Transcript:

Steven J Butala:
I am Steven Jack Butala.

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

Steven J Butala:
This is episode number 1,987. Today we are talking about where to send your land mailers in 2024. And a little later in the show we’ll talk about tackling your biggest land business concern. We all have them, even Jill and I have them. It’s going to be interesting to see what hers are, I know what mine are.

Jill K DeWit:
I have personal concerns and then I have land business concerns. Let’s just be clear. I will share the professional ones today, I’ll leave the personal ones for another day.

Steven J Butala:
Oh, I want to hear the personal one. No, they’re going to work their way into the show I’m sure.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, they probably will. That’s true.

Steven J Butala:
Each week on the show, we answer questions from the Land Academy member Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular request.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven J Butala:
Let’s take the first question.

Jill K DeWit:
All right, Greg Rhodes, “Wrapping up my fourth year with Land Academy,” congratulations. Did you see, I don’t know if you read our newsletter, but that we highlighted all the first year people, we highlighted the five-year people. I was just… Sorry Greg, I want to pause for just a moment and just talk about that for just a second. The right people get in here and you’re with us, man, and we’re on this journey together. And as your business grows and your needs change and whatever it is, which we are right here with you, we’ve been that way from day one. “Hey, we need this product.” “All right, I think we can do this.” “Hey, we need help solving this problem.” “Okay, we could do this.” “Oh, hey, DataTree is not working, we need help with another alternative data solution.” “All right, we got this.” If I was on my own, I’d be-

Steven J Butala:
Oh geez.

Jill K DeWit:
I would not be successful.

Steven J Butala:
I’ll tell you, that’s what we want. That’s what Jill and I want. We want this to be doing transactions with the same people forever. We are not in the business of onboarding-

Jill K DeWit:
Turn and burn.

Steven J Butala:
42 new people who don’t understand the relevance of a deed in a real estate transaction. So thank you Greg, we’re glad you’re here too.

Jill K DeWit:
Same. Thank you. All right, so back to Greg’s question. So, “Wrapping up my fourth year in Land Academy and each year has been more profitable than the previous, more than doubled my profits this year compared to last. I gave my,” what a great note, “I gave my W2 boss my letter of resignation yesterday. That was exciting. Looking forward to keep building in the years to come.”

Steven J Butala:
I thought he was going to say, “I gave my W2 boss the middle finger.”

Jill K DeWit:
Maybe that was hidden in the resignation. It was drawn very lightly on the paper.

Steven J Butala:
Congratulations, Greg. We’re super glad you’re here and let us know, and this goes for anybody who’s been a Land Academy member for more than a year, let us know if you have a new product idea, if there’s something that you think we’re better together. Jill and I have a whole big list, in fact we’re meeting on this right after we record this, a big list of new products from which to choose. We’re not going to obviously launch them all, but there’s consistency always in the questions and new product ideas that we get from our long-term members like Greg here, and we’re happy to launch. We want to make money. We make money off this stuff too. With Greg, it’s a two-way street.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, it’s not just that. It’s like yourself, whatever you need, Greg, and a lot of people need, I probably need it too and I have enough people that makes sense to go do it like ParcelFact or CRM stuff, you know what I mean?

Steven J Butala:
Exactly.

Jill K DeWit:
So we’re happy to share it and use it with you. Excellent.

Steven J Butala:
Today’s first topic, where to send land mailers in 2024. The universal eternal question, what’s the best place to send mail, Jill?

Jill K DeWit:
I’m ready. Okay, I’m writing notes. What do you got? Is it Tennessee? No, wait, wait, wait, wait. North Carolina? Texas?

Steven J Butala:
I’m going to answer this question, and at the end of this, not the end of the show, but at the end of this little segment here, after I have… What’s the real root of this question? Because we get it all the time, where should we send mail? Which is why The Land Geek Jill and I have a long, long, long relationship with Mark Podolsky and which is why he a long time ago created this thing called the Secret County List, which is not secret at all because he was probably tired of getting this question. So what’s really behind this question, where do you send mail this year? What’s behind it in my opinion is I really don’t want to do this myself, I don’t want to figure it out myself, I don’t want to put the work in that you have so carefully constructed, Jack, this thing called the Red Green Yellow Test that’s based on trolling and it’s based on how much money you want to make and it’s based on all the yada, yada, yada, yada.

Jill K DeWit:
Then I got to brush up on Excel.

