What Name to Use on Your Mailer (LA 1571)
What Name to Use on Your Mailer (LA 1571)
Transcript:
Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I am Jill DeWit, broadcasting from cool southern Arizona. Not cool at all, though. It’s hot. Sorry.
Jack Butala:
It’s been kind of cool the last few days actually.
Jill DeWit:
This is true.
Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about what name to use on your mailer. This all came about because we had a huge discussion in Career Path, which is kind of our advanced Land Academy group. Should I put my name on there, or should I use a different last name? Should I put my assistant’s name on there? Should I create a name? Should I be anonymous?
Jill DeWit:
You know, I have a question. You have a pretty solid name.
Jack Butala:
I think I have a confusing as heck name.
Jill DeWit:
This leads into my question. What name do you wish you had? If you were born with a different name or you could change your name, what … Have you ever … This is a girl thing because we think about this stuff.
Jack Butala:
Jill and I have … Our tip-top holding company is called BuWit, B-U-W-I-T. It’s a combination of my last name and Jill’s last name, Butala and DeWit, and I think that would be a great name, Buwit, two syllables. Or Dewit’s fine, but Butala is all confusing. I have to spell it every time. Everybody spells it wrong. Spellcheck-
Jill DeWit:
I can’t say it. I say Butala because it’s looks like that.
Jack Butala:
And you know what? You’re probably right. Spellcheck thinks it’s Brutal every time I type my name in.
Jill DeWit:
That’s a cool name, Steven Brutal.
Jack Butala:
I think that’s a great name for a 70s punk singer.
Jill DeWit:
Or WWF. Oh, there we go.
Jack Butala:
Jack Brutal.
Jill DeWit:
That’s awesome. That’s cool. I like that.
Jack Butala:
I don’t have any complaints about my name. It’s fine. The real positive to my name is that there’s only two out there that I know of in the entire country that have the same name, and we know each other. We get each other’s stuff. This is a funny anecdote. The Steven Butala that I know has a PhD in chemistry, I think, or maybe physics, and he is a professor. Last I heard was at University of Utah, totally respected in his field, and I’m not respected in my field at all. It’s very … We get each other’s stuff, and we laugh about it. I get somebody’s dissertation in the email, and I have to send it to him, and we really laugh about it. He gets all kinds of weird stuff that are supposed to go to me.
Jill DeWit:
That’s hilarious.
Jack Butala:
Are you happy with your name?
Jill DeWit:
I always wanted to be the name … It was a Charlie’s Angel thing for me. I wanted to be Chris, but fortunately, that’s kind of in my middle name, so I would kind of do that for a while. My other thing I used to do … This is kind of silly, but every babysitter I had, I would adopt their name. I always thought that was a cool name. I don’t know why. My mom would come home, and I’d say now my name is this.
Jack Butala:
That makes sense because they’re older, right?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. That’s true.
Jack Butala:
Jill, I’ll call you anything you want, for the record.
Jill DeWit:
Really? Princess? Is Princess on there?
Jack Butala:
I call you that all the time.
Jill DeWit:
I know. It’s usually not out of love. It’s like, listen princess. That’s not how it should be used in a sentence. Okay.
Jack 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. If you’re already a Land Academy member, join us on the Discord.
Jill DeWit:
P wrote, I have a signed purchase agreement for a lot, with an interesting situation. The current owner is an attorney who acquired the property via quitclaim deed from a client as payment for certain legal fees. It seems the property was divided in 2015 from a larger parcel, and then conveyed to the attorney. As such, there aren’t any records for this new APN prior to that. The signed purchase agreement is for approximately $10,000, and the comps show that the property should be able to sell in the 20 to $25,000 range. There is physical access to the property, though it doesn’t appear to be a county road. The land use code is residential vacant, and all the other attributes seem to look fine. I’m fairly new to land investing, so I’m not really sure what I would be getting into here, given the quitclaim deed situation. Your insights would be appreciated.
Jill DeWit:
I know what I would do.
Jack Butala:
Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
Have the attorney convey it. Have his company or have somebody in his practice do it for him, an unrelated third party that he knows, who’s also an attorney, to make sure it’s done correctly. Next. With title insurance, if you want.
Jack Butala:
Next.
Jill DeWit:
Next.
