Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:
Hi.

Steven Jack 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 Jack Butala:
Today is Jill Friday and she’s going to talk about land mailer panic.

Jill K DeWit:
I have a funny story I’m going to share.

Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the land investors.com online community, it’s free.
Back in the day, it was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. To solve this, we consolidated and manipulated 150 million-unit database and put it all in one place so all you need to do is type in the state, the county, and the assessor’s parcel number, and get all the information or just about all the information you need to make a pretty well-educated decision about whether or not you want to buy a property. It’s called parcelfact.com. Check it out. We use it every day. We use it on the Thursday call. It’s how we actually make acquisition decisions every single day.

Jill K DeWit:
I love it. It’s always running on my computer, open and in the background.
So Kevin wrote, “Hello, everyone. I’ve been part of Land Academy…” Oh, you put this in here- on.

Steven Jack Butala:
Just to get it started off.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, oh, I’m like, “This looks familiar.” Okay, let me preface this. Let’s just do the show. I’m going to… Because this question is why I’m doing this show today.

Steven Jack Butala:
So I think you should read the question and then just do the show.

Jill K DeWit:
All right, so here’s the question that Kevin posted the other day:
“Hi, everyone. So I’ve been part of Land Academy for four months now and I just sent out my 50,000th…” So 50,000 mailers went out. “I’ve gotten seven deals so far, working on a few more. I just sold one property and I have three listed. Anyway, at this point I’m trying to think about how to improve at picking counties and improve pricing. Where do I go from here? Does anyone have any thoughts? Thanks.”
So let’s go into the thing and then I’m going to talk about how this all played out.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today is Jill Friday, she’s going to talk about land mailer panic. This is the meat of the show.

Jill K DeWit:
So I read this and I felt like Kevin was panicking a little bit about his mailer yield. And if you’re in Land Academy, you saw the communication that Kevin and I had back and forth in Discord on this.
So I wrote him back and I said, “Hey, Kevin.” I said, “I’m really glad you’re concerned about this and you’re thinking about mailer yield.” And I said, “I have to ask you though, are you really working these deals? You sent out 50,000 mailers and it’s been in four months, which is great. There’s still so much that’s coming back at you.”
There’s two points. I said, “Kevin, first of all, I still have people coming back to me from mailers that are over 10 years old. So in four months you don’t really have a good handle on how effective these mailers are.”
And number two, my point is, are you really working these callers? Because you got to work them. If you just wait…” So I asked him, I said, “Is what you’re counting yield, is it only the signed purchase agreement sent back?” Because there’s so much juice and all these phone calls that if you don’t answer the phone or have somebody answering the phone and working these sellers and getting a number out of them, you’re leaving deals on the table.
So Kevin wrote me back and it’s like… Well it was very sweet. He’s like, “Hi, Jill.” It was really nice. He’s like, “I’m happy to hear from you.” He’s like, well first of all, “I’ve actually got more deals now-“

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s nine.

Jill K DeWit:
“… than since I posted that.”
And second of all, he said, “I do not talking on the phone. It’s not my thing. I know that I’m not effectively working these calls that come back and getting numbers out of them. It’s not my thing.”
So I wrote Kevin back and I was like, “Whew, I’m so glad to hear that your percentages are improving.” And I wrote, “They’re going to continue to improve. That’s just what’s going to happen, period.” And then I said, “And I totally understand not having a forte, not everyone does love to answer the phones and work on these people.” I said, “So you got to find someone and that’s why Jack has me.”

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s do the math. If this was Jack Thursday, I would’ve… That’s beautiful. Thank you. But the whole air to this is, this failed. And-

Jill K DeWit:
No, what? But it didn’t.

Steven Jack Butala:
So I know. Let’s do the math.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
He came back and said, “Well, it’s nine deals now in counting and I’m looking at several other ones.”
So let’s just say in the end, he does 10 deals out of this 50,000-unit mailer. That’s one property for 5,000 units. 5,000 mailers sent out, I buy one property. That’s what we’ve been publishing for years, that’s 3,000 to 5,000 properties and it’s his first mailer and he is four months into this. So his next mailers are going to be even better, I’m sure.
There’s no failure here and I’ll prove it. In fact, this is exactly how it’s supposed to go. 50,000 mailers costs about 25 to $30,000 total to get it out the door. He’s done 10 deals or he is doing 10 deals. He’s got the equity to do 10 deals. If he’s making $20,000 of transaction, that’s $200,000. So now he’s spent 25 grand or $30,000, to make $200,000. How is that failing?

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
Seriously, how is that failing?