Steven J Butala:
How about I just send it to Tennessee because the last Thursday call, you guys looked at, would you do this deals in Tennessee? It must be a good place to send mail. That’s just not how this works. Tennessee, if you’re here just to make money, you shouldn’t be here.

Jill K DeWit:
Whoa. I’m going to have to stop you right there. What if you’re here just to make money by funding other people’s deals?

Steven J Butala:
That’s great.

Jill K DeWit:
There you go.

Steven J Butala:
That’s fantastic.

Jill K DeWit:
Because we have people in that group, our group that are here just for that. “I’m here to make money and not do any work, and I’m just going to be the bank for your people because I know how smart your people are.”

Steven J Butala:
Listen-

Jill K DeWit:
There’s nothing wrong with that.

Steven J Butala:
No. And we’re the bank all the time. We are the funders many, many, many times.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, nothing wrong with that.

Steven J Butala:
But that doesn’t mean we don’t look at the deals.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven J Butala:
We don’t put money into a deal that-

Jill K DeWit:
Well, that’s why you learned-

Steven J Butala:
We would never put money into a deal that Jill and I would not have done ourselves had it come back in a mailer.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven J Butala:
And so there are amazing places to send mail all over the country in 2024 if they pass the Red Green Yellow Test and you know what the Red Green Yellow Test is and how much money you want to make per deal and it fits into your acquisition criteria for that month and on and on and on. There’s places to not send mail. Riverside County in California is a fantastic place to buy a piece of land and resell it and make $1000, which is on the Secret County List. If that’s what your equity planner says, your Land Academy equity planner, and it works within the scheme of how much money you want to make that year, then go send mail in Riverside County. It doesn’t work for us because we need more profit than that.

Jill K DeWit:
I thought you were talking about the people that present deals in Riverside County to make $100,000 because that’s possible too.

Steven J Butala:
It’s possible, but a lot less likely. Riverside County California doesn’t support, and I mean it’s the real rural parts in San Bernardino County, the real rural parts do not support $100,000 profit margin in almost all cases.

Jill K DeWit:
You got to look at different stuff.

Steven J Butala:
Rural Tennessee, yeah, you can make some money there. A lot of people send mail there for some reason, I don’t know why.

Jill K DeWit:
Because people move there.

Steven J Butala:
Probably because it passes the Red Green Yellow Test. So there’s components to the Red Green Yellow Test that aren’t just data-driven. You have to sort of look at it and see how much properties for sale and expand your own Red Green Yellow Test to make sure that you are accomplishing what you want to accomplish financially. If all this is complicated and it seems really confusing and it’s going to take too long, this is not for you. For the rest of us, we’re over here creating some pretty serious equity.

Jill K DeWit:
So the answer to the question where to send your mailers, land mailers in 2024 is it depends?

Steven J Butala:
It depends on what you want out of these deals. I’ll tell you real flat. Go ahead.

Jill K DeWit:
So I was going to back up and just share a little bit about us. So we’re not going to let you just flounder. So the whole point, I think, of today’s first topic, for me anyway, is don’t worry about it. Where do I send my letters in 2024? All right, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to get in here, I want you to watch Land Academy 3.0, 4.0 is going to be coming out in let’s just say realistically six months, let’s give it some time because I know this man, remember last week’s show when he says, “I’m not working on anything I don’t want to do every day.”

Steven J Butala:
That’s the truth. You know what? I do want to record 4.0.

Jill K DeWit:
I know you do, but not fast.

Steven J Butala:
But I don’t want to do it in 20 minutes.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I’m saying.

Steven J Butala:
And you don’t want to see 20 minute production anyway.

Jill K DeWit:
Nope, exactly. So let’s give it six months.

Steven J Butala:
It’s not going to be six months. It’ll be done in the first quarter.

Jill K DeWit:
All right, mark my words.

Steven J Butala:
It’ll be done in the first quarter.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to go with beginning of Q3. I think I’m going to do that. Or the end of-

Steven J Butala:
What’s Q3?

Jill K DeWit:
Q3, it’s okay.

Steven J Butala:
What’s Q3?

Jill K DeWit:
Q3, third quarter.

Steven J Butala:
Oh, Q. Oh no, geez.

Jill K DeWit:
All right. Anyway, sometime this year.

Steven J Butala:
Now I have to do it just on principle.

Jill K DeWit:
That was my Dale Carnegie way of speeding him up. I’m just kidding.

Steven J Butala:
Last week we talked about relationships. I have Jill’s number, I don’t call her out on everything, but when I have to I will.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah.

