This is episode number 2,161. Jill is going to talk about the number one mistake investors make when handling seller calls.

It’s changed. Do you remember what it was?

No, I don’t remember anything that you say.

That makes 200 of us.

People are going to come to us and say, “Your folks are down to your last fourteen readers.” Most of them are related to you.

Your parents don’t count. They’ve long stopped. It doesn’t matter. That’s good. There used to be one super obvious that I would catch people doing all the time, which was not answering the phone.

A mistake people make all the time is not answering the phone. Share on X

That’s what I think what my number one thing is.

It used to be. Now, it’s changed. It has a better one because the climate has changed. I have a new one for you.

Ross’ Question: Should You Take Calls Yourself?

Save it. Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy Member Discord forum. Take a deep dive into land related topics by popular requests.

Ross wrote, “Hi, folks. I would appreciate some advice. Do you recommend taking all the calls yourself after mailer, or is it better to have potential seller or just call PATLive or whatever phone answering company that you recommend initially? I’m trying to avoid those hate calls. Thank you in advance.” When you are new or you’re going into a new market, if you can, I find it highly beneficial to be involved in the first wave. Get to know how well you’re received, how well you’re offers were, or how well they resonated with the real prices thing.

Maybe pick up on some nuggets about what’s going on in the area. For example, “You are crazy. Do you know we just all in this town approved X, Y, and Z to move here and build such and such plant?” You wouldn’t know that and you need to know that. That will come out, and that means you’re going to, you’re going to look at all these offers differently or I’ve had this happen to know this whole pocket that you hit. We are all specialized equestrian. You can’t find it in this area. Maybe we’re part of some fancy tennis ranch. There could be some little special thing going on that these sellers will let you know and it’s so beneficial because now I go, “I’m going to look at the differently. Maybe I will change my offer price based on what you told me.” It is more than equal. It’s just period.

You think answering the phone is part of the education process?

I do, because it’s good to learn initially what it’s like and then also as I said in new area, it does help going into it. Now, this is only Ross, if you are able to do it. If you aren’t able to do it, maybe you work at a hospital. It’s not like you can walk around and just answer the phone. You can’t excuse yourself and say, “I got to take this call,” or something like that. I would get some a service to answer the calls and it’s so unprofessional.

I have a lot of stories of people trying to bring in family members just for this exact purpose and they’ve end more than 75% of the time they go, “My aunt didn’t know how to understand these deals. My mom got beat up.” You don’t want to do that to them, too. If it’s a partner that’s in the business with you, like their pushing it forward, too. That’s a different story.

There’s no way I can add to this but I do have some questions for you and they are somewhat personal in nature. I don’t like to talk on the phone. It’s probably beyond that. It’s way worse for some reason for me to make an outbound call than it is an inbound call. For example, Jill and I were just on a phone with the receptionist or the IT person for our tax account.

Jill was having a tech problem getting into their system, which got resolved. She dialed the phone and put it on speaker. We’re both there because we do our tax return stuff together. She said, “Hi, this is Jill.” Jill talked for about 30 seconds and the contact person/assistance response was, “What?” I would like you to have some advice for readers and me. I can’t stand the initial part of talking to somebody on the phone on an outbound because it takes so much time and energy for me to describe why I’m calling.

They’re so on interested, whoever I’m calling. Eventually, it’s always fine. Not always, but most of the time it rectifies itself, “You mean you need to do this.” Not even be the way that I’m presenting it. They’re just doing something else or not interested in answering the phone. This has been this way my entire life.

I have a lot to say about, but I can sum it up in this. Did you, Jack, or did you not take phone calls once upon a time in this business?

I had your job for decades.

There we go. You know what you got through it. I’ve had to do that. I’ve had several people in personal coaching in LA Pro, or I’ve said, “I know it’s sucks but I need you to take this call.”

Did it suck for you?

