Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.

Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit. And this is the Land Academy Show.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode 1,951 and today, we’re going to talk about how I build, how Jack builds, a 10,000 unit mailer. And we’re going to talk also about building due diligence confidence. These are two topics that came from…

Jill K DeWit:
Career Path.

Steven Jack Butala:
Career Path.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re mid-session in Career Path Number Six, and these are hot topics, both of them, for…

Jill K DeWit:
Totally.

Steven Jack Butala:
… During the office hours for Career Path members.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So I want to just make a note too, for those of you who are watching us, we are on the road. I would show you our beautiful background, but with the light outside, it’s actually a bright Colorado day right now. So you wouldn’t really see it. But my view is beautiful. So we happen to be Downtown Boulder, looking out over the mountains on the front range and it couldn’t be more pretty.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s right out of a postcard, the whole thing. And Jill and I are having an absolute blast.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep. So for those of you who are tuning in and listening and you’re here because, “I want to do it from the road too,” sometimes you have to do this kind of a stuff. So I’ve talked about it before. Running our own Land business from an RV is totally a piece of cake. I can do it with my laptop, I can do stuff on my phone, I can do things on my tablet. No big deal, running a Land business. Now, running Land Academy and a podcast and all the-

Steven Jack Butala:
And Officer Owners and Parcel Facts.

Jill K DeWit:
… And doing Career Path with the video live stuff we have to do, that’s a whole different ballgame. So for those things, we find these office space environments and it’s great, because you could rent it for a couple hours, rent it for a day, whatever you need. I just want you to know all your options.

Steven Jack Butala:
It turns out there’s an office share in almost all tiny little towns all over the place. I’m shocked at how many… Not the chains. Not the WeWorks.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s all kinds of independent little offices. You can rent a room.

Jill K DeWit:
It doesn’t have to be a hotel conference room.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
We’ve done that.

Steven Jack Butala:
They have that too.

Jill K DeWit:
We’ve done that. So yeah. Now I’m like, “Oh.” And here’s the reason why, because we don’t want to go home. We picked up a new rig. Well, we did the podcast… Did we do the podcast from the rig last week? I think we did.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That’s right. You saw the podcast from the rig last week. So we were going to head home after that, right? And then Jack very nicely says, “I don’t need to go home. Do you need to go home?” I go, “I kind of need to go home.” So I’m having contacts shipped to me here. That’s the only thing I’m running out of that I can’t get. But other than that, we’ll just see how it goes. So who knows where we’re going to pop up next week?

Steven Jack Butala:
This is the first time… I was telling Jill yesterday.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is the first time in my entire life ever that I don’t have anything to complain about.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Or worry about.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, boy. Do you have this in your relationship? Probably the roles are reversed. It’s probably the woman that has a lot to B-I-T-C-H about. But in our scenario, not to throw you under the bus, but one of us rolls a little better with the punches, and I think it’s because one of us doesn’t, that one of us has to. So we’ll just leave it at that.

Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? We’re getting it done though.

Jill K DeWit:
We are getting it done.

Steven Jack Butala:
We couldn’t do the Thursday call last week, now that I’m thinking about it.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s right. We did have to cancel last week. We’re going to do it this week.

Steven Jack Butala:
Because of network issues. Now we’ve got it all figured out, I think,

Jill K DeWit:
Sheesh. And the internet here is better than at home.

Steven Jack Butala:
Each week we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum and review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular requests. I just mentioned those. Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.

Jill K DeWit:
Lacey wrote, “Hi, I had a question regarding downloading data from DataTree. Are we downloading the data per zip code within the county, or for the entire county?”

Steven Jack Butala:
Boy, that’s a-

Jill K DeWit:
Best practice, check.

Steven Jack Butala:
… leap right into our topic. It completely and entirely depends on what your goal is. If you are trying to build a mailer, like I’m going to talk about in a couple seconds here, then I personally like to go run the red, green, yellow test by zip code and pit all those adjacent zip codes in a county against each other. Pick out the best ones that have… And if you have questions about what are the best ones, please go to Land Academy 3.0, chapter three and four. And then build a data set from there. So for instance, if you’ve got one section of a county that’s got eight zip codes in it, three of them really work. They pass the red, green, yellow test. You discard the other counties. And you keep working your way around the county until you’ve built a mailer that satisfies you from a numbers standpoint, and a performance standpoint as far as the red, green, yellow test goes.

Jill K DeWit:
So per zip code.

Steven Jack Butala:
Per zip code, but you need to build a mailer.

Jill K DeWit:
Right. So yeah, you don’t need to get the whole county and then pick out the zip codes, because now you’ve wasted all that. That’s the whole point of running the red, yellow, green test. You’re making sure that you’re picking the hot zip codes. And then what Jack’s mentioning, he’s going to talk more about is, well, great, what if the zip code only yields 300 units? What do I do then? That’s how you’re building your mailer.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s just get into it.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic.

Jill K DeWit:
It sounds like this. I’m putting my fists up. Let’s get into it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic is how Jack builds a 10,000 unit mailer. Well, it’s exactly what Lacey’s asking. I troll around the country, or troll around a state or a region, and I find properties or areas of properties that I believe, based on how I input my equity planner, how much money I want to make per deal. Do I want to make $80,000 a deal? Do I want to make $20,000 a deal? Do I want to buy for 20 and sell for 40? Buy for 60, sell for 160? What do I want? Based on those parameters, I go in and troll around the country all the time. And I find places that seem like they might work. When that happens, I go into DataTree and I download the zip codes. These adjacent zip codes, they have to be adjacent. This is important because the red, green, yellow test is relative. What goes on in Kansas-

Jill K DeWit:
I mean, I can’t [inaudible 00:06:30] I was just going to say.

