Is It Necessary To Have A Luxury VA In The Land Business?

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's roundtable, we have almost all the usual suspects. We have a special usual suspect that has not been around the last six months. And he's back. He's back, baby.

Dude.

Buddy. Scott Bossman. Scott. How are you, Mark?

I'm very good. Glad to be back. Glad to be back here and to be with you guys. It's.

It's great to see you. We got Taria putting in the reps. Harris, Tria. How are things?

Things are well.

Good to see you. We got your partner in crime, Landon. AI Harris, the aquatic investor. Land. How are you doing?

Well, it's nice and sunny here. Got no complaints.

Yeah. Good to see you. I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate. Litchfield. Tate. How are things in Sin City? Good.

We're busy.

Yeah, very busy. So we've got a really interesting topic today. We are talking about luxury virtual assistants, or VAs. So, Scott Bossman, what is a luxury VA? How would you define it?

I think a luxury VA is that person in your. Well, first of all, you have to get to the point, right, in your business where maybe you need one of these luxury VAs, or you could pay for their services, maybe they cost a little bit more, or, you know, just get to the point where you're able to hire out some things that you're no longer comfortable with or that may be. There's some question as to whether or not I would want to be doing in the first place. So I have a luxury. My lux. One of my best luxury VAs, I think, is a paralegal. And this paralegal, for me, does a lot of great work. I mean, if a deal comes across my desk and it's what Mike Dano and I call a humdinger, right? If there's been one transaction the last 30 years and that person bought it on a warranty deed, and they're the only person on the deed, or everybody on that deed is able to sign a new deed, I have no problem with that deal. I have no problem drawing up the deed and getting the deal done, right? But every once in a while, you get. There's. There's five or six transactions in the last 30 years, and maybe. Maybe an affidavit needs to be drawn up because you're buying from a trust or maybe a spouse who used to be on the deed needs to sign off on it, and there needs to be some language there that I'm not comfortable with. I'm going to hit up my paralegal and say, hey man, I need your help on this deal. And there are different types of deals, right? Like, can you do a deal review for me? Sure. You know, check the chain of title. It's clean back 30 years, no issues. And that's a $25 fee. Now if he takes it a little bit further, if you have to drop some different documents for me, maybe do a deed or an affidavit or that type of thing, I'm paying him 50 to 75. I've paid him 100 bucks in the past helping with a probate issue, or 150 bucks helping with a probate issue. So that to me is a luxury va. And I think it's important, you know, if you're going to, if you're going to be in this business long term and you're going to be doing, you know, ideally 10, 20, 30 deals a month, there are going to be some of these deals that come across your desk and somebody for that, for that purpose is going to be highly valued in your business.

So a paralegal sounds expensive, hence the term luxury. Right? Like a, like a Louis Vuitton va. How much are you paying your paralegal per hour?

I mean, it all depends on the task, right? So like he charges per transactional item. So if he's gonna do a chain of title search for me or like a deal review, I think it's 25 to 30 bucks.

Right.

If he's gonna do the deed, if he's gonna draft the deed for me with some special language or needs to drop an affidavit or that type of thing, you know, the deed is like another 25 bucks. Any type of other document on top of that, he charges a little bit more for it. But really, I mean, mark, our cost to do these deals anyway is quite low. Right. I mean, if I'm going to self close, it's costing me my time and some recording fees and, you know, that's pretty much about it. So why not pay 100 or a couple hundred bucks on the front end to make sure that you are confident and secure with the deal. And the margins we make are going to make up for that in spade.

No, I. I love it. I love it. So, last question and we'll move on. Where do you find an affordable paralegal like this? Because I know local law firms here, their par legals are like 175 an hour, where the attorney might be four or five hundred an hour?

No, that's a great question. There are some resources. I mean, you can find them on Upwork or Fiverr. There are paralegals on those sites. You could drop a line in the Facebook group. I mean, we got what, 10,000 members in there now and a lot of land investors doing high value with their deals. So I drop a line in there and ask if anybody has a paralegal they might be willing to share.

