Land Investment: Side Hustle vs. Career + Hiring & Training Transaction Coordinators (LA 1967)

Join us for Land Academy episode 1967 as we delve into crucial topics: “The Difference Between A Side Hustle And Your Career In Land Investment,” and “How To Hire And Train A Transaction Coordinator Who Can Also Effectively Answer The Phones.” Get a sneak peek into our Land Academy member discord at https://landacademy.com/discord/ and feel free to reach out to us with your questions at 480-530-7383. Don’t miss out on these essential strategies for success!

Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:
I am Steven Jack Butala.

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

Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,968 and today we are talking about the difference between a side hustle and your career in land investment. And then a little later we’re going to talk about how to hire and train a transition coordinator who can also effectively answer the phones. Both of these topics were requested pretty seriously in Discord.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, I was going to say too, I think we’ve been doing so much transition in our office, I think you said transition coordinator instead of transaction coordinator. So let me just clarify that too, because you know what? There’s a time for both.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
Right now in our companies, Jack is the transition coordinator.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s true.

Jill K DeWit:
Which is, “You over there. You over there. You, we may not have a home for. And you, you’re in,” kind of thing. That’s the transition coordinator.

Steven Jack Butala:
When are we not going through a transition? That’s my question.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh my gosh. I know. Even between us it’s a constant transition.

Steven Jack Butala:
When you’re younger, you say, “This is going to happen and this is going to happen.” This is what men do. “And this is going to happen, and by the time I’m 28, this is going to happen. And then pretty much by the time I’m 32, 34 years old, it’s over. All the transitioning is over. Everything’s locked in, it’s on autopilot and we’re good.” And that just never happens.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that’s not what women do. So this is actually probably not bad then. We’re never disappointed. So if you’ve had all those things… Oh, hold on a moment. Just hold on a second though.

Steven Jack Butala:
Women are never disappointed. That’s the show for next week.

Jill K DeWit:
Not with that stuff. No, but I mean, you have your plan and you said it never goes like that. But so, here’s the beauty of it, for us, we have simple goals, but we don’t have a timeline plan like that, so it’s easier to not be disappointed/however, we do have a thing called a biological clock and that does kick in sometimes and nobody… And that’s one of the hard parts for women. It’s like bursting out in tears when you’re reading Hallmark cards, you don’t know when it’s coming.

Steven Jack Butala:
See, to me, through those two things lead to disappointment. A biological clock and Hallmark cards lead to disappointment, not positive stuff.

Jill K DeWit:
No, it’s okay. Depends on when you’re buying a Hallmark card. Maybe it’s for your best friend saying, “Congratulations on your divorce.” Just kidding.

Steven Jack Butala:
That isn’t negative.

Jill K DeWit:
I know.

Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars and take a deep dive into two land related topics, by popular request. If you want a sneak peek of our discord forum, go to landacademy.com. It’s free. I think it’s under the tools tab.

Jill K DeWit:
I meant to say congratulations on your baby. I didn’t mean to go negative. Yeah. Okay. Oh, and by the way too, if you want us to answer your questions right here on this show or you need some help getting involved, don’t forget, you can just text my team. It’s 4-8-0… Oh, what is it? 4-8-0-5-3-0-73-83. They are read, you will get a response. Thanks. So Austin wrote, “Here is a blow-by-blow update.”

Steven Jack Butala:
One second, I just set this up. If you haven’t sent a mailer out, this is exactly what you can expect to happen. I actually love this entry in Discord.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, good. Okay, so mailer number 1, which was 4,000 units sent on August 1st, and we’re on day 3 of having the mail hit the mailboxes.

Steven Jack Butala:
About two weeks later.

Jill K DeWit:
Perfect. 11 hate calls in, of the 11, 7 or so have said, went from degrees of anger to, “Is your head screwed on straight?” To, “Value the service you’re providing and will hang on to your letter when it’s time to sell.” Oh, I see. So we have different anger… Are you nuts too? I don’t know, but I’ll hang onto it, kind of thing. Credits to Jill and Jack’s deescalation techniques and friendly, respectful, sir, ma’am, Mr., Mrs., in our responses. That makes a difference.

Steven Jack Butala:
Way to go, adjusting to your inbound sellers.

Jill K DeWit:
And calming them down.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep. So one caller today has three properties to sell and wants to talk to his wife and get back to us tomorrow. It’s probably a $60,000 to $90,000 acquisition. We’ll keep you all apprised. Comments and feedback are welcome on point in time progress. And then came back, “Assessed on August 15th. Where would you all recommend I go for a strong near complete template operating agreement for a land investing LLC, articles of formation are Denver, single member LLC?” I’m guessing, operating. Oh, I’m just guessing for title work, they just need an operating agreement.

Steven Jack Butala:
What happened is he sent a mailer out, 4,000 unit mailer out, two weeks later calls started coming in. You got a bunch of hate. This is a template of what you can expect, bunch of hate. And then several people say, “I’m not sure I’m ready to sell now, but possibly in the end.” So you can see how multiple mailers build over time and then one person says, “Yeah, I’ve got three properties and I’m pretty interested in selling.”

Jill K DeWit:
Got to talk to my wife.

Steven Jack Butala:
And then what I meant to say here, and 15 days later, from this entry, he’s asking for an LLC operating agreement, because he’s getting funding to buy these properties.

