Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:
I am Steven Jack Butala.

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

Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,967, and today we are talking about How and Where the Real Money is Made with Land Academy. And then a little bit later on in the show, we’ll talk about reviewing Western Montana as a land acquisition candidate, because Jill and I are here for about a week.

Jill DeWit:
This is good.

Steven Jack Butala:
And we’re loving it.

Jill DeWit:
By the way, speaking of Montana, this is one of the greatest things about what we’re doing. Here we are on the road, in our RV. Who would’ve thought, could you even imagine, we woke up today. Not planned, and we have the Blue Angels literally doing practice maneuvers over our heads.

Steven Jack Butala:
I was, I think, having that exact same thought about 10 minutes ago.

Jill DeWit:
Like, what the heck? How lucky are we? And we just roll into this stuff.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s really what it is. We didn’t plan for this, but we’re just driving all over the country right now, and we’re falling backwards into fun stuff. It’s not all fun.

Jill DeWit:
Oh. Oh, come on. You know what? If anything, if you want to get closer to your partner, here’s what you do. You start a company together, you get heavily involved in everything that they do. And then-

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. They have an opinion about everything you do.

Jill DeWit:
… and then you take it on the road, and then you put yourselves in really close quarters for-

Steven Jack Butala:
Then you live-

Jill DeWit:
… an extended amount of time.

Steven Jack Butala:
… between five and 20 yards from each other for months on end, at a time.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, gosh. Well, sometimes there’s no yards together. Like now.

Steven Jack Butala:
Like this minute.

Jill DeWit:
I wish it was five to 20 yards all the time. How can we make that happen? I’m going to start following you in the Jeep, and you’re going to lose me at some point. I’m going to be like, “Where’d she go?”

Steven Jack Butala:
“What’s happened?”

Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I left.

Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, as long as I know you’re safe, you can go to another state if you’d like.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, thanks. It’s mutual, babe.

Steven Jack Butala:
And Montana is not a small state, so that would take a couple of days, maybe.

Jill DeWit:
There we go. That didn’t take long.

Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy Member Discord Forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we take a deep dive into two land related topics, usually by request. If you want to sneak peek of our Discord Forum, go to landacademy.com. It’s free. It’s in the resources section.

Jill DeWit:
Cool. Hey, by the way, don’t forget too, you can always text us. So if you want us to answer your question, or you just simply want some help getting started in our community, send us a note. Text us at 480-530-7383. We read them all, and your question just might pop up here.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a question, Jill.

Jill DeWit:
All right. Mike wrote, “Hi, everyone. Would any of you guys acquire a 7.6 acre property that looks good, but it has a cell phone slash radio tower with an outhouse on the backside of it. The land for the tower takes up about one acre, and it has its own access road. The previous owner signed a deal for the tower to indefinitely lease the space for a one-time payment. The tower and the outhouse is what really is throwing me off on this one.”
So one of our members wrote in here, so I’m going to read that first, and then we’ll weigh in on it. So Dave S. wrote, “Hey Mike, I literally just completed a deal very much like this. Mine was about a six and a half acre property in an industrial park. The property backed up to a creek, and the rear third of the property was actually in a floodplain, so the tower and the outbuilding took up a much smaller footprint, maybe a hundred to 200 square feet, in the back left corner of the property. And the right of way went along the border of the property and to the rear, so it really didn’t impact any use anyone would have for the rest of the property. The guy I bought it from had agreed to the same right of way in perpetuity for a one-time payment.”
Brilliant. By the way, these cell phone guys. “I’m going to give you $50,000, and you’re never going to charge me again.” That’s a whole nother thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t want to interrupt your reading here, but they learned from the outdoor advertising billboards, the mistakes that they made by paying for that stuff forever.

Jill DeWit:
Exactly. “So this is because I priced it far below…” Oh.
“Long story short, I had multiple offers the day it was listed, and that’s because I priced it way below market value. The buyer I ended up selling it to made some noise about the tower, but it was more like he was trying to find out every last detail, rather than he was trying to get out of the deal.”
He just wanted to know what he was getting into, I totally get it. So this is great. “I bought for 46,000 listed for 199,000, and ended up selling it for 195.” So yeah, if your numbers look good, do the deal. I was going to say that anyway. Don’t you agree?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I think, geez. This is how many years, now? If the numbers are great, if you’re buying a piece of property for $50,000, selling it for 200-

Jill DeWit:
You have a cushion.

Steven Jack Butala:
… it’s probably worth, so if it sells that fast, it’s probably worth a lot more than that. And so the good news is that, and this is ironic, the cell tower itself may be seen as a reason why they’re getting the other part of the property so inexpensively. So it’s all about buying it super cheap.

