How To Prevent Building A One-Legged Marketing Stool

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, land geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on today's Roundtable podcast, it's a small and intimate group. We've got Dude Buddy, the nightcap meister, Scott Bossman. Scott, how are you?

Great, Mark, how are you?

I'm great. I'm great. Good to see you. We've got the most feared woman in the country, the terrorist hunter, Mimi Schmidt. Mimi, how are you?

I'm great. First day of back to school. Doing well. How about you?

That's a good feeling. My kids have been back to school for a few weeks now, and it's like, I have to say, you know, food tastes better, color is more vibrant. Just everything is better. We got the big papa. I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate Litchfield. Tate, how are you?

I'm doing really well. Happy to be on the call today, guys.

Great to see you. You know, it'd be great is if I could just look over your shoulder one day and actually just work. Just, like, watch you work. That'd be amazing. Wouldn't it be great? Yeah, like, lots. Look over Tate's shoulder.

That's catchy, Mark.

That's very catchy.

You can do that. There's a full season, like a Netflix season, of watching Tate work. Go to thelandgeek.com lots to learn more. And then, of course, last but not least, we've got Scott Todd from Scott todd.net landmodo.com if you're not automating your Craigslist, your Facebook postings, posting domination.com landgeek investor ninjas.com he is your flight school Sherpa. Scott Todd. How are you, Mark?

I'm great.

How are you? Pulse is still normal. Respiration is fine. I gotta tell you, I didn't think I would be enjoying the Apple watch as much as I am, but I love this thing.

I gotta tell you, man. Like, I. I think it was about two years ago, I was at a boot camp. I'm pretty sure, yes, two years ago I was at boot camp. We were in. We were in Scottsdale, and I looked around the table and, like, almost everybody had an Apple Apple watch. Not everybody, but almost everybody. And I went around and I'm like, would you buy your Apple watch again? And most people said that they wouldn't. And I just was wearing mine, didn't love it. So I'm like, it's gone. If it doesn't bring me joy, it's gone. And I sold it. Like, almost immediately. But every time I see one, the tech side of me starts to like, wonder, like, man, should I be using this? Should I have one of these or what?

You should. And I'll tell you why. Because for someone as tech addicted as we are, this allows me to leave my phone at home. And I can get calls, I can get texts, but if I want to listen to audiobooks, I can listen through my AirPods. If I want to listen to podcasts, I can listen to through my air pods. But those days of being distracted by the phone are really gone. I turn off all notifications, as I always do, and it's just slowly but surely I'm disentangling myself from the phone. And yet the important people in my life are able to reach me. So it's amazing where before I could say, well, I can't leave my phone at home, what if so and so needs to reach me? You know? But now I can. And it's got Apple pay paid for my coffee this morning with the watch. It's got the Starbucks app. If I need to go to Starbucks and do that, I can pay from the watch. It my myq on my garage. It works better than the actual phone. I don't have to worry about face id. It just works. I have to tell you, Loving it, just loving it. So it's not my tip of the week, but we got a better tip of the week. But I just wanted to kind of bring that up. You know, that literally has nothing to do with passive income. You know, it does have to do with passive income marketing. Tate Litchfield, what's. What are you seeing in the marketing world of land investing?

