Creating Processes To Scale Your Land Business

Hey, it's Mark Pudolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on this week's roundtable, we're in a very merry, jolly mood. We've got the technician, Eric Peterson. Eric, how are you?

I'm good, good. Happy to be here.

Good to see you. We've got the most feared woman in the country, Mimi Schmidt. Mimi the terrorist hunter. How are you?

Doing great. Feeling jolly good to see you.

And then we've got. Of course, the holidays are coming. By the time this comes out, this will be the Christmas Eve roundtable. So we're gonna. We're gonna kind of keep that theme. Not wearing a Santa hat. On the round table is the big papa Tate Litchfield Tate, how are you doing?

Well. Really well. Happy to be on. Can't believe the year's coming to a close, though.

I know, it's crazy. It's crazy. And last but not least, you know you love him. Scott Todd. Scott Todd.netlandmodo.com not automating your Craigslist, your Facebook postings, posting domination.com TheLandGeek Learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott Todd, how are you?

Mark, I am excited. How are you?

I am. I'm very excited. I'm really excited about this roundtable because going off of our scaling theme, we're gonna talk a little bit about, first of all, what is arguably the best holiday ever. Christmas combined with scaling, which means, first of all, optimization, delegation, and then automation. So basically, these are the. The principles of scaling. You first want to optimize your system. Then once it's optimized, you're gonna hire somebody to work your system. So that's your delegation. And then you're gonna look at the parts of that system that maybe you can automate. Scott Tyde, what's the biggest that you see, the biggest mistake you see people making initially in their optimization process as they start building their businesses out the processes and their systems?

Well, if they try to automate first, I think that you shouldn't automate first. You should automate second. You should outsource first. Because when you try to automate something, it could be fast or it could be hours and hours and hours of development. And so ultimately, the first thing I do is to get it off your plate. Boom, it's gone. And then once it's off your plate, you guess what? You now have more time. And then you can go tinker with all the toys and tools and gadgets and gizmos that you want.

Exactly, exactly. I couldn't have said it better. Tell you a little story. Story time. Elon Musk is on 60 Minutes and the factory is not pumping out enough Tesla Model 3s. They are behind schedule. So he's got robots working in the factory. There's no people. He realizes that they're not making it in time and so they create this sort of like pop up factory and they, they supply it with human beings creating the cars, and then they actually meet the demand with the people. So even Elon Musk makes this mistake. He should have started with the human beings first and then automated the pieces that he could have with the robots. So, you know, if he's making those mistakes, probably the rest of us are as well.

Could you, could you imagine, like Amazon, could you imagine if Jeff Bezos said, hold on, hold on, we're not going to ship a single book until I have all of the robotics to run the warehouses the way that I want them to. We're not going to do anything. We're going to sit there and wait. No, you'd never have an Amazon package to your door. What did he do? He brought in people. He was shoving books into boxes from his desk himself.

Right.

Like he was doing the work. And then he started bringing in people to do it. And then he started bringing in automation to make the people faster and better. They still have a lot of people in the warehouses. They got a lot of technology too, but they also have a lot of people because the people get the thing going, then you build the automation around it. It's crazy.

Yeah, absolutely. I actually think when you're starting your process, you should write it out first and write out the steps. Then I think you should make your training video and we're going to talk about the tech tools that we use and what we like the most. And then from there, test it with the human being, ideally yourself first, and then test it with an inexpensive va. Is anything with that process, Tate, that you pick on?

No. I would say that rather than have you tested, I like to have my dearly beloved wife try to read through it because she doesn't have a ton of understanding with what I'm doing. She's a very smart lady. But when it comes to certain automation, I always say that if she can't understand it with a college degree and a background and kind of design and knowledge of certain tools, then there's no way somebody who I'm paying four or five dollars an hour is going to be able to do it. So she's kind of my stress test, much to her dislike, but, but she works really well and understands that, hey, she'll red flag anything and say, this makes no sense. I had to use my own kind of skills to figure out what you were trying to get at here, fix it, and then go back and restart. And so I think building a process, it's important to understand that it's not a one and done thing just because you sit down and you map it out. Maybe your methods of explaining it aren't clear. So you have to be willing to take the feedback and criticism from the people you work with and alter the approach that you, that you take.