Steven Jack Butala:
… Does not go on in Alaska.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t do one in Oregon and one in Kansas and one over here, because I pick the top ones…

Steven Jack Butala:
Apples to oranges.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Got it.

Steven Jack Butala:
It has to be relative and adjacent and relative. And so what ends up happening… And this is the norm. This is not an exception. I find five or eight zip codes, two or three work, let’s say. Some number like that, maybe two. I find out that those two zip codes in that pocket of adjacent zip codes really work. They pass the red, green, yellow test. But I find out it’s only 700 units. Well, I want to send out 10,000 properties. I want to send out a 10,000 unit mailer. So I continue to do the same thing. And the more diverse these pockets of zip codes that I create, diversification is a… Finance diversification is a 101 rule. It’s very safe. You diversify risk that way. So if I end up in five different states with clusters of zip codes, they pass a red, green, yellow test, and now I need to continue to build a up to… I want to build a 10,000 unit mailer. I don’t do mailers for less than 10,000 units. In fact, it’s closer to 25,000.

Jill K DeWit:
Do they all go out at the same time?

Steven Jack Butala:
No.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
I asked my partner about-

Jill K DeWit:
There you go.

Steven Jack Butala:
… How many would you like to go out every week?

Jill K DeWit:
Well, that’s a point that makes sense too. I want to pause for just a second and say, “Why are we doing that much? Am I doing that much every week? Is that what I should be aiming for?” Maybe, depending where you are in this business and how big your team is. But for most individuals just don’t want to sit and have to do this every week. Some do, but some don’t. Maybe you don’t have the time to do that. You don’t have the time to spend every Monday to sit down and pick a county, do your things, and get a mailer out. Some do. Again, some don’t.
So if you don’t, or you just don’t want to do it that often, like Jack here, he’d rather do it for the whole month. Sit and do 10,000. But he’s got this state, five zip codes. This county, five zip codes, right? Of the 12. And this county over in this state where he’s got six of the 15 zip codes that pass. And then this one and this one and this one, maybe it’s four different regions, if you will, to make up the 10,000. Then do your download and la, da, da, da, da, and-

Steven Jack Butala:
And then [inaudible 00:08:51] your mailer.

Jill K DeWit:
… Space it out. Space out when the mailer hits.

Steven Jack Butala:
Or better yet, send it to Concierge Data and [inaudible 00:08:57] to owners after you’ve got the data all done and you like it and it’s 10,000, 11,000, 15,000 units-

Jill K DeWit:
They’ll space it out.

Steven Jack Butala:
… Send it over. They’ll space it out. They will process the order and release it when you ask them to. So if you say, “Every Monday, I want 2,500 to go out until it’s gone and let me know.”

Jill K DeWit:
Yep. That’s beautiful. I’m trying to think of questions to ask you.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is the norm. This is not… Well, here’s another one.

Jill K DeWit:
I have questions.

Steven Jack Butala:
Okay.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, so this is great, Jack. If I do all this data in bulk like this, how far can I space it out? I’m assuming six months is too long because the data may change. How current do you want my data to be?

Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s what happens.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is a great question.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
And you know what the answer is? I don’t know. Six months is probably okay. You don’t need to refresh your data for six months, and maybe even a year. You could stretch it out for a year, but date is cheap. Your time is not. Your time is expensive, and the mail’s expensive.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
So what ends up happening is this. You’re going to send out 2,500. You’re going to ask O20 to send out 2,500. They’re going to send them out. Two weeks later, you’re going to get a bunch of opportunity. People are going to call back. And now your system’s moving forward. So if you think of this, and picture a calendar while I say this, the first Monday, 100 units go out. Two weeks later, you’re going to get responses from that. But the next Monday, 2,500 units go out, two weeks later from that. So you can see how there’s a lag. You don’t want that. You don’t want to stop ever releasing stuff into the mail because you’re going to stop your deal flow.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s the key.

Steven Jack Butala:
And at some point, you are going to say, “I have too many deals.” If you send out 2,500 to 5,000 a week, you are going to generate some amazing opportunity, and it’s going to be too much for you, if you’re new, to handle. If you’re scaling or you’re coming to us from another group, you know how these deals go, how much time they take. You’ve got some experience. And so you know if you can handle 15 deals or five deals or three deals or one.

Jill K DeWit:
I got to tell you, though, that’s the best scenario. I’m still going to say this. I don’t care. If you have too much deals, boohoo. I’m serious. You know why? Because you’re not going to make any mistakes and you’re going to pick the best ones.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what it is.

Jill K DeWit:
When you have 10 deals, oh my gosh, I’d buy them all if I could, but I can’t. I don’t have the bandwidth, the money, the time, whatever. Then so what? You’re going to pick the best ones. And then space them out. And I’ve had those conversations too, by the way. It’s easy to tell a seller, “How fast do we need to do this? Because I need to budget this out, if you will.” And if you say, “Can I do this in 30 days?” And they say yes, you can do that. I don’t like it. Too many things can go wrong. But back in the day, I did have those conversations when I really did. The difference is, now you don’t have to do that because if it’s money, it’s all in bandwidth that you might not be able to handle it. But if it’s only money, for a lot of people, it’s money. That they’re just like, “I don’t have the budget to buy for $20,000 properties.” Well, I do.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let me ask you question.

Jill K DeWit:
Hit me up. Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
When are more choices bad? Not just with real estate, but in life? Give me one example, please. Because I can’t think of one.

Jill K DeWit:
Hmm. [inaudible 00:12:31]. Not jewelry, not men. Let me tell you the [inaudible 00:12:36]. It’s not jewelry, it’s not men. It’s not real estate.

Steven Jack Butala:
Cars?

Jill K DeWit:
No, I thought about that with cars. I do have a little trouble with cars because then I want to buy them all. I don’t know.

Steven Jack Butala:
But you do want more choices-

Jill K DeWit:
But you want more choices.