Jack Butala:
We are in the business of buying and selling APNs. When I get a huge deal in that’s multi units; pages, and pages and pages of APNs, I know it’s a good thing. We’re not necessarily in the business of buying split-off dirt. There’s a lot of things that can be wrong with this, but I don’t think there are any. The fact that it’s been cut out, and it’s got its own separate APN, you can confirm that with a real quick call to either the recorder or the assessor, the county recorder or assessor. I would start with the recorder and say, hey, is this XYZ acres, is this APN look correct to you? Hold on one second, I’ll check. Yep, yep, yep, yep and yep. That brings the question of quitclaim deed. This is a valid concern and I …
Jack Butala:
These are great questions by the way. You’re new, and I’m glad you’re asking these questions.
Jack Butala:
Quitclaim deed is usually used to transfer property without title insurance to an interrelated party, usually when there’s a split, just like this. Should you be concerned about it? Not really. If it’s an infill lot, and you think that somebody is going to buy this and put a house on it immediately, then you’re going to have to buy this with title insurance. The title agent or the lawyer, like Jill said, is going to have to go through the process of getting title insurance. It remains to be seen. If there’s enough profit in this, I would just run it through title or get that lawyer to do the deal, and we’ll see what happens.
Jill DeWit:
So here’s what I heard, you agree.
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Jack Butala:
I agree, but this APN business … You’re buying an APN don’t-
Jill DeWit:
I don’t care. Who cares? Don’t think about what it is. Look it up and make sure it’s something good. That’s all right.
Jack Butala:
Yeah. You’re not buying a-
Jill DeWit:
Everything was once split, by the way.
Jack Butala:
I’ve made this mistake in the past. You’re not buying a legal description, you’re buying an APN.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala:
That APN has a legal description. If there’s no APN, you should just stop right there. That’s a massive put the brakes on and don’t do the deal.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). We’re cool.
Jack Butala:
Not trying to complicate this, but it’s almost … This is something that goes without saying, but it’s confusing this person, and it’s probably confusing other people.
Jill DeWit:
I thought the whole question was about the quitclaim.
Jack Butala:
I didn’t.
Jill DeWit:
I thought the question was about-
Jack Butala:
It got split off.
Jill DeWit:
The quitclaim situation, check. Attorney, check, and how to solve it, check.
Jack Butala:
Hey, by the way, all properties got split off.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Jack Butala:
All properties in this country got split off from a bigger property.
Jill DeWit:
They were all once a section or bigger. Sections started at … Thanks.
Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, what name to use on your mailer? This is the meat of the show.
Jack Butala:
Do I use my real name?
Jill DeWit:
Here’s what I put. Do I use a made up name? Do I put owner of the company? Do I put me as … Say I work for them. Do I put their name, and I work for them? Do I put just the company only? I’m giving a bunch of variations that people can do. Do I put Acquisitions at ABC land? Or do I put just simply my name? I know what I do.
Jack Butala:
Here’s what I think, very simply. It’s all got to tie together. If you put Jill Dewit … I put Jill’s name on all of our mailers, regardless of who answers the phone and regardless whether we have PATLive for certain mailers or phone answering service, because ultimately, if the deal is any good or the sellers interested in selling, they’re going to get to Jill. When that happens, they’re like, oh, this is Jill. Now I can do the deal. You want to build that up. The first thing that most people are going to do when they get your mailer, and they open it up, and they’re sitting at the kitchen table in the morning, opening the mail, is they’re going to look you up. They’re going to look you up on their phone or they’re going to look the name up, that’s on the mailer. If you have a made up name, and it doesn’t tie around the internet, that’s not good.
Jill DeWit:
Even when you’re just starting out, like he was saying, that they want to get to me. You’re just starting out, you’re brand new, and you have your name on … I’m Jill Dewit, and I answered the phone and I say, “This is Jill.” They are thrilled right then and there too, like, oh wow, I’m actually talking to you. That’s that’s another high-five positive thing, if you will. You agree?
Jack Butala:
I completely agree. That’s about all we have to say on that. Please don’t make up names. That’s really my point. Don’t make up a name that isn’t tied on the internet, where they can’t find it. It’s going to diminish what your return is on your mailer.
