Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:
Jack and Jill here.

Jill K DeWit:
Howdy.

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-

Jill K DeWit:
Qualify.

Steven Jack Butala:
… qualify a seller in a minute or less. Does it take that long?

Jill K DeWit:
I’ll tell you. In a minute or less. That’s exactly right. You can do that.

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 back in the day, it was very, very difficult for Jill and I and anybody during that time to locate real estate without a post office address, like 123 Main Street. We developed a tool to take all 150 million properties that are in the country and develop a backend database so you could look it up by state and the county that the state’s in and assessor’s parcel numbers. We rolled it all up, put it together and called it ParcelFact, F-A-C-T.

Jill K DeWit:
With a bow on it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Check out parcelfact.com.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So the question Sid wrote is, “Guys, Whitetail is” … Oh, this is a comment it sounds like. So Sid wrote “Guys, Whitetail is just like any real estate brokerage. While they specialize in land, they have inexperienced agents learning the trade, so you have to vet them for their experience in accuracy on comps. Other agents only want to deal with the end seller and buyers because they don’t understand our model. I toured 160 acre ranch with Whitetail agent last week. He brought his ATV, UTV. Had the ranch mapped out in MapRight and a folder with comps in the area. If I get lucky enough to get a PA, he will get the listing even though I’m a realtor and I could sell them myself.” Oh, so he was just not impressed with the guy. That’s what they are.

Steven Jack Butala:
But my point in including … I was impressed to start with this. My point in including this is this. This guy’s a realtor and he’s looking around saying, “You know what? Being a real estate agent on my own land deal doesn’t make sense from a money standpoint, a time standpoint.”

Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
“This guy’s better at it than I am.”

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
“I’m good now at just buying land,” which is what we all should be focused on this year. This one thing: buying land really, really, really well. Not selling it well. Maybe choosing who to sell … Which he’s doing. He’s choosing a great person to sell it better than himself. I see people make this mistake all the time. They go get their real estate license, they want to represent themself. All it ends up doing is … It’s expensive, time consuming. And now you’re in a different business, not in the acquisition business.
Today’s Jill Friday and she’s going to talk about how to qualify a real seller in a minute or last. This is the meat of the show.

Jill K DeWit:
You know how it goes so fast? All you have to do is figure out three things.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh this is good, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Three easy little things that you could figure out really quickly in less than a minute. Are you ready? Right seller, right situation, right price. That’s it. In one minute, you can figure that out. Right seller. Am I talking to the guy that owns a property and/or couple and/or church and/or person who can make the decision? That’s easy, that’s fast. Number two, right situation. What’s going on? They’ll tell you really quickly, “Thank God you sent me this offer. I didn’t know what to do with this. I just inherited it.” Fill in the blank. “I just lost my job. I wanted, whatever it is, I need the money. My dog’s dying.” We’ve had all those stories. So that’s the situation. And the third thing, the last thing is the price. Do they love it? Do they not love it? What’s their price? Get that and get it fast. That’s it.
People who spend lengthy amount of time on the phone, I don’t think it’s necessary and it’s really going to slow you down in your business. You can really quickly, anyone who’s really experienced in talking on the phone like I am, you know that in a few minutes you can get on the same page with these people and figure out really quickly if it’s going to result in a deal or not.
Someone who’s calling to yell, even if they’re mad at you. You send them an offer. They don’t like the offer. Big deal. “You said your name is John Wilson. Great. Okay, so you’re the owner.” “Yeah, I am.” “Got it. Well, okay, you didn’t like my price. Well, what price does work for you?” Well, great. I just knocked two out of them in two sentences. Number three is they’re going to say, “No, hell no. I don’t even have a price because I’m going to die here. My wife’s buried out whatever. My dog’s here,” fill in the blank. All right. It’s not the right situation.

