Why Land Resellers Buy from Us (LA 1614)
Why Land Resellers Buy from Us (LA 1614)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hi.
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 Southern California.
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about why land resellers buy from us. We have a whole website called LandStay.com and the slogan is, “Land acquisitions for resellers”, and it’s been this way for years and years and years and this was not intentional.
Jill DeWit:
Let’s just cut to the chase. It’s me.
Steven Butala:
It’s The Jill Show.
Jill DeWit:
Come on. No, no, I’m just saying, why do they buy from us? Because they get to talk to me.
Steven Butala:
Oh my gosh, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
I’m just kidding.
Steven Butala:
That’s hilarious.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
You know it’s probably not completely not true.
Jill DeWit:
It doesn’t hurt.
Steven Butala:
There’s probably some truth to that.
Jill DeWit:
I got to tell you, people call and there’s a woman on the other line it’s like, “oh okay.” Sometimes it’s hard to get them off the phone.
Steven Butala:
Here’s a one reason, it’s cheap.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Isn’t that funny?
Steven Butala:
It’s cheap.
Jill DeWit:
It’s hilarious. That’s one thing that I’ll never get tired of that question, “What’s wrong with it?” I’m like, “Nope, nothing wrong with it.”
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Just nope?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. No, I seriously, it’s like it’s nothing wrong with it. If you would like me to add more to the price so it really is more in line with all the competition, I am happy to.
Steven Butala:
We have a-
Jill DeWit:
And then they’re like, “oh no, no, no. Caught it.”
Steven Butala:
Over the last lot of years, Jill and I have developed a lot of one liners about the top six or seven questions that we get…
Jill DeWit:
From the buyers
Steven Butala:
… from people. And we only get them once because that put it’s all to rest and you know what, we’ll answer them in just a minute here.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
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:
Jason asks, “I’m very frustrated. Is there a simple video tutorial that someone has made that will walk you through the simple formulas and steps it takes to work with data that we are using in the business. I’ve edited my data down by going through and looking for government owned properties, Indian land, non-taxable land etc. I’ve done this manually. I know there’s a better way. I’ve tried to watch the video to keep up with Jack. As he goes through adding a column, I can do that and then adding a reference number and a column for each row of data, but it bounces back and forth between him and the slides. I’m having a hard time following. OMG. Is there a better way? I’ve never had to use Excel and I can “guaran-dang-tee” you that my kids will learn to use this. I’d scream and kick the dog if I thought it’d help.”
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh, that’s hilarious.
Steven Butala:
Okay. Well this takes me right back to 2014.
Jill DeWit:
This is here, Steven. Everyone breathe, breathe, breathe.
Steven Butala:
And, I’m not picking on this writer at all. There’s two red flags here for me. “I’ve never had to use Excel” and these are direct quotes. “and my kids will learn to use this.” So, the very, very nucleus of how we buy and sell real estate is data driven and there’s only really, in my experience, two ways to manipulate data to your benefit to get offers to owners. Whether you’re doing direct mail, [inaudible 00:03:19], there’s a million ways to get offers to owners.
Steven Butala:
Not a million, there’s about four really good ones.
Jill DeWit:
That’s awesome.
Steven Butala:
I really believe that you have to have and be comfortable with and I mean born-with comfort at manipulating data either using Excel or through the manipulation this day and age of a database. Excel is easy for everybody to understand, I think and a database takes a little bit more sophistication, but there’s no limits to it, literally. There’s no limits to a relational database, so you have to learn how to use Excel, probably to the masters degree level before you can understand how to get offers to owners in the male and before you learn how to price stuff and that’s for all real estate.
Steven Butala:
This is why people drive around, driving for dollars and there’s a lot of ways to avoid learning how to manipulate data and learning Excel and the all fail, every single one fail.
Jill DeWit:
I do have to say one thing. If you’re in our world and you understand the concept and you get the business, this is not crazy. Maybe you’re the money guy. Hold on, follow me here.
Steven Butala:
I’m going to follow you.
Jill DeWit:
Maybe you’re the money guy and that’s okay. You could partner up with someone if you understand, “Hey, I’m great at talking on the phone, I have tech arsenal behind me, I can get any website you want built tomorrow. I’ve got money to buy the properties and I’m good with…” whatever it is. Hiring title companies, anything like that. All the talking part and that part. Then there might be somebody out there for you to partner with and make this work. So I don’t want you to give up.
