Coffee Talk

Free. Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land geek with the landgeek.com I am joined for this week's coffee talk with Zen master Mike, the Land Guru Zano. Mike, what are you drinking there?

This is some hardcore water.

Nice. Very nice. In case you don't know who we are, I'm a professional land investor. I've done over 5,200 land flips since 2001. I also am the host of three podcasts, the Land Geek Podcast, the Best Passive Income Model Podcast, and the current Art of Passive Income Auto podcast. And learn more@thelandgeek.com Mike Zano, tell everybody your story.

Well, I've been land investing now for about three years when I met Mark and we started out 40 grand in debt. First year we paid off $40,000 in debt. Second year we finally able to get married. I could actually buy her an engagement ring. She actually said yes. So we got married and we decided how neat would it be if we flipped a bunch of land in 3, 4 months and paid for our wedding cash and took my son on the honeymoon with us with his girlfriend, now fiance. And we did that. We raised like 50,000 cash in three or four months flipping land and we got married and helped had a bunch of money left in the bank. And now our next mission is to we own a two family. So our next hundred days, which we're actually going to be really talking about more and more to keep it real is we're going to buy our single family house. So basically our dream house moved from our two families. So this land business has provided us with so many opportunities and we are forever grateful for, you know, working with Mark and the team that we all hang around with.

Wow. So Mike, what's your full time job?

I'm a firefighter, saving lives.

So how many hours a week do you actually work in your land investing business?

Right. Not too much. Now especially my wife has come, she was working for the school system and that about two months ago we stopped having her do that. We brought over the land side. So she basically she manages our VAs, our virtual assistants. And so my huge role now is deal approval and kind of looking at new deals and just kind of saying yes or no or renegotiate. So pretty much I get my phone, I get my coffee on my water and I look and I hit yes, no, yes, no. So it's, I don't know, I don't do too much a day myself and Laura spends a couple hours. So it's very minimal.

It's a machine. It's machine. Which is, which is really what, you know, if you go into flight school or, you know, one on one coaching, that's really what we teach you is how to create this machine. David Benalis. Good morning, David. Couldn't make coffee talk. I guess Mike and I are gonna haze David a bit. He pulled his throat muscle. I mean, lifting weights, how heavy a weight can it be?

Doing throw push ups.

Throw push ups. Throw push ups. So it was funny because I was, I was, I was, I was voxing David last night and I was. And you know, and he, he's, he's vegan and he shows me a picture of like, what he's eating. And it's all like, it's like this, all these beautiful vegetables. So I, I, I voxed him back. Like, what is that? Like, you know, you know, like, remember that, that scene with anchorman where he's like, we're going jogging. Or is it pronounced yogging? I'm not really sure if the J silent. I'm like, are those vegetables or vegetables? I'm not sure how it's pronounced. Apparently they're just plants.

The asparagus must have got to his throat. Maybe he didn't cut it good enough. I don't know.

Right, right. Devin's like, gains, gains. So Mike is famous as the Zen master for being one of the few people in the community that successfully and consistently sells property on ebay. So, Mike, what is the secret? Why can you sell on ebay? And yet whenever I try to sell on ebay, my buyers don't pay me. What are you doing that I'm not doing?

Yeah, well, I think a lot of it comes down to we do a lot of our research. If we want to sell on ebay, we look to find what's selling on ebay. So. And then we go buy that land. So we talk about that. You know, with students coaching at the boot camps, basically we go find, if we find land that's selling on ebay and we see that it's something that had a lot of, a lot of hits, a lot of bids, we'll just go get land just like it. So I guess the real secret is just, you know, kind of like our land investing more. Right. We insert ourselves in an active market. We're not going to reinvent the wheel. We're not trying to do something that, you know, outside of the, the realm of what really works. So if something's selling on ebay, we go get some and through the tools and the, and the tricks that we have and you know, the way that we do what we do, it's not that difficult.

You make it sound so simple.

