How Will an Economic Downturn Affect My Land Business?

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, land geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's roundtable podcast, we don't have very many of the usual suspects, but who we do have is amazing, Dear listener. Amazing. We've got Dude Buddy, the nightcap OG Scott Bossman. Scott, how are things in Odalaska?

Warm and sunny today. 65 beautiful.

65 is warm and sunny. Tate and I are like, that's warm and sunny.

Yeah, that's. That's. We're. We're speaking two different temperature languages here, buddy.

Sorry, that's Winter Eric the Technician Peterson. How are things in Franklin?

Things are good. We've got a sunny 72 degree day today. I don't know if that's warm or cold for you guys, but feels pretty good out there.

That's definitely hot weather for us.

Okay.

I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate. Litchfield Tate, how are things in the desert of Las Vegas?

They're good. They're good. It's a wonderful time out here right now.

Awesome. Well, we always like to stay positive on our roundtable podcasts, but let's face it, we are probably either in or. Or heading towards a recession. And we are noticing that our coaching clients, our flight school clients, people that are on our coaching calls, whether it's a mastermind call or an office hours call, they are starting to say that they are seeing a slowdown in leads. So, Dude, Buddy, Nightcap OG the first question is, are you seeing a slowdown in leads?

I would say we're seeing a light slowdown, but we are still getting sales. So maybe. Maybe fewer leads, but we're still getting sales. It's interesting that the coaching clients are feeling this because I interface with a lot of the flight school people, and there's a lot of bicycle people having success with sales right now. So I think it just comes down to there's gonna be dips, there's gonna be ebbs and flows in this business, and it's really important to remain consistent on all fronts and maybe experiment or go back to things that have worked in the past that maybe we've gotten away from. So, for instance, for a long time, we didn't do anything on Craigslist. Now we're starting to focus on Craigslist a little bit more. Again, I successfully posted on Zillow again and got leads on there after being kicked off recently. So I think it's just a matter of, you know, if there's a particular platform where the leads are lower. Find them somewhere else. Right. And continue to engage that buyer's list over time as well. That's been really important for us. I would say that that been a strength here in the last month or so, as the leads have been maybe a little bit lower. Selling on the buyer's list.

That's such a comprehensive answer. I don't even know how Eric is going to add on to that, but we'll give him a shot. Eric. Yeah. Well, first of all, are you seeing a slowdown in leads? We are.

I would say that we have seen a slowdown in leads probably, you know, through the summer and into the fall here, but it doesn't translate to no sales. Right. Like, we're still making sales, just like Scott said. But it does kind of make you go back to the marketing side of the business and really dig in and say, all right, you know, what's working, what's not working? Where can we maybe experiment? Where can we go back to those old things that we used to do that we're not doing now? Just like Scott was saying, I think that it's also a good opportunity and with Black Friday and Thanksgiving coming up, to begin thinking about those sales that you might want to run to encourage more sales in your business. Because I would say it's never too early to plan for that stuff. Typically, we'll do something a little bit bigger than normal during that timeframe. And because it's kind of outside of the normal process, it takes a little more time to plan and prepare for. So, as a matter of fact, we've got our stuff all lined up for that sale coming up this month. And one of the reasons for it, of course, is, you know, to encourage more. More sales.

If.

If leads are low, what tools do we have at hand that we can take better advantage of? And the buyer's list is definitely one of those things that, you know, we use it on a weekly basis, but every now and then during the year, we go above and beyond and do something outside of the ordinary so that every week we're not doing that, you know, because ultimately, if we're offering some kind of great specials every week, we're going to kind of burn out the list. Right. And they're always going to be expecting that, and then we always have to give it. So instead we do this maybe once a year, maybe twice a year, and. And make a big deal about it. Kind of create a lot of anticipation and urgency around it.

I like that. You don't want to be the J.C. penney of land and have them constantly expecting, you know, deal after deal after deal. I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate Litchfield, what do you have to add on to that as far as what are you seeing with your current lead flow?

You know, we might be seeing a little bit of a decline in number of leads, but we're still selling a lot of land. So, yeah, there's a little bit of uncertainty in the market right now. I mean, people are a little nervous, people are scared, people are confused. They really just. There's just a lot of uncertainty. And I really don't have a good answer for explaining what that means for the land business, but I can tell you we're still selling land. We've sold three properties this week, and it's Wednesday, so.

Tuesday. That's. That's how good your life is. You don't even know the day of the week.