Not for me. I’m telling them it sucks because they are like you. I got two people in particular who are just like. They’re like, “Don’t make me do the phones.” I’m like, “I know it’s sucks, but we just covered it.” You’re the best person now. You’re trying to replace that position. In your business, I’m sorry, but you are the best person for this and they’re like, “I’ll do it, Jill.”

Communication Barriers: Why People Hate Calls

I think this might be useful. It’s useful for me, so it might be useful for people. All those years when I had your job essentially and more because I was running companies and all that. We had a phone on our desk and there’s a huge difference in my opinion between hardware copper phones and these cell phones. There’s somewhat of a delay or inconsistent. I can remember trying to do this on a cell phone for the first time. That, I believe and probably I’m just getting older with less patients in general, that is when I’m like, “The communication barrier is too much now.” Do you have that or do you just not care?

I don’t care about.

You’re just a big huge messy phone.

I make a joke out of it. They’re like, “I lost you.” I’m like, “Don’t worry about it. I’m not going anywhere. Are you through the tunnel now?” Where we laughing about it.

It’s not even at all. It’s just a regular. If I talk to you on the phone and we’re stationary with the great signal, the quality is not there.

I just figured you hate the phones period.

It’s just not it. There’s a miscommunication. That’s what I hate.

It’s never going to go away. You have to accept it. I don’t think we’re going to bring back landlines.

Do you know what it is now that I’m thinking about it? This is not just a conversation between Jill and I. It’s inefficient. That call with the tax accountant to assistant person, they’re not thinking. They’re doing thirteen things at once. We interrupted whatever they’re doing and so, to communicate the point about why we called takes a minute or so.

I’m fine with it.

I can’t stand that.

She and I connected right away. Did you know what we just figured out? Their systems was down. Not their system. That’s a third-party system for storing documents. I’m like, “I’m not getting the password reset. Can you try it?” She’s like, “Send.” I’m like, “No, I still don’t have it.” I said, “I’m sure these six things are all going to pop in an hour” She’s like, “Yes.” That was it.

For this reason, I love texting because it takes all the emotion out of it. There’s no voice intonation. There’s no delay. You know when the other person’s going to respond, and you can tell immediately the way that they’re responding if they’re using any punctuation or any of that. You can just write away make a decision. It’s the inefficiency and the communication that crushes my soul.

I understand.

What I hear you say, and this is what I want to try to get to the bottom of is, can you shed some light for ding dongs like me?

Are we going to get to the topic?

This is the topic.

No, we didn’t even get to the topic yet. Can we do the topic?

Sure.

The Number One Mistake Investors Make When Handling Seller Calls

I’m happily to put my counseling hat back on for you. Our topic is a number one mistake that new investors make when handling sell their calls. Hint, it’s nothing that he just talked about. Not one thing Jack said has to do with my topic in this episode. Not one. He was deep diving into something that he needed and I appreciate it. We’re all here for you. All of us are here for you.

Thank you for your patience, Jill.

Here’s the thing, it’s not answering the phone. It’s not who answers the phone. The number one mistake that I see new investors doing is not pushing deals through the system, period. They call. You answer your wishy-washy about the deal, about the next steps, and about how much time you need to do your due diligence. Nobody hangs up feeling great. That is a huge mistake.

This is exactly what I was talking about and what you call an unrelated topic. There is no efficiency.

It’s not efficiency. It’s clear pushing the deal

You as a buyer are not clearly sending this message, “I want to buy your property. Does the does the number on the offer that I just sent you work for you?” “Yes, excellent.” Here’s the next stop. That is clearly communicating a message. It didn’t happen with the tax accountant person. It doesn’t happen with anybody.

I got everything I wanted with that.

It’s a culture that we’re in now. It’s the internet.

I don’t think so. Let’s go back to this. Ignoring the internet and the age gap. Whatever you’re talking about. We will go back to that, I promise and I will probably do it off-camera. I’ll give you all day.

I wonder how many people who would like to see that exchange between us.

Off camera, I’m going to bring somebody else in,

You’re going to sum it out. You’re going to delegate my mental health.

I’m not licensed and I’m not a professional at that.

