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There it is. Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land geek with the landgeek.com and because we can't have boot camp live, we got two more geeks to grill. And we couldn't have found two finer geeks to grill in Annemarie Forbes and Kenyon Zitka. What's up, guys? How are you doing?

Excellent.

So, Anne Marie, how is quarantine treating you?

Quarantine's chaos, but we're good. We're all still alive. We're all still speaking to each other, so no complaints.

That's. That's really big. That's really big. My wife just is going viral right now on Facebook. She recorded herself in her car yesterday just screaming the F word. And what she did was she made it really dramatic and. And then did it on Slow Mo. And it's like, it's like this is how everyone's feeling with, like, you know, like in Quarantine. Kenyon, how are you doing, man?

Doing awesome.

Awesome, awesome. So everybody, we're gonna do, you know, let's start grilling the geeks. Please leave a comment. Hello, Bill Dickens. We'll start asking them some questions while people join and sorry we were running a little late, but hopefully you're going to join. And so, Anne Marie Forbes, let's just start with your story. How did you find Land geek and how was one on one coaching for you?

So I didn't find Land Geek. My husband Matt found Land Geek and dragged me along somewhat kicking and screaming to start our first boot camp was almost two years ago. It was two years ago in Las Vegas in April. And I think Mark would tell you that he thinks I hate him or did. I didn't. But I was very skeptical. It was not our first foray into a side hustle, and it took me a little while to come around. But boot camp is an interesting experience, and it was nice to see genuine people and meet the community and how caring everybody in the community is and how much they want to see you succeed. And I think that.

I bet you thought it was gonna be a pitch fest, didn't you?

I totally did.

Yeah.

I totally did. Like, we're in for it again. And it's not. It's really not. And it was a pleasant surprise. And here we are two years later and still going.

No, no, it's. It's great. And this is my impersonation of meeting Ann for the first time. And then she looked up at Matt.

And she's like, I'll give you the stare down, Mark. Totally.

Yeah, I, I was very scared. And, and since your, your beginning journey, how are things going?

So we had some starts and stops in there. I think we did what some people do where you buy the property and then you freeze. We didn't know what to do with marketing. Marketing the property seems so overwhelming with Craigslist proxies and how do we navigate Facebook and oh my God, what do we do? So we didn't do anything for like six months. And we finally took the leap. And in the midst of building a house, we decided we'd do one on one coaching. Our first call with Tate was partially in the car, driving down to see our modular house being built on the factory line. So that's how nutty it was. And one on one coaching was fantastic. We got so much out of it. It was so awesome to be able to contact a coach and say, I'm stuck, I need help. What do I do? And get advice from Tate or Eric or Mimi or whomever. It was definitely worth the investment. For sure.

Yeah. You know, it's funny because a lot of people think when they're going to one on one coaching, if they've been into other real estate coaching programs, that it's going to be like, you know, therapy. You ask the coach a question like, well, what do you think you should do? But no, we don't do that. It's like, no, this is what you should do.

Yeah, absolutely.

For sure. So let's give Kenyon a hello. So, Kenyon, tell us a little bit about your background, how you found Land Geek and, and your experience.

So I actually found Land Geek by interviewing you on my podcast, Zero Excuses Podcast. And when I first interviewed you, to be honest, it sounded way too good to be true. But being an engineer, I always look at facts rather than my initial gut feeling. And once I started digging into things, it's like, okay, yeah, this sounds like this really works. And make a long story short, I jumped into flight school. I think it was summer of 2017 or 2018, excuse me. And rolled right into boot camp. And then one on one coaching. And similar to Ann, I had my fits and starts. I was juggling a pretty demanding 9 to 5 job working as an engineer onboard a oceanographic research ship. And I'm still doing that today. So I still have some peaks and valleys where I'm really into the land stuff and where I got to kind of put it to the side for a little bit. But yeah, it took me a little while to really get the ball rolling. And then I remember About a year after I finished flight school, I had a week where I sold land, and I think it was six days in a row. And then things just really started taking off for me. So kind of. So my experience is just kind of keep consistent and don't totally give up and just collect those small wins day by day. Even if you get one email address in your buyers list, that's a win. So just move the ball forward each and every day some way somehow, even if it's just getting a golden nugget from listening to a podcast or. Or listening to a mastermind call, things of that nature. So today I've kind of put the podcast a little bit on the shelf for right now because the land has really started taking off, especially now in today's environment, both on the wholesale side and actually on the default side, which people, when they hear the default term, they get scared about that. But I've actually been able to flip those properties that have been coming back to me right away to warn buyers. So. So keep building that buyer's list, both the wholesale buyers list and your retail buyers list, because both of those are gonna pay dividends for you. So that's kind of me in a nutshell. I don't know where else you want to go with that.

No, no, that's great. So, Anne Marie, we got our first question, so I'm gonna ask you first and then have Kenyon answer it as well. So how long were you doing stuff manually? At what point did you start feeling comfortable with the processes that you felt you could start building out the back end of the business?

So we, I think, have taken a different journey than a lot of land investors where Matt has a pretty demanding full time job. I was working part time. We have four kids and everything that goes along with that who have very active athletic schedules. So we have thrown money at problems rather than trying to really figure out a good system to work. We have outsourced practically everything, which causes its own problems because we then have to work with the VA that we've hired to try and fine tune that process and really make it truly effective. But we don't have the time to be able to do all of the marketing efficiently or sit and post and respond to Facebook because sometimes you just get inundated with those Facebook responses. So all of that is outsourced. So we outsource to pretty quickly.