Yeah, I mean, all problems can be solved by community, my networks. Facebook group. The, the collective intelligence can really get any problem solved. But I, I, I, I'm really enjoying this topic because I really never thought of, of a luxury va. This is kind of unique. So let's go to Taria, putting in the reps. Harris, what, what would you consider your luxury va? And then Landon, maybe you're gonna have to argue with Teria on this.

I'm sure we have different ones. I would say that our luxury VA is actually a team of people who manage a lot of our social media posts. So from Instagram, not necessarily Facebook Marketplace, we have a different team for that, but other parts of Facebook marketing and advertising, Tick Tock, whatever platforms we're on, we have a team of people who manages all of those posts and brings the leads to us, etc, and that has been a luxury for us indeed. Because we don't necessarily love social media, but it's a necessity for this business, at least for our business, it's a necessity. So having an entire team that manages all that, we don't necessarily have to worry about the videos or what's the content. They send us a content calendar every month and they produce really good things. So that's the luxury for us.

Yeah, I, I, I, I can just imagine you guys going out on a date and, and talking about land business and be like, can you believe someone on TikTok just bought, you know, five acres out here? And they do.

Yeah, they do.

They do.

I used to think Tick Tock was just for dancing, but now it's, it's for other things.

It is.

Surprisingly, surprisingly. And look, do I care that China is using it as a surveillance tool? Absolutely not. If it increases our passive income, that's between the governments. I'm not, I'm not getting involved with it, but okay, so when you're talking about social media though, we'll leave Facebook aside because I know that's probably your favorite. You got Instagram, Tick tock, let's say YouTube, Twitter. Am I, am I forgetting any? Are those the big, those are the big Ones.

Those are kind of the primary ones that, that we've seen. Name.

Okay. Yeah. If you can only pick one of them to post, throw threads is new. Which one would you post in?

I would probably post Tik Tok. Although it, it's kind of a younger crowd. We're kind of playing for the long game. Like Facebook started off with a lot of young people and then when the older people got on, they move, you know, people moved on. So now they're still relatively young. But I would say building up a presence on TikTok is what we will focus on.

Okay. Okay. Landon, luxury for you.

Okay, so Sharia stole mine. But so, so I mean that one is a, is a definitely a high value luxury va. The, the one that, the other luxury VA that comes to my mind the most is our Spanish speaking sales manager. We have someone who just gets on the phone. You know, if we have those Spanish speaking customers, they want to talk to us in Spanish and you know, they want to, they want to feel comfortable. We want them to be also feel comfortable with, you know, our product, what we're selling. So I think having a Spanish speaking VA to be able to get on, communicate, they know the role, they know what we're trying to sell has been really good for us and it definitely has opened up a larger just community of people that we're able to market to. And this, you know, this role is it depends on where you're working. Right. So like there are certain necks of the wood, you probably don't need it, but you know, and there are certain places like, yeah, this just, it just adds to the value of being able to help just push what you're selling better, make, make folks more comfortable.

That is a luxury. Okay, going back to the bossman question, how much are you guys paying for these luxurious VAs? So Tria, how much are you paying for the social media team?

Social media team runs anywhere from three to five hundred dollars a month, just depending upon the calendar.

Okay.

The Spanish speaking, she's actually hourly and she gets 15, but then 16 an hour. But if she closes the deal, she'll get an extra $100 because she does other things for us. But she also fields Spanish speaking sales call, Correct. Okay. Hourly.

So the call comes in and let's say there's a non Spanish speaking person that takes that call. She's available. Right. Right away to. Or how do you, how do you. What process or system is involved to get her involved with that customer? Yeah, prospective customer.

So in our CRM we have our sales Managers in there and if they have a Spanish speaking person, they tag that person and she gets a notification in flag that says there's someone you need to reach out to. Right?

Okay.

Gucci. Gucci. Prada. Prada. I love it. These are luxurious VAs. Holy cow. Between the paralegal, the social media team on TikTok and a Spanish speaking VA. I don't know, I mean, how much more luxurious can it get?

