Coffee Talk with The Land Geek!

Of water talk.

Stay hydrated.

Stay hydrated. It was coffee talk. I think this is my second week. No caffeine.

How is that going, by the way? Can we have an update in your mood and your family's reaction and are they dealing with it? Are you manageable?

Okay, so I'll walk you through it. Before I do that, we have to just tell everybody who we are. Who are we?

We are the Land Geek guys.

We're the Land Geek guys.

We're Land Geek all about passive income. We buy assets which is vacant, raw land, 25 cents on the dollar, and we sell it to people who pay us a monthly payment. We become, in effect, sort of like the bank for them, and we make really big returns and they able to control a property for. And everybody's happy.

Yeah, I was. I was. Took a walk this morning around. My neighborhood is really. It's really beautiful out right now. I mean, it's gets good. It's so hot here. It's like 90s during the day, but the mornings are really nice. And I'm walking, I'm like, if somebody asked me now what do I do? Or, you know, oh, Kevin Purning, good morning. You know, what do we do? I'm like, what kind of business are we in? I think we're in the total freedom business. And we're just using this vehicle of buying and selling raw land to get to total freedom to work when we want, where we want, and with whom we want. That's what we do, right?

Yeah. This is just a method, right? This is just. That's what we want, and this is happening. Be the quickest path to it that we've encountered, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah. Jason Mendoza, good morning. Quad latte with cashew. Nice. Very nice. So, I mean, what do you think, Scott Bossman, if somebody asked you, like, what do you do? What would you say now?

Oh, you cut out there, Mark. What was your question?

Oh, if somebody asked you, hey, what do you do for a living? What would you say?

Yeah, it's interesting because I think Scott Todd was talking about this. Like, whenever anybody asked him that, there's this little bit of a pause. Like, okay, here we go. We're gonna tell people what I do. They're gonna be like, you do what?

Right.

And I still get that. But basically, by the, you know, the beginning, the conversation is kind of interesting. They're like, what are you talking about? And then by the end of the conversation, they're very interested and motivated to hear more about how this business provides us with exactly like you said, financial security, time, freedom, location freedom is huge to me. I'm able to pack up my laptop and leave for a week if I want to go visit family, to go on vacation like we did last month and work where we want. And there's no better feeling in the world.

No, it's great. And it's, and it's headache free. I mean, can you imagine owning a, you know, a portfolio of rental homes and, you know, the managers are like, oh yeah, here's the bill for this house, it's got a leak. And you know, or if you're small, getting a call at 2 in the morning. You know, dealing with human beings in a really dramatic way because it's their place, they're living and they, they need this repaired like now. And you feel the stress. Like this is really stress free. Like, what's the most stressful thing we have to deal with? Deal with a borrower. It's like you miss your payment and that's automated with geek pay, so we don't have to deal with that.

You know, that's a great word there. Drama free. I love that. Drama free land invest. Drama free real estate.

It's drama free real estate, right? Or can you imagine if you had to evict somebody from their house because they couldn't pay you? Like, that's not a good feeling. I don't care who you are. Right? But you know, to say to somebody, hey, look, you defaulted on your land. You're not, they're like, oh, okay. Like, no one's, like, they know. It's not that traumatic or traumatic at all, really. I mean, when's the last time you had somebody calling you, crying, really need the land. Can I have, you know, help me for this?

Never.

I've never had it. Scott, have you ever had that, anything like that?

I'm sorry, my audio over here is really horrible. I'm having a hard time understanding. So I'm going to let you guys talk for a minute.

We're having technical issues.

This seems to be.

Jason says audio is great today. Jason's got a question, which is great. Is there a threshold some might consider to jump into the paid ad sites? I've been advertising regularly getting leads. The few that came through ended up in refunds, so looking for better leads.

So is there a threshold in terms of the property value?

I think he wants to know, like, is there a threshold some might consider to jump into the paid ad sites. I mean, maybe how, how many, how big do you need to be kind of thing or how big is your marketing budget?

I think we can stay small in terms of marketing cost in terms of that. You can do this through simple things like, you know, Facebook and Craigslist and just scale it through some good BA's and some good automation. I don't think it's required or needed or necessary to go now. You may choose to and some people have had success, but I personally don't think you need to.

Yeah, I mean, you know, he's like any all. I mean like lots owned or income. So Jason, you know, we're fairly big and we've got really good cash flow and I don't want to spend money on cold traffic because I don't need to. So I mean, you could test it. It's not like I haven't tested it and done some small tests. But to go into the right way takes a lot of upfront planning. So the first thing you need to know is your numbers. You need to know your current funnel. Let's say with your buyers list, how many leads do you get on average to equate to a sale?