Jill K DeWit:
I love it when you give it to us like that because that makes so much sense. It’s not failing and that’s my whole point. And the residual, what’s out there, what’s going to come back, it’s amazing.
People are sitting on your letters right now, they’re on the fridge. Maybe the end of the year, maybe next spring.

Steven Jack Butala:
Totally.

Jill K DeWit:
You don’t know. And maybe on February 22, when somebody loses a job and they go, “Where’s that letter? Where’s that offer? I got to sell this.”

Steven Jack Butala:
This is a grand slam home run in the bottom of the ninth to win the pennant.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is not any version of failure. Spend $30,000 to make $200,000 in six months.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, the reason I wanted to talk about this today is because people panic. You don’t look at the numbers like we’re looking at the numbers and the yield can take a little bit of time. That’s why people go, “Oh, I didn’t… Shoot.” So the point is give a time and you got to really show up and do your best and really try to find deals in there.
So that’s my last point is if you’re not good answering the phones and you don’t want to answer the phone, I want you to have PATLive or somebody like that. Maybe you hire somebody, maybe you know somebody, maybe you connect with somebody in our group. Form a partnership, that happens all the time. Someone’s good at phones and not good at data, you guys start your own little sub thing. Good for you. Now you guys are really killing it together.
But you’ve got to answer the phone, talk to these people, get to the bottom of it. This is a whole nother show and there’s been many shows on this. Do they want to sell and what’s their number? And then you go and you go from there. And if you come at it like that… I was telling Kevin in my note, I don’t let these people go until I get a number from them. I’m just like, “I’ve got to have a number. I don’t care what it is. Give me a…” If you really want to sell, you have a number, what is it? And you have to have that attitude and you’re going to get a lot more deals, which is awesome.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is not passive income.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what’s going on here.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s exactly what’s happening, I can tell you right now.

Jill K DeWit:
I even argue that is passive income really passive income? I don’t care if you have the best tenant, you have the best portfolio, all these… Stuff happens. Even if you call it passive income, you are working those payments every month or you have a staff that works those payments and customer service and all that stuff every month. So that’s my argument. It’s not really passive, somebody’s got to show up.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is education and a community for you to start at your own company-

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
… and to be independently wealthy within 24 to 60 months, depending on how hard you work.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s really true.

Steven Jack Butala:
And for you to send out 50,000 mailers for your first four months is a pretty serious indication to me that you’re willing to work hard-

Jill K DeWit:
You’re in it.

Steven Jack Butala:
… you’re taking this seriously, you’ve capitalized it correctly, you’re in it-

Jill K DeWit:
Good job, Kevin.

Steven Jack Butala:
… and you’re willing to do what it takes. And you’re honest enough to say, “Yeah, I don’t like answering the phone,” which by the way, neither do I. And I ultimately got so sick of it-

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s right.

Steven Jack Butala:
… that I was lucky enough to find somebody like Jill who does embrace that, truly not just answer the phone, but embrace the whole part of all of it. And then now we times 10ed it. So this is a great example of huge success.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
And it was a little bit sad for me this morning to go to Discord and not have it be in the success story section.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You know what? I’m going to put a little note. As we’re wrapping up this episode, I’m going to send Kevin a little note-

Steven Jack Butala:
We should have him on the show.

Jill K DeWit:
… to make sure… I want to make sure that he listens to this and watches this, too.

Steven Jack Butala:
Can you ask him to be on the show?

Jill K DeWit:
Oh?

Steven Jack Butala:
Because this should be celebrated.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
Not like, “What did I do wrong?”

Jill K DeWit:
I will put that into square two. All right, I’ll get him. So, congratulations Kevin, as we’re having a little meeting about you.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s what [inaudible 00:09:39].

Jill K DeWit:
On the air meeting about you. You’re doing everything right and yep, I’m going to reach out to you. By now, we’ve communicated.

Steven Jack Butala:
I bet you a dollar we’re going to… Hopefully comes on the show.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
He’s going to say, “Yeah. Well, now I bought 17.”

Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah, exactly. This is going to be it, yeah. Save it, Kevin. Whatever the real yield is, save it for when we have you on the show. Don’t tell us ahead of time. This is awesome.
Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.

Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode because you are not alone in your real estate ambition.

Jill K DeWit:
That’d be fun. Everybody loves to hear other people probably more than us.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think everybody… Oh, for sure that.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Everybody just wants the truth, that’s what they want. They want to hear somebody’s real experience. “This is great. This is terrible. I love doing the mailer. I hate doing the phone.” Or in my case, “I don’t want to do any of it. I want to outsource it all and just be the ringleader.”

Jill K DeWit:
Understood. We are Jack and Jill.

Steven Jack Butala:
Information-

Jill K DeWit:
… and inspiration-

Steven Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.