Is There Ever A Good Reason To Stop Your Mailing Campaign?

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on this week's roundtable, we've got. I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate Litchfield Tate, how are you? Great.

Happy to be on the call.

It's great. Great. We got the technician, Eric Peterson. Eric, how are you?

I'm good. Happy to be here.

Glad you're here. We've got almost ready to hibernate for the season. Bearland Aaron. Bearland, Aaron Williams. How are you?

Big roar. Doing well.

Nice big roar. And then of course, the Zen master. Breathe in the mailing, breathe out the marketing. Mike Zano. How are you, Mike?

Doing great. Glad to be here.

Yeah.

Just a reminder for those of you that are not in the official Land Geek wealth and motivation group, I would join and I just go on Facebook, search for it every week. We have a little link to it on our newsletter, but Mike and Scott are doing a daily little video. Mike, want to just run everybody through what you're doing?

Yeah. So we have new member Monday.

And.

That'S when we just welcome new members in the group. We have Testimonial Tuesday. We had a great testimonial today by Nick, who's, I think he's still in college and he's already starting to crush the business. So that's incredible. We had the media last week, which they're doing phenomenal in the coaching program. Then we have win Wednesday, which is kind of like, you know, small wins, big wins. You know, I think a lot of times people get, you know, they look for the big stuff, but don't realize it's made up little things, right? So we celebrate the small wins think tank Thursday. You know, just kind of any kind of inspiration. And then Friday was still in the air. I mean, Boston and I, I was gonna go with Let Freedom Ring Friday because I know how happy that makes Scott Todd. But another one is Freedom Friday. Another one is Feel Good Friday. So we're open to suggestions for Friday.

All right, great. Well, that brings us to our last member of the roundtable. You know him, you love him. Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, hostingdomination.com thelandgeek Scott Todd, what do you wanna talk about today?

I think we should talk about should you ever stop mailing ever, ever? Because we keep talking about it, but then we find that people Sometimes don't listen to us, or at least me.

Well, if they don't listen to you, I know they're gonna listen to Eric. Eric, what do you think? Is there ever a good reason to stop mailing?

No, there's not. And I think early on, you know, in a person's land investing career, it's really easy to feel like you should stop mailing either because you ran out of names on your list and you're too lazy to go get more because you're busy maybe doing other things or, or, you know, maybe you feel like you spent all your money and, you know, you have these subscriptions you have to pay for and this, that, and the other thing, and you just don't feel like you have the money to buy property, so why should you mail? And you know, what I've learned over time is that you never stop mailing. And if you run out of money, you know, there's multiple options to consider to find a way to get that money. So you could, you know, start optioning property, you could pre sell property, you could sell any notes that you might already have to generate some capital and the list goes on. I mean, there's. There's so many options. There's absolutely no reason to stop mailing.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything you said. I wonder if Bear Land, Aaron wants to be the voice of dissent. Any good reason to ever stop mailing Bear Land?

You know, I will be the voice of dissent. Not that I don't agree with Eric completely. I don't think you should stop mailing in general. However, I do think sometimes there may be a good reason to stop mailing an area. You know, like, for instance, we have a county that I just stopped mailing in, at least temporarily. And what I found was that my VA was not pricing the area correctly. And it was to the extent that I was just wasting money because in this particular area that he was sending out the offers, there was no way anybody was going to even remotely bite on this pricing. And that was. That was maybe my fault for not instructing him well enough. Or maybe I did the right thing by spot checking every now and then and catching it. But however, we've stopped mailing, so I can restructure the way he's pricing this area. However, with that said, I have not stopped mailing in, you know, two other counties that I'm working because that's going fine. And so overall, no, don't stop mailing because, you know, it takes a long time to ramp up that deal flow. Again, so by the time you stop and, you know, you sell a couple properties, then you don't have any. You don't have any coming in. You know, it's a lot of, lot of trouble. So if you're going to stop anywhere, you can't have all of it stop. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. So I do agree that if your county not get, you know, bringing you deals, that you do need to reevaluate either A, your pricing or B, the county. Right. Zen Master, what do you think?

