How to Earn 20k per Month in Passive Income Through Land Investing

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, thelangic.com and if you want to hear an incredible story about how a couple started from 00 in the land investing niche to maybe a year, year and a half to over 20,000 in monthly recurring revenue, then stick around because my guests today are star students Try and Quinn Vu from Secureland company. Try Quinn, welcome.

So, hey, thanks for having us.

This is always my favorite type of podcast because we get to heal the layer of the onion of your success and the people who are listening, they are starting or on their journey just like you and want to hear how you achieved what you achieved in such a short period of time. So we are going to unpack all the goodness of the Try and Quinn success. So before we do that though, let's just start off like, where, where did you guys start? Like in. In what? Training. And, and how did it progress and where are you at now?

Okay, so we started actually in flight school back in fall of 2022. So we did that. I think it was like a 1212 week program at that time. And then we both went to the Live Land Gate boot camp that was in, I think it was San. Was it San Antonio or Vegas, something like that?

Yeah.

And that's where we got really excited and we decided to sign up for coaching. So we signed it up. We signed up for epic coaching for a year and we finished coaching May of last year. So we've been kind of on our own for about seven, eight months now. And after, after that coaching, we signed up for unfair advantage 2.0. So that's where we're at right now. Unfair advantage 2.0 after our one on one coaching ended.

Amazing. Amazing. And so what, what brought you guys to land investing?

Well, we were both like working in corporate. Like I was a pediatric pharmacist for most of my career and then working in like pharmacy operations for a while. And I don't know, for me, we were definitely getting burnt out with working in corporate. We tried to do some residential, residential real estate and that was like super time consuming as well. And I had a good friend who had been part of the lanky community and went through the coaching program and had seen a lot of success. So that's the reason why, like I got involved and then Try.

Yeah, it was boot camp that sold me, just meeting the community and all the love. I actually ran to another buddy at that event and I was like, man, there's something to it. Like she had a Buddy doing it. I knew a couple of buddies doing it, but it didn't register like, hey, this is cool. Until the coaching event, the live coaching boot camp. It was all. It was the hybrid one, and it was just amazing. And we were sold. We jumped in it two. Two mays ago.

Yeah, amazing. So we, I mean, you know, being a couple and working together. So which one was more skeptical?

I actually am pretty skeptical. And I would say that is part of the reason why I didn't make as much progress, probably in flight school by myself. Like, I was just so nervous. I didn't really have a lot of confidence in sending out mailers. I was like, oh, this is a big investment. I don't know if I'm ready. And I remember Tate telling me, well, if you feel nervous about it, it's because you didn't research that area well enough. You haven't invested enough time in, like, educating yourself on this area and what the type of returns are. And he was right, because once I did the homework that he gave me, I was 100% ready to start mailing. But, yeah, so that's. That's kind of how I. That's. So I would. I was definitely skeptical about mailing.

That's definitely skeptical about mailing. And so, you know, really a lot of people, they think, oh, I'm going to start flight school. I'm going to learn how to buy and sell raw land. And really the Trojan horse is we're going to teach you how to build a business. And so it just happens to be the business of buying and selling raw land. Because here's this asset. Nothing to maintain, nothing to protect, lasts forever. We can make a cash flow. What would you guys say was your biggest challenge in your business? Building efforts?

We hit pretty much all the roadblocks at one point, another. So it depends on when you ask us. It was Miller's at first. It was hiring, and then it was getting sales, and then we got past that and it was like tweaking all the marketing and then we lose all the VAs and hiring again. So right now is probably scaling our biggest challenge, right? Scaling, yeah.

And you've got four kids, four boys.

Four boys, three boys and a.

Three boys, three boys and a girl. And so who's. Is. It's. Is it a total family affair or.

Well, okay, so we're involved in the business. And then our oldest son, his name is Troy, he graduated from UCSD last year and he's been working full time our business. We've also created some kind of like internships for our other son who was in high school. So he's kind of learned about marketing and automation because he's more interested in the technology aspect of it. So we try to cater it to allow him to. To help in that sense. And our kids, they all. They've all posted ads or did comps or something. Something. So they can like kind of learn a little bit. Tries really good about like teaching them and giving them some practice.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, try is like a brilliant process oriented person. And. And you're the architect as well. I've seen your culture index. So you guys like this power couple in land. How do you bifurcate? Who does what as. As. As toe CEOs. And do you guys ever step on each other's toes?