Yeah, I mean, it is in a sense. I mean, this business is simple. Once you understand the moving parts, once you put your system in place, once you have the deal for the pipeline, I mean, once you have the basics, it's the basics that I think need to be learned. And once they're learned, this business is not very difficult. But again, as we know, the problem people have is initially is they get caught up with that paralysis by over analysis. They don't execute, they don't take action. And you know, that's why we have mechanisms in place such as flight school and coaching to help people, you know, remove that gap, remove that execution gap and have them get in there and succeed. So it is basic, but you and simple, but only after really you internalize it. And that's what we do. We teach people how to internalize it.

Yeah, I mean, Chris Egner, I love it. Do what successful people do. And unfortunately, when I started, I didn't have anybody to mentor me and you know, make the mistakes for me. So I don't have to, I didn't have to make the mistakes. And so instead it was like a lot of trial and error. A lot of my success. I really, when I look back on it was just the market. You know, from 2001 to 2006, a monkey could have made money in real estate, which was like me, I was just a monkey, really. It wasn't until 2000, really, 07 and 8, I started really treating it like a business. As things started to kind of slow down a bit, creating systems, creating processes, doing a lot more owner financing, creating notes and passive income. If I had started at the very beginning with a note portfolio, I mean, I've got friends who are 250amonth, 125amonth, 80amonth passive. And it just keeps building and building and building and building. And sure, I mean, you'll have defaults, but then you just resell it. So in case you don't know who we are and you're just joining us on Facebook Live, I'm Mark Podolski, the land geek with the landgeek.com I'm joined by Zen master Mike, the land guru Zaino. We're fresher land investors and we also train people how to do what we do. We make the argument this is the best passive income model because all we do shuffle paper, we make money and we don't have to deal with renters and rehabs, renovations and rodents. Learn more@thelandgeek.com so, Mike Zano, what is the future for you and Laura in your business? How are you going to get to the next level?

Yeah, what we're doing right now is we're looking at the game plan. I've been with the fire department for about 20 years now, so traditionally I could go another 10 years. But we're looking to see if we can find a way to get out sooner than that. It's just I love the job, I love the people. It's just a lot of associated health risks. And, you know, we're enjoying life now because of my schedule is really good for this. But the future for us is to slowly just remove myself from the fire department, come full time with the land investing, which people always. When I say full time land investor, it's not full time. What I mean is that it's going to be our primary source of income. It's going to be a few hours a day, which is going to leave us plenty of time to do other things. And what Laura and I have already talked about because we look. And you talked about this at the boot camp, Mark, when you're talking about your mentor and giving back. And I said, laura, we have to start looking now to say what are we going to do when we don't have to worry about everything and now we have time and we don't have so much time. Isn't committed to the lamp business. What are we going to do? I said, we're going to find a way to start giving back what's important to us. So we're already starting to think about that as well. Because I think that that's huge. You know, once you have your life in order, give back in whatever way you think is you know best. It makes sense to you.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I just put. I just posted this. Meet Mike next boot camp in Scottsdale.

Looks like my cat's trying to join us. I don't know, is my little buddy here? So he's crawling up on my lap. Sorry.

Yeah, Mike, it's crazy. We have 35 already registered.

Really?

For Scottsdale. And so August.

Yeah, we booked that room yesterday. We didn't want to because, you know, those sell out quick. They really.

Yeah, I mean, it's gonna be the jw. It's a great rate. Don't start planning now. Like, don't get locked out. We tell everybody the same thing. But when you come to boot camp, it's a Small room and it's very intimate. The network is amazing. Our people are super geeky, super smart and literally all the land investing clouds in your head dissipate and everything becomes super clear. What questions do you guys have for us on Facebook? What questions you have for us? It is coffee talk, by the way. So hopefully you're all having a cup of coffee. Although I guess you're on the east coast. It's like an afternoon cup.

It's almost time for the afternoon cup.

Yeah. So I mean, how do you drink your coffee, Mike? I'm all about that. Bulletproof.