You.

And then what is the average lifetime customer value on a sale? And then you can kind of do some math and figure out, okay, this is how much I can pay for a lead. But if you don't know those numbers, then you really have no business, you know, experimenting yet into cold traffic. Now once you know those numbers and you want to experiment, then I would say great. You're probably to do that would be if somebody clicks on your website, let's say you do an ad on Facebook, you bring them to your website, then you can do retargeting on different platforms and that's like pennies on the dollar. But to do really, I mean, marketing gurus are like, oh yeah, you need to solve cold traffic to really grow. Well, yeah, you do. But you can't do that until you know your numbers. And in this business, when you have platforms that are already spending millions of dollars to get you leads, like a Facebook or Craigslist, you just need to show up. Why spend the money and then really what you do own is your buyers list. And then marketing to your buyers list effectively, I think is a better strategy in a much, much cheaper strategy and a much more profitable strategy than cold traffic. That being said, if you know your numbers, I don't think there's anything wrong with experimenting with and see how it goes. Let us know. What do you think, Mike?

I think it was very well said.

Okay. I mean, have you ever played with cold traffic?

No, no. And I like what you said about, you know, you just pull yourself into platforms, are already spending the money and. But the buyer's list is key. You own that and you know that's a, that's, that's a big bang for your buck.

Right, Right. I mean, think about how difficult it is with cold traffic. You're talking about a human being that doesn't know you from Adam. Right. They don't know you, they don't like you, they don't trust you at all. At this point, they're not even looking for you. You are literally interrupting them with some type of offer. And then, you know, you've got to, you really have to know you're targeting at that point. It takes time. I mean, you'd have to have ton of patience to even crack it. When you could just go to land Moto where people are already interested in land. You can go to Craigslist and you know, people are searching for it. Facebook, they're searching for you and then you're showing up. It's a, it's a warmer lead. It's a better lead. Oh, yeah. So Jason says, I'm beginning to believe that land sites are warm traffic where the others are all cold. Those looking for land actively go land sites. Exactly. That's exactly it. So you know, do you, you could do a long term cold strategy if you had deep, deep pockets and start, you know, bringing traffic to your website. It's. It would be very, very painful, I think, for most people to go through that unless they really know their numbers and they have a really good sort of back end follow up process to convert those leads. It's tough. It's really tough. I don't know. Hi, Mike.

Hey.

Mark Racine. Sugai says good morning, Racine, the deal machine. Sugai. Aloha, Racine. What happened? What time is it in Hawaii? Is it six in the morning? It's early. Seven in the morning?

It's early.

It's early. Glad she see she's up. So any, anything come out of Nightcap last night that's noteworthy, newsworthy?

We had a new format. You know, we go in and we sort of go through the Facebook group. We look for asking and answer them. And I thought it was really smooth. It went really well. It was really a nice change up and it prompted some questions. So we talked last week how we wanted to mix it up. And that was one thing that. And what we did is we announced prior to the nightcap that these are the questions we're answering. And then Scott went back and actually plugged into the questions in the comments a link to the Nightcap saying that we answered the question. So I think it's going to be very helpful format.

No, that's awesome, dude. Buddy. Nightcap OG Scott Bossman. What do you think? Oh, wait, he's not there anymore.

He's not even here.

That's right. He had. Scott's got technical issues. He's like, sorry, guys, I wasn't. I was making things. I wasn't making things out on my end. I add names to the hat for the drawing. We got a drawing coming up, right? Free. Is it free? Lots this week. If you left a comment on Nightcap or Today or maybe last week's Coffee Talk, then you're in the running.

I might have to step up to the new mic. How are you loving that mic, Mark? Because I think it's time. I'm gonna have one for next week's Coffee Talk. Is it worth it? I'm gonna get one.

It's heavy.

You've tried that one.

It's heavy. Yeah. I mean, but you got to get a really good mic. Boom. Mic thing. I'm really using this effectively. I think this is dropped a few times because it was so heavy. Mine. I might even need a new one. I don't know. How do I sound?

You sound great.

Do I sound as good as Forbes, though? He sounds really good because he's like, right on the mic. I've got some. I don't know if I've got gain issues. I don't know if it's the room.

I'm gonna check with Larry Overstreet because he always sounds on point. You know, he's got that voice for podcasts and I want to see what Mike. He's got. I'm going to reach out to him.

Yeah. Ben and Sandra Jensen said enjoyed the new format last night.