Yeah, no, I mean, if you guys listen to Gur the Geeks last week with Anne's husband, Fortune 500, Forbes. Also a regular on Nightcap you know, like, they've got, like, arguably some of the biggest lives in the community. And so I don't think, you know, doing what you're doing. I wouldn't say you're throwing money at the problem. I would say that you're. You're accelerating, building that business and taking care of that e Myth piece a little bit faster because of necessity than maybe you felt comfortable doing.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, look, there's nothing wrong with putting your family as a priority over work. And I love the way that you and Matt sort of bond over the business. I think it's really a testament to that, that sort of teamwork you guys have together, where, you know, I'll be hazing Matt and, like, did you get on the peloton? He's like, dude and I take long walks. We talk about the. The. The land business. He's like, stop hazing me. I'm like, all right, all right. But that. Yeah, so that part's great. Kenny, what about you? Same question.

I would say that you're never going to be totally comfortable outsourcing things, because human nature, you kind of default to the saying that you'll never do it as good as yourself, but you also have to start to adopt the mindset that somebody else doing it to 80% of your standard is better than you doing it 100% of the way. But I started outsourcing the things that in. Scott Todd talks about this all the time in flight school. Start outsourcing those pain points. I couldn't stand building my list, so that was the first thing that I outsourced, was get a VA to build my mailing lists. I actually don't mind interacting with my customers. I retired from the military last year, and that's one of the things that I miss, is helping people reach their goals. And a lot of times customers come to me with like, hey, I want to build a homestead out in Colorado in the middle of nowhere. And I get great satisfaction from that. So I haven't outsourced that quite yet. So that's kind of been my approach. My advice is, anytime you sit down to do something, write it down. Write down what you do, because that starts building your blueprint for when you do end up starting to outsource those things. Write everything down. Zoom has become popular. Record your screen. You don't even have to get anybody on your call to record your screen. So start making videos. Start documenting those processes. Even if you don't intend on outsourcing those things right away, just start building that repository of training materials and standard operating procedures for yourself.

All right, awesome. So that was a great question, Todd Kushette. Thank you. Thank you. Andrew Mino. Chris Grassman says hi. Anne Marie, Erica and I remember talking to you in Vegas. Racine, SU guy says hello, Frank. Leah says, what's up? Paul brewers on Hi, gents. And ladies, John Sotrapolos is on from qny, Queens, New York. I assume Bill Dickens is saying hello. So Michael Newble's got a really good question. And Anne Marie, we'll start with you. What was the hardest part about flight school for you?

How late it was at night?

She never came. She was always asleep. It was ridiculous.

You know what? You know what? Vegas had the over under, by the way, of Matt jumping on Anne Marie's Drill the Geek segment at five minutes. So for those of you that bet the under. I'm sorry, I bet the over and I win.

There you go. No, for me, it was the time of day I would watch the reruns and then really have to try and parse out when we were going to get all of those assignments done. There were weeks when it was definitely challenging. And for us, we didn't do the toolkit. We didn't try this before we started flight school. We jumped two feet into flight school. So learning how to do county research, where do you start? Like, just the fundamentals. Where do you start when you're doing county research? I think that for me was the hardest part was I know I gotta pick a county. They say, just go pick a county and go deep dive into it. But just going, just doing. You just gotta close your eyes and jump into the pool and do it.

I love it. I love it. It's very Nike. Just do it. So how about you, Kenyon? What was the hardest part of flight school for you?

I would say getting the ball rolling on the marketing side. I know I just mentioned that I like interacting with the customers, but kind of finding my voice. Voice. Just finding that marketing message that resonates not only with your customers, but also with yourself so that you can talk in a very genuine and very relatable way to your customers when they do reach out to you. That way they can get to know, like, and trust you so that they will do business with you. And not only do business with you once, but do business with you several times. Because I've started, I'm starting to get that repeat customer, you know, starting to come in year and a half later. So that was the hardest part for me, just kind of finding that. That sweet spot for myself.

Okay, great. So Paulotti has a question just for you. Ann.

Oh, boy.

It's. It says Anne. This is Paul Bellotti. How did Matt convince you to go to that first boot camp? I. I burned my wife out with work and stress in our house living business, and I'm trying to build a business solo, improve the model with income before even really talking about it.

So Matt and I have a relationship where we are rarely not on the same page. We are very much in step with each other. We talk about everything endlessly. And Matt's a really smart guy. So I had to, to a certain extent, put aside my. I'm not sure what the right word is, my unwillingness to try something new again and the fear of failure and say, I'm gonna go with an open mind. I'm gonna try it. It's also four days without my kids, and we're gonna see what happens. And I'm gonna sit and listen and learn and hopefully take home some nuggets, and we'll see where it takes us.

All right, great. I mean, I think I've said this to Matt before, but there's. There's nothing more boring than a happy couple, so.

We're not that boring, Mark.

So, Kenyon, this question's for you. How do you get someone to hit the buy button, specifically tips on what to say?

You know, I don't have a good, like, solid answer because each customer is different. My approach has been to very quickly find a very common thread that you and your customer have. For example, somebody I recently sold land to, he's a repeat customer. He's into hunting, outdoors, hiking. It's finding that common thread, like something that you both, like, enjoy and kind of riding that common thread because that's how people will trust you and do business with you and not do it in a just a hey, here's my money and take the money and run type way. But they reach out to you. They constantly communicate with you. They reach back out to you and say, hey, I love the property. I just saw a herd of elk roaming across my property. I can't thank you enough for selling me this property. So it's those common threads that you gotta find with that unique customer. There's not one answer that I've landed on when it comes to that. You gotta find that thread. There's a good book that I read, how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Read that book. That nugget came directly from that book. So I'm not gonna claim Originality to, to that idea. So that's, that's a, that's a great book to read and that kind of put me in that direction. So I highly recommend that book to folks who are kind of struggling with sales.

