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 number 1,953, believe it or not, and today, we are talking about how to adjust the purchase price with the sellers right when you’re on the phone with them and then a little later on we’re going to talk about deciding who to call back. Sellers-

Jill K DeWit:
Sounds like the Jill Show.

Steven Jack Butala:
It is. This is the Jill Show today.

Jill K DeWit:
These topics came about this week from Career Path. Hey, by the way, in case you can’t tell, we’re back in town. Yay. We’re back in Arizona right now, and it’s so good because sometimes life’s just easier. Some things are easier, especially during Career Path time. It’s easier to be home. We put so much energy into that. We’re really focused and it’s so nice being at my own desk.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a lot easier to pull off Land Academy with an internet connection.

Jill K DeWit:
There is that. But it’s funny, I’m going to say it again on the record, is, doing my land business from the road, piece of cake. That’s no problem. It’s the Land Academy part and the video content and all that stuff that we’re doing that that makes it easier with really good internet. So, I don’t want to worry you and have you think that you can’t just get in an RV and have a great land life. And I was thinking about that-

Steven Jack Butala:
Or both.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, hold on a moment. I want us talk about this for a second, please. You’re moving me along. You’ve got somewhere to go?

Steven Jack Butala:
No.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So, I was thinking about this-

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, of course I do.

Jill K DeWit:
…this morning, about just operating land business from the road at the volume of the deals that we do and the income that we make from the land company is so flipping easy to do on the road. I could do it anywhere. Especially now, where we have other people answering the phone. I’m only reviewing the deals a couple times a week. I sit down, do my deal review, and that’s it. It’s so nice.
And then my team, I say, yes, no, find this out, don’t like this price, whatever it is. And then, I go back to… This is after about 20 to 30 minutes, and then I go to you and go, “Okay, great. Let’s go water-rafting now or let’s get on our bikes now.” We can do that.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.

Jill K DeWit:
So, I just want you to know what’s possible, and you could do it too.

Steven Jack Butala:
We have people, and I don’t-

Jill K DeWit:
I need to grab-

Steven Jack Butala:
…like to brag like this or-

Jill K DeWit:
Can you carry me while I grab a Kleenex?

Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
We have multiple people reporting that they are in a very healthy way leaving their jobs or their spouses are leaving their jobs, now more than ever, for some reason. And I’m not trying to sell anything here. It’s a moment of triumph for Jill and I because I still remember the first time I- Well, the only time I left my job to do this full-time, and so does Jill. And when people are inspired by the fact that Jill and I are in some three month RV trip buying and selling land and it sparks them to send out more mail and ultimately quit their job or accomplish whatever it is that they’re trying to accomplish by being an independent land investor, it’s a trophy for us. It’s a trophy moment.

Jill K DeWit:
I agree.

Steven Jack Butala:
Not that we matter, what matters is you, but it really is a pat on the back for us. And it’s an inspirational for us to continue to do this.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. You matter to me. You do matter.

Steven Jack Butala:
The next few minutes I do.

Jill K DeWit:
You are important.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’ll see how it goes in the next two hours.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
Each week, we answer questions from our Land Academy Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar, and take a deep dive into two land related topics that are by popular request. If you have a question and you’d like us to answer it on air or you need help getting involved with our community, text us at (480) 530-7383. We read all of the texts we get and if we like the question, we’ll answer it right live on this podcast.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
Now let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak peek and you’re not a member, go to landacademy.com. It’s free. But first, let’s listen to a Land Academy member, Lacy’s, recent success story.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So this could either come from Discord or come from texting, by the way. So I just closed another deal. Buy for $48,000, sold for $90,000.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why we’re here.

Jill K DeWit:
Love it. The buyer spotted the broker putting up a for sale sign in front of the property and wanted to buy it right away. There was an issue with some squatters on the property, which caused the deal to get pushed back a week. This was also my first time working with a Land Academy funder and it was a great experience. The broker was really happy working with me and he offered me another great deal. I’m excited to close more deals. Yay.
Do you want me to read this too?

Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So Kevin, our moderator, wrote some follow up. He’s like-

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, this is the question now.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry. Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
That was just a independent isolated celebration. Sorry.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. Now we’ve got a real question. Is it from Kevin, our moderator?

