Get The Team Land Geek Take on Top Technology Tools for Your Business

Hey, it's Mark Pedolski, the land geek. His favorite niche real estate website, thelangic.com and on this week's roundtable podcast, almost everyone is busy, but the people that have actually got their life in order are here. Taria putting in the reps. Harris. Sharia. How are you?

I'm well. How are you?

Pulse is still normal. Respiration is fine. I can't complain. And then last but not least, I love it when you call me big Papa. Tate Litchfield. Tate, how are you?

Busy, man. It's a good time to be a land investor. I'm busy.

It's always a good time to be a land investor. What? Is it not a good time to be a land investor?

I don't know. I mean, I'm happy.

Yeah. I mean, Tria. Do you, Landon, ever wake up? You're like, well, what's this thing going to end? Like, Mark's been doing it for 22 years, but, like, is it. Is it going to be a bad time for land investing?

In the beginning, right before we had got our sea legs, right in the beginning, you're like, okay, the bottle is going to fall out eventually, but over time, you realize the business ebbs, it flows, but we never lose. And it stays pretty consistent.

Yeah, yeah, it's consistent. And, you know, Tate always talks about it, but we love those singles and. And they're predictable. You can just predictably keep hitting single after single after single, and then pretty soon that. That passive income, you can start going to larger deals and they get a double and a triple. And then, you know, Tate, did we get that home run deal?

It's looking like it. Yeah, it's. No, it is. It is looking like it'll probably go through. I mean, but that. The thing is, I like what you said about singles. The goal for our company is to get on base every day.

Yeah, right.

Like, that's what we. We don't swing for the fences. We are trying to get on base every single day. And what that means can differ from business to business. Right. For some people, that might mean a sale a day. For other people, that might be an acquisition every day or a new lead every day or whatever it might be mailers going out every day. It doesn't. It doesn't have to be the same across the board, but if you get on base every day, you are going to get to where you want to be eventually.

Yeah, absolutely. And. And there's a win in this business every day. If you're doing something every day, you can count that as a win. It's only not a win if you just do nothing. And it's not necessarily that you have to do it. It could be that, hey, I. So my team member, you know, did this today and that's, that's a win so that I could go and play with the kids. Right, right. Something like that. So we've got a, an interesting topic. We've, I know we've talked about this in the past, but I think it's good to bring up again, especially as, you know, our, our group grows, we get more geeky. Let's talk about tools. So I think the first question is when should you even use a tool? When is it appropriate to use a tool? So for example, I think the tool du jour is airtable right now and to keep track of inventory as well as setup automations. So, but why, why is that necessary? Essentially, like how do you know when to use a tool and just the heuristic for that. So, Terea, why don't we start with you? How do you think about tools and when to implement it?

So I look at tools. I've worked in technology for, I don't know, maybe 25 years now. So I look at tools as a means to an end. So when I come across a situation in my company or in a process and I need to solve that, I go find a tool that is the solution for that problem or that situation. I think sometimes we find a tool or we see a tool and it's shiny and it's pretty and, and everyone's using it. And then we try to find an issue in our, in our business to make it fit. So we use the other way around. We hear about tools all the time and some of them sound really, really cool and maybe one day we'll have a use for them. But for now, we stick with the tools we need in order to solve a problem or help move our business along or make it more efficient. And that's how we kind of look at when we use a tool.

Hey, I think we could just end the podcast right there. That's sort of the. I don't know if there's a better answer for when to use a tool.

No, there's not. I mean, as she mentioned, the most common mistake that people, they make is, hey, that sounds cool. I'm going to put it into use in my business. And if you don't need it, you've now created extra work or you've got yourself another subscription and you don't necessarily have to do it. Or have that tool. And that's why we killed, you know, the tool of the week. Remember that? In the old days of the roundtable, we were talking about our favorite tools every single week. It was overwhelming. Like, we had somebody. Who was it that called in or.

Oh, yeah, Philip. Ma.

It was like, stop. Stop it, guys. Because even though we thought they were cool, we realized that we weren't doing anybody any favors by bringing up new technology every single week. I mean, Mark, we could do a podcast for three hours on the coolest AI stuff that you. That we've figured out, right?