No, that, yeah, that's a classic book. And Tate's coming out with a sales program as well. We talk a lot about it at boot camp as well. Matt Forbes is like a pro at it. He could probably just do a whole nightcap on what he does. Mike Malera has a question, says, hey guys, late to the stream. Quick question. I have. Has anyone had success buying property through repository. Repository, sales list. And so that's gonna be like the, the list that is over the counter.

We have not. We do a traditional mailing and we build our lists from. We either get them from the county or we find them online for a while. We had a list scrubber, but Matt mostly does our lists because we've gotten to the point now where we're being very particular about what, what little tiny sections of an area that we're mailing to.

Awesome. Kenyon.

No, I've never used a repository list. I've used county gis and then I quickly outsource that, like I mentioned before. So I just found a va. They just said, hey, I can get you these lists. And I don't ask any questions. He produces what I want and he gets me the lists I need. And I am kind of like, Ann, where I want a very specific area, a very specific subdivision within a county, and he's able to produce that for me. So, you know, sorry, I don't have a better answer than that.

No, no worries. So, Ann, how long did it take to recoup the costs of flight school? And by the way, it's an investment. It's not a cost.

It is an investment. I have no idea. I know I should know my numbers, but I'm not the number person in this relationship. That's Matt. But some of our properties turn over pretty quick and they're good sized properties so we could make it up in a deal. It's. Once you get going and you. It wasn't long.

Wasn't long which. Eight weeks or less.

When we finally started truly marketing and trying to sell our properties and not being frozen over that marketing fear. Yeah, it was probably eight to 12 weeks.

All right, Kenyon, how about you? How long?

A very similar answer. I'd say closer to 12 to 16 weeks for me. Just because I had a very demanding 9 to 5 job that got thrown in There, you know, once I really started sitting down and finally, you know, following the recipe. Yeah, about 12 to 16 weeks.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, this is new. You guys didn't get this, but we actually guarantee now that flight school won't cost you anything. You'll make back your tuition in 180 days or less. As long as you show us your work can't fail. Yeah. Skin in the game. We got skin in the game. How have you protected your business from legal action? Like being sued? And has this ever been a thing for either one of you? Ann, we'll start with you.

It's not been a thing for us. We have a S Corp and everything goes through the S Corp, but we've never been sued. We do offer a 90 day refund policy. So we have refunded a couple of people who haven't been happy with a property or just decided financially it's not right right now or whatever the reason is. Doesn't matter. We'll give you your money back. And we've always had happy customers.

All right. Kenyon.

Yeah. I'm not at a point where I sold such a large dollar property that it's been a concern for me. So, I mean, I've got the standard 90 day buy money back guarantee. I'll exchange your property. And most people, when they, you know, when I sell them the property, I establish that rapport with them that, like, hey, if there is a problem, give me a chance to resolve it. And I make sure I establish that rapport. And I also make sure I screen my customers, too. I don't want to refund a property, so I make sure I'm selling them a property that fits their needs right from the get go. So you got to kind of qualify your buyers, too. So I make sure I do that up front as well.

Yeah. And when he was giving his answer, were you thinking what I was thinking? Which is Kenyon's new nickname should be Vanilla Kenyon. You got a problem? I'll solve it. Ice, Ice, baby.

I was a huge Vanilla Ice fan in sixth grade, so I can get down with that.

That's awesome. Ann.

Yeah.

How many counties did you test out in the beginning? And do you think the selling process is easier with a larger inventory, 20 plus lots, compared to an inventory of under 10 lots in one county?

So I definitely think there's an inventory component to it where if you have more inventory, it's easier to find. You might have a hot buyer who doesn't like the initial property the best, that he reached out to you on, but you might have something else in the inventory that he may like better. So I think definitely inventory is a part of it. As for how many counties we were in. Oh, God. We did a lot of county hopping. It was not good. All the counties.

All 3,007 U.S. counties. The Forbes family dipped our toe in each one.

We were in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. We've been in seven counties.

That's a lot.

It's a lot. And we are currently focusing on two and a half. I'm gonna go with half because the third one I really want to get rid of.

Okay, awesome. Kenyon, how about you? How many counties did you test out in the beginning? And do you think the selling process is easier with a larger inventory? 20 plus lots compared to an inventory of under 10 lots in one county.

So I started in one county, and I followed the advice in flight school. Go where the land investors are. So I started in Castilla county, and I was actually ready to give up on it. But I found that a lot of counties are very cyclical in nature. Where. And I haven't found a very good algorithm or a way to predict why they're cyclical, but I just hit the I believe button, and I stuck with Castilla county. And it's been very good to me. And now I started to branch out into New Mexico, Arizona, starting to get into Texas and Oregon as well. So, you know, just. Just again, I'll offer the advice of, like, find the counties that speak to you. Like, if you would buy property, if you would personally own property in that county, I would say that's probably a decent county for you to look into. Like, if you would. If you like the activities in the area, if you like the terrain, if you like the climate in that area, you can speak to that property because it's personally relatable to yourself. And you're not, you know, you're not trying to do the whole used car salesman routine with your customers. And you could say, you know what? I love this area. I love Blanca Peak. I love the sand dunes. I love, you know, being able to drive to Denver in three hours because I got family there, you know, so if you could speak to that county personally and you can. You can tie that in, you know, have that personal connection with that county, then I say it's probably a pretty good county, irregardless of, you know, some of the sales data, because if you can connect your customer with that property on a personal level, you probably can sell it.