Steven Jack Butala:
They’re not selling, yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
There was one minute and we’re done. Nobody’s unhappy and mad. You don’t waste their time too. I’m not here to try to talk someone into selling at all. I’m trying to really quickly get to the bottom line and see if there’s a deal there that we could both walk away happy.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s super, super important. You’re not here to sell somebody something they don’t want or need or don’t want to do. The right seller’s going to call you back and say-

Jill K DeWit:
“Where have you been?”

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, yeah. “This is a perfect time. I do want to sell this property.” So what’s the next step?

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
They’ll qualify themselves usually, not usually, but sometimes. It’s interesting because everybody’s got a different take on this, on Jill’s side of the business. I don’t think that there’s a lot of people that have the opinion that you have. I’ve had people in Career Path that say, “Oh yeah, we talk for an hour. We talk for an hour once or twice a week until the deal’s done.”

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, but we talked about that and I said, “That’s great. So how many calls can you do a day? Well, at that rate, maybe three or four. Well, shucks, do you know how many sellers I talked to then in the same time that you talked to three or four? Think about that one.”

Steven Jack Butala:
Look, it’s imperative. What I got out of Jill just said is that she has a plan when she picks the phone up. She wants to get these three things out of the seller in the-

Jill K DeWit:
Really quick.

Steven Jack Butala:
… nicest way and the most professional way that she can do, and the quickest way, the most efficient way.

Jill K DeWit:
So I need to get those things out of the way. The whole point is how to qualify a real seller in a minute or less. Now I’ve qualified them. Do I spend an extra few minutes getting to know them so they fall in love with me? Heck yes. But I don’t do that on everybody yet until I know if it’s a real deal. Because then you’re going to still be wasting your time, like great. I spent 20 minutes with this guy. He thinks I’m great. He wants me to come over and have lunch, yada yada yada. Turns out he doesn’t even own the property. Do you really want to do that? No. Because that can happen. So this is the whole point. Make sure you’re spending your time wisely on the right people and keep track of this stuff.
So here’s a little tip. So I did everything right. The three minutes or less or minute or less, I got those three things out of the way. Now I’m going to breathe a little bit and go, all right. Now I’m settling in and finding out more about the property. Right person, right situation, loves my price, right price. Now I need to know, do I still want it? So tell me what’s going on in the area and how long have you owned it? Got it. When was the last time you saw it? Okay. So did your dad ever do anything with it? Your dad said he was going to do a cabin. Did he go down that process at all? Now you’re getting not only getting to know the seller a little bit, but finding out more pertinent information that you need about the property. Have you guys paid the taxes on it this year? Well, okay, when was the last time you guys paid the taxes on it? All right. What about the area? Fill in the blank.
You’re going to get all that stuff and they know you’re serious too. You get more information about the property and you’re forging a relationship with this person all at the same time. This is how you get these deals done. I don’t have much more to say.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s fantastic. Did you develop this on your own?

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, just in 30 seconds. I just came up with this too. I’m like topic today, well there’s three things. This is all you’ve got to do.

Steven Jack Butala:
So you just innately … I guess my question is this just comes natural to you.

Jill K DeWit:
Totally.

Steven Jack Butala:
Like doing the spreadsheets and the data part of this comes natural to me.

Jill K DeWit:
Yes. I did not go to a webinar taught by somebody else.

Steven Jack Butala:
So what advice would you give somebody that it just does not come natural to?

Jill K DeWit:
Learn those three things and have it written down. Have those first three … Reword it to what’s comfortable for you and memorize sentences that you do right out of the gates.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great.

Jill K DeWit:
Maybe even carry around a three by five card, I’m not kidding, for when these phone calls come in, that you can quickly get this information. That will help with your confidence, help with your time, your efficiency. You want to do more deals. You just don’t want to spin your wheels on property, stuff that’s not going to make any sense. You’re going to burn yourself out and you’re wasting your time if you’re not doing it that way.

Steven Jack Butala:
I would take it just a step further because we have a few minutes. You need to have a meaningful conversation with these people and you need to be memorable and pleasant.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yes.