Jill DeWit:
And all these numbers make sense to me, too. So think about it, if you have not walked a five acre property in a while, you should.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s massive.

Jill DeWit:
It’s really good. So now you’re saying these are six and a half and seven and a half acre properties, we’re still ending up with a good five acre chunk of land. That’s plenty of room-

Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely.

Jill DeWit:
… to do things with. So don’t-

Steven Jack Butala:
This goes on, I don’t have it here, but in Discord. And you should go look at it if you’d like to. It goes on. Everybody weighs in, because we all get properties back from our mailers that there’s cell towers. And that’s not going to change.

Jill DeWit:
Not always.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s only going to increase. And almost always, they’re a great deal. A lot of times there’s a monthly-

Jill DeWit:
Recurring.

Steven Jack Butala:
… revenue stream that’s coming in, which is even better.

Jill DeWit:
Well, here’s the other thing, too. This is for you to know about the mentality of these sellers. They already cashed in. So they’ve already got money, in their heads, for the property. So that kind of warms them up to taking a, “Eh, so-so,” offer to you. So maybe this person might’ve wanted to sell it in… Is this, Dave. So maybe in Dave’s deal, he’s buying it for 46,000. Maybe the guy already got $100,000 for it, kind of thing. So, what do you mean? I mean, I’m seriously-

Steven Jack Butala:
Just your emotion.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, I know. That was, scroll up. That was code for Jack here. Anyway, so here’s part of the thinking, and I would do this too. I often put my head, because I’m the one that’s talking, or my team is talking to these sellers. Where are they coming from? So this guy already got some money for the property, he’s already feeling good about, he maybe already got everything he already invested in the property with that one cell tower sale before Dave got to him. So now when Dave gets to him and he offers $46,000, the guy’s like, “I already cashed in. Heck yeah, I’ll take another 50 for this property and just walk away now. Ka- ching. I’m done.” And Dave got a great deal.

Steven Jack Butala:
We had a deal like that last Thursday, on our Thursday weekly member call, where it was deforested. So same situation, same economic situation. The person owns a piece of property, once or twice in a lifetime of ownership of that property gets deforested, probably one time. And so you’ll get a chunk of change first, and then you get to sell the land. It’s a good thing.

Jill DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not a hard sell.

Jill DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a question, Jill.

Jill DeWit:
We did do a question.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, we did take a question. Sorry. Today’s first topic, How and Where the Real Money is Made with Land Academy. So how is it made? More and more and more, we get questions that are outside the realm of Discord. They’re from people that are in the real estate business, or in another type of business where it’s very logical to them to improve the piece of property, or the asset that they’re actually going to sell.
And so, this is a natural, normal state. Geez, we’re smacked with this message everywhere you look, especially like HGTV, or in a manufacturing environment, let’s say. Where the basic concept is, you buy something, you do some cool stuff to it. In the case of HGTV, you renovate a house, God forbid. Or in a manufacturing environment, you buy two or three raw material type components, do a bunch of stuff to those components, maybe attach them. I don’t know, maybe shape them, or whatever ends up happening in a manufacturing environment and sell it for a lot more. The sum of the parts is worth more than the raw material, plus the labor that goes in to change it.
Well, that is not the case in buying and selling land. And so Jill, because we-

Jill DeWit:
At least the way we do it.

Steven Jack Butala:
… deal fund, yeah, because-

Jill DeWit:
I mean, there’s money to be made, that’s true. But we want to hit home with the way we do it.

Steven Jack Butala:
So more and more and more we’re seeing people come up into this environment saying, “Hey, I can buy this piece of property, this 40 acre piece of property, and split it into 19 other separate pieces of property and make some money.” And that’s all true, but that’s not where the real money is made.
The real money is made buying a piece, it’s what the person in the questions right before this said. I bought this piece of property for 50,000 bucks and sold it for 200,000.

Jill DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what we do.

Jill DeWit:
This came up because, for me, I wanted to talk about this today. I have a guy that came to me, not a Land Academy member, submitted a deal for deal funding through… Landfunding.com is the website, if you want to know where you can do this. You don’t have to be a member. So they popped this deal in here, and it came to me to review. And it was, I can’t remember what the acreage was, I’m going to say somewhere around 20 acres. It was 20 to 40 acres, I believe it might’ve been Florida. I didn’t look it up today, so I’m just kind of going from memory. And it was like, buy for a million, put in the-

Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible], cash.