Yeah, it was rough first year. Super rough. We were thinking she would do the sales and I did the acquisitions, and they kind of morphed into she does the front end, customer facing, and then I do the back end. So all the hiring, all the docs, all the tech stack, all the, all that stuff. And then she does all the customer interfacing. But we, we still. It's probably like an 80, 20 split, I would think.

Okay.

I still talk to some folks and then she said some of the back and stuff as well.

Yeah, I think we learned really quickly. Like, I'm not good at technology. I don't even know how to close my tabs. I always have like a bunch of tabs open all at once. Hard to work with spreadsheets. Anything that takes a ton of, like, concentration. I'm. I can just. I can talk to people and try to help them, but other than that, like, try takes care of like 99% of everything. He makes it all happen.

That's amazing. That's amazing. All right, let's. Let's get real down to brass tacks now.

Okay.

What's been your favorite deal and why?

I think I had two. Right. One was the son. I'll let you.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. That was a good one. Okay. One of our favorite deals was actually the one that our son negotiated. He was 17 at that time. And we had like an investor in the land community who kind of reached out to us and he told us, hey, I don't want to be in this county anymore. Like, I want to be out. I want to put all my money where I'm already seeing success. I want to get out of here. So then we kind of mentioned it to our son, like, hey, he's like selling all these parcels And I told him kind of like, hey, this is how much it cost. And he had enough because he had already worked his internship with us, so he had some money saved, and he saw, like, how things are moving. So then he actually got on the phone, and I was like, if you want this, you're going to have to negotiate with this investor and. And see what you can get it for. But just keep in mind, he does it. He just wants to be done with it. He's like, oh, okay. So we got nine properties for $2,700.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. And the cool part is he was able to sell a couple. He sold some retail, he sold some wholesale, and then he sold some on land. Arp. So, like, a big mixture of all the different ways that he can make money on it. So I think it was our favorite deal because it means that we. We showed our son that it worked, and he did it, and he negotiated it, and he had to do the due diligence. He did the title search. He reviewed everything. He called the county, asked about taxes. He had to file the deed with the county. Like, he. I was like, if you do this, you're going to have to do, like, all the work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm so proud.

Yeah.

Must be so proud. 17.

Yeah. He was 7. He was 17, and he's already getting passive income from this.

Yeah. I think this is another business idea is Camp Vu. And you send your kids and, you know, for the summer, and they learn the land business, and they get that internship, and the kids can help the kids. It's not the worst idea, actually. No, that's amazing.

All right, so try.

Is that your favorite deal?

I think the other favorite one we had was, man, I think it was our second boot camp, maybe. And people are. Man, they're doing amazing stuff, right? Getting tons of sales. And I'm like, we got to get there. And I was, like, inspired, but I was like, we got to get there. And it was when Quinn and our daughter wanted cats. And we. We had, like, one sale a month, maybe another month. Like, two sales. I think we had, like, a handful of sales, a bunch of defaults after that. And I was like, we're not getting cats. There's no way. And they were just. They really were pushy about it. And they even said, it comes in two. Like, you have to get the brother, too.

Right?

Right. And I didn't want. Like, we already had two dogs, and then now we're gonna get two cats. There's no way. So I said, all Right, let's do this. If you could get 10 sales in a month, which was like 10x at that time. Right. Because we had one sale a month, maybe we'll get it. And it was October 2023. They got 10 sales. It was our first digit month, and I could not believe it. So, yeah, we got. That was probably the best deal. We got two cats floating around the house somewhere as reminders. But, like, you know, they get no people's carrot sticking at the time. Quinn and my daughter really wanted cats.

That's amazing. That's amazing. So what. What did you guys do to get out of your. Your comfort zones? Because there's so many sort of brick walls in the land business. How. How have you been able to embrace the sock and. And embrace being comfortable when it's uncomfortable with such, you know, a learning curve?

Yeah. Or for me, it was like being around bigger, bigger people. They think bigger, they do things bigger. And when you're around these guys, these titans like you guys, it just makes. It kind of normalizes things, like, all right, it's possible. And then the power of, like, listening to podcasts and stories too, like, you get so much mentorship from it. Like, man, everybody's doing it. It kind of just kind of diffuses the. The pain. Like, man, I don't know about this. This is. This is too much for me. Kind of like just kind of shrinks down. Like, all right, we could do it in the baby bites, kind of step away up. So, I mean, kind of stepped up from buying, like, hundred dollar loss about, you know, thousand dollar lots and kind of just keep going from there.

