The Concept Of The Funnel

This is episode number 2112. We’re talking about how we evaluate a ton of properties to buy just one. This is the concept of the funnel. I’ve been in some version of acquisitions professionally my entire life. You want to get your pipeline jammed full of opportunities. Anybody in sales knows this. I got to talk to 25 people to sell somebody one thing. Twenty-two people have to walk through the door in general to think about if they’re going to buy a Ford. I’m the sales guy. I need to get 22 people for every Ford I sell.

I had to date 5 to 10 women to find the one. We haven’t talked about that.

It’s probably three women to score for men. For women, it’s probably 42 men.

To score, it’s one-to-one. I could find one man and score. How are we using the word score?

Use your imagination. Score for some women means marriage. Score for some women means, “I’m going to blast on Saturday night.”

You want to get your pipeline jammed full of opportunities. Anybody in sales knows this. Share on X

That’s what I mean. It’s one-to-one for women.

It didn’t take long.

We haven’t talked about that in a while. To be in a serious relationship, and I’m thinking of a good friend of mine, it was probably 50 to 1.

If your acquisition criteria for a man is so stringent that you need to evaluate twenty to get to a second date, you better ask yourself some questions.

I got to say more than ever, there’s been a pivot. I like to think that most men were upfront and honest about, “This is who I am.” They don’t try to hide anything. Now, it’s changing. There are crazy men out there and they try to hide stuff.

It’s always been like that.

They are crazy.

Women put up with more in the distant past.

I don’t know. They still put up with more in the near future too.

The whole point here is to jam your pipeline full.

There’s a funnel.

We didn’t write these topics, thank God. That’s why they’re good and make sense. How many properties do you look at before we pull the trigger and buy one and resell it?

Sometimes it’s more than twenty. It depends on the area. It goes in waves. Isn’t that funny? I’ll go, “Here’s a little pocket. I’m buying all of these.”

We’ll get to the topic here in a minute but Jill likes to say, “I need to look at ten new properties a day for us to make a few million bucks a year.” She’s dead on. It’s my job to make sure she looks on time. It’s as simple as that. Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member discord form and take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request.

Josh wrote, “I’m new to Land Academy and getting started with the Land Academy 3.0 material. I’m getting all the initial business items set up like phone number, address, and website. I work full-time in IT so I’ll be doing this on the side until it overtakes my employment. This is my first entrepreneurial venture so I have much to learn. I’m super excited to get my first mailer out. I’m targeting February 2025 to keep myself accountable. I’m looking forward to getting to know the community.” Welcome, Josh. I’m excited.

It’s great. Get yourself on a schedule and you’ve already done that. Get the mail out.

These are your goals. You’re like, “In January 2025, I’m going to watch all the 3.0 and get my phone number, address, website, and all this stuff done.” Check. “In February 2025, I’m getting a mailer out.” I love it. This is great. That means at the end of February 2025, you’re looking at deals. In March 2025, you’re buying stuff. In April 2025, you’re selling stuff and you’re on your way. My only add to that is if you’re starting February 2025 for your first mailer, it’s a monthly thing. The mail goes out once a month, at least.

Our topic is how we evaluate about 20 properties to buy just 1. Here’s your general gauge. This is in the top five questions that we have gotten since we started this. “How much mail do I have to send out to buy a property?” What they’re asking is, “What’s the mailer yield I can expect?” Here are the basic numbers. One percent of the number of offers that you send out are going to respond.

You send 1,000 letters out. Approximately, 1% is 10. Ten people are going to respond and you will generally get 1% of those as a real viable acquisition candidate to potentially buy. You have complete control over this. We’re going to send out 2,000 mailers in the same numbers and only 20% of the people are going to respond. You’re going to look at two deals seriously and test the eight A’s. They will pass all of the eight A’s.

“Will you buy it?” “Maybe not, I’m not sure,” but the acquisition criteria you set up for yourself in the equity planner will start to fall into place. “This property is better than this one.” With 3,000 mailers. You’ve got 30 people calling you back and you’re looking at 3 deals. 10,000 mailers-ish, whatever the period it is, you’re going to talk to about 100 people and you’re going to look at about 10 deals. For Jill, that’s not enough. She wants more and she’s right.

Sending Out A Large Number Of Mailers To Evaluate More Properties

We’ve been doing this for a million years. We’re set up to handle it. We have the staff and all of that. That’s a basic rule. That’s if you do the mailer right. If you price it right, it passes a red, green, and yellow test. It’s in a big system. All this is in Land Academy 3.0, every single last detail. The system works but the key is you have to set the mailer very consistently. It used to be like we’d get a lot of people who would say, “I’m going to send out a test mailer. I want to see what this is like.”

