Jeff Dettmer Give Backs to the Land Geek Community as a Coach

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek with the favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's Art of Passive Income podcast, I have our latest and greatest and newest Land Geek coach, Jeff Detmer. Jeff, welcome.

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

So, Jeff, for those of us who have not met you at a boot camp, have not seen you in a Mastermind call, have not gone through some type of coaching with you, tell us a little bit about how you found the Land Geek and what you have done since starting.

Well, how much time do you have? No, I could make it a long story, but I won't. So, like a lot of people, I first found you and the idea of land investing on a podcast. I heard you interviewed on someone else's podcast. And at the time, I was kind of entrenched, if you will, in the self storage business. And your model immediately resonated with me because you had a whole bunch of people paying you a couple hundred dollars a month, and once you made that sale, there wasn't a whole lot to do, which is kind of a lot like self storage. People rent a storage unit, they move in, and then they keep paying every month until they move out. And so I really liked that model. And so it was just a little different with raw land rather than garage doors, but it really resonated with me. And so I then looked up your podcast and went back to the beginning of time and listened to every single one of yours way back. The old ones?

The old OG podcasts?

Yeah, yeah, they were a little bit less polished back then, but anyway, it was very authentic. But I just, I felt very connected to you even though we hadn't met. And then, you know, things went forward. You and I talked on the phone and I got moving forward into the land business and. And within pretty short order, toolkit, flight school, boot camp, coaching, and I was off to the races and was in the business and building a brand new business. Wow.

I mean, how long ago was that was that?

I want to see if you can guess.

I want to say five years ago.

Six.

Six years ago. Yeah, the time has flown by. You know what's interesting about self storage is that as a real estate class, it has the lowest default rates, that and parks. So it's like the safest of all the real estate plays. But it's so interesting the way your mind would work to think, oh, this is a very similar model, but there are some differences between self storage and the raw land model. What do you think is the Biggest difference for you?

Well, the biggest. Well, I don't know about the biggest, but one of the big differences is with self storage, someone needs to be there regularly. And in my case, that person is me, because at my core, I'm a do it yourself kind of guy. That's just who I am. That's how I was raised. And it's in my blood, which has been a little bit of a challenge for me with the land business in getting out of my own way because of my do it yourself DNA. But anyway, that's a separate thing. But with the land business, I've never been to any of the, I don't know, several hundred pieces of properties that I've bought, so I've never seen them except on Google Earth, for example. And so that's one big difference. But I guess another big difference is depreciation. It's nice to have depreciation because of having real buildings on real property, but those real buildings also needs maintenance. On raw land, there's not really anything to maintain. And so this year I'm doing a large asphalt paving project at my storage facility. Two years ago, I put a new roof on a building. Some of these things are pretty high dollar things. And so those are some of the differences that come to mind right away.

Yeah, no, that's, that's so interesting because when I talk to other multifamily people and they're, you know, I'm jealous of them because of their tax bill and they're jealous of me because of my, my low maintenance.

Right.

It's, it's, it's really interesting. So walk me back as far as when you first started. How much time were you spending in the business to compare to now? And how difficult do you think it was to scale your land business?

So I spent a lot of time at the very beginning because I was learning a whole new business and learning a whole new model and tripping over myself and trying to figure out how to get out of my own way and learning different areas and learning new software and technology, I was just like learning, learning, learning, learning, learning. And that was hard. While trying to actually build a business and buy properties and sell properties and figuring out how to do that and how best to do that, how most efficiently to do that while learning how to do it. It's a lot. I would say after, after the first two years, I would say that was kind of about the time frame when things started to get a little more on autopilot for me where I was really able to sort of pull back and I had automate some automations in place. I had a bunch of VAs in place doing all a lot of things. And so I really wasn't working in the business that much. Although the business depended on me to continue to grow. That was also a time when I was asked to run for public office and I decided to serve my community and that took my attention away from continuing to grow the land business. And so I did that one. I served on city council for two years, but shortly after getting on, I decided this wasn't for me and I wasn't going to run for reelection. And that allowed me to then refocus my efforts on the land business. And that's when I was really able to, I think, figure out how to scale and really add some good automations into it. And now I don't do that much work in the business, I mean, a few hours a week, but I'm working on the business a lot right now, getting things to run more smoothly, adding more automations, tweaking automations, tweaking things that VAs are doing to try to make them a little bit better here and there. There's always something to do. No doubt.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So do you have a favorite deal that you've done recently? I should say you've done recently. Your team's done recently?

