Jill Friday – When to Get a Transaction Coordinator and Why (LA 1543)
Jill Friday – When to Get a Transaction Coordinator and Why (LA 1543)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here-
Jill DeWit:
Howdy.
Steven Butala:
… welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sizzling Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala:
Today Jill and I talk … Well, it’s Jill Friday, and she’s going to talk about when it’s appropriate to get a transaction coordinator and why you need one. Before we get into it though, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It’s free, and if you’re a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit:
Miles wrote, “On my first mailer, almost all of the potential deals I got were for other parcels or land in other counties that were not on my mailer. So I’m having to make new offers and I’m unsure how to price it because there are no comps. Would you contact an agent in this case? And before you make your new offers, do you get a broker’s opinion? It sounds like you don’t do that, right? Thank you.”
Jill DeWit:
Okay, so let me back up. So here’s what Miles is talking about. I sent my mailer, a guy calls back and says, “I don’t want to sell that one, but I’ve got two over here if you want one. My brother has this, my mom has that, we want to sell whatever.” That kind of a thing. And you’re like, “Oh, why did this come up?” Because I’ve taught you well, hopefully.
Steven Butala:
Because you sent some mail out.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, and one, I have it on my checklist. I always say when my inbound seller checklist, one of the questions your asking everybody is, “By the way, what else do you have?” Because they may have something great and you don’t know it. They may say, “Oh, I have this other agricultural parcel two lots over, I didn’t think you wanted that one.” I’m like, “Yeah, I absolutely want that. That one’s even better.” Because that comes up.
Jill DeWit:
So in this situation Miles is going, “All right, now I need to go back and make new offers.” Hold on a moment, Miles. Let me make it easier for you, what I would do instead is say, “Great, you have what? 10 acres where? Happy to go look for it. How much are you asking? Let’s talk a for a second. You know who I am, I know who you are. I own this sweet little company, it’s mine. I pay cash, I close fast. You’re staring at my letter for a different property. So with that in mind, how much would you accept and I could just cash you out of that one, too, or instead of, or whatever?” Get a number from them.
Jill DeWit:
Last thing I want you to is get all excited and go and start spending a day and a half doing research, calling around, getting excited about this other area, this other potential property, and what’s possible. Calling agents, calling brokers, and everything, and then coming back and going, “Okay, here’s my number.” And the guy says, “Oh, no, no, no. I wouldn’t let it go for less than a million.” You needed to know that before you even did anything. So that’s what I want you to do.
Jill DeWit:
So let’s say now you do this, so you go, “Okay, what’s this?” I said, “You know what, all right, Miles, I get it. I know how you roll. I know it’s worth maybe more than this, but you know what? I just one to get rid of this one-
Steven Butala:
“And I like you.”
Jill DeWit:
… because I’m never over there. My wife never wanted it. So you know what? I’d let it go for 30,000.” You go, “Okay, give me date. Let’ see, today’s Friday, can I get back to you on Tuesday? Because I know it’s getting late, the county’s probably closing soon. I got to make some calls. Can I call you on Tuesday?” And where’s the best time and what’s the best number? “Yep, here you go, you can reach me here.” “Awesome.” Now Miles, now I want you to go look at this.
Jill DeWit:
And what do I want you to do? You’re like, “Okay, how do I get the comps?” Well, look at all the normal places, number one. Go also to the land selling sites and see what’s going on. It’s very hard nowadays to not find anything. And then, if you have to, you can kind of back into too, to see … First of all, too, if I don’t find anything, I’m a little bit more excited like, “There’s nothing moving in this area.”
Steven Butala:
No comps is good news.
Jill DeWit:
If nothing’s been for sale in this area for a while, ooh, I’m really going to stand out. There’s something going on here where nobody wants to sell anything.
Steven Butala:
Or it’s all sold.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, like, “Oh, this is good.” So dig, you’ll probably find something. And we can probably talk more about that on a whole nother topic to get in there. But then also, too, that is a resource. Lean on somebody, lean on a pro in the area. When you’re on these land selling sites, or Zillow, or whatever and you’re zeroing on land, you find an agent or broker who is moving land in that area. Yeah, I want you to call them and say, “Hey, this guy’s got 10 acres. It’s zoned agriculture and it’s right on this road. What do you think you could sell this for really fast? I’m not your, ‘Hold out for retail pricing.’ I’m a, ‘Let’s move this baby within 30 days, and what’s your number?'” And then there you go. This solved it all. Do you have anything to add?