Jill K DeWit:
Moving forward.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what’s happening. Yay. And so I think I put this entry in here to give everybody a very, very straightforward, honest, and accurate expectation for what happens with a mailer. Some people who have a sales background and who have kind of a numbers background, like Jill and I have, respectively, are elated with these results. I sent out 4,000, by the time the mailer’s over, he’s going to buy several properties, maybe, let’s just say, three to five. He’s going to get a lot more hate and he’s going to get a lot of people that are going to, just hanging on their refrigerator and think about it.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, even day 3.

Steven Jack Butala:
Those are amazing results.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, even day 3.

Steven Jack Butala:
Amazing results for any marketing campaign. What matters is he buys one great property and makes 50 to 80 to 100,000 bucks.

Jill K DeWit:
Right. Then it pays for the dumb mailer and then everything else is gravy.

Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re not numbers oriented, I put this in here, so maybe you can start thinking this way, because if you’re just going to focus on those 11 hate calls and not the actual property that you’re going to buy and make a ton of money on, that’s maybe not the best approach.

Jill K DeWit:
Understood.

Steven Jack Butala:
Congratulations. This is good. He’s a new member, he’s been very vocal, and we appreciate your participation.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic is the difference between a side hustle and your career in land investment. Which one is it for you, Jill? Are you still side hustling?

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, 100% side hustle. This is a total side hustle to my life, which is goofing off with you. Does that count?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yes.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
Mission accomplished there too.

Jill K DeWit:
It wasn’t always that way.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re in Livingston, Montana right now.

Jill K DeWit:
Just north of Yellowstone National Park. We have been loving this area and driving all around. Not appreciating the heat right now. Anyone in Montana, here, where are we? The middle of August, that we’re recording this, that it’s a little warm, but it’s awesome and beautiful and it’s just so great. So you know what’s interesting? May I start?

Steven Jack Butala:
Sure, sure.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. I see this as a progression for a lot of people. Since you asked me that question, this inspired this response and this thought, which is, this could very easily start out as something you do on a side while you have a W-2 job, because you’re being smart about this and you want to get it up and rolling. You want to get some money in the bank, you want to work out the kinks. Yeah, so what, you don’t have a lot of free time, big deal. You’re working on building this company on the side because then this could become your career, right? Then you get to someday… A lot of people, this is their goal, to ditch whatever they were doing, make this their career and then they can, gosh, they kind of get their lives back.
Your time is what you want it to be. You do deals when you want to do the deals. You do deals, have bigger, how smaller, how many you want to do in a week or a month. Dream it up. You work as hard as you want to work and make as much money as you want to make. Then, this is the kicker I hadn’t thought about until you just asked me that question, this could become… Then you could really scale it back down. What if you’re like, “I don’t want to work. I made so much money, you guys. This is happening. And now I want to just spend time with X and do whatever. So I’m going to kind of dial it back a little bit. It’s still my business, it’s still my main income, but I’m not working as hard as I wanted to, because I’m spending my time with my family, my grandkids, my RV trip.” Whatever it is.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think it always should start as a side hustle. Always. I’ll give you my personal anecdote or story here. I started buying and selling land, or investing in real estate in some way, around 1995, early ’95, and continued to do that casually until around 2000, when I did a deal as a side hustle, let’s call it. I don’t like the word side hustle, but everybody understands what it is so we’ll just call it a side hustle. It was a side business is what it is. It gives it a little bit more seriousness. Yeah, it’s a side business now, but it’s going to be my primary business. That should be your intent or kudos for having a side business. Geez. That’s how you get out of the doldrum of the W-2. So I think you should, you’re either going to succeed at this or succeed at some other side business until it’s your main business and you live happily ever after.
But anyway, from around 1995 to around 2000, I always had a pretty good W-2 job, and I would do the stuff on the weekends or at night. And I did an amazing deal, which netted over a million bucks and that’s when I walked in and said, “This is it.” And so my side hustle became my career in land. I would really encourage you to look at it that way and ask yourself, “Yeah, I love that land investment or I don’t. Maybe I’ll try something else if it’s not working out.” If the land investment thing’s working out, just put the pedal down to the floor, the gas pedal.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s not for everyone.

Steven Jack Butala:
I also have to tell you, this is a very personal note. I’ve picked up the guitar for probably the 19th time in my life and this time-

Jill K DeWit:
I’m so proud of you.

Steven Jack Butala:
… I’m convinced this time I’m going to actually learn how to play. But this time, what’s different is, the availability of what’s on the internet and learning is different from the last time I did it. So I’m taking lessons online, just on YouTube, I’m not even paying for it, and giving myself a practice schedule, putting it in a calendar and on and on and on. And I was thinking the other day, because this is kind of new for me, or is it?

Jill K DeWit:
It’s important to you now.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, or is it new? So I played in band in high school, so did Jill. I played the piano casually my entire life. I can generally read music and count and all that stuff, not very well, but I’m aware of it. Let’s just say that. I’m aware what music is and how it works. And so I’m going through this and I’m thinking to myself, “What if I was new at land trying to learn it? And what am I bringing to the table?” Well, this new guitar endeavor, I’m bringing to the table a general understanding of how music works. I’m not starting from a just cold start.
So if you have some type of experience, professional experience that lends itself so that you’re not starting from a cold start, it’s huge. It doesn’t feel that way when it’s happening. I feel like the worst guitarist that there ever was, which, I’m probably close to that person, but honestly I’m not starting cold, so I know what I’m getting myself into. My point is, I hope that you’ve got some type of experience you can bring to the table and not start cold. And if you do, you’re at a good advantage.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, what if you don’t?

