How Much Energy Have You Put Into Your W2 Jobs? (LA 1869)
How Much Energy Have You Put Into Your W2 Jobs? (LA 1869)
Transcript:
Steven:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill:
Hello.
Steven:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill:
And I’m Jill DeWit. Broadcasting from not only where Oprah and Reese Witherspoon grew up but the birthplace of Bluegrass music.
Steven:
I’m sorry, Oprah’s from Chicago.
Jill:
But she grew up here.
Steven:
Oh yeah?
Jill:
I’m just telling you what I just read. Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, I think I’m kidding and yeah, all grew up in Nashville, Reese Witherspoon and Taylor Swift so even though-
Steven:
Today-
Jill:
So that’s a fun fact that Jack didn’t even know.
Steven:
Yeah, I wonder why I didn’t know that.
Jill:
That’s okay. That’s why you have me.
Steven:
Today, Jill and I talk about how much energy have you put into your W2 jobs, so far in your life?
Jill:
This is scary.
Steven:
This is scary. It’s a scary amount.
Jill:
No, I’m glad we’re going to talk about this. So would you give the preface again from yesterday that you’ve mentioned.
Steven:
Jill and I were talking, sitting at a Wendy’s restaurant somewhere in southern Ohio, one or two days ago. And there were some very, very energetic, intelligent young people working in Wendy’s to try to fix on their own the soda machine. And I started thinking, what if these kids put this kind of energy into owning their own business or getting a college degree, or God forbid, buying and selling land?
Jill:
Yeah. So interesting.
Steven:
It was hard to watch. Jill and I were like, “God, these kids are brilliant.”
Jill:
They were really getting into it.
Steven:
And then we started looked at each other and said, “Well, how long did you have a job like that? And how long did you work for somebody else?” And think about how much money you generated and how much energy you put into that to do well in that environment. And we both kind of had a tear in our eye.
Jill:
Yeah.
Steven:
Because it was a lot.
Jill:
And we’ll talk more about that because I’m sure a lot of you listening are in that situation.
Steven:
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 I hope you know by now, Jill and I own a very specific use commercial printing company to get your offers to owners in the mail. It’s called offers2owners.com. If you don’t know about it, check it out. Go to the website and you will immediately see why it’s so popular and why people use it.
Jill:
Yep. All right. Chase wrote, “I have noticed that two…” Or excuse me, “I’ve noticed that offers2owners has shown a significant decrease in the amount of mail sent in recent months. Any idea why?” This is interesting. And one of our members responded in here and I’ve got the response. Steven wrote, “I can’t speak for everyone, but in my case, I loaded up on mail a while back and I’m just getting through it. I plan on loading up again as we get towards the end of the year, if I need to write off certain amount to get me under a tax bracket if I needed an expense.” That’s kind of interesting. But anyway, so it does ebb and flow even with us, our orders don’t come in. We do bigger orders like quarterly, don’t we? Not necessarily monthly.
Steven:
Oh two oh runs spec, oh two oh falls under my-
Jill:
Side of the sheet.
Steven:
Oh, yeah. My direction not Jill’s, so I’ll explain it to her while I explain it to you.
Jill:
Oh, thanks. I’m just going to be sit back, let me know. Let me know when I can talk.
Steven:
Enjoy the weather out here at the lake.
Jill:
Yeah, I will.
Steven:
We run specials intentionally at certain times of the year. And people that are successful at this and regularly sending mail know that it’s not even. They know that everybody starts out saying, “Well, I’m going to send out 10,000 units of mail a month.”
And then what happens is you get too many deals or you have an incredibly successful mailer and maybe one that’s not so successful. So as much as we want it to all be even, it’s not. Throw into on top of that promotions that we run from time to time. And so what people like to do is buy a hundred thousand unit bank of mail and then use it for the entire year.
And so they’ll use 20,000 at a time or 5,000 at a time or whatever they’re comfortable with. So very simple point is, how many units are purchased is not reflective of what goes out in the mail? And that’s by design. In Steven’s case, he’s talking about incurring a ton of expenses on the third quarter, which we’re happen to be in right now and pre-ordering for next year. So we can incur that expense to offset its revenue in this year, not next year. I hope that makes sense.
Jill:
We’re in the fourth quarter.
Steven:
Oh, fourth quarter share is what I meant. Thank you.
Jill:
You’re welcome.
Steven:
Today’s topic, how much energy have you put into your W2 jobs? This is why you’re listening.