Steven Jack Butala:
So yeah, while your goal is those three things, the practice part for me in the past was, in past lives, and I used to have Jill’s job, was to slow it down. I mean, not really slow, but for me it was always just, if we can agree on the price, then I can work everything else out.

Jill K DeWit:
As long as you have the right person.

Steven Jack Butala:
Right. Well I’ve since learned that. I guess I learned that today. It just needs practice.

Jill K DeWit:
If you are new and you haven’t done that, you probably will at some point. You’re going to go down that process and go, I can’t believe that just happened.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let me phrase it this way. Let me-

Jill K DeWit:
This guy doesn’t even own the whole thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let me cut to the chase. Or he sold it two weeks ago.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is not optional, this part of this business. We attract a lot of technical people to Land Academy who understand data, spreadsheets, pricing and that are in industries like aerospace and engineering and software development and things like that. So having a personality in a lot of those fields is optional. That won’t work here. You need to either develop a personality, which for people my age might be challenging, or you need to get a partner like Jill, who has been doing some version of corporate sales for a very long time and it just comes natural. You can develop a relationship like that and both make a ton of money.

Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what’s interesting about this?

Steven Jack Butala:
But it’s not optional.

Jill K DeWit:
Here’ll be my last little thing. I was a child. I was very young when my parents identified, we’re just going to call it a skill. I’d had a really good strike percentage of getting what I wanted out of a situation because I identified, I’d stop for a moment because it didn’t naturally come to me. But I’ll give you the secret. Before you answer that phone, you have to have in your head what you want the outcome to be. So before every phone comes in, seriously, I want to buy it. In my head, I know whoever’s on the other end of this phone, I’m going to buy it or I’m going to sell it, or at least we’re going to end on the same page and be happy with each other.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great, Jill. Oh, that’s great. I mean it.

Jill K DeWit:
So I go into everything like that.

Steven Jack Butala:
I do too.

Jill K DeWit:
I’ll walk in, and I don’t even know I’m doing it. I’m doing it subconsciously. For example, maybe you’re going to return something and you missed the 30 day window on the receipt, but you had a valid reason for it. I’m on my way into the store, in my head, running through how I’m going to phrase this and how I’m going to explain the situation so I can get this refund done outside of the 30 days because I really have a valid thing and I just need to get to the right person. And you know what? I know I can do it. And more than 90% of the time, I accomplish what I need to accomplish because I go into it like that. So you just, like I said, three by five cards, not nuts. I’ve talked about this, my 3, 2, 1 ready to answer the phone.
I’ve done training on this in the past. We did those incentives last year on it. Have a quick little, phone’s ringing, pause for a moment, think about what’s going to happen, who it might be, have a little bit of something in your head, be ready for it and watch how great the outcome is.

Steven Jack Butala:
Great advice.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Happy you could join us today. Don’t forget, we are changing the format. So coming soon, we’re going to have … I don’t even know what the new format’s going to be. I would say five days a week, but there’s a new format coming up this month, so just stay tuned. It’s going to be awesome and you’re going to love the new setup we’re going to do here.

Steven Jack Butala:
You are not alone in your real estate ambition.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m excited.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is so important. All kidding aside, Jill’s piece of this is so, so important. I had no idea. I can’t even imagine how many deals we didn’t do because I didn’t turn on the charm on the phone with sellers a lot of years before Jill and I joined forces. So it’s really, really, really important. We’ve had a lot of people come to us specifically in Career Path and say, “I had no idea. We were just emailing people back. We weren’t getting on the phone with them and getting a price.”

Jill K DeWit:
And missing deals.

Steven Jack Butala:
And really doing the deal.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, they missed deals if you don’t do that. Can I just ask one real quick last question? Can you give me an example of you turning on the charm?

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, you’ve never seen that before?

Jill K DeWit:
I’d like to see it. Show me again for everyone.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you’re so pretty today. What’s going on?

Jill K DeWit:
Aw.

Steven Jack Butala:
It works though.

Jill K DeWit:
That worked. Thanks. We are Jack and Jill.

Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information.

Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.