Steven Jack Butala:
Then you’re going to have to work harder.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s totally okay.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You may have to spend a little more time doing some more research and recon before you dive in. So what? Follow this podcast for a year, if it takes that long for you to really feel comfortable and understand it. Follow our community, ask questions, watch all our videos and watch other people’s videos, there’s so much great stuff out there. Really try to understand what a deed is, the technical terms, all that good stuff. And like you said, you might have to work a little harder. I want to add one more thing on the guitar thing, which is, if this is really important, I’m glad that you’re doing this. And I think it’s because it’s important to you now, and so I was going to offer that I will try to learn to sing.

Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? Talk about a cold start.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t think there’s any saving my singing voice, which has never existed, so we’ll just leave it at that.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill has many talents in singing and dancing, and especially singing and dancing at the same time.

Jill K DeWit:
Hold on.

Steven Jack Butala:
It just doesn’t fall into that category.

Jill K DeWit:
Now, hold on a moment. I don’t think I suck at dancing as bad as I suck at singing, so give me a break there. Maybe, you know what? I might take some western dancing. That is what I would like to do. I would like to learn to step and do some other things. I think that would be really cool. Did we finish this topic sufficiently?

Steven Jack Butala:
I think so.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Everybody understands side hustle and your career in land. Hey, you know what?

Steven Jack Butala:
Side hustle leads to your career.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what I’m going to say too? I want to make this really… I need to hit this home. When you’re starting out like this, this is not going to be a five-hour week side hustle. You need to really decide if you’re going to do this because if you’re going to do it and do it right, and you want this to be your career, you’re pretty much going to give up other stuff in your life. It might be some trips that don’t happen, because some weekends your heads are down learning this stuff, but you can do that. We have many successful people that have come from really intense… PhD, like really, they have PhD. They have PhDs and they have careers that require PhDs, who said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” And so they probably work 60 or so hours a week and then they started this on the side.
So what does that mean? They’re up at 4:00 AM, and this is what their weekends are, but it’s not like that forever. So I want you to know this is not just a skip along the top side hustle. “Oh, I’m just going to learn it, and they’re going to hold my hand.” No, there’s stuff you got to do. You’re going to have to pick your own counties. You’re going to have to get the mail out. You’re going to have to answer the phone, but you know what? You got us right here. We will show you what to do and you can get there.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well said.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, do you have exciting news about Career Path?

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I do. And even Land Academy. There is, I don’t know if it’s happening today, but right about now there’s going to be a big announcement for some special stuff happening for people who want to join Land Academy, so check it out. Go to our Facebook page, go to Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Dream It Up. There’s probably some stuff on there, just point you in the right direction for a live announcement. So check out landacademy.com. And then of course, depending who you are and where you are in your career at this point, Career Path still has seats open. Career Path is our highest level mastermind coaching program. It’s eight weeks long. We take 15 to 20 people in a class. I have two classes going on this fall, they start at the end of September. And again, go to landacademy.com and under Resources, join one of the two. You’ll find it. Look for Career Path. It’s awesome.

Steven Jack Butala:
Instead of taking a question from our Discord channel like we always do on the show, I have something different that I think you might enjoy, listener. I’m going to ask Jill some questions, because Jill and I are celebrating, I think it’s 14 years working together.

Jill K DeWit:
2009. Sorry, 2009.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, 14 years. 14 or 15 years, coming on 15. And I’ve been thinking, because we have a really good crew, both vendors right now in Land Academy and a fantastic transaction coordinator, and just generally a great group of people in Land Academy. It’s taken a lot of years, we started Land Academy in 2015. And what I’ve really been thinking about is the synergy and the synergistic relationships, and working relationships, that we all have together, and how many people that didn’t work with in the beginning, to get to having these synergies. And then it’s like, when you get to this synergistic relationship that Jill and I have, there’s been many business partners that I’ve had before this, and Jill’s been in a lot of different professional and social roles also. So I guess my big question is to you, how do you achieve that? How do you achieve, ultimately…? I believe the root of my question is, I really believe most people don’t ever get here at all, socially and professionally, because-

Jill K DeWit:
With a partner?

Steven Jack Butala:
… they get comfortable in a situation that’s mediocre and don’t strive to get into a situation where there’s true synergistic energy.

Jill K DeWit:
With you and me?

Steven Jack Butala:
So what do you do? What would your advice be for people who are younger and maybe new at this, who don’t even know that they need to have some type of synergistic relationship, from a partnership standpoint or a vendor standpoint? When I say vendors, I mean a vendor… A great example for us is a great real estate agent who can liquidate property, and understands you. So what would your advice be to people who are trying to achieve that? Or what would you say?

Jill K DeWit:
A couple of things. Figure out how they communicate. I’m thinking, I love your third party, like a real estate agent. I’m using them. Do we connect? Are we on the same page, and do we want the same goals? And that sentence applies to you and me and it applies to me and real estate agent, fill in the blank, county, kind of thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
And employees and everything.

