People are Getting Rich (LA 1394)
People are Getting Rich (LA 1394)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Happy Monday.
Steven Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I am Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about how people are getting rich. This whole title, and show, and episode came up because Jill had a consulting call with a couple of people, and they’re getting rich. They’re in our group, getting rich, and they want to know how to get, I guess-
Jill DeWit:
Richer.
Steven Butala:
Better.
Jill DeWit:
It’s so funny. It was just like, I hung up the phone … Or, wasn’t on the phone. It was a Zoom call. I got off the call, and I’m like, “Holy cow.” It’s just a sweet couple in our group about to quit their jobs. Those are good jobs, by the way. I’m like, “Do they even realize what just happened?” Then what we were talking about is what’s possible. That’s what’s … They’re ready for it. They’re like, “Yep, we get you.” They weren’t even shocked, as we talked. I know we’ll share more about this.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, we’ll get into it in the episode, because we haven’t talked about it at all, except for the title. I want to know what they said and what their situation is, and how they got there, and all of that.
Jill DeWit:
It’s funny. Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit:
[Pete 00:01:23] wrote, “Hi, all. I’m new to Land Academy and loving it all. I just approved my first batch of 10,000 units of mail, 10,000 mailers, with offers to owners. I can’t wait until the activity starts.”
Steven Butala:
Yikes.
Jill DeWit:
I know. I wonder if Pete’s going to send it out all at once, been there, done that, or he’s going to sparse it out. I’m guessing he’s going to sparse it out, but we’ll see.
“In my opinion,” here we go, “I’d rather send a large quantity of mail and be a little picky instead of moving forward with marginal deals that will take longer to sell. I’m hoping to get on this schedule, this amount of mailers per week as a base, and then build up from there. Am I setting myself up to be overwhelmed, or is this a level that I can manage as long as I delegate as much as possible? I’m planning to use PATLive, and I’ve got a couple assistants already that work for me for other businesses.”
Steven Butala:
Oh, okay.
Jill DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Butala:
Here we go. He’s got other businesses.
Jill DeWit:
“It should be pretty easy for me to get them up to speed on some of the other tasks.”
Steven Butala:
Excellent.
Jill DeWit:
“Is there anyone out there that sends 100,000 mailers a month? From the response rates I’ve heard just reading here, this type of volume could be really lucrative as long as you can turn your system into a well-oiled machine.” This ties into what we talked about yesterday. “If any pros out there have some advice or tips on anything, I’m all ears.”
You want to go first?
Steven Butala:
No, you go first.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. This ties into … It was last week, actually, the call that I had with this couple that we’re going to talk about today, and just what’s possible.
To answer Pete’s question, see what you can do. I personally … We talked about this in the last couple weeks, those people that are go-for-it people that just jump off the cliff, there’s people that, “I’m going to stand over here and watch you guys,” and there’s some that can’t get out of the car. Pete’s clearly a “jump off the cliff”, and he’s a “run off the cliff” person.
Steven Butala:
Just like Jill.
Jill DeWit:
I’ll figure it out. You’re either going to sink or swim. You’re going to figure it out. It sounds like Pete has other companies and things going on. This is not nuts for him. I think it’s great.
Steven Butala:
I do too.
Jill DeWit:
I would have no trouble with your 10,000 a week. Tweak it as needed. In a perfect world, you don’t roll back the mail, you hire more help, kind of thing. You can just do the volume that you want to do.
Steven Butala:
Here’s what’s great about this approach. The fact that you have other businesses, I absolutely now understand why you want to do this. We have another member who’s got a couple other companies who took this approach, and he’s incredibly successful in Texas.
You’re going to find out. Now you’re in it. If you sent out 10,000 mailers, now what will happen next in this whole career is how you handle it. You’re either going to handle it well, or you’re not. But if you’ve got other businesses, I’m sure you’re going to handle it well. You’re just going to have to roll with all the stuff that’s going on. You’re going to get tons, and tons, and tons of inbound phone calls for probably two weeks straight, and a lot of deals to look at. You’re going to be scrambling and probably staying up all night.
When you come out of the end of that, there’s no other way around it. When you come out of the other end of that, you will have 5, to 10, to 15 great transactions to buy. It’s baptism by fire, blood, sweat, and tears thing. No, I love this approach. I think especially if you have other businesses, it’s great.
There are certain people … The real risk in this … “Great, Steve, then why doesn’t everybody do it?” The risk in this is that you can’t handle it, so you just shut down. You mentally shut down on it and say, “You know what? There’s too many moving parts to this. I don’t want to do it.” It really discourages you, and then you …
Later in the week, we’re going to talk about, “There’s no such thing as a failed mailer.” Because then you will say to Jill and I, at some point, or our staff, “My mailer failed,” when in fact it didn’t fail at all. It just didn’t get worked the way that it should have.