Steven Jack Butala:
No.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s from Kevin, our former career path attendee. Kevin the pharmacist, I think.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, cool. All right. So Kevin wrote, “Hi. So, I’ve got this potential deal where the owner wants to sell three parcels, however, one of them isn’t connected to the others anymore and is landlocked. It’s cut off by a railroad and a highway on the other side. Essentially useless property. Seller wants to get rid of all three parcels. I’m sure I had all assigned a $0 value to the landlocked one, but I would still have to deal with possessing it. And what’s the-

Steven Jack Butala:
I love multi APN deals-

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
… as much as Jill does.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
What you’re about to do is get a free property, because the seller knows that too. So, in fact, we just reviewed yesterday, on the Thursday call, somebody who had, I don’t know, I think it was in Oklahoma, eight or nine APNs for $2,500 each. Craig, he’s probably going to make a couple hundred thousand dollars in the entire deal. Here’s the beauty of multi APN deals. You’re going to deal with one seller, if they’re all in the same county. You’re going to deal with one Escrow and one deed. So you’re going to buy all these properties, these APNs, in one swooping transaction, and then, you’re going to take your time selling them. Very, very often, what ends up happening is the entire cost of the deal, you recoup on the first sale. And now, so now you’ve got the multiple APNs that are sitting in your inventory with zero cost associated with them. So, it’s all profit, which tells me to slam them into bucket two, because now, instead of selling them for wholesale value, a lower than retail value, I’ll sell them for maybe retail, maybe slightly above retail, depending on the market and the properties and all of that. Because I don’t care if it takes a year. I’ve made all my money back. I don’t believe the concept of useless property-

Jill K DeWit:
There’s no such thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
… is exists.

Jill K DeWit:
I agree with that. There’s no useless property.

Steven Jack Butala:
And I kept this in here for that reason. All property has some value. We have many, many, many case studies, both from Land Academy members and Jill and I, where we will take an accessless property and create it, whether we do it through easements, other properties, or whatever. So-

Jill K DeWit:
You sell it to the person, the neighbor. It’s funny, we’re like, well wait a minute. It has access, cause there’s a highway. Well, it’s probably got a highway with a guard rail and that kind of a thing. Just because your property’s next to a highway doesn’t mean you can just carve out a driveway. Could you imagine the freeway going through town and there’s just one driveway. They don’t let you do that. That’s the whole point here. It’s funny.

Steven Jack Butala:
So no, I don’t think it’s useless at all.

Jill K DeWit:
No.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think there’s, again, we have case studies of people selling accessless property very profitably. I built this company before Jill was involved buying and selling land in the desert without access, and knowing that and disclosing it.

Jill K DeWit:
I would love to hear one county, if you could find one, that would say, “Nope, we’re not going to let you have access to your property. No.” That’s the bottom line nowadays. You may have to go to court to do it. Somebody may have to go to court to do it, not you, but it’s possible to get access. Just no one’s going to say, “Nope, got to buy a helicopter,” kind of thing. It’s not going to happen.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is a great question. My final comment is, always ask your seller if they have any more property they want to sell.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill works that into every conversation with the seller. They received an offer for one of the properties that they have. They might have 20 properties, maybe they want to sell it out to you if they like you.

Jill K DeWit:
What’s interesting is sometimes, people don’t even realize that. The sellers don’t know. Like, “Oh, well I have this one, too. Would you even be interested? It’s like two states over, and it’s a lot bigger.”
I’d be like, “Yeah, what is it?” So, you don’t know until you ask.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s first topic today is called-

Jill K DeWit:
Our first topic today.

Steven Jack Butala:
… How to adjust the purchase price with the sellers running the phone.

Jill K DeWit:
So, let me explain the situation here. So, you did everything that we told you to do. You really did a really good job trawling for an area. You have a really good price picked out. You spent your time doing the red, yellow, green test to make sure that you’re picking a good area, and then you download the data and you scrubbed it great, and you spent your time pricing it, and the mail goes out, and you even tested for a reason. Let me go back here, too. You did everything right. You tested for a reason, which is before you hit the final button, you know, that the mail goes out. You’re spot checking and saying, “All right, if this one came back, would I buy it at that price?” And the answer was yes.
So, the seller calls you back. Well, there’s two situations. A seller calls you back, you look at the property, and you realize you could’ve either, “Oh shoot, this one’s too high or this one’s too low,” because you uncovered something. And it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong, at all, but there’s just times that you’re like, “Ah, darn, I wouldn’t pay this much for this one.” Because are you going to sit and go through? You’re sending out 4,000 units, let’s just two, because you’re doing it right there. Are you going to sit and go through and spot check every single flip in one? Nope. And I don’t want you to, but there’s times when things come back and you’re like, “Shoot, I need to adjust it down,” or, “Maybe I need to adjust it up.” Things come up.
So first of all, when you’re adding money, that’s easy. So, let me give you a scenario. So, the call comes back. The seller says, “Okay, you’re nuts.”
And you’re like, “Yeah, I know. I’m used to this. I’m ready for it. They don’t like my price.” But maybe there’s a valid reason.
They’re like, “No, no, no, you don’t understand. Here’s what’s going on in this area.” All right, tell me more. And usually, you’re going to find this out in the first handful of calls that are coming in, when you get a lot of people that are like, “You don’t know what’s going on.” I want you to pay attention to those. And if you have Pat Live or somebody else that’s answering the phone for you, but they’re like, “I want to sell, but not your price.” I hope you’re calling those back, I want you to call those back, and still find out what’s going on. So, you’re not missing it by you not capturing that first phone call.
If you are taking your own calls, you’ll get it. Or, when you’re calling back, you will uncover this. So, what will happen is, they’ll tell you that, “We just all got rezoned for fill in the blank, and now our properties are suddenly worth more money. Now we’re all allowed to have a horse property or agriculture or this situation.” Who knows what it is.