No, I think that's great. And I used to do this with my daughter, but when she became a teenager and started getting a lot more high school homework and I'd ask her to read through it, she's going to roll her eyes and just say, I'm busy, dad. Sorry. But Mimi, as far as, like, when you're starting a process, do you have a certain rhythm to it that you like to do?

Well, I guess when I started automating, I just went in the order of the plates, right? Started with mailing, then right then with intake, that kind of thing. And in delegating and automating now, just like what I asked my coaching students, I do the same thing with myself. What are my pain points? You know, I do something and I do it a couple times and I step back and I think, why am I doing this to myself? It's reached a painful point, right. Most of my delegation processes are in Trello, right. And so I go there first and I look at how all my processes are laid out and so try to determine how I can alleviate that pain point. I had a meeting this morning actually with my intake manager about how to manage my mailings a little better. She's going to start managing the mailings. And so as an intake manager, that's one higher step for her of managing all of that for me. Right. And what does that look like for her? So I think it's great to get your subject matter experts, your SMEs that are doing a lot of these things already who actually have their hands in it to get their opinions on what they would do, particularly if they're going to help you do it or if they're going to train people of yours to do it. Right. So that basically that's how I do it. What are my pain points? Go look at my current processes, talk with the people that are helping me in those areas already.

There's Mike. Yeah, all right, no worries. You know, it's so great that we don't edit this podcast so everybody gets to hear how, you know, just a little window into Mimi's world on Voxer. Harry Peterson, how about you? When you're creating your process, how do you go about doing it first?

Well, a couple things, I guess. You know, number one, I like it to be as easy as possible on me because creating processes is so time consuming and tedious. So I like to use a tool called Process street that allows me to essentially create a checklist for the process. And I can include things like videos of me maybe showing how to do something. You know, I can record that with ScreenFlow or some other kind of screen capturing software. So I can talk through. You know, I'm in LGPass, I'm doing this or whatever, and I can just kind of show how that all happens, and then I can support that with copy and checkboxes and in the whole process from start to finish. So I like to use that. I can also go back and update it when there's problems. So that works well for me.

All right, fantastic. Well, you've already talked about a tool, Process street, but we are going to go around and ask everybody, if you were going to do your geeky stocking stuffer, and you could only put two, two tech tools in the stocking stuffer that you would use to help optimize, delegate, and automate your processes and systems, what tool, what two tech tools would you use? And we might as well start with the big Papa Tate Litchfield.

Mine would be LGPass and Airtable.

LGPass and Airtable. Why those two?

Well, LGPASS is just kind of like the backbone to our business. Keeps us organized, helps us generate documents, helps me mail, helps me do everything that I need to to make the business run. I use airtable for a variety of different reasons, but mainly to help my marketing team have a base to operate out of. So in there, we'll store images, we'll store pricing information, properties so they can see what's for sale. Because our list of properties that's available to be sold changes on a daily basis. So I like airtable for that purpose.

Okay, great. Well, speaking of LG Pass, did you know that the flight school students get LG Pass six months for free to get going?

Know that? I didn't know that. Yeah. I mean, it's. It's amazing. It's. I've never had anybody. I think it's one of the big points that people love about flight school is they get access to the tools, right?

Yeah, they absolutely do. And that reminds me. Today's podcast is sponsored by Buy Flight School. Learn more how the next 16 weeks of 2020 can catapult you into becoming a passive income machine without renters, without rehabs, without renovations, without rodents. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to your family, you owe it to the world to create a better life for yourself, a less stressful life. And the best way to start is with flight school. How do you learn more? Go to thelandgeek.com forward/training, schedule a call, and watch how Scott Todd literally will start beginning the transformation of your life. Okay, so LG Pass and Airtable are great, but the terrorist hunter, Mimi Schmidt, what two tech tools would you put into your stockings?