Steven Butala:
Jill and I have a very fortunate distinction. Each of us, separately, of being relatively good at sales and relatively good at data. It just happens to be that I love the data part and she loves the sales part, so, now I don’t have to do the sales part anymore and she doesn’t have to do the data part anymore. But, the people who are really good at this in our group, and the ones who are not good at this and they choose to do this alone are good at both to some degree.
Steven Butala:
What she’s saying is if you can’t stand Excel, which is what this persons really saying and it’s grossly out of their comfort zone, you don’t have to fail. You can just team up with somebody who’s great at it.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
That’s it.
Jill DeWit:
Like I always would tell him and I still do. All you got to do is make our phone ring. Make my phone ring, make my teams phone ring and that’s really how we divided our company in the beginning and parts of it have never changed.
Steven Butala:
If one of these two things is stopping you from succeeding, log onto Land Academy itself. As a member, go to Deal Board and post a thing that says something like this, “I suck at data, but I love sales or vice versa and I’m ready to go. I’ve got all kinds of time on my hands. Speed me some deals and I’ll split it with you.”
Steven Butala:
You’ll get 50 people responding to you on either side. Jill has to save me all the time and it’s okay.
Jill DeWit:
What do you mean? Why?
Steven Butala:
This Excel thing, this Excel… Nevermind, let’s move on. This Excel thing makes me mad.
Jill DeWit:
I know. Well It’d be like me- Come on, there’s plenty of people that I talk to that are fearful of talking on the phone. I don’t get frustrated, I help them.
Steven Butala:
I’m training a personal assistant right now, who’s very young, to handle all of the mailers and I just approve it and so… and they’re very new at this and I chose that person for a lot of reasons, but they are going through the Microsoft/Linda Excel formal education program.
Jill DeWit:
Growing pains, I thought you were going to say.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. It’s not free. There’s a lot of YouTube stuff out there, you can learn all kinds of… But there’s nothing like going through a course. Like we have a course that shows you from professional people who have really succeeded at how to learn how to do this so…
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
… I’ll leave it at this. If you’re serious about buying and selling real estate, she’s cringing.
Jill DeWit:
I’m like, “but wait, one more thing.”
Steven Butala:
If you’re serious about buying real estate, buying and selling real estate, you got to know Excel.
Jill DeWit:
Yes, oh but one more thing. Just kidding. This is what happens when you bring up Excel with him.
Steven Butala:
Yeah that’s right. Yeah that’s a thing Jill.
Jill DeWit:
You know what, that’s your fault for putting it on.
Steven Butala:
It is my fault for choosing this question.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, who picks the question? You just wanted to vent a little bit I guess.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic, why land resellers buy from us. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
I have some theories.
Steven Butala:
Go ahead, oh go ahead Jill, I’ve talked a lot already.
Jill DeWit:
Actually, you have. Oh it’s so funny. Here’s what I think. Here’s my personal take on why they buy from us.
Jill DeWit:
Number one, we make it easy. I have repeat customer that come back over and over and over again because I remember them, I keep their credit card on file, I know how they want their deed done every time, they don’t have to ask me.
Jill DeWit:
I make it so easy. I send them a list with state, county, APN and my price and they can look it up at their leisure because remember they’re resellers, they’re in my business and they just pick the ones, I want one, two, four and seven, great. Done. And that’s the end of the conversation. There is no conversation by the way.
Jill DeWit:
It’s an email to them, they pick them, they email me back, great. We charge their card, we do the deed they want and get it recorded for them and it’s a done thing. So that’s number one why I think they choose from us.
Jill DeWit:
Number two. We do what we say we’re going to do and it’s not just resellers, but you better walk through life like this by the way. You’ll get further a lot faster if you do and just do what you say you’re going to do.
Jill DeWit:
And if you’re not going to do it, say, “Hey, I got to be honest with you, my week, this is a horrible week for me, I can get to it on Tuesday. Is that going to work for you?” And everybody’s like… And everybody accepts it and we’re all okay and you’re not stressed out and making people unhappy.
Jill DeWit:
Number three, I only have four here. Number three is… You want to jump in at any moment.
Steven Butala:
No, absolutely not.