Big pop, we haven't gotten the Tate yet.

Here, here, here comes, Here comes the mic drop.

Look, I've got some, some A plus helpers on our team and they are, they are luxury. It is great. But I, I want to just say like to everybody listening here, what one person considers to be a luxury might not be what somebody else considers to be a luxury. So I'll give you my, my, my banger of a luxury VA in a second. But I'll tell you one of my most important VAs that I really could not operate without. And I consider this to be, you know, the first luxury I ever outsourced for. And that would be something as simple as an intake manager. To me, that's one of the greatest luxuries that you can have in this business. Because truthfully, without it, you can't scale, you can't grow. Right. You want to get to the point where you need social media help, where you need these, well, you got to be able to buy property. And if you are the one doing all of the buying, guess what? You don't even get to listen to this podcast and put it into practice because you're not ready.

Right?

You're not ready. But a true luxury VA for me is I have a va and I don't think this has ever been spoken of on any recording. And they are a geek pay account manager. This person's sole responsibility is to manage loans, make sure they get put in, make sure that we're getting paid, make sure that everything is going the way it should be. And they're a geek pay. I don't even know if we have a name for it. Geek pay, specialist, account specialist, something along those lines.

But that's, that's like ruffle oil Geek pay. Wow.

You got to have some, you got to have the notes to justify somebody in this position. But that's a, that's a luxury for us for sure. That is actually a necessity. So it's not even a luxury.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's interesting because I'm glad you brought that up because there's some law we'll Just call it bossman's law. Luxury once enjoyed.

No.

Ceases become a luxury and then becomes a necessity. Right. And so, Tate, would you say that geek pay managers helped with the default rate?

Yeah, 100%. I mean, they earn their keep. They're fantastic. I'm so grateful for what they do for us.

Okay, well, I, I too have a luxury va. I have two.

Hold on, you thought mine was bougie. This is real bougie. Like this is.

This is.

This is some sort of high level luxury brand that I can't even pronounce. Okay, this is. This is next level here.

I. You know what though? I don't know, I think. You know what's interesting though, to your point about the intake manager not being a luxury, a necessity. And I would say, you know, dude, buddy's probably saying his paralegal is not a luxury. It's probably a necessity to get these deals done and done quickly to save time. Same thing with social media, right? Same thing with the Spanish speaking sales manager. I'm just laughing.

I'm just laughing.

This is not a luxury. This is not.

You're just justifying it. You're just justifying it right now. You're saying, yeah, yeah, no, like you've gotta. I have to do this, right? Like Boston has to have par legal help because the guy didn't go to law school.

Okay.

Enter Mark with his luxury, which.

Is if you know your hourly rate and you know how much time you're spending in your email inbox. My luxury VA is inboxdone.com so I have two virtual assistants just managing my email inbox. And it is glorious because I don't have to check my email, but if there's something that is urgent, they will vox me. And then I'm like, oh, I can go into my inbox. Imagine a day where you're not lost in an hour or even two hours of managing your inbox. It is glorious how much time, how much more productive I've been not having to do that. And then they do other things. Like for example, let's say that I've got a coaching client that can't get on my calendar because I have time blocks on my calendar. Well, I can just contact via Voxer, my luxury va, and say, please contact this client and find us a hole in my schedule and they will book it for me. And there's all these sort of creative things that they can do from a communication and managing my calendar, managing my inbox, the time saved, it's yeah, I will. It's not inexpensive, but it's not. What. It's not that expensive. I want to say it's.

Don't say it.

More than my paralegal.

It's more than the paralegal.

It's.

It would be.

I. Yeah, I mean, table. How much are you spending on the. The geek pay?

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what I spend. It doesn't matter what I spend. All right, Mark, come on.

Don't put.

Throw me under the bus just because you're under there. Don't drag me down.

I mean, come under. Come under the bus. The exhaust fumes are fantastic down here.

Let's just put it this way. Whether you're paying for somebody to write your emails or do your, you know, paral work for you, what matters is you are manufacturing time.