So it's something that's been popping up for, I don't know, on office hours and chatting with a few people. And basically it's this idea that a lot of us are comfortable marketing on one platform, whether it be Facebook, Craigslist, Lanmodo, any of the websites that are out there. But what happens when those services change their algorithm? Are you the kind of person that overcomes those new barriers and roadblocks or. Or you're the kind of person whose business takes a pause and you have to hit a hard reset because you've built your business on a one legged stool, right? And this is something that we see. I think everybody is going to have a favorite marketing platform. And I think the goal as a CEO of a land business is to identify your weaknesses and then fortify them. And one of the ways that you can do that is making sure that the deal flow never stops. The way that we overcome that is we are present on a variety of different web services for marketing. And so when Craigslist throws us a wrench, no big deal, we can take a few days to address it and come up with a solution for it because we've got Facebook in Lanmoto still producing us leads and sales, so we don't ever panic. But I guess it's more of an internal question to our listeners is what does your marketing strategy look like? Are you building a business on a one legged stool? If so, it's time to face the music and make some immediate changes. Otherwise, when the next correction for the marketing platforms comes up, you're going to be left behind. So I guess that's kind of the topic that I want to discuss with everybody is how do we prevent building a one legged marketing stool?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, one of our favorite superheroes is Superman. Why does everybody love Superman? He's bulletproof. You shoot at him, he, the bullets bounce off him. But your marketing can be bulletproof as well, because if the first shot of Craigslist goes down, it just bounces off you. You're going to go to the next platform and, and the next platform. Next platform, which, ideally the best platform being your buyers list, because that's the one thing you own. You want to be bulletproof. So let's just pick on Mimi for a second. Mimi, the first question is, you know, do you have a diverse marketing system? And if you do, as of today, what does that look like?

So, yes, I do. And Tate, you're exactly right. Even last week on the Mastermind Call, we had someone who tried a new marketing platform for a month, wasn't sure if he wanted to continue with it, and was asking us how long should he try before he dumped it after a month. Right. So I think it's important you not only have to learn how to use it, you have to learn how to make it work for the land industry. Right. Because Craigslist, it takes a while. It's not just about learning how to post an ad, it's about learning how to make it work for our business. Right. And it varies in the counties that you're in, what you have to do to get the amount of leads to produce sales too. Right. So for instance, like Land Century, I post ads every two weeks. Same property ad comes down and goes back up. And you know what, I get all a flush of leads come in in the morning after my, my posters have put new ads out there. So, I mean, I think it's important to. You've got so many great free options, right? I've got Craigslist and Facebook and Zillow, which are entirely free. Land Moto, you can get a free subscription if you want LAN Century, it's super cheap, but there's just little things. Like on LAN Century, I've seen it, said that and I believe it. If you have one of the higher subscriptions, you'll get more leads. Well, of course, with more land, you'll get more leads, but there's something to that. So I think you've got to not only know how to use the platform, but know how to make it work for the land business. And yeah, I think you need to use a lot. I've got at least 5 besides my buyers list. And of course, the buyers list is not an individual marketing platform. It's all these other platforms bring in the leads. And it's the sales funnel. It's really the sales funnel where you're warming up all of these folks that are interested in buying. That's my opinion.

All right. Fantastic, dude. Buddy. Scott Bossman, what about you?

Well, I think you definitely need a multifaceted approach. You know, things change over time. I've been doing this four years and things have changed with Craigslist so significantly, things have changed with Facebook so significantly. The one constant is my buyers list and showing up consistently in their email inbox. And I get a number of sales from there. It's the one thing I can really count on. Like you said, you own it, it's yours. And it's the one thing you can count on for sure. That in the future is always going to be there. You know, I think no matter where you are and you do need to be in multiple different places, you need to show up frequently in all of those place and you're going to have to, you know, you're going to have to adjust here and there with each of the tools and adapt to the changes in the market and to the changes in the tech. And it's just going to be one of those things moving forward that you really have to stay on top of. But yes, definitely a multifaceted approach is important. And I talk to people all the time because I do a lot of the coaching calls with the investor toolkit people and with the flight school people. They're having problems selling property and I ask them, well, where are you marketing? Well, usually one place and usually they're not setting more than one or two ads a week. It's not going to happen that way. So that's, we really break it down for them in those calls and make it known to them that they need to be in all these different areas, showing up very frequently. And then you will sell these properties.

Yeah, I call it the GEICO mentality. I mean can you imagine if GEICO only showed one commercial a day or two commercials a day? No one would know that. You know, 15 minutes could save you 15%. But it's all been drilled in our head because they're running those things constantly. We don't need to be a billion dollar marketing company. They have a billion dollar marketing budget. But we certainly need to put out more ads than we think we do for sure. So I think that's a really good point, Scott. Todd, let's play devil's advocate for a second. And we can all agree that the buyers list is the one asset we own. But I just invested in the toolkit. I just bought my first piece of property. I have literally a buyer's list of zero. How would you go about leveraging, you know, some platforms out there with a buyer's list of zero?

