butala:
If you do that, take that approach.
Jill DeWit:
And that’s the fire hose effect. That’s the fire hose, just go for it, and have so much look for versus shoot, I only got three back. Darn, I got these three.
Steven Butala:
I only got three back because I only sent out 1500 units.
Jill DeWit:
Or 600 or something and like, “Shoot, now I got to … All right, which is the best? Well, that’s better than that one, and that’s better than that one. I’m still not sure about this part of it, but, well, I only got the three, so I got to do something here. I don’t want to waste my money.” You would need to send out more mail. It’s just, your life is just so much easier, so that’s why I like that way.
Steven Butala:
You got to start somewhere. I can’t say it a simpler, shorter sentence, and there’s something stopping you. So, maybe that’s where you start, find out what’s stopping you and address that.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. 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 on Land Academy Show is called, it’s Jill Friday, and she’s going to talk about the people side of the real estate business. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. I overlooked the entire side of people when I started this in the early ’90s, and we didn’t join forces until 2009ish.
Jill DeWit:
2009. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
And I just realized I was sleeping for almost 20 years.
Jill DeWit:
Aww.
Steven Butala:
I didn’t realize what we were missing from a money standpoint and an enjoyment standpoint, and I actually planted the seeds to start Land Academy way back then.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Hey, you need to send out a few thousand offers to property owners like us. Check out offers, the number two, owners.com. No set-up fees, free mail merge, and exceptional service. We should know as it is our company. Give offers2owners a call today.
Jill DeWit:
We’re Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
We’re Steve and Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Information-
Steven Butala:
And inspiration-
Jill DeWit:
… to buy undervalued property.
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