Steven Jack Butala:
Something changed.

Jill K DeWit:
Fill in the blank. Exactly. Or, it could even be something like, do you know who just moved in down the street? Or who is coming to our town? Or what’s happening in our town? We are now getting a college. We are now getting something like that. You’re like, “Okay, I need to know that.”

Steven Jack Butala:
Or freeway’s coming in.

Jill K DeWit:
Right! Or something like that. So, I love these situations because it’s so easy to add money. When you know this and you find this out, you’re like, “Oh, that’s a no-brainer, let’s talk about this.” And then, you do your due diligence, everything like you normally do, and now you’re going, “All right, now I’m paying, instead of paying $8,000, I’m giving the guy 18, because I thought it was going to be buy for eight, sell for 30, but it’s going to be, buy for 18 and sell for 60. That’s going on.”
So, I love those. And that’s how you adjust that situation. Those are easy, those are fun. Everybody loves getting more money.

Steven Jack Butala:
Everybody wins.

Jill K DeWit:
You’re excited. It’s great. And now, by the way, I hope what you’re doing this too, you now know what’s going on in that area. You have inside information, and I hope that while you’re doing all this, you were going, “All right, we need to download all the data. I only did up to 10 acres. Now I need to go up to 20 acres and I need to go to 40 acres because I’m going to kill it in this town.” So, that’s how that goes.
So, what happens in the other situation? Which happens. I don’t want you to go, “Well, I goofed,” and walk away. The other situation is, the call comes in, either you get it, or you realize when you’re looking at the property, about to call them back. Either way, you look over here doing your due diligence. You’re like, “Shoot, I offered eight. I really wish I offered three. How am I going to tell this guy I only want it for three? I still want it, but I only want it for three.”
So how do you know this, Jill? What are you talking about? Well, you offered $8,000 for all these 10 acre properties, whatever it is in this area, and you got a few that came back and they’re all excited, by the way, and they’re ready to sell. And you’re like, “Oh, home run.” And you go, “Shoot. Now I know why they’re excited. I over-offered on a handful of these.” Which could happen. Again, you can’t know that. It’s not perfect. But, being good on the phone, you can solve a lot of stuff and still get these deals. And yeah, it’s harder, and yeah, you got to practice, but you can do it.
So, here’s what I want you to do. The situation is again, they called back. $8,000. You look at it and go, “Shucks, it’s further from the town. It’s a dirt road. It’s not paved. Power is really far away.” Whatever it is, there’s not as much going on in this little part of the county or this zip code as that one, but I still like the property. It has all the As, except for the price, right? That’s the last piece. So, you need to adjust the price.
So, this is where I want you to call the seller back. And you do this, you’re either on the phone uncovering it, or, if you’re really, really, really, really good and experienced and know the area like the back of your hand, or you’re doing that after you did your due diligence. The call came in, they said, “Done, we’re going to sell this to you.” And you go back. Now you sit down and really look at it and you’re trying to find something wrong with it, and you didn’t cover, the price was wrong. So, you need to go back and say, “Here’s the deal.” And what I want you to do is give him two reasons, not 30. So, we’re going to call him back and go, “Hi Mr. Smith, nice to talk to you again. We talked yesterday about your property. Here’s the scoop.”
And talk to him like it’s your best friend. It’s like your brother. That’s how I do it. I went and looked at this a little bit further. I called the county. I checked a couple things out. I thought it had A and I thought it was closer to B, whatever it is. And saying, “Because of that, I still really want the property. I want you to know, I still like it, I’m not killing the deal. Because right now, their first thought is, “Shoot, they don’t even want to buy my property now.” But you’re doing this because you do want the property. Don’t do this on every one. Do it when you really still want the property, but it’s just the price. Say, “I still like the property, I can still make it work for me.”

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s great advice.

Jill K DeWit:
But-

Steven Jack Butala:
Make sure you want the property first.

Jill K DeWit:
Make sure you want the property. Don’t just call everybody. Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
You should be saying something to yourself, like, “Love the property, not so hot on the price.”

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Love the property. It’s got all the six As. Really don’t want it at $33,000 at 28 or 22 or 20 or 19-

Jill K DeWit:
Or 10.