Jill DeWit:
… as a group. So he was looking for, and it’s actually not nuts. I mean, everything he’s saying is not nuts, but let me paint the picture here.
“Hey Jill, you want to get in on this deal? Here’s the property, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to put in the roads, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that. We have it all specked out. We know how it’s going to go. And by the time we’re all done, we’re all going to put in money to make 1.2 million,” whatever. “And at the end it’s going to be four million,” or something. Let’s just say.
So it is all true, slash however, I just had to say, “A, I don’t like that place. I’m not real comfortable in that area.” I would definitely reach out to people in Land Academy that know that area even better than I do. “And then number two, it’s just the time involved, and the work involved.” And so going from that number, going from 1.2, let’s just say I did it by myself. 1.2 to $3 million in the course of, I don’t know, two to three years by the time you’re all done.

Steven Jack Butala:
Those are good numbers.

Jill DeWit:
That’s the thing. Which is very real. Slash, however, that’s kind of going to be what all that person’s going to do in that time. And Jill, what’s wrong with that?

Steven Jack Butala:
Nothing.

Jill DeWit:
There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just, it’s so much work. And I’m going to argue, because I can do it and I can prove it, I can do that in a year and not have to go through all that work. That’s the whole point, here. You can work, or even the same amount of work. Boy, putting in the same amount of hours, sitting at that person’s desk… Oh, and by the way, they can’t do it from an RV, because there’s times they got to show up out there and look at stuff and make sure the holes are in the right place, and things are plowed the way it should be. And oh my gosh, people showed up. Or there is an extra expense of hiring a foreman to oversee all that, too. There’s so many things that are different, that you have to think about and plan for, to get to the end on that. That it doesn’t make sense.
So that’s where we come back to the Land Academy model. Maybe it’s not going to be as fancy as, “That’s my subdivision. I named all the streets after my kids.” Because you can do that, right? And I call it, instead of Del Webb, it’s Del Jill, whatever. I come up with that.

Steven Jack Butala:
Del Jill.

Jill DeWit:
Del Jill, and there’s a Jack Street, and a Jill Street, and I put the clubhouse in your name. Whatever I want to do, I put the HOA, I make an HOA. I mean, dream it up. All this stuff is really possible, you guys, but why? That’s the point. What are you really doing? What are you doing?

Steven Jack Butala:
What are you really doing?

Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Are you trying to make money here, and make your life easy? Or are you trying to get your name on a building? Because this is a thing, too. People want their names on buildings. As we’re driving around in these old towns, you look up and you see Stapleton. Okay, well, who was Mr. Stapleton who built that eight story building in downtown Billings?

Steven Jack Butala:
In 1890.

Jill DeWit:
Right. Who was that person? I don’t even know anymore, but boy, they had their name on the building. That was definitely a thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s the thing. You’re responsible for one single thing to be ridiculously successful in Land Academy, and that is finding undervalued land. You need to master that, in a true sense of the word. Send a ton of mail out, review the properties, and identify the fact that they’re a great deal. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.
And so I’ve been in an acquisition seat my entire professional career, since the very, very early ’90s, in all different types of capacities. And what people expect from you, if you’re an up and coming acquisition person, which you all are. You’re your own up and coming acquisition person. Is to find great deals, undervalued deals in our case, for land that can be resold quickly without doing anything. Don’t worry about the money, don’t worry about the time. Learn how to send out mail, answer the phone, or get somebody else to answer the phone, and identify tons and tons and tons of properties that are inexpensive or undervalued and prepped. So somebody, you can prep them or somebody else can prep them, for resale.
If in that big stack of amazing deals is a subdividable deal in East Texas or something, I say Texas because it’s easier to subdivide property there than it is I think in anywhere else in the country. Great. Line up that deal, that $1.2 million deal that’s going to be worth 3.5 in three years, or whatever Jill said. Against the pile of deals that you’re going to buy for $50,000 and sell for 200, like cell phone guy, earlier. Which one are you going to choose? You’re going to choose a pile of deals where you do nothing and get money fast.

Jill DeWit:
Or, there’s one other scenario. You don’t necessarily have to kick that deal to the curb. So let’s just think about this, here. That $1.2 million deal, what if it’s really worth in its current condition, 2.5?

Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, now you’re talking. Because now it’s in the original pile.

Jill DeWit:
Right. Don’t get so, don’t think, “Oh, but I can do this, this, and this and make my 2.5, 3.5.” Hold on a moment. What if my 1.2, in six months, I can cash out at 2.5? And not do any of that work.

Steven Jack Butala:
One of the hardest-

Jill DeWit:
That’s what I want to do, and that’s the Land Academy model.