Steven Butala:
No. I mean, you’re leaps and bounds better at this part of the business than I am. You’re beautiful and smart.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, what got into you today?
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
It’s Jill Friday. When to get a transaction coordinator and why. This is the meat of the show. Nothing got into me.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, that’s just very sweet of you. Making my nose run and my eyes tear up a little bit.
Steven Butala:
And it’s actually Thursday and things are going well.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Recording day, things are going well. It’s good. Right, so this is a big deal. There are a lot of you that have got to the end of what you can accomplish on your own.
Steven Butala:
This is a very popular topic right now.
Jill DeWit:
Yep. You’re like, “I can’t keep up. I’m only one person. I’m picking the county. I’m scrubbing my own data. I’m sending out the mail. I may or may not be answering my phone calls. If I’m answering phone calls, great. If not, no matter what, they still come to meet their [inaudible 00:05:51] live, or something like that. And now I got to call them back, and then, oh, now I got to manage a transaction. I got to buy the thing. I got to get it through escrow, I got to manage those people. And then I got to what? Post it for sale? Then I got to deal with all those calls. I need some help.”
Jill DeWit:
And one of the biggest things is right away, I love this as a first hire, because just helping you keep all your properties together in your head. Even having a system like Airtable, or Jura, or whatever CRM you’re using, even your spreadsheet. You’re like, “My color coding’s a mess. I have all these messages. I need some help keeping all of this stuff from moving through the pipeline.” That’s when you need to think about hiring that transaction coordinator. And I want you to think about someone to not only take over the overall big picture, making sure, “Hey, don’t forget, you’ve got to call these people back for this. This is what’s needed here. And this is what’s needed here, and everything like that.” Like our transaction coordinator … Time out for a moment. Do you love that report that I got?
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Love it.
Jill DeWit:
We get a report every Wednesday-
Steven Butala:
We just got it, yeah.
Jill DeWit:
… that shows inbound, what’s coming in on the buy side, what’s in escrow right now, and what’s posted for sale that’s not in escrow to sell yet kind of thing, and where the offers are. All the ones in escrow in here are either on the acquisition or the sale side. So I [crosstalk 00:07:21].
Steven Butala:
Could we go get this information in our CRM-
Jill DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Butala:
… yes, sure, but we’re too lazy.
Jill DeWit:
And it’s so nice. It’s state, county, APN, one sentence. This is where we are, this is when it’s going to close, this is what’s happening. Seller’s waiting for X, or whatever kind of thing. And I include in that thing too, even our deal funding transactions. So it’s one big long page that only has … Because as far as I’m concerned, they’re all my deals. I don’t need to separate out in this format, in this report. I don’t care who’s the person on it, still I’m involved in it. So it’s all of our deals. But I can glance every Wednesday, I can go … And I can see things moving through the system.
Steven Butala:
You got to see it moving.
Jill DeWit:
Right. Because when you go into the CRM, you got to sit and go line by line and catch up on what all they are. So anyway, that’s a good use for the transaction coordinator too, and that’s my point here. They’re helping you keep yourself organized. So you need to find a person that can do that. They’re very organized, they can handle CRMs, they can communicate with you. And they can handle dealing with your 25 sticky notes, or our email blasts, or however you send them, the Skype messages. Like, “Hey, this guy said yes, get it in escrow,” kind of thing. They can handle all that stuff because, number one, your life is going to be so much easier when you have that.
Jill DeWit:
The second thing is, too, if you can find someone that can … And you might develop that talent. They can start to take some of the other work off of you, like the escrow part. This is why Steven’s always been an advocate, up to this point, as having a transaction coordinator that also has experience in a title company. Because they can communicate with those people, and they know what they do, and they can really babysit and follow the deals all the way through to get them closed, whether on the buy side or the sell side. That’s the next thing.
Steven Butala:
There’s the good news. Title companies don’t pay very well.
Jill DeWit:
Right, that’s true.
Steven Butala:
So there’s a lot of movement in that industry, especially now. And they’re overworked, really overworked. So if you’re willing to pay well, this personality type, the vast majority, if not all of them, aren’t going to respond to performance-based compensation.
Jill DeWit:
No, they’re salaried.
Steven Butala:
They’re W-2 salary. And if you offer them a couple thousand more a month, they’re going to come and work with you, if they like you and believe in you, and see your deal flow and all of that. So it’s not that hard to find people, but I’ll tell you, from a personality standpoint in general, they’re not going to sell anything for you. That’s been my experience. They’re not salespeople. They’re nut and bolts deal doers and they do paperwork. They fill out forms-
Jill DeWit:
And they’re great at that. They love that.
