Helpful Tips On How to Stand Out as a Land Investor

All right, stay with us on this podcast because we're going to talk about how to stand out as a land investor as more and more people go into the land investing niche. How do you stand out? Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek. Your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's Round Table podcast, we have almost all the usual suspects. We've got Landon AI Harris, the aquatic investor. Landon, how are you doing? Well, Mark, good to see you, dude. Buddy, the nightcap OG Scott Bossman. Scott, how are things?

Things are good, thanks, Mark.

Good to see you. I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate. Litchfield Tate, how are things in Sin City?

Good, good as usual. Staying busy.

Good to see you. Well, we've got a really great topic that I think is going to be on almost everyone's mind, especially when you go and you're seeing if you're on, you know, say, our, our Mastermind College. Like, guys, this seems like there's more people in, in the land investing niche now. How do I stand out? How do I stand out so I can buy more property? How can I stand out from the crowd so I can sell more property? And we have a really interesting take on this, I think, but I can't read Landon's mind. So, Landon, when you. What are you thinking when you see. Oh, my gosh, there's seems like there's more people in my county. There's more people in the niche. How do I stand out? What do you, what strategically are you thinking about?

Well, I mean, you can look at it in two different areas, right? I mean, if you're looking at it from the intake side, you know, in the beginning, I remember we got, we were doing the, the regular letter, sending it out, and we decided we were going to change it up a little bit. And so we made some adjustments to the template and we added our logo so that we kind of stood out a little bit. You know, ultimately found out didn't make a difference whether we make ours or not. They, they, they left the price, and that's what it really came down to. Did I have the right price? And that's honestly what made it stand out. So when I look at the intake side of it, it was more on what price did you put? Were they ready? You know, so I think that that ultimately set out, you know, on the sales side, you know, we went down the road of we're going to create this website, we're going to make it all jazzy and fancy. And spend all this time, hours and hours and hours putting this thing together. And you know, ultimately, did people go to our website? No, they did. You know, they. It gave us some credibility.

Sure.

And helped some people kind of look around and say, oh yeah, ye. I can see you got some properties. But you know, I think what ultimately made us stand out on the sales end was just how we interact and how do we treated people. You know, the conversations that we were having, we got to know some of these folks that were buying properties from us and you know, they, they had our number, they could call us. We responded back quickly. So when it came to the sales, it was more on, you know, being a little bit of personal and then making sure that we were accessible. We can answer the questions that they needed. So, yeah, standing out stuff, but you can do it. I think it's. It doesn't have to be something fancy that you're trying to do to kind of make yourself stand out.

So let me understand this. So I completely have it clear in my head. The way that you stand out is you just offer a really good price for the land. So you're not doing like a yellow letter or a handwritten letter or, or something like that, some fancy stamp for them to get to open your envelope. You just send a good offer.

We just said a good offer.

And then on the other end of it, you're standing out by being a good human. This is, this is mind blowing stuff, right?

Changing the world here, right? Yeah. I mean, you would love to say, okay, we'll change this and do this because I need to be the one that stands out the most. But honestly, it's just how you're treating people and you're sending out the letter that people go, that's fair. That's a price I want to pay or when I want to pay for or buy whatever they want to do. It's like, okay, well, I think that honestly has been just the most standard, consistent thing that we've ever done. So.

Wow. So this is the most disappointing answer for people who are looking for like the greatest tactics ever. But I guess if, you know, you can just write down for your note, golden rule it, that's going to help you stand out. Just golden rule it, right? Maybe Scott Bossman has some kind of black hat type of marketing strategy or some type of acquisition strategy where he's using bots and he's using AI to differentiating himself from the rest of the crowd. Scott, what, what are you doing to differentiate yourself on the acquisition side and on the marketing side. All right.

On.

On the acquisition side, like, we're Steady Eddie, man. Like we're doing exactly what we've done since the beginning with using a letter template, as Landon said, putting the right price on there. Right. And that. And watching responses come in. Now, I will say that I do believe what stand. What sets you apart on the intake side is a timely response to those sellers. Because I can't tell you how many people are intake team talk to and they'll say, I've gotten a lot of offers or I just got an offer from this guy and I was hoping, you know, and I talked to him one time, but he hasn't gotten back in touch with me. How long ago was that? I don't know, three, four weeks ago. And he was interested? Yes. Oh, and he wanted the property. Yes. But he hasn't been in touch? No. Right. Well, now we're taking over that conversation because the day we got that response, we're on the phone and the day we got that response, we're on the phone with them. Golden ruling it, like you said, making a connection with these potential sellers. So I think that's what makes you stand out on the front end of the business is I. I don't think that. I still don't think anything fancy needs to be done with offer letters. I mean, I just got one today. I got a. I got a handwritten offer letter. It was all. It was all crooked and it was photocopied and. But it looked like a fifth grader's writing and it said, I want to give you $10,000 for this property. And really, if you think about it like if I got a letter from him offering 10,000 or a template offering 10,000, and if I was interested in that price, I'd call him. Right. So I see people nowadays that they're wanting to go back, mark to handwritten letters because they think it's going to improve the open rate or they think it's going to connect with the person opening the envelope on that side. I haven't seen that. On the intake side, we're still getting responses. I see people using companies. Have you seen these letter. Letter writing companies that use Bic pens with their machine?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And really it comes down to what Landon says, I think, on the intake side.