Jill DeWit:
Right. I love it.
Steven Butala:
I do too.
Jill DeWit:
No. Be picky. I tell people this all the time. The best thing you can do is send more mail, and be picky. Pick good ones.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic, people are getting rich. This is the meat of the show.
Jill had a consultant call, like we said earlier. Was it a consulting call, or was it just kindness of your heart?
Jill DeWit:
No, it was a consulting call. It was a paid consulting call.
Steven Butala:
Give us a little background, and what happened on this call.
Jill DeWit:
Neat couple in California. She is currently wrapping up the last transaction as a real estate agent. He has a construction company. They …
Steven Butala:
They’re married?
Jill DeWit:
They’re married. This was their first six-figure month, and they’re like, “Okay. Now we got to make some different decisions.” They’ve been doing this for a while, building up, building up, building up, and now it’s happening in a big way. It’s happening in a way that they can make different career decisions and different life decisions.
That’s why they had a consulting call with me, because they’ve been working it just by themselves. The call was really a little bit about what’s possible, and a lot of it about hiring. “What should our next moves be,” kind of thing.
Steven Butala:
How did they get to where … How much money are they making? How did they get there? What’s the-
Jill DeWit:
They’ve been doing deals, I want to say … I’m going from memory here. They have a minimum that’s no less than $10,000, or they won’t do the deal, first of all. They’re starting to scale up on the deals. They haven’t had as much success on the “buy for 30, sell for” …
Steven Butala:
100?
Jill DeWit:
“60, because it’s worth 90,” or, “Sell for” … Whatever it is. They haven’t had as much there, but they’re starting to move in that direction.
But, also, they’re moving in the direction of more deal flow. They have, I think, 13 in the works right now, 13 in escrow in some form of buy/sell thing. They’ve got all the little parts figured out. Now it’s just like, “Okay.” It was really good. It was all about, “Who do we hire? What are our next people to put in place?” Little things about how …
We should talk about this more. We talk about this. I’m going to start talking about this more. I have a closed Land Academy Ladies group, and I think that’s our topic this week, is, yeah, building your dream team. We’re going to get more into it on that.
But, “who should be the next people? What characteristics do we look for? What do I pay?” All kinds of little details like that. It was really surrounding, “What kind of team do I need?” I told them, “Here’s a bottom line,” because they’re half into it right now. They’re both doing other careers, and they’re making six figures.
Steven Butala:
A month?
Jill DeWit:
A month. A month, by the way. If you’re half into it right now, making over $100,000 a month, if you guys quit your jobs and you go all in, and then you have two people, two key people like we talked about, there’s no reason why you could … You could probably quietly double and triple that.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, I agree.
Jill DeWit:
They’re like, “Oh.”
Steven Butala:
Easily.
Jill DeWit:
It was really good, because he’s like, “I was thinking this, so I was just” … Yeah. Because there’s a sweet spot. How big do you want this to get? That’s something only you can decide. How many employees do you want to take on? Because that brings a whole ‘nother set of responsibilities.
Steven Butala:
To you.
Jill DeWit:
Right. To you.
Steven Butala:
Your responsibilities.
Jill DeWit:
And work, and depending on what state you’re in … we happen to be in California. I talked about hiring people in state versus hiring people out of state. There’s things you have to look at. But the big picture is-
Steven Butala:
Sounds like a good call, actually.
Jill DeWit:
I hung up the phone, and it was so cool, because I’m like, “Man, you guys.” They have been quietly, successfully doing everything we talk about. They were there on the calls. They’re not real loud. They’re just kind of … Look at what’s going on.
Steven Butala:
They’re not real loud?
Jill DeWit:
You know what I mean. There’s people on our calls that are real vocal and have a lot of things to say.
Steven Butala:
They’re on our calls? Yeah. Sure.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
I see.
Jill DeWit:
That kind of a thing. They’re just in there, asking a lot of questions. But no, this sweet couple’s like … They’re here, working it, and building up their business.
I hung up the phone going, “Holy cow. These people are getting rich. What else is out there? Who else is doing the” …
Steven Butala:
Yeah. That we don’t know about?
Jill DeWit:
“That I haven’t talked to and I don’t know about?”
Steven Butala:
Right. I think there’s tons of people.
Jill DeWit:
Totally. It’s so exciting.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
It was really cool. What was awesome and exciting to me, too, that when you start this, you think, “What do you mean I can buy something for 2000 and sell it for five?” That’s mind boggling. Then, for a lot of people, when you’re getting started, you look at your bank account and you start with 2000, and now you have 20,000.