Yeah. So look, a lot of people are afraid to spend money, right? Like I get it and you know, as you know, I run Landmodo which is a, is a platform, a land listing platform. And look, Lanmoto, as I've said from, for two years now, Lanmoto is not a profit play. It's really every dollar that comes in goes right back out to generate more traffic. Right. And we built a strong buyers list from there. Well, there's ways that we push traffic back to the buyers list, one of which is our regular emails out and other, other programs to get people to look at properties on there. But if you want to leverage, let's say like my buyers list for example on land Moto, well then spend literally $497 to get on the platinum program. That, that's for a year. $497 for a year. Like unlimited listings. Some of these platforms they list, they limit you to 25 or 10 or whatever it is. It's unlimited and it's featured. Right. So like all your ads get pushed up to the top. It really, to me it's a no brainer. And see that's the, that's the problem is that I think people run into is we get into this mindset. Oh well I'm going to try something. Let me do the $29 plan on, on a platform. Well, the $29 plan, there's nothing wrong with that. You're Going to get discounted discounts this, and you're going to get exposure. But if you go to like the online month, you go to the platinum plan, for example, you get the maximum exposure to the entire list. You get to choose a property that you want included on the buyers list every single week, the deal, the week that goes out every Sunday, you get that exposure. And now, now let's stop and think about this for a minute. You could spend that same program, you could spend $80 a month and just test it for a month. $80 and let me just test this thing for a month. Well, it may or may not work for you. I'll be honest with you. It may or may not work for you because it just depends. Do you participate in the emails, do you have a good property, whatever. Now what if you just spent the 4971 time for the year and you just made, let's just go simple on it. You just made one sale in the year. Now all of a sudden your acquisition cost for that one sale is $497. You made thousands on it. And I don't think you'll just sell one property unless you're just not marketing. I think you'll sell more than one property, but you need to kind of be at that platform tier level to get there. I mean, you can go the slow way or the fast way, but I always like to go the fast way. Let me figure out how I can get someone's buyers list. For example, let me jump into the traffic. I mean, if you were going to take out a billboard to advertise your business, do you want to take out the billboard in the middle of nowhere where there's like two travelers a day down that road, which could be like, you know, somewhere else that you're advertising. Or do you want to jump into the like Manhattan traffic? I want to be in the Manhattan traffic. So that's why it's the secret. There's traffic. Jump into where the traffic is and don't look at it as like a one time expense. Look at marketing as an investment. You're investing in what? Building your buyers list. Your buyers list is the best investment that you can make.

Yeah, I mean, so often we see that, you know, I want to penny pinch myself to wealth mentality and you just can't do it. It's impossible. And not that I want to, you know, use the podcast as a Land Moto commercial, but let's just take Land Moto out of it. If there is a tool out there that allows you to reach thousands of potential land buyers. It only costs $500 for the year. And you've invested, say, I don't know, $1,000 on a piece of property that you're gonna make $8,000 on. I mean, the math is just. It's ridiculous to do. And so often we think, you know, in this sort of deprivation mode, you know, penny pinching mode, and it's kind of like saying, hey, I'm gonna chop this tree down and I'll just kind of blow on it for a while. Instead of investing 50 bucks on the saw, you know, maybe I just push on it. You know, eventually enough pressure, it'll come down, well, buy the freaking saw and get it done. Is that a good analogy, Tate?