I would say that mailing in your business is the equivalent of breathing in your life. So, like, if you're gonna. How long can you hold your breath and live? How long can you stop mailing and keep your business rolling? I mean, really, that. I mean, there are other ways to get deals. There are. Some people love buying wholesale now, but you can't buy land cheaper than you can mail for it, right? So, no, I don't think you should ever stop mailing. You know, I think that what you should actually look to do is execute higher and higher volume of mailings. And because what we do is we not only do we do a land investing, our micro niche that we do better than anybody else is we don't do it. We build systems automation and delegation, and that's because you scale it. So you should actually start to ramp it up at certain levels and still work the same amount of time or less. So, no, never stop mailing, in my opinion. Never.

Yeah, I mean, speaking of, you know, big lungs, that somebody who could really probably hold their breath longer than any of us is, you know, the professional cycler, Tate Litchfield. So, I mean, would you. Would you ever. Is there ever a good reason to stop mailing?

No. I mean, honestly, if you stop mailing, it kind of sets the precedent for the. The attitude and approach that you're gonna attack this business with, right? Is this a hobby or is this something you're taking seriously? If this is gonna be another stream of revenue for your family and for yourself, then no, you've got to stay on top of the thing that brings you new inventory. And like Mike said, there's always other ways to get deals, and there's always ways to get rid of these extra deals. Right. If you have more accepted offers than you can handle, that's a great problem. Go ahead and close them and move them on to someone else. Clear out some of your old inventory, flip it to Mark, flip it to Scott, flip it to me. We're always interested. But, you know, don't Ever pass up on a deal or stop mailing to an area because you feel like you've already got enough there? I see it time and time again in coaching, right? People will have 5, 6 properties in inventory and they'll think, all right, in the past, I've only sold one property a month. Well, they'll get their marketing system in place and all of a sudden they'll go from selling one property a month to four in a week. And now they're telling me, tate, I've got a huge problem. I don't have any inventory. What do I do now? It's better to have too much than not enough, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, Scott, Todd, is there ever a good reason to stop mailing?

I would say absolutely not. Never. Because here's what happened. Like, it's such a mental thing that happens. It's crazy. Like, I agree with Bear Land, if you're not getting results, stop. But that said, you need to be. You need to be showing up every week at a minimum with your offer letters. And what I mean by that is say, look, no matter what, I'm gonna mail 100 a week. Because if you mail 100 a week, that. And you're buying 1% of what you mail, that means you're gonna buy a property a week.

Perfect.

That's perfect. Okay, but what happens is, and I gotta tell you, like, I did the same thing. I started, I bought five properties and I hit the brakes and I hit them hard. Like, I literally just stopped mailing. Like, no reason to mail anymore. I don't have any money, all this other stuff. And at the time, Mark, like, there wasn't as large of a community as there is today. There wasn't a platform like Land Moto that I could go wholesale these things. Like, there wasn't. I don't mean this to sound like pompous, but there wasn't a Scott or a Tate, me or a Tate or you, that were actively looking to buy wholesale. And today buying wholesale, like, we still mail, but I need so much inventory that there's no possible way that I could literally buy it all through mailing. And the reality is, is that if you're, if you're saying, oh, well, look, I don't want to wholesale this property because I want the retail, I want the big dollars, well then in a way, you're kind of being greedy. And in a way, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Like, I'm, I want to hold out for top dollar, which we all do. But at the same time, we don't. Because I'm going to hold off for top dollar, then I'm going to stop mailing. I'm a wait till I sell it. And then once you stop mailing, you know what it takes absolute hardcore dedication to get that mailing machine back up and running. Because, I mean, I'm going to equate it to, like, working out. Like, the. The minute you stop working out, you skip a week of workouts. Then it's like, oh, man, I got to go work out again. It's out of your routine, it's out of your system. And then all of a sudden you wake up and you haven't worked out in 52 weeks or 52 years.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting that, you know, I agree with what everyone said, but I think what Eric really pointed out in the beginning was, well, let's just kind of break down the fears. Fear number one, right, is I've got to sell. Now that now they have this many properties, let's create an artificial number. I've got five properties. I'm not going to buy any more until I sell them. That's the first fear, Right. Is that I'm not going to be able to sell. Fear number two is I'm looking at my bank account and I feel like, well, even if I mail, which there's an expense to mailing, even though it's an investment, I don't have the capital to even buy anything there. So fear number two is I have to generate. I got to sell first before I can even buy anymore. Right. What's the third fear? Am I missing a fear? So it's going to be I can't sell money.

