Learn how Pete, Anthony & Roberto have done over 150 land deals combined on Grill The Geeks!

What's up?

We are live for Grill the Geeks. We've got tons of geeks on. This is a really geeky Grill the Geeks. So for those of you that don't know what the hell I'm talking about, I'm Mark Podolski, the Land geek with the landgeek.com we are professional land investors and because of COVID we are not able to do our typical boot camp. So we thought it'd be fun to and have a Grill the Geeks session. And Scott Bossman, do you want to introduce our geeks?

Yeah, I'd love to. So we have some very successful coaching clients with us today. Roberto Chavez, who I think got into the business about, I don't know, two and a half years ago. And we'll let him tell his story. He's been pretty amazing. And then Pete Schmidt and Anthony Napodano, who are working as a team in this business. And it's very cool. Their story, I'll let them tell it as well. But they're lifelong friends, so these guys are killing it in coaching and it's been fun to witness their progress over the last couple years.

Awesome. Awesome. Let me see here. So I'm going to try to embed the link, Scott, on Facebook and see if this works so that we don't have the unknowns. So, Mike, you can start the first Guerrilla Geeks question.

Well, I think Scott kind of laid it right into, like to hear the stories, like maybe we start with Roberto. How'd you hear about Lin investing? You don't have to give.

Keep it abbreviated if you.

If you don't want to go into too much detail. We like to see how you. How you found land investing and just did the intro.

Sure.

Probably around August or September of 2017. Just listening to a podcast. I don't recall which one it was, but Mark was a guest on the podcast and he gave kind of the elevator pitch on what the business was, and it really clicked with me and it sounded like a really interesting idea at the time. And so that kind of triggered me to start following Mark and listening to his podcast, the one he had before the current one and then the current one. So I just started following him. And around September, October maybe it was, I had a call with Bossman and he was really good. He encouraged me to hop into flight school because at that point I had purchased the toolkit. But it was truly a lot of information for me at that point to dissect, and there was some urgency within me to get this going. And Just do things the right way from the beginning. And so that encouraged me to do flight school. I finished flight school in January of, of 2018 and then went right into coaching maybe around March or April with Tate. And I mean, just that next level of coaching from flight school to one on one coaching, really marked the difference in my business in terms of getting to where I am right now much sooner than where I would be because I believe in myself. I believe I would have gotten to this point, but probably two years from now as opposed to where I am right now. So that's a little bit in a nutshell, how I stumbled upon the land geek Mark and my progress so far.

Very nice.

Beautiful.

Pete and Anthony, what about you guys?

Hey, I'm Anthony and yeah, I'm blessed to be with Pete. Pete and I have been lifelong friends, both our families. There's five boys in his family, four boys and a girl in my family who grew up together on Long Island. Went our separate ways college time. His family moved to Pennsylvania. My family was on Long island for many years. Moved to az, Arizona because I wanted to be close to Mark. And we got back together. I was in education. He was a program developer at Wall street, and he had started a company, Right Reason Technologies, which is educational software. And I was an educator. And we started doing similar things. Me in a very large district here in az and he back in New York. We hooked up and he brought me aboard and. And we started working together there. But what happened is we accumulated a few companies, but all we do is own jobs. They're very nice, they pay the bills, but we work very, very hard. So we're looking for passive income. And then, Pete, I'll kick this part of the story to you. You came across Mark, right?

Yeah, I think it was one. It was a podcast, similar, you know, very similar story podcast. I started listening to, very interested in. And the more I was looking at a lot of things, a lot of real estate, and the more I looked at it, it just sounded really cool in a geeky way, I guess. Right. And I basically, I touched base with Anthony. We talked about it a lot and then we jumped. We actually got the toolkit, very similar story, Bought the toolkit, then we went into flight school. Loved it. And we started making a few purchases here and there. But it wasn't until we started coaching again with Tate, probably in June, June of last year. So we're coming up on a year, but we've been. It's been great. It's been, it's been great to Go through the progress. I know we'll talk a lot, a lot about those going forward. But going through the. Hey, my first mailing. Hey, my first land sale. Hey, I mean, purchase, then the sale, then doing other things like buying big chunks of land and doing some land arm and stuff. So it's been really cool along the way, taking it step by step.

Yeah, just a couple of notes, like, Pete got me excited because we're looking at different things. And he told me about Dirt Rich. I didn't read this while I was in town. I was back east in town. I read it, got on the plane to go home while I was on the plane, purchased the toolkit and started ever since. So I made that purchase on it on American Airlines, actually. And so since about a year, we've been in coaching a little less. We've purchased 70 properties, we've sold over 50, and we've now grown into the model of. There was one, you do it one way, and now, hey, we'll buy land in any way possible and we'll sell it. It's all about velocity. We'll sell it on terms. We'll sell it in cash, we'll wholesale, we'll arb. Just keep it moving. And I think that's one of the secrets to our limited success thus far.