Steven Jack Butala:
Works great for me.

Jill K DeWit:
And it could be a crazy number. I’ve done some crazy numbers that, like, “Shoot, I really like it, but the only way I can make it work is that, fill in the blank, 30 became 10.” And that’s a hard conversation. But, like I said, so you call him up, Mr. Smith, calmly, nicely, professionally, respectfully. Say, look, “this is the number that works for me. I know I offered you 30, but again, it doesn’t have this and it’s not nearby this. So, because of that, the number that makes sense to me now is 10. If that works for you, great. I will open Escrow immediately. You will get a call from my team in the morning and we’ll get this done quick, kind of thing. And let it sit for a minute. Let them think, let it marinate, let them whatever. Usually, you’re going to get two responses. Well, there’s three. One is, are you flipping kidding me?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. It’s the same response that you would get from a woman on a first approach.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Go pound sand.

Jill K DeWit:
Are you flipping kidding me? You want me to go to dinner with you, dressed like that?

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s number one. That’s the usual for me.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, we’ll go to dating, then we’ll get back to this. And then, the other one is, “Eh, maybe I see potential. If we get him a haircut and maybe get some new shoes, maybe we can work with this.”

Steven Jack Butala:
So she’s already trying to change her man.

Jill K DeWit:
No-

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what happens with women.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That’s what happens. And then number three is-

Steven Jack Butala:
I can work with this maybe.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, and number three is, “I’m so hungry. I haven’t had a date in 90 days. Hell yes. I don’t care what happens. I’m just going to get a free meal out of this.”

Steven Jack Butala:
All kidding aside, seller’s calling you back. So, somewhere, there’s a seller in there. What’s probably incorrect is your approach, just like with women.

Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s not your approach, it’s the property.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, no-

Jill K DeWit:
The property has some problems.

Steven Jack Butala:
Hold on a second, I’m trying to make my point.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
The seller’s the seller. It’s the circumstances in your approach that they haven’t gotten their head around it yet. And if it’s just price, then that can be discussed.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s the whole thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
Be a lot easier, if on the initial approach to a woman, she would say, yeah. Like what Jill just said, “Yeah, I’m available. That’s why I’m sitting by myself at a bar dressed like this.” But they don’t say that. Or a seller should say-

Jill K DeWit:
How am I dressed?

Steven Jack Butala:
… Some version of that. The seller should say, “Yeah, I am a seller, but not at this price.” And some of them do.

Jill K DeWit:
Right. All right, so back to the situation-

Steven Jack Butala:
But for some reason, in many, many cultures… Not all of them, but many subcultures all over this country, confrontation is part of the initial contact. Further east you go in this country, confrontation is, for whatever reason, necessary.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So back to the situation. You dropped the bomb, there’s three responses, right? One is, “What, are you kidding me? Are you nuts? I was all set on 30, I signed the thing, whatever it is.” I know, I hear ya. I get it. That’s just the best I can do. So, tell you what… I’m going to tell you all three and what to do.
So this is one, they hate it, they tell you, go jump in a lake now. Then you’re like, “All right, tell you what, please hang onto my letter. If anything changes, I’ll still be here. Let me know. I wish you all the best.” And let it go. Let it go. And you’re like, what? Do I try to negotiate with them. Maybe I try to meet them in the middle? Mm-mm. You told them what you want to do. They don’t like it. Let them go. Watch how many come back to you.
I’ve had $10,000 become $1,000 because I just couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. And the guy finally called me back, it took him like three weeks, and he said, “I’ll take your stupid $1,000.” That’s after he slept on it, called the whole family, nobody else wanted it. And he realized that, maybe I was right, and if you wanted to get rid of the property, that was just the only way to do it. Yep. So that’s scenario number one.
Scenario number two is, “All right, this is not what I was expecting. I know. And I feel bad. I need to talk to my wife and-“
“Great, sleep on it.”
“How about I’ll call you tomorrow at noon? Is that a good time for you?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
“All right. I will call you then.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
And do it and follow up, and there’s a really high percentage of those guys, after they sleep on it, talk to their wife who’s going to definitely say, “Get rid of the dumb thing.” That’s usually how that goes. Like, “get that car out of the garage. It doesn’t run, anyway.” Just kidding, but that’s not us. So anyway-

Steven Jack Butala:
We have some non-running cars in the garage right now. You just don’t know.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, great. Isn’t one of them orange?

