Jill Friday – Sometimes it Takes the Owner to Get a Deal Done (LA 1508)
Jill Friday – Sometimes it Takes the Owner to Get a Deal Done (LA 1508)
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 sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala:
It’s getting that way.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Today is Jill Friday. She says, “Sometimes it takes the owner to get a deal done.” Boy, that’s the truth.
Jill DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Butala:
Sometimes the owner’s got to get involved.
Jill DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Butala:
Sometimes dad’s got to get involved.
Jill DeWit:
Yep. That’s what this is all about.
Steven Butala:
Is that what this is?
Jill DeWit:
That’s exactly what this is about. You don’t want to do it. I’m here to save you. If you think your staff’s all idiots and no one can do anything, that’s not true. Sometimes it just takes that extra whatever to get it, to get it done.
Steven Butala:
Before we get into this, let’s take a question posed by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free, and if you’re already a member, join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit:
Andrew W. wrote, “Hey, everyone. I’m very interested in doing Land Academy. However, I’m not a citizen of the United States and was wondering if it would still be possible to purchase and sell land in America?”
Steven Butala:
Yes.
Jill DeWit:
“If anyone can answer the question for me, that would be great. Also, if possible, are there any particular issues that came along with not being a citizen? Thanks a lot, Andrew.” I thought this was important because it hasn’t come up in a while.
Steven Butala:
It’s a great question.
Jill DeWit:
People don’t realize that you don’t have to live here and you don’t have to be a citizen. You don’t have to have a visa. You don’t have to be a resident. You can be happily in, say, Ireland and do this.
Steven Butala:
This comes up probably once a week now, maybe once a month. But probably every couple of weeks somebody ask this question, whether they’re in Discord or wherever, and we point them to the other people that are successfully doing this from other countries, specifically Canada and Ireland. We’ve got military people that are stationed all over the country that are doing it. I mean, all over the world.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
All of our VAs are in the Philippines, so it’s truly a worldwide situation.
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that great? And it’s funny, remember a long time ago we talked? One of the reasons we do what we do in the United States is the ease of it, but it’s the ease of the data. And we were looking at doing this maybe internationally in Australia, because I think still right now it’s the only other place that we can really get quality data and it’s legal. Because we were talking about this with somebody in England one time, that version of the assessor and the owner data is not public information.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. We’re very, very fortunate in this country.
Jill DeWit:
It’s public information.
Steven Butala:
When the property got all subdivided or sanctioned, or whatever the verb is, by the federal and then eventually homesteaded out, I don’t know why, but they just became a transparent ownership scenario. In most places in the world, it’s the exact opposite. Nobody wants anyone else to know that they own anything.
Jill DeWit:
Or what they paid, or any of that.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
It’s so funny that it’s your home, but not your car.
Steven Butala:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit:
There’s so many other things that it’s not.
Steven Butala:
Right.
Jill DeWit:
It’s real interesting. But luckily for us, it is.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Well, it wouldn’t be possible.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
I’ve spent a substantial amount of time trying to duplicate this in Canada and it’s just not going to happen. The ownership records aren’t available.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Today’s topic, Jill’s Friday. Sometimes it takes the owner to get a deal done and sometimes it takes the cohost to move the show along.
Steven Butala:
This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
There was a long pause. I’m like, “Is he okay Do I pat him on the back?” Are you all right there?
Steven Butala:
Why do your parents smash you on the back when you’re choking?
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Butala:
[crosstalk 00:04:07] lodge the food in their worse? I’ve never understood that.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t know. That’s true. That used to be a thing, and it might be wrong. I bet it is wrong.
Steven Butala:
I had a second generation mother. We were talking about this in Discord under the guise of the hate when people get upset about their offers that you submit and they call back and scream at you. I did this whole thing in Discord and said, “I grew up in Detroit within this Italian family. My grandparents came here from Italy. I can take the hate.” And everybody piped in with all kinds of stories about that, their parents and how they grew up.
Jill DeWit:
I did not grow up like that.
Steven Butala:
My parents had weapons, man. My mom had a wooden spoon that she would use on us if we were not behaving the way she thought.
Jill DeWit:
No, but if I got in trouble, I was sent to my room or grounded. We never really even talked about it. It was a thing. And so I had a very different experience, and I never really pulled anything that bad, I guess. It was funny nowadays, the doctor, “Do you have any changes from your last visit?” “Nope.” It’s so flat line boring, but at least it’s consistent.
Steven Butala:
You literally grew up next to Disneyland.
Jill DeWit:
I did.
Steven Butala:
Every night she would watch the fireworks at nine o’clock from here window.