Oh, awesome. Thank you.

That's great feedback.

And I'm bringing this up because we had a little audio issues last night. We apologize. But, you know, we're dialing it. We're going to correct it. Just try to make it better and better each week.

Yeah, absolutely. So if there's no questions, we could go straight to our giveaway. I mean, unless somebody has some answers. Any answers or any answers or any thoughts. Mike, how's business going for this. This week for you? Going well.

We had a few sales, you know, just enjoying more and more of the. Of the CEO life. Enjoying it. Got a nice team that's working really well, and it's just it's really learning to let go even more. I think that's. Scott Bossman recommended a book, who not how. And I thought that was more powerful. I said last night, the night gap in the four hour work week. I really do. The impact that book has had on me is just huge.

Wow. I downloaded it on Audible. I haven't started it. Right now I'm listening to Simon Sinek, the Infinite Game. Such a good book. I love that guy. That one's more about, you know, sort of playing these long, long games that there's no winner, right? You know, the infinite game. So, you know, think about maybe, you know, let's say newspapers, right? They were sort of in the business. Like they thought the game they were playing was, was, you know, the ad, the ad business. Like we were creating this content, this media for people and then we're going to get revenue via ads. That was the business they were in. And so if that's the game they were playing, they weren't sort of playing this infinite game where no matter what happened, they could still play the game which would be just the exchange of good information. Because if they were playing just the exchange of good information game, then Craigslist doesn't really ever disrupt that business because then they can just quickly pivot and be like, oh, look at this new medium. Here's the even more efficient way to exchange information.

Right?

But they weren't playing that game. They weren't playing that long term, sort of principled game of doing that. And therefore they got disrupted. And you know, when's the last time you bought a newspaper?

Right, That's a good point.

I don't, yeah, no, no, I don't know anyone remember the last time I.

Saw an ad in a newspaper either. So. Yeah, that, that's interesting. Okay. The infinite game.

The infinite game. So it's sort of like having it like, what, what, what do you really do? It's kind of like, you know, what's your, why, but in a more of a, a less personal way, but a more of a business way of, you know, what, what, what's this game you're playing that you'll never really win, but it's fun to play? I mean, one of the games that's, I think really apropos right now is, you know, are we, are we playing the, the Republican Democrat game and we're like, this is my team and you pick a team and you want that team to win or are we playing the infinite game of democracy and the principles of all men are created equal? And we have these unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's an infinite game. You know, through history we've seen that game. Like the initial thing was, you know, the founding fathers when they said that, were probably just thinking, you know, wealthy white men. But as we've. But through history, that game has expanded and it's, you know, obviously clearly gotten better in lots of different ways. But the infinite game is democracy. It's not a short sighted game of, you know, this team or that team. And so those. That's. That's sort of like the book.

So sort of like if I was talking about fitness, I could focus on just the peloton or I could focus on being fit as a whole. So like, it's not the device, it's the idea that I want to be fit. So then I have all around me avenues and opportunities to be fit. As opposed to a peloton, a rowing machine, a weight set. I have. That's a very specified way to be fit. But there's a bigger picture fitness lifestyle.

Right, Exactly. So. Yeah, exactly. So your infinite game would entail not just, you know, martial arts to get fit.

Right.

It would include all the ways of being fit, you know, physically, mentally and spiritually and maybe even financially. So your infinite game is basically, what do I need to do to create the best life, the best version of Mike Zano. And that is a game that you play your whole life because you were constantly growing, you're constantly evolving, you never get there, essentially.

Right. It's an integrated approach. That's. I like that. That way it's. Yeah. If you can't go to the dojo or if your machine breaks, you don't say, oh, that's it, I'm out. You just pivot and you just, you stay active and you find another way to embrace that.

Right? Yeah, exactly. It's like what we talk about. Kaizen. Continual growth.

Yes.

I could have just written the whole book when one sentence. Speaking of books, Dirt Richer, we're getting. Getting closer.

Nice.

Yeah. So after this, you and I are doing our Dirt Richer interview. How to scale your land business. I don't know if it's gonna call it Dirt Richer if you know. Do you guys like that title? What do you guys think would be a good title for a book about how to scale your land business? Should it be that? Because. Because Dirt Rich is really basic introduction to land investing. This is way more advanced. Like, if you don't have a land business, then you're not ready for dirt Richer. Because you're not ready to scale anything yet. You'd have to start with dirt rich and then learn, okay, how do I scale?

You know, so I want to think about that, the land scaling the land business, something that would kind of capture.