I don't know how you limit it to two.

Like, fine, I'll give you three. I'll give you three. Okay, top three.

Well, think all these GIS systems that we use, how would all of us in the states that we live in that sell land in other states do it if we didn't have GIS systems?

Good point.

I don't know how we do it. Right. It's a window into what I'm buying.

Right.

And then, of course, Zapier, which does most of my automation, heavy lifting, and my CRM. I couldn't do without my CRM, and mine's better than yours.

What CRM are using?

I'm using Follow up, boss.

Follow up, boss. So you get Follow up, boss. Zapier and a gis.

Yeah.

Soft roots soul. That's what you're. That's the. That's what you're putting into the stockings.

Yep.

Okay. Well, I would say it's better than a lump of coal. Sure.

Definitely.

All right, Eric Peterson, the technician, how about you? What would your three tech tools be to help with optimization, delegation, and automation?

So I'm looking at this like we're building one big stocking for all of us to use. So I've got Tate's recommendations, I've got Mimi's already. And now I'm going to add to that, and I'm going to put Process street in there. And then, I don't know, man, I guess maybe G Suite or Slack one of those, because I use those things every day. That's to communicate with my team, to communicate with buyers, sellers, etc. So. So those are the. The two or three. If I get three, I'll put those three in.

So we got Slack and. Or G Suite.

Mm.

Process Street. Yep. And what was the third one?

Slack and G Suite. Those were two and three.

Oh, okay. Those two. Okay. Two or three. Okay. And this is becoming a very heavy stocking. I mean for the, for the learning curve of this stocking. Eric, how many hours would you say it would take? We got OG passengers in there, we got Zapier, we got Process street, we've got Airtable, we've got your G Suite and Slack. I don't. But honestly, they're all pretty easy follow up boss.

Yeah, I mean that's a great question. I think it depends on someone's level of kind of familiarity with technology. I feel like if, if you already are very computer savvy and you feel like, you know, you can pick things up quickly, you could probably familiarize yourself with all those tools and day's time, you know, maybe less. But if you're maybe less comfortable on the computer and you know, maybe you're competent in word and that's about it. It's going to take a little more time. Each one of those tools is going to take a little bit of investment of your time to kind of get a handle on Zapier could be the toughest for somebody that doesn't have experience with kind of how those triggers and automations work. But yeah, yeah.

And actually Zapier has a list of, you know, that will help you do it and they also have pre made templates as well. But I think the point is, is that none of these tech tools are as complicated as, let's say, learning how to use a Microsoft Surface. I mean it's not going to be overwhelming. You're not going to get to the point where like I'm just throwing this thing out and. Right, forget about it.

And you don't have to go back to school for these tools. You can, you can learn them on your own.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Which tees me up for the professor. Got Todd. What are they, what are you putting in that big stocking?

Well, okay, well we talked about Zapier. That was on my list. Right. Like, and if we're just adding to it, I would make sure Zapier is in there. I would make sure that fleek is in there.

F, L, E E, Q.

Because that's how I train my VA's. I would make sure that LastPass was in there or a password tool that I could share my passwords and.

And.

You guys just talked about it because the learning curve could be so big. I am going to put in there investorninjas.com because you can learn just about anything on there and it's growing even into 2020. The list of classes that's coming out is growing, growing. Mark.

All right, well those are some pretty good tech tools and I like the fact that Investor Ninjas is going to teach me how to be better at all of them. I really love that you said fleek and lastpass. Those are like two of the fundamentals for sure. Eric and I are a little disappointed that you're not going to throw a surface in that stocking stuffer. But it's probably expensive, dare I say overpriced for what it does.

What? Have you looked at how much you spend on a Mac that has all kinds of defaults, defects, like non stop defects. Your tools are overrated and overpriced. Man.