Jill:
Can I jump and tell a story real quick?
Steven:
Sure. For sure.
Jill:
So this makes me think of a call that I had a week or so ago. I’ve talked to this person two times about joining Land Academy and it keeps coming up the what’s needed and can I guarantee it? It’s just kind of funny, we’ve gone over-
Steven:
Can’t guarantee it.
Jill:
How can I guarantee success?
Steven:
No.
Jill:
Can I guarantee… Well, hold on a moment. Let me finish my sentence. Let me finish my point.
Steven:
Well, I have a lot to say about that.
Jill:
I know that. Well, we’re saying the same thing.
Steven:
Okay.
Jill:
Trust me, we’re on the same page. Okay, if I do this, I do… It was just kind of funny and I finally told the person, I said, “Look, I can guarantee it about as much as I can guarantee if I enroll you in college, you’re going to graduate. I can’t guarantee that. You have to go to class, you have to show up, you have to take the test, you have to study, you have to earn your degree. I can’t guarantee that. I can’t guarantee you’re going to keep your job.” He’s like, “All right, I kind of get it.”
I said, But here’s what I can say. “It ties into the energy and it ties into what you’re focused on.” I said, “Look.” And I can tell this person’s young and they have a lot of energy, like I said, and they’ve scheduled these calls and I’ve called them back because they have this laundry list of questions.
So I’m like, “I’m going to call this person and answer all their questions.” And the big picture is, and I had to tell this person, your only job right now is to sit down and have a conversation with yourself and decide what you want to do. How much money it takes? How much is involved? You know all about this thing, you know who we are, you know how I’m going to give you a roadmap. I’m going to give you from zero to a hundred.
All the steps you need to do to have a business like mine, make a good living, have a nice life. Some people may take it to the ladder, make a great living off of it kind of thing. It’s going to come from you just to show up. I said, “If you really want to be successful and you’re talking about how fast can I do this? You’re going to have to put your head down, all your energy in. Not go out, not take trips and really focus. Do your day job, what you have to do. And then when you leave that day job, you get your rear home and you focus on this and you will get there.”
My point is, you’re going to be as successful as much depending on at whatever it is that you focus your energy on. So if you’re focusing your heart and soul and you’re an accountant and you wake up in the morning and you live, eat and breathe your job, which a lot of people do. And I’m not saying nothing’s right or wrong but you’re going to be amazing at it, right?
You’re going to be very successful at it. We took on a pizza empire a couple years ago. We thought that was something to do and we had to take a step back and go, “Hold on a moment. We were at a tipping point. What do we want to put our energy on?” We know if we pull all our energy in this pizza company, it’s going to be successful. But then it’s going to take away from Land Academy and our land business, we don’t want to do that. We knew we need to focus our energy over here. So my point of this whole thing is, where are you spending your energy? I know you’re going to get scientific on me.
Steven:
Uh-huh.
Jill:
Okay.
Steven:
I was actually going to get you simplify it really well.
Jill:
Okay. Where are you focusing your energy is where you’re going to be successful.
Steven:
Don’t half ass it.
Jill:
Yeah.
Steven:
If you have a job at Wendy’s and the soda machine’s broken, appoint yourself to go fix it as much as you can or manage the person that you’re going to call to get it in there and fix it. So it’s the same thing with plan. I’ve never had asked a job in my entire life. I’ve been a waiter, a bartender, I’ve had all those jobs and I’ve never done it halfway.
And so if you have that personality type and you’re certainly not going to do it halfway for Land Academy. So I think that it’s very, very smart to maybe while you’re in high school, have some jobs that pay okay, that are terrible. I mean, it pushes you to get some education, get some formal education, whatever that means to you and then get a W2 job based on that formal education. Let’s use accounting, continue with Jill’s example.
Get an accounting degree. Go work as an accountant and decide if it’s for you, have a boss but don’t do it halfway. Pour your soul into that. Hopefully you’ll get a promotion or get recruited from another company. And then at some point, for me, it was between two and four years, you’re going to decide. “I’m working too hard at this, I’m doing too well, and I’m too successful at it. I need to start doing this for myself on the side.” Maybe it’s land, maybe it’s buying a chain of convenience stores, maybe it’s manufacturing. There’s tons and tons and tons of things that you can do that will create equity for yourself, not somebody else.