That in a word, right?

Dirt rich. And then.

Okay, dirt richer. No, I don't know, Dirtier and richer.

You're already rich. Richer. It's something implying less of the money and more of the lifestyle at that point, isn't it? Because you've already got the money, right?

Yeah.

You've already got the money talking about the lifestyle.

So, yeah. So this title would be, you know, solving not just your money problems, but now solving your time problems and putting the business, making a passive income machine as opposed to be working in the business. Now you're working on the business as the CEO. And the book kind of outlines, you know, the mental shift you have to make and then all the different people that you need to plug in to scale. So it talks about the intake manager, the ad writer, you know, your sales assistant or an acquisition manager, you know, all these people, your due diligence team using software to automate your, your mailings, using software on the back end to automate getting paid kind of things just.

Like how to maintain and scale this business, you know, a wealthy lifestyle or however you define wealth, but without getting your hands dirty because you're not, you're not in the mix. You're not.

Yeah, yeah.

You're not, you're not putting the gloves on.

I like that.

Yeah.

Keep your hands clean.

Yeah.

Kevin Perney says, what elements of your land business do you outsource? I think, Kevin, the better question is what elements do we not outsource? Because we outsource everything. What don't we outsource?

Right now I don't outsource deciding which deals I'm going to invest in. So. I know we've talked about that, you know, but so I decide where, you know, I had the final say on yay or nay on a deal. So that I don't. And I know some people do. Like Scott Todd uses the, you know, his team knows all about yield and, or, you know, so on and so forth. But I like that. It's like, I feel like I'm like a mini Warren Buffett. I'm evaluating deal to deal the deal. And I'm like, where am I going to put the money?

Right?

So I don't, I don't feel, I don't, it doesn't upset me to do that.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Kevin meant to say not outsource. So the only thing I don't outsource, Kevin, is because I think about it like Mike, right. Where am I deploying my capital? So I look at that and then just I as a CEO, like, is everything working? Auditing the systems and the processes? If we're gonna bring. Do we need to bring someone else on what that would look like and, you know, sort of stress testing the systems and processes. But other than that, I don't do much else in the land business.

Sorry. You still got me thinking about your book. I'm thinking dirt rich. We cross out the rich and we write wealth.

All right, so Peter Zeros has some ideas. The dirt wise. Dirt wise.

Dirt wise. Okay.

Dirt scale. Okay. Like it. Dirt empire.

Something kind of like an ant.

Kind of like what?

An ant?

An ant.

Yeah, they have a dirt empire.

Empire. Yeah, they have a dirt empire.

You should be standing on top of dirt. Like, just like a caricature of you. Alert.

Right. The land concierge is life rich. That's good. That encapsulates it all. These are all good ideas.

I think you're really capturing the idea because I like when you do the wealth mindset at boot camp. I think that alone is worth the price of admission just to get in to get that wealth mindset and segment you do. And that's really when you think about the way you talk about wealth. So it's really what you're talking about. You go from dirt rich and then you embrace real wealth. All like in the way that we define it. Right. Enjoying our lavish lifestyles. But, you know, this passive income, what it's done for us to make us truly wealthy.

Right, Right. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I spent an hour this morning just doing nothing and meditating and watching my thoughts and listening to the birds and you know, what a luxury it is to just do nothing and enjoy it and just experience life like in real time. Because I'm not thinking or hopefully, you know, hopefully, you know, or just practicing, you know, recognizing. Getting lost in thought and losing track of time and watching my mind. I mean, you know, there's a. There was a time when at 7:30 in the morning, you know, I'm. I'm at work, I'm in a cubicle, ready, you know, like in front of a computer. And before that I was fighting traffic for 45 minutes. Like, it's such. It's amazing to think about now. Like all these things, how amazing life is when you don't. There's so much I Don't have to do now. It's incredible. Here's Ben and Sandra. What do you think of this, Jensen? Dirt freedom. I like it. Or dirt free.

Yeah. Dirt free. Dirt rich. Dirt free. We're getting there. We got. We got the idea. So I think it's gonna. Getting close.

Yeah. I mean, so Mike, is there something like you do like the triggers, like, oh my gosh, I can't believe like I get to do this now. Like, you can look back because, I mean, I know you're still at the.

Firehouse, but probably every morning my wife and I go on a walk with our dog for like an hour, hour and a half, two hours, whatever it is. And just, just that. Just getting up and just having that free morning, you know where. So I don't know. Yeah, because I do know. That's. That's really awesome. I know it sounds really simple, but it's a. What a. You know, it's just a nice feeling to be able to just. Okay, what am I doing this morning? I'm gonna go for a walk.