I'm a trifle deaf in my left ear. So it's something about get a Mac is really what I heard Scott mention, which I think is a great stocking stuffer as well to make you really go into 2020 using these tech tools virus free. Just a beautiful sort of seamless experience as opposed to the clunky surface. Anyways, my tech tools, I thought they were all great. I would actually throw in and I know it's going to sound self serving, but of all those tech tools that you guys have mentioned, they all cost, there's all cost expense right now. Certainly when we factor in our time, they're saving us money. But there's only one tech tool that I know of that makes you money. GeekPay IO has to go into the stocking stuffer. And if you haven't played with Geek pay, essentially it's a back end of collecting your notes via ACH on an automated basis and it's 99 bucks a month. But if you charge a note setup fee like we do, Eric, what do you charge? 249 for a note setup fee?

Yeah.

So every time you put a note in there, you're making what money on that? And then you charge a note collection fee and then you can charge your interest. You can have a credit card as a backup. One note, two notes, it pays for itself and then it starts making you money on a monthly basis. GeekPay IO has got to be in that stocking stuffer to automate the back end of the business. And then for me, I really like, I like fleek, but zoom is so easy. I would add zoom in there or loom in there to make my training videos as well. Zoom free, loom free. And no one mentioned Trello. Why not Trello? Mimi, you love Trello.

I love Trello. I just only had three courses.

Okay, so mine are GeekPay, IO, Zoom, or Loom. Hey, Rhyme and Trello. I think we've got a really nice stocking full of automation tools.

I think it's overflowing.

It is overflowing with goodness. So if you were just. If you're a newbie, though, and you were just. You could only pick, like you're on a budget. Besides, because Zapier, it could be free in the beginning, right? Yeah. So Zapier will be free. Zoom would be free. Loom would be free.

Mimi, Trello.

Trello would be free.

Is it Airtable?

Can be.

Yeah.

Good. Airtable could be free. OG Pass. LastPass is free. Sales CRM follow boss is free.

No, no, no, no, no. HubSpot has a free version.

HubSpot's got a free version. LG Pass is free for six months for flight school people. Super. Is it makes you money? I don't know. I. They're. They're really easy to start with. They're sort of irresistible.

And look, if you're. If you're trying to save money, well, then sell that overpriced MacBook that you have and buy a Surface, and then you're off to the races. That's all you gotta do.

Boom.

Pays for itself.

It's a good point. It's a good point. But as they like to say, what's cheap becomes expensive. So then when the Surface gets that first virus, then you got to go back in. You gotta get it fixed. Look at all that lost productivity. You got a problem?

I've had two surfaces going for a year now. Over a year. No. No viruses. You know, but, like, how many times is your MacBook, like, cut out on you on podcasts over the last year? Do a rewind count. I've been keeping track.

Are you serious?

Every time there's a flaw. But every boot camp, I make a note in Evernote, which is also free, by the way. Evernote is. That's another good tool. We didn't talk about that.

Is a good. Is Process street free in the beginning, too?

I don't recall if it's free or not. It's relatively inexpensive. I think it's about $150 annually.

Okay, but.

But I'm not sure if there's a free version or not.

I'd like to have a checklist of retorts to Scott Todd's, you know, Mac, and just check it off the Only.

Time I remember a malfunction was on the surface while we were playing Family Feud.

Yeah, I was just gonn.

I don't know.

No, no, no, no.

Mark. That's right, Tate.

Wait a minute. At the last boot camp, Mark's computer, like, completely fizzled out and almost died.

Scott, you know how I remember this? Because it was.

You were touching my personal ball.

No, no, no, no, no. It was right before my team won. Yet again, we're undefeated. So I remembered it because it was like a proud moment for all of the attendees because they kept my winning streak alive. Undefeated for four years. Now I think it is maybe five.

Who's been tracking that?

Oh, we're tracking it in Evernote. Any cloud, by the way, you know, we didn't mention Dropbox or Evernote, any of these cloud based systems, but yeah, so many good. There's so many good tools, right?