Steven Jack Butala:
One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned, and continue to learn professionally, is walking away from situations where I know it’s going to make a bunch of money. I’ll give you a weird example, because Jill and I are driving around all over the country. And I’m looking at and constantly doing math at these RV parks where we’re staying, and how much money they make. And what little maintenance is involved, and expense, and all of that. Jill and I could go buy three or four of these things, add 20 more units, not units, but 20 more locations to it. Really quickly, if we had the right business partner.
And nope, Jill and I, this happens all the time, happens almost nightly. We have a couple glasses of wine, or a beer. We talk about how great it would be. I do all the math, we high five each other, and then we come to our senses about it and say, “No, stop. All we got to do is just continue to buy and sell land.” That’s where the dough is. That’s where the real money is made with Land Academy, doing one thing really well.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah, that’s so true, we really do talk. I can even imagine, here’s how we go, “Hey, isn’t this park beautiful?” “Yeah.” “And this is all that’s involved? Well, I can do that. We could do this, we could do that. Let’s go buy it. Build the most beautiful park.” Then we go, “Uh-oh, but who’s going to run it? I’m not going to run it. Are you going to run it?” “I’m not going to run it.” And then we’re like, “Okay, now we need a manager.” “Oh, great. Well, who’s going to manage the manager? I’m not going to do it. Are you going to do it?” “I’m not going to do it.” That’s how it goes.

Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s a pretty extreme example, but we come up with model products, specifically, within Land Academy. Like, “Wow, we’ve identified this situation,” like let’s say in the southwestern part of the country where there’s specific types of data that are more available than, let’s say, the Northeast. “We should do this product, we should put it all together. We’ve got staff in place to do it,” and then we come to our senses and say, “You know what? We should just continue to buy and sell land.”

Jill DeWit:
I’m going to argue, this is my final point, that we have gone there. One of the values and reasons that you’re following us, and one of the reasons everybody’s in Land Academy, is because we have since the ’90s, and then combined probably floating into 17,000 transactions. And these are not our members. These are our transactions, by the way, somewhere over 16,000 transactions. We’ve done it. We’ve done it. We’ve had-

Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve done it right and wrong.

Jill DeWit:
… we’ve done other, the niches that we’re talking about, these little offshoots. We’ve gone there so many times, and at the very end of the day, we come back to land. We come back to our very simple model. Because you could work hard as you want, or as little as you want, create the life that you want. And I’m telling you, buying and selling land the way we do it has always kept food on the table, and I never worry about it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well said.
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.
Hey, Career Path is coming up, Jill.

Jill DeWit:
Yes, it is. I’m so excited. Career Path 7 and 8.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s combined.

Jill DeWit:
Our last two for this year are coming up. They start in September, so it’s coming up fast. Where can you get the details? Go to land academy.com. Look under programs, you’re going to find or join, I think it’s under programs. One of the two. You’ll find it. It’s Career Path. We have two dates. We’re going to have Wednesday sessions and Saturday sessions, so you can flip-flop around, depending what is easy for you. It’s the first time we’ve ever done that.
And every year, gosh, every session, it just gets better. We always are coming up with new things, and new ways to look at stuff, and just new tools, resources. Things to make your life as an investor faster and easier and more efficient, and make more money. Because you know what? Because we’re doing it right here with you. That’s the thing about us, too. We are and always will be land investors, right there with you. So if you need it, we need it, and we’re here to help you.

Steven Jack Butala:
Career Path is a blast. There’s a lot of really successful people in there. There’s also very brand new people, and it’s a two-way street. I learned a ton, Jill learns a ton, and then hopefully everybody who’s there, everybody who joins Career Path is in someplace and they want to be better. They want to do more deals or make more money, it addresses that topic directly for eight weeks straight.
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 DeWit:
Okay? Sid wrote, “I’m in the process of buying a property in Texas that is owned by two sisters. I sent out the standard Land Academy purchase agreement, and both sisters signed. I opened title with a local company, and then I received a call from them. They said that the purchase agreement was okay, but it was not an executed contract unless all three parties signed. So I made myself a signature block, so I signed it, and then I resent it to them. Everybody’s happy, and we’re moving forward. I know that the above process is correct for house purchases in Texas, but this is a first in the land business. Have you seen this before? And should we add a buyer signature block going forward?”
We always have. It should already be on there, because I agree with that.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s an electronic signature, the way that we do it, and the way I think most people do it. If you follow the Offers to Owner’s Way, you’re doing it correctly. There’s a signature block for you, as the buyer, already, if you’re sending an offer out. And nine times out of 10 for us, maybe more than that, the seller will sign it and send it back, and it works.
But more and more and more, and this is the real reason I put this question in here, title companies are kind of telling you, “Yeah, we need a little more from you.” And so, you can fight it, which I do not recommend. Or you can just say, “You know what? Sure, I’ll sign it the way you’d like me to sign it, and send it back.”

