Evolving with Land Academy (LA 1708)
Evolving with Land Academy (LA 1708)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Stephen Jack patella.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about evolving with Land Academy.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s so much new stuff that constantly happens in real-time here. Land Academy evolves at the same speed that the internet involves evolves.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes, evolves revolves.
Steven 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. And don’t forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit:
Would you like a drink of my water?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’m going to… While you read this question, I’ll handle it.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Just checking. Here’s [falls 00:00:50]. Heard a little tickle there. Troy wrote, “Has there been any discussion here on Russia and Ukraine? If a war happens, and the effects on land sales, could sales increase or decrease? I personally think sales will stay steady.” You know, I never thought of tying them together.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, Jill, you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about such things. That’s my job.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s perfect. Okay. Troy, why? What are you talking about? What do you mean about, “What’s going on with Russian Ukraine?” That’s what I should have said. Is something wrong?
Steven Jack Butala:
Every once in a while, I have to go into discord. This Russian came from discord and I have to address some of these political things, because this is not the place for politics. And so that was my immediate reaction to this, but it found its way onto the show. So I think it’s a very, very good point. And what the, really the question is, what happens to land purchases and sales or what happens to land market-
Jill K DeWit:
If we go to war.
Steven Jack Butala:
When there’s a recession, when some stuff in happens. Is it like the stock market? And the answer is no.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good question.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, it’s not.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
What would ultimately end up happening, if we find ourselves in a recession, which I don’t personally think is going to happen for economic reasons, anytime soon. For political reasons, like this, nobody knows, nobody knows what’s going to happen next. I know that there are more, and more, and more, especially in this country, people that standing on the sidelines, waiting for stuff to happen and then buying everything cheaper.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Specifically with the stock market. And I know that happens last. It happened with us last time with land. So you want to make sure that you’re not overpaying for real estate, but that goes… That’s any time. So, no. Do I think this is going to have any real negative effect? There’s a possibility it might affect things short-term, but I doubt it. It’s not like the stock market. When those things happen, you buy for lower and you sell for lower. And when it recovers, like we’re in a total real estate bull market right now, you buy for a little bit higher and sell for a little bit higher.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you for the visual. Oh, is that supposed to be me? That’s supposed to be you, isn’t it?
Steven Jack Butala:
Hold on.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m having computer malfunctions.
Jill K DeWit:
Has our script kind of goofed up? I can help.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic: Evolving with Land Academy. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I looked at the script and it was rolling by so fast. I’m like, “Am I missing something? Am I supposed to be talking?” Oh my goodness. All right. Here’s what’s going on. So let me think about this. I have been, not counting my experience in real estate as a child, like my dad knowing about proper… I never really got into what my dad was doing, but I knew of properties that he own. I knew he was a landlord. I knew he did other things like that. And then, when I was an adult… And that was as a child and an adult. And then, later on, I did work for developers in orange county, in Santana, who did retail space, like strip malls and office buildings. So that was my exposure there, so I’m fast forwarding.
Jill K DeWit:
So you got into this in the ’90s. I’m thinking of all the years of exposure I have. I guess, that’s what I’m trying to say. Exposure and experience, and you have even way more experience than I do, obviously. It’s amazing to me where we are today. So that’s what I think about, with this evolving with Land Academy. Well, number one point I have is, kudos to those of you who are not stuck still with paper all over your desks and file folders stacked up high for every property you got going through your system and making a label every time or whatever, and you’re moving forward with us. You can’t keep up like that, you really can’t. All of our deals, there’s no printing out. There’s no maps. There’s no plat maps. It’s so nice how we have evolved. We used to have paper. I used to have to get plat maps, and I used to have to do…
Jill K DeWit:
Finding the property was the hardest part but… And nowadays, too, by the way, evolving with Land Academy, think about what we’re going with our deeds. Okay. There’s a lot of paper deeds flying around, but hold onto your hats. We are working on… I’m kind of jumping ahead, but I’ll share more in this in a minute, but we’re working on online notary services and online… There’s online recording exists, but online notary now exists too. And we’re setting that up. And I’ll talk about more about that in minute, but thanks to those of you, you get it, and you are rolling with the changes of all these things. It keeps getting easier. We are releasing 3.0 right about now. By the time you listen, it may be released, I’m not sure. But Land Academy 3.0 is the 2022 catch up now with us; it’s catching up with Land Academy, because of this exact topic. Things have changed. You need to catch up with us. It’s catching up with where we’ve been and catching up with the times right now. And I am loving this. You want to jump in?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. As a person, and this applies to all parts of life, you’re either on the bandwagon, constant improvement and constantly trying to make things better and faster and easier and cheaper, in general. You’re either that type of person or you’re not. And if you are that type of person, you’re in the right place, because Jill and I are very much technologically to trying to be out front for what happens as it applies to buying and selling land. The basic mechanics of buying and selling land, the events that need to go out on a transaction, have been the same since the beginning of since there was land. How those things get done and how much information you can gather and how quickly and cheaper, that’s what changes. And I’ve taken personal responsibility to take that role on in Land Academy to make sure that we’re out front on all of it.
Jill K DeWit:
So that’s one of the things we’re talking about. I’m excited about this. We are… Hold onto your hats, not just 3.0 is here, which is going to show you the latest and greatest tech solutions, where to get your data, how to use your data, how… It’s amazing, but we’re also working on a lot of things for this year, 2022 and 2023, to really help you as an investor. The way things are going right now, this is our goal. And I’m sure you can appreciate this. Our goal is to have you working an hour a day, like we’re working an hour a day.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s the thing. But we, right now, are working an hour day because we have teams, right? Who do a lot of the behind the scenes. There’s so much of stuff, so much of that, we can take on and you can [a la carte 00:08:18], use our teams too, just dropping some hints there, and you could do work an hour day too, just approving deals and picking counties, and that’s kind of it.