Yeah, we've been, I've been doing that again. Although I tried to add a little pumpkin this morning to it, like pure pumpkin puree. And Laura's like, what's wrong with this coffee? This morning I was like, oh, just put a little extra in there. Thought maybe it'll be. So usually doing the bulletproof coffee or I drink it black. Yeah. So we go down the, to the coffee shop again. Nice. Nice latte, you know, or cappuccino or something. So yeah, bulletproof in the morning definitely kicks your day off strong and hard and we've been enjoying that.

Yeah. For sure. So I'm really excited about the new VA program. I'm working with Danielle on it.

Yeah.

And we're going to take our trained VAs and plug and play and let our clients start using those resources pre trained and start doing it. So if you want to be on the beta list, just go to VA's, dot the land Geek calm and let us know you have some interest there.

That's huge. Because that's really how we multiply our time, you know, getting good VAs and know that's how we can do this in an hour or two a day, you know, besides the systems, of course. But we need to have people that can handle those redundant tasks for us.

Right. Chris Egner's hazing me. Mark loves his Starbucks. I don't love Starbucks. It's like the McDonald's of coffee.

As long as it's on a pike place.

Yeah.

Corona maybe or whatever that is. But not the regular.

Yeah. Chris Egnor, where are we on the app, man? The. The Land Geek app is in the app store. You can listen to all the podcasts we're constantly updating is going to be eventually pretty awesome. David. Mike, why did you choose to be more of a wholesaler rather than taking properties to market?

It's a good question. I don't know. We just have so many. We've got the Mailing side so down. Our system is so tight that we just have properties coming in all day long. I tell people, don't get attached to these properties. You know, it's like when you're a young kid dating, you can't get attached to the girl because she's going to break your heart. Don't get attached to these properties. I mean, we have so many coming in every day that it just feeds us, you know, this wholesale money. It's in and out and it's very. I still argue it's passive. I know I was talking about this at the boot camp with Mark. I argue it's passive because I'm not doing anything. My system is doing it. I'm just kind of approving it and letting the system handle it. And so that's why it's just quick, it's easy. We are building up our note portfolio now. I think in the beginning we had a lot of cash things that we needed to do from paying off debt, the wedding, and now getting our house, we're looking at, you know, getting that big down payment. So we get a low mortgage. So once that's all in place, we're already game plan and we're going to build up that passive, like huge. But it's not a. It's. You already have total faith in how to do it because once you understand this and you see you can take it in any direction you want, there's no questions, there's no worries, there's no concerns.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. And the software is amazing.

Yes.

Good morning. So Bear land Aaron got me and barely missed it. The barely family got me the shirt, which I love, that says embrace the suck. I will be changing for the Mastermind call at 11:30 today with the platinum coaching clients. So I love that shirt. Yeah. So that was a really good question. I mean, I think when you first started Mike, you were capital constrained and I think wholesaling and getting that quick cash and paying off that debt really for you, move the needle. If I were recommending it for somebody starting today, I would say don't ever let your own personal finances dictate, you know, you not selling on terms. Because even if you sell on terms, you can sell the note, get your money out and then you start, you know, and then redeploy it and then a year from then that note reverts back to you and then you've got that passive income. But nevertheless, I mean, cash is cash. And the way in, the way that you're doing it on an automated Basis and the velocity. If you can turn your money over five, six times in a year. Yeah. On a. I mean, automated basis. Why, you know, it's all good. It's all good. Chris Egner, Land geekers everywhere just started crying. They want you to keep wholesaling, Mike. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we're gonna slow down on that one. We get so much property, we'll probably wholesale a little bit just because we like. It's just fun, you know, Mike, every.

Time you sell a property, an angel gets its wings.

That's the thing I tell everybody, Right. About this business. I haven't found anybody who does this business long term and doesn't love talking about it, really. I mean, this is a business that is just fun. And it's fun for so many reasons, but, I mean, I call it painting for gold. Every day I get a little flake, and sometimes I get big nuggets, you know, so it's. This business is fun. Anybody who's doing it long term will tell you that it's just a great. It's a great thing to do. I mean, so anybody. It's just fun on top of profitable.