Okay, so let me understand you correctly here. So on the acquisition side, you're just getting back to people when they respond and say, yeah, I want to sell my land. So you're golden ruling it basically, timely.

Response, timely conversation, money's made on the phone and money's made with connections.

Many's made on the phone. Money's made on the connections. Before we get to Tate, I'll just digress and tell you guys a quick story illustrating this point. So we're doing coaching live for our current, our current coaching clients and our alumni and they're going to come to Scottsdale. So we're, we're going to cater it, right. And so I'm in a mastermind group that is a really high end mastermind group in, in Scottsdale and their caterer is fantastic. It's healthy food, it's delicious. It's really well done. So I said to the team, let's get this caterer. They are fantastic. I know everyone's going to love this food and they're really great. So team contacts them. No response. Team contacts them again, no response. I personally call and say hey, I'm in this mastermind group. I really like the food. Can someone from catering contact me? I've had no response. I will not be using this company simply out of principle now even though I know they've got a great product because they couldn't get back to me. So it just really highlights that point. Like you might, your offer might be $20,000 might be even higher than, than ours. It doesn't matter if the, if you don't, if you don't have the system set up, your team's not set up to follow up on a timely manner. And this is what we see with newbies all the time. Like I want to sen thousand offer letters. Well, great. You're not built to handle the, the deal flow that comes back. If you send out a TH000 offer letters that month, you're still going to miss out. So I think it's really a great point. So so far we've got gold ruling it and gold ruling it. Tate, what's your, what's your, your hack as far as standing out from the crowd on the acquisition side and on the marketing side? And I'd be by the way, if you risk Teria put in the reps. Harris just jumped on. Hi Teria.

I don't know, Mark. I'll be honest. I don't love this question because I feel like I can't give a good answer to it because I, I don't consider myself a naturally creative person. But what I do consider myself is stubborn and if I figure something out that works, I'm going to continue to do that until it stops working. So I'm not Reinventing the wheel. We test, we do things while we're trying to crack the code. But once we crack the code, you know, what better situation do you want? I. If there's certain areas where I can get land, I know what to pay, I know who's going to buy it. I know what language to use to target them. I know how long it's going to take, and I know what it's going to suffer. Why do I need to be creative? Why do I need to stand up? Why not just do what we've learned works and rinse and repeat? I don't know. I don't, I don't have a good creative story here. Not writing letters. I'm not going back in time. I'm not putting emojis in text on Facebook. I, I don't do that. I'm a grownup. I, I don't do that stuff. Okay, well, well, I, I, by the.

Way, I'm gonna answer the question. I'll tell you why. Because I look at a guy like Landon. If you guys aren't looking at Landon, he's super fit, right? Teria is also super fit. And you know what I want to do? I want to spend half the time that they're spending in the gym and I want to eat french fries and I want to eat hamburgers and I want my shakes, but I want to look like them, right? So then what I'm going to do is I'm going to go online and I'm going to look for the hack. Oh, you know what? If I eat just only protein and that's it. Maybe I'll look like Landon and maybe I'll have Terea's endurance and glowing skin, right? What do you use for your skin care? Tria, right? Oh, she uses that lotion. It's not gonna work, right? It's a hack. The fundamentals, and there's no getting around them, work every single time. There is no hack you're in. In the long term, maybe you might be able to increase your open rate by a percentage. Right? But that's not where we make our money is on an increased open rate. But I digress. Go ahead.

No, I think that's a good point. I mean, at the end of the day, we are not fools, right? Like, we pay attention to the market. When things need to be changed and altered and we need to do some testing, we do it. How do we stand out? Well, we try a variety of different things, but we never really stray that far from what's worked in the past. We might have to rebrand it a tad, change up the language. But if it worked last year, you know, it, it could work this year. Right? And we have to rule it out now. It doesn't mean platforms won't change. It doesn't mean pricing will stay the same. But I'm not overly focused and being unique, I kind of consider myself a bland land investor. Right? Like, just give the people the facts, provide good customer service, be a nice person. Golden rule it. Do what you say you're going to do and be consistent with that.