Success.

Fear of success. Right.

Fear.

That could be a fear.

Well, it's more work, you know.

Yeah. Now I've created more work for myself, which I guess is sort of that unconscious fear. Like, oh, now I gotta hire VAS or, you know, do whatever that is, or more due diligence, whatever it is. So, Tate, how. Let's just kind of go around. How many deals have you bought that you cannot sell?

Zero. I mean, I know that sounds so cliche, but I'm really trying to think if I have anything in my. I've got a lot of stuff that's been in the inventory for some time. Maybe it was more expensive property, and I'm waiting for the right person to come around, but it's not like I've spent money on anything and not recovered it. So.

So slow selling isn't not selling.

Exactly. So I'M going to say zero. And yeah, I mean, if I buy a piece of property at $0.10 on the dollar, I can sell it, guaranteed. Even if it's to Scott for 20 cents on the dollar, there's somebody out there who will buy it. And Scott's going to pay for that all day long because he's buying for 20 cents on the dollar. Why wouldn't he buy it? All right, so, no, I've never been stuck with anything.

Right, right. Eric Peterson, how many deals you been stuck with? Just couldn't sell them.

None.

Wow. Barely. And Aaron, how many deals you've been stuck with? Just couldn't sell them.

Well, I've got one right now. I just can't seem to sell. But it's still for sale, so, you know, it will sell it just very slow. So zero. I mean, it's zero.

But if you call Tate tomorrow and said, this is selling slow, I'm just gonna wholesale it out to you. You make 100% on it. Do you think he would do it?

No. Because I bought it off? No, because I bought it from him.

Oh, geez.

Your point is completely valid. Yeah. I mean, it'll sell one way or another. Not worried about it. So, yeah. Zero.

Zero. Zeno. None.

I mean, every so often I'll get a property, Mark, and this is something I know a lot of us do. Like, I'll buy from an area, from someone, they'll say, oh, I happen to have this parcel, and name a place I've never heard of who cares, and I'll give them a hundred dollars for it and I'll worry about it later. So there's a couple of those hanging around that only reason I haven't sold is I just haven't paid any attention to them. But I picked them up $100, so I'm not really worried about it.

Yeah, Scott, you know, it's same thing, Mark. Like, they all sell. I haven't had one that hasn't sold. Like, there's not one that's in my inventory that's never sold. Sometimes they go from being sold to not sold because of a transition. And I don't worry about it because it's like, eventually, if I ever wanted to, like, it's just, you know, I could just wholesale it or I could just get it down, you know, the cost basis down. But I never have been stuck with a property. And in fact, it's crazy because there was one property that I kept kicking myself, like, why did I buy it? Why did I buy it? Why'd I buy it, and then literally after 18 months, I bought it. It's like a one acre property in the mountains in Tennessee, in Hoa. Oh, man. And after 18 months of trying to sell it, you know, I'm thinking, like, at one point I was just gonna build a cabin up there on my own, but I didn't have to do that, because 18 months later, some guy came along and bought it. And he's been paying on it now for a year. And I love him because I just got the HOA bill the other day for this community, which don't buy an HOA because it's only supposed to be $300 a year. But then with the special assessments for the roads, it's now 700 a year. Not my problem anymore.

Right? Right. I mean, I've been doing this full time since 2001. Over 5200 deals. Now. I've never been. Never been stuck with a piece of property. Now, I have made mistakes. So my most recent mistake was in a POA in Texas. Right. I bought it. Right. But the reason I was buying it. Right. Is I didn't realize there were liens from the POA and there were back POA fees of about $400. And the taxes, I want to say, were maybe 50 bucks. So being a enterprising entrepreneur, I thought, well, let's just let it go for taxes. So I made about seven grand on that deal, on the overage at the auction, which I'll be collecting in the next 30 days. So even when you make a mistake, you still make money. So let's just. So we can eliminate number fear number one, if you're doing our pricing right, which is, you know, you're gonna look at the lowest comps, divide by four, have that Warren Buffett 300% margin of safety.