Limited success, you guys. Speaking of limited success, Roberto Chavez, you got some big news, man. Where are you at right now? On your note, portfolio.

103. I closed three deals in the last two weeks or whenever it was that we last spoke. So I've got active 103 properties on terms right now. That's been two and a half years of work that's brought me to that point.

And how has life changed, Roberto, for you? I mean, are colors more vibrant? Does food taste better?

Yeah, it's strange because when I started this business, I couldn't even dream of having a portfolio of that size. It was something way, way out there. I remember my first boot camp right after flight school. You probably don't remember my. But I remember walking up to you in one of the breaks and I told you, hey, Mark, well, like, how long do you think I can expect to make 2000 bucks a month in passive income? Like, what's my time frame there? And to me, that seemed like amazing if I could get to that. And I remember, I think you said, well, I mean, you're starting off, so it's going to take a little longer, so maybe two, three months. You got to get at it and just hustle. And to be here now Two and a half years later, it's really amazing. It's hard to really put it into words. Just the. How can I say this? Just the options I feel that I have now that I didn't have before, especially now with the virus going on. I've been working from home, and now I'm contemplating on when they tell us to go back to the office, whether I'm going to go back or not. So that's just an option that wouldn't be there were it not for this business and what I've learned from you guys. So, I mean, you can't really put that into words. It's just an amazing feeling.

Yeah. One of my favorite voxes, when you told me you went from five days to three, three days at your firm.

Yeah.

And one of those days you're spending with your dad.

Right.

Helping him.

Right.

And I thought, this is so amazing. You put the work in and now. Now you get this, you know, another chunk of freedom to do what you want. And it was like, so inspiring, gratifying for me personally. So, yeah, that was really cool. And then Pete and Anthony, I mean, you guys are still babies in this business, but, you know, you see the potential. Has anything changed for you guys as far as, you know, life, lifestyle, mentality, stress level? I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, it certainly has. I mean, this is a process. A process. And you have to make sure you follow. Follow along in the program. I mean, I'm a bit of a. As Anthony knows, I'm a bit of a control freak. And I always want to do things my own. So it's great having a partner like Anthony because he keeps me on the straight and narrow and says, no, no, no, no, no, let's follow along the program and keep going away. So the more we follow the program, getting VAs involved rather than hiring, getting big office spaces and buildings like that, like we've done in the past, but getting those VAs working and moving along and doing the things that we need done, it really changes. Even in our other business, it's changed our model there. Getting the right people to do the right job quickly and affordably is really working well. So, yes, the stress is so much different than the businesses we have. It's a much better life.

What's exciting is the versioning too, that goes on. We look back compared to where we were just three months ago or six months or 11 months ago when we started coaching, if you will, where we were just worried about purchasing one property and selling one property. Now we have Properties in many areas. Even though. Even in one state. But many areas in one state. And, you know, and the different marketing and the different systems that we put in and then the leveling up of each one of those systems constantly with our swim lanes, I think that's what is bringing and fostering the success, no doubt, as we move forward. And that will allow us to keep the process and the success going later on as we get larger and larger. So, again, it's not about what we're making now. It's about what we'll be bringing in and what. How that changes our life two, three years down the road when we're in it, as long as Roberto and everyone else here. So that's. That's what we're looking for.

Yeah. I mean, you guys are building that machine so that it's just. You're really just being the CEOs and not doing much in it anyway.

Right.

Which.

Right.

Pete and Anthony, I don't know how much you guys are even in it now.

Yeah.

Because we're both, you know, we're both control freaks. I do it one way, he does it the other way. You know, he's. He's got a rigid process. I'm a little more open. So it takes a while for us to get out and let it go. And we're constantly redoing and perfecting the process. But we do have some fantastic bas that you guys, hey, this is what you need to do. We want to get out of business. We love the model, and we're training them up, and they're helping and supporting in amazing ways much faster than we ever thought they could have. And we have a good model there.

Yeah. Pete, are you gonna take that, by the way?

I think he will. I think he does.

So this bromance reminds me of Bossman and Zano.

Wow.

Just a little shade getting thrown.

Like I'm not as rigid as.

He does things a little different than me. I know exactly what that means.

I didn't like those quotes.

Read between the lines there.

Yeah, yeah. So we haven't gotten any. Any questions yet, so I'll let the Zen master, Mike Zano start.

Sure.

The first grilling question.

Well, I'd like to talk about the transitions toolkit to flight school. Flight school to coaching. Just like, you know, how long did you spend with the toolkit before you opted into flight school?

Why?

What was the difference? What did you find? You know, and then did you immediately go to coaching?

Right.

When flight school. And I know you talked a little bit. Roberto or you both may have, but just the transition, though, and how that, how that affected you and your business and, you know, just, I don't know, just kind of play that out for us, you know, I mean, because a lot of people, they learn about us, they learn about land investing, and they're like, well, I want to hedge my bets out the toolkit. And, you know, when's the right time to jump into the flight school? Because you know this. So I'm curious about your transitions. So from toolkit to flight school and then the transition of flight school to coach and just talk about. Went through your mind and maybe any reservations you had and how those were overcome. Anything?

