How to Market Land on Black Friday, Tips from The Land Geeks

Hey, it's Mark Pudolski, the land geek with the favorite niche real estate website, the landgeek.com. and on this week's roundtable podcast, we have a new usual suspect and a few of the usual suspects. We've got Dude Buddy, the Nightcap OG Scott Bossman. Scott, how are you?

Great, Mark. Good to be here.

Good to see you. We've got Landon. AI Harris. Landon, how are you? The aquatic investor.

Doing well. Sun's out. I'm happy.

Good to see you. We've got Jim.

La la la la la la la.

Jim. He's like, that's the worst nickname ever. No, no, no, no. We can look. It's, it's, it's, it's just like Landon's. We got to work on it. Jim, how are you?

Good, good. Doing well.

I think, I think it could be La La Land, though.

I was just about to say that. Yeah, it's right in the name.

Fine. Jim La La Land. Lala.

That's right. Man, that came up quick.

Yeah, Tate, I love it when you call me Big Papa. What's up?

Well, I was going to say I'm a little embarrassed after that La la la la la Serenade. But no, I'm, I'm happy to be here. Excited for today's topic?

You know, it's, it's interesting because Jim is the only one on the podcast if he doesn't like what we're saying. He can literally just do that and be like, it's my nicknames. I'm not listening.

Yeah, that's not fair.

It's not bad. It's not bad. So, all right, we've got a great topic and it's a timely topic. So by the time you're listening to this podcast, hopefully you'll be able to take the gems of wisdom, the nuggets, if you will, of, of marketing wisdom, and apply it to your Black Friday promotions. So the, the question is, what are we going to do and how are we thinking about our Black Friday promotions to sell more land during Black Friday? And how are we overcoming the objection of nobody wants to buy land during Black Friday?

So.

Landon, we'll give Jim a break. I was thinking, oh, we should start with Jim, but you know, it's his first frontal podcast. Like, let's not put him right on the spot. So, Landon, we'll start with you. What do you guys. How are you terea? Thinking about it.

So we're actually kind of doing a lead up series where we are working our way up to. We're Doing multiple emails that are going out, and they are going out about every two to three days. That kind of talk about. All right, we've got a Black Friday coming up. Some of them are teasers and some of them are free Black Friday market sales. So we're kind of, you know, 20% off and we're kind of leading into it. And as we get closer, we're going to change it up a little bit more because once you get to some, as you get closer, you're hoping that people just push the. Push the trigger and just go with it. What we want to do is as we get closer to that day, we want to bring down some of the down payments. Taking out some of that. I can't afford it. You know, land's not worth it. We really want to make it so enticing that you just have to. Have to jump on it. So that's kind of our, our plan and kind of some of the things that we're doing right now.

So you're. So you're building tension. You're leading up to it through email and then you're going to make your down payment irresistible. Did I. Is that, Is that sort of the AI summary?

That is the AI summary all the way in.

See what I did there?

That was pretty good.

Pretty good. All right, Jim La La Land, Lala, what are you doing for your.

I think it should be just Jim Lala Land because the Lala is already in there, right? That's the last name.

That's true.

So I think it's. I think it should be Jim Lala Land. I like that a lot.

What about Jim?

Wait a second.

You don't get to like your nickname. We gotta rethink this. If we like this, it's like saying, oh, yeah, my nickname is the Big Papa. You think I chose that, Jim?

I did not.

It was a sign to do with that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys, you guys can't see. But, like, because of that nickname, he won't listen to Biggie anymore. And not only that, but, like, there's a picture of me and there's like a dartboard. And he's like, every time he says big Pop, I just throws a dartboard.

Well, it's interesting. In second grade, they had asked us to create our own amusement park as like a, as like an elementary school assignment. And I created one and I, of course, I called it Lala Land. And then, you know, fast forward 2017 or, I'm sorry, 2018, I get involved with Mark and the land business and I Was like La La Land. It was destined to be. And, you know, here we are.

All right, well, it's. It's fate.

It is. It must be.

It was written in the stars.

So.

All right. But that being said, how are you going to move more La La Land?