Yeah, I like it. I mean, I think what I was getting at for our. For our listeners here is don't be the kind of person who assumes that you can build a land business just on one thing. You need to be trying out new marketplaces, new approaches, new strategies. And if what you're doing right now is not resulting in enough leads to move the needle in your life, own it. Own it and admit that there's things that you can do better, things that you can change, new approaches that probably need to be implemented. Right? And that's part of the learning process. And don't think that you're alone out there. I mean, there's times when I've had long conversations with you, Mark, about, hey, what we're doing is straight not working, and we're spending a ton of money on something that's not producing. How do we change it? We've spent hours brainstorming, and it all goes back to this idea that you've always got to be looking for that new competitive advantage. And that's what I just expressed to everybody, is there's all kinds of platforms out there. Nothing's better than seeing a lead come in or a sale result in Scott Todd's hard, hard energy off land moto. I mean, there's nothing more exciting for me than selling a property off to Scott Todd's buyers list. That's the greatest thing that ever happened, you know, because I like it, you know, and his leads tend to be good. So look around, see what other people that you know like and trust are doing and duplicate.

It's so true. And this market is huge. I had somebody at boot camp ask me, well, how big is the market? I said, the market's as big as the marketing. That's how big it is. It's massive. We have an Asset that just about everybody wants. You just have to show them how they can get it. I mean, look at it, look at your life. How many things are in your life are going to literally last forever? Well, raw land will. It outlasts everybody. It is generational wealth. And as long as you're interrupting somebody's day enough where they understand that, right? I love this Apple watch, but it is literally obsolete. I just got it. The new one's coming out next month. It's obsolete. I'll get rid of it. It's not gonna last that long. My enjoyment of it won't last that long, but a piece of raw land will literally last forever. And I could probably enjoy that land forever just using my imagination. So I thought that was a really good topic. Tate and anybody have any last closing thoughts before we go to our tip of the week?

Mark, I would just say, like, again, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Think big picture. Think, you know, try things. And don't be afraid of making some investments in your business, right? Stop, stop being short sighted. Make some, some investments in your business. And if it means investment of your time to learn a new strategy or a new thing, great. But take action on it because basically what you want to do is you want to try to be omnipresent. Like, meaning, like, if they go to this platform, you're there. If they go to this platform, you're there. And that's, that's when, when you start to get that omnipresence in there. It's kind of funny because like, for example, Lanmoto, again, it does a lot of retargeting, okay? So it's amazing. People will be like, man, I seen you're at here and I've seen it here. I've seen it here. Someone sent me a screenshot the other day. It was actually on the land watch, landwatch.com it said, like, buy your land from land moto right here. So like, you know, just, just understand that there's no, there's no great one solution, if you will. You can get a lot of leads from great places. However, the goal is to generate leads, find ways to generate leads. And if you just get one from one platform once a year, man, if you could just make a sale out of that one platform once a year, you're one sell further along towards your passive income goal than you were. If you just didn't take action and said, well, doesn't work for me.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think Scott Todd, if somebody boot camp tells me that they're, you know, they're not ready to invest the 497 on Land Moto. I'm going to ask them just point blank, if I fly out to your house this weekend, will the big screen TV in your house cost more than $500? If the answer is yes, then we have a serious problem, right? Like you invest in that. No problem. It literally has. It actually not only depreciates, but it does. It literally is costing you money in time. That entertainment is costing you money.

And using electricity, too.

And using electricity, right? Where if you invest in yourself and your business that actually compounds and grows and grows and grows exponentially so that in your sleep you're making money so that in your sleep that passive income, then you, you can then upgrade your television guilt free. I like that. The guilt free big screen tv paid for by your borrowers. I like that. All right, so, Scott, Todd, we're going to give Mimi a respite this week. I know you've got an incredible tip of the week. What do you got, Mark?

I love this thing, man. So basically, you guys got to go check this out. It's KrisP AI K R I S P AI and what this software does is you, you can get it for free or if you want the pro version, you know, there's a charge on there, whatever. But you download the software and whenever you're connected to Zoom or Skype or one of 600 different applications it uses, the software uses artificial intelligence to get rid of background noise. We have tested it with printers. We've tested it with phones ringing, dogs barking, folding machines folding. You can't. Mouse clicking, mouse clicking. Generators, outside pressure washers. It puts you in a soundproof room like nothing, nothing more. I'm using it right now. Mark's using it right now. And the other coaches on this call are also like, downloading. I'm not sure that sure if they're using it or not yet, but they're downloading it and they'll be using it as well. So check it out. Risk AI and like, this is like, this is good stuff.

