Land Geek Pro Tips—Shedding Light On Bad Advice

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Hi, this is Mimi Schmidt, and welcome to the roundtable podcast at the Land Geek. I'm here today with three great guys. Eric Peterson, the technician. How are you doing today, Eric?

I'm great. Good to be here.

Yeah. It's nice to see you. And Mike Zano. How are you today?

Doing wonderful. How are you, Mimi?

Great. In your new office. It looks spiffy. It looks very nice, almost in the new office.

This is a transition period.

Yeah.

But it looks okay.

And hi, Scott. How are you today? Love the new beard coming in.

Thank you. Yes. I'm warming up for Wisconsin winter.

It's coming, so it is coming. I think, like, the solstice was, what, yesterday? Something like that is officially fall now.

Not here in Tennessee. Doesn't feel that way here.

It was 90 yesterday here, but now it's. I think that was our last day, you guys.

We've had weeks in the 90s. It's been warmer than it was all summer. It's been crazy.

Yeah. We've got a beautiful September here in the. In the 80s, mostly.

So you call that Indian summer when it's hot like that?

Indian summer?

Indian summer, yeah.

Oh, my gosh. So please have patience with me today, guys. This is the first time that I'm doing the podcast, but phenomenal job. Our topic today is worst advice. What is this? Some of the worst advice that we have either gotten from fellow folks that are in the land geek business with us or on some of the other platforms like Facebook. So that's what we're gonna get started with. Okay. Around the same order. So, Eric, what is some of the worst advice that you have gotten?

I think one that kind of speaks to me is just this idea of you need a website to sell land, or you need a website to get your business started, or anything along those lines. I mean, the reality is I have coached many students that never started with a website, didn't have a website probably their entire coaching period, and still sold lots and lots of land. Now, you know, I will admit that I'm a bad example because my background being in graphic design, for me, it was super important to have a website from the beginning. And I. I did invest time in that. It wasn't the very first thing I did, but it was certainly early on. I spent a lot of time developing that. And Getting it just the way I wanted it. But in doing that, I also learned that the reality is it's not the best marketing tool you have. The platforms that we talk about for selling land, like Craigslist and Facebook and Lanmodo and. And the other land selling websites are far better places to be out there marketing your property than on your own website.

I agree with that. And I also think even when you do get a website, don't go down a rabbit hole of hiring someone and spending a lot of money and effort expended into developing a website. A lot of platforms out there that are 40 bucks a month, right, that you can pay, that are super easy to use. And I see a lot of folks get caught up in building websites, too, once they start, and I think it's not the best use of their time.

Absolutely. It's a big place to waste a lot of time without a lot of results on the income side.

I agree. How about you, Mike? What's some of the worst advice you've seen out there?

You know, I'm thinking it's the advice some people silently give themselves. This whole idea of proof of concept. Like, I want to get involved in land investing, and, you know, I'd like to learn from someone, say, like, Scott Todd in flight school or something like that, who's very successful. But before I do that, I want to have proof of concept. I want to know this work. So the danger, I think, in that is that if people start making a mistake from the beginning, maybe with their mailing or maybe with their pricing, then the results are lackluster, which will create less action that they'll take in terms of executing more mailings. And then so slowly what happens is this whole thing just kind of slowly swirls downward to the point where they're not doing anything, and then they're off, like Mark always says to ATM investing or something. So I believe if this is something that I always tell people that first and foremost, you hear about us, you hear about the land investing, and you're like, wow, is that even real?

Right?

