Transcript:

Steven J Butala:
Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:
Hi.

Steven J Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.

Jill DeWit:
Are you sure?

Steven J Butala:
Yeah.

Jill DeWit:
Okay, and I’m Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from awesome Phoenix, Arizona.

Steven J Butala:
I’m hot.

Jill DeWit:
How you doing there? What’s going on, babe?

Steven J Butala:
Well, I’m hot. I’m distracted.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven J Butala:
We are recording [crosstalk 00:00:24] right now, this moment, in the middle of a construction site [crosstalk 00:00:28] we call our house.

Jill DeWit:
Yes. Our house is literally at a job site.

Steven J Butala:
Our sort of house. We live in the living room.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah, there is that, too. All true. We’re running around helping landscapers and pool people and flooring people and all that stuff, but …

Steven J Butala:
And we’re still here to do the show.

Jill DeWit:
I know.

Steven J Butala:
The show must go on.

Jill DeWit:
I’m happy to be the general contractor of our own project.

Steven J Butala:
Today, Jill and I … Wow. And I can’t talk. Today, Jill and I are talking about getting ahead of yourself in the land academy education process.

Jill DeWit:
One thing, I’m not getting ahead of myself with this project. You know what? This is a good example. I could be running around asking for things [inaudible 00:01:08] alone. No, I ask people, what’s the process? For example, our wood flooring. How’s this going to go? How long does that take? What’s the next step? And then I wait. I put it on the calendar and I wait. So this ties into our topic.

Steven J Butala:
When I was a kid, I took a boating class. I had to take a class from coast guard to get my boating license, and I was a little. It’s like with airplanes. It’s not like you have to turn 16 to get your license. You can get a boating license really early on, and I think you can get certified as a pilot early on, too.

Jill DeWit:
You have to be 16 to solo.

Steven J Butala:
Okay, but I don’t think that was the case a while ago, and I know it’s not the case for boats. Maybe it’s all changed recently. And the second I got into that class, boy, did I have a lot of questions. And I was really interested in getting out on the water that day. It was two weeks before we ever got on the water, and it was books and exams and all kinds of stuff. And I got so frustrated and ahead of myself and, by golly, that’s what happens at Land Academy.

Jill DeWit:
By Golly. What am I going to do with you? Lickety split, by golly and bajillion.

Steven J 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. If you’re already a Land Academy member, join us on the discord.

Jill DeWit:
All right. So Erin wrote, Hello, I’m preparing my second first mailer. Oh, that’s hilarious. I like that with a happy face. It took me second. Should I scrub out properties that are labeled low income in the opportunity zone column? That’s hilarious. I’m concerned that there’ll be a price cap on how much I could sell it. Is that accurate?

Steven J Butala:
This is a very, very hidden PhD level question.

Jill DeWit:
That’s funny.

Steven J Butala:
What he or she is asking is what do I scrub out of my mailer when it comes to use? Property types, commercial use, industrial use, residential, NEC, which is non-classified property and on and on. What do I exclude? And the answer is nothing. In the very early parts of Land Academy, I made a big deal about use and how you should check out all kinds of stuff, specifically industrial property because you don’t want to deal with any type of [crosstalk 00:03:35] EPA cleanup. Yeah, exactly. Well, times have changed. And the more letters that you get out now … and we’ve grown as a land investor, just like everybody else over the years.

Jill DeWit:
We’ve grown in a lot of ways.

Steven J Butala:
I believe that it’s not important or beneficial to decrease the size of the mailer, only increase it.

Jill DeWit:
True.

Steven J Butala:
It increases your chances of getting great property.

Jill DeWit:
That’s funny.

Steven J Butala:
Especially low-income opportunity zone property. That’s our niche, man.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah. That’s what I do. What’s left to mail, if I take that out? Could you imagine? Oh no, no, no, no, no. I only want the retail price, really expensive high dollar properties.

Steven J Butala:
Santa Barbara ranches, that’s what we want.

Jill DeWit:
And really expensive ones.

Steven J Butala:
Today’s, topic, getting ahead of yourself in the Land Academy education process. This is why you’re listening.

Jill DeWit:
That’s funny. That is our niche. Oh, that’s good. I always love that, too, when everybody poo-poos the land people. You know what? You can keep poo-pooing us.

Steven J Butala:
Yep.

Jill DeWit:
I’m very happy with that. I’m quietly over here doing just fine with my poo-poo land, that’s really cheap in low-income opportunity zones, making a lot of money.

Steven J Butala:
My entire life, my parents said, oh, you never want to buy vacant land, it doesn’t cashflow. You don’t do that. That’s a bad idea.

Jill DeWit:
No, but that’s …

Steven J Butala:
Maybe that’s why this happened to me.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah. I want this to keep going on. No, please keep spreading that. If you are successfully in our world making money, here’s what we need to keep telling everyone, land sucks. Tell them all that. Tell them all that there’s a secret county list. Let’s keep that one going. And you should hand write 20 letters a day.

Steven J Butala:
If you really want to discourage somebody from getting in the land business, tell them to send out … So go to the county, get their data.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, that’s a good idea.

Steven J Butala:
Get the data on a CD, their tax rolls.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah, because they’re free.