Steven Jack Butala:
… Because now you have control. If you have more choices about all the stuff that Jill just mentioned, you are going to, invariably, in my opinion, if you have the right personality type to do all this, you will invariably make the best choice. And it’s the same thing with deals. If staring at 20 deals and you only want to do one or two a month, which is fine, you’re going to pick the best two. If you have a universe of 28 deals versus 19 deals, chances are, there’s a better deal in there than 19 or 15 or 10. That’s why it’s so important.

Jill K DeWit:
Or four. That’s the problem. People don’t realize, when you have too little and you’re looking at… Here’s what happens. The opposite… Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt you, but when you have three or four deals and people don’t send out enough mail, this is the problem. You send out 2000 units, right? And you get 20 calls back or 30 calls back, and you’ve got four that passed your test, not 14, four, now you’re looking at the lesser of two evils like, “Well, maybe this one over that one,” and that’s where you’re going to get in trouble.

Steven Jack Butala:
Which taps into Jill’s next topic. And so I don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves, but if you have 20 deals that you’re looking at and you only want to get two, you’re going to make great decisions, because you have more opportunity and more diversification. Those things are universal concepts in everything. More diversification is better. Always. More options. More choices are always better than less choices.

Jill K DeWit:
In your 10,000 unit mailer, I’m going to argue too. So here’s what you’re doing, you’re in DataTree, you’re filling in your parameters and you’re stacking up, right? Are you going to download in one bulk?

Steven Jack Butala:
No.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, so you have one per county.

Steven Jack Butala:
Or zip code. Let’s say-

Jill K DeWit:
Well, no. No, I mean… Let me back up here. So I put in state, county, and my six zip codes, and I’ve got 8,000 units. I have to download that and then go back and do 2000 from my other area that I picked out.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, got it.

Steven Jack Butala:
You have to do separate downloads, because here’s why. That’s a great point. I should have been more clear on that.

Jill K DeWit:
Because does just-

Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:14:58] data-

Jill K DeWit:
… Zip code pick up the right thing? Or does it have to be the state, county?

Steven Jack Butala:
So if you go state, county, and then you have five zip codes in there, you’re going to do fine, because the county, it’s at the county level that the assessor data is generated on the back end of DataTree, and every county’s very different. Even counties that are adjacent in the same state might handle their assessor data very, very differently. So you do not want to cross counties. You want to have one county, multiple zip codes. Then download. If you haven’t reached a 10,000 unit, let’s say it’s 2,500, you’re going to do another… Start over. And you’re going to go to another county-

Jill K DeWit:
Download that one and then keep adding.

Steven Jack Butala:
… Find the zip codes, and build it until you get to the numbers that you want.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Then I’m going to argue, tell me if I’m wrong here, because this is data 101 questions I want to ask for everybody.

Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.

Jill K DeWit:
So I have three different files. Do I put them all in one big file, so I scrub them all at once and save time?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
And you put the raw data in one big file. This is a normal mailer for me.

Jill K DeWit:
Cool.

Steven Jack Butala:
And then I start to build the mailer, or I send it to 020.

Jill K DeWit:
Cool.

Steven Jack Butala:
In my case, I use Concierge Data now because I train the person, Daniel, who runs Concierge Data and I know what he’s capable of and what he’s not. If I send him the data file and it’s done and… He does it right.

Jill K DeWit:
Scrubs out.

Steven Jack Butala:
And he sends it back to me.

Jill K DeWit:
What are we scrubbing out? We’re scrubbing out city of fill in the blank. And things like that.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re scrubbing out people who-

Jill K DeWit:
Bad zips.

Steven Jack Butala:
… Own properties, like the US government. They don’t need a letter from you. You’re just wasting money on mail.

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s all in the program.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. I’m just giving little tips like, “Well, what are you scrubbing?” So I think that answers all my questions.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Hey, if you don’t know it by now, Jill and I have a full-blown commercial printing company, specifically to send offers to owners. In fact, that’s the name. Offers2owners.com. About four or five, maybe eight months ago, we added a product called Concierge Data. Everybody loves it. It allows you, including me, to completely outsource your mailing operation. Check it out. Go to offers2owners.com. And give them a call. There’s an 800 number there. You’ll get my number, my right-hand guy, his name is Aaron, and ask him all kinds of questions. Tell him I sent you.
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want to sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.

Jill K DeWit:
Michael wrote, “I know the answer to most of the questions about mailer yield is, don’t worry about it, just send more mail. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel that I’m doing something wrong. I just calculated my numbers for last year and I sent 40,000 offers to 29 counties and acquired only seven properties.”

Steven Jack Butala:
Only seven properties?

Jill K DeWit:
Right. “And it looks like all my mailers one to one state. Starts with a G. How do I debug my process? Am I offering too little? Most of the year I was targeting 35% of retail. Now I’m backing off to target 30%, my picking areas that are too hot. Has anyone been in this situation and figured out a way to debug your process? I’m not sure where to start.”
So is that your math at the bottom right there?

Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to-

Jill K DeWit:
Will you scroll down?

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to deconstruct this for everyone. I’m going to reel off a lot of numbers, but this is incredibly important. This question, every once in a while we get a question… This is a fantastic question, and I need to deconstruct this so that everybody understands this business model. Again, this is very important. I’m going to throw a lot of numbers out. So if you need to get a paper and pencil and really digest this or listen to it more than once, I get it. I would have to.
40,000 mailers times 62 cents is approximately $26,000. That’s how much he spent on mail last year. And it yielded seven acquisitions for him. That’s for every 5,700-ish mailers that he sent out, he bought a property. So one of the top questions we get, “Well, how many mailers do I have to send out exactly to buy a property?” Well, here’s your answer. And this is a person who is reasonably new in this business and his learning curve’s a little different. The numbers are real different for Jill and I. But that’s because we’ve been doing it for 25 years.
So his mailer yields about 5,700. For every 5,700 mailers he sends out, he gets a property. That’s not failing, sir.