Is that, like, does this really exist, this idea of buying 25 cents on the dollar and then selling it for massive profit? Well, then there's a ton of, you know, there's an overabundance of proof out there. Then you say, okay, well, who are these people? These language people? And now you got to know, like, and trust us, right? So you kind of. We've been around for a long time. There's a lot of proof of concept for what we do. We're just average people that follow the same business model. So if those two are aligned and the business speaks to you, it's like, okay, how am I going to learn? And then, so then it comes down to what am I going to do? And I think that, you know, we have this recipe in place, this flight school that works. But then people say, well, I'm going to be just a little, I'm going to hedge my bets, I'm going to try it on my own first and see if I get proof of concept. And this proof of concept is a dangerous thing because if you left your own devices, your action may not be consistent, you may make common mistakes that we've all made and that's going to cause you to take less actionable steps and it's going to just spiral downward. So there are some people out there that have that massive entrepreneurial type mentality and spirit and they can actually. But most people really would benefit from some sort of guided action like flight school. So I think that I would say the worst advice is the advice that a lot of people give themselves is, I like this, but I want proof of concept first.

That one really strikes me because I think it's not only that advice you give yourself about proof of concept that you need to see if you can do it. That's all the advice, just the self confidence that sometimes, you know, I see other people can do it, but can I do it myself? Right. That advice that I'm giving myself, that, that and I completely agree. How many people that have we seen that have started that way and never gone anywhere? Right, right.

It's unfortunate.

I always tell people, sure, do it. Try it yourself like that and give yourself a date. Right. Go 60 days and see how far you get and then think about where you could have been had you gotten some help otherwise. Right.

I think the definite timeline like that is very helpful. Say, okay, I'm going to give. If you're going to do it on your own, give yourself like a month, two months, three months, give yourself a hard deadline, judge your progress and then say, okay, well, maybe I should get some help. You know, maybe you're doing well, but that's a great idea.

Yeah.

Because I did that. I did same thing, right. I went to boot camp at the end of April. By June, I'd signed up for coaching because after two months I hadn't gotten to where I would have liked to have. Right. Anyway, that's a good one. How about you, Scott? What's some of the worst advice you've seen or gotten.

Trying to think back to my time starting up. I don't know if I got a lot of bad advice starting up. I got some good advice and that was to, you know, go into coaching because Mark knows what he's talking about. But it seems like the longer we're in this now and there are more and more people doing this, it seems like these little things are popping up here and there that, that kind of go against the land geek model of things that make me cringe a little bit. Back to the website thing. I've seen over and over that people need a land buying website. And to me, it just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever when I can monitor things on the buy side with my telephone and an intake manager or whatnot. It just seems like that would definitely be a waste of resources getting started. The other thing is, you know, I see some advice on mailings recently that in order to find a good area, you need to mail there first. And you need to mail in large volumes and figure out over time what the, you know, look at the stats over time and see what deals you're getting out of that. And that, that really goes against our model too, because what do we teach people in flight school? We teach people, start out with 20 a day and stagger your mailings and split test your mailing, split test your prices in different areas and that type of thing. And then as you start to get responses back, you can fine tune your offer, you can fine tune your knowledge in a particular area. And you don't need to send out thousands and thousands of mailers to find the right area. You can, you can do very well with your county research. I would recommend spending hours and hours and hours on county research before you even send out any mailings. And then when you start sending out mailings, do them in a very deliberate fashion where you're. You're kind of testing the market with those mailings. So it's just kind of things here and there that are, that are. That are popping up. And you know, I think when it comes to the land geek model, you know, we have overwhelming evidence that this work as much works as Mark says all the time. So if anybody has questions about, you know, the market, our equation, how this works, you know, just get in touch. We can, we can put you in touch with a lot of people, excluding ourselves, who are doing really well in land investing.

Completely agree. I see so many coaching students that are buying land too high because they're not doing enough county research. Right. Which puts them in a bad spot in their business and then also drives up prices for the rest of us in the areas. Right, so. So I see that. And then additionally, the way we teach the model is that learn short.

Right.