Amazing.

When.

What about you?

Okay. I definitely think there's a lot of mind shift involved in becoming, like, an entrepreneur. And, you know, I had to go from being like, feeling nervous and skeptical and really changing all of that to being educated. Right. Learning about, like, why do I feel nervous about that? I feel nervous about that because I haven't researched it enough. I haven't actually gone through it. And what we found is we actually don't need to have 100% of the information to move forward. We just need to have enough to, like, kind of know, like, hey, if we know that we can sell this property for 4x and then we find out it's like in a flood zone or it's in a wetland, then all we need to know is like, can we get it for much less? Right. So we're not so worried, like, oh my gosh, what if we get land that's a wetland or in A flood zone. We're like, that's fine. We just have to renegotiate. So kind of understanding, like, hey, what is the risk and how are we going to mitigate it is kind of how we've moved forward with just, like, things that probably would have held us back before.

Yeah, no, I love that. And that's what I love about the business is that we have such a huge margin of safety, 300% margin of safety. Even if you make a mistake, quote unquote, you're. You're still okay. But what I love about your approach is that it's. It's ready, fire, aim, and you're not going to have paralysis. Analysis. How many times. I mean, I'm guilty of this. I've read a book, and I've never taken any action on the information I read, because that's where the deep learning comes in, is in the actual doing of it. And so the fact that you're doing it, you're stumbling, you're adjusting, you're pivoting. It's. It's really, you know, remarkable to watch in real time because I think that is. Is the. The crux of it. And especially in coaching, it's, you know, I talk about this all the time. Like, 20 of coaching is how to. 80% of it is helping you get out of your own way and. And face these, you know, the mental limitations of. Of, you know, things that go on in the business. And as try said, even being able to just think bigger, like, why not? Right there, there really is no limitation. But you have to have that other person who's. Who sort of been there, done that, to breathe that confidence into you so that, you know, oh, you know, if they can do it, we can do it. You know, we're being guided, if you will. Oh, my God.

I. I really like that point that you made, Mark, because, like, that's. I think that's how we were able to move so quickly because, you know, Tate was our coach, and when we were buying, we're like, hey, we're gonna buy all these at this amount? Is that okay? Like, we went to him with, like, hey, is this okay? Is this okay on, like, every deal until we felt comfortable enough to, like, make the decision on our own.

Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of Tate, how. How has coaching been valuable to you?

And we couldn't have done it without Tate. I mean, it's all about the people, right? And the community. And they. They're. This is a great community. Everybody's sharing and collaborating and. And, yeah, so Coaching. I can't thank it enough. Seriously.

I. I was so happy. Like, when I signed up, I was like, I've got to have tea. Like, we. We talked about. It was like, we gotta have tea. We got. He. He's so cool. So we were really excited when we got him as a coach, and because we know that he takes a very limited number of students, we also wanted to make sure we did all of our homework and made sure that the time he spent with us is valuable. We didn't want him to feel like, oh, he's telling us to do something and we're not going to do it. We took, like, notes just, like, we're in school and we did our homework before we met with him next. Like, everything that he lined out, we're like, we got to do it and make sure we do a good job for him. We even, like, went back and were like, okay, this is our homework. Did we do it right?

Right. Right. Yeah. No, I know. I mean, I know Tate loved you guys as clients and students and. And the fact that you, you know, took it so seriously and we're able to execute. There's. There's no more gratifying feeling for a coach than when your. Your student, you know, really just goes 120% in and. And just, you know, follows that recipe and it makes adjustments and reports back so that they know that you're doing it. Yeah. Amazing. So who would you recommend to look into coaching?

Who would I recommend to look into coaching? Yeah, I think, like, anyone who might be feeling some sense of maybe uncertainty in and just having only one source of income. So, like, you know, I know, like, I was working in healthcare, and, you know, healthcare is very stable, and then tries working in the technology field, which, you know, also has a lot of growth, but just the idea that if that's your only source of income and you don't have control over, you know, if they are doing any type of downsizing or reorg. It's just kind of nice to know, even if you don't need it, you just have something going on the side. And if you decide, like, at any time you want to leave your regular job, it's like you could just leave whenever you have your little nest egg ready to go.

