The Solution to All Land Business Bottlenecks (LA 1684)
The Solution to All Land Business Bottlenecks (LA 1684)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about the solution to all land business bottlenecks, and I would even venture to say all bottlenecks.
Jill K DeWit:
This is kind of like struggling week.
Steven Butala:
Struggling week?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. Because we talked yesterday about burnout. Today, we’re talking about bottlenecks. I don’t want to make it … It’s not bad week. It’s not struggling week, but it’s the beginning of the year. I hope you, like us, are taking a look around everything that you’re doing and making sure going into 2022, am I doing it right? Am I motivated? Am I excited? Is my team excited? The goals and the things that we have forecast for this year, are we going to hit them? Are we all on the same page? And then you go, all right, what could be holding us back? What could be our bottlenecks? I want to talk about that.
Steven Butala:
Do you ever listen to a podcast or listen to someone speak or even read a book where everything’s just, you can do this?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Butala:
This is how you … You’re great. You are a perfect person.
Jill K DeWit:
Jack Smiley, and everyone, and by golly, I like you.
Steven Butala:
Every single person that joins the Land Academy is successful and they smile all the way through and it’s so easy. None of that’s true. That’s why. That’s why we have a real podcast about real issues that deal … We just are in the beginning of teaching this first year’s Career Path, and everybody went around the table last week and talked about how successful they are. And then with this really negative tone in their voice, yeah, well, I only did $800,000 last year and netted 500,000 and that’s not going to work for me. I’m not joking.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny? I know, yeah.
Steven Butala:
I’m not exaggerating at all.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true. That’s why I’m giggling.
Steven Butala:
So that’s my point. My point is we all know this works. Let’s all take a minute and pat each other on the back, if that’s what we need to do, Jill, here.
Jill K DeWit:
I didn’t say that.
Steven Butala:
But the fact is-
Jill K DeWit:
I did not say that at all.
Steven Butala:
… we’re either going to improve tomorrow or we’re not. So I don’t care where you are in your business, if you’re just starting or if you’re not knocking it out of the park, I think improving tomorrow’s in everyone’s best interest, especially your own.
Jill K DeWit:
How about improve right this minute?
Steven Butala:
I see this very different than motivating employees. None of our employees listen to this, I’m sure. I’m sure they’ve had it.
Jill K DeWit:
But there’s real bottlenecks and then there’s in your head bottlenecks. That’s how I see it.
Steven Butala:
But I’m really addressing not bottlenecks the topics of the show this week, because you’re saying they’re all negative and I just don’t think they are.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, we’re starting off a little bit-
Steven Butala:
I think they need to be addressed. This stuff needs to be addressed.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. I understand.
Steven Butala:
Before we get into it, for sure, really get into it, because I think that’s how this episode is going with Jill, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. And don’t forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit:
Dave wrote, “Getting my mailers ready is by far the largest speed bump in my process. Looking to be much more efficient with my time this year. Having said that, I’d really love to hear from anyone who has used the concierge data service with O2O, Offers2Owners. I’m super nervous to give up control over this task, but I realize it’s absolutely single largest thing holding me back from leveling up. Anyone who has actually used it and is willing to share, please let me know either here or private message. Thanks.” That’s a good question. We’ve used it.
Steven Butala:
I use it. That’s all I use. I use it because the person who runs concierge was for years, my person who did our mailers. And at the end, I just bless it, I review it, I run it through all kinds of tests. One of the tests that I run is I asked for, I put my order in. I want this county, these four zip codes. I want this size acreage with this size zoning, and that’s my order. So he goes through and runs all through it and gets it right down to the end, and he prices it for me, and I checked his pricing, but I also go back and I check in the universe of what my order was because I can go into DataTree real easy and do that.
Steven Butala:
If I find out there’s 14,000 or let’s say 4,321 properties or data files in DataTree just raw, and I find out he sent me a 2,800 unit mailer back, so 4,000 lines of data are out there, 2,800 made it to the cut, something’s wrong. So I’m going to go back to the concierge data guy and say, “Dude, what’s the variance here?” And he always has an answer, a very well thought out, “Well, yeah, this happened. This zoning was income complete and these three things were missing, so it cut the data in half quite a bit,” or something like the United States of America owns all these properties in this one section. So, we obviously don’t mail stuff that the federal government owns. Or in some cases, we’ll both look at it together and say, “Wow, you know what? I’m going to go back and redo this because you’re right. There should be more.”
Steven Butala:
So I wouldn’t be afraid of giving up control. Just try it a couple times. Try it once. That’s the answer. And see what happens. I’m telling you-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s life changing.
Steven Butala:
… I’ve never received, I’m knocking on wood here, anyone ever saying this concierge data thing is not, I don’t get it. It’s quite the opposite. It’s like, wow, I don’t have to do that anymore.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you for finally doing that and thank you for sharing your guy with us. That’s really what’s going on. And a lot of people, I just want to add on the concierge, it’s not just for new people that are afraid of it or not good at it or not sure about it, whatever it is. It’s for people that, maybe you’re busy and you just have a schedule like this one does and you stick to that schedule. And it comes crunch time, like, all right, this is the week the mailer’s got to go out and there’s no way I can do it, I’m calling concierge and they’re going to get it done for me, so that way I stay on track.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. I don’t know what’s worse. I mean, you have to get the mail out or none of this works at all.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
And that’s a surefire way to do it. Today’s topic, the solution to all land business bottlenecks. This is why you’re listening.
Jill K DeWit:
You alluded earlier that you have … I would love to hear your stuff first. You had all the answers. I’m like, all right, I’m excited to hear.