It makes me sound bad, but, yeah, I guess it's Tuesday here. We've sold property this week. One guy bought two lots and another person bought a single lot. So two sales. So we are still selling property. And I would just kind of echo what everybody else said. If one platform's not performing, you really have two choices. And the first option is sit there and wait for things to get better and do absolutely nothing. And that's an approach that we would never recommend anyone take. The second approach is sit there and say, if this isn't working, why, what can I change? Right? The key to being successful in anything is to always be split, testing, always be looking for changes or tweaks that can be made to your ads, to your marketing, to your pricing, to your headlines, to your images, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. And if you're not happy with what you're doing, what you're seeing within your own land business, make some changes, right? Make some changes and go out there and, you know, try something that you wouldn't have normally done. What worked in 2020 isn't working today.

That's okay. That's normal.

Anybody that tells you that they are marketing experts or gurus, they're lying to you. Because the marketing, the world of marketing is always changing. And periodically, you're going to hit these roadblocks and these hurdles, and you're going to have to get creative and you're going to have to say, I'm not satisfied. I want better results. What do I need to do different? That's the difference between a successful land investor and one that's just kind of Waiting for an easy layup sale to come their way. I'm hungry. I'm looking for these deals. I'm willing to work for them. So, yeah, maybe a slight slowdown, but I don't know, we're constantly changing and pivoting and still selling land. So I'm not really stressed.

Yeah, I, and I think that's any the three of you really sort of summarized this is that we're controlling what we can control, and we're not overreacting to what looks like might be a slowdown. We're just adapting. And so there's an interesting concept where when we hit adversity, and we all had adversity in life, some people crumble. Well, anyone who's listening to this podcast is, I can guarantee, is not a crumbler. That being said, there's also people who are resilient, so they absorb the blow and that's okay. Resiliency is great. But I think what we all should strive to or aspire to is this idea of antifragility. So we're not just resilient, we're actually anti fragile to the point like this is what's making us stronger. Because now we have a reservoir of not only were we resilient in a time of slow leads, but we made us stronger. We got better at our marketing. We took the time to look at different platforms, create different systems, different processes, look at other ways that we could be creative in our marketing and actually become even stronger land investors in the time of adversity. I don't usually like to talk that much. Let's move on to another question. Dude, buddy Nightcap. OG if you were coaching a new client and they were saying to you, I'm on the platforms, Facebook, Craigslist, Zillow, landmodo.com, thelands.com and my leads are just slow, what would your advice be?

I think then you need to look at the marketing. You know, you need to. Need to ensure that your headline is, is catching the attention of those folks that are your buyers. And you know, Mark, as you always say at boot camp, you know, put your mind into the typical buyer for a property, right? And cater your marketing toward that and speak to those people and split test different headlines, different, you know, maybe the, maybe the hunters are more active right now in the land forums. You know, it's hunting season. Think about things like that and cater your marketing to your buyer, to the different types of buyers that you have. And then, you know, experiment with the pricing. The other thing that I was Going to mention earlier is, yes, there may be a slight slowdown in leads, but there are still a lot of people out there that can afford $99 a month or $199 a month for land. So that's why I love our model so much, because we can sell these properties really, all day long, even in a down economy, I think we're going to be able to sell these properties. So hopefully that answers your question.

I agree with you. And we talked about this in Atlanta at boot camp in the life cycle or the economic cycle of raw land investing for the past 22 years, what I've seen is, as we go into recession, it's super easy to buy. Things are cheap, they're on sale, but it's more challenging to sell. Then it moves into equilibrium, where it's easy to buy, easier to sell, and then we go into a hotter market, which we what we've experienced and say the last two years, where it's more challenging to buy, prices are higher, but things are flying off the shelf. So now we're coming out of that cycle and into the more great. It's gonna be a great time to buy, but it's going to be more challenging to sell, and you're going to have to put out more ads. And you're probably think, and just to your point, be a little bit more creative in your marketing. But, Eric Peterson, what would your advice be?

My first question to that student would be, do you have enough ads out on those platforms? A couple of those platforms you mentioned, you can place multiple ads for a given property, right? Craigslist, Facebook, like, we can. We can post a lot of ads. And the reality is, the more ads we have out there, the better our chances are for bringing in leads.

So.

So that's where I would start.

All right, fantastic. Sage Yoda, like wisdom. Scott Bossman, can you do a Yoda voice?

Not on this podcast.

Not this sober, pal.

That's right. That's right.

That's a nightcap. Ask for sure, totally. There is no try. There's only do. Tate Litchfield, what would your advice be?

Yeah, I mean, I'd echo what everybody else said, but, you know, my main question would be, all right, if it's not working, what are we going to fix? Right? Like, I really believe that if your marketing is not working, this is a you problem, right? So you gotta grab the bull by the horns and say, what are we gonna test first to see if it improves things? Which one factor can we measure and see if that improves things? And if it does fantastic. If it doesn't, all right, we're on to the next thing. So I'd be looking at taking a very systematic approach to it to try and diagnose what's going on. Could it be quantity? Could be headlines. Again, there's a laundry list of things that it could be. But I would also tell them, do not panic. Do not panic.