Steven Butala:
Or 200.
Jill DeWit:
You’re like, “I’m rich.”
Steven Butala:
Or 500.
Jill DeWit:
Hold on. $500?
Steven Butala:
500,000.
Jill DeWit:
I was going to say, I’m going to get to that. When you’re new, when you’re brand new, and you turn $2,000 into $20,000, you feel like you just won the lottery. Then after you get going, it’s not like you get numb to it, but you’re like, “I see what’s happening. I can do this.”
They’re at that level now. It’s weird for so many people. Your friends. “We’re making $100,000 a month over here.” It’s like, “What the heck?” “We’re about to triple that. What the heck?” You know?
Steven Butala:
Yeah. I would highly recommend that you don’t tell anybody that you’re friends with.
Jill DeWit:
That’s … I …
Steven Butala:
The fastest way to lose your friends.
Jill DeWit:
This is true.
Steven Butala:
I can speak from experience for both Jill and I, the single fastest way to lose your friends … There’s two great ways to lose friends. Number one, be incredibly successful and be loud about it. Sports cars, and Barbie houses on the beach. Or, number two, be really, really loud about how you feel about politics, because you will lose about 50% of your friends overnight with both of those things.
Jill DeWit:
There we go.
Steven Butala:
If you want to lose all your friends, do both of those at the same time.
Jill DeWit:
There we go. You need to hit the reset button on your friends. Have that kind of a party. That’s what you should do. Invite all my friends over. I’m going to cater it. It’s going to be to the nines.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. We call the party this. Either … However you go, this is an extreme right or an extreme left party, and we are celebrating why we are immune from all of this.
Jill DeWit:
Right. You should cater it and have people dress as that leader of that political party, walk around and hand out hors d’oeuvres.
Steven Butala:
And announce that-
Jill DeWit:
The other person should hand out hors d’oeuvres. There we go.
Steven Butala:
And be real clear and announce this at the party, often and with vigor, that you and your spouse, either way, right or left, or however this plays out, with COVID and all of it, it just doesn’t apply to you because you’ve been working at home anyway. You’re in a real estate business. Real estate’s great, and everything else is falling apart. But you’re good. You will lose 95% of your friends.
Jill DeWit:
Don’t do that.
Steven Butala:
I’m just …
Jill DeWit:
Don’t do that.
Steven Butala:
We didn’t do anything like that.
Jill DeWit:
No.
Steven Butala:
I’m just saying, stuff happens during these times, and things get flushed out.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Okay.
Steven Butala:
[crosstalk 00:13:06]
Jill DeWit:
My more sincere point was …
Steven Butala:
We all know we should never talk about how much money we make. It’s just in poor taste.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. No, but it was just that it becomes … What am I trying to say? You get into it, and you’re like, “I got this.” I guess that’s it. It’s second nature. People are getting rich. I’m so proud of them. By the way, rich to you … Everybody has their own level of rich.
Steven Butala:
It just keeps changing.
Jill DeWit:
Rich can be … I mean this sincerely. When we wrote the $10,000 a month for life, I thought that was … That was rich. I’m happy with that. For people, $5,000 a month for life is rich, and that’s great.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. 10,000 a month for me is still rich, when you’re not working super, super hard.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Right.
Steven Butala:
To kind of close this topic, what people who are on their way up don’t understand … How your day-to-day job description changes as you go through these stages of wealth. At a certain point, we’re at this point, we’re just recruiters. That’s it. In fact, we recruit the recruiters now. It’s that bad. We look at reports and make suggestions, but not really.
All the things between being a one-person operation in the back of an apartment, which is how we started this whole thing, as a second job, then there’s all the stuff that goes on in between. Some of the years, and some of the job descriptions I love. I love my job description as an instructor right now, which I think … I look back on it, we’ve kind of assigned ourselves that. You don’t really know until you get into it if you’re going to like it or not.
Again, I keep coming back to this one member who, his spouse survived cancer, and he just decided he was going to do one deal a month. As far as I know, that’s all he’s doing.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it. It’s great.
Steven Butala:
He’s making a hundred grand a month and he’s on one deal, handpicked. Sends a ton of mail out. A ton of analysis just to get that one deal. Doesn’t work that hard, and just enjoys his life.
There’s a lot of things that Jill and I could do, people like the people that you interviewed or had a consultant call with, to get very, very, very wealthy. But I really have decided, Jill and I together, once every few months, sit down and say, “Is this good enough? It’s getting a little bigger. Maybe we can do this one thing. It’s going to take us a certain amount of time. It’s probably going to help way more people or respond to what people want, but we make enough money.”
Jill DeWit:
We do.
Steven Butala:
You know?
Jill DeWit:
I’m happy.