Steven J Butala:
I know what she’s doing. This is how she gets what you want. I happen to find it like endearing and cute. I think in some relationships it’s like, “Where’s the frying pan?”

Jill K DeWit:
All right. So here’s my point though, where to send your mailers? We’re going to show you, we’re going to help you. You know what? This came up recently. Number one, let me back up, so we’re going to show you and we’re going to help you. What do you mean you’re going to show me? It’s literally a video of you showing you how to sit down, put on paper in an Excel file your criteria, how much money you want to make this year, how many deals you want to do a month, and how much money you want to make per deal, right?

Steven J Butala:
That’s the equity point.

Jill K DeWit:
Then we’re going to say, “Great,” now we’re going to show you in a video how to put those numbers, “I want to make 30 grand a deal or 50 grand a deal,” whatever it is, put it in and start trolling around the country and picking areas. Then we’re going to teach and show you how to take it a step further, which is doing what we call a Red Green Yellow Test that we share with you so you really sit and analyze it and make sure you’re making a good decision, you’re really going to pick apart trending things and days on market and how many properties are in the whole county and in the zip code and all of that.
And then my last piece I said, and we’re going to be here to help you with that, someone just did it, I love that, someone brought up the question on one of our Thursday calls a couple weeks ago, like, “Hey, I’ve identified these zip codes or these three zip codes, what do you think? Before I push the button, what do you guys think about my choice?”

Steven J Butala:
I love that.

Jill K DeWit:
“Of where I want to send mail.”

Steven J Butala:
That’s why we’re here.

Jill K DeWit:
And we will happily do that. So that’s the whole thing. I’m not going to sit and give you a list of how many counties and parishes are right, over 3000, I’m not going to give you a green list. Number one, it’s going to change. And number two, I want you to go out and find it because you know what happens often when you learn, we’re not here to just fast-track this. I want you to really learn. So you’re going to go off and make it great yourself. You’re going to go off and find areas and counties that we’ve never worked in and nobody’s working in.

Steven J Butala:
That’s exactly it.

Jill K DeWit:
And you’re going to kill it. That’s why.

Steven J Butala:
If you find counties that fit your criteria, your specific criteria, and you send some mail out and you do a couple of deals, would you want to pick from a list that I gave you? And if that’s on there, no, absolutely not. You and your partner, whomever you choose to let into your little group is going to know about it and that’s it. You can’t. If I say, “Riverside County, California is the place to send mail.”

Jill K DeWit:
Here comes everybody.

Steven J Butala:
This is a public broadcast, that defies its purpose.

Jill K DeWit:
All 10 listeners will mail there, including you.

Steven J Butala:
Well said, Jill. So now you have nine competitors.

Jill K DeWit:
You don’t want that.

Steven J Butala:
Look, please don’t send mail, you will be disappointed, unless you’re a specialist to property where it’s being actively farmed. Actively farmed agricultural property in the center states of the country.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s your tip.

Steven J Butala:
Will get you to a very sad place.

Jill K DeWit:
You’ll be on their hit list.

Steven J Butala:
Why? Because property, unless you want to send them a retail value number and then they might still even be mad, agricultural property is treated as a commodity. So it’s priced and that’s it. There’s no other asset type that I know of where you can send offers at 20% of its actual value and buy stuff. You’re not going to generally get that with cars or publicly traded stock and on and on and on. But for whatever unused land, people just want it out of their lives. A certain percentage of predictable people, that’s where you send it. You don’t want to send mail to counties and zip codes that are primarily underwater, wet. There’s a lot of places in Florida like that unless you’re a specialist. And I will say that after every sentence I say here, unless you’re a specialist. We have people in our group that are specialists in working their way around wetlands and there are certain degrees of wetlands and stuff that I’ll never understand and don’t want to. So where you send mail in 2024 depends on you.
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our Wednesday/Thursday member webinar.

Jill K DeWit:
By the way, do you know how great Offers 2 Owners is right now and how busy they are? So word’s getting out. We’re hiring again as a matter of fact. What we do, which started as our little direct mail company because nobody got us and then a lot of people were like, “I don’t want to do a mail merge. How do I do a mail merge? How do I make sure it’s right?” I mean, just those silly little things turned into this huge thing where we now pull data, scrub data, almost price your offers for you. We give you all the comps, we give you all the numbers. We come back with a percentage for you to tweak, and then we put it in the mail for you. So it kind of is doing your pricing for you when you think about it. You’re not doing any of the heavy lifting. You’re going to come back and go, “Make that number higher, make that number lower,” and then send out the mail. That’s what we do. So check it out.