Jill DeWit:
My assumption is somehow the template that he was using, or wherever he got it, maybe he got it from somebody else, accidentally deleted that part. So just so you know, ours should already have the signature on there. So what you’re doing, if you use our regular template, your signature’s already on there. They execute it, send it back. Now you have all three, you’re good to go, or you have both. Whether it’s you and just one person. So, minor little tweak. Isn’t it great though, too? The nice thing is, most title companies are cool about it. You’re like, “Hey, no problem. I’ll just do a quick DocuSign, or whatever it is.” That’s fine, too.

Steven Jack Butala:
You could even pile all in the same paperwork that you send the escrow company, every single time.
Today’s second topic is reviewing Western Montana as a land acquisition candidate. So in Western Montana, midway through our stay here, and I’m noticing that there’s very two very, very distinct parts of Montana. And everywhere we go, there’s always different stuff. So obviously, to travel back west from Michigan, we had to cross a lot of agricultural property. Until we got here, which I don’t see much agricultural property at all. What I see is ranch land, recreation land, and infill lots in very sparsed out little towns.
The railroad was built and ran through the center of the country, to haul agricultural stuff and supplies back and forth from each side of the country, so there’s a lot of little towns. And I kept wondering why every single one of them are 10 miles apart. So I obviously looked it up, and realized that way, way back in the original steam engine days, not the coal days but the steam engine days for trains and locomotives. They needed to fill up every 10 miles. So the country was kind of developed on that model. Every 10 miles, there’s a little town.
That’s just not the case in Montana, I’m guessing, but I think that by then, by the time that the West was developed, the 10 mile sparsed out town, in let’s say Nebraska, was unnecessary.

Jill DeWit:
Well, it’s easy to do 10 miles when it’s flat. It’s hard to do 10 miles everywhere. Like, “Okay, this is the spot in the Rockies. We need to stop and put something.” Not going to happen.

Steven Jack Butala:
So you have bigger properties here, you have much larger ranch type properties, or recreational properties, acreage-wise. And then you have many fewer small towns. And these small towns, they’re not all beat up and left for dead, like they are in the Midwest. It’s one of the advantages of driving around the country and looking at all this stuff.
So you’ve got these, for lack of a better description, cute little towns left, and that are actually thriving. And now I believe, and here’s my point to all this, reviewing Montana as a candidate. These little towns, and it’s not necessarily Montana specific, are setting themselves up to be, they don’t know it yet. Amazing Zoom Town locations, where you can set up shop from a real estate standpoint, or anything. If you work on the internet all the time like we do, and you do because you’re buying and selling land, these are great, great acquisition candidates that need to be presented. Once you buy them, these properties need to be presented as, “This is the up and coming thing, from a Zoom Town standpoint,” if it’s infill lots.
And if it’s recreational property, in Montana, that speaks for itself. So listen, I would sit here and tell you if I really believed it, that Western Montana sucks as an acquisition candidate. But it doesn’t. I think it’s got some huge merit.

Jill DeWit:
Well, that’s great, Jack. And I 100% disagree.

Steven Jack Butala:
Do you really?

Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Let me tell you why.

Steven Jack Butala:
Seriously?

Jill DeWit:
Totally disagree.

Steven Jack Butala:
Wow, how long have you been holding that up?

Jill DeWit:
Just came to me. Oh, just wait. It’s one of those kind of shows. No, so here’s the deal.
Montana sounds all dreamy. Got it. It’s Yellowstone. Got it. Okay, what else we got going on? Oh, oh, it’s a non-disclosure state. Oh, that makes it even more dreamy, like, “Oh, I’m going to uncover this.” These are all things that go through our heads. Like, “I’m going to kill it here, and nobody’s doing it, and I’m going to do it. And I’m going to make so much money, and these are the reasons why.”
But here’s the thing. I thought all that too, until truth time a few days ago. We’re driving into Montana, I’m looking at, what is Montana all about? I’m looking at population, I’m looking at the resources. I’m looking at the industries. I’m looking at growth, or not growth. I’m really digging into this stuff. So many, I just got to say, for me, I don’t think there’s… It’s not there yet. And the little towns in Montana are little towns. They have less than 10,000 people. That’s little. Where’s your buyer’s pool there? That’s not enough for me right now, when you think about it. The biggest town, we’re sitting right now, I want to say 60 to 70,000 people, if I remember correctly, in the 2022 census. That’s still a small town and a lot of it, it’s not growing. There’s not new companies coming in. There’s a heck of a lot of trucking and things moving through here, that’s for sure. But I’m not sure…
And you know what? It’s reflected in the price of the properties here. We talked about that the other day, as we were driving around. I’m like, “Wow, these are not, it’s not expensive. How am I going to make money here? What would someone want to buy this?” It’s not that it’s not an opportunity, so I don’t mean to totally poo-poo your thing, but when you stack it up against some of the other parts of our country, it’s so much easier to make more money faster that I would target. And it pains me to say that, because I do have a dreamy, heartfelt appreciation for Montana.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I think that, I should have opened with this. It’s got to pass the red, green, yellow test. And there’s places in the state, like every state, and zip codes that are going to pass it and zip codes that aren’t. And you have to choose whether or not you’re going to follow that pattern, or if you’re experienced land investor, veer from it. I just know that Montana, from a ranch standpoint, that it sells really well. Mostly to our friends from the West, who I’m not allowed to talk about anymore on the air, Joe asked me to stop.