Yeah. So I mean, I have different favorite deals. A couple of them that sort of come to mind just generally are the offer letter that I sent out to buy a property and the owner responds and says, I got 29 others. Do you want to buy them all? And I actually had two similar deals like that recently and that was pretty exciting and really stressed my business and my system because of being such an influx all at one time. But that's pretty significant. It's hard to. I know you're going to ask me numbers. So before you even ask me numbers, I can't tell you because there's so many moving parts or things there. But I'll tell you a favorite deal that was probably in my second year in the business. And you'll remember this because we were at a boot camp in Phoenix and I had sent out a letter and I was acquiring this property and it was going to be a large acquisition. It was a $25,000 acquisition and I was.

Deal. Yeah, I totally remember.

Yeah, I knew you would.

Yeah.

And. And I remember talking to you and Scott Todd and I don't remember who else, I guess Tate was there in this little conversation. And I remember you basically egging me on to, to buy this property and if I don't, then to give it to you because you would buy it. And that was all I needed to buy this thing. And as it turned out, I basically had it sold before I actually owned it and sold it for more than $60,000. And that was a really fun one because of kind of how it happened and also the numbers.

Yeah, no, I, I, I remember that deal like it was yesterday and it was. Yeah. And you're like, okay, now I'm doing it. I'm like, I'll do it, no problem. You're like, okay, that's all I needed. So you, you've done a lot of deals. You've, you've gone and you've gone through all the pain of the business for the last six years. So now you want to give back to the community, and you have been giving back to the community. You, in various ways. You've been on the mastermind calls for years and you've sort of been this quasi coach and just a consistent member of the community. So why coach now and why do you want to be a coach?

I really enjoy helping other people. Doesn't matter whether it's in the land, business or anything else, I really, truly enjoy helping people. And, and my, throughout my career and the different things that I've done, like my, I guess superpower is business and managing money and you know, I've never been one that had like a really big salary or anything like that, but from the time that I was a really a teenager, I've been an excellent money manager and very efficient at that. And that's helped me in my business, businesses over the years. And it just, it just fits to me that as I, I'm good at that and I like helping people and I love this community that you've put together and the people that you, you attract to this community. Like they're my people. Like, these are the people that understand me and understand get how I work and how my mind operates. And so why wouldn't I want to give back? And that's one of the reasons why I've continued to be active in the mastermind call and come to. I don't even know how many, but I think at least 12 or 13 live boot camps. I don't even know. And, and it's the people. I mean, I want to see you and get a big hug from you, but really it's about everyone that's there and I love talking to people and hearing their story and maybe just answering a question. Or talking with them about one little thing that might make a difference in their business. And so by becoming a coach, it just makes it so that I can do that more and in a little bit more formalized way.

Yeah. That's beautiful. Such a big heart, Jeff Detmer. So big. But you're right. I mean, I joke, but it is. Our community is second to none. And I'm not just saying that because you're part of the community. I'm saying because literally, and I say this at every boot camp, if there's 100 people in the room, 99 of them actually always pass what I would call the airport test, where if I got stuck in an airport with them, no problem. And it's like that every single boot camp, we.

It is.

I don't know what it is. It's just magical what's going on where we're doing something right, where we're definitely attracting the right people, we're repelling the wrong people, and it's so special, for sure. So, yeah, what were you gonna say?

Yeah, I was just gonna say, no, you're absolutely right. That's what I say all the time. When this con, when this comes up in conversation, it's about who you and your personality. It's about who you attract and who you surround yourself with, and also who you repel, because there are people that you don't resonate with, and that's okay, but they almost never find themselves in the room, which means that almost everyone in the room, like, it's our kind of people.

Yeah.

That's just amazing. It's the magic.

Yeah, it really is. And then you've got the boot camp magic, which you've experienced many a time where you're in the room and we're teaching and we're training, and then someone closes a deal in real time, and oftentimes it's just using a little slight tweak that they just learned an hour ago. And it makes such a huge difference, for sure. So when you're on the Mastermind calls, do you see any themes where people are needing help in today's market? Was it kind of.

Well, I mean, the questions are all over the board, but I think that especially today. But really, for the past six years, like, marketing seems to be marketing and sales seems to be the areas where people need the most help, have the most questions, get frustrated the most, because they've looked to see what others are doing, and they've tried to model it and do the same kinds of things, and they're not happy with the results that they're getting. And, and you just mentioned about sometimes it's just some little slight tweak that they do that makes the difference. And those little slight tweaks or new ideas come up on the mastermind call all the time. And I do think that that makes a big difference for a lot of people, But I think that's the area where more people struggle at different points in time than any other.