Steven J Butala:
Doesn’t get much easier.

Jill K DeWit:
I know. So pretty much we could say we’re kind of pricing your offers for you and give you the numbers behind it and the comps behind it so you’re making really good decisions. So check it out, offers2owners.com.

Steven J Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community.

Jill K DeWit:
Luke wrote, aw, that was back when he joined Land Academy, Luke said, “I recently got a call from a 2016 mailer,” isn’t that great when that happens? “$100 an acre, 38 acres, lady said I was the only one that answered the phone. She kept all the letters she got over time.”

Steven J Butala:
Let me translate this, how important this simple statement is. Luke’s been with us for a really, really long time.

Jill K DeWit:
Since like 2015, 2016.

Steven J Butala:
He sent out mail back then, he sends out mail now. He got a call from a woman he sent a mailer to in 2016. That lady got all kinds of letters back probably over the years from 2016 until now, 2024. She called a lot of the people who sent the offers, nobody answered the freaking phone except Luke and now he’s doing a deal.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep. That’s how we get it.

Steven J Butala:
Jill, this is on your side of the business.

Jill K DeWit:
We get the same thing.

Steven J Butala:
This is why we get all kinds of real estate deals. What goes on in the mind of a person who won’t answer their phone?

Jill K DeWit:
They might be out of business. That’s usually it, they’re out of business. That’s all I’ve go, they didn’t make it.

Steven J Butala:
They’re out of business because they didn’t answer their phone.

Jill K DeWit:
There you go.

Steven J Butala:
So please, I urge you, answer your phone or find somebody who’s really good at answering your phone.

Jill K DeWit:
And keep those phone numbers. There’s a good example of the reason why.

Steven J Butala:
Today’s second topic, tackling your biggest land business concern. We all have them. Usually our biggest land business concern is the one that we don’t like the most.

Jill K DeWit:
I have one.

Steven J Butala:
Go ahead, I have more than one.

Jill K DeWit:
If you had to say, “Jill, give me one biggest land business concern,” I’d say I need more acquisitions. I always want more acquisitions, I never have enough acquisitions. I’m greedy.

Steven J Butala:
You’re greedy.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. I sell because I know how to sell them. I know how to buy them, I know how to sell them. I could always do more. Because you know why? I have a team now, and our LA Pro people have a team, they’re right there with me.

Steven J Butala:
My biggest land business concern is the unknown between the lines within due diligence. It doesn’t come up very often, but we’re doing bigger deals now, even by our standards. And I don’t want things to be wrong, like, “Oh, I missed it, this property really doesn’t have access.” These are things that happened to us last year and we always solve it, it just throws a wrench in things so you got to drop what we’re doing, especially because we’ve got a commercial mail company and all that stuff.

Jill K DeWit:
And how much time did that take off of your-

Steven J Butala:
It’s not that, it’s not me.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s the best part.

Steven J Butala:
It’s not me personally. It’s just unknowns and due diligence. And so all that is it’s simply-

Jill K DeWit:
Roll with it.

Steven J Butala:
Insolvable is you get a lawyer-

Jill K DeWit:
It’s that.

Steven J Butala:
To close your deal, to check on this stuff first. There’s ways to solve it is my point. We don’t have to sit here and debate about the best way to handle due diligence. It almost never happens, by the way, almost never. So whatever your biggest concern is, it’s solvable. That’s why you’re in a community like this so you can find out within Discord and on the Thursday calls and whatever else is, find out how other people are handling it.

Jill K DeWit:
And fast.

Steven J Butala:
Because the fact is this really, really works. If you have the right personality type and the right approach, this is going to work. It works great for the vast majority of us. It only doesn’t work well when you don’t send the mail out and then give yourself the opportunity because the deals come back to solve these problems.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what I think? If I ask the group, and I did, I put a note in one of our Facebook groups, our big ones like, “Coming into 2024, what’s the biggest thing you need help with?” And I just put it in this morning so I don’t know what the results are yet, but I can’t wait to see, but if I asked the group what their biggest land business concern is, I don’t know if they would necessarily answer honestly, but I would feel like it’s fear of sending out the mail because that starts the whole process. Isn’t that funny? I see that like, “Well, shoot. What if I send out the offers? Okay, I got this far, now I’m sending out the offers. What if I price it wrong?” So what? Fix it. “But then I got to fix it, then I got to buy it.” Yep. So what? Buy it. “Well, then I got to sell it.” Yep. So what? Sell it. That’s why we’re here. You have us, again, we’re not going to let you fall that far. Please ask for help. That’s it.

