Experience the power of consistent land deal flow with the Land Academy system. In episode 2025, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit dive into the Land Academy system and reveal how it can automate your land investing success. Learn how the Land Academy system can streamline your investing process, from identifying promising properties to closing deals with ease. Discover the power of direct mail campaigns, negotiation strategies, and the Land Academy’s exclusive red, green, and yellow system. Tune in to learn how to simplify your land investment journey and maximize your opportunities!

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Land Deal Flow Automation: The Land Academy Way

Introduction

This is episode number 2025 and our topic is how great land deal flow is automatic if you follow the Land Academy system. I love this question. It takes all forms. A lot of questions usually come in the form of this. If I send out 5,000 mailers, how many deals am I going to get? How many pieces of property am I going to buy? How much money am I going to make? Which is a very natural and normal, “I don’t want to get it.” “What is all this land business?” “I just want to know how much money I’m going to make.” This topic answers that question and also describing how the process works. It’s one of those things where it’s automatic if you just do it, not like having a relationship with a woman.

That’s good to say.

That’s not automatic.

How many proposals do I have to make? How many dates do I have to go on? How many whatever’s? How many online dating services do I have to use until I get X?

Is that how you see it?

You brought it there. Not me.

How many do you need, Jill? How many dates do you need to go on?

I need two more.

More than I have now.

Exactly. I always need more.

Jill, are you satisfied with your personal life?

Yes.

Are you satisfied living 300 square feet with me?

I am. Ask me tomorrow.

In Northern Montana.

Yes, that’s true. It is funny when you think about it. You can see out the window, there’s fires. Not where we are but West of us. They’re making their way past where we are sitting in Montana. It’s wreaking havoc on this little town.

A lot of them are South in this country, but there are still a ton of Canadian fires at the end of the season here.

It looks like it’s going to rain and it’s fire smoke. It’s pretty crazy. They’re all saying, “We’re not going to do outdoor seeding and all that.” I’m like, “Okay.”

In this episode, we have a theme. The theme is rules to live by in your land investment business. As we mentioned, the topic is great land deal flow is automatic if you follow the land academy system. Next, we’re going to talk about how to locate places to send mail using the Land Academy’s red, green, and yellow test.

Great land deal flow becomes automatic if you follow the Land Academy system. Share on X

Direct Mail Campaign

On Thursday, we’re going to talk about how often the land purchase price renegotiation has to happen. You send out all these mailers. How often do you have to negotiate the price? On Friday, we’re talking about getting your land deal under contract to be purchased in two days. Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy Member Discord forum and we take a deep dive into the land-related topics by your request. Let’s take a question.

Carol wrote, “We see about 1% callbacks on each mailer. That would be all coals into pat live, but it doesn’t include any regular mail, whether to return to sender or hate. It also doesn’t include any email responses. At most, the total response rate would be no higher than 1.5%. Is this good or a bad response rate? If it’s a bad response rate, how do I improve it?”

I would like to start first. I wrote back and answered. I’m going to add here and we can talk about it. More mail definitely solves the response rate. It always does. I hate to say it, but there’s a reason why all the advanced folks and career path alumni call it reckless emailing and don’t care about the cost. The real critical part after that is who is speaking to the sellers and creating a deal. This is assuming you are all picking great areas.

More mail definitely solves the deal flow. It always does. Share on X

This is a direct mail campaign. That’s what the advertising/marketing industry would call a direct mail campaign. When you receive a 1% response to any type of direct mail, that’s extraordinarily positive. I agree with your numbers. I think that we get about one to 1% to 1.5% response rate in total. Regardless of the quality or the type of response, people are responding at 1% to 1.5. If you send out a 10,000-unit mailer, 10% response would be 1,000 and a 1% response would be about 100 to 150 people. That means Jill has a per mailer. Let’s just say that’s one month. She has 100 to 150 responses or touches to convert 1 to 3 transactions.

If you’ve got 100 acquisition opportunities, that’s great.

I love this question. This is more on my side than your side. We’ve already established that. As we said, put your best foot forward. Create your Disney character when you get on the telephone, making that an amazing experience for the seller. We’ve already established that. This is more about numbers. Should I be trying to improve my 1% and 1.5% rate? The answer is no, and we’ll talk about this because we’ll talk about the red, green, and yellow test. My job and all this is to make sure that those 100 responses are real. If the numbers that Jill comes up with in those 100 to 150 responses, the three deals that she needs to come up with is one. She needs to do it from 100. Now, it needs to do a 1% conversion rate. That’s crazy numbers, easy.

I know, but we do more. That’s the reality. More trickle in over the years. It’s funny. I just got one from a mailer years ago. I can remember doing deals Cal Pines. Do you remember that years ago?

