When to Do Your Own Work (LA 1605)
When to Do Your Own Work (LA 1605)
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 the sweet valley of the sun.
Steven Butala:
Today. Jill and I talk about.
Jill DeWit:
When to do your own work.
Steven Butala:
Thank you.
Jill DeWit:
You’re welcome.
Steven Butala:
Script is wrong.
Jill DeWit:
It’s okay. I got you. I got your back. We’re all good.
Steven Butala:
Guess who did the script?
Jill DeWit:
It’s okay.
Steven Butala:
It’s perfect for this topic. I do all the pre-production.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
I do the scripts. I do the questions and all of that.
Jill DeWit:
This is good.
Steven Butala:
And I didn’t do it right.
Jill DeWit:
When to do you your own work and when not to do your own work?
Steven Butala:
Maybe not do your own work when you’re getting so old that he’s not doing the right work correctly.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, or you can’t see.
Steven Butala:
The name of the show is When to do Your Own Work.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. There we go. All right, we’re going to talk about this. So I have made some notes here. I’ve just, my first note is “sheesh” everyone. There’s a lot of people that aren’t doing their own work, and we will explain.
Steven Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our land investors or land members on our land investors online community it’s free. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit:
Aaron wrote, “After watching a title company struggle for weeks now to get a very senior citizen seller to sign, notarize a deed themselves, and then mail it back, I’m starting to think mobile notary services can be worth the money.”
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Hello? Hilarious. So, this sounds to me like, because I’ve had some of these folks that.
Steven Butala:
I know you have.
Jill DeWit:
They’re not that mobile or they just don’t like to go out. So, this notary that couldn’t even send a mobile notary out to them. I’ve had this too where they… We sent a notary out and they needed to sign on the back on the trunk of a car. They wanted to be outside and had the fresh air. And, they’re just little, probably still concerned health-wise and so I get it. I get it. And you know, so you work with them. So, I guess this person is saying, “Why am I having them do that?” Because, which is true. “So, I’m paying the title company, how much money to do this work. I could have done that.”
Steven Butala:
And, they’re not getting it done. And, who knows what’s going on here? Maybe the town of the company or the town that where they live is so small, that they’re very used to going into town and signing everything.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Butala:
And, so maybe this person’s elderly and that’s just not an option, or we don’t really know what’s going on, but the fact is this, and I’m very sure of this. You, as an investor, Aaron have a better shot of getting people to do what you want them to do over the title agent.
Jill DeWit:
True. You have that relationship with them. They’re selling to you because of you.
Steven Butala:
Here’s the thing and this is my opinion now. This world that we live in is becoming more increasingly the lines of everybody’s responsibility and the hierarchy of things, I’m going to get a ton of emails for this. All right, is getting blurred. Ever since this COVID thing started and is now we’re in it like it or not, we’re post COVID or we’re in it in some stage. People’s responsibilities and I got my first experience with it was going to Home Depot, buying some stuff. This is in California, in Los Angeles and being standing there with somebody and they might as well have had a swastika on their arm.
Steven Butala:
Telling everybody where to stand, what to do, how it’s going to go. And this is some regular Home Depot employee that just within a week of starting the whole COVID scenario, got a little taste of power and just went kooks.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
You know? So, did I check out that day at Home Depot? No, I didn’t. And so, but what it did is it pushed me over the edge to really be conscious. And I’m not kidding now at all, be conscious of the fact that when you’re doing a real estate deal, there’s people that are involved and they may not do what you want anymore. Back in the day, back in our day, you could get people, especially sweet talking Jill over here, she can get people to do what she wants. And it’s becoming more difficult to do that because everybody believes that they have all this power now.
Jill DeWit:
There is a little bit of that. I’ll explain more here in a minute.
Steven Butala:
She’s shutting me up. Today’s topic, she just got me to do what she wanted.
Jill DeWit:
I did.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic when to do your own work. This is why you’re listening.
Jill DeWit:
It’s not the first time a woman has withheld things to get what she wanted.
Steven Butala:
Where are you today?
Jill DeWit:
[inaudible 00:04:52]
Steven Butala:
How long have you been holding that in?
Jill DeWit:
I just came up with that.
Steven Butala:
Wait, that could be a standard response to a lot of stuff.
Jill DeWit:
It’s just perfect timing. I had to throw that out there. So, I can move the show along. You’ll get some comments here. So, here’s my whole thing on this. You know what? People like you’re just talking about, when to do your own work. It’s weird this climate that we’re in.I try to walk around not saying the C word and I don’t mean the other, I mean the C-O-V-I-D word. I hate… I’m just kind of tired of it. I wonder if you are too?
Jill DeWit:
So, I’m trying my best to be very respectful of everyone and their wishes and their needs and all that. And, I’m never going to like say, “How I think is how you should think.” That’s not my thing.