Yeah. So Black Friday, it's so funny. I was just looking at something the other day, I forget which site. And they already have the Black Friday deals. It always seems like they're always looking for an excuse to sell things sooner just to come up with any price or any excuse just to get people to buy. There's always Veterans Day sale, fourth of July sale, and things moving up sooner and sooner. So for Black Friday, I treat it like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. So what I'll do is I'll have at least two specific properties that I know in the pipeline that I want to move that I think people will have a good interest in. And like Landon said, I'll try and prime them. So a week or two weeks before, I'll put the, you know, I'll put the word out that there is going to be a sale. You know, get ready. It's going to be first come, first served. So, you know, creating a little bit of scarcity, letting them know it's out there. It's going to be a great deal. And then what I'll finally do the day before is I'll reach out to people in my CRM. So I use follow up, boss. So if it's in, you know, a specific county, I'll message the people in the county or have my VA message the people in the. Who are. Have expressed interest in that county. And I'll say, yeah, we have a Cyber Monday or Black Friday special. It's going out, get ready for it. You're going to see it tomorrow. And so those three things, so priming them, you know, having at least a couple in the pipeline that, that you want to have a special on. Because if one sells, you don't want to say, oh, we sold out. You want to have multiple ones ready to go. And then I always want to tease people, let them know that it's coming using that CRM. So all that information that you collect from your buyers list from people who tell you where they're interested in, you harvest that, now's the time to put that to use.

I love it. I love it. Dude, buddy. Black Friday. How are you gonna, how are you gonna sling more land and how are you gonna deal with the objection? No one wants to buy land during Black Friday.

Yeah, Great questions. Gone are the days of the one Black Friday email, right? I think back, back when we started this a long time ago, gearing up for the Black Friday email, right? And now it's like the Black Friday series, you know, like everybody said Landon and Jim, you know, we need to build up to this. There need to be repeated contacts over the course of maybe a week or even more prior to Black Friday, building them up for this. Right? And those are all good strategies, I think, building them up, creating a sense of urgency, of scarcity and showing them what a great deal this is going to be an approach that we're going to take as well. In addition to, you know, we have people in our CRM, we have them tagged and you know, we, we know where they want to buy land, but we're going to be right in, right in our, in our mail campaign software as well, seeing who's clicking on stuff and they're going to get a reach out. You know, our sales manager is going to go through that, through that email tool and we're going to see what's getting clicked on and who's clicking on it. And they're going to be getting a call, you know, maybe even before the Black Friday email goes out to give them a little preview as to what the special is, as far as, you know, convincing someone that they should buy land over the, over the Black Friday $200 TV or, or what or whatnot. You know, our team, I think we do a pretty good job of just emphasizing to folks that, you know, with this, with this purchase, it's an investment, right? Your, your TV is not going to depreciate when you leave the store. I mean, sorry, your land's not going to depreciate after purchase like a TV is going to, gonna depreciate after you leave the store, right? You're not going to need to replace this in two years. You're gonna be able to keep it for 20 or 40 or pass it down. And the value of this land is just going to continue to rise and rise and rise as it has done in the last 10 years that I've been in this. So I think really conveying to that person that this is a valuable asset that they are not only purchasing but investing in for the long term. And what's smarter, right? Where do you want your hard earned dollars to go on a Black Friday to a hard asset like land or to something that's going to wear out in two years?

I love it. I love it. And that seems like a no brainer, right? I don't want the tea.

No brainer.

It's a no brainer. Yeah, I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate Litchfield, do you have anything else to add as far as marketing gems?

You know, we're gonna do pretty much what everybody has already highlighted here. The reality is your Black Far Black Friday Cyber Monday campaign has already started. And if it hasn't started, you're late to the party at this point, a week out, you miss the ship at this point. So my advice to anybody who's looking to create a profitable and successful black market or black market Black Friday.

Campaign.

Is to look at what the big companies are doing. There's only so much money available to be spent on any day, and these big box companies have realized that we're all competing for the same dollars. And the one thing that you need to do is be disruptive. You need to make noise and you need to stand out. And how we do that as little mom and pop land businesses is we start early. We also stay true to our core principles of making land ownership affordable for everyone. Irresistible pricing, calls to actions, easy payments. You know the right areas. If you know who your customer bases are, it's not hard to check those boxes. But if you think that, oh, you're just going to compete with Walmart and Target and everybody else on Black Friday, you're probably not going to cut through the noise because those companies have teams of professionals who cost crazy amounts of money to run their campaigns. And most of us are just using 10 an hour VAs, right, For a.

