How Gregg Sipe Quit His Corporate Job to Pursue Land Investing

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's Art of Passive Income podcast. I'm really excited because so many people love these podcasts. When we talk to someone who's just like you, they've been through the investors toolkit, they've been through flight school, and we want to just peel back the. Is it the curtain or peel back the onion? Is it open the curtain? Yeah, peel back the onion and. And he learned more about their experience so that we can get some takeaways for ourselves if we can learn from them. So I am honored and privileged to welcome Greg Sipe, who has just graduated from flight school. Greg, when did you graduate?

January.

In January. So it hasn't been that long. About, about six months. So, Greg, how did you find Land Geek and what made you want to go into land investing?

So my wife actually found Land Geek. She found the program online. I actually quit my job, my corporate job, in January of last year.

Wow, congrats.

Thank you. Thank you. I'd had enough of being under the thumb big corporation and really wanted to join my wife full time. She's, she's been in real estate investment for about 10 years doing single family multifamily investments. So I thought, well, this, this a good time. I'm going to go join her. And we were building our portfolio of single family homes last year when the interest rate hikes kind of, they killed the business case for that, that business. And, and land was just a perfect fit, right? Something that we could do without the need of banks. And, and I've always liked land. We had, you know, we had two houses last year that we had to replace the air conditioners on, which wipes away your, your income for those houses. And you know, after, after playing amateur handyman for a year, I'm like, I'd like to try land for a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. So you started with the toolkit. What was that like for you?

It was good, but I really. Both the toolkit and flight school, they're complementary, but both, you know, you and Scott have different styles of the business, but in teaching the concepts, but it's just so much information in there. And I really love the way it's like building blocks. You go and you work on a specific piece of the business for a week and it's done in such a way that you're actually building your business so that when you come out of it, you've got something you've Got something going. And it's just. It was an amazing process.

Yeah. No flight school is really done with you, as opposed to toolkit, which is do it yourself. And I think that's a great distinction. So what has been your favorite deal to date?

So, I mean, the first deal's always everybody's most amazing deal. Right. So I didn't know what deal of the week was. I thought deal of the week was when I get the email for. Or I. We get the weekly blast on Land Moto. I thought that was the deal of the week. And I watched the video series, Tate's video series, looking over Tate's shoulder, and this light bulb went off, which should have gone off before on what a deal of the week is as he's going through that. So I did that on. On the Memorial Day of Friday of Memorial Day weekend. So I sent out my first offer to my mailing list that Friday, and I sold two properties, one in Florida and one in Colorado to a guy that had ghosted me about a month earlier. I had had a conversation with him on the phone. He was going to get back with me on. On. On this land that I was trying to sell, and he just went dead. Wasn't responding. I sent him emails and sent him a couple texts. I'm like, okay, well, he's done. But I had him on the list, and he calls and he buys two properties that weekend. I'm like, this is amazing. Why have I not been doing this before?

Yeah. The list, I think, is the most important asset because that's the only thing that you own. Yep. You know, Facebook could stop letting us advertise there. The lands might not like your last name. Who knows, Right? It's. Or it's very competitive, maybe, and the algorithms are changing all the time. But to be constantly emailing your list, that deal of the week is. Is so powerful, so important. It's. And it's that that's the only thing that you can control and. And. And certainly own. So that's. That's a fantastic first deal.

Yeah.

So what would you say was your. Your favorite hire so far?

So that is an area that I have struggled with.

Okay.

So we did pick up a VA to start on the marketing side, because that's an area I'm not strong in. I did not have a Facebook presence. I was not on Facebook before this program.

Yeah.

And I'm not on Facebook now because Facebook doesn't like me.

Yeah.

So. So I did hire a VA for a while. Had the VA working my Facebook account. Working my wife's Facebook account, helping us with the marketing, and I lost my Facebook account.

Now. Did you go to Facebook jail?

I. I got. It was nuclear. I got blown up.

Wow.

I no longer have a Facebook account at all.

Do you know what happened?

So I did talk with Terea about that, and I had. In my ad, I had. I had done the ad. I referenced the sounds of birds in the morning and fishing.

Yeah. You can't ever mention animals.