Jill K DeWit:
Nope. Give me more numbers.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s incredibly succeeding. So if he nets… If he bought for 10,000 and sold for 20,000, that’s netting 10 grand. He made $10,000 per deal, times seven transactions is $70,000. Well, he spent $45,000… I’m sorry. He spent $26,000 on the mailer. So if I subtract 70 grand, minus 26,000, he made $45,000 a year, that year, which is a return on investment of 182%. How is that failing?

Jill K DeWit:
I agree.

Steven Jack Butala:
Tell me another business-

Jill K DeWit:
That’s the bottom. That’s the bottom-

Steven Jack Butala:
… Tell me another business that where you can make 182% return on investment. Would Jill and I buy a property where we net 10 grand on it? No. Would I have bought one 15 years ago? Sure. I would’ve bought as many as I could. If he nets $20,000, not 10, so he buys for 10 and sells for 30, he’s going to… And multiply that buy seven, that’s $140,000 a year that he made. Subtract the cost of the mail. You end up with about $115,000 of profit, after you subtract the mail costs. That’s a 464% return on investment.

Jill K DeWit:
How is that failing?

Steven Jack Butala:
Show me where you can make that.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Can you do that on a convenience store? Hell no.

Jill K DeWit:
Nope.

Steven Jack Butala:
Gas station?

Jill K DeWit:
Nope. Pizza joint? Nope.

Steven Jack Butala:
Really. Please, if you’re on YouTube or anywhere else, I would like you to type in where you get a return like that without going to Las Vegas.

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
If you net $30,000, buy for 10, sell for 40. Multiply that, $30,000 by seven properties, subtract your mailer cost, 747% return on investment. If you net 40, buy for 20, sell for 60. Now we’re approaching a regular Land Academy deal.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Multiply that times seven. Subtract the mail. 1000% return on investment.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s amazing.

Steven Jack Butala:
$50,000 per deal. 1300%. $70,000 per deal. Now we’re approaching Jill’s criteria. Yeah, $70,000 per deal times seven deals is almost half a million dollars minus the mail cost is 1875% return of an investment.

Jill K DeWit:
These ROIs are hilarious. It doesn’t even seem real.

Steven Jack Butala:
Stick with me because it gets better at the end, and this is not the end. Let’s skip to $100,000 net, which is what Jill and I… We try to make on every deal. It doesn’t happen, but we shoot for it. It ends up being 80, 70, 90, whatever.

Jill K DeWit:
Who cares?

Steven Jack Butala:
$100,000 times seven deals is $700,000 in profit. Subtract the mail cost, and now you’ve got almost a 2800% return on investment. Here’s the kicker. Let’s say you don’t have the money to buy these things. So you do deal funding on all of these. Now I can’t calculate your return on investment because you didn’t spend any money. You spent our money, and got 50% of the profit. Please type in a better business model. Because I’ve spent my entire professional life building this business model, and if there was something else better to do, I would do it. We’re choosing to teach this for a reason because we want to fund your deals. We want to be partners with you. We didn’t start Land Academy to make money. We started it to create partners for ourselves. And this is a fantastic example. These are real numbers. I didn’t make this up. He posted this in Discord, and he thinks he’s failing. And he’s smashing it.

Jill K DeWit:
I agree.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic. It’s called Building Due Diligence Confidence by Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So this came up in Career Path this week. And it was really interesting because I noticed people that were talking about all these deals. Like this person, even the seven that came back, I’m sure there was a pause. There’s always a pause, especially when you’re new, just doing a deal. And then for other people, when you’re in a new area, there’s a pause too. There we go. Thank you. I don’t why I need to see that. But it sure helps when I can see the topic. It’s all good.
So anyway, I wanted to talk a few minutes about due diligence and building confidence and getting good at it. Right? So this came up the other day. Someone’s like, “I have all these deals. I have 20 deals and I’m struggling picking the deals.” Right? And I understand that. Like I said, when you’re new and or in a new area, you don’t want to make a mistake. I don’t want to buy for 20 and get stuck with it. I don’t want to buy for 20 and sell for 25 and then buy… Because I made a mistake and by the time I back out, my escrow fees and a broker and all that stuff, I barely break even, kind of thing.
Have I had that happen early on and made mistakes like that? Yeah. And have I watched that happen? Yeah. So it’s fine. So you’ve got to build confidence. And my main thing in here is, you have to really know what to look for, and I want you to prioritize the six A’s. So I did this last week on Career Path. I had Jack, myself, and another couple, I had them look at the six A’s and I had them put them in order what they think was the most important. Because this is to help you build confidence.
Okay. First of all, what are the six A’s? The six A’s, jack came up with four. When I met Jack, he had four. And then now it has grown to six. I added one, you added another one. So maybe it might be seven at some point. We’ll see. So the six A’s are the things that you look at to make sure you’re making a good decision when acting and moving forward and buying a property. Okay? And I’m going to give you my order of preference, and then you can tell me what you think they are right now. I’d to go off the top of my head to remember. But number one for me is alive.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s my number one. And if they are not… I need to write them down. If I’m not speaking to the seller or I’m not speaking to the person that has the power to sell the property, I am wasting my time.

Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely right.

Jill K DeWit:
Doesn’t do me any good to say, “I think dad has a deed somewhere. Dad passed on. Mom’s got the will. I’m sure we can all do this.” Well, hold on a moment. We need to really make sure that it’s in the right name. You do have the authority to convey it. Fill in the blank. Doesn’t matter about the property.

Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t want to gloss over this. It’s the reason that alive is the number one A for both of us because it’s a huge misconception in our business that, “Well, my dad willed it. It says in my will.”