Couple hours a week.

Anybody who says, hey, nobody wants to buy land on Black Friday, I'd tell them, that's true. You should not send out your deal of the week that day. Don't do it. It's a waste of time. Watch me sit back and watch because we're going to sell a lot of land over those couple holidays. And if you don't think it's worth your time and energy, that's okay. No worries. Don't send it. One less person to compete with. So sit back and watch.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let's say you're late to the game. You're just now listening to this podcast. You're like, oh, my gosh, I'm late to the game. Is there any advice you'd give to the people who are late to the game? How can they turn it around and start marketing aggressively or creatively to, you know, get people to, you know, forget about that tv that's going to Be obsolete in two years and invest in something that's going to last forever.

So if you're saying, oh, I missed the Black Friday Cyber Monday window, guess what? There's another holiday coming up just around the corner. It's a big one as well, right? You've got end of the year, you got Christmas season, so take the time that you would have spent preparing for Black Friday and do something special for an end of the year blowout, right? There's, there's no limitations to how you want to market and what creativity you're going to bring to your individual business. So don't beat yourself up, but know that next year, this is a good holiday to kind of mark and start thinking about weeks in advance, right? So you might have missed Black Friday this year, but there's other holidays, there's other opportunities, and consistency is the key. Once you form that consistent habit, it becomes a non negotiable. And non negotiables are what leads to success in any form of business.

I love it. I love it. And as you're talking, I was just thinking, what if the person who was late to the game came out with a buyer's remorse sale, right? You know there's something you bought and you know that the person you bought it for isn't gonna like it and you're like, oh, should I get, like, well, something is better than nothing. Like I can't get it. Like, you know, we should do return it and get the, and get, get them the deed as a stocking stuffer to a property or a land contract or property that you know that they're gonna be able to invest. Those investments gonna last forever. Nothing to maintain, nothing to protect, right? Like the neighbors aren't gonna go and steal your land, but they'll steal your new kid's bike. Maybe I've had that happen. Who's kept their garage open? Oh, wait, where'd the Xbox go? Where'd the bike go? Yeah, someone drove by and took it. It's that time of year.

I don't know where you're living, Mark.

But yeah, bad neighborhood.

Look, it's the good neighborhoods.

Are you living on my land?

Because we got the good stuff.

Yeah.

We keep it for all the world to see, but. Or so there's things you can do, but you want to be creative for sure. But I do think, Tate, what you said is true. If you're just now starting, you're late to the game. Landon, Scott, Jim, they're all starting now. They're building that urgency now.

You know I will say this, though, Mark. Even if you've, you've dropped the ball and you haven't created the urgency, it doesn't hurt to throw your hat in.

The ring either, right?

Right.

Like, okay, sure, you could have done it better, but you'll never know if you had somebody willing to pay and you just, you missed out on that sale because you never sent the email. Right? Like, I still vote. Send the email. Create a promotion. Do something. It doesn't have to be your best work, but people's wallets are open, they're open, they're spending, and try it. If it flops, so what? You'll learn something. Take that as educational experience. There's value in failure, right? There's value in that. And so if you send out a deal of the week email and it doesn't sell, you should be asking yourself, why? What could I do differently? What can I learn from this? How can I be better? And if you take that information, which is now based on fact, the next time you have the opportunity to run a deal, you won't make the same mistakes because you documented it. So send the email. Who cares? Send it.

Absolutely. And what about thinking about it not as a discount? Like, what if instead of discounting your land, you just add more value to the land in various ways and you get creative that way and you're attracting a better buyer? Even so, it could be, I don't know, it's like, hey, you know, we're gonna, not only do you get this, this land, but, you know, we're going to give you this kind of like, guarantee of whatever. Right? Like something crazy. I don't know, maybe. Hey, you got a, you got a tough month coming ahead, like 20, 24. We don't know what the economy is going to be, but if you get a tough month, you know, when you buy during this time, we're going to give you one month of it's, it's on us, right? Type of, you know, financial reprieve where everyone else, they're discounting, but if you miss your payment, you're going to lose that land. We, you know, we're here with you as partners kind of thing. And so you just, you end up stacking the value in, in various creative ways instead of, you know, just doing the, what Mike Zaino would call the dollar skittle.