All right, awesome. Emory, you Ever buy a list?

Yes.

Yeah. Kenyon, how about you? You ever buy lists?

Not from the county. I buy it basically from my va, So I guess, yeah, I buy my list directly from them. Pay a flat rate per list or per property, I guess.

Nice. Todd Hayes wants to know, have you ever carried an umbrella liability policy? If so, how do you keep it updated when moving in and out of property so often?

We have not. Not for the company, Kenyon.

No. I think my property insurance carries over to any property that I own. So even if something would happen, I think I'm covered.

Yeah, I mean, Todd, we, you know, on my home we added like an extra million for general liability policy, an umbrella policy just to cover if somebody would go out on our properties and they break a leg and they sue us. Now, I've been doing this 20 years. It's never happened. I think given our guarantee of 90 days, 365 day exchange guarantee, simple philosophy, happy customers guaranteed. It's, it's really, we're not worth suing because it's not real money. Right now if we're doing multifamily, we're talking $20 million deal that goes bad. And yeah, your investors are probably going to sue you. And the adage in real estate, it's not a matter of, you know, if you're going to be sued, it's a matter of when. But that's because we're talking real, real dollars. But, you know, is anyone going to sue over $10,000 property? Matt Forbes might, but most people wouldn't.

He's a jerk. So, yeah, he might do that.

Bill Dickens, can you explain why it's better to go where the land investors are as opposed to trying to go where no other investors are? I feel like this is like the McLaughlin Group admiration Forbes.

So if the land investors are there, you know, the property will sell because they're not going to be in an area that's not worth their time or their money. The other benefit you have is if you need to flip a property and need to wholesale it, you already have a little group of people there that you might be able to wholesale to. So I think there's a couple of good reasons to be where the land investors are.

Okay, I love it. Kenyon, how about you?

I follow a very similar philosophy. However, I do find it valuable to maybe break into a market where some people haven't really tried out, like if you go in it. And I wouldn't go too far off the beaten path though. Like, I've tried to get into Montana with, with zero results. Like I've tried, I've tried everything to get into Montana. Not even, can't even get somebody to call me. So. So if nobody's there, there's probably good reason why nobody, nobody's in that particular area. But if, if you're in Colorado and you're in one county and you want to go over to a neighboring county or maybe a couple counties over, then, then that's something I'm, I'm looking into doing currently.

Yeah, when he said Colorado, I just thought about meet the parents. Are you a pothead? Zitka?

No. No.

Okay. I just wanted to clear that up. Frank Leah, how do you handle passive aggressive sellers who sound interested in selling their land? But what more than your offer? Ann Marie Forbes.

I don't. My intake manager does.

Good answer. Can you. No. No negotiating there.

No. I think I've done enough research where my offer price is pretty solid, so I won't negotiate very far off of it. So if somebody calls me and says they double their offer or triple their offer, quadruple their offer, I'd be like, I'm sorry, this is, I've been buying and selling land in this area for this much. This is my offer. Take it or leave it. And you know, if you're thinking of that much for that property, best of luck to you.

There you go. If west is best, why is that? Anne Marie?

I don't know. I live on the East Coast. Property is really expensive over here. It would take a lot of capital to be able to buy property and we hold onto it. I live in New England. We covet what land we do have. And you're gonna pay through the nose for that property. So, you know, I'm gonna go where the property's cheap.

All right. Andrea Miller says, thanks for sharing your knowledge. For some reason I keep getting those unknowns. And Anne Marie, someone wrote, it's probably Matt. He's like, that Matt Forbes is such a jerk. And then someone wrote, matt Forbes is awesome. So Matt's so self deprecating. Kenyon west is best. Why?

It's easy. Like aside from the land is cheap, it's easy to do business. A lot of them take the, you know, electronic recording of the deeds. You don't need to have any special qualifications to buy and sell real estate in those states and in those counties. I know there's some, some places on the east coast where you have to be licensed real estate broker to do business or to do real estate business. So there's not that barrier to Entry, either.

Yeah, I did deals in the east coast once, so we haven't got any more questions, so I'll just pepper you guys with some frequently asked Grill the Geek questions. So, Anne Marie, what has been your favorite deal? You're on mute.

My children are yelling in the background, so I was that.

By the way, that's awesome. Forbes kids, let it out. It's quarantine.

It's raining, so they can't go outside. So I think my favorite deal was we were trying out a new area. We bought a property wholesale. We couldn't sell it. We couldn't sell it. We couldn't sell it. We finally sell it.

Yay.

We sold it to a guy who had been renting a place to park his camper, and it turned out that our property was near where he liked to go camping, and it was cheaper to buy our property than where he was renting the spot to store his camper. So that was great. So maybe six months ago, the guy we wholesaled the original property from calls us up and says, hey, I want to get rid of the property next door to the property I sold you before. Do you have any interest in it? So we reached out to our current client, and he was like, heck, yeah, I want that property. The best part was he put $1,000 down. We were out within a month. It was fantastic.

That's a great deal. Kenyon, you got a favorite one?