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
“I’m willing everything-“

Jill K DeWit:
Well, dad told me.

Steven Jack Butala:
… “To my only child, son. And here’s my will and I own the property.” So that might be true with a car, that might be true with a piece of furniture or a bank account or all kinds of gold or all kinds of stuff. But it is not true with real estate. If somebody passes away and the property’s in their name and not in their heir’s name, there’s a lot of hoops you got to go through. And in some states, it’s nearly impossible. Arizona’s one of them.

Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm. Exactly. And the reason I’m going through this right now is I want to convey to you the important things on my list in my order, because I want you to have this in your head when you’re making these decisions, and so you have the confidence to do this. So that’s my last. I got one more. Hold on a moment.

Steven Jack Butala:
So alive.

Jill K DeWit:
Alive is number one.

Steven Jack Butala:
Alive is both of our first.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Number two is affordability.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. It’s got to be cheap enough.

Jill K DeWit:
So I’m going through my list. Again, you’re doing your due diligence. They’re alive. I got the right person. Is it a really good price? Do I feel really good about it? Am I buying this for $3,800 and I think it’s worth 20? It’s that kind of a deal. Yeah, I feel really good about it. And everywhere I look, 20’s on the low end. If I screw it all up, I sell it for 20. I might sell it for 28. I don’t know. Based on all these other properties that I’m looking at for sale and have sold in the last six and 12 months, things that are moving in this area, all of that. So that checks that box.

Steven Jack Butala:
I agree, by the way, so far.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Okay, great. Now I’m feeling good now. I’ve got my 10 and of my 10, now I’m down to five, let’s just say. Probably even seven. Let’s just say you started with 10, now you’re down to seven. All right. Well, now what’s important next? What do I really need to look about? Access. Can we get to it? Can my buyer get to it?
In a perfect world, I would love physical and legal access. What does that mean? Physical means… It doesn’t have to be paved, by the way. I don’t care about that. But can I get there? Hopefully two wheel drive. Hopefully my Prius will go out there, because by the way, my agent might drive a Prius. Or their Lexus, or fill in the blank. My agent might not be in a Jeep like me. But hopefully two wheel drive. Four wheel drive, I can even handle too. But can they get to it? That’s physical access. Okay?
And then the number two part of access, part B is legal access. If it is really on a road, now I know I got it. And I can see from Google Earth where the indent is and the driveway kind of thing, maybe it even has an address. Not often. But sometimes it will. Now I really know, locked in, I’ve got legal access. What if I’m not sure? But you know what I’m going to do now? I’m going to call. I’m going to first ask the seller.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to find out. You get to the bottom of it.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I’m going to dig deeper. It’s going to pass my phase one and move to phase two. If I can see physical access, I’m going to move it forward onto my next level of due diligence where I’m going to really uncover, is it real? Do I have an easement? Something like that. And I’ll work with the seller in the county and plat maps to figure that out.

Steven Jack Butala:
Now, if it’s on a county road, on a corner of two county roads, you can very safely assume and move forward to phase two diligence because it’s got access.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep. So let’s just say my 10 went to seven, went to five. So now I’m-

Steven Jack Butala:
Can you explain what those numbers are?

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. So I started with 10 properties.

Steven Jack Butala:
10 people responded to a mailer.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I have 10 signed purchase agreements.

Steven Jack Butala:
Excellent, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
And of those 10 now, because I need to feel good about my due diligence and making sure I’m not making mistakes, I’m running through these six A’s. So I went from 10, of the alive test, then I went to seven with affordability. I just checked all the access situation. Now my 10, I’m down to five properties that passed those three tests. This is how you build your confidence and you don’t make mistakes.

Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely.

Jill K DeWit:
Now what’s next on that? Well, let’s attribute what the heck is great about this property? Is it on a creek? Is it near Estes Park? Is it fill in the blank?

Steven Jack Butala:
Does it have a farm across the street that should be on a postcard,

Jill K DeWit:
Right. Is it itself a farm?

Steven Jack Butala:
Do you get a good feeling?

Jill K DeWit:
Maybe it’s zoned agriculture.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.

Jill K DeWit:
That could be an attribute.

Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe it’s got an old mobile home on it.

Jill K DeWit:
Right. Or a well. Fill in the blank. Now it’s not always there and it’s not always a deal killer, but I’m looking for that. And that really will make a property stand out. And when you look at these attributes too, what you’re doing right now is figuring out who’s going to buy your property. When you’re looking at it and you go, “Oh, look at this creek. Oh my God, some fly fisher is going to love this property,” now you already know who you’re going to market it to, who you’re going to sell it to, and you know what you’re doing. So you’re going through those attributes. So let’s just say of my five, I’m down to three. Let’s give it a real good-

Steven Jack Butala:
This is a good way to do this.

Jill K DeWit:
These are real good realistic numbers. So of my-

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, they are.

Jill K DeWit:
Really, I started with 10. I had 10 signed purchase agreements. Now I’m down to three. You know why? Because I don’t want to make mistakes. I have five that passed the test. But you know what? I want to feel really good about these. So now with those attributes, I got three that I know right away how to sell them. Done, done, and done. And then I have two other A’s. And then in order is, for me, the number fifth A is adjacent.
Part of that was built into my attributes to where I’m looking around to see what’s around there. Adjacent is, what’s going on with the neighbors? What are they doing? Is there a lot of property for sale or not a lot of property for sale? And what’s next door? Is there a ranch next door? Well, this is beautiful because this shows my buyer what’s possible. And when there’s a ranch next door, I know they got power figured out, they got water figured out, they’ve got all this stuff figured out. So adjacent, it’s just for me, a little boost. A little like, “Huh. All right.” And my three stays three. I’m going to feel good about… So my I lumped together adjacent and attribute often.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I do too. They go together.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. So my three is still three properties I’m moving forward with. And then the last thing on the list is acreage. And acreage was usually solved right away. Acreage is like, “Did I get back the properties I mailed for?” Meaning I was mailing for five to seven acres. I had a real small thing in there. And this property’s 5.3. Perfect. So that’s an easy… But it’s a last little thing you just want to make sure. Am I getting what I wanted out of this mailer? So that’s why that’s the sixth one for me.