Steven Jack Butala:
No.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
No, one of them’s red.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay. Oh, that one. Yeah, we got it. Yeah. That’s a real situation for us, then. This is good.
So, anyway, you call him at noon and the guy says, “All right, what’s the next step?” And that’s where you go, “Great, I’ll cross off that number. Write 10, please send me that purchase agreement and I’ll get Escrow rolling right now.”
And then, the third situation is, the guy goes, “I thought the 30 was too high. I knew this was coming. I knew it had those problems. I knew that it wasn’t, whatever. They were waiting for you to figure out the flaws and waiting for you to figure out that you probably offered too much. And so, right there on the phone, they’re like, “All right, 10’s the best you can do. I can take the 10, let’s get this done. How fast can we do it?”

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s unknowingly… Now she knows it. When we started out together, she was unknowingly putting deals together that were never meant to be done.

Jill K DeWit:
Thanks.

Steven Jack Butala:
And when you engage, this is just a sales 101 or a Dale Carnegie 101, the more time that you engage somebody, regardless of how much they think they’re not a seller, that’s tiny little steps toward getting a deal done. And that might involve dramatic confrontation in the beginning. In fact, it often does. People call back and there’s a seller in there somewhere. They might be angry, not so much at you, although they’re saying they’re angry at you. They’re angry about the fact that they’re not going to be able to use that property they bought 15 years ago-

Jill K DeWit:
Maybe.

Steven Jack Butala:
… With the way that they intended, or somebody passed away, and they’re angry about that. And this is in a long list of stuff.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
These are all real examples, and a long list of stuff that they have to do to settle an estate, and you’re going to be the brunt of it for a few minutes unless you turn it around. And if you can’t do that, if you’re like me or not interested in doing that, find somebody like Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s a really good valid point before we finish this part and go on here to the next part, which is, sometimes they’re mad. You’re right. Even though they’re coming on the phone mad about your offer and all that, but you’re right, they bought this for their retirement property and it didn’t pan out. Now they can’t afford to do it. They didn’t get to it. They’re kicking themselves.

Steven Jack Butala:
Somebody passed away.

Jill K DeWit:
Having it for 10 years and not doing what they thought they were going to do, and it’s their own thing and they’re just-

Steven Jack Butala:
Or didn’t appreciate out.

Jill K DeWit:
… taking it out on you.

Steven Jack Butala:
The real issue is, for me, would be-

Jill K DeWit:
Sometimes.

Steven Jack Butala:
… this property didn’t appreciate the way I thought it would.

Jill K DeWit:
And it’s sad. I feel bad for them. I’ve had those. Those are conversations you have all the time. I say, “I get it. Hey, I have some of those.” I mean, not really, but-

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of rural-

Jill K DeWit:
That happens.

Steven Jack Butala:
… a lot of rural land in this country, and people, when they’re younger, based on somebody’s advice, or maybe they just bought it as an investment and it just didn’t appreciate the way that they thought. I’ve had people say, “That property is worth a million dollars to me.” We all know it’s worth-

Jill K DeWit:
To them.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
To them.

Steven Jack Butala:
We all know it’s worth 10 grand, but in their head, they’ve been telling themselves for 25 years, and maybe their spouse, “We’re going to retire on this thing. The money, not on the actual land. This is our lottery ticket.” And so, when they get an offer from you, they’re coming from all different types of places, and they’re not happy about the fact that you’re about to pay them 10 grand for a property that they’ve been saying to each other, when they get ready for work in the morning for 20 years, we’re going to retire on that property, that’s our ticket, so…

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, they’re angry. Maybe not at you, though.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. If you don’t know it by now, Jill and I own a full-blown commercial printing company called Offers to Owners. Offers2owners.com. We just released and are now full-blown providing service for this product called Concierge Data. We will do your entire mailer. You just tell us exactly where you want to send mail and fill out the form, and actually give us a call and we’ll walk you all the way through it, and get your mailer done for you. Check us out, offers2owners.com.

Jill K DeWit:
Can I just add little note tag on that? If you don’t have access to really good data, you don’t have Data Tree like we all do in Land Academy, this is your ticket to get it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
So if you call Concierge, if you’re listening and you’re learning and you want to do everything the way we do, you call Concierge, they will pull the data for you. You don’t have to pay for that. You don’t have to have a subscription. It’s kind of an a la carte thing to try this out and get some mailers out there, see if this sings to you, and then join Land Academy, FYI.

Steven Jack Butala:
Since this turned into a little commercial segment, if you’re in another land group and you’re frustrated about, “Yeah, I’m doing a lot of deals, but not making enough money to quit my job,” check us out. Consistently now, our Career Path program is packed, and I mean it, 50 to 80% of the people are from other land programs because they did everything that they were instructed to do and they’re making 50 or $80,000 a year.

Jill K DeWit:
And now they’re ready to really level off-

Steven Jack Butala:
They’re ready to make this their career.

Jill K DeWit:
And we’ll help you with that. Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question, posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek, go to landacademy.com. It’s free.