Yeah, my first deal. Yeah, it was to a kid out in Texas who was just looking for recreational property. He was 19 years old, and he was, you know, I like it because he's not that typical kid that just, like, buys a bunch of, like, toys and video games and stuff. He wanted a solid investment. And, you know, he found my property in Alamosa county, and he's like, yeah, I want to, you know, I want to buy it. And, you know, not only did he make a large down payment, but he was making, you know, $500 a month payments on it. And, you know, he's. He's the person I. I just sold a second property to in Costilla County. So it's these. You know, it was just this. This, you know, being able to get this kid into a wise investment and. And, you know, I know there's a lot of people out there that look at this business and. And at the very high level, it does sound too good to be true sometimes. But, you know, I really genuinely felt like I was helping this kid make some wise decisions in his life and set himself up to have some assets and not liabilities in his very young adult life. So that's what I liked about that deal.

Yeah, it's awesome. It's so funny. I'd say 90% of the people I asked that question to to always go back to their first deal. And I think there's something very special about that because then it's like that proof of concept, and if you can do it once, you can do it a million times, and then it's just, you're off to the races. Anne Marie, what are you looking to do to make your business strong in the next year?

We are really focusing on sales and tweaking all of those things that we've outsourced and making them more efficient so that we can really make our land buying and selling machine more profitable and more efficient. We had a really weak Q1, and we think we found some things that we can tweak and have started doing those, and we've already started seeing results, so we're making moves.

All right, Kenyon, what are you in for your Kaizen?

So one of the things that I found starting this business, and I have a US government job, I'm lucky to have very stable 9 to 5 employment. I don't see that necessarily going away anytime soon from retirement benefits that I get combined with my military retirement. So I want to be able to weather those hectic times that I have with those jobs because in the wintertime, I typically go into a shipyard with my ship. So I want to continue to refine those processes and get some more VAs on board so that when I do get busy, my business doesn't slack off as much as it has in the past. So just continuing to document my processes, get more VAs on board, and I'm almost gonna be. I'm probably gonna be debt free by the end of the year. So that's gonna open up a bunch of resources for me and my family. So I'm just gonna continue to invest. You know, you'll off offload some of these lower value tasks that I currently have on my plate to people who, you know, can do those better, faster, more efficiently than I can.

Nice. Nice. Hey, a quick shout out to the nightcap OG dude, buddy. Scott Bossman, how are you?

I am great, Mark. How are you guys?

We're great. They are. They are giving out nuggets of wisdom.

Awesome. They're getting grilled, huh?

I love the grilling, by the way. It's. It's so good. Ann Marie Forbes, what's your experience Selling on Craigslist is it working for you right now?

We're currently not on Craigslist. I hate Craigslist with a passion. When we first started marketing and we were trying to do the whole foxy proxy thing, I wanted to stab my eye with a fork. And then we outsourced it.

Seriously, though, you don't need to sugarcoat it. Like, how do you feel about Craigslist?

I hated it. I hate it. I still hate it. And we just. We looked at the numbers and for the. For whatever reason, our Craigslist leads never converted, and they were costing us so much more money than our Facebook leads. And we were like, you know what? We're out. We're going to focus on Facebook. We're going to make this machine work and do what we need to do over here, and then we'll open other doors. So we're not in Craigslist right now.

Kenyon, Ditto.

Pretty much ditto par for the course there. But I will say that I definitely am not completely writing off Craigslist. I'm just striking where the iron's hot right now. And that's Facebook for me. Once that's kind of maxed out for me, then maybe I'll start cracking the code on Craigslist once again.

Yeah. I had a quick coaching check in call with one of our newer one on one clients, and he was struggling with marketing, and he's like, you know, I'm trying to figure out the whole Craigslist thing, and I'm going to go do this, I'm going to do that. I'm like, nope, no, you're not. We'll put that on the back burner right now. I'm like, we're going to go to Facebook. We're going to hit marketplace. We're going to hit groups. We have a call with Mimi. We're going to follow the thing, and you're going to do this, this, and this, or you're going to owe me a drone. And he's like, done. For years now, I've been asking for this drone. It's never happened because our clients are like, no, you're not going to get that drone. They just execute. So I have no doubt that this client will as well. Okay, Anne Marie, I think this one's really for you. I have a feeling. This is Andrea Miller. How do you schedule your time around kids for kids under 13, especially during quarantine, to focus on your land business? What does your working time look like? And you can even talk about white wine as a coping mechanism. Feel free.

There's a lot of. A lot more white wine these days. It's really hard, to be perfectly honest. It's really hard. We will try and schedule time in the morning. Mark mentioned earlier that Matt and I will go out to walk. And when we go out to walk in the morning, we talk about things that we both need to do or we need to do mutually, but really try and stay on the same page about who's doing what. We try and schedule at least an hour a day where we're both working side by side for the most part in the land business. And for us, it helps us see that the other person's actually doing something and we don't feel like it's all on us and having that one hour. Because there are things that Matt does that I don't necessarily know how to do. He works all these things with Airtable and it would take me hours to figure it out. So I just ask him to do it. He does it for me and then I do a lot of the marketing stuff. And then after that, for me, it's homeschool time. And that's a dedicated time. I try not to look at the computer or Facebook or Follow Up Boss or any of those things until after all of that is done. And then throughout the day, I'll periodically work in the business and do some other things. And by the end of the day, we're spent. Sometimes if there are pressing things that have to get done, we will get the kids to bed and head down to our office at 8 o' clock at night. But neither one of us are at our best. So we try and get stuff done in the morning before the chaos is really hit.

All right. Yeah. So that was Andrea Miller. She says she feels like she's banging her head against the wall right now. I mean, is there a brand. Yeah. Is there a brand of white wine you would recommend any of it?