Wow. Well, you know, Tree is shaking her head right now. She's like, yeah, that's a good answer. But maybe she's using chat GPT and putting a prompt. How can I be the most unique land investor on the planet? Pretend you're Mark Podolski and you have 23 years of land investing experience. How would you go about standing out from the crowd on the acquisition side and the marketing side and selling side of land investing Trio, what are you doing? How do you stand out? What do you. What do you think?

Okay. I kind of have to agree with Tate. We may try to make what we do more efficient and find different platforms, but we pretty much stick to the same thing. We market on whatever channels we can market on our ads. I don't know if they actually stand out. We try to use avatars like we're taught. We try and follow the recipe, but if there's a better way of following the recipe, I think that's what we.

Will.

Jump in on. But just going out and trying a bunch of new stuff, I'll talk to different people. I'll go on Fiverr every now and then and just look at different ways to market on Facebook. I'll get on phone calls with some of these people and just try and find different ways. But I don't say we do that on a regular basis because if it's working for us, we just keep working it.

I love it. I love it. It's so true. Because if you look at other businesses, right, they're not doing anything unique. You know what they're doing. They're showing up consistently. That's. And they're executing consistently. If you think about that, your favorite brands, your favorite companies, where you shop, that's all they're doing. Your favorite restaurants, right. They're consistent and they're showing up consistently. They're not open two days a week. They might be open six or seven days a week. Right? They give you customer service. They treat you the way you expect to Be treated. And the secret to the land investing game, I'll tell you right now, it's showing up consistently. That's it. It's a numbers game. That's it. You make adjustments, you measure. You don't have to get fancy. You don't have to spend a lot of money trying to be unique, trying to be creative. What you do have to do are the basics and do it consistently really well. And then, just like everybody said, golden rule it, follow up. Be there when people raise their hand and say, I want to sell my property. Be there to buy it when people raise their hand, say, I'm interested in your property. I want to buy it. Be there to service them and help them make that delightful process for them. And do it again and again and again over a long period of time. And guess what? Your passive income now exceeds your fixed expenses. You're working because you want to, not because you have to. And you're totally free to live your best life. That's it. That's what you do. And when people look at you, they'll say, well, what did you do to stand out? And that's what you'll say, I just showed up every single day consistently. I trained my team to do this consistently. And I didn't build myself a job. I built myself a team with these values. This is how we conduct ourselves. This is how we treat people. And we do it again and again and again. And next thing you know, you've built yourself a land empire and that's it. There's nothing anything fancier than that. And if there's something fancier than that that's working, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about our tech tools. We'll get geeky with you for sure. But the basics continue to work. It's just a numbers game. Everyone's shaking their head. So I thought this was a good topic. But we are now at that point in the podcast where we want to ask Landon for his tip of the week. A website resource, a book, something else actionable for the auto passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. Landon, what do you got?

Okay, so I was in this constant search of, like, looking for a county that would file in the counties that I work. So sometimes simple file does not file in every county. We found this out. So I was in the search to find something else. So I found another company. It's called CSC E Recording. I'll put that in the chat as well. But they, they do have some counties and they don't file in all of, you know, the counties that we want, but they do have some counties that are not quite on Simplify. So I've been kind of investigating a little bit. They're about, I believe, eight to ten dollars per filing, and then there's a monthly or, excuse me, an annual fee that they have. But I do know that they work with specific groups if you have a certain type of package that you want to do. So I do know they make adjustments according to that. So maybe something to look into, you know, for others that are looking for alternatives.

Okay, I'm looking for now. It's cse.

Yes.

Csc.

Csc. E Reporting.

Yeah. E. Recording.

Recording.

Yeah.

Okay.

I put the link in the chat.

Yeah, that. That makes it easy.

Does that work?

Okay, that. Yeah, because I can't spell.

Oh, nothing to spell. It's just three letters.

Just e recording.com. there it is. Ready, set. E record.

So.

So finally, Simplify. Simplify has a competitor now. I love it. This is a great tip of the week. Wow, fantastic. I. I had a backup tip just in case that was kind of like relevant to our topic and it's Morgan Housel's latest book, Same as ever. Because if everything's gonna change, what are the things that don't change? Especially when it comes to investing. And it's, it's, it's really great. His first book, Psychology of Money, was one of my favorites, I think in 2021 or I forget the year it was, but awesome book. Yeah. Same as ever is not as good as Psychology of Money, but it's still really good. And I'm a big Morgan Housel fan. Landon, you killed it. No, there's no. No jot. Not pro to make fun of on this one.

Wow. That far that go back. I know.

If you're listening to this, you're like, what is he talking about? Don't worry, that's. That's an old reference. That's like a nine year old reference. Now.

Eric's not knowing to defend himself.