Like you were just saying, Scott, in that track your response rate. If you're getting a 5% response rate and you're able to buy one 1%, one for every 100 that your pricing's good and adjust otherwise. So I think you're completely right. And you can learn after a month of mailings at 20 a day. Right. That's a couple hundred. And then you're not expending investing thousands of dollars to learn about. I completely, completely agree with you on that one. Gosh. Some of the worst advice I've got just recently, this, that it has to be in markets where the land is 10 acres or greater. That is crazy to me. That's absolutely crazy to me. I mean I bought quarter acre lots in counties over and over again. Two and a half acre, five acre parcels, all different sizes. It just is so dependent upon the county that you're in and the kind of land that is there. So I thought that was kind of odd advice when I saw that earlier this week. Interesting. So, yeah, just make sure that the advice that you're taking, I guess just some advice from all of us is that make sure the advice that you're taking is from people who are actually in the business and doing it every day and sharing the of deals that they're doing because they're in tune with the market and they know what's going on with the market. Right. And can give you sound advice on this type of thing. Another reminder, today's podcast is sponsored by flight school. You want to learn more, Go to the land geek www.thelandgeek training. And another thing, boot camp is in a month. I'm so excited. I think it's like my 13th. I'm starting to lose track, but I.

Don'T have enough fingers.

I know. I was actually watching a show yesterday. We meet, reread so many books about motivation that we share with each other. I watched the show. I need to find you the name that Bill Gates did. It's a kind of documentary about him and he takes a think week. Every year he goes off to this dinky little cabin and just thinks and plans, thinks big picture about where he wants to go with his business or how to solve polio. He literally, I think there were 33 cases of polio in the world last year alone because he's solving it with his, the work that he's doing. And so that whole think week, it reminds me of boot camp. That's really my think week, right. I just do it four times a year. And it's not a week where I go in, I get away from the rest of my world and I can come up with a plan, high level on where I want to go with my business. So it's good enough for Bill Gates, good enough for us.

I thought of one other piece of advice that people often get that I would just, I guess, address real quickly. Mike and I talked to a lot of people on the phone and I don't know why there's this. Why there's this notion out there that you, that you need to, you know, you need to get the toolkit first and then go to boot camp and then go to flight school or you need to, you know, go through flight school first and then go to boot camp or, you know, it's just kind of interesting. I think what, I think what I would just recommend to people is that boot camp is for everyone, no matter where you are in your stage of land investing. And for me, I think I've been to 9 or 10 now every time I leave bootcamp, I come away with something for my business. Mimi, you say this, and Matt Forbes says this. It gives you what you need when you need it. So if you're a newbie, you're going to get the things you need. If you're a year into this, you're going to get the things you need. And our coaching students definitely get the things they need in the VIP room. Don't be afraid to come to boot camp. There's no right way, wrong time. Well, there's no wrong time. It's always the right time, in my opinion.

I agree. Because a lot of times you hear things that you're not ready for yet, and it takes you to be farther down the road in your business for that. And it may be the second or third time you've seen it or heard it, but it strikes. Strikes you differently because you're now ready on your journey. Because we all have our different journeys, right in building our own businesses. Well, Eric, did you want to talk about featured targeted lists?

Oh, that was just in reference to what Scott was talking about earlier. You know, he was talking about having to mail, you know, maybe thousands of offers to a given county or something to determine, you know, what the buy price is or if you can buy property there or whatever it is. Well, the reality is, if you narrow down your list and target a certain area where you can determine the pricing very quickly with, you know, just like we were talking about maybe a month worth of offers, maybe two weeks worth of offers. You can get into that data and determine where you need to be. So, yeah, I don't want to encourage anybody to send out thousands of offers. Just blanket an area without really knowing what the market is and what you should be buying for.

Completely agree. Sound advice there. All right, well, anything else, guys?

Who's got the tip of the week? Zane?

Tip of the week.

Well, I got a quote that relates to what we're talking about, if that's all right.

Fabulous. That's awesome.

No quotes allowed.

Let's see. I just had it right here. Today's quote comes from.

Where'd it go?

