Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:
Hello.

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’s Jill Friday and she’s going to talk about how to motivate title agents through the holidays.

Jill K DeWit:
And your partner.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s true. And your children, or whoever else is in your life. Holidays have always been a strange thing. It’s like people don’t really want to work. Everybody’s taking time off. Things theoretically slow down.

Jill K DeWit:
Your employees.

Steven Jack Butala:
You have a whole special group of people. Yeah, your employees. A whole special group of people that-

Jill K DeWit:
Want to slack.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, entrepreneurial-type people see the time to do research and want to get ready for January 1st to bust it out.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s interesting. No, I think people like us, entrepreneurs, we don’t even know it’s the holidays. That’s really what happens.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.

Jill K DeWit:
You’re in it. Someone’s like, “Sweetheart, today’s Thanksgiving.” “What? What are you talking about?”

Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve always been like that.

Jill K DeWit:
I know. That’s what I’m saying. You’re my example. And I know there’s plenty of other people in Land Academy that are the same way that those of us are like… So that’s part of the problem and why we need to talk about this because if you’re like me, it’s just another day. It’s just another week. It’s just another month. And what you do know is though, it’s the end of the year, so now I might [inaudible 00:01:24] strategic for taxes. Why? Because I own my company. I’m thinking about these things. Now, the people on the other side that are working for you, they don’t think about this stuff and you got to keep them on track.

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. Back in the day, it was nearly… I don’t want to sound like an old man here, but I really kind of am. It was nearly impossible to find land without a mailing address, like 123 Main Street. To solve this problem, Jill and I put together a database and wrote a internet interface to help you input the assessor’s parcel number and the county and state where the property’s located and find the property very, very quickly. We spent months sometimes trying to find property to decide if we should buy it back in the day. It’s called parcelfact.com. Check it out.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Greg wrote, “Today, I went off to the bank and wired in the payoff amount for a home mortgage, 30 year loan paid off in eight years.” Oh, that’s great. “I pulled the last few thousand dollars I needed from my Land business account. Thank you everyone for your support and information to enable me to reach this goal.” How great is that? Was that in the Discord success area?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it was in there today.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s so good. It’s like what an amazing feeling to go, “I don’t have to think about this.”

Steven Jack Butala:
I remember when my first mortgage was paid off.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s awesome.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a few milestones that feel just that great. Of course I sold the house, made a ton of money, and then went and got a mortgage and bought another one and then felt like crap about myself.

Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what’d be funny? You know what’s interesting about this? I think it’s England that you would do this. This is when they paint their doors red.

Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s a worldwide thing.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, It’s a worldwide thing, okay yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
If you have a red front door, your mortgage is paid off or you have no debt.

Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:03:26] pay it off. I love that. Which could be an indication for burglars that you have money to invest and that you have other valuables around since you don’t have a mortgage to pay. So maybe don’t paint your door red anymore.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve always been fascinated with this concept. What if you put a green dot on your car if it’s paid for or what if you have the back of your head, there’s a little shaved hole in there if you’re debt free?

Jill K DeWit:
Well, you do it with a wedding ring.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.

Jill K DeWit:
So what’s the difference?

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I mean. So some things have this… You’re advertising this stuff like a bumper sticker and then some things, no.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s kind of funny.

Steven Jack Butala:
And then let’s take it a couple of steps further before Jill gets into it. What if we all get an IQ test and we have a-

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, there should be something.

Steven Jack Butala:
… a stripe on the back of our right shoulder or [inaudible 00:04:18].

Jill K DeWit:
Or on your hand. I like that. Maybe the number of fingers you have left is how well you did on the test. You can’t hire that guy. He’s down four fingers.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve been thinking about this concept since at a very young age. We all need to stand shoulder to shoulder and just maybe if you’re good at math and maybe another person’s not good at math, but amazing at sales or management, or I don’t know.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s kind of funny. All right.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jill Friday. She’s going to talk about how to motivate title agents through the holidays. This is the meat of the show.

Jill K DeWit:
This is a thing. This is real. You know what I’m talking about. So here’s the first thing. Back even before you acquired this agent, you should have asked and confirmed and double checked with their schedule a good closing date. Let me give you an example. It’s December 1 and you’re calling Susie at ABC Title, who you’ve done many deals with. And Susie normally gets your stuff done in 24 days. And those are real days, not business days. 24 days, because Susie’s on it. We do five and seven days, but we won’t go there. That’s another show.
But Susie says 24 days, but that’s Christmas. So you need to go, “Hold on a moment, Susie, let’s take a step back here. Let’s look at the calendar together. Are you here this whole month? What days off are you taking?” So back then, I’m telling you now, because it’s December… Well shoot, what is this? December 16th. I’m actually glad that we’re doing this today. So it’s December 16th, let’s just even say you’re calling… Well let me finish my first thing and I’ll jump into this one. So back when you started this though, it was December 1 and you had a good conversation with Susie about what was realistic for her and her company to get it done because you wanted it done in 2022. So that would’ve been step one, so you can pre-plan this for next year.
But let’s just say it really is today, December 16th and this deal landed in your lap. Like, “Oh my gosh, can I get it done?” And the question is maybe. But you got to start with step one, which is call everybody now you know, because Susie may or may not be available, but call every darn person that you know, and I’m going to argue that on December 16th, you still could find an agent right now that can get it done between now and the end of the year. But you want to get it in 2022. Why? Their workload is lighter, a lot lighter than it was a year ago. We all know that. We see that. Number two, hopefully she’s working that whole period. So if you got those two things going for you, you stand a chance.
So let’s assume you did all that, so we’re in good shape. So how do I keep her on track? Well, find out how she likes to communicate number one. I would say, “Are you an email person or you’re a phone call person? Are you a text person?” Whatever it is. Some type of companies, even now have a shared database where you can log in and communicate with them.