Jill DeWit:
I get out my list and I just…
Steven Butala:
I can’t hold a candle to this and it’s a good coffee break for me.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. Yeah, would you like… Can I get you anything, would you like any…
Steven Butala:
No, Jill this is really very valuable stuff.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you. Okay.
Jill DeWit:
Number three, why resellers choose from us. Transparency. We always are upfront and honest. If access sucks we’re going to tell you. If it’s fantastic, we’re going to tell you. If we’re not real sure about… we think there’s a flat spot over here with a slope, first of all this is part of the transparency too. We would not have bought a property to turn and resell it if we didn’t feel it already. We would just pass on it all the way. We pass on way more properties than we buy and we’re very transparent about that and we’re very transparent about the property.What we know and what we don’t know, we really put it out there.
Jill DeWit:
And the final thing is why I think everybody buys from us too is the history that we have of our business longevity is so powerful. I pick restaurants, I’m like, “You know what, this restaurant has be in business for ten years, there’s a reason why.” They wouldn’t have made it ten years. If they’re around for six months, I might be a little iffy on them.
Jill DeWit:
Well, it’s the same with us and it’s sad, especially in our industry a lot of our competition, other land sellers, in the eighteen, nineteen… not that, excuse me 2008, 2009, 2010 is what I meant to say. They went away. I feel bad, but we’re one of the few that are still here and the longevity and the history and you could look us up and see what our customers think of us and say about us and go look at our history on Ebay. It’s hilarious and staggering. The volume of what we did and the transactions and that says a lot. So, that’s my list.
Steven Butala:
I can summarize what Jill just said in one sentence. We didn’t set out to do this, but we have established trust. We’ve established our customer basis trust, not only with our Land Sales operation, but houses and Land Academy and all of it, so that should be a goal and if you want to have a mantra written above on your computer monitor on a sticky note, it should be, establish trust.
Steven Butala:
That’s why.
Jill DeWit:
It’s huge
Steven Butala:
And what I eluded to in beginning of the show about answering questions, it’s just from brand new people who they ask us, “Why the heck is this property so cheap” which is a good question. Why is it so cheap? Well-
Jill DeWit:
Because I bought it.
Steven Butala:
Because we bought it for less than what we’re asking you to pay for it. And their next question is, “Well I want to do that.”
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. It’s very true. That’s how we got here.
Steven Butala:
To which we answer, “You should join Land Academy.” That’s how Land Academy started because-
Jill DeWit:
It’s totally how it started.
Steven Butala:
Because we had to answer that question 42 times a week and we just got tired of it.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. That’s perfect, that’s a great way to say it. Perfect. That’s good.
Steven Butala:
Hey, we know your time’s valuable. Thanks for spending some of it with us today. Join us next time for the episode called, “Member Andrea Peacock Shares Land Academy Success Stories.”
Jill DeWit:
Oh yay. And by the way, we’re going to answer your questions, post it on our link community, LandInvestors.com, it is free.
Steven Butala:
You are not alone in your real estate ambition. I have to say before Jill…
Jill DeWit:
I got excited.
Steven Butala:
No, no, it’s great. I have to say we have already recorded it, this Andrew Peacock interview. You don’t want to miss it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, oh yeah.
Steven Butala:
I mean, it was by leaps and bounds the best interview as a Land Academy owner or-
Jill DeWit:
Host?
Steven Butala:
Yeah, host lets say and House Academy I’ve ever… He has taken this thing to a whole level where… he’s actually a former NFL player. Taken this whole thing to a level that I always know this stuff is possible, but when we talk to… I love to get blindsided and he…. I love to get blindsided with success and he truly blindsided both of us with his success and his approach to buying and selling real estate. And I’m not selling anything here. It’s a great half hour out of your life to see what’s possible.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you, babe. That was about a half hour to your life right there. Just kidding. I’m just teasing.
Steven Butala:
I’m getting my butt kicked this week.
Jill DeWit:
I am totally teasing. I’m sorry. Hey, by the way, what I wanted to say earlier and I started to put it in the wrong spot, but today’s the last day we have a big promo going on with Land Academy, if you’re thinking about doing it, check it out, LandAcademy.com. And while you’re out there online wherever you are listening, or wherever you are watching, please rate us there.
Steven Butala:
We are Steve and Jill.[crosstalk 00:14:34]
Jill DeWit:
We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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