No, no. That's awesome. That's awesome. So tell us about the relationships that you formed with the other students and people in the community. You guys have been really active. I love, you know, seeing, like, on the WhatsApp chat that we have for coaching and unfair advantage, like, oh, I'm, you know, my win of the week was I got to hang out with Try and Quinn. And it's like, you know, you got. Because you guys live in California, but you'll, you'll travel and, and spend time with, with other land geeks. So. So tell me about that.

Yeah, I love the community. Yeah, Some people you just connect with. I had a good tip from one of my old mentors and it was my cousin. He was older in it, but he was talking about meetings and he says either you participate and you speak up or take notes.

Right?

You got to do something. You got, you can't just show up and, you know, just stay around, stand around and stare at everybody else. So it kind of stuck with me. Like, we always try to ask a question or participate. Every single call. It's what you put into it that you get out of it. And you hear that cliche. But then all these cliches are literally true. You just got to do the work and stuff. And so we, we try to participate as much as possible. And I, I used to put, like, I get nervous around upper management CEOs and I kind of, I hated that feeling of like, you know, like they're all people. So I try to treat everybody the same. Like you could be a billionaire, you could be the bus boy. Like, it's all the same. You're like, amazing. You're going to learn something from everybody. And I still feel that way. Like everybody that either new or seasoned, I treat them just the same, like I'm going to learn something. Like I still have that student feel with everybody.

Yeah.

Yeah, we've, we've made a lot of great, like, friends and connections within the Land Gate community. And you know, if we need something, like, if we need help with something, maybe we're starting in a new county, someone will tell us, okay, use this photographer, use this title company. You know, they're just like super helpful. And we've had, we've visited some of them on vacation. People have visited us on vacation. And this is like the first year we got Christmas cards from People Land investors. It's like our first year where we're getting Christmas cards in the mail from our friends now. So that's like super exciting.

That's amazing. That's amazing. So I want to pivot to your, your freedom because you've got this passive income coming in. You've built this machine and I know that you love to travel. Tell us about some of the travel and how you're able to work and play and Enjoy the, the fruits of your labors.

Yeah, we travel. We try to do like 90 days a year of travel. You know, any long weekends, we'll take a trip somewhere. We were in Europe for the whole summer with the kids. We had a couple land guys come out and visit us, you know, in Europe too, which is super cool.

Yeah.

But like, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to wait. Like you have to get to a certain point and then you do stuff. Right. You can enjoy smell the roses along the way. So we really try to incorporate like what we want to do now versus you know, do this, then be happy. You know, we're going to be happy and then all this stuff happens. So yeah, we travel quite a bit.

And I love it.

It's so funny because only stuff only happens when we're about to go do something fun. It's like if we're like have all the time in the world to handle it, like nothing will happen. If we're about to like get on a flight and go somewhere, then all of a sudden we start like closing deals or our team starts closing deals. When we, we lived in Spain most of the summer and it was really neat because it's a remote company. Like our team is overseas. We have people in South America, over in the Philippines and it's. We are able to work from wherever. So we were able to get a co op space. We got to hang out and go sightseeing during the day. And then when it's super hot over there. Okay. Around 5 or 6pm in Spain, then that's like U.S. time. And now we can like hop online for a couple hours, make sure a couple things get taken care of and then you know, go back to like our family and stuff. So we had uninterrupted time because in the US everyone's sleeping. So just outside seeing.

Incredible. So where's the big trip this year? Do we have one?

We going to Boston?

I. We're gonna, we're gonna. Yeah, we're gonna go to Boston for a little bit in March. But I think we're, we're probably going to stay closer to home this year because it's our son's last year before he graduates for college and our cat might be having kittens.

Oh my gosh. Try those 10 lots, man.

No, the multiplying like the cats.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay. What advice would you have for someone listening to this? Maybe they're thinking about land investing. Maybe they're already in land investing and they're Struggling. How can they tap into the magic of try and Quinn in your success?

Yeah, for me, I, I really believe it's the people. Like, it's your, your, your net worth is your, your network is your net worth. And if you expand, it's all land guys, then, you know, you give what you, you get what you put out there as well. So if you're just helping the sake of helping and you connect with people, you just never know. Like, you put yourself in a better spot to, for more opportunities. So, yeah, just get out there and just stay curious.

I love it.