Right.

It's almost impossible to lose money on that deal. Make sure you do your due diligence correctly. You confirm the back taxes, no liens or encumbrances, and don't buy in a freaking POA or hoa.

What are you saying, Mark? It worked out for me. All I had to do is wait 18 months and pay.

I know they all work out, but I'm just saying, time, value, money. Don't be like Scott or me. Treasure Lake was my worst deal because that freaking poa. All right, so that's fear number one. Fear number two. Tate Litchfield, have you ever looked at a deal in past because you didn't have the money, even though you locked it up 25, 30, 35 cents on the dollar?

No, I mean, there's always ways to get it. Eric kind of outlined that you could sell notes. There's so many different ways to generate some extra money. I mean, I work with a guy regularly and he'll say to me, if, you know, hey, I'm buying this property, if you want it, here's the price, send a check, I'll send him a check. He gets paid, takes that money, buys the property, deeds it to me. So, I mean, there's always workarounds and you just got to get a little bit creative. So money is not something that should limit you.

Right.

You have to be aware of it. And it's easy to say that when I've done all these deals, but the reality is, if the deal makes sense, you can find somebody who will also see the value in it and they'll be more than willing to help lend a hand.

Yeah. Eric Peterson. Ever had to pass on a deal, just didn't feel like you had the capital?

I don't think. Not that's a good deal. Like, certainly I passed on deals that, you know, maybe I was low on capital at the time, but it turned out that, you know, it wasn't going to be a good deal whether I priced it wrong or, you know, there was an issue with the property or something like that. But I think that if the deal is good, if you priced it right and you've got an accepted offer, there's just, there's so many options to find the money for that deal. And I get it, like, you know, just starting off, it can be a little, maybe overwhelming or more of an unknown of like, you know, how can I. How can I buy this, let's say, thousand dollar property when I don't have any money? But I know it's a good deal because it should sell for, you know, 4,000 or something. And if you don't have that network, you don't know other investors in the industry. Yeah, that can make it a little harder. But if you put the effort in and build some relationships, you know, that's going to take you a long way. And that kind of ties into boot camp, which we have coming up. You know, it's a great place to get to know other investors and make some connections.

Yeah. I mean, if you haven't booked yet for bootcamp, we still have spots. Just go to landgeek.com boot camp. I anticipate we will be sold out in the next week, but there's still time. Bear land. Aaron, how about you? Ever had to pass A deal because didn't have the money.

Yeah, but kind of more like Eric said, where it wasn't going to be a great deal or, you know, after I did my due diligence and found out maybe the back tax level or something about property, it wasn't something that I could necessarily offer to somebody else. Like, you know, we're one of those things where if you needed to do a deal, you could make, you know, pennies as far as our business is concerned on it. But it wasn't great deal, you know, so nothing. Never passed on something that was like, hey, this is. I buy it.

Right.

The property's great, you know, because even if I don't have the money, just shoot out there that I've got this property, who wants it, you know, and we, you know, I make a couple bucks, they can make a couple bucks. It's that simple. I've even worked on some options and stuff. So. No, not, not really. Not just let them go? No.

Right. Zen master Mike Zino, how about you?

No, because, you know, the network of people that I've met has allowed, you know, pretty much there's no price point probably I couldn't buy. Right. If I had a great deal. And I think that ties into what Eric said is the boot camp is a great place to network and meet people. You find people that have a lot of capital but maybe a little bit shy on execution. And if you're an executor, you can bring something big to the table that they'll want. And the other thing is too is you choose your price point in this business. I think that's one phenomenal part about the business is that you can literally, you said at 25 cents on the lowest comp, so find something selling for a thousand bucks and pick it up for 250. Right. Or whatever, you decide your price point. So it's not like all of a sudden, I mean, it could happen, right. You talk to somebody and hey, I got this. But it's not like you're going to find out all of a sudden you're gonna get a $10,000 property that's a stellar deal. When you mailed out on $250 offer letters. Right. So you have control too. Big control.

Yeah, absolutely.