Like, yeah, absolutely.

We've got a thread, me, you, Scott, where we talk about this stuff all day. We're not talking about it here. Why? Because half the stuff we don't even use, right? Or three quarters of this stuff we think we see it. It's like, wow, that's a cool YouTube video. Or that's a cool tool. Any use for it? It's like, I don't even know if there's a use for it. I don't have one. Therefore, I'm not even gonna go down the rabbit hole. Even though it's really cheap or really cool.

Yeah, absolutely. And I remember Scott would keep sending me these AppSumo deals, and I'd keep buying them, and again, it was just like, oh, one. It was like I was collecting tools for no reason.

Right.

And I didn't have a problem to solve, but I thought, oh, the tool is cool. Maybe one day I could use this and AppSumo would just irresistibly price these things. But at the end of the day, we probably only use a few tools and that's all you really need, but it is. I mean, yeah, like, we all get shiny object syndrome, even with tools. And I'm not sure what it's about. I mean, Teria, why? Why is that? Break it down. Like, be Freud for a second. Why? Why is it not? Like, why isn't the Kurt Hammer good enough?

I think so. Okay, we're not going down this whole comparison and social media thing, right? But I just think everybody's always looking for something to make their lives better, but they don't do it in reverse. How is this going to make my life better? I just think this is a phenomenal tool. Now I'm going to try to squeeze it in. I don't know why good enough is not good enough. I will say again, working in technology, we have to do these upgrades, and we have to make sure that our technology and our tools stay current. And maybe sometimes we get in the mindset of that means switching the tool instead of just making sure that the tool you have is still solving that problem. It's the most efficient way to solve it. Landon is infamous for shiny object syndrome, and he sends me tools all the time. Look at this. This will do this with, you know, your microwave, or this will do this with your email, or this will do whatever. And I'm like, but how? How. Why do you need that? So now you have to spend four hours programming the tool to save you one hour. Like that. That doesn't make sense to me, but I don't know if I have the psychological answer for why people do that, but some just do it innately, like my husband.

Yeah. Yeah. Tate, what are your thoughts?

I mean, I think it's human nature to constantly be looking for the next best thing or the next cool invention. And the way that these things are advertised to us is typically done in a way that will, you know, introduce this technology. It will change your life. It will make food taste better. You're going to make so much more money, reclaim your time. And it's like, for whatever reason, those. Those taglines, those phrases, they resonate with us, right? Because we all want more time. We all want more money. We all want to have more flexibility. And if this can do it, well, it's in my best interest to check it out. And then you realize it's really no different than what you're currently doing. And, you know, I kind of have a core set of tools that we use, and it's. Something has got to be, like, remarkably better for me to change at this point. Like, I'm not talking, oh, it's a few percentage points better.

This is. Has.

Has to be night or day better. And I haven't found. I'm very happy with the tools and resources that my company uses. I don't feel the need to jump ship anymore. I don't really look at a ton of things.

I.

And, yeah, I mean, that's my thoughts on it.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, years ago, I would look at. I'd constantly be looking at things we.

Used to set aside time to do it. Right. Like, every week, you blocked an hour or two.

Right? Yeah. I mean, it was just fun. It was just fun for me. It was geeky. But I like, especially apps on the phone. I. If it was a cool new app, I didn't have a problem, but I thought, oh, this is cool. I would literally play with it for, like, maybe a few minutes. I couldn't find a problem. To solve with it and I would delete it. And I still will occasionally do that, especially if I'm listening to a podcast and there's a guest that I, I think is, you know, cool or I can respect and they use that, like, oh, they're using that. And then I will download it. And for myself, my workflow in my life, it literally doesn't help me in my life at all. And I, and I delete it. And so, and you guys know, for years for communication, I've used Voxer, that's it, Voxer, for team communication. And it's not till just now, as we have grown, that I am going to use Slack and I don't like it, but I have to do it because I have a problem that I have to solve and this actually solves the problem. So I'll do it. But think about that. All these years, as our team has grown, we use a little walkie talkie app for communication and it worked just fine and super cheap. So I think it's, I think it's worth repeating. Absolutely. But that being said, we are geeky, so we might as well get to our tips of the week. Let's get to three of our favorite tools right now. So before Teria gives her tip of the week, I have to give a shout out to our sponsor, which is flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally transform your life. Go up the mountain of land, investing quickly, safely, efficiently with Scott Todd as your Sherpa. He's done thousands of times. Start making passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations of rodents. And I know you're thinking the tuition, the tuition and the investment, well, it ain't going to cost you nothing, guaranteed you're going to make back that money 180 days or less. Just show us you're working it. Learn more. Go to landgood.com forward slash training thelangic.com forward slash training Terea put in the reps. Harris, what is your tool of the week?

