Member Travis Jenkins Interview (LA 1249)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Butala:
Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala-
Jill DeWit:
And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala:
Today, we have member extraordinaire Travis Jenkins from I think Dallas, Travis?
Travis Jenkins:
Houston.
Steven Butala:
Houston, okay [crosstalk 00:00:18]. Travis is and has been our number one O2O Offers 2 Owners user and taken The Land Academy Program, in my opinion, to places that Jill and I have taken and really has used it as Jill and I intended for it to be used at like an institutional business level since the beginning. Travis, most of the questions that I have for you today center around that exact concept.
Travis Jenkins:
Welcome, by the way. Thank you.
Steven Butala:
We had the good fortune to have a little bit of a pre-show discussion, but when you joined Land Academy, did intend to use it as a super user and send out the level of mail that you're sending out? Did you intend for this to be this successful for you?
Travis Jenkins:
I hoped so. I saw the potential of the business, and I've been studying business models for several years and I used to teach business. I'm going to give you a very indirect answer. The goal was, yes. From a business standpoint, there is a value triangle and I saw that there is... this is one of the few business models where you can fulfill all three sides of a value triangle, which is quick, fast, and cheap.
Jill DeWit:
Love it.
Travis Jenkins:
Most times, you can either do it quick... I said quick and fast, so quality, fast, and cheap, that's actually what it is, so you can either do it fast with quality and it's not going to be cheap, or any of those other two sides. When you can fulfill all three of those sides, it puts you in a different stratosphere as far as a business is concerned. I owned a construction company, and so we sold value so we didn't sell to the cheap home improvement remodeling, we sold to the quality-minded people, which meant we were not cheap, right?
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Travis Jenkins:
We always fulfilled those two parts of that triangle, and so that precluded us from slowing down during tough economic times because people with money still was doing remodeling. They were still doing remodeling. It's just a way of looking at a business model. I saw that early on. I also systemized my business to where I didn't have to work in it, and it may sound like I'm brilliant with it and I come up with that on my own [crosstalk 00:03:35]-
Steven Butala:
You don't sound brilliant. Don't worry.
Travis Jenkins:
Thank you for that, but I have to tell you that these ideas and these discoveries come from losing everything. I had built a very successful business, and then I lost somebody in my family and it took a very dramatic turn to where I wasn't able to be present in the business the way I should. We were doing seven figures a month, and so that business wouldn't operate or couldn't operate the way that it needed to operate without me being present. Ultimately, I tried to get it back on track. Couldn't, lost everything, and so went from being affluent, self-made, and I started out with nothing, so I made it on my own the first time. I thought it was the end of the world for me, and it was for a brief period of time.
Travis Jenkins:
My discovery or my real growth came when I made it back, and then I had clarity that success in business is actually a very flawed process. It's if you're not making mistakes, you're not trying hard enough, and so on a deeper level, I knew that. My real business acumen came when I had to make it. It took me 15 years to reach a level of affluence. After I lost it I built it back in 15 months-
Jill DeWit:
Wow.
Travis Jenkins:
And it's not because I'm special, it's because of a mentality and also the people that I surrounded myself ...