And I didn't. I didn't know this. And I, you know, I get the little notice. Do you want to have it reviewed? Do you want to have it.

Yes.

Review, yes. But I wasn't cleaning up anything, and I just got shut down.

And there's no one at Facebook you can contact to get your account back.

I'm not aware of any. That's one of those things at one point I'm going to look for. But I'll tell you, I made it a point to continue with my marketing without Facebook. And I've sold, let's see, Sold six properties through Land Moto Leads.

Okay.

Which. Which has been fantastic. I love Landmoto. And then I sold one to a neighbor mailing. So I've only. I only sold one to Facebook before I got shut down.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's really an important distinction, that, first of all, you don't want to have just one marketing channel. You need to have several marketing channels. And I would say the best one is probably your email list and then Land Moto and the neighbors. And they're constantly going to change depending on your property and the markets and. And just your marketing rhythm. But to always. To put all your marketing eggs in one basket is never a good idea. So that's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. And. Go ahead, Greg.

Well, I was just gonna say it was. It was really hard in February because I had just made my first two sales on Facebook.

Yeah.

One of those two sales dropped out, and then Facebook shut me down. I'm like, I'm done. I'm done. So I think if there's. If there's anything anybody can get out of this is this business. You really have to persevere.

Sure.

You have to stick with it. Don't give up and just keep looking for different levers to pull. Look at different ways to market because it. You can be successful.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I. I could imagine that when you first went into flight school, you had some fears. Talk about some of the fears going in.

Well, I. I would say probably the biggest fears when I got to the marketing section and especially yours because you go into a lot on social media and I'm not, I'm not in social media. I'm on, I have a LinkedIn presence, but that, that's it. And so the, the whole idea of blogging and doing videos and, and just getting out there was very intimidating to me. But I'll tell you, I have come to love YouTube. We've got our own YouTube channel and it, you know, it's fun because that's something we can do ourselves. I have my 14 year old daughter record, my wife and I, and yeah, the little shorts out there just, just so people can, can go on there and see, hey, we're real, they can see videos of our, of our properties. They can learn about the business. It's really good. That's been really fun.

Yeah, I think, I think that's a really great point that you're bringing up is that you don't have to hit every channel for your marketing as well. As far as just social media even. Because I can imagine people are thinking, oh, I have to, I have to blog and I have to email and I have to put up listings and I have to do videos. Really, you should think about it as a Pareto principle. Where can I spend 20% of my marketing time? That's going to yield 80% of the results and it's going to be different for everyone. So for some people it's going to be their email list. For others it's going to be Land Moto. For other people it's going to be YouTube because they like making videos and maybe they have a teenage daughter like Greg that can help them and put that together. For other people it might be Instagram. There's no right or wrong answer. You have to just play with it and see what resonates with you personally. Because we're all going to have our strengths in one area and our weaknesses in another. Some people love to write. Okay, well maybe you want to have a blog. Other people, if you think like me, think, okay, who can I get to to do all of it? But that's, but when you're first starting out, you just want to think about your strengths and play to your strengths and not get overwhelmed with all the other things. So I'm glad you brought that up.

Yeah, you definitely have to get out of your comfort zone a little bit and just try it. That's, you know, if there's one thing I've learned, just try it. Because I wasn't excited about doing videos and talking to people in a video on YouTube. But it works, it works for us. So.

Yeah. Yeah. So what are you most excited about in the future in building your lamb business? How do, how do you, how do you, what do you see your lamb is doing in the next, let's say one to three years? And what do you think that it's going to make in your life?

Oh, oh, it's going to, I mean, it's going to be huge. I mean, we, we, we got into this to fill a gap that we had in our cash flow, in our income.

Right.

And they couldn't be filled at the time through single family rentals and not, not going back there. That's a good, that's a good base as well. We've got the base laid now for the land investments and it's just continuing to, to grow that. I do want to get to the point where I can get that VA team working for me. I want to get a sales manager working to help chasing down leads. Just not there yet. Because I am focused, very focused on the cash flow aspect of the business and trying to get the cash flow where we need it and then go to the next step and grow. And I think that's kind of the challenging part. I know that as we add a team and get more people involved, we're going to take the steps that, that next big step of growth. Right. It's just getting over that hump of getting there because it's starting to get comfortable with, hey, we're, we're cash flowing now and it's just that next step. So.