Yeah. Yeah. If you're just joining us, in case you don't know who we are, Mark Podolski, the Land. Keep the Land Geek calm, professional land investor, and the host of three podcasts, Land Geek Podcast, Best Passive Income Model Podcast, and the Art of Passive Income Model Podcast. I'm joined by Zen master Mike Zano, the land guru, Chris Egner. Everyone Likes to talk to her. Yeah, that's. You know, that should be the name of my. My next book. I thought it was gonna be called Dirt Rich, but now I think it should be called Everyone Likes to Talk Dirty. Chris, can I steal it? I don't know. What do you like better, Dirt Rich or Everyone Likes to Talk Dirty? We think. Well, it's crickets today. Crickets. David Benalis. Where are all the questions, man? Any other questions we can answer for you guys? Let's Talk dirty. I like that.

I should add, David's actually helping Laura and I. We're gonna stop blogging or Facebooking and turning into a YouTube channel about our next hundred to get our house. So we're going to kind of keep ourselves on target by kind of talking about it and how we're doing it through land. So we're excited about that. Just, I think the more you say something, you know, you have to hold yourself to it and, you know.

No, I think that's very powerful, actually. As far as you Know, keeping yourself accountable by the more people you tell. Like, you're really going to have to do it.

Yes.

You can't create a YouTube channel about doing this and then not do it. Right. Mike, why do you. Why do they call you Zen Master? Please do tell.

Well, I love, you know, Eastern religion and I love philosophy and I just, you know, I always have a funny way of looking at things. Like, you know, Mark and I always joke about now is like this business, two things move it. And that's mailing and marketing. And you know, in basic meditation, you know, you watch your breath. You know, you breathe in, you breathe out. And then what comes in, all the distractions and in this lamp is this. Especially in the beginning, they can be lots of distractions, lots of whirlwind things that you think that you should be doing, creating the most incredible website. I mean, these are important. Yes. But in the beginning, what moves a needle is mailing and marketing. So I say you breathe in the mailing and breathe out the marketing. Every time that you feel like you're being overwhelmed, bring it back to the middle, center yourself and breathe in the mailing and breathe out the marketing. So I guess that's why.

Yeah. I had a Zen comment today, parenting moment with my son this morning. He's driving me to school, which is scary, by the way. Sixteen, learning to drive. And he's got his permit, not his license yet. So he's like, dad, he's got his AP history exam on Saturday and he's been studying studies. Like, I'm so stressed out about this exam. I said, noah, what problem do you have at this moment? Exactly? I'm like, it's just in your head when you go to study, then you'll deal with that problem at that time. Right now, just take me safely to your school. That's where we are right now. So I think so many of us live in our heads.

Yeah. That's what causes people to start without any guidance. You can really that, you know, paralysis for over analysis is so real. I talk to people all the time that, you know, they bought the toolkit and they're looking about getting to coaching and flight school. And it's like they haven't got their mailing out yet. The second guessing themselves. And it's like, you know, it this. That is so real. You have to just kind of, you know, take action and, you know. Yeah, that's very applicable to our business.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Chris Egnor, what's the biggest deal you've done? What's the Biggest deal you've done.

Right now we're closing on a 70 lots. That's a good deal.

I'm buying all those, by the way, I think. Right.

Some will be available for wholesale. So anybody who's looking for wholesale, stay tuned.

No, no, I. The mic, we talked about this. I have these soul already. Come on.

Yeah, I mean there's. Every year something comes up. You know, we like, you know, we buy something for a thousand, you flip it for ten grand cash. You know, that's not wholesale, that's retail. Those things happen. And they only happen because consistent mailing. You know, we talk about this all the time. Even though I got. Okay, I got 70 lot deal coming down. Am I going to stop mailing? No, I'd be crazy. Why would I do that? Because that's gonna get. We have to continue it. Mailing and the marketing are very similar in a sense that you have to continue to do it. You know, it's something that has to be done every week and it keeps feeding you sales. Buying on one side and selling on the other. So why we mail and market? Yeah.