Jill DeWit:
So I don’t know. It’s going to be interesting. So we’re going to get to know more of Montana, and then we’re going to go in some of the other states around here, too. So I’m really excited.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from the weekly Thursday member webinar.
You ready?

Jill DeWit:
Yeah.

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

Jill DeWit:
Okay, this is going to be a little bit of a controversial show for us, which-

Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t think so.

Jill DeWit:
… I love it. So as I was thinking of this topic for today, Jack very nicely said, “Do you need to talk to me about something?” You came to me like, “Look, if you want to say something, let me know.” Because I started my sentence with, “Here’s how men think about us, sometimes.” And he’s like, “Where are you going with that?” I’m like, “I’ll save it for the show.”
So here’s my inspirational thing I want to talk about for a moment. It’s still going on. It still happens that a lot of people, mainly men, are threatened. I see them being threatened by strong women. I thought this would be done, years ago. I thought that we’ve changed from the ’50 and ’60s, obviously. But I’m still coming up against, “She’s strong. Is she strong or is she bitchy?” Depends on if you’re asking a man or a woman. Not kidding. So feel free to weigh in on here-

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, I will.

Jill DeWit:
… and feel free to ask me. Oh, okay. Ask me questions.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take the gender out of this. I mean, we can get back to it-

Jill DeWit:
[inaudible]?

Steven Jack Butala:
But let’s take the gender out of it, for a second.

Jill DeWit:
All right.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think that, I agree with you, there’s a very fine line. And this goes for men, too. Are men being a D-I-C-asterisk, or are they being a leader? And so I think that there’s a lot of things that can be misconstrued by people who believe they’re receiving negative stuff, like women are receiving some type of response that they don’t want, because they’re women. I’m not talking about you specifically at all, just back with me. Take a step back for a second, and consider this.
Maybe what’s going on, and how you’re not being received by whomever might be doing this, your perception is just because you’re having a bad day. And not you, but-

Jill DeWit:
Oh, great, turn it around that it’s the women’s fault.

Steven Jack Butala:
No, I took the gender out of it.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
I took the, I mean-

Jill DeWit:
Good, turn it around that we’re too emotional, then?

Steven Jack Butala:
Let me give you an example.

Jill DeWit:
All right.

Steven Jack Butala:
Again, this is not about women. We’ll talk about women in a second, but if you are having a tough time communicating with the checkout person in the grocery store, my first reaction is, “All right, what am I doing wrong? Am I not smiling? What am I doing that’s wrong?” That’s my first response. And sometimes you can rectify it really quick, smile a little bit more, tell a joke, thank the person, and all of that.
Or really what could be going on is that that person’s a whack job, and they shouldn’t have that job anyway. Or they’re having a bad day, or it’s them, not you. So I think a lot of stuff can be solved right there. I think that if you’re not getting the response out of somebody that you really expect to, or want, look inside yourself. If it’s not solvable, probably 50, 50. Then start looking at the person and saying, “You know, I’m just not going to go use that checkout line anymore.”

Jill DeWit:
Here’s the reason I want to talk about this today. I appreciate your story, and your input, but for me it’s bigger than that. I am here, right now, sitting next to you to promote women land investors. Period. Actually, any woman in business, by the way. But specifically, what I know the best, is women land investors.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m about to get my butt kicked.

Jill DeWit:
What do I come across? A lot of time, is pushback. I get sometimes, no offense, it’s just-

Steven Jack Butala:
You can stop saying, “No offense.”

Jill DeWit:
Okay, sorry.

Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t take offense to any of this. I love that we’re talking about it, and I’m sure that you’re right. Let’s just-

Jill DeWit:
This is stuff that we talk about. This is why I have the Land Academy Ladies group. If you’re a struggling woman land investor, and you’re like, “Yeah,” then join our group, by the way.