They do a hundred or a couple of hundred and that’s not going to do anything. You’re not going to get anything from that. That’s not enough. It’s like, “I’m going to give this diet one week.” Come on. That’s not going to be enough.

Are you on a diet?

Yeah. It’s January 2025. Who isn’t on a diet? I’m going to argue. If you’re not on a diet, we got to talk.

Diets and mating are two of the main off-topic themes that we’ve been talking about.

Is there anything wrong with that?

No.

I’m not looking for a new skinnier man or anything.

That would not be hard for you to find.

Based on the topic so far, I’m looking for a new skinnier man who rewards himself with something other than a bar on Friday afternoon. We never even go into the plaid thing here.

There’s nowhere to go.

People are doing that. I love it when you show up on some of the calls that we do with our community like our video calls, LA pro-people, advanced group, and career path alumni group. I noticed when you wear plaid and you’re doing a little nod to Jack like, “This is awesome.” They’re wearing plaid and are like, “Look, I’m Jack. I’m wearing a plaid shirt.” It’s funny. That’s it. You talked about it and you have to review it.

There’s an episode that we’re doing and I had a chat with a gentleman. He wanted to do a little pre-interview to get to know us a little bit. I showed up to it and talked about some things. I talked about the eight A’s. One of the things was abundance. I talked about that. The fact is if you have abundance, i.e., you have 80 people that reached out to you versus 8, you better believe you’re going to make better buying decisions and you have way more opportunity to pick up better property.

That’s the whole thing why we evaluate so many deals to pick one. It’s not anything about the quality that’s coming at me. It’s giving me the opportunity to hit it home and get some amazing deals. I could buy more. I can look at more and do it. I can make it work. With land deals, we’re pretty strict around our office anyway. In most land deals, I want to double my money at least or I’m not doing it. A lot of people don’t have that. If I relaxed off that and said I want to make $50,000 on a deal, and maybe I’m buying for $150,000 and selling for $200,000, I’d pick up a lot more properties but I don’t want to.

That's the reason we evaluate so many deals to pick just one. It's not about the quality that's coming to me; it's about giving me the opportunity to hit it out of the park and secure some amazing deals. Share on X

Follow me on this. You sent out 10,000 mailers. You’ve got 100 people calling in and you’re looking at about 10 deals seriously. What if you were seriously considering 100 deals because you sent out 100,000 letters? Do you think out of 100 deals, there are 2, 3, or 4 properties in there where your reaction is after you look at it, “We got to buy this.” The answer is, “Yes, of course.”

Evaluating More Deals To Make Better Buying Decisions

What ends up happening when small mailers are sent out is somebody’s going to call back. It’s going to generally fit your acquisition criteria but there’s going to be some questionable issues. It’s human nature to sit down, especially for an entrepreneur and say, “I’m going to make this deal work. It’s right next to a gas station and it’s an old dump. I see the beauty in this that no one else sees. I’m sure I can make this deal work.” You spend a month on it.

There’s some stuff in Discord where people are asking over and over the same type of question but in a different way. The fact is they shouldn’t be buying the property. What they should be doing is focusing on bringing in more properties to find one. Once a month, maybe more. 9 times out of 10, I don’t even know what we buy. Jill and her staff got it figured out. Once in a while, she’ll come to me and say, “Look at this.” I fall out of my chair. It’s such a good deal.

When you give yourself ample opportunities to succeed and you have that feeling like, 'We're buying this,' that is what you're teaching your brain to look for subconsciously. You will make some dough doing that. Share on X

I’ve put her and her staff in a position where there are so many deals to review. 1, 2, or 3 of them a month is staggering. The person who runs Land Academy wrote these topics, which I’m going to ask her to do in the future because they’re good topics. You have to have a ton of property that you’re considering. It will become automatic. You don’t want to see something. I had a huge problem with this when I started in real estate. You want to be successful, get it moving, start doing deals, make money, and quit your job. That’s what we all want. Sometimes I want to quit the job that I have.

I’m going to add that to the list here.

When you give yourself so much opportunity to succeed and you have that feeling like, “We’re buying this,” that is what you’re teaching your brain subconsciously to look for. You will make some dough doing that. Join us again where we discuss using your money to fund a real estate deal. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill, information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.