All of it.

All the wine.

All the wine. Kenyon, you've got. I mean, the thing is, you've got a big job, you got a big. You got a lot going on. Do you have any kind of advice for time management to get this stuff?

I just, I just have a list of. I call them, you know, I call them imperatives. A list of no essers that I try and get done each and every day. And everything else is a bonus at that point. So I try and get those imperatives, like the mailing, the marketing, following up with those hot leads. Just have that list of. You got to prioritize. And if you get that done. Great. If you get more than that done. Bonus. So it's just having a list of priorities, knowing what's important, what's was less important and not important. I like to use the Eisenhower matrix. Google that. I'm not going to go into detail, but it's basically prioritizing by urgent and important. So I like to use that.

Very cool. And that was pretty fancy to reference Eisenhower there.

Hey, military background.

Military background. And I mean, I think it's at this point in the Facebook Live where we should just all officially thank you for your service.

No worries.

Honestly. Yeah. Thank you. I always think of the movie with Jack Nicholson. What's that movie like? You want me on that wall? You need me on that wall.

Oh, yes. I said my tongue.

You know what I'm talking about. So yeah. Kenyon, I want you on that wall. I personally need you on that wall. Thank you. For sure.

So.

Here we go. This is an interesting question from Chris Grassman. Has anyone ever had any luck in requesting reviews on ads that Facebook has arbitrarily flagged or did you just delete them? Ann Marie.

So I don't post on Facebook. I have a VA who does that. And I can go into the account and I can see, see where he's requested a review for a flagged ad, but I've never seen one come back and been approved. We just delete them, clear the account out and start over again.

Kenyon, same here. Usually it's, you know, figure out what, you know, try and diagnose it before you just delete it. Usually it's some reference to wildlife or guns or something that Facebook doesn't like. So I started to get creative with abbreviating phishing to a creative f IMG so things of that nature. Try and diagnose why your ads are getting flagged or just blanket deleting them. And you can actually use that as a way to get a little more attention like I just mentioned on some of your ads. So just, just get creative with it.

Okay, great, great. And this we'll throw bossman to the mix and let you guys have a. Take a breath, maybe a sip of water, you know, offer up, let go apps for selling your land. Scott Bossman, you ever try any of that?

I've gotten leads on offer up before, but not. Not made a sale there. I. I think there, there may be platforms for the future. I think some people are on there. I just don't know if anybody's having. Having sales. I think Paul Brewer's on there. An offer up, maybe. But anyway, well, you know, you know.

If Paul brewers on there, you know, Adam Igloff is on there, too. So the two of them are, like, exactly, you know, killing it right now. Emery, Offer up. Let go.

So I have an ad posted up on Offerup. I've gotten a couple of leads, but, like Scott, nothing's converted.

Kenyon, Ditto. Okay, that was that movie. We couldn't think of anybody to my age. The senior moments are coming. Fast and furious. A Few Good Men. Yes, that was a movie. A Few Good Men. Kennan, do you have a favorite military movie?

I like American Sniper because it was, I don't know, probably the most realistic military movie I've seen in a while. Yeah, I like realistic. Nothing too dramatic.

What about Black Hawk Down? Was that realistic?

Yeah, that was a while ago. I'm trying to remember how realistic that was. I'd say that one was pretty realistic, too. I mean, obviously, you got to put a little bit of drama into those types of movies, but.

Yeah, right. And, Emery, with Mother's Day coming up, do you feel a kinship, like, with the military? Would you say that you are more the drill sergeant or Matt?

Depends on the moment. Okay, it was Matt this morning, but, no, it's usually me. Matt's on conference calls all day, traveling when the world isn't upside down. So I'm the one who has to be the disciplinarian and lay the hammer down. And we run a pretty tight ship in this house, I think.

Absolutely. I take all my parenting tips from you guys.

I don't know if we can do that.

I mean, and literally, I actually might have to change my name to Forbes because, like, I've got the mic, I got the peloton. I mean, everybody. I don't know if everyone knows the story of, like, the influence that the Forbes family has had on me has been profound. So here's a question, though, as we get off. Off subject. And Scott, Boston is like, stay focused. I have, like, the attention span of a ferret on a double cappuccino. Do you guys have websites? Any success earning sales through them? Anne Marie, do you have a website?

We do have a website, but we've never sold anything off of it. We use it to provide a little bit of legitimacy to our business and occasionally throw somebody a link, but, no, it's out there floating around in cyberspace somewhere.

Kenyon?

Yeah, pretty much. Me, too. I do want to. I think my next step is to really push the website. So my order priority is Facebook. My website, then Craigslist as far as what I want to build up as far as my marketing channels. So that's going to be my next step, is to really start pushing that. Because I think I saw an article about Facebook. They've created this Supreme Court of content judging or something like it's a 20 person panel. So the catch with Facebook is that you don't control the audience or, you know, there's less control on Facebook. So the more you can pull people over to your mail list and your website, the better. So Facebook's working for me right now, but I realize that it's got like, I can't rely on that forever because you know you're going to get that slap in the face eventually and it's going to, it's going to throw your business off. So the more that you can get them into your unique funnel, the better. And, you know, I realize the value in that. I just haven't got there yet.

No, absolutely. It's the only thing that you own and control. And those platforms are going to come and go. Their efficacy is going to come and go. But not your own email funnel. Funnel. And even if email changes, it could be something else one day. But it's so funny, like someone's saying, you know, you know, because like, my kids don't do email. They're like, well, as soon as they get a job, they will. So anyone who's got a job does email. It's not going to go away. How do you decide, and this is from Landon Hickok. How do you decide when to hire an intake manager and how do you structure their pay?