Steven Butala:
Me too.
Jill DeWit:
And, I don’t want to be doing it to me too. So, I’m kind of hoping we can all get to a place now we can just kind of let’s do the best we can. We all want the same goal. So, it’s so interesting this shift that’s going on right now, what’s the culture of people and workers and getting things done. And, I’m not talking about people that don’t even want to go back to work. I’m talking to people that are working and getting paid and making money.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, me too. That’s what I’m talking about.
Jill DeWit:
There’s so much of, like you just said, walking in, not taking responsibility of anything and just saying, “Well, that’s not my job.”
Steven Butala:
I said that yesterday. I said that all that yesterday, let me set this back up. Jill and I are renovating a house and we’re not renovating it. It’s just what I would call pretty heavy decorating. You know, there’s no plumbing or electric.
Jill DeWit:
No moving walls.
Steven Butala:
None of that, nothing changing like that. It’s just changing out countertops, changing up floors in a small part of the house. And so, you know, maybe 60 days of work.
Jill DeWit:
Paint.
Steven Butala:
And, so we’re having… We’re at the last 10% of that, maybe the last 5% and the last 5% or 10% of everything’s the hardest, that’s all the tiny little intricate detail work, the stuff that got missed. There’s checklists, there’s blue tape all over certain places where stuff needs to happen. And, the supervisors, and recently we got to the point where we had to call the owner.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
And you know, and so the owners kind of walking around with a clipboard and Jill’s saying, “Look, this doesn’t match, it doesn’t line up.” And, I’m standing there for support. And he’s saying, “Yeah, it doesn’t match.”
Jill DeWit:
“Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t look good.”
Steven Butala:
With a big, long silent pause afterward.
Jill DeWit:
And just, that’s it.
Steven Butala:
And then he looks at his clipboard and says, “I think there’s a change order on that.” This is the owner now. This isn’t the project manager we’ve never met. And so, that this is the kind of the… When is it time for me to buy some new knee pads and get down there and fix it myself? Translation, and I’ll tell you the answer to that is the short answer is when it’s necessary. If you’re so compulsive that you have to control everything and touch everything and do everything. And, you’re only ever going to be a one man show, you’re going to severely limit yourself about how much money you can make and how successful you’re going to be. That’s one pendulum side. The other pendulum side, but idiot clipboard here, is “I’m not doing anything. Yeah. My customer’s not happy. Well, I’ll just stand here until they ask me to leave.”
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that sad? Do you know what was said too? I was talking about one of the workers. He goes, “Yeah, he’s just a whiny guy. Ignore him.” I’m like, “What?”
Steven Butala:
It doesn’t get the floor done.
Jill DeWit:
I got more than one person here, they’re telling me we don’t have the right materials and “Ah, they’re just whining. They can figure it out.” I’m like, “Wait a minute.”
Steven Butala:
Well, they can’t figure it out because the floor’s installed incorrectly.
Jill DeWit:
It is.
Steven Butala:
And so back to the land business, there’s stuff like the question today about the elderly. It’s just not getting done. When your deal’s not getting done.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
And, time’s going on, the likelihood or the chance statistically of the deal not ever getting done goes up.
Jill DeWit:
It’s high.
Steven Butala:
And you don’t want that. You want to get the deal done and move on to the next deal. So, you have to decide for yourself at what point you actually get involved now. And, maybe there’s a string, a big, long story, a string in Discord about meeting the seller in person to get a deal done.
Jill DeWit:
Why?
Steven Butala:
Because, it was a great deal and they couldn’t get it done. And it ended up just, it’s a great story. If you’re a member, you should go into Discord and look for it.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
Because, Luke… Luke Smith’s back. A long time member. And he goes dark for a while because he’s been doing real estate deals.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
And, sometimes he’ll come back and it’s just like a tidal wave of Luke Smith. So, he’s telling all these stories about meeting this guy and then he got duked.
Jill DeWit:
What does that mean?
Steven Butala:
The seller was livid. And so he was just baited them all the way down a bit livid about the price. Got Luke to meet him. We’re getting off track.
Jill DeWit:
That’s kind of funny.
Steven Butala:
You have to decide.
Jill DeWit:
How much you’re going to do.
Steven Butala:
Well, here’s another example, Jill, doesn’t like the color of electrical outlets in our entire house. So, she got a bid and a licensed contractor was a nice enough to-
Jill DeWit:
Come right out.
Steven Butala:
Submit the bid with, “You need this amount of these plates, this amount of these plates, there’s this covers.” Very detailed and, “That’ll be $12,000 please.”
Jill DeWit:
Something silly.
Steven Butala:
To change our plates in our house.
Jill DeWit:
It was crazy.