Right.

Why are you stressed? You've owned the land for what, two months?

No big deal.

Your land hasn't depreciated. It's not like it's lost value all of a sudden. And I can guarantee that the price you paid for it if you followed our model, was a fantastic home run purchase price. So do not stress if it takes a month longer than normal or it takes five months longer. I was talking to somebody the other day and they said, at what point do you begin to panic? And I said, six months. I don't know. I don't even know if six months is a fair answer.

But, like, never. Yeah.

I don't stress.

I mean, guys, how. Have you ever bought a piece of property you couldn't sell ever?

No.

And I bought some hogs before I bought something.

Yeah. I. I made some big mistakes in my due diligence. They all sell. Yeah. I don't know.

I just tell you, don't panic.

Right.

Like, if you believe in the business model, you have proof of concept, you should feel comfortable knowing that your money is safe. I'd much rather have my money in this than anything else right now.

You know, it's a good point. Right. Can you imagine those people that bought excess inventory and now they're, you know, annoying their family? They're. They can't go in their garage and they're trying to upload this stuff to shopify or whatever it is. It's just sitting there collecting dust. And every time they have to go out there, they get annoyed and they look at it. It's an argument. We've got an asset that lasts forever. Nothing to maintain, nothing protect. It's a piece of paper with shuffle paper. Now we only do that anymore. Now we do simplify. It used to be, oh, the worst case was we get a paper cut. We don't even do that.

I mean, you're right, though. At the end of the day, I'm not stressed. And I'm like, for the record, I am still buying a ton of raw land right now. Like, a lot of property. 21 lots this week.

Yeah. Which in a recession, that's what you want to do. And dollar cost Average it all the way down because we don't know when the bottom is. But if you're buying 25, 3 cents in the dollar, that's when we're making our money. And again, I've been. I've done this full time since 2001. I've never been stuck with a piece of raw land deal and never lost money on it simply because I've been disciplined. And I just buy it. Right. It's simple. It's simple. I know it's boring, but it's simple. Bossman, how many times you talk to somebody like, you know, I'm kind of bored making money. I want to go. I want to go do multifamily. That looks. That looks like it's going to give me some brain damage and more fun.

Yeah. Usually it's the other way around. The multifamily folks come to us stressed out. Oh, yeah, but I'm not stressed.

Yeah. Especially in an inflationary environment, that would be stressful. Yeah. They're getting squeezed right now. But I digress because we're now at that point in the podcast where we get to ask myself for a 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. But before I give this epic tip of the week, just have to remind the listeners about our sponsor today, which is Flight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Go up that mountain of land, investing quickly, safely, efficiently with Scott Todd as your Sherpa, and you're going to go up with that. Yeah. You know what? The. The dog is so hacked. So excited about this right now. It's as well. And dear listener, we don't edit this out. This is real live podcasting, old school style. So I lost my train of thought. But you know what's important is that flight school tuition ain't going to cost you nothing. Guaranteed you're going to make it back 180 days or less. Just show us your work. Learn more. Go to the landgeek.com forward slash training. Thelangic.com forward slash training. Okay, Mark, what is your tip of the week? Well, Mark, I thought you'd never ask. It is Rewind AI. Rewind AI, the search engine for your life. Find anything you've seen, said or heard. How does rewind work? Records anything you've seen, said or heard and make it searchable for your privacy. They store all the recordings locally on your Mac. You don't have a Mac. I don't know why you don't have a Mac? Go get a Mac. Mind boggling Compression Storing all the recordings locally means compression is very important. We compress raw recording data up to 3,750 times to even the smallest hard drive you can buy from Apple. Today you can store years of recordings, no cloud integrations or it required. Rewind starts capturing these apps right away with no Iot required meetings too. Rewind can automatically record your meetings, making them easy to search. How many times have you guys done a call coaching call and be awesome if they could just search hey, what do you say about county research there? And they could do it stored locally. Full control, exclude specific apps and private browsing and it looks really cool. Save your spot in line. Rewind AI what do you guys think? Geeky Barry Pretty good. Pretty good. Well, I want to thank the listener and remind them that the only way that I'm going to pull out these epic tips of the week is if you do us three tiny little favors. Follow rate review the podcast, send us a screenshot of that review to support attheland geek.com we are going to send you for free a signed copy of Dirt Rich, which I understand is going on the black market at exorbitant prices right now with inflation exorbitant, so might as well get one a signed copy for free. Very simple to do anyways. Are we good? Eric, are we good?

We're great.

Tate, are we good?

We are dude.

Buddy.

Yeah, we're good.

All right, let's do this. One, two, three. Let. Let Freedom.

Freedom.

Thanks, everybody. Yeah, see ya.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast.

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