We hired our intake manager on pretty early in the business. Matt's obviously our sales guy and didn't have a ton of time to respond to those incoming offers that we wanted to purchase. So we hired our guy early on. And he gets a, he gets a base salary and that's it. A base hourly rate.

Okay.

It's pretty simple.

Cut and dry, Cut and dry. What do you pay?

I think we pay him 15 an hour. We buy in blocks of 10 hours at a time. He keeps track of his time. Honestly, I have spoken to him once. He voxes Matt. Every now and then we'll get an email to get something approved. But he's over there doing good things for us and we let him do his thing. He knows what he's doing.

There you go, Kenyon.

Honestly, I haven't got to that bridge yet. I haven't got to a point where it's overwhelmed me. So, you know, I know that it's something I'll eventually need to do for sure. But, you know, once I do get there, I'm sure I'll ask the same exact question here.

All right, well, as we're getting, we only have a few minutes left. Is there anything, knowing what you know now, you would have done differently in the beginning. Annemarie.

Don't stop.

Don't stop.

Keep going. Push. Push through those dips and just keep going. It's not a sprint. This is truly a marathon. And there are some days where it's a grind, but just push through it and just keep, keep going.

Kenyon, everything in this business is figureoutable. So don't let a lack of knowledge or a lack of confidence stop you from moving forward. If you don't know the answer to a customer's question, just tell them, hey, I don't know. Let me look that up, and I'll get back to you on it. Don't try and. Don't try and pretend like you're this grand poobah of real estate expertise. Just say, hey, you know what? I've never had that question before. Let me look that up and I'll get you an answer. Because that shows that you're being honest. That shows that you're not gonna mislead them. So just know that everything is figureoutable and take that step, and the knowledge will kind of bestow itself upon you sometimes.

Awesome. Here's a good question. What's the longest, lowest margin deal you have had on a property? Mark always says he's never not sold a property. Just always curious what amount of time he's had? His worst, like 12 months, two years. What's been the sort of the. Have you ever not been able to sell property? And is there ever a deal where this really was crappy margin?

No. I mean, we've wholesaled some that we had trouble marketing, but then those people turn around and sell them right away.

Is it 100% margin on wholesale?

We try and double our money on wholesale. Wholesale, sometimes it's a little less than that. Maybe. Sometimes it's only 75%. But you know what? If you're making a profit, does it matter? Sometimes they're smaller, sometimes they're bigger.

Right?

I mean, I don't get caught up in that. You know, for me, it's like, if I can make a sale, the sale's a win. Like, I'm going to celebrate that sale, whether it's $100 or, you know, I've made 500% on the property?

Yeah. I mean, in every other, you know, practical sense, you know, people are like, 75%. That's insane, right? In this community, it's like we had our. We hang our heads in shame. I never forget Bob Demick was like, he would. Didn't want to tell us about a deal. He's like, well, I only. I only made 250% on it. I think Mark's gonna be mad, like, you made 250%? Because I'm always like, 300 to a thousand percent. Kenyon, how about you?

You know, if you're making money, you're making money is my philosophy. Like, if somebody comes to me and says, hey, you know, on the wholesale side, hey, I've got a customer with X, and I have this property, and I negotiate something, And I make $250, and that's only 25%. That's still $250. If I do that four times in a week, that's $1,000 in my pocket. I mean, that's a win to me. I mean. But I think my worst deal, like, I've got a property that I haven't really tried to, you know, I haven't put a lot of effort into, so I'm gonna discount that one. But the worst deal that I've done is, like, I think it was 75 or 80%. And I had that property for about a year, and I sold that. I sold that to a friend from high school who happened to see my post, and I gave him a friends and family discount. So, yeah, I mean, that's my worst.

That's how I even got into this business, because my wife was so skeptical. I'm going into this auction with three grand saved up for car repairs, and she's like, what happens if you can't sell it? I'm like, well, we own land. Like, I could do something with it. I mean, you know, worst case, maybe I'll barter it with my dentist or, you know, get free haircuts for a year. I don't know, there's something I could do with it. But luckily, that's never been the case. Scott Boston Ever find any land you just couldn't sell?

I had a 80 acre parcel once. It took a year to sell, but that was a much larger value property. And we find that those larger value properties just take longer to sell. There are fewer people that can afford a property like that. And then I've told the story before. I had a property before that I couldn't get rid of. I batched it into another deal. I said, buy this, get this free. And the guy's like, okay, so, you know, and like Ken Green just said in the, in the comments, when you buy. Right. You're not going to lose money. And he's exactly right on that. Every once in a while, maybe there's a, you know, maybe there's a needle in the haystack in that county where, you know, every parcel is fine except that one, like Scott Todd has bought a property with tires on it. But he ended up selling that property to hire somebody to come in and clean up the tires and clean up the junk. But he sold it, I'm sure, for more than, you know, 200% profit. And so, yeah, like Ken says, when you're buying at the right price, you're not going to lose money on it and you will be able to sell it eventually. Or just why not?

Yeah, yeah, we make our money on the buy. Absolutely. Well, I think Dom Paresa has really said it all. She says thank you for sharing. This was awesome. Ann Marie Forbes, you are just a delight. Thank you so much for being on Grill the geeks. Right back at you.

I got one little more nugget that I want to share about not selling a property.

Sure.