This is really good stuff. Especially if you're doing anything. You're doing training videos and you're like, ah, now the dog started barking. I got to redo it. Mean. And literally, if you're in our group, you're doing training videos for your VAs. So I mean, just that alone is gonna save you time on a take two. You know, you get mad because the phone rings. Like Scott's phone rang and we couldn't hear it. So it's a really great investment. All right, what do you think?

Or if you've got relatives making snide comments and jokes, you're trying to do your training videos or your podcast in the background. Yeah, that'd be great. I love it. I'm downloading. I'm in the middle of checking out.

I already downloaded it. Like, I just started work using it as. As we were doing this.

It's.

I don't know. Seems cool.

It's great. It's great.

Scott had me at artificial intelligence, though. AI. I mean, come on. That. That just sounds so cool. I'm in.

It really is cool. It's amazing. So I thought this was a great roundtable podcast. And if you're listening, you're getting value. The best favor you can give us is send it to a friend, anyone that you know that could benefit from more passive income and more time, more money. Send it on the interwebs, or simply do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, rate, review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to support the landgeek Calm. Not only will we send you the passive income launch kit course for free, we will send you our wholetailing course for free. How to double your money, 30 days or less. So please do that. Are we ready to do this? Oh, yeah, I forgot. I forgot to tell you. The podcast is sponsored by Flight School and Flight School Live. Learn more. Just go to the landgeek.com forward/training. Get on a call with the nightcap meister, the OG Scott Bossman, or the Zen master, Mike Zaino. They'll break it down for you and explain all the features, all the benefits, so that we all know the best way to learn is to do. And that's what Flight School is designed to do. Work your business, create your systems, start mailing, start marketing with your Sherpa, Scott Todd. And if you're live, Scott Todd and the big papa Tate Litchfield. You got to be there. All right, are we ready to do this?

Yep.

One, two, three. Let freedom ring. Not bad. Not bad at all. All right, so let's see.

Mean.

Why are you laughing? Are we getting mocked in the background right now?

Did you see that MacKenzie book commercial about the Surface? It's so funny, right?

That is my favorite commercial.

What commercial?

There's a man named Mackenzie Book or Mac Book, and they and the Surface folks hired him to do a commercial promoting the Surface. It's awesome.

I gotta see this commercial.

Yeah.

I can't imagine what MacKenzie Book's integrity is worth. It must be a lot.

Mark. It's really. It's really good. You know, like, it's just further proof that you guys should be using Surface, you know, Surface computers. And when you get into the, like, listen, the first. Let me tell you where you're going to convert. You're going to convert. When you go to board an airline, they're like, sorry, your. Your computer's not welcome on our airline because it's an Apple. And that's a true thing. The verge.com like, literally, you might try to sneak it on there, but when they come through and they're like, hi, please put your seatbelt on, put your seat trays up, and oh, by the way, we need your. Sir, your. Your MacBook to throw it in the garbage because it's banned from this airline. You'd be like, I wish I had a Surface.

I mean, not to be elitist, Scott Todd, but most MacBook people are probably flying private anyways, and they don't need to worry about it. That's not true.

It's not true. Nowhere close to it.

Just. I'm just saying the surface people, on the other hand, I think they're going on Spirit Airlines, Southwest.

That's funny.

It's okay. I have to check out that. That video.

Just put in the link for you, man. Like, I just put in the link. It's the best commercial ever.

I couldn't stop laughing.

All right, awesome. Awesome. All right, Well, I. I'm very excited. I'm getting back into intermittent fasting after taking a break from it. And it's. I'm at kind of at that point now where, like, I. I can start to feel I'm getting a little bit more energy as the day goes on, as my body feeds off my folds of fat. And I'm loving it.

One day metabolism at all.

It messed with my metabolism a little bit, I think. But it could also have been that I was just, you know, overeating when I. When I would eat, as opposed to, like eating a sensible amount food. I think at one point I started channeling De Niro during Raging Bull. You just purposely went to Italy and, like, gained 30 pounds eating tons of pasta. So I think if I just stop that, I'll be okay.