Steven J Butala:
Over the years, I’ll give you something.

Jill K DeWit:
Take action. Take some action.

Steven J Butala:
We’ve obviously gotten over, because every year… Here’s the issues I’ve had over the years, some of the issues, in the beginning, in the very, very beginning, it was after I did my first deal I looked at myself in the mirror and I said this, “Well, geez, all you got to do is find really cheap real estate to buy. Everything else will fall into place.” Well, I was young and naive, so I made it my life’s mission and it actually worked out because we’re sitting here now figuring out how to buy inexpensive or undervalued land, which I did. And that was long before I ever knew how to do a mailer, that data even existed or any of this. I had to work all this stuff out so I did. It was problem, overcoming problem, overcoming the next problem, overcoming the next problem.
So great, now I got a mailer out, I got all these deals coming back. I can’t close them. So I hired an escrow person and that person didn’t work out. And then I hired another one, then I hired another one and finally found the right person to close the deals in that little segment of our lives. Then it was sales. Where do I solve this stuff? Let’s try auctioning it off on eBay instead of the traditional way. So yeah, we did probably 10,000 deals that way until that just didn’t work out anymore because the climate has just changed, things changed, tech changes. So then it became a real struggle to sell real estate, enter Jill. And so she got on the phone and sold every single piece of property we had.
And so these things, they seem like they’re problems at the time. If there were no problems, if everybody who bought stock, publicly traded stock, and it always went up all the time, that’s just not how it works, everybody would do it. Half the people who buy stock, it goes down, half it goes up, it’s a zero-sum game. You just want to make sure you’re on the right side of that. It’s hard.

Jill K DeWit:
This ties into what we talked about last week. The people that come into our world who get it, who understand it, who know how to roll with punches, who know how to solve problems, kill it, right? And they’re also the same people that are saying, “Don’t share this with anybody. Don’t let anybody else in.” That’s the same people and it’s hilarious and I get it. That’s why I’m keeping it small, I promise.

Steven J Butala:
Well, not too long ago, and I’ll end on this, my biggest concern was lack of capital. So we started Land Academy for that reason, to get a group of people together who I happen to be, and we still are, very good at identifying and buying undervalued pieces of property to the point where we always run out of money, even now. And that’s what Land Academy’s for was raising capital and now capital, when’s the last time you and I talked about capital?

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I don’t talk about that.

Steven J Butala:
It’s been years and years and years.

Jill K DeWit:
No, I’m spending my money on my deals and your deals.

Steven J Butala:
Land Academy really worked out for us.

Jill K DeWit:
I knew.

Steven J Butala:
It did what it was supposed to do. And at the same time, I hate sentences like this, I’m going to say it and that’s it, I don’t know how many rich people we’ve created, but it’s a lot.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s nice.

Steven J Butala:
And it’s working out for us financially also.

Jill K DeWit:
You know who you are. You know you went dark on us. We know you’re there, just kind of hanging out.

Steven J Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something inspirational to share today?

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it kind of ties into something that you said last week. I didn’t plan it like that, but when you said something about you’re working on what you want to work on 24 hours a day.

Steven J Butala:
That’s not what I said, is that what you got out of that?

Jill K DeWit:
You said 23, and you said, “Well, probably 24,” and I said, “I second that.”

Steven J Butala:
It’s funny what Jill hears and doesn’t hear.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, it goes both ways, babe. It’s so true. So wow, I don’t mean to be come off like pessimistic, but I want to make sure, this is a direct result of things I’ve been reading at the end of the year within our community. And I want to remind everyone to make sure that you’re not creating your own obstacles. I want to make sure you’re not making things harder on yourself and/or creating extra jobs for yourself because it’ll make you burn out. I want you to use the tools that you have, use concierge data, use us for deal help, use Land Academy Pro if you’re a career path alumni because you’re just done babysitting deals. That would be a huge burnout right there, if I had to babysit all my deals in and out of escrow and all that, I’d be like, “Nope.” So we can help you with that.
I want you to focus on what you should be focusing on coming into 2024. Because it may feel like, “I’m a little worried, Jill, because now I got to spend money for these tools or it feels like it’s going in the wrong direction.” Mm-mm, I’m going to argue it’s going to bring you forward in the right direction and it will pay off when you’re really able to outsource, like I said, and have somebody else do the things you don’t want to be working on. It’s going to save you mentally and that’s going to make you more effective and just you’ll be out looking for great deals. Do you want to add to that?