Oh, Henry David Thoreau says it's not enough to be busy. The question is, what do you. Well, what are we busy about? And I think that relates because you're talking about like Eric was talking about building websites. I mean, you can be awful busy in the beginning doing things that aren't going to move the needle. And it's easy because you think, oh, I'm being very productive. But at what? In the beginning, you just need to execute on the fundamentals. Get an area, get a list, scrub it, mail it. That's it. All these other things that you can get really fancy over that aren't going to bring any, you know, proof of concept. There it is to you. You know, just stay extremely focused. And so it's not enough to be busy. It's what are you busy on?

That's a great quote.

Thank you, Thoreau. Good old Henry David and I love.

Quote tips all week. That's awesome.

Thank you.

All right, so we ask that three favors of you guys. So please subscribe, rate and review and send your screenshot to supportthelangeek.com and get the new free wholesaling course on how to double your money and up sign 30 days or less and the passive income launch kit. All right, do you guys want to do let free?

We have to.

Yes, we have to.

Tradition.

Oh, yeah.

Make it better than ever.

1, 2, 3. Let, let, let freedom ring.

That was pretty awesome. Actually had a little like, echo to it.

You guys rock.

I thought it was good. I thought it was good. Maybe.

You did an incredible job.

Well, it's good.

We don't have any west coasters on the call. We can't talk about what's for lunch. We've all had our lunch.

Yeah, exactly.

We're rolling into evening it's gonna be happy hour and another hour right here.

It's always happy hour in Wisconsin.

Beer and cheese.

That's right.

I bet. I bet.

Thanks, Mimi, for filling in. That was nice of you. I know you had a lot of prep time.

Well, nothing like learning on the fly.

That's right.

Drive by fire. That's right.

That's right.

All right, sweet. I'm excited to see you guys in boot camp. At boot camp.

I am, too. Should be fine.

Likewise. It's gonna be here before we know it.

Yep. And I like that hotel. It's a nice hotel. Weather should be nice.

Yeah.

I think that time of year isn't the heat break and it's gonna be, like, cool now.

Yeah. It used to be we would do Scottsdale in August. Right.

This is typically Florida, so it should be nice. This is a big change up. This is the first big change up.

Right.

Wasn't it Florida this time last year?

Yeah, it's the first time we haven't been to Florida in the fall.

I guess now we just have to keep pushing to get the east coast boot camp.

We should take a vote now on whether or not it should go to Florida. There's four of us here.

Yeah, we should definitely do that. Do it on the record. 1, 2, 3. Who wants the east coast boot camp?

There we go. I'll do it. I mean, it's about the same one way or the other for me.

There you go.

Geeks agree.

All right, we'll let Danielle know.

Look at that massive action.

Gotta go. Gotta go. Let Danielle know.

I like this roundtable today. There's no meanness. You know, Mark's always picking on Scott. Scott's always picking on Mark.

Yeah, well, you're always the favored one. What are you not like?

Oh, I don't know about that. I just get embarrassed.

I can't say anything either. You guys are always nice to me too. Yeah, it's unanimous. East coast boot camp. We just have to decide. It's going to be Florida or Atlanta.

Yeah, we'll do one in one in both. We'll do one of each.

Oh, that's an even better idea.

There we go.

That's a great idea. While the cat's away.

Mark's calling us after this. I'm sure.

Does that mean we have to take away Texas? I don't know how Danielle's gonna feel about that.

No, we don't want to take away Texas.

We can't take away Vegas.

It's like only once a year. We'll go to Scottsdale once a year.

Yeah, that works. That's a plan.

Not that exciting. We have to go there twice.

Come on.

Once a year.

I think that's a great plan. Any other changes we want to make while it's just.

Yeah, while we're here.

That's what happens when you leave us in charge.

That's right. Well, it's nice talking with you guys. I hope you have a wonderful day.

All right, thanks. Thanks for filling in. See you guys next time.

Bye.

Bye.

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