Steven Jack Butala:
In general, acreage, larger is better. In general. That’s not necessarily the case in a real urban area. You could have an incredibly valuable piece of property that’s a quarter acre or less.

Jill K DeWit:
Correct.

Steven Jack Butala:
Why, Jill-

Jill K DeWit:
Why am I doing all this?

Steven Jack Butala:
… Wouldn’t you have 10 options to choose from when you start running down all the A’s?

Jill K DeWit:
I did have 10.

Steven Jack Butala:
I know. Why wouldn’t you? What would you do wrong to not have 10 to that-

Jill K DeWit:
Wait, start with 10 and end in 10

Steven Jack Butala:
No. Hold on.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
Just hold on a second. Okay? You started with 10 and you ended with three.

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
What if you started with three?

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I hate that.

Steven Jack Butala:
What would happen?

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’d be awful.

Steven Jack Butala:
You would end with zero.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You know what, I would?

Steven Jack Butala:
Why would you start with three?

Jill K DeWit:
Or I’m desperate and I end with one and I’m like, “I think this one might work.” And then I’m scared and I’m making risky decisions.

Steven Jack Butala:
So hold on a second, all right?

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Because this is the problem.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
If you don’t have confidence, you’re getting deals back.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
And you’re looking at one deal and you’re trying to jam all five or six A’s. Is it six A’s now?

Jill K DeWit:
Six.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jam all six A’s into this property, and it’s not working. Well, you-

Jill K DeWit:
You don’t have enough.

Steven Jack Butala:
… you’re not dealing… Can you hold on a second?

Jill K DeWit:
Sorry.

Steven Jack Butala:
You did not force yourself to utilize the mail the way that you should to create all 10 of those opportunities, or better yet, 20. And then you end up with three, because now as a percentage that the three of… You really picked the best three out of those 20s. Maybe it’s 3., you have started with 30 properties and you ended with three. What’s your guaranteed way to start with 30 instead of 10?

Jill K DeWit:
Send more mail.

Steven Jack Butala:
Send more mail.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
Because just in the question earlier, we proved that sending out 40,000 mailers yields seven deals in a year, and you’re in the thousands of percent on a return on investment. So why wouldn’t you guarantee that? What are you going to forego? What’s the problem? Why wouldn’t you send out more mail?

Jill K DeWit:
I feel like I’m in trouble.

Steven Jack Butala:
Because it’s expensive.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
It costs money upfront, and that freaks people out. I’m going to actually-

Jill K DeWit:
Well, what doesn’t?

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to talk about this in a… That’s what I mean.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, hold on a moment.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I mean.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, let’s just back up for just a second. Let’s be honest. Everything’s going to cost money to get started. And you know what? If now’s not the right time, you don’t have the money, wait till you do.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t care.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s exactly right, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Wait until you do. So that’s a whole ‘nother subject.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, that is my information/inspiration talk in a few minutes here.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Whew. Scared me. I was getting in trouble. My main thing is, I wanted to show you how to go from 10 to three, and Jack is right. So you saw how I was very confidently making these decisions. When you go from 20 to three, you’re making really good decisions too. So when you’re starting out, to hit home what Jack was saying, the more mail you send, you have… I would love for you to have 30, 40 awesome, great sellers, [inaudible 00:37:09] agreements, emails back saying, “Yes, yes, yes,” phone calls. You know you have 35 that you love, right? Or you think. You have 35 people that, let’s just say, they’re on the same page with you, price wise. Now you’re going to do what I just did and you’re going to work it backwards. And if you’re new, you’re going to end with three, and you’re going to feel like, “That was amazing. I know I can’t lose.” But when you get going and you build up this confidence, your 30’s going to be 10. Or whatever it is. You’ll make sure that you make those decisions.

Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe it’s one.

Jill K DeWit:
Right decisions.

Steven Jack Butala:
Maybe you get one property in all of those 30 that you’re going to make $100,000 on, and the mail costs 20 grand.

Jill K DeWit:
Maybe that’s it. There’s a lot of people-

Steven Jack Butala:
What’s the ROI on that? It’s staggering. Honestly, that’s what we do. We send out hoards and hoards in mail, and we only buy the perfect properties that we believe are risk free.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s the point here too. That’s my final point is, if anything has changed with our business model and how I personally pick properties right now, versus how I was doing it five years ago, I’m getting pickier.

Steven Jack Butala:
And I have one more point about this. And it’s, I think, super important, about affordability. If you buy property for too much money because you’re trying to ramrod this… You didn’t start with 10. You started with two and you bought them both, and they weren’t priced right. They were too expensive. And you go to sell them and it takes you a year to sell them, you’re going to give up on this business. You do not want to put yourself in that situation. Affordability is really important. If you watch the Thursday calls… If you’re a member, go back and watch the old Thursday calls. Geez, there’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them in there, where we review people’s deals on a weekly basis. And what we always say, almost without exception, not completely, but almost without exception, we say, “You know what? Love the land. It’s got three of the five or six A’s. And you have it priced at $15,000. If you can get it to $5,000, I would buy it.”
And so affordability… For me, just about any property, even if it doesn’t have any of the A’s, is going to be worth 500 bucks. Most of the time, not all the time. So you can forego some of these other potential flaws that land has if you buy it cheap enough. And you’ll build your confidence that way. You’ll build your due diligence confidence by making sure you’re sleeping great at night because you bought it so cheap.