Yeah, right.

If you can manufacture time, you win.

Correct?

Right. No, it's absolutely. So the. These luxurious VAs. When you're at that level of your business, you're really. And really. When you. When we talk about, like a CEO mindset, a lot of that is where can I make more time or save more time to do the more productive, more revenue producing activities in the business? So, I mean, I can imagine if, if, if dude, Buddy Bossman is, you know, spending an hour trying to find an answer to a legal question, that's an hour that he's missing out on the things that really matter in his business, which might be creating a new automation, it might be, you know, doing some more market research for a new county. It might be analyzing a deal, it might be dealing with a pending sale, which, I mean, again, you all are probably just shaking your head being like, well, we don't do any of that because it's all outsourced now. But, but back in the day, maybe it was, but it's. It's still, it's still giving you time back and, and giving you that time to be more productive, more strategic on how to grow and scale the business to the next level and, and do that. So. Yeah. So, dude, buddy, great topic today.

Well, I think it was actually, you got to give credit where credit's due here. I think it was Tapes, the luxury VA term. I think it was.

Tate, you know what? Let's give credit where credit is due. I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate Litchfield, fantastic topic today. I'm just so excited to have Boston back. I'm just giving him all the credit, even when he doesn't even deserve the credit. You know, Scott, thank you for another Sunny day today in Scottsdale, Arizona. I appreciate it.

Very welcome.

Yeah, yeah. Tate, we'll give you the final word on this. Any. Any last words on the luxury VA and how we should think about it?

You know, your first VA that you hire, it could be somebody to upload your list or your mailers into LG Pass. And for you, that's going to be a luxury because it's one thing you don't have to do. So you don't need somebody checking your email or writing your emails or managing social media for you. You will scale to that point. You will grow to it. Don't put the cart before the horse. Right. A big mistake that you can make is go out and try to introduce people you don't need. So start small, follow the recipe, stay on the path, grow, and as you have problems, solve them with VAs, but don't solve problems that don't exist. Right. Mark had a real problem, and that's that he's on way too much spam email, and he couldn't figure out how to unsubscribe, so he had to hire somebody to do it for him or. Okay, great. Mark solved his problem. I had a problem. Teria had a problem. Landon, Bossman, they all had problems and they solved them, but they didn't go out and introduce people just because they heard it on a podcast. Right? So.

Right.

Go at your own pace. Go at a pace that makes sense, and you'll be good.

Yeah. And that same advice can be used for technology as well. How often do we say, oh, you know, you guys are using this. This platform, this technology, but they don't have that problem yet.

Right.

You know what?

My.

My most hated question I get is, Mark.

Oh, my gosh. Let's play a game.

Guess what my most hated question is that I get all the time, whether at a boot camp or anything. So guess what it is. Guess.

All right, Scott, what's your. What's your guess?

What's your favorite CRM?

No, no, that's good. That's a good question.

But I was going to say, what's your favorite tool?

That's along the same lines.

You're getting warmer, Landon.

See, I was thinking, how many zaps do you have?

Very warm. You're hot. You're very hot.

It's.

I'll give it to you, Landon. I'll give it to you. My. My least favorite question that I get asked is, what's your favorite zap?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

No. Why do you. Why do you say that?

Because my problems aren't your problems. Yeah, What I need to do might not be what you need to do. Right. So it goes back to what you said about technology. Like, why are. Why do you. I mean, if you want to know how I do something, I'm happy to share it with you, but don't ask me what my. I don't have any favorite zaps. These are all just tools. Right. They make my life better in some.

Way, shape or form.

But just because I'm using it doesn't mean you need it. You don't need this right now because you might not realize it's a problem. I just kind of hate that question because it's unfair and doesn't matter what I say. You're going to write it down and you're going to want to do it. And it's like, you don't need it, though. You don't do it yet. Focus on 30 a day. Just focus on that.