Jill K DeWit:
Cathy wrote, I just did my first mailer with Concierge Data and I am reviewing it now. Is it common for two thirds of your potential universe of records to disappear after scrubbing?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.

Jill K DeWit:
Using Data Tree, I found a grouping of zip codes with a potential size of 4,600 records. It was just rural vacant land, zero square foot living space, and then matching my lot size and acreage. Everything that I picked out and the other criteria that Jack told me to do. When it came back, I have only 1300 records left. Is this common?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. To that degree, potentially no. Here’s the thing about Concierge Data. You have complete control. If you’re actually, and it sounds like this person is, pulling records from Data Tree and you’re staring at the records, please go into chapter four and actually review who’s in that dataset. All counties are different, so there could be a lot of houses in there that our guys are pulling out. There could be a dramatic number of properties in your data set that are owned by the Bureau of Land Management. You know, don’t want to send a federal, you’re wasting money on a stamp. So, they’re helping you by reducing this size. What you need to do, when this happens, you want to send out a 5,000 unit mailer, comes back at 1300 records. What I would recommend is to go back into Data Tree, just like you did, or instruct the Concierge Data guys to do it, to expand the zip codes that you’re sending mail to. And you should do this yourself. Don’t ask these guys to do it because you know where you want to send mail. They don’t. And get your mailer up to four or five or 6,000 units or whatever you end up wanting to do.
This is a good thing. They’re saving you a ton of money. Data’s cheap. When you send data to Concierge Data, they haven’t spent any money yet. You don’t want to send out a 5,000 unit mailer where the majority of the records, two-thirds of the records in this case, would’ve been wasted money on mail. Mail’s expensive, data’s cheap. So, this is a good thing. And now you’ve got 1300 records that could potentially yield the sale and an opportunity to expand into different zip codes, have them do the same thing and get your mail to the size that you want. This is a natural, normal part of doing a mailer.

Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.

Steven Jack Butala:
Scrubbing and making it your own. That’s the steps toward being really successful at this. There’s a lot of moving parts to a mailer, and it can seem overwhelming in the beginning, but you’ll get it.
Today’s second topic is called Deciding who to Call Back. Bye, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Ha ha ha, that’s funny. So, the scenario is you sent out the mailer. You have 30 calls back this week, right? You sit down, you’re reviewing them, and you’re picking out the ones you want, picking out the best properties. So, it was either maybe somebody on your team or, more likely, somebody like Pat Live took all these inbound calls. Who do I call back? Do I call them all back?
So, in a perfect world, I would call them all back, and I would want to call them all back. Let’s just say that-

Steven Jack Butala:
I did this all wrong when I started.

Jill K DeWit:
I know. You want to call them all back, even if you’re saying, “Hey, thanks very much, I really appreciate this, but no thanks. Have a nice life.” Because that’s really what goes on. Sometimes these properties come in, you’re like, no. Let me give you an example. It’s a cliff. I’m not seeking out cliffside property. My market is going to be a small handful of people who climb rocks, and that’s not what I’m looking for.

Steven Jack Butala:
Do you need to own the land where you climb the rocks?

Jill K DeWit:
I know.

Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t think so.

Jill K DeWit:
Right? We have done that and sold that because we’ve got them before on accident. It happens when you buy a bulk group. But anyway. Another story. We should do a podcast on that, by the way.

Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm.

Jill K DeWit:
So, you don’t need to call them all back. You could just let it fade away. If they call you back though, if they call again, then I will politely say, “Hey, thank you. I appreciate your calling. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. Actually, that’s not the kind of property I’m looking for. I didn’t realize it was a cliff.”
And they’re like, “Yeah, I get it. All right, thank you. Bye.” That kind of a thing. So, that’s who you want to call back, but you don’t have time. You don’t have the energy. You really don’t. And, if you’re going to do this, right, I mean your time is really valuable.
So, who are you calling back? The ones you want to buy. So, the calls come in, let’s just say Pat Live. There’s, there’s a handful of people that you need to call back and talk about price adjustments, like I talked about earlier. There’s also a handful of people that are ready to go. So, say they came in.
I’m going to start with the easy ones first. The calls came in, you looked them up, you love it. You’re like, “I like the price. They’re ready to go. All I need is a purchase agreement. This is awesome.” So, that’s an easy call. You’re calling them up to say, “Hi, my name is Jill, I’m the owner. I got your message. Sounds like we’re on the same page here. That paper I sent you? Yep. Page two. You got it, the purchase agreement. If you don’t mind, just sign that, you could take a picture of it on your phone right now and send it to me. All up in Escrow today. This is going to be awesome. Hey, by the way, how are you going to want to get paid?” I do something like that and get them all excited. Or tell them how fast we can close. “Hey, by the way, I’ve got the greatest agent on the planet here, and I can do this in 12 days. How’s that sound?”
“Yeah. Oh my gosh. This is awesome.” And then, there you go. Next thing you know, you’re opening Escrow, putting those two together, and just babysitting it.