Steven Jack Butala:
How many times have you sat on this call, in this environment and said, “If you’re a woman, and you’re answering the phone, you can disarm an angry seller much faster, and probably get a deal done faster, if you’re a woman.”

Jill DeWit:
True. A thousand. Why?

Steven Jack Butala:
So, how is that a threat?

Jill DeWit:
You know what it is? It’s just, strong women are still getting a bad rap where men will look to people like Steve Jobs, or somebody like that. A crazy, maybe even Elon Musk rolling in and firing people, and he’s celebrated. Celebrated. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong here, I’m just saying, it’s a different reaction than if it was a woman. I bet if it was Stephanie Jobs or Alanya Musk, fill in the blank.

Steven Jack Butala:
Is that a real person?

Jill DeWit:
No, I’m making it up. But if someone, a woman came in, bought X, started firing everybody. I think it’d be a different thing. I just do. I still see that, and I still feel it. Because hey, in our company, I love our company. We have a really strong female to male ratio, people within Land Academy. I’m talking our staff, not only our staff, actually. So personally, I feel good about that, but also our member community.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not intentional, by the way. The people that-

Jill DeWit:
I’ve got so many… No, we pick the best. We do pick the best.

Steven Jack Butala:
They’re the best people for the job.

Jill DeWit:
Correct. But there’s still times that comes up, and mostly me. So I’m like, I just want to speak out and share a little bit of my truth. And so other people know that, you’re not nuts, that it still goes on. And it probably always will go on, but it’s kind of like I wish I could-

Steven Jack Butala:
I need hard-

Jill DeWit:
… I wish I could make it-

Steven Jack Butala:
I need examples.

Jill DeWit:
… stop. Of people, of that pushback. That, “You’re being too hard,” or, “You need to reword this,” or something. Like, why? Because no one would ever… Things like that come up. Things need to be reworded, or rewritten, or told a different way. And I’ve never heard that being asked of a man.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s hilarious, Jill.

Jill DeWit:
But you think that happens?

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my God, yeah. Men don’t talk about it, like you’re talking about it right now.

Jill DeWit:
Well.

Steven Jack Butala:
Men don’t, men reword and re-present themselves constantly, or they don’t succeed in whatever they’re trying.

Jill DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
But I can speak personally, I am conscious of how I’m delivering a message and why, and constantly rewriting it in my head to present it better for whoever the recipient is. And it’s very often, like in the grocery store example, it’s not received well. And I am consciously immediately changing that, to make sure it all works.

Jill DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
So I’m not saying that what you’re saying, I am not pushing back right now. I’m not saying that what you’re saying doesn’t exist. I’m sure it does. I’m just saying, I wonder if you could use it, so that you’re better for it.

Jill DeWit:
That’s what we talk about behind closed doors at Land Academy Ladies. Leave it at that.

Steven Jack Butala:
So what’s the problem then? As long as you get what you want, at the end?

Jill DeWit:
No, we don’t. We don’t. We really don’t. That’s the sad reality. If you really want to know. We go, “Okay, well, nevermind. That’s wasted.” That’s really what happens. That’s the 100% truth.

Steven Jack Butala:
The show’s going to go long today, folks.

Jill DeWit:
Uh-oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
Are you personally not making enough money, or having-

Jill DeWit:
No. That’s not-

Steven Jack Butala:
Do you have the leadership… Hold on a second. Do you have the leadership role that you want within all of our companies?

Jill DeWit:
No. Women, you know what? Overall… You know what? I should take it back. I do. I’m speaking for all women. Are you poo-pooing me?

Steven Jack Butala:
No, because if you received and are receiving the feedback that you want, the money that you deserve.

Jill DeWit:
Well, not necessarily the feedback that I want. Honestly, that’s kind of where this came up today. It still happens.

Steven Jack Butala:
And maybe you should put yourself in a role model position, because you’re getting what you want, which is what I just heard you say. And you are a strong woman, and you own half of everything, and that’s the way it should be.

Jill DeWit:
That’s what I’m talking about. So I want to talk to… Thank you for your input.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re welcome.

Jill DeWit:
Okay, so I’m just trying to talk to other women right now that are listening, and thinking about this, or doing this. And their partner is involved, or not involved. It still goes on. I know it. I recognize it. You know it, recognize it. There’s still way more men in this environment, but I have noticed a lot more women coming forward, and I love it. And I hope it’s because of us, and everything that we’re doing, and I want to keep getting this message out there that, “I got your back, man, woman, whatever. I got your back, whoever you are, we need to be helping each other.” So. I’m going to leave it at that.