Jill:
Right, exactly. But I think a lot of people are putting a lot of energy in their W2 job. Maybe you need to take a step back to and look at it. Maybe you’re surprised by this. Like, “Oh shoot, you know what? I am focusing, I want to be an investor but I’m spending so much over here.” And I think there’s nothing wrong with that, that’s good. You’re going to have to make a shift in your head. And you might have to put a lot of energy into both, which you can, but you’re going to have to take it away from something else.
This is like what I was telling this gentleman, I’m like, “It’s probably going to be your social life, your fun, whatever it is.” I’ve talked to people a long time ago too about joining Land Academy. Why you have W2 job? This is the time you set the family down and say, “Daddy’s going to be busy. Your mommy’s going to be busy. All my evenings are going to be looking at deals. And I may not be around a whole lot right now but there’s a reason for it.”
Steven:
You’re the only woman on the planet who understands that.
Jill:
Thanks. This is what we did back when we were writing Land Academy. He was focused on getting the equipment and learning the equipment and there was so much involved in all of that.
Steven:
With little kids in that too.
Jill:
Oh, my gosh. So I took over that. I took over the land business while you were working on most of the education part.
Steven:
Nobody raised the kids.
Jill:
[inaudible 00:11:05] bringing that out.
Steven:
And it shows now.
Jill:
They did. So they were barefoot.
Steven:
Dirty faces.
Jill:
Barefoot with the candy bars, had ripped up pants. They were wearing floats, no shoes. Eating candy bars and drinking Cokes but hey, we got Land Academy done and I kept candy bars in their hands [inaudible 00:11:38].
Steven:
And you got our kids out of our lives too. That’s why we’re in this interview right now.
Jill:
Yeah, because that’s where our energy was focused. There you go. He focused on one business and I focused on the other but then I would make you a sandwich. The kids are fine, they’re growing. So yeah. That was good. Oh, our poor children. Thank goodness, they don’t listen to this. They’d be saying, “Uh-huh. Yep, remember me?”
Steven:
Oh yeah, they would. They’d say-
Jill:
Oh, you remember us.
Steven:
Yeah. Wednesday’s Kitkat Day.
Jill:
Yeah. That’s hilarious. My favorite was that time where when you were… I don’t know where I was but it was you and number three alone, trying to come up with sandwiches and there wasn’t a lot of food in the house. So you guys came with some creative snack lunch ideas. I’m like, “Oh, this poor kid, his parents…” Oh, I think it involves Ritz crackers and not even Ritz crackers. It involves saltines for bread and I’m like, “These poor people thinks-”
Steven:
You can make 25 sandwiches out of you know. You can make one sandwich.
Jill:
I know.
Steven:
Or you can make 15 saltine sandwiches.
Jill:
And I’m sure he enjoyed them.
Steven:
Yeah.
Jill:
I know, but it’s so funny. I’m sure the teachers are like, “Are you guys really that poor?”
Steven:
That’s not, I think-
Jill:
That’s what it looked like.
Steven:
I don’t care.
Jill:
I know.
Steven:
He loved it.
Jill:
I know.
Steven:
Plus, I found out later. He’s like, “When I have 10 of these, I can trade two of them.” Still, have these left over.
Jill:
For a candy bar.
Steven:
All ends up in candy bars anyway.
Jill:
Exactly. All right. So anyway, I think we covered this. Happy you could join us today, five days a week. You can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy Show is called Making Land Transactions Too Difficult? You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill:
Some people do.
Steven:
Come to my attention that for whatever reason and I think I have an idea why. Some people who have more of my personality type than Jill’s, make things difficult when they don’t need to be.
Jill:
Yep.
Steven:
And we’ll talk all about that tomorrow.
Jill:
Yep. Hey, thanks for tuning in. Jack and I are by the way, very aware that not everyone has a hundred thousand dollars lying around to take down some of these great deals. So do not worry. All you need to do is go find them and then come to us and we will fund them. Check out landinvesting.com or you can also spend a note to support@landacademy.com. We’ll point you in the right direction if you’ve got a great deal and you need funding. All right, we’ll hook you up.
Steven:
She’s having too much fun out here in Nashville. It’s landfunding.com, not landinvesting.com but that’s okay.
Jill:
Did I say landfunding.com?
Steven:
No, it’s okay.
Jill:
All right. Well, whatever you find.
Steven:
landfunding.com.
Jill:
Thank you. That’s why you’re here to correct me.
Steven:
Yeah. She loves that.
Jill:
I do. We are Jack and Jill.
Steven:
We are Jack and Jill. Information-
Jill:
And inspiration.
Steven:
Let’s buy undervalued property.
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