Yeah, yeah. You know, that's such, such great advice. It really is. If you got nothing from this podcast except that this, this podcast, you should, you know, bookmark it and just listen to that part again because it's going to save you a lot of time and frustration as you, as you evolve in the land business, for sure. Well, this is a great topic, but we're now at that point in the podcast where we get the tap on. Oh, land is not touching his nose. I thought for a second he was going to touch his nose. His tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

So, okay, I don't know if I've got quite the gems that Tate's bringing here because he's dropping some nuggets of knowledge over here, but I like this book that I'm reading right now. It's called A CEO Should Only Do Three Things, and it's by Trey Taylor. And basically this book is. Basically, it gives you basically three points of what a CEO should do. There's you. The CEO should only be, you know, setting the culture of the company. Should be deciding who works for the company and then what goals you're going to pursue after that. You've got to delegate everything off. And basically this book goes through a lot of, kind of dispelling the fact that we need to be involved in every part of our business now, in the beginning of our business, absolutely, you've got to be involved. You've got to be accountable for every part of it. But as you begin to develop the CEO, you want to delegate this stuff out, and then you've got to let your team do what they need to do. So it's a book I'm really getting involved into. I'm quite finished it yet, but it's been really interesting. And it's something like I said, this is a lot of, kind of what we work with in our community and what we try to teach with everybody that we work with is, you know, don't try to do it all yourself. Delegate it out. Get your team to do what they're supposed to do. Teach them properly, but get them to do what they need to do.

So, yeah, I mean, you know, not to keep quoting Tate Litchfield, but he's an expert at finding experts, and that's really what the CEO mindset is. It's. It's not, how do I do this? It's who can do this and do it well and set that. Those expectations, set those goals, set that culture and create your own utopia. But to your point, in the beginning, you have to know it well enough to. You have to work your way into the C suite, right? And there's. There's nothing wrong with it. I think. I think we see two types of. Of problems in coaching where we see people, you know, really, just one, just jump right to the C suite and be CEO and they're not ready yet. And the opposite problem is they're ready and they're not willing to let go. And, and they don't want to make the investment in growth and scale because that's what it takes. And you have to. It's. It's hard to do when you're used to, you know, a certain sort of fixed expense. And now we're pushing you. No, you're going to have to hire more people. You're going have to outsource more. Like, wait, wait. But the cheapest person I can hire is myself. Or, you know, this, this is expensive. $3 an hour. But that's not the company needs now.

They.

They need you to grow and develop. And, and really, that's. It's sort of a great metaphor for life, right? It's, you know, your, Your business will. Will really expose you as a person. And, and as you grow and develop, your business will grow and develop. And, you know, but you have to get out of your comfort zone. And when you're in that, that spot, you're like a snake shedding its skin, and it's very uncomfortable to do that. And that's where the coaching really shines is that we push you to shed and grow to that next level. Even when you're not ready to do it, you don't want to do it. But that's what the business demands, and we're there to put the brakes on when you're saying, oh, I'm going to delegate this. I'm going to go out and hire my sales manager now, you don't have any properties yet. Let's slow down here. Let's get the infrastructure in place. So I love this book. A CEO only does three things. He Landon, what would you say your biggest takeaway has been so far?

So one of the, I guess the parts that I really was liking, like, as a. We know that, yes, we have to establish a culture. So if you don't begin with that, what is expected, I think we kind of lose track of, like, what's our direction. So that's more of where I felt like, yeah, that. That is something that I think that's something that we did. And I, you know, we did it in our business, not realizing that we were doing it. There was a certain expectation, and now everybody's held to that certain expectation. So it kind of led into, who do we hire? Oh, do we keep this person? Do we let them go? So things like that. But I think that's more of the area that I really enjoyed or have been enjoying so far. I still got a little bit to go, but it's. It's been an interesting book so far.

All right. Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, I want to thank the listeners, remind you that the only way we're going to be able to continue to get Landon to not put his finger on his nose and. And take the tips of the week. Because if you do three little favors, follow rate, review the podcast, send us a screenshot of that Review support@thelandgeek.com and if you are interested in how you can become the CEO of your land business, just go to thelandgeek.com training schedule a call and learn more. The land geek.com training dude, buddy, are we good?