That’s in Modoc County.

We have a thing that came in. That was probably from a mailer many years ago and I just got a call and the guys bought it in 2003. That’s how long he’s had it. He got our letter, and it was in his file. Now, he’s calling. That’s sweet.

Here’s what no longer happens because this is the root of this question. I didn’t get any signed purchase agreements back.

She’s not including those. That’s saying that it separate, so the percentage is higher without those things. It doesn’t include regular mail or returns to the sender, hate mail, or even email responses because all those things happen, too.

When I read it, that puts her at 1.5%, 150 responses. You should not try to improve on this. I think that’s her question. One and a half percent is fantastic because you’re going to get 1.5% again next month.

Don’t worry about it. Send more mail.

Also, the month after that. What you answered here, more mail solves the response rates. I have to disagree with you, Jill.

Not the rate. It means your deal flow. That’s it. Thank you.

If you want 1.5% on 20,000 units, then you’re going to have 300 chances to close two deals.

Thank you.

Automatic Great Land Deal Flow

Our topic is great land deal flow can be automatic if you follow the Land Academy system. What’s the Land Academy system? You take a look around the internet by what I call trolling. Not to be confused with the negative people on the internet, but you troll around the internet. I think 2 or 3 episodes ago, we talked all about this, how to find places to send in mail. Once you think there are clusters of properties that look like to you, they might be a good place to send mail. You go through what we call the red, green, and yellow test, which we’ll talk all about.

You test the ZIP codes against each other to see which ones if you do buy property at the prices that you want. Which ones will sell quickly and fit within your theory about who wants what in that little local area? It’s not hard at all once you do it a few times. It’s not hard to do the data part and say, “If I get 40 acres in this one area, that sells like hotcakes.”

If you go through that process, price the mail properly and get it in the mail effectively in a system, then it’s up to the person who’s answering your phone. Hopefully, you can convert those into real estate deals. Deal flow isn’t something. This gets confusing for brand-new people. Deal flow is automatic. If you do the things that I just described and I know I brushed over them quickly because these are short episodes, we don’t do it quickly in the program or as a member. You can have an opportunity to ask all these questions weekly to get all the details that you need.

You will get the question that she asked, and you’ll get at least 100 deals to look at every single month. Ask anybody if you’re in this world, in the acquisition world, in any way, private equity, or publicly traded company. How many deals do they look at in a month? If they say 150, I’ll eat my hat. They’ll say three.

That’s amazing. That’s true. I forget that sometimes, when you take a step back. Not just the deal flow but also our return on investment. What we make on properties compared to any other business is astronomical. It’s so different. That’s why we’re talking about Jack saying, “At the end of the day, send out 10,000 units, which costs you about $8,000 in mail, postage, and data, to make one deal.” You’re like, “What? Hold on a moment, everyone. I’m doing that to make one deal or I make $150,000 on the deal.” Now, you’re like, “Oh.” I don’t care about $8,000 in mail if I make $150,000. That’s what we’re talking about.

If you own a house or the house you grew up in, your family members, or anybody who wants our house, ask them this question. This is a fun game that I play. I haven’t played it in a while, but how did you come to buy the house that you’re at? Several will say, “It was the house I grew up. I inherited it.” Maybe they’ll say, “My sister lives down the street. That’s how we chose the neighborhood.” “How many did you look at before you chose that one?” “No, we didn’t look at any. We just bought that one. That was the one for sale when we decided we wanted to live in that area.”

Maybe, “I wanted my son to go to the same middle school that I went to.” They don’t know one. This is how special you are. This is my point. People don’t apply this type of funnel logic to things in their life. We’ve all heard a million times, “It’s the biggest financial decision to make in your life where you buy a house and how much money you make or don’t make on it. Whether you buy it and you’re in a place that appreciates or doesn’t.”

None of this logic ever gets applied. What you should do is send out a mailer. Send out a 5,000-unit mailer after you’ve determined that this is where you want to live and this could be the same reasons, “I want the middle of my son to go to the same middle school. My sister lives down the street.” Take a 500-unit mailer in that area that’s acceptable and watch what type of transaction opportunity you have. You’ll get 10 or 20 amazing possibilities that are way better than the deal that you’re living in now.

Ask me why I think most women choose a house. “I fell in love with the kitchen.”

Is that it?

Sometimes.

Not the price?

No.

Ask them why they bought a house and let’s say I fell in love with the price.

“No, because I didn’t want to lose my woman.” That was good. Join us next time, where we talk about how to locate places to send mail using JAX, AKA the Land Academy red, yellow, and green test.

You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.