Jill K DeWit:
There you go. Thank you very much.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Jill, you have something inspirational to share.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I was thinking about this. As we’re driving around Colorado right now, all over Colorado. Let me tell you. Pretty much all up and down the front range, we’ll say that. It’s pretty flipping and cool and it’s so beautiful. And everywhere I look, I have these breathtaking, awe-inspiring, for me, views. And it could be… Maybe it’s a mountain. Maybe it’s just a rolling field. Something like that. But I was thinking about it and I realized, I really am a land person. And it really helps me in everything that we do, that I can see something there, and properly convey that to my broker and to my buyers. Right? Because that’s the whole point here. Why am I doing this whole thing anyway? Why am I in the land business? Is it here to collect land to have for my portfolio so when I die, I have 8,000 acres?
No. That is not the point and why I’m in this business, right? No, we’re here to buy and sell land. And it sure helps if you’re a land person. How do you know if you’re a land person? It’s what I just said. If you walk around going, “Oh my gosh. It’s so beautiful. So I can see someone’s cabin there. I can see my cabin there. I can see me on that creek. I can see me riding a horse over this whatever ridge. I can see…” You see the trees and the beauty that’s there. That helps.
But what if you are not a land person? Which what’s interesting to me is because I grew up in Southern California. I did not grow up in the Rocky Mountains. I grew up in-

Steven Jack Butala:
Disneyland.

Jill K DeWit:
… In it. Well, I mean, we’re talking suburbia in it. There was no land. If you had a quarter of an acre, you had a lot of land. So most of the places where I grew up, it was 0.12, kind of thing. And so I just think it’s kind of funny that it doesn’t matter where you’re from, by the way, whether or not you’re a land person or not. And I want to talk just for a few minutes about what to do if you’re not a land person.

Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t wait to hear this.

Jill K DeWit:
I know.

Steven Jack Butala:
Because I have a simple answer.

Jill K DeWit:
Well…

Steven Jack Butala:
But I’m going to go after you.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh. Well, [inaudible 00:42:21]. That’s hilarious. So, well, I would like you to go first.

Steven Jack Butala:
Okay.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a sentence that I say to Jill in our social life about 10 times a week. “Sweetheart, this is wasted on me.”

Jill K DeWit:
Oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
A good bottle of wine, absolutely wasted on me. I can tell the difference between a $3 bottle of wine and a $20 bottle of wine.

Jill K DeWit:
You can?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. But after that-

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I can’t.

Steven Jack Butala:
$3 and 20? Sure. After 20, at $2,000, I can’t. It’s wasted on me. Jill is a total full-blown foodie. She’ll seek out restaurants. We go there.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
I indulge her. But the entire time, I remind her, “Sweetheart, this is wasted on me. I’m not a foodie. I’m happy to eat a-

Jill K DeWit:
A burrito from Taco Bell.

Steven Jack Butala:
… “Can of Spaghetti-Os and a couple of Budweisers.” That’s just how I am. I was born that way. And she says sometimes to me about classic cars. She doesn’t like classic cars. She loves sports cars. The new ones with the heated seats and stuff. So it’s wasted on her. These classic cars that I mull through constantly.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a passion that I have. I’m a total car person. And if I had an airplane hangar, it would be filled with classic cars. It’s wasted on her.

Jill K DeWit:
I am a car person. But I just want Apple CarPlay and heated seats. You’re correct.

Steven Jack Butala:
If looking at a piece of land as an acquisition candidate and reselling it for more money doesn’t make sense to you, then this is wasted on you. In fact, you wasted almost an hour listening to us.

Jill K DeWit:
Wait, you don’t think people could develop this?

Steven Jack Butala:
No, because I think a lot of people love money.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh. Well, there is that.

Steven Jack Butala:
Everybody loves money. More money’s better. But one of the things that I learned in school, in college, with a business professor, he said this, “If you’re not interested in what you are going into business for or where you’re working in your career, you will ultimately fail. You have to be interested in it.” Here’s an example, and this is an example he used back then. If you don’t like working on cars, then don’t buy an oil changing franchise. If you don’t like pizza, don’t buy a pizza place. If you don’t see any value in owning a convenience store, and I don’t, you’ll ultimately fail, because you’re just not passionate about it.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I built, I built, an eBay empire. We’re the largest seller of land on eBay. I love auctions. I love land. And it worked out great. I don’t like customers. And customers on eBay are real rough. There’s a lot of non-paying bidders. People win. They make up all kinds of reasons.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
So Jill and I wound down our land business… This is a huge mistake on my part. Wound down our land selling business on eBay and cranked up selling diamonds and silver and gold and all kinds of stuff. And we ultimately hated it because all we were doing was-

Jill K DeWit:
Different customers.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it. And so in the end, we sold it, and we took it-

Jill K DeWit:
With a lot less margin.

Steven Jack Butala:
We got out of it okay. But we just had no passion for it. I could care less about diamonds and all that stuff. And unless Jill and I are shopping personally for it, then that’s fun. But as a business, no. So ask yourself if you’re a land person.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what? I have a solution to end this on too. If you’re not, because you know what? There are plenty of people in Land Academy that are not here because of land. They are not here because of land people, but they are here because they know what’s going on and how much profit there is to be made. So there’s a lot. There are people in Land Academy that just are happy to be the bank and trust you.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sure. That’s not doing land deals.

Jill K DeWit:
But I’m just saying, if you’re not a land person, you can partner with somebody, who’s really good, like me. You know what? If you found me and you’re like, “Jill, I don’t really care…” This is not a bad scenario, by the way too. This is kind of my dream scenario. Not that you’re not my dream.

Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:46:30].

Jill K DeWit:
Not that I’m not sitting next to my dream person.

Steven Jack Butala:
My goodness.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m sorry. In second place, not first place, because you are my first place.