Now, now Aaron Williams wants it. And Chris, Chris is in for three. Aaron, how many do you want? Where are the 70?

Oh, they're in New Mexico.

You know where they are? They're in my new, my new portfolio. They're in LG Pass getting updated right now. That's where they are. Guys, if you don't know what LG Pass is, it's a Land Geek proprietary automated software system. We got this business between LG Pass, posting domination and GeekPay IO, we got this thing, 90% automated. Yeah, I love software.

Put paper in, paper comes out. You put land in, money comes out. This is a machine.

It's a machine. Absolutely, absolutely. You know, Chris Egner, you know, we should do. Chris works for Zynga. We should literally gamify the business, right? So you send out like 20 or 20 offers a day and then you get like a badge or something in the software. Like you get something and then like real prizes start coming out. I don't know, how can we gamify this? I think, I really think, like the more I watch my kids, their smartphones and iPads and whatever it is, it's like the gamification of everything. I think would be amazing. You know, it's true. Like, I don't know. Just an idea. All right, any other questions? Put it on the Xbox. Here we go. I love it. Any other questions for Mike and myself? Anything? All right, well, I hope everyone is enjoying the coffee talks. On Tuesdays, the roundtable podcast comes out on the Auto Passive income model podcast. Please do us that little favor. Subscribe, rate and review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of the review. To support the landgeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. Mark, Favorite book of the month? I talked about this yesterday. I'm gonna write it in here. Noah Yuval Hurari, who wrote Sapiens? I'm loving this book.

Oh, I got the audiobook. I've already started listening to it.

Isn't it great? Homo deus is great. Homo deus. Read that book.

It really gave me a new appreciation for my daily life right from the get go.

Aaron Williams loves a roundtable. See? So Aaron, you're Bearland family needs to get on the round table. I'll send you an invite for next week. I know they're busy, but it'd be fun. Seth, how are you doing with your, your deal flow? How's everything going there? And do you have a book to recommend for the month? Oh, Connie Whitesell. There she is. Connie, love the roundtable. How was flight school? How was your first flight school last night? The, the May class just started last night. And did Scott send you the video mike to show you how he introduced it? No. Oh my gosh. I can't spoil it for everybody here, but vox. Vox, Scott.

Okay.

It's incredible. It's really cool. Awesome. So, Connie, what was your biggest takeaway from flight school last night? I'm glad. It was awesome.

You know, Seth and his brother Bryce, they're gonna crush it.

They really crush it.

Talking about, talk about what a great business to start when you're young, right? When you're in your early 20s or not even out of high school. I mean, crazy.

You know what it is? You know, part of me is like just overwhelmed with jealousy. Overwhelmed with it. And then part of me is like, I'm so excited for them. Like, I wish I started. Like, how are these guys shortcutting? The 45 minute commute, right? The cubicle, the bad boss getting micromanaged, all the pain and suffering that like 99% of us have to go through and then be like, oh, I'm suffering so much. I'm going to start this right? Seth is just like, oh, that makes sense. I'll just start at like 23, do the same thing. He sure cut it. Or actually smart cut it. It's crazy. Yeah. Riley, loving the round table coffee Talk. Thank you. P.J. so, Connie, where was the biggest takeaway from last night? I don't know. She's not. She's not commenting. That's okay. Any other questions before Mike and I ended up? All right, here it is. Mike and Scott both helped with finding good lists. Now ready to scrub. Awesome. Awesome. I'm telling you, flight school is so phenomenal, Mike, because of the accountability, the built in accountability, the execution in real time with your class is so much more powerful than getting a, you know, home study course and just trying to, you know, go through it yourself.

