Old Land Flipping Tactics Are Failing – Hormozi Explains Why

I think you really nailed it on the head. And I think this is going to be eye-opening for a lot of people in the land flipping space.

The kind of old way of direct response is, is not—

so just a little context, direct response marketing is the marketing that we do in the land flipping space. We are sending text messages, cold calling, and direct mail, for example. And that marketing is eliciting an immediate response for them to sell their land at a discounted rate, for example. Then we list it or put a value-add type play in there to increase the value and then flip it working so well.

And I said, why do you think that is? And she said she thinks there's like a trust crisis.

So trust crisis, I couldn't agree more with what Sam Ovens here is saying, which is the owner of Skool. And when it comes to trust, if you've been in the land flipping space, you're probably noticing these conversations with sellers. Like, man, I get these text messages all the time. I get cold calls blown up as well, and I keep getting offers like multiple times a month. That have the same envelope, the same messaging, and very similar pricing. That seems way too low. Is this just like a giant scam, or is like my land that valuable but they're just lowballing me? And I think that really discredits people in the land flipping space because we're not giving any value first, right? We're just asking for them to give us their land at a discounted rate. It doesn't make any sense, right?

But I'm curious if you've noticed this.

I, I love all 5 of the topics that you, that you have, and I thought this was a great one. Um, I agree. Uh, so I felt this 5 years ago.

Wow.

And so that's why I started making content. Um, and so it started feeling like the writing on the wall, at least for me, and maybe some people more sensitive to these things than others, but like, it just something felt off that people could just like hop on and then just say, just promise all sorts of things. And then people would hand their life savings over to them. And that happens to enough people and then bad reputations start happening in general.

So I think he makes a very good point when it comes to this, because when it comes to all these promises, a 2-3 week close, or some people even saying like 1 to 2 weeks, for example, of close, it's normally not the case. Normally it's going to be a 30-day close most of the time. Or we're doing a 90-day close and it's going to be a double close. And I think sellers are no longer that interested because there's been a bad reputation of people sending very lowball offers that are even below 40 to 50% of perceived market value. I've heard people talk about 30 to 35%. And when I started a few years ago, I was actually able to get away with sending offers like that and even lock up a few deals. But that's just no longer the case because sellers caught wind of like, Anthony bought it for like $30,000. He just listed it for $90,000. Like, I think that is a huge turnoff. And in hindsight, it makes makes complete sense, right? And I think that's part of the turnoff here. And obviously it's a little bit different because he's talking about people that have, um, that sell courses and things like that with false promises. It makes complete sense, right? And I think it's the same thing when it comes to sellers in the land flipping space.

First it starts— people, you have bad actors, but then with enough bad actors, the industry gets a bad reputation. Um, and I think that fundamentally the education space in general especially for charging, has— it itself has a bad brand. And so I think the same— you start at -10 when you come in because everyone just assumes that you suck and that you have no credibility, and they are probably right 9 out of 10 times.

Again, very similar with land flipping. A lot of people are getting into the space, they set up a generic website, and it's just these one-off mailers or generic text messages, or it's going to be just them cold calling, not really knowing what they're doing right. It leads to a bad reputation and a bad taste in their mouth.

And so it makes sense that you would have that reputation when you come in 'cause that's probably reality. And so you have to just like completely anchor on the other side, which is like, how do I be absolutely honest? How do I be absolutely upfront? How do I absolutely substantiate whatever I have? And I think that's the reason that, I mean, I've at least noticed this, a lot of people relate to it, but like creating content, making, you know, building a brand, providing value ahead of time, that's like the direct response stuff works, just under the context of I've already provided value to you.

So under the context that I've already provided value to you. So now we need to reframe the way that we're looking at our marketing. I think we think so much about ourselves in terms of this is a hot market, I can make good money here, but it's not really understanding, looking at the market. Not only is it a hot market, but what are the seller demographics and what are their potential pain points and how can I solve that? Is it something as simple as just sending a one-off mailer with a two-pager with the first page just being copywriting with you know, an all-cash offer to like a 2 to 3 week close. Oh, and here's the purchase agreement. Or is it going to be something to where you're going to be doing consistent follow-ups? Maybe there is an easement issue. Maybe there needs to be clearing. Maybe it's going to be like a minor subdivision play to where you can offer a little bit more. Like, those are key things we're going to have to understand and be able to figure out how exactly can we provide value first rather than just mass blasting them. And again, the mass blasting technique can still work casting a wide net, but it feels more like gambling. Like in my opinion, just truly feels like you're gambling at times. So this is where we have to be a hell of a lot more strategic. It may take a little bit longer to get deals. Yes. But as you're building that brand and as you're building that credibility and you're building that trust, trust is by far the most important. And you're going to build that trust by creating value and also potentially creating content as well too. Like, like if you create enough content, like, oh, Anthony's the guy to go to when it comes to selling my land. Now it's like, how exactly do I position that? How, how do I get like these eyeballs on there to be like the go-to person, right? So I think these are the things that are slowly shifting into the land flipping space. And I think we've been a bit slower than every other industry, in my opinion.

And this again is just really eye-opening to me because direct response, if you think about like what the term is, like direct response, you're asking them to do something.

Exactly.

So it's just saying like, hey, soliciting people to do stuff doesn't work anymore. It's like, no, I mean, Soliciting people to do stuff when you've never done anything for them doesn't work as well anymore. But if you do stuff for them first and then you directly solicit a response, it for sure works. It's just they're skipping the first step, the most important step.

And that's what we're skipping. We are just skipping it again with the generic text messages. We're skipping it with the cold calling and the direct mail campaigns. So maybe if we flipped it upside down and did value with direct mail campaigns and do what is called like a farming method, right, and do trigger drip campaigns and maybe certain people that respond or like scan a QR code and we gauge their interest and then we could retarget them based off those specific follow-ups, right? Like there's just a lot of unique things that we could do and start to think about when it comes to increasing the value to certain individuals. So I just— I'll stop the video right here. I think this again is really important. I want to keep this short so you can really understand, okay, these are the changes within the land flipping space, not only within land flipping, but as Hormozy just mentioned, like, this is as it everywhere as a whole. And when it comes to business is that you have to provide value first. So really think about how you can provide value, what are the seller demographics, how you can position yourself that way, and then start building a detailed game plan to get after that. Again, you can still do the mass blast approach, but you really need to start focusing, focusing on this before it's too late. So hopefully you found this video helpful. Make sure to like and subscribe for more videos like this, and I'll see you guys in the next video.