And Eric's not even here to defend himself. All right, well, I want to thank the listeners and remind you the only way that land is going to keep coming up with these crazy great tips of the week is if you do three little favors. Follow rate, review the podcast, send a screenshot of that. Review supportlangic.com we're going to send you a free copy signed of Dirt Rich. And if you're thinking about how do I build my passive income to be above my fixed expenses, go to our sponsor today. Which is flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Go up that mountain of land, investing quickly, safely, efficiently. And I know what you're thinking. What about the tuition? The tuition? Yeah. It ain't going to cost you nothing. Guaranteed, you're going to make it back 180 days or less. Just show us your work. Learn more. Go to landgeek.com forward/training. The landgeek.com forward slash training. Landon, are we good? We're good, Dude. Buddy.

Yeah, we're great.

Yeah, we're good, Big papa.

All good.

All right, let's do this. 1, 2, 3. Let's. Freedom. All right, thanks, everybody. So just so you guys know, the weather here is ridiculously good right now. Like, it's.

It's.

It's, like, embarrassingly good.

I agree.

Yeah.

It's like, why are we even doing this right now? Like, shouldn't we all be outside?

Beautiful.

It is.

It is.

It's kind of paradise, like, right now. Not gonna lie.

So. So, Tate in Vegas. I know it's beautiful here. It's beautiful. But Scott, it's like nights in on Alaska. I'm just telling you this. I'm just saying this to Scott, so he's like, okay, we're moving. Move west.

Three. Three. Two days ago, it was 72 degrees here.

Wow.

Whoa.

Today it's. Today it's 52, which is still.

Still green.

Beautiful short weather, short sweater.

And comparison. Like, when. When we lived in Minnesota, it would turn 30 degrees, and my kids will be like, mom. So it's the comparison of where it was. So 50 is fantastic. When it's a 50.

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So I'm not jealous of you guys today.

Yeah.

And that's the thing is, like, I. I'm. I'm very upset about, like, the rest of the country not suffering because come summer and we're suffering, we're gonna. And they're like, it's beautiful here. Like, what's. Like, it's not.

We're headed down Alaska.

Yeah, exactly. Come on.

Come on over.

It'll be mid-80s, and we're literally headed.

To Alaska in July.

So are you guys going to Alaska in July?

Yes.

Nice.

On a cruise or just a visit?

A cruise.

A cruise for my day. I think that. I think that would be a good podcast is like, what's the best way to. To travel? A cruise or seeing if just a few places. A one place. Oh, Tate's already. Tate's already got his. He's already shaking. Says, like, immerse.

I don't want to go down this rabbit hole because I'll offend some people. But everything you can do on a cruise, you can do on land. Just. Just any reminder out there, they've got water slides on.

On land.

Just same with buffets, so I'll leave it at that.

I think cruising when you have little ones is like, they entertain. Like, you don't even have to come up with the entertainment on a cruise. When you got little ones, it was a game changer for us.

I. I think when you have elderly parents, like I do, it's great. Yeah, great.

We're going.

My dad's turning 80, so this is his request.

Yeah, yeah. So, Scott, what about you? Cruise or no cruise?

I mean, we've done both cruise. Actually, we like the cruise a little more than I thought we were going to, so. Wasn't bad, but. But myself, I would prefer going somewhere and exploring. Setting up a home camp somewhere and exploring from there.

Yeah, I think. I think it's just. Just me. I'm. I'm more about immersing. Tate and I were in Jamaica. We experienced what it's like to be at an all inclusive, no bueno. Unless you're a huge drinker. Right. Like, the food's not great at all. I. I'd rather. And I feel like a cruise in some respects. I mean, the food's not bad. Don't get me wrong. Depends on what you. What cruise line you're on. But it's not like, you know, eating at that mom and pop place where the, you know, it's. It's got five tables and the chefs, you know, there, and he. He's the owner, and. And it's like, very important. That whole experience is compared to, you know, a cruise ship serving a thousand people or more. Fair. Yeah.

Well, we want to do Greece. So it's like we got three islands we want to go to. It's like they pick.

So we're going on.

Santorini is beautiful. I would definitely recommend Greek.

We're gonna hit all the crew spots, and then the one we like the best, we're just gonna go back and stay there.

That. That's what we did. We hit, like, Corfu. There's another one. I can't even remember it because, like, they, like, blur together. Then Santorini and then sent my parents, like, back to Athens, and we flew out of Athens and then did Santorini, and it was amazing. Yeah. For the people that stay on for the bonus stuff, they're like, wow, this is really great travel tips. All right. I know. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm gonna get that guy on. There's a guy who specializes in using credit card points. Russ and Joey interviewed him, and I want to interview this guy. Like, there's a whole way to do it. I know. Like, Billy Rogers pays his team through plastique. Is it plastique P or plastic P? L, A stiq. So he gets the points and then he plays the points game. So, yeah, he's paying the 3% premium, but if you know how to play the points game, ends up, you end up winning. But that's a whole other. That could be a whole other podcast. I don't know. All right, well, it's too nice to keep talking. Thanks, everybody.

Yep.

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