Steven Jack Butala:
Great recovery, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Yes. In second place would be an investor that leaves me alone and just says, “Here’s $500,000. Go.”

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, then you’re in the financing business.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, there is that.

Steven Jack Butala:
And you’re not in the land business.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, that’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
Which is great. I know many, many people who love the concept of finance and eat it up. Loans, debt and equity financing, all of it.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny about this whole topic? I came up with this topic this morning on our drive in to the office today. And I really thought in my head, “I’m going to come up with some ways to tell people how to become land people.” And in the end, I can’t.

Steven Jack Butala:
Don’t do it.

Jill K DeWit:
I know. Yeah. I really can’t. Because you’re right.

Steven Jack Butala:
How great do you think I would be as a chef if I could eat Spaghetti-Os and Budweiser?

Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh. No. You’d suck. That’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I’m saying.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You’d suck. No passion. You wouldn’t care. Spices, shmices. You’d be sending it out. “Here’s a steak. Eat it.” Oh, that’s true. Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
And then what? I hire somebody else?

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. And then you can’t even really effectively-

Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:47:40] can’t control it.

Jill K DeWit:
… Accurately… So yeah. Okay. Well, I’m eating my words today. So what if you’re not a land person? Well, it was nice knowing ya.

Steven Jack Butala:
I really think that’s the answer.

Jill K DeWit:
I guess you’re right.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you for bringing that up. My whole topic is just like, “Whoop. Okay. Not where I thought that was going to go.” Thank you. All right, Jack. Your turn. What do you have informational to share with us today?

Steven Jack Butala:
The name of my topic is, your company’s revenue is more important than its expense. So business 101, you’ve got revenue, money is coming in. In our business, it’s the sale of real estate that we bought. We’ve got expense, like the cost of the land. You have to buy the land, you have to pay yourself a little bit of a salary so you can pay your rent.

Jill K DeWit:
Escrow fees, brokers.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, yeah. Mail.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Mail.

Steven Jack Butala:
None of that is going to happen without revenue. And none of that is going to happen if you don’t send any mail out. And this is a huge topic that we spent a lot of time on last week in Career Path Office Hours. It baffles me to this day. And you can see it all over Discord about the lack of understanding, and it’s not understanding, but it’s the lack of buying into, hook, line and sinker, buying into sending out mail. And yup, it costs money. And yes, you incur expenses before you incur revenue. But you will not… This entire episode is packed, starting [inaudible 00:49:11] with all the questions and the topics. If you don’t send a ton of mail out and believe in those ROI statistics and have some confidence in your due diligence and everything… This is a summary of the whole episode. You will not generate revenue. This hit me like a ton of bricks because I watched several years ago, Suze Orman, who’s a financial expert. I don’t know if you know who she is. If you’re under 40, you probably don’t.

Jill K DeWit:
You might not. If you’re over 50, you definitely do.

Steven Jack Butala:
She’s prevalent, or has been, or was prevalent in our generation, and she’s kind of famous for yelling at everybody. And she’s famous for saying, “Yeah, you don’t make enough money. You’re sitting here asking me what you should invest in-“

Jill K DeWit:
And how to retire.

Steven Jack Butala:
… “How to retire. What are… These investment vehicles over here? Is this one good? Is this one good or is this one good?” And she’s just famous for looking at people straight in the eye in the audience and saying, “This is not going to happen for you, because you don’t make enough money. And what I want you to do, instead of spending all this time researching what vehicle you can get 7% in before tax versus 5%, how about you go make a bunch more money? Change your career, get a second job.” And so that’s the whole thing with this. If you send out, an example earlier, send out 40,000 mailers and you buy seven properties, there’s a massive difference if you buy seven properties or 12 properties.

Jill K DeWit:
Or, and if you buy [inaudible 00:50:39]-

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s the same amount of work.

Jill K DeWit:
… You were going to make 10,000 a deal or make 45,000 a deal.

Steven Jack Butala:
You need to be really, really, really conscious of your company’s revenue. Like Jill just said, forget about the expenses. In fact, the ROIs are so attractive that, just forget it. Send out as much mail as you possibly can. If you can’t afford to send out mail, which I understand. Everybody’s been there. Find a partner that’s going to financially back you, or wait till you have the money. Or don’t do it at all. Don’t do anything in your life that costs upfront money. And that might mean you’re not an entrepreneur.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what I tell people often when they’re starting out on this? You need to pick something. Pick a criteria, put your head down, stick to it, and do 10 deals, let’s just say. If you do 10 deals, you’re making 15 grand, a small amount of money. You’re making 15 grand a deal. And you put your head down, you spend a year at that, and you come up for air and go, “Now I’ve got $150,000. Now I can start making different decisions.” I think that’s kind of where you’re going with that too.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.

Jill K DeWit:
You need to get the revenue up. Have that money there. Put it aside.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.

Jill K DeWit:
Have that there, and then now you can go, “All right, I worked a lot of the kinks out. I know what I’m doing now. Now I’m going to do some stuff.”

Steven Jack Butala:
If you get the right amount of mail out and take the amount of time to get educated through Land Academy or wherever else you choose to and learn how to send mailers out correctly, and execute mailers themselves, the revenue will seriously follow. To the point where the percentage of expenses as a percent of revenue, which is a very common accounting way to analyze things, is staggering in this business. It’s staggering, the return, the percent, the net income that you make as a percent of revenue, if you send the mail out. Again, there’s no business that I know of that shows you the rewards like this one. Renovating houses? Forget it. Everybody comes to us with their tail between their legs after renovating two or three houses. She’s stopping me.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Is it too much?

Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s good. No, it’s good.

Steven Jack Butala:
All right.

Jill K DeWit:
I think we’re…

Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. Jill just shut me up. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.

Steven Jack Butala:
Information.

Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
Out.