Steven Butala:
… and they speak the language of the escrow people that you’re actually going to use.
Jill DeWit:
And the county, getting it recorded. They understand all of that. It’s so nice to have that off your plate. This is stuff that someone else can do because they didn’t make the deal. You’re the pro at that, you’re the pro at finding the county, talking to the seller, getting the price you want, closing on the deal, the buy side and the sell side. They’re there managing all the nuts and bolts and the paperwork in the middle there. That’s when to get one and why you want one.
Steven Butala:
We’re over this COVID thing now for the most part, and so I would highly recommend that you hire somebody and have them work with you for a while, instead of working from home. Just so they can see how you’re doing it, you’re on the phone all the time-
Jill DeWit:
It’s true. It’s really beneficial.
Steven Butala:
… and you can check to see with them, do a trial period for sure. Just say, “Let’s work together for a while,” and see what happens.
Jill DeWit:
I think that’s perfect. They need to get your groove and understand your sticky notes, and your chicken scratch, and all of that. And eventually you’ll find … Like we have a way now that we … It took us a while to get our own little communication down. There’s a way that she needs my notes, too, that makes sense to her. It’s an easy little tweak for me, and it’s no big deal.
Steven Butala:
I’ve had a transaction coordinator since the ’90s. And sometimes multiple transaction coordinators and I can honestly tell you this, two of them were probably any good at all.
Jill DeWit:
It’s hard. It’s a tough one.
Steven Butala:
It’s a very, very difficult position to fill. The best case is that you get a family member, a spouse, or if your kids are old enough, and they’ve shown any interest, and you can really season them and train them.
Jill DeWit:
You know what that made me think of?
Steven Butala:
And there’s going to be a huge learning curve.
Jill DeWit:
Here’s the downfall if it’s a family member, let me end on my little story about when I worked for my dad.
Steven Butala:
Oh, no.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, my dad too, thought that was a good idea and he was going to hire dear Jill for filing and data entry. Let me tell you how this went. I got an hourly wage and I worked in his sweet office in the back room. And I would go in and do however many hours. It really wasn’t a day, then it would be a few hours a week, and I would get a salary. And then, invariably Friday would come along and I didn’t have enough money for the weekend because I didn’t do enough work. Well, my sweet dad, who is so awesome, Jim DeWit. I’d say, “Dad, can I have an advance on next week, please?”
Steven Butala:
This doesn’t surprise me at all.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, yeah. I’m like, “I’m going to kill it. I promise, just there’s a concert.” Yes, it’s probably Depeche Mode, whatever, anyway. So dad would just lovingly give me an advance. So I probably still owe him, oh, a good 8,000 hours of work. Fortunately-
Steven Butala:
You never worked it off? It never caught up?
Jill DeWit:
No.
Steven Butala:
This is the Jill I know.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
If Jill’s talking to you, you’re being sold something.
Jill DeWit:
I am not.
Steven Butala:
That’s absolutely true.
Jill DeWit:
I am not.
Steven Butala:
Ask any of the kids.
Jill DeWit:
No. Stop it. You’re sweet. Anyway, so that’s my end story, guys. So be careful hiring a family member. If they ask for an advance, and it’s a young teenage girl, don’t go there. Because you won’t get it back.
Steven Butala:
How many times have you see Depeche Mode? Just ballpark.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t know, a lot.
Steven Butala:
More than 30?
Jill DeWit:
Probably.
Steven Butala:
Wow.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I don’t know. I’ll have to check it out.
Steven Butala:
That’s 10 times since I’ve known you.
Jill DeWit:
Because I used to see them four times in like a … Maybe not more than 30, but I’d see them in LA, twice at Irvine Meadows, because they always seemed to do two shows. Or they’d do LA twice, I don’t know, Irvine Meadows. Then they’d go down to San Diego, so I’d go to all the shows, why not? We did that a lot with freaking many bands if we really liked them. Like New Order, that was a lot of fun.
Steven Butala:
There’s a groupie.
Jill DeWit:
I was. It’s kind of funny. Okay. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Next week join us for another interesting episode which I have not written the title yet.
Jill DeWit:
You are not alone in your real estate ambition. I’ll help you.
Jill DeWit:
That was good. That was good. You good?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
All right. Wrapping up another week. Thank you for tuning in, we hope you find our content valuable and I really appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, please get on over to our YouTube channel, hit the Subscribe button, and please comment on the shows you love.
Group:
We’re Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Information-
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration-
Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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