Jill K DeWit:
And employees, we all have the same goals. That’s huge. And then finding out how they communicate, and then trying to, as best I can, communicate with them, and how they need me to communicate. It doesn’t do any good for me to dig my heels in and say, “They need to read my mind. They need to understand what I mean and just do it my way.” Nah, it’s not going to really get to the same goal. Because if you both are doing that, if you’re both trying to… I’m understand them and they’re trying to understand me, and we’re trying to each meet in the middle, then you’re going to win. It’s awesome.
The other thing is, sit back, trust them to do their job and stay out of their way. And give them some time to do their job. Set some fair goals and achievements. Again, back to a broker that I might be working with, “When’s the listing going to be up?” And, “Did the photos come out good?” And that kind of a thing. Let them go off and do it. I don’t need to nitpick them and say, “I’m going to pick the lead photo. I’m going to pick the, whatever.” That’s stupid and it’s a waste of my time. What do I have them for if I’m doing that much work?

Steven Jack Butala:
Boy, I think you nailed it. And that’s what I was hoping you would say, is same goals. So if you have an employee that… Geez, employees take a job or seek a job for all kinds of different reasons. You would think it’s, no, they need a paycheck. That’s really just not the case. If you read surveys on how to have employees and keep employees happy, money is never even in the top three things. I’ve had a million employees over… Geez, I’ve had a lot of employees, and some of them come in and they just set up shop, and you can watch them literally do it. They bring in their coffee cup, they get their desk, they set it all up. That’s not the same goal that I have. The goal that I have is month over month, doing better.
So next month they’re going to do better than this month, and this month is better than last month and, “Hey, employee X, I need your help.” So now we have the same goals. If they’re like, “Are you kidding? How can I help? Yeah, I know you hired me over here to do this thing, but I’ve had some experience doing this other thing, and it looks like how you guys are doing it, maybe that’s not the best way.” Or maybe just, “Why don’t you let me get a crack at it and see how we…” Now we have the same goal. And I think that happens in a marriage and in all kinds of stuff. Are we all going down the same path here together or are we standing in each other’s way? And way more often than not, it’s the latter.

Jill K DeWit:
Getting in each other’s way?

Steven Jack Butala:
And I think that it’s very important for you to be successful in life, which is probably why you’re listening to this. There’s a point in every relationship, professionally or socially, where you say, “I’m no longer going to work on this. I’m dumping the baby with the bathwater, then I’m going to start again.” It’s very, very hard to decide where that line is.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s not necessarily, I mean…

Steven Jack Butala:
All the positive stuff we’re saying in the show, I just counteract.

Jill K DeWit:
I know that. I’m trying to figure out how to save this right now, and you went down this path and I’m like, “I don’t know if I can recover from this one.” This is awesome. I forgot. That’s my final one, save them, save them from themselves sometimes. They might be throwing out some things that are really important, like me.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, no, no. I’ve been thrown out way more than I’ve done the throwing out. Trust me.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s awesome. Oh, boy. Thanks. Good chat.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is how to hire and train a transaction coordinator who can also effectively answer the phones.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, I have done this.

Steven Jack Butala:
I know that’s why I put this in here. I figure you’re generally qualified to answer these questions and talk about this stuff.

Jill K DeWit:
I know how to do these. Yeah, I’ll tell you one. Well, here’s what’s funny, the minute you post an ad… So let me back up. What’s a transaction coordinator? Okay, you’re cruising along, your side hustle is now your real full-time business, and guess what? Now you’re getting busy and the minutia of babysitting title agents and making sure this got posted and wiring money, and, “Oh, they need a copy of my organization articles, because I have a new agent in this area, they need this stuff.” Fill in the blank. It just gets to be too much. You’re like, “It’s slowing me down. It’s keeping me from making money, which I should just be sending out the mail and getting the deals, moving through those deals. I don’t need to be doing the paperwork part.” That’s where a transaction coordinator comes in and they will organize it all. They take all of that off your plate.
So where do you find them? Well, the first place is, “All right, I’m going to go out and hire one.” Right? And I’ll tell you right now, the minute you put, wanted, or looking for, hiring land real estate transaction coordinator, here come 18,000 real estate agents-

Steven Jack Butala:
Failed real estate agents.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s the other thing. Because if they were really doing well and really busy, they’d have their own transaction coordinators, they’re not applying for your job. So it’s really interesting, I think they just see real estate, and then they just glom onto that. Or they think that, “I know how to book deals through the system.” Which I understand they’ve done deals and they followed them through the system, which really does make sense. I mean all of it does make sense, you’re like, “What are you are talking about, Jill? It sounds like they know how to do this stuff. Why wouldn’t they make a good transaction coordinator?” I haven’t figured that out. There’s some disconnect. Do you know what the disconnect is? And they’ve never done the transaction coordinator, but they’ve only been an agent, they will come find you.

Steven Jack Butala:
I have just probably incorrectly assumed that within the last several years, that’s some ideology out there about applying for every single job that’s got keywords in it. Maybe it’s even software.

Jill K DeWit:
That could be.