Steven Jack Butala:
At Land Academy 3.0, Jill and I really addressed this. We drive this point home. There’s several points in a transaction. So if you can visualize a flow chart. In the very beginning, the anatomy of a deal, you choose a place to send mail and then you test it and retest it, and test it and retest it, and make sure that it’s a good place to send mail, statistically, based on data. And then, there’s lots of other things that happen after that. All right. You’ve chosen it, it passes all your tests, you create a mailer. Well, you can outsource that now with concierge data. You price the mailer; cannot outsource that. You need to do that. Now you’ve spent about 15 minutes in your Workday. From there, the mail goes out. You need to set if somebody’s got to answer your phone. Well, guess what? We have a whole internally and outsource, we have people answering the phones. So we’re going to try to set something up for… I’m not exactly sure when this is all going to unfold.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s even better.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we’ll answer your phones. It’ll all come back into a CRM. We use Airtable. We’ll make that available to you. So none of this is a happening now, but it will.
Jill K DeWit:
Some version.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is our goal. And then, you’ll decide whether or not to buy the property; only you can do that, we can’t do that for you. And then, when you go to buy it, you need a transaction coordinator. Well, we have many. So you can use our transaction coordinator team to get the deal done. They’ll pick an escrow company in the area. You completely get the deal done. And then you need to get it, prep it, ready for sale and get a real estate agent. Well, we do all this stuff multiple times a week.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. There’s lots of things that we can take over for you. Yeah, I agree.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re trying to make this easier and faster.
Jill K DeWit:
Uh-huh (affirmative). I’m trying to think, what industries have not evolved? I’m trying to think here. What industries or what… you just got to evolve.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll give you a few examples.
Jill K DeWit:
Tell me, what do you think hasn’t involved?
Steven Jack Butala:
I have a very good friend. Jill and I have a very good friend, friends, who own a manufacturing company for… And the vast majority of the work is government contract work for manufacturing airplane parts, and all kinds of stuff. That industry has, compared to other industries, hasn’t evolved at all. There’s still this concept of manufacturer’s reps out there where this guy…
Jill K DeWit:
You were telling me about this the other day. Is this where they established one relationship, right? He makes the introduction, and then he’s forever getting a piece of the pie.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I should be doing this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it’s a little bit below you, but yes, I agree. You’re the kind of person who smashes out of the park, no matter what you do.
Jill K DeWit:
So why has our friend not figure out a work around? Is it just because he has a big heart?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, Ricky has no heart. Don’t get me wrong, he does very well financially, but he writes big checks every month. The orders get bigger and the checks get bigger. He’s a matchmaker. He’s a manufacturer. There’s a manufacturer, there’s a customer. And then the manufacturer’s rep puts those two people together and gets paid forever.
Jill K DeWit:
They haven’t evolved because they’re still doing in business the same way they’ve been doing it since nine… Since whatever that show we watched, 1960-something, that advertising… Mad men.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Because they’ve been doing it the same way as mad men.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have relatives in Michigan in the Detroit… In the auto industry still that this is what they do for a living. One specific, I have an uncle who’s been selling grinders, grinding material used in a manufacturing process, in Detroit since way before I was born. And he does it the same way. I saw him at a funeral recently… not recently, a couple years ago. And he’s like, “Yeah, nothing’s changed at all,” so there’s a lot of industries out there.
Jill K DeWit:
I feel bad.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s nothing’s changed.
Jill K DeWit:
So you know what? I’m going to wrap it on this for me then. You’re in the right place. We’re not going to let you get stagnant. We’re going to push you to move forward, because you’ve got to move forward here or you’re never going to get ahead. You’re going to be like those guys.
Steven Jack Butala:
I agree.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, I can’t… I was the last person to get a cell phone in the world.
Jill K DeWit:
Are you proud of that?
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I fought this. I fought this in around 2009. If it was either windows or nothing, that was my attitude. All these new apps and this new programs, I didn’t… It was part laziness, and part ignorance. And really, Jill’s changed my mind by about this.
Jill K DeWit:
And there’s still some evolving that needs to happen around our house, I’m just going to leave it at that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Like what? Like what?
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh.
Steven Jack Butala:
I want to hear this.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh my goodness. It’s kind of funny. There’s certain things that you want the latest and greatest, and there’s certain things that you’re like, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I can tape… I’m going to hang on to this boombox because I can fix it.” What the heck? I would’ve thrown that away a long time ago.
Steven Jack Butala:
I donated that, actually.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. And you were like, “I gave it to somebody because I’m confident they can fix it.” Sweetheart, that was $250 brand new. I think it’s okay. That was five years ago at the beach. Who knows what salt waters craps in there? You have a new one.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have multiple cars that have no computers in them at all.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. This is kind of what I’m saying. There we go. There’s things you evolve, like this podcast, and there’s things that you don’t involve. And I can handle it. Happy you could join us, five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy show is called How Many Land Academy Members Are There Really? You are not alone. Your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s interesting how people, they either guess very close. It’s either pretty darn close or so far off, it’s amazing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, we’re going to tell the truth. It’s truth time tomorrow.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And you’re going to be shocked at the answer.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. Thanks 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.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Steve and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
Information…
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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