That's part of Google Suite.

Yeah. If you want to talk to us about our favorite tools, by the time you're listening to this, you'll still have a few weeks to get to San Antonio Boot Camp. Learn more, go to lanky.com boot camp. It's included with the toolkit and flight school, so take advantage of that. And then in real time, you can actually debate with us. Surface versus Mac. Right, Scott? Todd?

Well, there's no debate, but we can have a discussion around it that will. Will appease you. That's no problem, you know.

Okay, well, great. I thought this is. I thought this was really productive podcast and I certainly want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas. By the time you're listening this, you'll be in the second day of Hanukkah as well, or what I like to call diluted Christmas over eight days. So it's, it's really basically two days of good gifts and six days of crap, but the first and the eighth day are very nice, for sure. And so Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah from the Land Geek for everybody who listens. And thank you so much for supporting our podcast. If you really want to give us a gift, all you need to do is subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. Three very simple quick steps. Do us a favor, send us a screenshot of the review. To support thelangit.com we're going to put in your stocking stuffer, the passive income launch kit, which is normally $97, as well as the whole tailing course. How to double your money, 30 days or less. Pretty good way to go into 2020. So now, Tate, we're at that point, we're going to put you on the spot for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the auto, passive income listeners. Go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

All right, so as everybody knows, we are in the era of the streaming wars and there are so many different platforms out there that it's really hard to know if you have access to the best shows, whether it be on Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Hulu, hbo, et cetera. So I was showed an app. It's called Just Watch. And the reason I'm sharing this with everybody is because what our viewers and our listeners probably have picked up on is part of Mimi and I's main objective with having our fixed expenses covered with our land business is so that we can stream and binge watch TV shows at our leisure. And so this app is called Just Watch. You can find it for free in the app store. And what it will do is you can go in there and search any TV series or movie and it will tell you what platform or where that show can be watched. So check it out. It's a really cool app. It is the holidays, so you'll have some time to spend binge watching with your family and loved ones. And if you heard of a show and you can't remember where it's at or what it was, you can go on here, find it and get, get to the couch a lot quicker. So check it out. Just watch. Very, very cool.

I'm playing with it right now. It's asking me what providers am I interested in. It's got Netflix Prime.

Yeah.

Disney Plus, Hulu, HBO, now Apple TV. By the way, speaking of Apple TV, everything's in here. DirecTV, Epic. It's incredible. Wow.

Yeah, you can go in there if you want to say, I want to watch. I don't know, it'll even tell you movies that just came out. So. Like the Joker. Oh, I want to see the Joker. I didn't see it in theaters. It'll tell you. Oh, you can rent it or buy it off Apple. Okay, cool. So now you have an idea where to go.

This is fantastic. I'm really enjoying the morning show, by the way, on Apple tv. Is anyone else watching it? No. No. Well, there, there's, there's a recommendation for you.

What is it?

Eric. Eric Peterson. I know you're a big reader, but any, anything that you're going to recommend during the holiday break?

No, no, I've got nothing.

What book are you reading right now?

I'm not even Reading a book at the moment. I'm just unpacking.

That's right. You've got a life thing going on. Tate, how about you?

I watched a series on Amazon just recently. It was called the Feed. It's a pretty interesting show set in the future where everybody gets these implants in their bodies and they're able to connect to, like, the Internet and social media and email kind of hardwired into their brain, and so they just kind of activate it, and it's really cool. Check it out. The Feed. It's on Amazon.

Okay. Is it as good as Black Mirror? Is it Black Mirror? Ish.

Yeah, it's kind of. It's a series. I think it's like eight or ten episodes long. I really liked it. We watched it pretty quickly over the course of a week, so check it out. It's kind of Black Mirror. Maybe not as dark, but there are some pretty intense moments in the series.

All right, Mimi, how about you? Are you watching anything good or you reading something good?