My tool had my favorite tool for our company has its Slack. So I love Slack. I can keep my finger on the pulse of everything in Slack. So with some automation that takes place, I know when a down payment is made. I know when a property, new property is added to inventory. I know like I get notifications in Slack for most major events that happen throughout the business. My team is there. I can watch them communicate with each other and leave me out of it, but I can still keep my finger on the pulse of what's kind of going on. So Slack has become kind of my pool of choice these days.

Okay, now let's talk about the channels. You got public channels. You have private channels. How do you guys think about those?

I have private channels, and only the people who are needed for that channel are on that channel. So if I have a marketing channel, just my marketing team is on that channel. We have a sales channel, a sold channel. And so every time a property is sold, everyone who gets involved with updating websites and doing this, they're all on that channel. So if it. If it made sense and we were disseminating that information to multiple people, we created a channel for it.

Excellent. Excellent. All right, well, you're gonna have to go through, like, a. A 30 minute Slack tutorial for me. Cause I know it's so powerful. I know there's, like, all these crazy things you can do in auto automations. I'm just now starting to use it. I don't like it. I don't like notifications, so you can.

Silence the ones that aren't important. But I'll send you my link.

Okay.

You can book some time with me.

I'll book some time. Fantastic. I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate Litchfield, what is your tool of the week?

You know, I don't know if it's. People are going to say this is a cop out, but the tool that we use the most hands down is LG Pass. And look, I don't know what you guys want from me. It's the tool we use the most. Like, yeah, it's a Land Geek tool. But here's the thing. I've been involved in building it, right? I have helped develop this tool to what I want. That's why I'm in it all the time, right? Like, it helps us stay organized.

It helps us.

It does more than just create loan documents, right? It does more than just, you know, help us mail offers. Like, we use this all day, every day. I'm in it right now. It's the only screen open on my computer.

Right?

Like, if you don't want that tool, I'll save Mark's baby for him because I know that's his favorite tool, because that guy likes getting paid. But I would say other tools that I really like, I like, you know, keeping it simple. I. I use Zapier for a couple different things. We do that with Airtable for now, but not for long, because there's a solution coming to that. But, yeah, I would. I would say if I had to choose, right? Like, what's the one tool you need. I'm going LG Pass.

Yeah. I, I would say if we're just talking land, it's got to be LG passengeekpay.IO.

Yeah, Geek Pay for sure for us.

But who doesn't want to get paid?

Who doesn't want to get paid? But if I, if I'm not being, you know, if you're listening, like, oh, of course they're gonna say that. It's so self serving. But we, but we made it for ourselves. I mean, we're very selfish about it. It's not like we're like a separate company and we're thinking, oh, let's see what the land investing community can need, right? And then start creating something for profit. Like, we're land investors. We. We scratched our own itch and like, oh, this is so good. Let's. Let's offer to the community so that they can save time and actually make money with geek pay.

But they both solve a problem as well, right? So they're not.

Yeah, exactly. They both solve a very important problem. But okay, so if you're in coaching, right, we want you to build and scale a land business. So my tool is not. Okay, don't get. This is like I, I could just see. You guys are like, okay, don't say it, Mark. This is a little shiny, shinier object. It's new, but it's got the, the. It's got the aquatic investor initials in there. It's got AI And I'm not saying that this is like something that I, I recommend. I'm just saying I just saw this, I got all excited about it. I sent it to Rossi because I think as you're, as you're creating process and documentation for your team, if you can do it with a little bit of artificial intelligence to save you time, why not? It is get.scribehow.com scribe. AI automatically creates SOPs, help centers, new user guides, and process overviews for any business process. I know, I know.