Steven J Butala:
And then tell them to send a bunch of neutral letters without prices in it.

Jill DeWit:
Sorry. We’re a little upside down right now. Yeah. We’re not ourselves today, but hey, that was fun. Okay. So speaking of which, getting ahead of yourself. So errors where this came up were in career path, or just not career path, [crosstalk 00:05:58] in discord with all kinds. Often we have waves of new people. Have you noticed this? Usually, it’s related to life, timing, people going back to work, maybe end of year, kids going to school, maybe even a promo or something that we’re running. It seems like we have waves of membership right now. It’s probably closed by the time this airs, we just close it up. And I think that caused a little bit of a push, because people know we’re going to close it up for a little bit. So the point is, though, then we have all these new people in there, they’re running around trying to catch up.

Jill DeWit:
And I get that, and I love that you’re excited and fired up. I want that, but I also want you to be methodical, and I want you to do this right. And I want you to follow the steps that we outline in Land Academy, because I want you to succeed. A lot of people come along and they’re all excited and they get ahead of themselves, like, oh, I know what the answer is. It’s like, you know what it is? This is a perfect example. My 17 year old boy, I can hand him … here’s how you do X, whatever it is. And come on, if you have a seven year old boy or you’ve been a 17 year old boy, you know what I’m going to say. That’s not how it goes at all. You’re going to figure it out. You’re not going to read the instructions. You’re going to open it up, rip it out, lay it all out, try to figure out, and then wonder why you have six extra pieces. And then instead of going back and doing that, you’re just going to shove them underneath whatever it is you assembled. I don’t want that. I want you to succeed, because, by the way, whatever that is they assembled, it’s going to break.

Steven J Butala:
It’s incredibly more important with something like Land Academy versus a history class [crosstalk 00:07:39] because everybody’s coming to us. The vast majority of people that join Land Academy have gotten education elsewhere. Might’ve been self-educated, it might’ve been the Land Geek or whatever programs out there. And we don’t believe necessarily that they’re teaching the right way to do this. And so now it’s a double task on our part.

Jill DeWit:
Undoing some things.

Steven J Butala:
This is compassionate Jack here. Compassionate Jack doesn’t come out very often, but I get it because we’re teaching Career Path right now. Career path has, I think, 20 people in it or 17 people or so, a lot of them, with their spouses and stuff. Everybody comes from all walks of life, engineers, salespeople, accountants. And more than half, probably 80% or so, come to us from another program. So they just weren’t getting what they wanted to out of that other program. Or they chose to, like it says in the title, this is their career.

Steven J Butala:
And so they’ve learned to do all this different stuff and now we have to unteach that, and it’s hard. It’s hard to unlearn. It’s old dog kind of thing, especially for me. It’s hard to learn new stuff. It’s just, you don’t have a lot of patience for it. But look, it’s going to pay out if you just take it step by step by step. My boating thing is a perfect example. You can’t just get on a boat and turn the key and go. Or put up the main sail and go. You’re going to kill yourself or somebody else, so you need the education first.

Jill DeWit:
I’d like to wonder, when does compassionate Jack appear?

Steven J Butala:
I don’t know.

Jill DeWit:
Can I have him at seven o’clock tonight? Or can I have him at 7:00 AM tomorrow? What’s the key here? That’s my big takeaway. I didn’t know there was a compassionate Jack. So you all just got it, and I didn’t know it was there. So I’m a little jealous, but I want to know when … I know that I get him. I didn’t know he was a superhero. And I like to know when he puts on his his hat and …

Steven J Butala:
My goodness, Jill. You can have compassionate Jack anytime you want, as long as you just put it in my calendar.

Jill DeWit:
Oh.

Steven J Butala:
I can get mentally prepared.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, like other things I put in your calendar.

Steven J Butala:
Yes.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, I see. It’s just like that.

Steven J Butala:
Mentally and physically prepared.

Jill DeWit:
I understand.

Steven J Butala:
I just can’t do it on the drop of a dime.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, okay. I got it. That’s awesome.

Steven J Butala:
Turn on a dime, drop of a hat. I just put two cliches together.

Jill DeWit:
What am I going to do with you? Thank God I’m compassionate jill. I’m understanding Jill.

Steven J Butala:
You’re always compassionate, Jill.

Jill DeWit:
I’m patient Jill.

Steven J Butala:
You are.

Jill DeWit:
Thank you. I try. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us right here on the Land Academy show.

Steven J Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy show is called Career Path Mindset, and how different that group is after three weeks.

Jill DeWit:
The one we have right now?

Steven J Butala:
Yes, it’s a 10 week program.

Jill DeWit:
This group?

Steven J Butala:
And after three weeks. This is actually a continuation of this episode.

Jill DeWit:
Cool.

Steven J Butala:
We’ll talk all about that first day in Career Path and how we got to where we are now and why people are getting stuff in the mail. You are not alone in the real estate ambition.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, boy. If you’re interested in learning more about us or what we do, please check out landacademy.com or houseacademy.com. We provide the education tools and support you need to be flipping property like the pros.

Steve and Jill:
We are Steve and Jill.

Steven J Butala:
Information …

Jill DeWit:
And inspiration …

Steven J Butala:
To buy undervalued property. I’m a mess today.