Right.

A dollar down kind of thing. Jim, Jim's like, that's, that's kind of hitting home.

Well, that impression was just so spot on. I mean, just nailed it, Nailed it.

And Jim is in Boston, so he would know how horrible my impressions are. But. But thank you for that. All right, well, we're at that point in the podcast now, unless anybody has any final thoughts on Black Friday promotion or how to deal with the objection of no one's going to want to buy raw land on Black Friday. No. Okay, so now we get to pick on Landon for his tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the auto passing income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. But before you do that, just a little shout out to our listeners that today's podcast is sponsored by Flight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Start building that passive income quickly, safely, efficiently, and start doing it knowing that it's guaranteed. I know you're thinking, well, what about that investment? Ain't gonna cost you nothing, guaranteed. Gonna make back that money 180 days or less in cash or terms, deals, check. Show us your work, that you're doing it. Learn more. Go to landgeek.com training the landgeek.com training. Landon, what is your tip of the week?

So I was kind of poking around and I ran across this article that was written by the Harvard Business Review, and it basically dives into talking about your company's core principles and establishing them early in your business. You know, I find, like, if you don't have core principles in your business early, you really fall off of kind of having that overall direction of how your company will make these key decisions moving down the road. One thing I can think of that came up just a few weeks ago, actually we were all talking on a podcast was, you know, these sellers that sometimes they go into default. You know, we were thinking about, do we take them back? Do we continue to work with them? Are you done with them? So it's principles like that that come up. Like, this article is kind of cool because it kind of dug into basically Twitter and. And when it was run by Jack Dorsey and now Elon Musk, and just kind of how they view what Twitter was supposed to do and what it's supposed to be. And it was really interesting, kind of just going through that process. But I feel like, you know, these are your core principles, are really going to help you with your business moving forward. So I'll put that in the chat and check it out. It's not bad.

Oracle.

All right, I'm. I'm clicking it right now. It's time to find your company's principles. I love it. Fantastic. I mean, we have a. We have a very simple principle, and it's been that forever. Happy customers, guaranteed, so.

Exactly.

That's.

That's.

That's what you're going to do for your entire career, like, your entire business moving forward.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah.

So, Landon, when you think about your core principle, what. What is it? Not to put you on the spot, but I am. You could just say, hey, I. You know, we're still thinking it through.

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that we decided we wanted to figure out, how can we make land affordable? Right. That was. That was literally it. How do we make land affordable? No matter who you are, what you do, how can we get it to a point where you can buy land? And we were willing to decide, you know, are we keeping it low? How are we going to work with certain individuals, make it at a price, you know, is it $1 down? Is it $1 a month? Whatever that looks like. What does that look like? So that it kind of guided us towards making just, I think, kind of a. Kind of a lifelong direction of what we think. Think we want to go with, and that changes. But I think that's kind of where we started.

That's great.

That's great. Well, I think this is a really valuable podcast, and I want to thank the listeners and remind them the only way that Jim La La Land is going to come back on as a guest is if you do us three little favors. You gotta follow rate, review the podcast, send us a screenshot of that review. Supporttheat.com I'm going to send you a signed copy of Dirt Rich, which the value right now is like, one bitcoin. Just kidding. Just kidding.

It's not.

It's not that going for that at all. For those of you with your. Your meta mask wallets, no, it's not, but it's still. Still valuable. Do it anyways, because socially we get better guests and do it. So are we good? All right, we're good. Let's. Let's do this. One, two, three. Let's let. Freedom.

Freedom, Freedom.

Not bad, not bad. So are you, like, is it me? Like, every year I'm getting more and more, like, marketing earlier and earlier.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It's getting huge.

Yeah.

And then again, part of me is like, well, I'm just gonna wait. It's just gonna get better and better as it goes on. Like, you know, and, you know, we didn't even talk about was the texting promotions. Shouldn't we all be texting instead of emailing as well? That could be like, the next roundtable.