I got a book that Scott suggested, Secret Empires for my husband's stocking stuffer, one of his stocking stuffers. I'm excited about that. And I am currently streaming Strike Back, which is really good. About two, like, CIA operatives and Outlander.

Fantastic.

Yeah. Excited about my son coming home. We're watching the Grinch. The holiday things. I gotta watch the Grinch, right? With Jim Carrey and Elf.

Yeah. I really think between Elf and Christmas Story, if that. That's, like, the big tradition around here, the Grinch. I do like the Grinch. I do.

It's good.

But if I had to choose. Yeah, yeah. Scott, Todd, how about you?

Christmas vacation, man.

Ooh, that is a classic.

That's a good one. Can you believe that? My daughter. My daughter went out the other day. She was driving around with one of her friends, and they were driving around, and there was, like, no houses that were decorated, like, you know, crazy style. And she goes, wow, I'm. To her friend, she says, wow, I'm disappointed. There's no Griswold houses around here. And he's like, well, what's. What's that? And she was just like, how do you not know what Clark Griswold like Christmas vacation? What are you talking about? You don't know that? He's like, no. She's like, how do you not know what that is? I'm like, what?

How does he got.

No.

Now, the test is this.

Tate now vacation.

Yeah.

Christmas vacation.

Yeah. Christmas vacation.

Not Vegas vacation. Christmas vacation.

I do know that one yeah, that's.

Yeah. I feel like there's certain things I have to introduce the kids to that are classics.

Yeah. A movication, like an education. It's a movication.

It's a movication. There's a musication. Like every morning while they're getting ready, I put something on, you know, new on. On Alexa or, you know, Amazon and play music and, you know, you know, sometimes they love it. Like, my son is like humming Behind Blue Eyes. The who. I'm like, you like this. I'm like, you ready for Quadrophenia? Couldn't be more proud. Really?

That's important.

It's really important. I think Christmas Vacation is definitely one of those movies as well. As well as Vacation, those two. That has to be in there for sure. Some of those, those 80s movies, you got to just rejig them up. Breakfast Club, Goonies, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Although as I'm getting older, I'm realizing how much I hate Ferris as a. As a parent.

Why is that?

Are you kidding me? All this guy's doing is lying to the adults. Look, a.

Priest once told me, you know how you tell if a teenager's lying? Their lips are moving. That's how. So, like, it's just emulating real life, honestly.

Point.

Yep.

It's a good point. Well, I want to thank everybody again. I want to thank the listeners. I hope you're getting a lot of value out of these podcasts. And again, Happy holidays make 2020 the best year ever. Although, are we. We will be recording next week, aren't we? Or not? If not, Happy New Year. I don't know. I think we are. We'll do something. Or I'll do something. Depends what everybody's doing. I'm just happy Mimi and Eric are actually on the roundtable this week.

Yeah. Now the other two have gone. What happened?

Yeah. By the way, is that a little suspicious? Isn't it? It's a little suspicious. Two of them are gone now. Yeah.

When they return, like when they return, you and I will leave.

Right? Right.

Then there'll be no podcast.

No.

I think.

The downloads might go through the roof.

It's true. I think when Mimi hosted, it was really strong. Take it. Host Eric.

Nope. I'd like to see Eric and Mimi host this.

Absolutely.

I've done it once. Eric's turn next.

Not happening.

Okay.

Eric will move again. He'll move again to avoid hosting.

I can't wait for Eric to run boot camp. That's sort of like the long term plan. Then, you know, you've really gotten over a fear of public speaking.

Yeah.

Are you excited about that idea?

No.

It's okay. You know, but it's not that you have a fear of public speaking, is it? You do it?

Yeah, I do it.

I just.

I don't like it, I guess.

You just don't like it.

I feel uncomfortable.

Yeah. That's growth, right? Sure, you know. All right, we ready to do this? 1, 2, 3. Let, let. Not bad, not bad. All right, well, thanks, everybody, and we'll see everyone next week. Maybe we'll have something next week. All right. See you. Ready?

Merry Christmas.