Steven Jack Butala:
My answer’s really different, but it’s not my topic.

Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s not your topic.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it?

Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s not. It’s my topic. So then-

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you’re a crack up today.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, seriously, then… I’ll let you have your moment. Let me finish mine. So, then, the other ones who to call. Basically, you’re calling back the ones that you love, the ones you want to buy. That’s the whole goal here. So that, I covered the “No thank you” people, the people you don’t want, you don’t have to call them back. It’s okay. I’m giving you permission. Number two, the ones that are ready to go, you’re ready to go. Oh, hop on those. And then, the number three group is, I don’t know, I got to talk to them about it a little bit. Maybe there’s something there. I need to adjust the price that we talked about in the beginning. That’s the reason, or I’m needing to uncover a little more information about the property. Those are the ones you call back.
You are dying to go.

Steven Jack Butala:
No, no. Are you through your list?

Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. But we’re going to talk more about it, so I’ll come up with some more things.

Steven Jack Butala:
When you’re new, call everybody back, and that’s it. It’s all percentages. This whole game is all, it’s Moneyball, it’s all percentages. The more people you talk to, the more deals you’re going to do and the more experiences that you’re going to get. If you are interested in fast tracking your career and accumulating a lot of money, the two things that you can do, and they’re sometimes the most difficult. They’re the two most difficult things to do, and this entire career is number one. Send a ton of mail out, recklessly send out mail. Make sure it’s priced right. If you need somebody to look at your mailer or check it out, find some of your peers in Land Academy. That’s number one. Recklessly send out mail. You will be incredibly successful. Number two, talk to everybody. I don’t care how livid they are, I don’t care what names they call you, talk to them, embrace them, and flip them. Flip them to get them to do what you want them to do.
This notion of, so, there’s two things that are very natural to brand new people to do, and I understand them. It’s a innate human thing to want to be more efficient, spend less money on mail. In a perfect world, I would send out 300 mailers and do five deals, and I would spend $150 on mail or whatever. The dollars end up being on that, and that’s it. That’s just not how this works. How it works is exactly how I do it in chapters three and chapters four of Land Academy 3.0. And that’s just the truth of it. It’s not what everybody wants to hear.
The second thing you can do is talk to everybody and be the most amazing personality that you can possibly be on the phone, regardless of where, how they’re meeting you. Half of them are going to be angry, especially early when the mailer hits. Some are going to say, yeah, “I do want to do the deal, but not this price.” And then at the end, you’re going to get some signed purchase agreements. And if you do this consistently and get used to it, again, nobody wants to get yelled at, no one, but this is part of it. Call them all back, send a huge amount of mail out, and call them all back and just embrace it.

Jill K DeWit:
So, you would sit down-

Steven Jack Butala:
I did.

Jill K DeWit:
And call people and say, “Hi, I just want to tell you, I don’t want to buy your property, because I’ve had this, that’s accidentally LA County and it’s the canal.”

Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re new, I want you to call everybody back.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t.

Steven Jack Butala:
I want you to call the people who hung up, the caller IDs.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I do want you to call those back. Hold on a moment. So, I want to be real here. We’re not going to call back the ones that we know we don’t want, that they’re-

Steven Jack Butala:
You mean the actual dirt?

Jill K DeWit:
Yes.

Steven Jack Butala:
Okay. Well…

Jill K DeWit:
You looked it up, Steven, and it really is a canal. I seriously have had that. I’m like, “How does this poor person get stuck with this?”

Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, maybe not that, but I’m just saying-

Jill K DeWit:
Or like undivided interest. I’m not going to call and say, “You only own half the property. I just want to let you know that.” I’m not going to call them.

Steven Jack Butala:
I stand corrected by my female life partner.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
Does that make you feel better?

Jill K DeWit:
Yes. I don’t want you to hear, call everyone back, because then you’re really going to get discouraged and it’s a waste of time.

Steven Jack Butala:
If the property sucks. I get it.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Thank you. But the point is, here’s the point, and here’s the beautiful thing about when to call, deciding who to call back. What’s nice is this is a situation where Pat Live or somebody else took the calls. Maybe you even took the initial calls, right? You got all the information and now you need to sit down and you do your due diligence. So, you have done your due diligence, and now you’re ready to go. This is so great. These are fun phone calls. You already know it. You’ve looked at it, you’ve felt it, you’re excited about it. You see the river, you see the whatever it is. You’re like, I want to get these deals now. So, you’re calling these back and how do you decide who you want to call back? You’re calling back the people that you want the property, and you’re calling them back because you’re either a, ready to go or there’s one or two things you got to uncover or get on the same page about, and that’s it. And those are fun calls, and they love hearing you. They love knowing that, “I’m the owner, you’re talking to me, and there’s not an agent. There’s no broker. You and I are making the deal. Whatever you and I agree on, that’s the price that you’re going to get paid.”
And they’re like, “Let’s talk. Let’s go.”