Yeah, good question. It's getting there.

It's getting there, right?

Not only is marketing. Not only is marketing getting early and early, but by darn. Neighbors keep putting their Christmas decorations up earlier and earlier every year. It's like, come on, man. Ridiculous.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I think we all need to agree, like, you can't put up the lights. You can't put the Christmas tree until after things. Can we all agree on that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The pumpkins went down, and then.

How about when you take them down? Is that New Year's or.

No, they said January 15th.

January 15th.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're after New Year's. We're done.

It's over.

It's over.

All right?

We've started New Year. It's done.

I mean, Tay, you got young kids. Like, what. Like that energy. Like. Like, first of all, the. The amount of. Of discipline that's going on right now and the amount of parenting in the Litchfield household, I imagine, is, like, zero, because you just have the elf on the shelf, and you just kind of like, well, he's watching. Look, Santa's. You know, Santa's watching guys like you. You can make that choice, but probably gonna get coal in the stocking. I. I don't know. I don't. You know, I don't create the list.

Look, Christmas lights are up, man. They're up. I'm sorry. They're up. They're done.

Because.

They'Re fun. They're fun.

I don't know.

I was on a podcast with a bunch of scrooges over here. Don't want to see twinkling lights. It's dark outside. You gotta light up the neighborhood. It's. Yeah, they're great. So I'm about it.

Hey, did you do the lights?

I did do my.

That was my question.

Okay, you know what?

That's.

That's.

That was the question.

If you're not hiring one of the firms to do it for you, which, by the way, being ambitiously lazy, I have no problem finding that joke.

No, I. I wouldn't have any problem either, but this was. I got wrapped into it. Let's just put it that way. So they're up. Lights are up, and they're straight. They look nice, they're synced, all on the same flashing pattern. It's a miracle. And so far, nothing's fallen down. So I'm not a handyman. And this is a minor success. Right? Like, this is a good thing for us. Not nothing inside, just the outside lights. Everything else has to wait till after Thanksgiving.

Okay. Okay, so that, That's. That's fair. Scott, is that. Is that okay with you?

I know he's.

I think that's. I think that's fair. I mean, just, you know, lay off the wreaths and the, you know, the holly and the berry on the door and that type of thing. I. I honestly, I would love to invest in the year round holiday lights. My brother has these. They're high tech digital lights all around the periphery of his house that he controls on an app on his phone. So if he wants Halloween lights, he's got him. He wants Christmas lights, he's got them. It's a pretty sweet deal. So I did that.

I did that. The neighbors stole him. But I don't want to talk about it, so. It's still a wound. It's kind of fresh. You've got a young daughter. What about. What's. What's the. The lala.

Yeah, we get so many. It's so funny. One of the things I love that drives my wife's crazy is my mother in law has all these knickknacks, tchotchkes that are so cheesy from the 70s and 80s. Just these obscene snowmen figurines that are just so cheesy and corny.

How dare you be submerged in a thousand.

That's the thing. So I love it. I want as much of that stuff as possible, and my wife cannot stand it. You know, these obese snowmen on a decorative table place Matt. I mean, give me all of it. You know, I love that stuff.

Yeah.

And, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, we have Halloween, by the way.

Do not. Do not. Fat shame. Santa, you will get canceled.

I. I wouldn't dream of that. I wouldn't dream of such a thing. No. Right now we got, you know, Thanksgiving arts and crafts. Yeah. Avery's in kindergarten, so she's making all types of artwork, and that's going up. And so right now we got the Thanksgiving banner, we took down the Happy Halloween banner, and then soon enough we're gonna have the Merry Christmas banner in the house. So, yeah, getting into the. Getting in the spirit of the season.

I love it. I love it. Well, our next podcast will discuss Thanksgiving food because I have some strong opinions about it. But. And I love. I love just hearing, you know, is Tate gonna fry the. The burden this year or not? Like, it's like an annual tradition now. What. What are they. What is going on with the Litchfield Thanksgiving? Inquiring minds want to know, but. All right, well, thanks, everybody. See you guys next week.

Bye Bye.

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