Well, you know, but it's not the walk. It's the deepening of that relationship with the person you love the most in the world and having that time to do that instead of, you know, being on the walk, you know, or thinking like, oh my. Okay, I got 20 minutes. We'll take this walk. Like you could even be with her, but not really be with her because you're stressed out about something going on and you know, this or that, but like to really. Because now you have the luxury of just being completely present because you don't. You guys don't have to worry about money. It's just a big bucket of stress. It's more gone.

Yeah. So we just. Yeah, we can talk about how we're going to scale, how we're going to improve our system. You know, it's just all. It's higher level fun talk. Right.

Right.

Can we. You know, because you just keep. At the very end there are still little pieces like little wiggle in the business. Right. Even though it's not just like just that. Pulling those away like and paring it down, simplifying it. So it's fun. Very fun, actually.

Yeah. Dude. Buddy. Nightcap. OG Scott Bossman. The dirty path to freedom. That sounds like that. The dirty path to freedom. Dirt path to freedom. Dirt path to freedom. So, Scott, we're ready for our giveaway. Who. Who won lots.

I think he just posted in the chat. Did you see that?

Did he? Did he? I didn't See it, we had. He said we have a winner. I don't know who it is.

I think I saw that name. Let me see here.

Darren Nichols. Yes, Darren Nichols. Congratulations. We'll get you into lots. MK collectible cards. Says that's what I call dirty money. It's kind of cool. I don't know.

Mountains of wealth.

Mountains of wealth. All right, well, I want to thank everybody for joining us on Water Talk. Coffee Talk. All right. What are you doing? You're drinking water? I'm drinking water.

Yeah.

Yeah. I will say that I think my sleep is better after.

Oh.

After quitting caffeine. I'll say, like, my energy level is a little different.

Slightly different or not.

It's better.

A little bit better sleep.

I sleep better. I, I'm a little stronger in the afternoon. Like, remember, like two in the clock, two o' clock in the afternoon. I'd have to take that 20 minute power nap. I'm noticing, like I don't have. I want to take it, but I don't have to take it now.

Okay.

That afternoon dip's not as, not as dramatic for me now. And then I'm noticing like just that by eliminating this ritual that I would do that would take 5, 10 minutes and then the drinking of the coffee, which is like an hour really spend instead of doing a 20 minute meditation. Doing an hour meditation. I'm really enjoying that relaxing time just observing, you know, consciousness and what's going on with me.

I'm this close to trying it. You haven't convinced me yet. You're very close.

Well, if you're, if you're doing the morning journal, I think that's very meditative. Yes, I really do.

But the coffee, I'm close. I'm just trying to see. I'm using you as a kind of a visual experiment, just studying you. If this works out for you, I might try it.

Okay. So the first week, when I wasn't, when I, when I was going through withdrawal, my withdrawal symptoms, I had the first day, a little headache, not bad. And I took Advil and it was fine. But that, that week, last week, I was slightly. I don't get depressed. I was slightly depressed. Like it, it affected my mood. I don't know if you noticed it on the round table or.

I wasn't on that roundtable, but I don't think I noticed too much. But maybe it's internally how you were feeling. I don't know. I don't like being addicted to anything. So you, so you know, and there is this caffeine and what's the wait? Have you found a coffee alternative? Have you even gonna bother with that?

I haven't yet. I think I'm going to just for fun. But I was gonna wait because I'm just really enjoying the habit of substitution of this one habit to this other habit. And if I bring in, you know, the just a no caffeine substitute, well, then it's gonna kind of upset the habit I'm in right now of that hour meditation instead of having a cup of coffee.

Okay, that makes sense. You've substituted the meditation for the coffee is what you've done.

Right. But like, in the afternoon, it'd be really nice to have like a little.

It's nice to sip when you read a book, don't you think? Sip something hot.

Yeah. Especially as it gets cooler. So it hasn't been that cool here yet, but I think it will be eventually. But it's funny. Like, I'm really enjoying this. I didn't think I would enjoy an hour meditation. It's like, amazing. It's really, really nice. All right.

Yeah, I'm close. I'm close.

Yeah, yeah. MK collectible cards. Coffee was my vice. I love coffee. It's true. All right, Zen master. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for being on work on those mailing and marketing your Ms. Have a great weekend and we'll see everybody next week. Congratulations, Darren Nichols, Mike Zano. Love you, man.

Love you too, man. Thank you.

See you.

Bye.

Bye.