I would say for me, I, I, I would say don't overlook the small wins. Like, it doesn't have to be a huge home run. Just like, get on base. Like, sometimes we're not doing a 300% deal. You might be doing like, you know, a smaller deal, but it kind of like allows us to get a lot of practice. You know, sometimes our mailers are coming back and they have a low response rate. So we'll just buy wholesale or we'll buy, you know, we'll buy on terms just because we want to have the inventory and we're okay. That, that's not going to be as good of margins. But you know what, we've saved on time and we're giving our team practice and experience to make, you know, move forward and to make progress. So I think, like, the biggest win is that just make a small win. Don't. It doesn't have to be a huge, spectacular thing. Every little win is part of the fun.

Amazing, amazing advice. All right, well, my last question before we get to the tip of the week. How has this business changed your life?

Yeah.

And I, I was doing a little bit of everything, and this is probably the first time I did. I went full out in one niche and it feels good. Like, you stay up late, you wake up early. Like, you have a purpose again. So, yeah, yeah, it's really like, give me like, like a per. It sounds cliche, but I got a purpose. Right. I got to grow this thing, family to feed. And I got like, literally my kids are involved in the business. Like, I got to support them and build this for them. You have that new vivid vision sometimes. Like, hey, I'm going to do it for the kids. But literally, like, this is going to be Troy's puppy and or kitten in several years.

Yeah, yeah.

So like, I have to make it work for, for his sake.

Yeah, yeah. I love the way you're thinking. Like, this is a generational asset. It's a Generational business and the land lasts forever. Why can't the business last forever? And set up that machine and, you know, the kids and the grandkids and the great grandkids, and it'll just be, you know, you become the land moguls of the family, and it'll just keep growing, growing. Queen, what about you?

I would say the freedom that this business has really given us is time to learn. You know, like, a lot of times when you're working at a W2 job, you're just so into the doing mode. And, like, as, you know, owners and operators within our company, we really spend so much time just learning. Like, we just want to learn from other entrepreneurs and just. I think that part is the most fun, is getting to learn something new. Whether it's about marketing or sales or, you know, new, new areas to acquire land in. I think that part is the most fun.

I love it. Well, now that we're talking about learning, let's. Let's, you know, shift into our tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable, but the art of passive income Listeners. Go improve their businesses, improve their lives. Your mentorship has been amazing, amazing this podcast. But before we go to the tip of the week, I just got to give a shout out our sponsor, which is flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Be like, try and Quinn and start building that passive income without any headaches. No renters, no rehabs, no renovations, no rodents. Get your family involved as well. And I know what you're thinking. Oh, the tuition. The tuition ain't gonna cost you nothing. Guaranteed you're gonna make it back 180 days or less. Just show us you did the work. Learn more. Go to the langeek.com forward slash training.com forward slash training. All right, now, are you each going to do a tip of the week or just one tip of the week?

For mine, it would be and just network. Like, just network. You got to get out there. If you're, like, even if you're unsure about flight school or coaching, like, make a call. Like, there's tons of raving fans out there with the program. So just, you know, tap into your network.

I love it. I love it. Quinn.

I would say our. My tip would be to just keep learning. Like, find an area that, you know you want to get better at. Like, I want to learn more about AI and how to incorporate that into our business. And I have that as, like, one of the fun things. I want to learn more about this year. So Just kind of make it fun. Make your wish list of things that you want to learn, and that way you can make it enjoyable.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm very excited about the AI agents. Yeah, it's, it's. It's an incredible time to be an entrepreneur. It's the best time ever. It's so exciting. Well, these are really great tips. Networking, keep learning. But my tip of the week can actually make you money. So go to Secure Land Company. I'll have a link to it, securelandco.com learn more about all the land that Tri and Quinn are selling, but even more importantly, network with them. They got a number. Call, text them, make a friend, phone a friend. It's all good. And do that. So, Tri, Quinn, thank you guys so much for being such valued members of the community. And you're both just beams of light, and it's been amazing working with you both and, and, and witnessing your success. It's. It's really just incredible. So, so thank you for being you and yeah, for the, the listeners out there. If you're getting value from the podcast, do me a favor, follow rate, review the podcast, send a screenshot of that. Review supportlangic.com I'll send you a signed copy of Dirt Ridge or I have Dirt Rich City. Dirt Rich too.

You have both.

No problem. Because selfishly, you're gonna get better guests anyways and maybe try and quit will come back and drop more nuggets of wisdom. So please do that.

All right.

Are we gonna do this together?

Okay.

1, 2, 3, let's freedom. All right, thank you, guys.

Okay, thank you.

All right, bye, guys.

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 at the land geek.com forward/training. Let freedom ring.