Yeah, absolutely. If you were going to put together a perfect land investor stew, what ingredients would you add? What would you think would make a great land investor?

Wow. Well, grit. I mean, that's a big one.

Grit.

That's a big one. There's that book by Angela Duckworth that is just fantastic. And you need that, you need that to get through the dips that Seth Godin talks about. I mean, those kind of go hand in hand in many ways. But. I think that's a really hard question mark. I mean, there's so many different things that you need to have.

I think you answered it, though. I think ultimately it's about grit because all the, all the other ancillary ingredients, the core one is grit. And you, what's your frustration tolerance? Can you get, can you get knocked down and get backed up and get, and get back up?

That's crucial.

That's crucial. And that's, I think that's crucial for life. That's crucial for business, but especially for a new, new business where it's so fragile. In the beginning, there's such a, you know, you're, you're so uncomfortable with so many different skill sets, whether it's the analysis of a county, the analysis of pricing, working on systems and automation, as you mentioned earlier, marketing and, and then sales and then leadership and managing. And it's all these things. And in the beginning you feel overwhelmed and you got to take one bite at a time. And I think that's where the coaching really shines, is fortifying that grit in the clients. I always say about coaching, it's 80% mental, it's 20% how to.

Yeah, I agree. The other thing that I think is really important to recognize and then figure out what to do with it is the vast majority of the people that I've seen come through the community and get into the land investing business. This is their first business. They're not entrepreneurs. They haven't been business owners. They have a job and they have a 9 to 5 or whatever job. They've been an employee. And so not only are they starting a new business, they're figuring out, like, how to have a business and how to be the boss. And for me, that was not an issue because I've been doing that my whole life. I grew up in a family business that my parents started, and then I had my first business when I was 15. And so, like, that was not a problem for me. But I see that as a huge problem for a lot of people, and it shows up in lots of different ways for different people. But I think that's a big piece that I can help people with as they start the land business and move forward with it.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, Jeff Detmer, I am so excited to be working more closely with you as a land key coach. I know our whole team knows you, loves you, respects you, and now you are bringing your talents to the entire lanky community, and we owe you a huge debt of gratitude. I'm so excited for you. I'm so excited for your clients. And it's, it's going to be one of those things that, you know, when you work with you and get to know you, it's, it's transformative. So I'm personally excited about that future. But now, Jeff, we're at that point in the podcast. I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you for your 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. What have you got?

Well, a few minutes ago. Well, first of all, very, very kind words and thank you. I'm really looking forward to it. But a few minutes ago, you mentioned something that teed up my tip of the week, but you don't know what it is. So you teed it up for me and you didn't even know it. You mentioned about being at boot camp and having someone having boot camp magic and because they learned some little slight tweak to maybe their marketing or something. Right?

Right.

So my tip of the week is the book the Slight Edge.

Oh, look at this.

By Jeff Olson. Now, this is an older book I forget, maybe 15, 20 years ago, but this is what this business is all about. It's about all those little things that you can do to improve your business, your marketing, your life, your health. But it's all about baby steps, right? It's all about those little things that you can do to make a little bit of progress today and then make a little bit of progress tomorrow. And when you start stacking those little bits of progress on top of each other. And then you get weeks or months or years in the future and you look back behind you, you see the mountain that you've just climbed. But it was just one step at a time because of all these slight little tweaks that you've done. So that's my tip of the week.

I love it. I haven't read that book. I'm going to have to check it out. Well, before I go to my tip of the week, I've got to give a shout out to our sponsor, which is Flight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Go up that mountain of land investing safely, quickly, efficiently with Scott Todd Azure Sherpa. He has closed thousands and thousands of deals and will make you a confident land investor. And I know what you're thinking. You're like, oh, wait, what about the tuition? It ain't going to cost you nothing. Guaranteed you're going to make back that money. 180 days or less, guaranteed. Just show us that you're working it. Learn more go to thelandgeek.com forward slash training the land geek.com forward slash training Jeff Detmer. This has been so great, but I've got to give my tip of the week. I want to send people to your website, which is aok land.com aok land usa.com aok us aok land usa aok usa land nope. Aok land usa.com I wonder why that domain was available. A okay. Land usa.com Check out Jeff. Check out his website, what he's been up to and. And reach out to him. Let him know you listen to the podcast so he'll appreciate it, I'm sure. All right, brother, are we ready to do this?

Yeah.

One, two, three. Let.

Let freedom. Freedom ring.

Thanks, everybody. See?

Thank you.

So that wasn't so bad.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast.

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