Jill DeWit:
Yep. I could hear them and I could hear [inaudible 00:05:27], pop, pop, pop.
Steven Butala:
Then she went to work there.
Jill DeWit:
I did. It was a lot of fun.
Steven Butala:
That’s not the childhood I had.
Jill DeWit:
It was between that and the beach. That’s not what you did?
Steven Butala:
Nope.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
Shoveled a lot of snow.
Jill DeWit:
Got it.
Steven Butala:
Learned a lot of four-letter words from my grandparents and my parents.
Jill DeWit:
I understand. So this topic today, you know what? It’s not meant to be a rant. It’s meant to say you’re not nuts, because sometimes it even happens to us. I know people look at us like, “What do you mean? Even at your level, you’ve had to get on the phone and talk to a title agent?” Yep, I did. It wasn’t going the way I wanted it to go. And my people, I can only push them so far. And there’s some times, it has to be an owner to owner conversation. So that’s what this is about. I recently had to get on the phone with a title company and say, “We need to take this to the next level. I appreciate you, Sally, but you’re not the person I want to talk to. And I don’t even want to talk to your manager. Let’s keep going.”
Steven Butala:
Tell us why, because I’ve actually wanted to ask you this, not necessarily on the show, but I was walking past your office that day and heard you talk to our transaction coordinator. So what was the story there?
Jill DeWit:
You know what, well, this particular one, was that the title agent left the company and whoever they passed it off to, it may have been the understudy, a lot of title agents, especially right now because they’re so busy, they have junior title agents that are their assistants, so maybe it went to the understudy or their assistant who was trying to do the deal, and it was getting pushed out so far that it’s not going to close. I’m afraid it’s not going to close and I’m going to lose the seller. And we’re starting over again too. The person, they weren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. It wasn’t a seamless transfer, which it should have been.
Steven Butala:
Sure.
Jill DeWit:
The amount of money that we spend, the amount of business that I give them, the level of communication, and how on the ball we are, this is not my first deal. So when I come to a title agent, this is part of my issue too, is that my staff most of the time knows more than they do. They definitely know more about the deal and the top person on my transaction team has done title stuff and trained title people. She’s had that job. She still does that job on the side sometimes, helps out some of her friends title agents and moonlights on the weekends and helps them get deals done. And I’m like, “Go for it. I don’t care. You’re weird, but okay.” It’s not how I would spend my weekend.
Steven Butala:
You’re weird.
Jill DeWit:
No, in a good way. She does, she really knows her stuff so she’s often educating these people. So the fact that I just had to get involved, again, she got as far as she can go. And what it would probably just was, her title, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So I have to get on the phone and say, “Look, I’m the owner. We need to solve this right now together.” And sometimes it’s owner to owner, we’ve got to talk.
Steven Butala:
Did it work?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. You have to connect with these people. I’ve had to do that. One time, remember, I remember a massage company a long time ago. I was going to a massage company, not kidding. I prepaid, I get two massages a month, and then something happened, big staffing change, and I was getting the run around from this staff member who I talked to. And so I blasted an email to the owner of the company. I was pissed off. Bless his heart, he called me.
Steven Butala:
Oh yeah?
Jill DeWit:
He did.
Steven Butala:
That’s great.
Jill DeWit:
He called me in his car on his cell phone when he got my email.
Steven Butala:
Oh, I do remember that.
Jill DeWit:
Remember that?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
And we totally connected and he was so nice. And my communication to him was, “Owner to owner, You need to know your staff is making a mess. They’re about to lose me, and I’ve given you so much money over this period of time and I’m going to be gone.” And he’s like, it was a thank you. So it’s two parts. Sometimes you have to get involved and you have to take it to that level. And it’s not very often. Oh my gosh, not even once a year, do I have to do this. But once in a while, things come up. And then the other thing is, you are really doing them a favor. I want to know too.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, we own a bunch of companies and I want to know too.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
If somebody is really unhappy, I really do want to know, because I don’t want that to happen anymore.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I’ll fix it. I will fix it.
Steven Butala:
Jill and I, and I think most owners do, take pride in this stuff, delivering content or buying property and reselling it and all that. Whatever the companies are, I want to know right away.
Jill DeWit:
Yep. And he was so nice about it. We had a good laugh about it. He’s like, “What?” He’s like, “Oh, ho, ho. don’t worry. I will take care of that tomorrow and there’s going to be some retrain and going on,” kind of thing.