Give that URL again.

It's get scribehow.com and this might be terrible. I don't know. And if you're not, I mean, the truth is, like, it's so easy to make a process. You don't need this. Just record yourself going on loom go. Then have it transcribed on Fiverr. Then have a technical writer write it out. Like, you know, dirt Ridge two is coming out. We actually walk you through exactly our process on how to create processes. So. But this is just cool. I don't know. I'm afraid Tate's Just thinking, like we just talked about not bringing up AI.

Look, you said it, not me. I mean, I'm actually looking at it. It seems cool. It seems cool.

It seems cool. It does seem useful. But look, if you're pointing your land business right now, don't get this. If you don't have a problem with documentation, Right?

And here's the thing. A lot of these AI websites that are popping up left and right are actually garbage. A lot of the tools are not even worth having. I've downloaded so many to my web browser.

Oh, I'm just gonna do this.

I'm gonna summarize this. And they don't work. They're not good enough.

Oh.

So will this be a home run or a flop? I don't know. But I can tell you, you can run a land business without it.

Absolutely. I mean, it makes me think of notion AI. So notion AI is supposed to be great for creating process and documents, and it's very geeky, but again, you don't need it.

And, Mark, I think the moral of this podcast is very simple. Introduce help when you need it.

Right.

Whether that be in the form of a tool or a VA or a resource, software, whatever it is, you don't need it. Focus on the things that make you money in the land business.

Right.

And you might be saying, well, a good system, a good process will make you money. You're absolutely correct. But it won't make you money if you don't have inventory.

Yeah, exactly. Like, if you don't have the fundamentals in place, like, start there, start with your mailing and marketing, then let's. Yeah, let's start building our house. But if you build. Yeah, pour the foundation first. And so many. Because the pouring. The foundation's boring. It's not sexy.

And how many times do we see people who, you know, I can't tell you how many business cards I've collected at boot camps before I check out my logo, my business cards. Can I get your car? It's like, card. I don't have a card. Cards don't make me money.

Yeah.

And when people hear that for me, they're shocked. They're like, you don't have a business card. It's like, no. It's so laying on the Internet.

Like.

I don't need a business card.

Right, right. Like here.

Like, how do I get in touch with you?

You don't.

Right.

You don't get in touch with me right here.

Yeah. If I'm a boot camp, somebody's like, oh, I want your Business card. I'll just be like, here, let's take a picture together and then text me your number. Or I'll text you my number. Like, there, it's done. I don't need to carry around a bunch of business cards.

No, but that is one of those things that it makes you feel legit. It makes you feel like you are a real land investor. But really it's not a qualifying, you know, it's not, it's not a qualifier, right? Oh, you got a business card, you got a fancy looking website. You know, it does make you a real business owner. A real landowner is ownership terms. Right. Notes, passive income, those are things that make you a land investor.

Exactly.

We're not here to play games, right?

Yeah, we're not playing land.

No, we're not.

No.

This isn't for fun, is it? This isn't. This isn't a hobby.

No. Yeah, we're, we're professionals and a professional shows up even when they don't feel like it, when it's not fun, when it's going well.

And when it's not going well.

Yeah, you show up. Exactly. And you know, I was, I was hazing Terea before the call about smart, you know, her workout and her, her protein and her macros. But at the end of the day she's fit because you know what, she's consistently showing up where if I'm inconsistently showing up, I'm not going to be fit. It's the same thing for your land business. You want to have a healthy land business show up every day and do the work you need to do, even when it's not fun, you don't feel like it. And then wash it down with some.

Protein powder and bone broth.

And some bone broth. There you go. But all right. Well, I thought this is a great podcast. Hopefully, dear listener, you're getting value of it. If you are, please follow rate. Review the podcast. Send a Send the podcast to a friend email to a friend. Anyways, send us your review. A screenshot of review to support attheland geek.com we're going to send you a signed copy of Dirt Rich and it really helps. So are we ready to do this? 1, 2, 3. Let freedom, freedom ring. Thanks, everybody. All right, that was fun. Now go look for some new tools.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. Are you ready to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents? Schedule a free consultation@thelandgeek.com training let freedom ring.