Steven Jack Butala:
This whole episode is the real gritty, honest business that goes on when you’re talking to sellers. I did my job, so Jill’s got a bunch of opportunity to close deals.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
I did my mail job and she’s really getting into, and I really appreciate it, the reality of what goes on and what you can expect.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you,

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something inspirational to share today?

Jill K DeWit:
Well, we’re going to do another little thing from our acquisition.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you,

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill. You have something inspirational to share, finally.

Jill K DeWit:
I do. I am having a little brain fade, I wrote this down.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s inspiration that she asked me to script is called this, and it’s in quotes: “Yes, this deal is profitable, but do I really want to do it?”

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, now I remember. Okay, here’s the point to this inspirational thought. There’s going to be a time in your career when you are moving on to bigger and better deals and doing numbers and you’re getting real comfortable about it. And there’s going to be deals that come up that you sent out maybe 30 days ago or maybe three months ago or maybe three years ago, that people call and go, “Hi, I’ve had your letter on my fridge for a year now and I’m ready to go.” And it’s like, back then, you were buying for $3000 and selling for $10,000 and you would’ve jumped up and down for this deal, so it’s profitable.

Steven Jack Butala:
I just got one of those today.

Jill K DeWit:
And you do.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today I got one.

Jill K DeWit:
So you still, there’s value there, but you know what? You’ve moved on. So, this is a fun, awesome conversation to have with yourself because you are telling yourself, “Do I even really want to spend the time on this to make seven grand, because I now know, I can spend the main same amount of time and make 70 grand?”

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.

Jill K DeWit:
Why would I do this? And it’s tough. It’s a tough conversation because it’s hard to turn it away. You go, “Why would I not do it?” But then you go, “Shoot, but it’s pulling me away from another deal that I could be doing where I make 70 grand.” So, my inspirational thought is, just be ready for this. You will come to this point where you’re going to find yourself turning down deals that you would’ve jumped up and down before because, even though they’re profitable, they’re not as profitable as what you’re doing today. You like that, Jack, do you have something that you want to share? Can maybe manplan.com that you’re going to share with us?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Here’s my advice, after 35 years of buying and selling real estate. You’re going to put yourself at a massive advantage, massive advantage if you first unlearn what you think about real estate and relearn it from people like Jill and I and people like other more senior members in Land Academy, specifically on Discord.
Number one, you don’t know what you think. Number two, it’s going to take you, depending on your experience, between a year and two years for this to really, really kick in. If I sat here and said, the internet is packed full of get rich quick, real estate… There’s five or six phrases everybody uses. I catch our marketing people sometimes while asking us to do these phrases because it’s this endless, endless loop of, “These are the things that people click on, and so we should be doing it so we get more clicks.” And you know what, Jill and I have years of doing this Land Academy thing now, and we reject all of that. So don’t listen to all the noise. You’re not going to get rich quick doing this. You’re going to get incredibly wealthy from a stabilized standpoint after about 18 to 24 months of doing this.
If you go through Discord, and even if you’re not a member, you’re welcome to do this, and I encourage you to do this, there are many, many comments specifically in a success story where they say, people say, “Last year was my first year of buying and selling land. I did four deals. I made $38,000. This year, and it’s only the first quarter, or it’s May, I made 138 or 338 because I literally learned how to do this.” And so, you have to go through the pain of doing every step of the way and many, many, many people, there’s a learning curve here, don’t make it past that first mailer.
And so, here’s my advice. If you really are serious about this and you want to be wealthy, be patient. Take it step by step. And I know this stuff is not what you want to hear. I did a piece way back in the day called 24 Month Millionaire. Everybody wants to hear about that. Nobody wants to hear what I’m saying right now, but unfortunately, this is the truth. This is man plan stuff. Yeah. Go to manplan.com if you’re interested in listening to an old man and a bunch of other people talk about how to get really wealthy, slowly.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Slowly.

Steven Jack Butala:
Find somebody like Jill too to work with because, or if you’re a Jill, find somebody like me to work with.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
It just takes half the load off, and then you can really focus on what you’re good at, which whether it’s being a salesperson or being a data person.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Hey, by the way, don’t forget, if you have a question you want us to answer, or you need any help getting involved in the Land Academy, all you got to do is text us (480) 530-7383. We read them all, and we appreciate you.

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

Steven Jack Butala and Jill K DeWitt:
We are Jack and Joe.

Steven Jack Butala:
Information-

Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.