Dave lost eight pounds in a week on the keto diet. So I did it for three days and I gained two pounds. So now I'm back to cheese and crackers and wine in the evenings. I'm very happy.

Yeah, you basically tell Dave you're living. Yeah, living. Yeah, I actually bought some Keto cereal the other day just for fun. I saw it on Product Hunt. I'm like, oh, that's interesting. So they have this sweetener called allulose. Probably gonna give me cancer. But that, who knows? But Scott Boss was like, probably, but it's keto. It's keto cereal. It's good to know. So it's either gonna make me feel great or kill me.

Mark, if you're fasting, you can eat Captain Crunch. It's all good.

You know, that is an interest. That is an interesting roundtable discussion is what cereal would you break your fast with?

Anything sugared.

I mean, but Tate, do you have a favorite cereal? I know what mine would be.

Oh, yeah, I like Captain Crunch, Fruity Pebbles, you know, all this stuff, all the good stuff that, you know, the doctors probably don't want you to eat, but that's what we eat in my house.

Yeah. Mimi, how about you?

I'm a boring granola person.

That really I love, I love, I love Trader Joe's vanilla granola. I think it's great.

Yeah, that stuff's good.

A little honey yogurt. That's good stuff.

Like, that's good. If you run out of really good stuff like Fruit Loops or Apple Jacks or something like that, that's a good alternative.

But yeah, I'm really showing my age. I'm like, you know, definitely a high fiber cereal.

Like raisin brand regular.

Yeah. Scott Boss, what about you?

My favorite cereal of all time is Cracklin Oat Bran.

I've never even heard of that.

Are you joking?

No, it is, it is so good. Have you not, have you guys never had Crackling Oat Bran?

I've had a crack with no brand and I put that in the same category as Grape Nuts. Like, it's just not edible.

Sweeter. It's sweeter and it's crunchy and it leaves the milk a wonderful flavor after you let it sit for a while.

Anything with the word bran in it.

I know. I really love all cereal, though. My wife will tell you I eat cereal at 10 at night when we're watching shows. Just what I do.

It's like the perfect food isn't really is it's got all, you know, it's so complex. It starts off crunchy, then it starts getting, you know, a little bit soggy, and then the milk's amazing. Not with Crackling Oat Bran, but like what Scott, like Tate and Mimi would, would eat like a good cereal. Scott, Todd, how about you?

I my go to Cereal would be Life cereal and specifically Vanilla Life cereal. That's. And I don't want it with any milk. I just want it dry.

Really?

Yeah.

Now, for me, it's all about Golden Grahams. Or Cocoa Krispies would be good, too. Yeah, those are good. Yeah.

Crossberries are good.

Flakes. Oh, Mark, Frosted flakes would be good, too.

Yeah. So. So what I've been doing is trying to be responsible about it. So, like, late at night, instead of having a bowl of cereal, I'll have, like, one of those yogurts, like a Greek yogurt, but I'll put just a little bit of cereal in so I get my cereal fix. Yet I don't have that. The guilt and the shame of consuming 25 grams of sugar right before I go to bed and then have Bosman, you know, squeezing my love handles next month at boot camp, like, oh, Mark, looks like you've been having a little bit of good time there in Phoenix. Must be. Guess summer's over for you, huh? Guess that. You know, I'm speechless.

Because it sounds like that's happened before.

And.

Private space, that is TMI for this call.

I mean, are we just dropping the mic here? I think that.

I think this call is over at that point.

I think you're right. All right. Oh, I'm definitely keeping that piece in. Let me read it.

You don't want your wife listening to that piece.

Oh, she'll love it. The bossman. Pinch an inch. All right. Fantastic. It's like a meme.

I don't know.

I'm speech red. I can see him through the screen. He's just turning red. He doesn't even know what to do with this one.

I am speechless.

Which, you know, that's not a bad podcast ending. When we can just make, you know, bossman speechless. That's good. All right, thanks, everybody.

See ya.