Steven Jack Butala:
And so I don’t think that there’s a person on the other end of your job posting that’s looking through 60 job postings and saying, “Oh, I might be good at this one. I might be good at this one.” There could be. It’s a numbers game, so you’re going to look at probably 30, 40, 80 people and one or two potentially get to the second round. I don’t know. That’s what we’re here to…

Jill K DeWit:
That could be.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re all hoping that you’re going to solve this for us.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, I will solve it. So what’s interesting is… But I’ve got on the phone with those people, honestly, and here’s the general consensus. They’re like, “I’ve been a real estate agent, and I’m tired of these investors making all this money. So I need to get going down that path of being an investor myself, and then I saw you guys.” This is what happens to me, “Then I saw you guys, and you’re a Land Academy, so I’m going to come in and learn from you.” But there’s still a disconnect. I haven’t figured that out yet. Well, I guess I have. They just don’t have it in them sometimes. So fast-forward, we’re going to push that point aside here. So who do you hire? “Okay, Jill, I got that part.” You know what you really want? You want a really organized, detailed person whom, in a perfect world, has prior escrow experience and can speak the language of many different kinds of people, if you will. Very, very good communication skills. That’s what I have.
What’s really interesting is, my number one primary transaction coordinator is also a licensed agent/however, this is what she loves. She did this forever. And she’s just so flipping good at it. She likes having 80 deals at a time on her plate, that’s her happy place. So that’s what I’m saying.

Steven Jack Butala:
She has the same goals as Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, she calls me when she’s bored, like, “I need more deals. I don’t know what to do.” She’s looking for stuff to do. She goes digging. This is the best part. When you find the right person, they’re going to go digging and go, “Do you know you still own that property? I just got a tax bill for it. It slipped through the cracks.” Like, “Yes, thank you.” “You want me to get it posted for you and find an agent?” “Yeah.” That’s the right transaction coordinator.

Steven Jack Butala:
I agree.

Jill K DeWit:
So that’s who you’re looking for, and you need to have these hard conversations with them. You need to ask a lot of questions and don’t be afraid to put them through some tests, like make sure they can handle Excel. Make sure whatever your CRM’s going to be, they’re using, I use Airtable, make sure they can handle that stuff. They don’t have to be a pro coming into it, but they need to be able to understand it. If they’re an older escrow agent, which is great, some of them might have a transition from paperwork to that. So I again am very, very, very fortunate, mine’s a rockstar. Did just great, loves it. So how do I train them? You know what? You spend some time with them. So we did, personally.

Steven Jack Butala:
I have personal stuff to say about this, and I can’t wait to hear your answer. How do you train them?

Jill K DeWit:
For me, personally, we sat together for a couple of weeks in the office and just did stuff together. And she got to know me and how my brain is wired and I got to know her and how she does stuff, and we came up with some solutions together, like, “Here’s how I put these in.” She’s like, “Well, can you do it like this because it’s faster for me?” “No problem.” We worked out the kinks together for just a couple of weeks and that was it. The other thing is, she was really good at going out and finding… Not even at the beginning, but I showed her the way with YouTube videos and she’ll very nicely say that it’s very cute. I’m like, “Instead of asking me, it’s probably on YouTube.” And it was just a little switch, little light bulb switch. She’s like, “Oh, yeah.” So that was a good training tool for me too, just reminding her that there’s other resources out there that are free, to get you what you need. And then you come to me when it’s like, “Okay, this is big.” Or this is something, or whatever it is.

Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t believe in training. I’ve said this to our managers, and I continue to say it. If you hire somebody under you that needs to be trained, they’re not the right person. Whatever you’re hiring for, as a manager, and what you need that person to do, they should be exceedingly better at it than you ever hope to be. And they should be coming to you with years and years, as many years as possible, of experience in whatever you’re training them do. IT is always a great thing. So if you’re somebody that is a good web designer/programmer, the person that they’re going to report to, and certainly in our case, the person that they report to just is a very good manager. They’re good at managing and keeping people on track and keeping employees happy, and on and on and on. They shouldn’t be good at exactly what that person is hired for. So the training really should be called acclimation. Acclimating.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s what it is.

Steven Jack Butala:
Acclimating. “You’re great at being transaction coordinator already. I can see that. You’ve done 30+ deals a month for the last 22 years.” In Jan’s case, I think that’s pretty close to it. “But you probably haven’t used the software that we’re using. So here’s the deal with our software. Here’s kind of what I expect.” And I know Jill’s style is ridiculously hands off. In a perfect world, Jill talks to the TC once a week, so that might be new for them. And, “Oh, by the way, here’s this thing called Land Academy that we have running over here. You and I are just going to go do real estate deals, but we got this thing over here, and every Thursday we talk to everybody. So please show up for that.” And then that’s about it.

Jill K DeWit:
He’s right. I didn’t train her anything, on how to do a deal, close a deal, open an escrow, close escrow, if anything. Here’s the best part, you know when you got a good one, when they train other escrow agents how to do their jobs. That has happened. There’s times that we’ve had things where we’re dealing with an escrow in four states over, and my TC goes, “All right, here’s how you solve the problem with this.” Fill in the blank. She gets the deals done, she’s that good.

Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s how you get hired in one of our companies. You come in and after a half hour of answering questions and listening, you say some version of this, “That’s really interesting that you guys do it this way, but I think I might have a better solution. Because I did this thing over here a year ago for this company that I worked with, and it worked really, really, really well. And I think that you’re trying to accomplish the same thing that they are. And there’s this newer software product that I think can help us get it there. So I’m happy to do it your way, but I think there might be a better, more efficient, newer solution.” Hired on the spot.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s it.