Scott Todd haven't been stuck with one. I think that what stops people a lot of times is that kind of what Mike just said. It's sometimes. It's hard to even believe that you can sometimes name your own price. Like there was an area in Pima County, Arizona, That I found. And I saw that other land investors were buying in there for, like $1,000. And I felt like the right price was 300. Like, I just thought that based on what I was seeing. And I just met out some offers for 250 just to see if I had any takers. And I bought five properties at $250 a pop. Okay. And then I turned around and I bundled all five of them together and sold them as a wholesale deal for $5,000 profit. So I invested 1250, not $5,000 profit. Sorry. I invested 1250, sold them for 1,000 each. So I ended up making, what, $3,800 profit. And if you're just starting out, like, the reality is, is that you can. Even if you mail high, you can continue to negotiate back down. There's great stories out there. People who have done that negotiate back down. And then next thing you know, go. Go find someone who needs wholesale land. You sell it. You put the money in the bank.

Yes. Remember in flight school, Jennifer. Yeah. She's like, seller, like, well, I don't have the money. And she just, like, negotiate, kept negotiating it down. She locked it up at a great price.

She initially offered 2,700. Then she dropped it down to 1700. Then she told the guy, she's like, hey, I made a mistake. I don't even have $1,700. He's like, okay, well, how much do you have? She's like, I have 700. He's like, okay, I guess we're gonna do it for 700. So look, people want to get rid of this stuff. It's amazing.

It's amazing. I remember Paul Mandel. He owing money for mailing. So he locked up the property in upstate New York and tells the seller, hey, it's going to take me 90 days to do due diligence. Doesn't even option it. And the seller's like, okay, well, it doesn't take 90 days to do due diligence. Just send out neighbor letters. Neighbor buys it for like 10 grand or something and does a dual closing. And he makes himself. You know, I forgot how much he made.

But remember, Mark, like, if the neighbor wouldn't buy it, he would never call them back either. Remember that? Like, if the neighbor didn't buy, then he wouldn't even call the seller back and say, look, it's not gonna work out. He just basically ghosted him. Gone. He was gone. And, you know, he only dealt with the deals in which the neighbor would buy the property next door. That's the only thing he would ever buy.

Yeah, it worked. All right. Well, I thought this was really great roundtable podcast. I just want to remind all the listeners that the only way we're going to get the Zen Master to come out of the firehouse is if you do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, you got to rate, you got to review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to supportlandgeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. Today's podcast is sponsored by Flight School. Learn how to start 2019. Accelerate your success with the Sherpa of all Sherpas, Scott Todd, and learn more. Just go to landgeek.com training schedule. Call with the Zen Master Mag Zaino or the nightcap meister, Scott Bossman to learn more. All right, tip of the week, Mike Zano, what do you got.

Coming toward.

The end of the year? So I'm going to put a quote out there, Scott, you don't have to go dark on the screen.

I'll get through this.

It's short.

This actually ties in. Remember before we were talking about, we had this talk on the roundtable about if you know this moment to moment, this awareness ruined the idea of having a plan. This idea of planning your life up or being spontaneous. So I thought this quote really ties that all in. So it says, living in the moment is not the absence of vision. It's having the vision to know what you focus on today creates your tomorrow. So I'll say it one more time. Living in the moment is not the absence of vision. It's having the vision to know that what you focus on today creates your tomorrow. So I think that's great. Like, one thing I've been doing lately, I love this little weekly action plan. So I get this all filled out, right? But then I can focus on these tasks. I haven't prioritized throughout the week. And then I can have my moment to moment awareness on that task. Not overwhelmed like that dichotomy of like having a plan, but being spontaneous. Like, how do you put the two together? And I think that's one way. So I thought that would tie into what we've talked about recently.

I love it. I mean, I was feeling anxious this morning about something with geek pain. I just took a deep breath and I'm like, what problem do I have at this moment? Like, oh, wait, I don't really have a problem at this moment. It's just I'm making it up in my head. Like when I get to the computer, I'll write down my problem and I'll deal with the problem that moment. Right. But in that moment, there is no problem.

It's crazy, isn't it? How the day can truly be ruined by your own expectations that you create and then you don't meet them and then you, end of the day you feel stressed, anxiety. But you created the whole thing. You could just rework that from the beginning, right? It's, it's crazy powerful.