I think you just don’t care. You’ll slam it down. You’ll get on a phone. You’ll talk for a half hour as long as you get what you want at the end.

No. I want everybody to win. That’s the whole thing. I’m glad you brought that up because that’s the thing with investors, too. I want everybody to win. I’m not here to talk someone into selling something that they don’t want to sell. You better believe, if they want to sell it, I’m here to get the best price and make everybody feel good about it. That’s it. That’s all. I’m not here to pay retail. I’m not here to, “You won the lottery.” That’s not what’s going to happen when you call me because you got the letter.

What you are going to get is I’m here and I’m real. It’s a good price. If you want to take your chances and list it with your cousin who is a broker. You want to see what goes and whatever and you have the time. Do that. People are like, “If you want to do that, do that.” You’re not a real seller to me. The real sellers don’t have time for that. “I need a deal, Jill. Thank you. This is going to work for me. It’s going to get me out of my jam. I don’t have time to wait, take my chances and risk whatever. “I’m not trying to maximize profit here.

I’m trying to solve a problem and you’re doing that for me.” The last three calls, you opened escrow. We got this done and we’re pushing it through. I know it’s going to close on the 13th or whatever it is thing. That’s exactly how it goes. That’s my thing. This is you. I see so many people doing this and it’s starts with phone call number one. You want to make them feel that you love this deal until you don’t. You want it. You love it. This is great. Can I have the sign purchase agreement back?

Even if I’m on the same page on the price twice, let’s keep pushing it forward until you know or you don’t. I know I sent you an offer for $17,000. You think it’s worth $30,000? Let me think about this. Get me that back. Let me see what I can do if I can make $30,000 work. I still want to sign purchase agreement. Let’s get some biome. Let’s get some thinking. It’s rolling through the system and maybe I have to change it. I do my due diligence and I sent him a new purchase agreement with DocuSign because now we’re three conversations in. We’ve all warmed up and we all realize his $30,000 was not realistic anyway and they realize that.

You met him at $20,000, let’s just say. Everybody’s happy. That’s how it would go and you’re going to work it through the system. I had one little nugget in there but anyway, that’s my whole thing. You keep pushing it through. Not dropping the ball, doing your due diligence, and then you let them know like, “I thought I could make $30,000 work. Thank you very much for getting it back to me so fast. I went looked at this and I didn’t realize the access was this. It’s got this and it doesn’t have this. Whatever it is. It doesn’t work for me at all anymore. Would you give me any price?” That’s going to happen and then you just decide what you want to do.

Know what you're doing when you're on a phone. Share on X

Think about how much time you spend on doing a mailer and how many questions. The vast majority of the questions that we get at Land Academy are about pricing and doing a mailer and tactical parts of it because I go over it. When we released Land Academy or whatever it was in 2014 or ‘15. There was nothing like this on the market. Everybody’s copied at sense.

We had a lot of questions about it and people tried to perfect it but what doesn’t happen on Jill side of this business and what she just made me think of is that she is deconstructing and taking a technical approach. It doesn’t look like or sound like it, deconstructing and taking a technical approach to answering the phone.

She’s not just people like me who aren’t spending enough time. thinking about how they’re going to answer the phone or what they’re going to say. For Jill it’s easy because she’s been doing her whole life and it’s more responsive. It seems responsible, but the fact is you have deconstructed it and you know what you want when you’re talking to a seller.

I want a deal.

You’re very much in real time adjusting to what the seller is doing, but it is to an end. You know what you’re doing when you’re on a phone from an self-assessment standpoint, I’m trying to buy this piece of land and here’s how I’m going to try to do it. What angle I take? How it’s exactly going to happen? I don’t know because I’m adjusting to the seller.

Let me end it on this. It’s going to end with a deal, in my lap and at my price unless I say I don’t want it.

It makes me want to kiss you.

Thank you. We’ll do that off air after we unpack all that other stuff.

Join us on the next episode we’re Jill and I talked about the biggest time wasters in land investing. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.