Steven Jack Butala:
No ego here.

Jill K DeWit:
I wish there was a way-

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s no managerial… We don’t put up with it in any of our companies. There’s no egos, we’re just trying to get to the finish line.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So when you’re putting your posting together, you’re going to say transaction coordinator, but the very first line needs to say, Hey, I’d like you to have 10+ years of escrow experience, and let me know what CRMs you’re comfortable with, or how you did your…” 10+ years and maybe doing 50 deals a month, plus. Then you know you got a person that’s solved some problems and been through some things. So I am so fortunate. Your other thing, who’s going to answer the phones? I think because mine, she’s just so good, she’s good on the phones with everybody. She can talk to sellers, she can talk to buyers, she can talk to every escrow person. I’ve even learned from her, she takes a step back and asks the escrow agent, “Do you like text, email, phone calls, instant message. How do you want me to communicate with you when I need to get you for something?”

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s perfect. You should learn from the people you hire.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
This gets confusing, especially for, I think, people that are really young or people who have been trained in a huge company. Geez, I’ll throw some names out there, like Starbucks has an amazing customer service type program, a training program that everybody goes through. I know some of the really big companies like Microsoft and assembly car companies like Toyota and General Motors have acclimation programs and training, and what they’re expecting, and certainly healthcare. If you ever have had a healthcare job, months and months of training to acclimate into the system and software and all that. So when you start to bring people in, they’re expecting, this is a huge red flag for me, “So when does my training start?” It doesn’t start.

Jill K DeWit:
Let’s get to work.

Steven Jack Butala:
You should be improving all of this in about the second hour after you sign out of HR. And so that’s very hard for people to swallow. They kind of want to get on the escalator, or that conveyor thing in the… Not necessarily going up. Geez, I don’t mean going up. I mean flatly, just get on that thing at the airport, so you don’t have to walk.

Jill K DeWit:
So that’s really what I meant. The escalator?

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a pretty serious joke in there. Most employees-

Jill K DeWit:
It’s a people mover, conveyor belt thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
Most employees want to get on that conveyor belt so they don’t have to walk, don’t have to carry any luggage, and just get off of it at 5:05.

Jill K DeWit:
Here I am again, saving the day. I love it. All right, let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from one of our weekly Thursday closed member webinar calls.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something inspirational to share this week?

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I was talking with Christopher, who works with us, who’s new with us, and has been helping me answer questions when people call in and they’re like, “I want to talk about Land Academy. I think this might be for me.” Kind of thing. And one of the common things that comes up is people, they’re all excited. They call in, they’re like, “This is great, this is great. Okay, I’m in. I love it. I know this is what I want to do. I’ve been following you guys for a year. I’ve saved up this much money. I’ve done all the things you said.” I’m like, “All right, well let’s go. We’re right here. You did this, this, and this? You understand it?” “Yep.” “You know about this.” “Yep, I know about that.” “Okay, so let’s go.” And they’re like, “Yeah, let’s go.” And then they don’t and then they don’t and then they don’t. They’re procrastinating, right?

Steven Jack Butala:
Can you read the title?

Jill K DeWit:
I will get to the title.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to work it in. I was intrigued by this title that you wrote. So I’m sorry, go ahead. I’ll just sit here quietly and listen.

Jill K DeWit:
Please. Preferably on your hands. So anyway, this title came from Christopher, because he’s experiencing it too. And he has done similar, helped answered phone calls for people in other worlds, other companies, other things, kind of some coaching related, right? And this comes up, and as you say, over here at Land Academy it still comes up, and it’s getting over fear disguised as procrastination. So what I want to talk about for a few minutes is this procrastination. And there’s usually a fear. There’s something you haven’t uncovered that’s holding you back. And often I have found there’s one fear, there’s one common fear that everybody has, keeping them from finally jumping in and doing this. And do you know what it is?

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez. What was the biggest fear to stop somebody from jumping in? Commitment?

Jill K DeWit:
Failing.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh.

Jill K DeWit:
Just failing. Just like, “Well, what if I screw up?”

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, I was talking about me, and fear of commitment.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s very true.

Steven Jack Butala:
I know I’m going to fail, or whatever [inaudible]. I know about failure.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to give you… Rub your chest. That’s a very real feeling too.

Steven Jack Butala:
I know I’m going to fail at whatever I start. I can get over that.

Jill K DeWit:
If you don’t commit, that’s going to fail. That’s true. Yes. Okay. Yeah, that’s what I get for asking you. All right, I’m asking you, listener.

Steven Jack Butala:
Just having my own thoughts. Sorry.