Steven Butala:
And when she said, “No, that’s too much.” He said, “Okay.” And, so I have a choice now. I have a choice. I can spend a bunch of time, try to find a handyman that’s going to charge dollars per hour, go get the materials myself, probably on Amazon, or I could do it myself.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
And, so is that a good use of my time? No, I should be here doing what I’m doing right now.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
It’s a much better use of my time for everybody to learn for us to make money and all that. But so there’s this constant I’m finding in this environment that we’re in now, even with the… She knows more about the real estate deals than I do. You’re going to have to get involved because people aren’t going to do what they used to do before the COVID.
Jill DeWit:
And it may not be you, it may be your team. So, and so part of it is you training your team, “We got to get this done.” That’s a lot of it.
Steven Butala:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit:
And, push them and empower them to get the stuff done.
Steven Butala:
They’re going to look to you for example.
Jill DeWit:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
If you’re just walking around, looking at the ceiling with a clipboard in your hand saying, “Yeah, this isn’t right” and not offering a solution or not getting your hand or hands dirty ever, or not putting any time in, just kicking your feet up on your desk. Those are the kinds of people that are going to work for you.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. And it’s like in our role, if you have that kind of employee, they’re going to go, “I don’t know title hasn’t called yet.” “When were closing?” “I don’t know title hasn’t called yet.” You don’t want that. That’s why I preach to you/your staff needs to check in with these guys at least twice a week to make sure they’re moving along.
Steven Butala:
The flip side is correct too. If you’re the kind of owner or supervisor that every single thing that somebody does you say, “Oh, that’s wrong. Take it all off the shelf. I’m going to do it with you. This is how you put stuff on the shelf.” Then that’s not sending the right message either. Jill’s right. You need to empower these people and you need to lead by example. And there’s lots of books, none of which I have written because believe me, I might not be the best boss. That’s why Jill’s here.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, come on. What are you talking about?
Steven Butala:
There’s a lot of material out there about how to lead people.
Jill DeWit:
Come on. We love it when you just… And, when you answer the phone with our customers there’s just nothing better.
Steven Butala:
You get to be a certain age with a certain amount of success your patience start to go like this. And so, and I know that about myself. So I say, I stay out of it.
Jill DeWit:
How much did you start with?
Steven Butala:
I started doing everything myself.
Jill DeWit:
He started with this much patience and now it’s this much patience.
Steven Butala:
You know what? My lack of patience for everybody else, I have the same lack of patience for myself. So, I think it’s okay.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
Just joking.
Jill DeWit:
We’re going to let it go with that. Happy you joined us today, five days a week you can find this right here on the Land Academy show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow the episode on the Land Academy show is called When to do.
Jill DeWit:
That was today.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Tomorrow.
Steven Butala:
When to correct your script.
Jill DeWit:
I got it. Tomorrow is Land Funding With Integrity.
Steven Butala:
You’re not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
I got your back.
Steven Butala:
I got to fix this script.
Jill DeWit:
No worries. I got your back. We’re good here. What was I going to say? You know what’s interesting about this whole thing? This… Here’s the sad reality. This environment with people not taking responsibility, getting stuff done, passing the buck, whatever, all [inaudible 00:13:33] costing money in the end.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Through ego.
Jill DeWit:
It’s really sad. They may be rolling in it right now because they have more customers than they know what to do with because no one else will show up.
Steven Butala:
It’s all ego.
Jill DeWit:
But, it’s going to come back and bite them because I’m going to remember these guys. I won’t use them again. We just got… We were all excited up until the last 10%. I got a bid to fin do more work, like even a bigger project. We’re talking-
Steven Butala:
Twice the size.
Jill DeWit:
%50,000, you know, plus bid and I’m like, “You know what? I wouldn’t do it with these guys.”
Steven Butala:
No way.
Jill DeWit:
Not now the way they’re treating me at the end here. It’s so sad.
Steven Butala:
It is.
Jill DeWit:
And, if they were treating me differently, I would be like, “Sure, let’s do it.” And if they said, “We can schedule in January,” I’d be like, “Okay, I guess that’s what it is.” And, they could have work scheduled out for months. But, they’re not doing that.
Steven Butala:
Really the problem is just basic stuff with these guys. This vendor specifically, it’s lack of communication internally with the team, lack of communication with Jill. And, lack of… It’s just their attitude. I can get over mistakes and if it’s handled correctly.
Jill DeWit:
You know what? He’s cocky.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Like, don’t get cocky. So, in your land business, don’t get cocky. Remember who you are. Remember your customers are. And, like we say in the program, don’t celebrate until after you hang up the phone.
Steven Butala:
I wouldn’t celebrate until a deed’s recorded.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true. Then too.
Steven Butala:
On the sale side, not on the buy side.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. And, those of you who have seen that, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Thank you for tuning in. If you are a Land Academy member be sure that you join us on Discord.
Steve & Jill:
We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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