Steven Butala:
Just like when the kids are little, you want your teachers to say, “Look, this kid’s not,” they’re either not behaving correctly or they’re not grasping math. I mean, we could as parents make different decisions and give them the stuff that they need her, or whatever.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
So it’s the same situation, same feeling, same thought process.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, you really are. And just make sure you approach it the right way. It’s not like you guys are all losers. You’re never going to do that.
Steven Butala:
No.
Jill DeWit:
And that’s how I do. By the time I have to do this too, it’s a couple of times. I could say, “Here was goof number one, try to work with them. Here’s goof number two, still trying to work with them. And now, I’m on number three and we’ve got to talk, because you’re going to lose my business. If you’re going to lose my business, you need to know, because now it’s affecting your livelihood.” So you are helping people out.
Steven Butala:
It’s really, really hard to manage employees correctly. At least in our companies, the people who do extremely well are very independent and they hold themselves accountable so that we don’t have to do it.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
And so I think that problems arise when people are not. I know that the people who have recently were either asked to leave our companies or we ask them to leave were purely because they weren’t holding themselves accountable for some level of performance. They were looking to us to do that, to set that bar for them, and that in the end, that’s never going to work. Here’s the bar. I just need to be amazed all the time on how independent you are and how you’re solving your own problems.
Jill DeWit:
And you have to spell it out at the beginning.
Steven Butala:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit:
And the reason I wanted to talk about this today is because not only are we business owners, but probably you listening right now are too. Because every single Land Academy member are running their own little business.
Steven Butala:
Yep. Yeah, exactly, Jill. That’s well said.
Jill DeWit:
So we all need to know that this is going to come up. You’re not nuts. How do I handle it? Whether I’m the one making the call or I’m receiving the call, you need to have an open mind.
Steven Butala:
I was just thinking about some past employees.
Jill DeWit:
Oh yeah. Have an open mind, and just the best thing I can say is, everybody should be on the same page. How can we quickly solve this and prevent it from happening again? That’s the goal.
Steven Butala:
I had a person who was our Director of Acquisitions for years come to me on the second year and she said, “This is my second year anniversary.” I said, “Congratulations.” She said, “Well, I need a review and I want this and I want this and I want this.” And she didn’t work there much longer after that. And she came from a background that was very, very structured, an airline type company where-
Jill DeWit:
Annual reviews.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
You get a 2% raise.
Steven Butala:
There’s a two inch booklet on how to work there, training, formal training, and all that.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
And that’s just not the environment that Jill and I provide at all.
Jill DeWit:
It’s not that she was wrong. She came to you and was trying to change it and expect something. So as an employer, you need to make sure you tell your people how it’s going to go. I swear the day you get three employees, you’re going to laugh at me, but, I mean, we have our own employee handbook.
Steven Butala:
I know we do.
Jill DeWit:
And we really talk about it. This is truth time, truth time. He made fun of me, because I had a dress code.
Steven Butala:
What kind of weird stuff goes in these companies now?
Jill DeWit:
Well, we don’t have an office now, so I don’t know. I’m sure everybody’s in pajama pants and flip flops. But back in the day, I had a dress code, and I had to think about it. I did not like flops. I do not like flip flops. This was in California, too. Not here in Arizona, different story. I didn’t like shorts. And I didn’t like flip flops.
Steven Butala:
I just found out.
Jill DeWit:
And I don’t like tank tops.
Steven Butala:
This is the truth, I found out a year later after wearing shorts and flip flops to work that I was the only one in non-compliance.
Jill DeWit:
You were the only one.
Steven Butala:
I don’t know why no one told me, because I would’ve changed it.
Jill DeWit:
You were the owner. You don’t have to read the employee handbook, but they do.
Steven Butala:
That shouldn’t be right. I would happily set an example. That’s not cool.
Jill DeWit:
I believe that there’s a different mindset when you’re wearing pants.
Steven Butala:
I do too.
Jill DeWit:
You could wear nice sandals for girls and the guys just wear tennis shoes. That’s fine. But flip flops and board shorts and a tank top. Next thing you know, you’re just kicking back eating some flower seeds all day.
Steven Butala:
That’s you.
Jill DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Butala:
You just described yourself.
Jill DeWit:
Well, I’m allowed to. I’m the owner. But I would not do it in front of our people and I don’t do it in the office. So there you go. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find this right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode.
Jill DeWit:
You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Steven Butala:
You’ve been covering for me all day today, thank you.
Jill DeWit:
I am. That’s okay. This is what we do. We have each other’s back. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you find our content valuable and we do appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, please check out our YouTube channel, hit the Subscribe button, and give us some feedback on the shows you love. We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Information …
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
Jill DeWit:
I got ya.
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