Jill K DeWit:
All right, there you go. So it’s usually failure. And you know what? And so what’s the worst thing that can happen? Think about this for a moment. So flipping what? What if you get in, you do something wrong, you make a mistake, so what? You’re not going to do that again? You pick yourself up, you dive right back in and you move forward. You learn from those mistakes, number 1. Number 2 I’m going to tell you, one of the great things about the world that we float around in is we’re here to help. And it’s, I’m here to help you. And there’s so many people in Land Academy. I love these conversations. I pop in and pop out of Discord, which is our online community where everybody, the members, chat and talk, because I’m like, “Y’all don’t need me?” I love it. There’s so much helping going on there. So much, “Hey, I got the money. I’ll fund that deal.” So much, “Oh, I’ve got a photographer over here. I’ve got a title agent over here.” Or, “Here’s how you solve this problem.”
I’m like, you guys, it’s like this beautiful little bubble where everybody’s helping each other. So that’s another nice thing. You have this resource group to even keep you from making mistakes, but don’t worry, you know what? You’re still going to do it. You’re still going to make a mistake. Do I make mistakes still? Oh, my gosh, yes. Not the stupid ones. I forgot to ask about HOA, I learned that one. Or how much is the HOA, the transfer fees? I’ve even learned that since Land Academy. I forgot to ask that question, I got hit with a couple of thousand dollars transfer fees. I’m like, “Well great. I’ll never do that again.” So what? You are going to make mistakes, so you have to move past that. Do you have any other things that, other than commitment, that you think people might…? Well, it’s failure, is my biggest one why people… They’re afraid of failing, is procrastinating.
So I have another one. I’m going to think before I let you answer that.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
So another one I think-

Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible] When you’re ready.

Jill K DeWit:
… people are afraid of is the time involved. And you’re just going to have to get over that one and swallow it, I think. Because it’s not the money. I think they might sometimes not get over the time. Like, “I’m going to have to give up some stuff.” Yeah, you will, but it’s not forever. It’s like starting anything. Gosh, when you go to college, what if you want to be a doctor? You can’t be a doctor part-time. You’re going to put your head down in it and then you’re going to come up for air and probably not have to work as hard as you did in college. But you got there.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think there’s a real huge difference between liking the idea of something and actually doing it, or succeeding at it, or having what it takes to get through. Having what it takes to get to the other side where it’s like, “Wow, this is how I thought this was going to be.” I watched some documentary a few years ago about a guy building a tiny house, when tiny houses were really a thing. And so he started filming it and he was all excited about it. He’s got the plans, got a lot of experience as a carpenter and the whole thing, he’s totally qualified to do it. Do the show and do the construction project done. And so he started it, got all the materials and began the whole project. And then there’s a lot of time-lapse in the middle, and he stops right in the middle and says, he looks at the camera and says, “It’s way over budget and it’s taking two years instead of three months.”
He looks at the camera and says, “In every project, there’s a beginning, a middle and the end. And the middle is terrible. The beginning is fun and the outcome is a blast, but the middle is awful and it costs more and it takes longer than you think.” And that’s always stuck with me, obviously. And I think that’s a big issue. I think at some point you get hung up saying, “This is too hard.” Or, “Whatever’s going to be on the other end of this, the end of it, this isn’t worth it.” That’s why so many people drop out of medical school. It’s like, you know what? I can go make some money now and do this.

Jill K DeWit:
We’re in the middle of this, and it is hard.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well said. That’s a perfect example. I also think, personally, I can tell you-

Jill K DeWit:
What is the end?

Steven Jack Butala:
I can tell you why I start something and don’t finish it, it’s almost always because there’s a component that I can’t stand. I loath it. And so I finished this Land thing with Jill because she does the part that I loath. And so you got to sub that stuff out. That’s why, I’ve started several things, business-wise, professionally, and stopped, because it’s like, “I got to talk on the phone all day to sell this thing? No way.” The greatest thing that ever happened for me was the internet, because it stopped me from talking to people. I can get all kinds of things done really effectively, efficiently, communication wise-

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, thank God for email.

Steven Jack Butala:
I can communicate to 6,000 people all at once, which I do often. Or I can post something on Facebook, or whatever, and send some message out about this deal that we did, and never have to talk to a soul. And so talking to people, to me, is very inefficient. And so it’s stopped me… I’ve always been really jealous of people like Jill, who just wake up in the morning and they’re ready to go, “Hey, let’s try this new thing. I’m going to tell this person, this person and this person. Let’s see what they’ve got. And maybe this person over here has got a new thing. And we’ll see how it goes.” I’m just not that.

Jill K DeWit:
I understand.

Steven Jack Butala:
It all has to be in a spreadsheet. I have to know how it’s going to end before I start, let me put it that way. Which actually leads me to my topic.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m going to finish on this. So getting over fear disguised as procrastination, what do you do? You accept it. The fear is usually something. You have to identify what it is and then you have to accept it. So you could be afraid of making a mistake. You could be afraid of commitment. You could be afraid of, I don’t know, doing too well. Maybe like, “What’s going to happen?” Some people, I think that’s a real thing. You could be afraid of, “I’m going to have to hire.” I don’t know. So there’s lots of different things. So you have to figure out what it is and just understand and accept it and know… What’s so funny?

Steven Jack Butala:
You could be afraid of your new career as a Canadian stripper.

Jill K DeWit:
That could be.

Steven Jack Butala:
Which is valid.

Jill K DeWit:
And so I am procrastinating showing up for work. Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
This makes complete sense to me, because there’s a lot of parts to that job that I would enjoy, but…

Jill K DeWit:
Well, let’s end on this. Let’s at least do this. I’m trying to think of one thing that I… Well, you procrastinated learning the guitar, even though you forever wanted to do it. What was the fear? Or why were you procrastinating?

Steven Jack Butala:
Because honestly, because I didn’t think I could do it.