Absolutely, absolutely. Tate's like, this is so. Woo woo.

No, I actually like this.

Look at Scott. He's like, stress is real.

He loves it.

Listen, man, I do believe, I do believe in what you said, Mike. I do think that's right, because I think that things become a self fulfilling prophecy a lot of times and we put more pressure on ourselves. We, we internalize things. We put greater value on, like this, the silly stuff and not enough value on the important stuff.

I'll take that as a compliment.

Yeah. So when this podcast goes out, because we, it's all, we record a week early. It will be one of the best days, if not the best day of the year. Christmas. What a wonderful Christmas gift under the tree. Bring out your podcatcher, whatever it is, how you listen to your podcasts and listen to the roundtable. It's the gift that keeps on giving. So Merry Christmas to everyone and really, really excited to hopefully grant everyone the wonderful gift of passive income, which equals freedom. Which leads us to. Are we ready to do it, guys?

Let's go.

One, two, three.

Let freedom ring. Look, that's the last one for the year too.

That was the best one ever.

I think that is the last one for the year.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Gotta call it, right? Then call it.

That's it. We're done. So for 2019, I actually want to talk to you about this, Eric. We gotta like update the podcast, like update the logo a little bit, like, change things up. We're gonna do like a new intro outro, you know, just, you know what.

Mark, you know, when they start new TV series, everybody always looks a little different. We could all change up our look for the next podcast. We gotta, it's like, you know, they always get a little bit more fit because they know the show got popular, they exercise some, maybe they got a new haircut. We all got to come back looking different next year, Next season.

Next season. Well, I'll tell you what, if you're not going to boot camp in San Antonio, Scott Todd's going to wear a muscle Shirt. He's going to be all abbed out from his workouts.

It's busting out his wedding suit.

Quite impressive.

Yeah.

His tux.

Yeah.

How many, how many calories are you burning on a per workout now?

About like 4. It depends on the day. 4 to 500 a day on the peloton and eating right. And I can tell you like the scale, the scale hasn't necessarily moved in the last week, but man, oh man, my pants and my shirts and all my clothes are fitting. They're loose. I feel good. I got the blood flowing through me. Mark, I mean, listen, I got to tell you something. Like it was today. It's like it's a beautiful day here. It's like 65, 68. Okay. Like, Mike's like, what are you talking about? But listen, he's going to think I'm nutty when I say this, but in Florida, 65, 68. It is sweater weather.

Okay?

Like, I know it sounds weak. I know it is. Or at least a long sleeve shirt. And man, I'm like going outside. I'm like in short sleeve shirts. I'm thinking like, man, maybe all of the activity is making me hotter, warmer. Like I'm like feeling like, great.

Yeah.

Mark, I got something here for you. I gotta tell you what?

60, it's like 68 bowls.

Scott said the calories, 12 weird things you didn't know helped you burn calories. You ready for this quick list?

Okay, sure.

Brushing your teeth, chewing, cooking, driving, eating spicy food, fidgeting, kissing, laughing, meditating, pushing a shopping cart and sleeping and then walking on different surfaces. I don't need a peloton. I just got to embrace those 12 things.

Okay, you do it.

Wow. What list are you reading from? Is this like a Ripley's Believe it or Not?

I just looked it up online because Scott said wanted calories.

How do you burn calories? Meditating. You're just sitting there breathing. So basically living, you're burning calories.

I was going to say, doesn't that mean just existing?

Existing.

Being awake.

Yeah.

Sleeping, doing anything burns calories. Yeah, any sort of movement is.

Speaking of which, Erica, you've been swaying the whole time. What do you call that again?

Yeah, I'm on my board.

He's really good balance.

Yeah, you really do. Does it feel good?

Yeah, I love it.

I stand on it most of the day.

I'm too lazy for that.

Yeah. All right, guys. Well, thanks so much. And again, hopefully the listeners are enjoying this bonus content. We'll see everyone. Is it next year?

Next year?

Next year. It's crazy. Is it me or this year? Fly by if we do yet. Bye. It's crazy. All right, fellas, see you later.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.