It's all actionable steps. It's like what you need when you need it. It's really what it is. Right. I mean, the business will grow organically. You're gonna get everything you need as you need it, and you're gonna have a step everywhere. You know, an actionable step each week. So it's just incredible. This is very popular.

Yeah. If you want to apply or talk about it, go to thelangic.com training, get on a call with Mike or David and, and ask your questions, see if it's right for you. The June class is filling up fast. Yeah. So don't delay. Don't delay. All right, well, I've got a call with Danielle in three minutes here, so any other questions, comments? Learn more at the land geek.com if. If you're new to us, right. And Mike, what do you got going on the rest of the day?

Well, we just ordered a. We're waiting. We ordered some folding bikes, so I'm waiting for those to come in. Laura and I, they're gonna fit in the back of my Jeep. We're gonna be able to drive to Boston, drive around the different places, and they're gonna unfold. I was telling Tate about them. They're awesome. So hopefully they'll be coming today. That'd be nice. But for the rest of the day, I'll look at a couple more deals and. Almost time for my afternoon coffee. I don't know.

I want a foldable bike. Where do I get this thing?

I'll send you a link. It's incredible.

Send me the link. I'm in.

I'm telling you, it weighs like 26 pounds. We're gonna be riding to the coffee shop. I mean, yeah, I'm gonna wear. I'm ride to the fire station. I'm sure the guys make fun of me, but I don't care.

It's gonna be awesome. The thing is, like, when you're in that, like, fire station.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter what you do they're just gonna make fun of you.

Yeah, that's all we do. I say if they don't make fun of you, they don't like you. That's it. You know? If we don't make fun of you, we don't like you. So you get that thick skin and get it real quick.

Do you have a nickname?

Yeah, yeah, it's Ghost.

It's. Why is it Ghost?

When I first got on, I was a little nervous, apprehensive. News I was 20 years ago. So I would just sit around and listen to what was going on. If they said we were going out to do some training, I'd run down, put my gear on, sit in the truck, and they'd be looking for everybody. For me, everywhere I pop the door open, I'm right here. They're like, you're like a ghost. So it just kind of kept feeding like that and.

Yeah, all right.

Maybe the other guys.

I like Zen Master better, but that's Me, too. That's cool. That's cool. All right, well, I want to thank everybody for joining us on this Coffee Talk. And, yeah, that is a cool call sign. We will be back next Wednesday, 9:30 Pacific on coffee Talk. And if Mike can join, be great. Maybe David's throat will be back.

Have David cut that asparagus a little thinner. David, come on.

Yeah, exactly. With his. With his pulled throat muscle.

His vehicle.

His vehicle. Yeah. You know what it was, is he. You know, he just wanted to sleep in this morning and play with his son and, like, you know what, Coffee talks, Mark? I pulled my throat muscle. Like, he's like. Him and his wife are, like, thinking of ideas like yodeling. What would be so outrageous to say to get on a Coffee Talk?

Must be yodeling or something.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I'll just make something up. He'll never. He'll never doubt pulling a throat muscle.

I might pull a scalp muscle next week. That could be tough.

Yeah. David. You guys are crazy. David, we love you. We kid because we love. That's right.

We don't make funny. We don't like you.

That's the way it is. That's right. That's right.

That's life.

Absolutely. So he voxed me this amazing vegan dessert him and his wife were having last night. It was, like, so amazing. I can't even describe it. Like LA. Everything's just better in LA. LA, NY. It's just one huge restaurant to me. All right, well, thanks, everybody. Mike Zaino, thanks again. Oh, yeah, we call him whisper. Yeah, that's David. Yeah, The Facebook whisperer.

Wisp for short.

And thanks, everybody. Mike Zeno. Appreciate you, man. Michael Anger, the master. Are you ready? Let's breathe in. Breathe in the mailing without the marketing. I already feel better. That's it. All right, everybody take a deep breath on this fine Wednesday. Get out your mailing, get out your marketing, and look, let freedom ring. See, everybody?