Yeah, we're good.

Great to see you. So glad you're back. Tria, are we good?

Good?

Yeah. Landon, we are good. Mark, Big papa.

Yep, all good.

Manny.

All right, let's do this. 1, 2, 3.

Let's let freedom, freedom.

Thanks, everybody. Awesome. Awesome. So, speaking of luxuries, I have a travel question. So I am flying out in luxurious style to Europe, but my time shifting app is telling me to stay up literally all night. So it's a night Flight. I have to stay up the entire flight to time shift and then arrive in Italy in the afternoon, stay up all day and get on Italy time. But if not, I can do it. I've done it before. But I will be missing out on the luxurious aspect of the flight, which is this. Lay down bed. Oh, interesting though. I can drink. It's circadian rhythm. It's based on science and I actually have to spend like time in like the galley getting light the entire flight, so I won't even see very much.

So the Internet can't lie to you is what you're telling me.

No, no, it's an app. It's an app. Exactly.

Apps don't lie.

All right, Mark, let me ask you this. How much did you pay for this app?

No, it was like three dollar app. It was a good week.

Okay, so you're gonna take advice from a three dollar app?

No, no, I actually, I take that back. It was more than that. Let me see.

499 people. It's legit.

Okay, wait. Timeshifter.com. try it. Free. The shift work app. Yeah. I'm telling you, you guys have to check this out. I don't know which it is.

Probably a Reddit thread that's free there, Mark. I mean.

Yeah, that's a. Just carry on like normal. It doesn't matter what time you go to bed or wake up after you're traveling all day, you're going to be exhausted regardless.

That's true.

That's true. That is true.

Yeah.

I mean, when I fly to California on Sunday, I'm going to be tired and it's a 48 minute flight. I'm gonna be tired on Sunday.

Why?

Because I had to go to the airport, that's why. It has nothing to do with. Fine. It has everything to do with going to the airport. That's what makes you tired.

I'm.

That's my theory.

Okay. That's the worst science ever. There's science. You're going through time zones.

No, I have experienced jet lag. So I, you know, the European jet lag, it's a real thing, but totally. I, I don't know, I, I have a hard time believing that if you stay up for 36 hours, that's going to make your journey more pleasant.

I don't know, you're going to be cranky and you're going to miss out on a whole day in Europe. We've traveled internationally. We just kind of still maintain the flow. Take a nap on the flight, whatever. To me, coming Back is far worse than going.

Yeah, this is.

This is a gift I'm getting my parents for their. Their 80th birthdays, and so I haven't traveled.

Expecting them to stay up.

No, not. Not at all.

But I'm following their schedule, Mark. You need to follow their list.

I'm. I'm thinking, like, if I'm gonna be cranky and they're gonna be all cranky, I should just enjoy the flight, right?

You should.

Yeah, I think so. Enjoy the flight.

All right.

Get the nap, man.

Melatonin or no melatonin.

No, no coffee.

No, no Mel.

No melatonin. Help me sleep.

No, no.

He wants coffee to stay up. Coffee when you get there. Stay up.

Oh, okay.

Coffee. Okay. Coffee when I get there. Okay.

Yeah, that'll keep you moving after you get there.

And I. I quit coffee, so I should be very caffeine sensitive.

Yeah, you should.

It's a red eye, Mark. Is it a red eye?

It's a red eye. Oh, I mean, is it a. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because, like, yeah, we leave that night and then arrive the next afternoon. It seems like I should just be able to sleep all night and arrive fresh, but according to the circadian rhythm. That's not true.

Where's Scott?

Not.

You could talk about your hippie hair.

I. I know. Seriously.

Well, I.

Look, I. I appreciate the. The therapy, you guys. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Very, very helpful. Thank you. All right, thanks, everybody. See you guys.

Bye. 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, grow rehabs, renovations, or rodents? Schedule a free consultation at thelandgeek. Com Training. Let freedom ring.