Steven Jack Butala:
The message I got out of this is, “If you’re a man and you’re a male investor, you got it made, pal. You don’t have to work at anything. You can snap your fingers, and everybody around you is going to do what you want them to do.”

Jill DeWit:
Especially the women.

Steven Jack Butala:
“And geez, are you so much further ahead than your female counterpart?”

Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh.

Steven Jack Butala:
“Congratulations.”

Jill DeWit:
“Here’s your coffee. Just the way you like it. With arsenic. Drink up.” That’s awesome. All right, enough about me. Jack, what have you got to share with us today?

Steven Jack Butala:
My topic is called Questioning Everything. Jill and I, like I said 50 times in the show already, we’ve been traveling around the country. And it cracks me up, as a source of kind of sad humor, about how everyone is just going through the motions. They’re not questioning anything. And I had this original thought because I’m driving the RV around and we’ve got, at times, several hours in the car. Alone with your thoughts. And I’m watching the traffic differences between Sunday at 4:00 PM, and Monday at 10:00 AM. And the roads, no matter where you are in this entire country right now, in the summer. Are packed on Sunday, and there’s nobody on the road on Monday, because everybody’s racing back to go to their stupid job.
My initial reaction to that is, “Well, wait a second. If you want to have all this fun, in your RV with your family, why don’t you sit down for a second and maybe, hopefully with your spouse,” as long as she doesn’t think that you’re threatened by strong women. “Sit down with your spouse and try to figure out what jobs you can change, personally, or some changes that you can make so you can do this.” I don’t think there’s enough questioning of everything. If you’re not happy or you have to travel on Sunday, and you don’t want to, and go back to your job. You should question that.
The other thing too, which is just shocking to me, this shocks me. Is the seasonality of the places that we’re visiting. And so, the net effect of that, like we just spent a month in Michigan. In Northern Michigan, which is fairly rural, compared to the rest of the state. Rural, but beautiful. So it ends up being this summertime paradise, and frozen in the winters. It cuts off the economy. You’ve got four months of economy. So everywhere I go, I’m used to saying, because we live in Scottsdale. I’m used to saying, “Oh my God, these tourists are here again. It’s March. Everybody wants to watch baseball. I can’t stand it.” So I kind of reflect that, and all the people that we come across are like, “Oh, we’re the tourists here, sorry in advance.” And they’re like, “Oh, no, no, we make all of our money in four months. And then we don’t do anything for the rest of the year.”
And they’re not saying that in a positive way. So they have a four-month-a-year economy. Well, maybe you should question that. Here’s a great example of somebody who made this really work for them. We stayed in a, what I call a highfalutin RV park in northern Michigan. Very, very upscale, and they encourage you to get your rig detailed, whenever you want. So the guy’s got Florida plates on all of his, he’s got probably six rigs in that whole park, cleaning full time. Inside and out. So I got to talking to him, I’m like, “What’s the deal with Florida?” He’s like, “Well, there’s a couple of these parks just like this, down in Florida. And during the other off season, during the winter, everybody goes down there. So we clean there. And then we come back up to Michigan, and we clean there.”
So he’s created for himself a 12-month economy, instead of being stuck to the weather, or tied to the weather. So he questioned it, made some changes, and the dude’s smashing it. I did the math on that. And he’s a super, super, super nice guy. I don’t remember his name. I think it was Eric. Anyway, please question everything if you’re not happy. Especially if you’re a woman.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, I do. Don’t worry. I’ll question it for you. Jack loves that about me.

Steven Jack Butala:
See how quiet she is, during this kind of stuff.

Jill DeWit:
Why, what?

Steven Jack Butala:
No, I don’t know. I had a lot to say during your, threatened to [inaudible] late.

Jill DeWit:
I know. I was kind of wondering that. I know. I was just letting you go. That’s your-

Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? Here’s another thing.

Jill DeWit:
Uh-oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re threatened as a woman, or you’re not being taken as seriously as you think you should, you’re questioning that. I think that’s fantastic. And I think you’re capable, as a strong woman, to change some stuff.

Jill DeWit:
Oh yeah, you are.

Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t have to-

Jill DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
… continually hang out with men who don’t value you for who you are, and what you’re capable of.

Jill DeWit:
Right. You know it’s not you.

Steven Jack Butala:
That includes you, Jill.

Jill DeWit:
You know that. Oh my gosh. All right. Hey, by the way, don’t forget. You could reach us for questions or for help. If you want to get involved, learn more, just send a text. 480-530-7383.

Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode, You Are Not Alone In Your Real Estate Ambition. We are Jack and Jill.

Jill DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.

Steven Jack Butala:
Information.

Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.