My mantra is if I haven't sold the property yet, I just simply haven't told the right person about it yet. So. And you haven't found that right marketing voice for that property either. So just because you haven't sold the property doesn't mean that it won't sell. I forget what book this comes from, but there's that old adage about the gold miner who sold his mine when he was six inches away from gold. The person he sold it from dug six more inches and found the gold. So you just have to change your messaging if it's not working. Change something. Don't change it so radically that you're trying something completely different. We've mentioned following the recipe. Don't make a new recipe. Just follow the recipe and put your own touches on the recipe to find what works for you.

No, I love it. Justin Landowski says thanks for your time, everyone. I don't know who said that. It says, yeah, she is a delight. All right. Oh, wait, you know what? That was Matthew Forbes. Matthew Fortune 500 Forbes supporting his wife. That's great. Bill Dickens has great session today. Thanks for sharing all these nuggets with us. Unknown says, stay safe. I'll wash your hands. Happy Mother's Day. Kenyon Zitka, thank you so much. Much. Anne Marie Forbes. Thank you guys so much. And you know, before Scott and I are going to do the giveaway, should the four of us do this together? And everybody who's on the call, you guys can say it out loud too. We can't hear you, but we'll feel the vibe. Ready? One, two, three.

Let, let, let freedom ring.

And wash your hands. There you go. So, Anne Marie, I've been like, Scott and I are in a, a peloton group together. We're doing a. I don't know if Scott's gonna be able to do it. He's had to get a little Achilles thing. But Eric Peterson are gonna do a 90 minute power zone ride tomorrow.

Oh, my God, you guys are nuts. You're not.

And that's how I, that's how I feel when you're like, I'm doing a Robin ride. I think you're not.

See, I get that 90 minutes, but I get it compacted into half an hour and then I'm off and done.

Yeah.

Do you then just eat everything in the house when you're done with a 90 minute ride?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, it's fun. It's great to just eat like crazy. Like, I'm competing with my teenagers. They're like, dad, what's wrong with you? Do you have an intestinal worm? Like, it's fantastic. So, Kenyon, what do you do to stay so fit?

My routine these days is I do on Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, I do a 45 minute ruck with £50 on my back. So what I'll do is I'll jog for a minute and walk for a minute. Usually I can cover about, um, Lately I've been doing like 3.9 miles within that, within that time frame. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'll, I'll run five miles and then in the afternoon I'll do like a CrossFit type workout.

I really regret asking you the question, Steve.

Robin seems like a peach now.

Yeah, yeah. But look, you know, Kenyon's 25 years old, though.

Yeah, I'm 41.

Oh, man, this is terrible. Well, thank you, guys.

Why we're hat. You can't see the. You can't see the grays.

Yeah. Well, thank you guys and thanks everybody for asking questions. And now it's time for our weekly Friday giveaway. Scott Bossman, if you've left a comment. All week, during our every day, we've been doing Facebook lives. Even the day that my Internet was down, I still went on Nightcap and Tony Grigio. I did upload a video and commented on it, but he was, he was kind enough to let that go. He's throwing shade. So thank you all for leaving a comment. If you've left comment, you're gonna win. And if you win, so $1997 investors toolkit. If you have the toolkit, you can gift it. If you don't want to gift it to a friend or a family member, you can use it towards flight school. If you're in flight school, you can use it towards coaching. If you're in coaching, use it towards software. So there you go. All right. Drumroll.

Ready?

Yeah. Anne Marie Kenyon. Should we do the drum roll?

All right, here we go. I have not picked yet. Nice.

And the winner is.

Matthew Levy.

Matthew Levy, Congratulations.

Matthew Levy has been a cab. He's a cab driver in on Long Island. Mark. I don't know if you knew that.

No, I know. He's, he's an epicenter right now.

Yeah. And he's in flight school right now. So he's gonna love that.

He's gonna love that. Congratulations, Matthew. Ken Baziak wants to know what ruck pack do you tuck with or what pack do you ruck with?

It's a Goruck brand GR1.

Okay, well, there's, there's something.

Goruck is spelled G O R U C K. You can Google it.

That's right. There's an off color joke in there. I just won't say it. Just think it.

I, I see the, I see the gear spinning, Mark.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You keep it classy, land geek. You keep it classy. Jason Hoffman says right on. Congrats. Yay. Congrats, Matthew. So I, you know, Amory, I did talk to Matt some at some point this week and we did discuss a virtual boot camp. He was in favor of it. Kenyon, what do you think? August Virtual boot camp.

Hey, you got to make it happen somehow. If that's what we got to do, that's what we got to do. I've actually had trouble getting out to boot camps. I've been wanting to get out to these more often, but my schedule just hasn't allowed. So this probably be a good opportunity for people who, you know, maybe not be able couldn't, you know, afford to fly out or travel. Be a good opportunity to, you know, get those folks out to a boot camp.

Yeah. And then do we do the VIP room?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think so.

Technology got zoom. We got all sorts of platforms. Platforms to make that happen.

Okay. I'M I'm down. I'm down, so. All right, well, thanks again, everybody. Thanks, everybody, for being on. And we'll see everybody next week. Stay safe out there. Stay sane, and, you know, keep washing those hands. I got this thing in the mail today. It was, like, from peel.com and it's like a microbial brass thing that you put on your keychain to open doors and press buttons.

Right.

And also opens bottles. So there you go.

Multi use.

Multi use. So hopefully that'll. That'll be good help. Stay safe. All right, thanks, everybody.

Awesome. Thanks, Mark.

Thank you.