Steven Jack Butala:
Really?

Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm. It’s a service that I’ve seen. I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole too far right now, but there’s some situations that are popping up where that’s a possibility where that’s how you’re communicating. Kind of like how I coordinate with my transaction coordinator in Airtable where it’s just messages back and forth. So whatever it is, find out what’s best for them, not for you. And then you adopt their schedule. Because our goal right now is to keep them on track to get this deal done on time.
And then the next thing is I want you to stay on them more than you normally do. Normally for us it’s like two times a week we’re touching everybody in the deal. My [inaudible 00:08:22] is reaching out to the title company, reaching out to the seller ’cause we need to get this done. I don’t want anybody to changing their minds. Or maybe it’s the buyer. Actually for me, I’m not really talking to the buyer, but maybe I am. But anyway, with the escrow folks, I want you to up it. If it’s two times a week, I want it to be three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And you are constantly reminding them, “Are we on track for the 28th? Are we on track for the 28th?” Those are the conversations you guys should be having.
And then lastly, let them know how you appreciate them. “You know what? I know you’re working hard on this. What’s going on in the office? What kind of treats can I send your way? What do you guys like?” Oh. And do it and follow through. You really have something, you want to get it done. Susie’s having to pull some strings for you. Don’t wait till it closes. Send it now to make sure it closes. Give her a nice reward, nice treat. Big deal, you’re going to spend 35 or $50 at See’s Candy and have a nice two pound box of nuts and shoes show up.

Steven Jack Butala:
Nuts and shoes?

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, don’t even go there. If you know See’s Candy, you know what I’m talking about. So I want that to arrive on time for Susie and her team and on the end of her desk. I want you to put that on the end of the desk and I want everybody who’s involved in this to make sure they get a piece of candy every day and your deal will close. I’m not kidding.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my God, you’re right. That stuff works.

Jill K DeWit:
It does work. You tell them that, and you’re their best friend now. And that’s it. You want to ask me some questions?

Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’ve never had any success motivating a title agent in my life. So no, I have nothing to add.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what else? I’ll make one last point. If you want this to close on time, you do everything I just said, there’s one more tip. Do not call her mad about anything. You are in so much communication, you know if somebody’s not doing something and you’re doing it. The seller has not got back to me and I’m swamped. You know what Susie? Don’t even worry about it. I’ll call them. I’ll get that dumb document. Give me two hours kind of thing. And then you track them down or your team track them down. You help her. You guys are a team right now. The reason we need to close this by the end of the year is because it’s the end of the year and there’s tax reasons we’re doing it this way.
Maybe you don’t want to close by the end of the year. That’s a whole different thing and we’ll talk about that in January that are kind of funny. But sometimes you want things to drag their feet and that’s easy to do. You can just change the date. But anyway, I hope that helps you, ’cause this is a big deal right now.

Steven Jack Butala:
You can get it done. That’s Jill’s point. You just got to handle it correctly.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep. Take care of your people. You know what? That works for your staff too. “Hey guys, we got a big project.” You know what I even do for our staff if there’s a big project. I do this a lot. “I’m paying for lunch today.” That keeps everybody at their desks, by the way. It’s like, “Pick out what you want.” You know what I mean? “You want a whole sandwich and a soup and a salad. I don’t really care. Knock yourself out. And you’re taking half home for dinner? Good for you, because I got you. You’re staying in the office for me and helping me do this.” So take care of your team, take care of your people, and it goes a long way. 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:
I’m passionate about taking care of these people.

Steven Jack Butala:
Another year gone.

Jill K DeWit:
Almost.

Steven Jack Butala:
It was a good year. We had a great year.

Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that crazy? We had a great year. I’m excited. I’m excited for stuff coming up for 2023.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, me too.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, we’re not done. We’re not signing off yet. We’re going to be here for some more shows, but we are going to change the format in 2023 and I’m looking forward to it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, me too.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s going to be awesome.

Jack and Jill:
We’re Jack and Jill.

Steven Jack Butala:
Information

Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration

Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.