No, absolutely. And it's not like flipping on a switch. And, you know, when we are working with our coaching clients and helping them scale, we want to get them to where it's, it's, you know, their systems are predictable and that we know our numbers, we know our metrics, we know if we have this many leads, we're going to get this many sales. And once we have some, some good numbers, it's a predictable business. That's when you can really start throwing fuel on that fire and take it to the next level. And so I think what you're doing is, is great. You want to manage the growth for sure. And you also want to delegate. You don't want to abdicate. So many people think, oh, I just want to get this off my plate, have someone else do it when they don't have that depth of knowledge. And then it's the blind leading the blind. Even if you use a service like land va4u that are already trained in the land business. Well, then you still don't know if you've got a good VA or not, even though they're trained. So I'm glad you brought that up for sure. So what advice would you give somebody who's on the fence about either, you know, getting the land business? Maybe they're scared of competition. Is this thing going to get saturated or they're worried about the investment in the training. What advice would you give them?

Just do it. I mean, it's, it. We started in Costilla county, which is one of the, one of the most competitive. It's the most highly bought and traded county in Colorado and we've sold in Colorado. So it's just don't be scared of the competition. I think the competition is good because it does, it really does help you to sell the land to be marketing land that other people are looking at and just get in, get in the training, take the steps because it's going to help you build your business. And if you're looking to build.

A.

Passive income generating business, take the class because you're going to come out of it with something. It's not like a training program where you go do the training and then you got to go do something at the end and you're kind of left to your own. You're, you're building it along the way so that you come out, you've got something. So it's really helpful.

Fantastic. So Greg, your, your mentorship has been fantastic. This podcast, everyone loves these types of podcasts for sure. But now I'm going to put you on the spot one more time. Oh, go ahead, Greg.

No, you're putting me on the spot.

Go ahead one more time and ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

So it's a book called the Selling Formula by Brian Robinson. Picked it up on Amazon. And so Brian was a longtime salesman working for a major corporation. Ended up going out on his own, but he was a top seller at his company. He's got some great advice in here about selling. Helped me to, to be able to better connect with my customers. And he had a tip in here that I use to help get a someone that I was trying to buy land from to respond. So, which was amazing because what was responding? She had responded to my offer letter.

Yeah.

And we'd had a conversation on the phone, exchanged some emails and then she just went Dead. Wasn't responding. The phone wasn't responding. Emails. My, my wife tried emailing her. I tried emailing her and he had a tip in here on just. It's like, it's kind of this hey, is it dead? Kind of response like, like email them or respond to them with is it dead? Because they don't want. They like the idea of knowing that they still have the possibility for the sale out there and they don't want to lose that. And I did that. I'm like, hey, this, this is it. This will be the last time I'll email you, ever. I won't bother you again. And she responded right away because she didn't want to lose that, that potential, that potential sale that she was looking at.

So that's a great tip. That's a great book. Okay, what was the book again?

The Selling Formula by Brian Robinson.

Selling Formula by Brian Robinson. And then my tip of the week is. Learn more about Greg. Check out his land. Go to Market Enterprises Enterprises. Oh, I'm sorry. Mark enterprises.spread.name Mark enterprises spread.name. and we'll have a link to it as well. Greg, are we good?

We're good.

All right, well, I want to thank the listeners, remind you that the only way that Greg is going to come back and continue talking to us about his journey is if you do three little favors. Follow rate, review the podcast, Send us a screenshot of your review. Supporthelangic.com I'm going to send you a signed copy of Dirt Rich. If you want to become like Greg and start building your passive income quickly, safely, efficiently, and not have to deal with renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents. Just go to the land. Geek.com forward/training TheLangic.com forward/training and all of our training is guaranteed. You're going to make back that money 180 days or less. Just show us you did some work so it ain't gonna cost you nothing. All right, Greg, you want to do this together? Let's do this. 1, 2, 3.

Let freedom, freedom ring.

Thanks, everybody.

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