Jill K DeWit:
There you go. So that’s a perfect one and I love that. We could end on that. Because that was the third thing I wanted to bring up, and I didn’t. Which is, you’re afraid you don’t have what it takes. You’re afraid you’re not cut out, you’re afraid you’re not smart enough, afraid you can’t figure it out. You know what? You just might have to work harder. So what?

Steven Jack Butala:
The truth is, I know I can figure it out. It’s just how much effort is it going to take?

Jill K DeWit:
There you go. And if you really want it, you’ll do it. That’s it. Hey, Jack, do you have something to share with us today?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, my little talk here is called, Deconstructing Your Way to Success. So like I alluded to just a minute ago, if I want to start down the path of doing something, anything, I don’t care if it’s fixing the sink, taking a four-month trip with the Jill on the RV all over the country, buying and selling a piece of land, or geez, raising a child, and this is true, I have to sit down. And I’m consciously, I’m not letting stuff happen to us, or happening to me, or happening to Jill and I together, or our family, our kids. I hate that. I’m not going to let stuff happen. I’m going to put it all together and we’re going to go down the path with a reasonable expectation of variance and adjustment. But I am going to deconstruct the whole thing, the RV trip, or the raising of a child, all the way to the point where they’re 19 or 20 years old.
Spreadsheet it out, put some timeframes together, usually associate money with it, and then go to work on the small little parts that it takes to get to that long-term point of success. That’s deconstruction your way into success. I’m actually writing a whole thing about it right now. Because I think that’s something, I have no idea why, it becomes very natural to Jill and very natural… When I met Jill, she was all already all like this. It wasn’t something… I didn’t sit it down and say, “Hey, …”

Jill K DeWit:
That sounds like, “She was already like this.” Sounds like I’m like a scatterbrained, crazy person.

Steven Jack Butala:
I didn’t sell her anything and say, “Hey, come over to my side. It’s better.” Nothing like that happened. She just already was, so minus a spreadsheet, but she had her way. Like she said earlier, we had the same goal, way the heck out there. As far as you can see, it was the same goal. And she did it with little notebooks from CVS.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
But I did it in Excel, and the outcome is the same and it’s still the same. So she was, without probably calling it that, deconstructing her way into succeeding at whatever it is. “I’ve got to make 62 sales, phone calls, to do this, to get to this point, to make this amount of money so I can buy a new watch.” In Jill’s case, that was usually her goal. Still is actually,

Jill K DeWit:
That’s hilarious.

Steven Jack Butala:
The mortgage, forget it. Jack will pay stuff like that. Seriously.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s awesome. That’s funny.

Steven Jack Butala:
But I really do think that being conscious of what your goals are and writing it down, whatever makes sense to you, writing it down and understanding it and setting tiny little goals up, is essential. I don’t know any other way.

Jill K DeWit:
In Land Academy that’s called The Equity Planner.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yes. That’s-

Jill K DeWit:
If you’re in Land Academy, you know what I’m talking about. A couple of years ago he had this for us… Was it the 24-month millionaire?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, we called it that originally.

Jill K DeWit:
Originally. And then it became The Equity Planner. And all it is, is a spreadsheet showing, where do you want to be? You can fill in at the end of the spreadsheet, “I want, in 24 months or 12 months, I want X amount of money in the bank.” All right, put that in there. And then a lot of it, he calculated it in there too. You put in how many deals you want to do, how hard you want to work, and then it lets you know you got to send out this much mail, you got to plan for this, you got to do this many deals, and they need to be… You can adjust to, based on how many deals you want to do. Then you’re like, “Okay, then I’ll do less deals, but they need to yield more profit.” No brainer.
And then this is everything that Jack’s saying right now. When you look at it, then you’re like, “Oh, well, when you look at it like that, now I only got to do two deals a month, and they have to each make at least 50 grand. Well, hello. I can do two deals a month. I could do that standing on my head. I’m going to try for three deals a month, and then I know if I screw up, I know I’m going to get my two deals a month.” Kind of thing. There you go.

Steven Jack Butala:
I mean the personal selfish truth about why I do this, because it takes the stress out of it for me. So now it’s like, “Well, I’m not a millionaire yet.” You can sit around after three years of trying to do something and say, “This doesn’t work.” Well, it didn’t work because you didn’t, from day one, deconstruct the whole thing, take it all apart and then give yourself one tiny little goal to do this week, or the next three days. And now you’re working two hours a day on something, and you will have more money than you ever would’ve thought you would’ve had within that timeframe, and you only had to do two hours a day, or whatever that ends up being for you. However you deconstruct it.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s so good. It’s so much easier to swallow.

Steven Jack Butala:
Laziness. All this stuff is born out of laziness.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m going to argue it makes you a happier person too, because you often come up and go, “I’m done. I’ve nothing else to do today.” You could work ahead, burn yourself out even too, but he’s like, “No, I’m on exactly the right trajectory. I got everything accomplished. It’s going exactly as planned, and I’m happy.”

Steven Jack Butala:
When I was younger, I would work way ahead, but not anymore. You’re right. I don’t want the stress.

Jill K DeWit:
I agree. Hey, don’t forget, you can reach us for questions and help simply by texting 4-8-0-5-3-0-73-83.

Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We’re Jack and Jill information…

Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s buy undervalued property. Out.

https://youtu.be/WSsL8OUrFaU

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