Jill DeWit:
What’s also interesting, part of this came up because we were having a discussion in Career Path about this with some of the people, and they’ve been in Land Academy for a while, and they are from other countries, they have different accents, and they thought they should go down the path of sounding like … I should sound like I’m from the United States. I should have a name like that, be easier to pronounce or spell or something like that. They shared their experience. It wasn’t even us. They shared, and they said, I learned don’t do that. So what they can’t spell my name, so what they can’t pronounce my name. I help them. I tell them. We get over that really quickly because, like you said, trying to sugar coat or hide it or disguise it or something is not the way to go.
Jill DeWit:
You want to say my name, whatever culture you’re from, country, whatever it is. Embrace it, and that’s who you are. Make a joke out of it. We all know people, too, by the way … You brought it up a little bit yesterday, how your name is hard to spell kind of thing. People are often, all the time asking, when you say your last name, the first thing is how do you spell that? My last name, they forget … They always think there’s two Ts. Big deal. I can handle it, whatever. But you may have a long, lengthy name, and I know several people that have long, lengthy, confusing names that I can never spell, but that’s okay, we get through it. It’s all about making sure it all matches.
Jack Butala:
Yep. That’s my whole point I want to drive home here.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it.
Jack Butala:
It’s got to match.
Jill DeWit:
The follow-up question is okay, this is great, I got it. Does it match me as the owner or … I think you answered this, I want to hit it home though. Say I’m the owner, I’m Jill Dewit, and I’m building up my little company, and now my husband works for me. I hired two employees. I have PATlive, and I’m up here approving deals, I’m rarely getting on the phone. I’m asking you, Jack, what name would you like me to put on the mailer?
Jack Butala:
Your own name.
Jill DeWit:
Me, as the owner of the company?
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. And just keep it because it’s always started that way.
Jack Butala:
Here’s why.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Jack Butala:
If everything goes right on your first, second, third mailer, you’re going to realize that, oh my gosh, this is going to be my career. This is a great way to make money, so I’m now going to start branding myself in the name of my company, like Land Academy or … We have a couple land names where we send mailers out, like BuWit is the main one. After five years of sending mailers out and doing deals, people are going to start to recognize that. They’re going to start getting letters over and over again or mailers, and they’re going to say, okay, this is legit. I’m not going to look it up anymore.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Jack Butala:
My sister did a deal. My brother down the street did a deal and on and on and on. It just becomes branded, especially not so much to sellers, but buyers for sure. They’re going to know exact … You want to make sure it just all ties. You want to change your name? Change it before you do your first mailer or your dot com, or any of that. Stick with it. Oh, that’s great, Steve, coming from somebody whose name is Steven Jack, and he can’t decide what your name is.
Jill DeWit:
Do as I say, not as I do. We kind of blew that one, but that’s okay. We’re here to save you now. That’s fine.
Jack Butala:
Should I call you Steven Jack? You should call me whatever you want. Which one?
Jill DeWit:
Do you know what also [crosstalk 00:12:33]? I’m going to add a follow up thing. Nowadays, I know people are maybe concerned about security and like, what if I try to track me down or such and such. We’re long past that. We’re beautiful examples of that.
Jack Butala:
We’re way past that.
Jill DeWit:
It’s kind of like-
Jack Butala:
We’re years past that.
Jill DeWit:
I still get random phone calls from people, like I skip traced you, and I can’t believe your number’s right. I’m like, great, thanks. Yep. This is me, and I answered the phone, but that’s okay.
Jack Butala:
And I never will again.
Jill DeWit:
That’s okay. I say, don’t worry about it. It’ll be good. It’s fine.
Jill DeWit:
Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us right here on the Land Academy show.
Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy show is … Well, it’s Jack Thursday, and we’re going to talk about ordinary and necessary. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jack Butala:
What the heck is that, ordinary and necessary? When you have expenses in a company, you start to make hoards and hoards of money, like we all are heading toward for sending these mailers out, you need to incur expenses. They need to be ordinary and necessary. I’ll provide the creative and fun and interesting world of allowable expenses, according to the IRS.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait. By the way, just a reminder, if you need funding; you’ve got that killer deal, you’re out of funds, you just don’t have the funds, whatever it is, but you know we’ve got to take this one down, please call me. Call Land Academy. It’s really just land funding. That’s it. It’s going to be landfunding.com. You can check that out too. The phone number, if you want to know more, is (480)885-0045.
Steve and Jill:
We are Steve and Jill.
Jack Butala:
Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
Jill DeWit:
I was a little slow there, sorry.
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