Steven J Butala:
No.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. What about you? Do you have something you want to share with us today?

Steven J Butala:
Yeah, I wrote this sentence. Do you have control over your time and your resources? So I’d like you to deconstruct your day, an average day and see how much you have control over your time. And let’s assume for a second that the best case scenario is you have 100% control over your time and the resources that you have. You have access to all the resources you need to accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish and all the time in the world. We all know that’s not true. So start asking yourself and spreadsheet it out, just deconstruct what you don’t have control over. “Well, I got to eat. I don’t want to, but I have to. I got to drink water.” It sounds silly, but if you really start backing into all the things, “Well, I have to have a job.” “Why do you have to have a job?” “Well, I have to pay rent.” “Do you?” “I have to do the stuff my wife tells me.”

Jill K DeWit:
“I have to pick up the kids from school,” yeah.

Steven J Butala:
Do you? Yeah, I have to do what she says.

Jill K DeWit:
How often does that run through your head?

Steven J Butala:
No, never now. Honestly, never. Because Jill’s really good about that and it’s a two-way street with Jill and I. And when it becomes that, because if you zip it and sit there in a chair with your hands folded quietly, whoever you’re with, I don’t care what gender you are or whatever, at some point that’s going to be too much to take. And so you can’t let it get to that point. “All right, it’s great, Jack so now I’m spending an hour managing that so that’s an hour or less of the control of my time that I have and on and on and on.”
Well, here’s the thing, I believe that you have a lot more control over your time than you think. And it all starts with having a plan. What do I really want to accomplish? If I had all the time in the world and all the resources, access to, what are you going to accomplish? “Well, I want to get rich.” Well, yeah. So do I. What does that mean though? How are you going to do it? Are you going to buy and sell land? That’s a great way to do it. Are you going to go consult? Are you going to get more education? These are all good things. But you have to have a plan and you have to sit and ask yourself, “Do I have control over my time and access to the resources that I need to do it?”

Jill K DeWit:
I love it. I’m trying to think here.

Steven J Butala:
There’s so many things that stand in people’s way, including themselves.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s the biggest one.

Steven J Butala:
Of getting successful.

Jill K DeWit:
So do you have control of your time and your resources? People will say, “Oh, hell no,” but you kind of do. You kind of have the power to say no. I had to learn that, I’m still getting better at that.

Steven J Butala:
There’s a Shark Tank episode I’ll never forget where Mark Cuban, there’s two kids, three kids standing in front of him, there are three girls that started a website, very successful dating website, young women really had their act together. And they’re asking him, they’re saying, “Well, we need all this money to revamp the tech piece and we’re really struggling with the tech piece and we never seem to feel like we’re delivering the product that we really wish we could, even though we’re clearly getting all these new members all the time.” And he said, “Stop, stop, stop, stop. This is what I want you to do.” And he asked all three of them because they don’t live together, but there were friends from school, “Where do you live? What do you do? What’s going on with you?” And they were all tripping over themselves for all the personal crap that they thought someone was expecting them to do. And he said, “No one’s expecting you to do this. Why don’t you guys all move in together in the worst freaking apartment you can possibly imagine and spend all your time on this instead of the silly jobs that you have to live in these places that are going to be meaningless to you in five years?”

Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.

Steven J Butala:
I’m just scratching the surface. He really gave them the what for, in a nice way. And he in a really heartfelt way, he said, “You guys are not focusing on the right stuff.” And by the way, he said, “You will never achieve the level of technology that you want. Never.”

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, don’t even try. Yeah, I can’t imagine. You’re never going to step back and go, “My website is perfect. No change is needed.”

Steven J Butala:
“My company’s great. I’ll take the rest of the week off.” Who says that?

Jill K DeWit:
Month off, yeah.

Steven J Butala:
No one says that.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s great.

Steven J Butala:
What we all say is, “Wow, this is going great, it’s going to end. We probably should send out another mailer, make sure that the pipeline’s completely jammed full.”

Jill K DeWit:
There you go. Hey, don’t forget, you can reach us for questions, you can reach for an invite to get on our member call, anything you need, find out more information to even talk to someone about this whole thing. Just send a note to support@landacademy.com.

Steven J Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. This is where we buy cheap land and sell it for a lot more on the internet. We are Jack and Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.

Steven J Butala:
Information.

Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven J Butala:
To buy undervalued property. Out.