Steven Butala:
I’m happy too. There’s a lot of stuff we could buy. We could do apartment building syndications for Class A apartment buildings in places like Las Vegas. We could easily do that, and probably do it in a month. I don’t want that job description. Great. My lifestyle’s not going to change at all. I’m not going to live in a different house. Our kids aren’t going to go to better schools. Just, there’s no real return.
This Jeff Bezos thing, and that level, it really is … When I talk to young men, they all see it … I guess I did at that age too, but that doesn’t … When I say people are getting rich, that’s a self definition. It always comes with a different job description. That’s what no one talks about.
Jill DeWit:
My final point is, whatever that is for you. Think about it, plan it, write it down, and watch what happens. That’s what I told them. I said, “I can’t wait to see .. ” We talked about a yearly goal. It’s December 2020 now. I said, “Okay” … Because they asked, “Where could we be in a year? Here’s our plan.” We talked about how to get there, and laid out a real good roadmap, and what they need, which is not a lot. Really not a lot. I said, “By the way, guys,” I said, “please promise me you’re going to write it down on a sticky note. Something. Stick it on your computer. Put a date on it. Watch what happens.”
Steven Butala:
This is a fascinating topic for me. The next time … There’s no way you could’ve known that’s what they wanted, because I know you do a lot of consulting calls. But if you could text me or something, if I’m not going to hinder the process … This is the fascinating topic for me right now, because I’m writing this book about helping young men sort out the stuff that they should do and the order they should do it in when it comes to education, and women, and-
Jill DeWit:
Children.
Steven Butala:
Children, and all that.
Jill DeWit:
Buy a house.
Steven Butala:
And planning. I really think I can help a lot. It’s fascinating to talk to people who are … It sounds like they’re in the second or third inning.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Butala:
Were they excited?
Jill DeWit:
Totally. Yeah. Excited, and sponges.
Steven Butala:
Do they have roles like you and I do?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. They do. That was what I talked about, too. You got to clearly define who you are. I also told them, “These next employees you’re going to hire, you can’t be two bosses. You have to pick who’s the bosses. Really further define your roles and who reports to who, because otherwise it’s a disaster.” Be real clear on all this stuff.
Steven Butala:
What are their one-year goals?
Jill DeWit:
Triple their money.
Steven Butala:
Sell 300 grand a month?
Jill DeWit:
That’s it. Yeah. Bigger deals to do it. That’s awesome.
Steven Butala:
That’s so easy. You send out more mail, and get a couple employees and train them really well.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. There you go.
Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow the episode on the Land Academy Show is called How Accountability Groups Work. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
I have an eyelash in my eye, and then I have an announcement. Can you get the eyelash? Do you see the hair in my eye?
Steven Butala:
There’s a lot of hair.
Jill DeWit:
There’s a hair in my eye. Okay, I’ll go get it.
Steven Butala:
Sorry.
Jill DeWit:
There’s a lot of hair there.
I would like to share, because it’s Monday, please, if you have the time, check out tomorrow, Facebook and YouTube Live. I will be at 3:00 Pacific time. What’s that, 7:00 Eastern? 6:00 Eastern?
Steven Butala:
6:00.
Jill DeWit:
6:00 Eastern time. I can’t remember. 7:00? I don’t remember what the change is right now. Anyway …
Steven Butala:
Maybe it is.
Jill DeWit:
I think it’s 7:00. Join me. It’s going to be really cool. It’s my first … It’s kind of a public open women’s group, but everybody can join us, and it’s going to be really good.
Steven Butala:
If you’re a woman.
Jill DeWit:
I’m going to talk about why women make better investors than men. Men, you might want to tune in and listen. It should be really fun.
Steven Butala:
You can tune in?
Jill DeWit:
Sure. Of course. It’s not just … This is open for everybody. I have my closed group, the Land Academy Ladies, and then I have this Property Flip with Jill DeWitt group.
Steven Butala:
Chalk this up to yet another thing that confuses men about women. It’s a women’s group, but men can join.
Jill DeWit:
You don’t get to join, but you get to watch. You’ll see.
Steven Butala:
Men have been watching women do stuff for a lot of years.
Jill DeWit:
You’ll see.
Steven Butala:
In a lot of different venues.
Jill DeWit:
You got it.
Thank you for tuning in. We hope you find our content valuable, and we appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, get on over to our YouTube channel, hit the subscribe button. By the way, then you’ll get notified of my event tomorrow. What?
Steven Butala:
Your comments and suggestions help us to create the type of content you’re here for. Hitting the like button helps to support our channel’s algorithm, engage your interest for future shows. We are Steve and Jill.
Jill DeWit:
We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Information …
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration …
Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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