Steven Butala:
There’s lots of places you can go to get answers. You can read a book, you can ask your parents, you can ask your friends, but there is no better place … And all those might work. You might stumble on somebody or something that really has some value to what your bottleneck is. But there is no replacement to talking with someone who overcame that bottleneck recently. That’s what Land Academy is. It’s a community of people in Discord right now and in places like in Career Path, this is what I’m learning with this Career Path specifically, that there are people that sign up because they have one or two or three problems, bottlenecks, and instead of waiting for, or learning how to overcome that bottleneck when we get to that chapter or that module, it all comes out a lot faster because there are people in the group that have overcome this stuff, and we’re all talking about it.
Steven Butala:
Career Path is all, everybody talks at the same time. It’s not a lecture by Jill and I. There’s portions of it that are like, “Here’s the new way to do this. This is what we found. Let’s all talk about it.” The surefire way to overcome any bottleneck is to be in a group where everybody has solved it. Maybe it took 15 tries to solve it, but they did ultimately solve it and it’s behind them. That’s how you solve all roadblocks. All of them. That’s what AA is. That’s what any type of support group really is. And your land business is, compared to those kinds of things, overcoming a roadblock in your land business is nothing.
Jill K DeWit:
I love it. I was just thinking about there’s a couple different kinds, and you’re right, they are solved. They can both be solved by talking with people that have done it.
Steven Butala:
I said the same thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I broke into two areas, because I was thinking, all right, what kind of bottlenecks might we be facing? There are business related bottlenecks and then there’s you related bottlenecks.
Steven Butala:
Personality disorders.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks a lot.
Steven Butala:
And that’s still overcomeable.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Or is it? But anyway, with the business related ones, those are the easiest ones and that’s what’s funny. People get discouraged over the little things sometimes. I’m like, “Knock it off.” There’s like, “I can’t get my payment system set up,” or, “The county’s closed. I need to find this out real quick.” It’s okay. You’re going to be fine. So those are business related type of bottlenecks, but then there’s you related bottlenecks.
Steven Butala:
This is great. We can talk about this all day, because this is really what I think the problems are.
Jill K DeWit:
This is where it is. Exactly. The you related bottlenecks are things like no matter what, I can’t seem to find great deals in X price range or I can’t seem to do more than four deals a month. These are the two things that I see a lot. People are stuck. They’re like, “I just can’t get over it. I know you said add a zero, but I just can’t do it.” So that’s a bottleneck. Or people are like, “Oh, no matter how hard I work, I only can do one deal a week. That’s all I can manage.” So that’s four a month. So that’s 52 really … I take some time off, so 50 a year, which is still nothing to sneeze at, everyone, but they have their own you stuff that’s holding them back.
Steven Butala:
There’s a scene in Caddyshack where they’re out on the golf course and one character says to the other, “Hey, what do you do for a living?” And the guy says, “I own a bunch of lumber yards, but I’m not sure where they are.” That is a massive cure to every bottleneck in business. You need to give up control at some point along the way while you’re building these businesses, or whether you buy a business, you need to tell yourself, “I bought this business. There’s a person in place that runs the operations already. Or I hired this operations person and he or she’s running it now. I used to be the operations person and I got this business to an amazing place. Now here’s my operations person. Let’s see what she can do.” And the revenue might deteriorate by 40%, but you need to work with that person, believe in that person and deal with them to the point where the revenue’s back up where it’s supposed to be. And then it continues to go up and then you can go not know where your lumberyard is.
Steven Butala:
That is the biggest … Every hyper successful person I’ve ever known in land or anything else at any point in my life was so hands off and just didn’t care. So I’m not saying let the thing burn to the ground. I’m saying get reports, have a weekly staff meeting or a monthly meeting or whatever your comfort level is, but know this in your soul. No one, no one will ever be able to buy and sell real estate or land as well as you do. The sooner you can accept that and start training your replacement, like concierge data. I think that was … Was this-
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
As soon as you can get over that and deal with accepting the fact that no one’s you, then you’re going to do great.
Jill K DeWit:
It was funny on my end on this for me, I had that happen to me last night. Someone asked me, “Well, how many companies do you have?” I went to buwit.com and showed her. And she goes, “Well, how many employees do you have?” I’m like, “You know, I’m not sure.”
Steven Butala:
Good for you, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
I did.
Steven Butala:
I didn’t know this.
Jill K DeWit:
I kind of guessed. I gave her a range. I said, “Between here and here, I think.”
Steven Butala:
That’s outstanding.
Jill K DeWit:
I know, because it was kind of where she’s like, “Oh, that’s pretty good.” I was like, “Yeah,” because, well, part of it is, like you said, we’ve empowered our employees and let them run with it. I want them to have higher help that you need to do your job better. So I know the core employees. I had to sit and write it down recently, just kind of catch up. But then the people that report to them, I have no idea. I really don’t know. It’s awesome. And everybody’s doing great. So I hope this really helps you.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find this here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
So now the episode on the House Academy Show is called … We’re going to talk about record low SFR inventory. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. It was really funny, I was totally guessing. I thought about later, should I know?
Steven Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, no that would be weird if I gave her an exact number, because then to be like, “Are you HR?”
Steven Butala:
I know exactly how-
Jill K DeWit:
Like, “Nope. I am not HR.”
Steven Butala:
… exactly how much revenue these companies generate on a daily basis. Daily, I check that.
Jill K DeWit:
I know you do.
Steven Butala:
And daily I check, for Land Academy anyway, I check Discord to see if anything’s blowing up. If there’s one trending thing that someone’s upset about, we’ll address that, which hasn’t happened in a long time. So definitely there’s ways to keep your pulse on stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what you should do.
Steven Butala:
Which you should be doing, but you shouldn’t actively be involved once you hand over the reins.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Thanks for tuning in. By the way, if you’re a Land Academy member, make sure that you are communicating with us in Discord. We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
We are Steve and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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