This is episode number 2218. Jill and I are talking about the role of persuasion in buying and selling land. Persuasion is such a scary word.

Yeah, I was going to ask.

I didn’t write this time.

I didn’t either. I don’t persuade anybody to do anything.

I think that’s the episode, then. What do you do? What are the words that you would use?

Good fit. “Do you want to buy land? I have land to sell.”

Facilitator.

“Does this work for what you need?” No, it’s too small.” “Okay. Get on my buyer’s list. You’ll know when I get one in the right size because I’m definitely not going to go shopping for you.” I’ve done that the wrong way.

Setting Expectations For Mailer Response Time

Is there no role in persuasion?

No. I guess we’re done.

I guess that’s the whole episode.

Okay.

Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy Member Discord Forum and take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request.

Tara wrote, “Hello, everyone. Quick question. How long does it usually take to start getting calls from your mailers? We sent ours last week, on Wednesday, and I was thinking people started receiving them Friday or Saturday. Am I right in thinking calls will begin this week? Thanks so much in advance.” No. Tara, it takes a minute. Do you know what’s interesting? The only mail that I know that I can somewhat rely on is if I pay for overnight delivery. Normal mail in our system, we’re trying to make this, how do I say this, inexpensive and efficient.

The question is, how long does it take?

I actually don’t know.

It takes a week.

It takes more than a week, I think, in some areas.

It says it takes a week to ten days, depending on where you’re sending it. If you use Offers 2 Owners, it’s coming out. Jill and I own Offers 2 Owners. Our mail gets dropped off at the actual post office. It’s not a substation or any of that stuff. It’s not logical. It depends on where you’re sending the letters. The way that we do our mailers, we’re not sending it to the land. We’re obviously sending it all over the country because that’s where people own land in different states, in different places. The vast majority of the mail should hit between 7 and 10 days from the time that it gets approved, and then O2O says yes. The vast majority.

There’s always tracking.

Send out 10,000 letters and let the mail do its job. You’ll have people calling back who are interested in getting a check from you. Share on X

Yes, there’s tracking.

Tara, I would say, too, for this, just go into O2O. There’s a tracking system that you can see when it’s delivered, number one. Number two, you can put your own little letter in there. There’s a thought.

We do that on every mailer.

I will say this. The day that you think something’s wrong, usually, within 24 hours, it’s going to hit because that’s what happens most of the time. You’re like, “Never mind.”

It’s the opposite in a marriage. The day that you think everything’s right, something goes wrong.

The Anti-Persuasion Approach To Land Deals

It’s about to. All right, this episode’s topic, the role of persuasion in land buying and selling. You know what? Maybe the whole point is I’m not doing that. There’s no persuasion. However, people do that. People cold-call sellers all the time. Not only do they cold call them, but they repeatedly hit them. That’s a whole thing. How many times do you text this person? How many times do you call this person?

Usually, it happens in SFRs. That’s just their way of doing business. “When do you want to sell? When are the kids going to college?” I don’t know. That’s persuasion to me. That’s really trying to talk someone to selling and really almost wearing them down. I don’t do that. Here’s an example. I’ve been in sales pretty much my whole life. Before Land Academy, I had 20 to 25 years of sales experience before I got here.

In all of my jobs, the customers came to me. The customers walked in the door, and the customers called us and everything. I had one job. I’ve had retail, and I’ve worked at an ice cream shop. I worked on all kinds of different things. I worked for American Airlines Reservations. I did all of these different things. I had one job. I didn’t make it two weeks where I had to do outbound calling, outbound to sell something. I hated it. I love being a salesperson, but going that direction, I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the bandwidth for it. It sucked. You have to call and get to the right person and then do this and do that and that to try to make a sale. I hated it. That would be persuasion. Do you want to ask me a question?

Not yet.

The whole point I want to make is everything that we do, and I’m not talking money into anything, ever. They’re calling me. I can either solve the problem or I can’t. They’re calling me to sell their property. By the way, they may really want to sell and I don’t like their price, I’m saying no. When they call me back sometimes, they’re like, “No, I don’t want $5,000. I want $50,000.”

Their job is now to try to sell me and they’re not going to because I’m not going to pay $50,000. We part ways. There’s no persuasion. It’s getting on the same page quickly, seeing if they have what I want, which is the right property. They’re trying to see if I’m going to pay the price they want. It has to go both ways. If there’s not a match, it’s not going to happen.

The Mailer As A Problem-Solving Tool (No Persuasion Required)

When I designed this system of mailers in the late ‘90s, it was rooted in my disgust for talking to people and selling anything. The theory was this. Instead of reaching out to these people on the telephone, which is what other people were doing in a very localized area, because you can only make so many calls or knock on doors, why not send everybody a letter? Yeah, it’s expensive upfront. Let’s send out 10,000 letters and let the mail do its job.

Now you’ve got people who are calling back who are interested in getting a check from you. You’re not selling them something you’re interested in if they see it this way. Helping them solve the problem, getting rid of an asset that they don’t have any value for any longer, if they ever did. That should all work. You send out the mail, and you do nothing. The mail comes back. There are 100 people who are interested in selling their property. It’s a 1% kind of response.

Some of those people want a different price. Some of those people want to tell you off for whatever reason because that’s just the way the world is. Some of those people really want to sell you a piece of property. You should let that work for you. There should not be any persuasion there. There should be, “I’m willing to pay what I sent the offers on there. If you’re interested in that, I can come off of it a little bit. Otherwise, have a nice day. If you end up really wanting to sell it six months from now, please give me a call.”

You warm them up. That tells them where I’m coming from. By the time they call me, they know what I’m willing to do, and it works or it doesn’t work. Most of the time, they’re like, “Can you make it this?” Again, it’s the situation. That’s all we’re doing. I’m going to end on this. I’m not talking to anybody on anything. I don’t persuade anybody to do anything. Jack is a different story.

There’s some persuasion that goes on in our personal relationship.

Yes, there it is. It’s not Holiday Inn. There’s persuasion and there’s, and then there’s, what’s the word I’m looking for? What’s the, like I just put you in a position? I don’t know.

I gave several words for that.

Thanks. Not coercion. I don’t know. Join us next time for more interesting land-related topics.

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