Yeah, sure, I'll go first. So the toolkit, like I said, I. I bought it. It was at 1 in the morning, some random day, I can't remember, and I. I just kind of leaped into it. I wasn't as smart as Scott Todd, because I've heard his story that he called Mark just to make sure that it was legit and that you existed and it wasn't just some random thing on the Internet. And that was probably smarter than me. But I just leaped into it. And so I received all the information. I have it. I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, so, yeah, it's a lot of good information, but how do I implement it? What's the first step? Kind of what can it really is. Can somebody tell me what to do with all this good information? Because it's all good information, but implementing is a different thing, and it takes longer if you try to dissect all of the information and implement it yourself. So between the toolkit and flight school, I don't think there was even a month for me in between one and the other. It became pretty evident to me that if I really did want to start building the passive income, I needed to buy time. And so I needed to jump right into some form of guidance. And so, like I said, it was probably a month. And so to me, the land investing business really, really started with flight school. The toolkit was an introduction for me. It was a way of knowing the business a little bit better. But by no means did I feel like I was a land investor or beginning to be a land investor until flight school. Because at that point, you hear it from the man himself who's gone through the process and knows that it works each step of the way and. And in a systematic and an ordered way that makes sense for this business. And so you begin from the start, which is county research and you go on all the way to marketing and selling your land. And so for me, that's really when I felt like I was becoming a land investor. And then from graduation, when I finished flight school, boot camp was like the next week. So it was kind of. They were meshed up together. It was my first boot camp. So again, it was another immersion of information, a lot of things. I met the community, I met Mark, I met you guys. And so that coupled with flight school was kind of the inspiration, I guess, I needed, to dive into coaching, which, if I remember correctly, I did the boot camp in January, and then probably March or April is when I started one on one coaching with Tate. And so there the difference was, I was already doing a deal here, buying one or two properties, selling one or two. It was kind of the wheels were starting to turn for the business. But when I jumped into coaching, it was like I jumped into a race car with Tate. And he's like, yeah, your wheels are turning, but let me show you how to get this into second, third, fourth, and fifth gear to get this thing really moving. Instead of you moving your feet on yourself, let me show you what you need to do. And so for me, that was. I mean, it revolutionized my business that I had at that time in the sense that, I mean, I was buying four or five times the number of lands that I was before, and I was selling by the same amount. And so it just exponentially increased the land business for me. And just, I mean, then the rest is history. I mean, it just kept going and going and going, and it's just like a little mountain, a little snowball, and it gets bigger as you keep going, and then it takes its own momentum. And now I've got people calling me randomly saying, oh, you sent me a letter back then. You want to buy my land? Sure, I'll buy it. It's people that haven't even mailed to. And the same with buying people who are, oh, my cousin bought a property from you. I'd like to buy one. And so even the things that you planted in the past, all those seeds for marketing and mailing, they give fruit for a long time. They're still giving fruit for things that I haven't been doing lately. So, yeah, that was probably longer than what you were asking for. Oh, that's good story. But that's more or less how it's happened.

Thank you.

For Pete and I, we got the toolkit, and I think one of our strengths is that we will dive in so deeply, but we also get Caught down rabbit holes with one another as far as perseverating and trying to perfect what we want to do, and so makes us go much slower. But we really do learn, and we really do come up with, you know, a confidence. But again, we went away from the basic principles that we learned later in flight school of, hey, you know, there's a better way. They have the formula, keep moving. So when we convinced ourselves of that and we were confident in the model, we went from toolkit to flight school. It was July, then flight school. We started in October with Scott Todd, and again, seeing that practical, hey, this is what I do. Follow the formula. And we started to do that, putting our own little spin on it and our own experiences and intelligence to it, making our own. And we came out very confident, and we started to buy land and move forward. But we said, you know what? That gave us the base. That's like high school now. We need to go to college. You know, we want to even on to graduate school here. We want to get really good at it. We want to be the top 1% of people that are doing stuff like this. So, you know, let's consider coaching. We had talks with Scott Bossman, talks with Mike Zaino, and we said, yeah, let's get into coaching with. And we were blessed to also have Tate, and we hit it off. And again, it's again getting that rubber to the road. Right? You're doing a lot of things, but are you maximizing and being effective and efficient and taking step by step, piece by piece, each part of your business and just maximizing it and growing and then having iterations of that success and process as we go. And it's gotten to where we are, and again, a lot of room to grow yet, but it really gets you going. Would we get here eventually, possibly. But, boy, it cuts down the learning curve and gives you confidence, and, you know, it's exponential in this business. It's not one plus one. It's, you know, one times two times two times two. As far as how you can grow and what you learn when you have that coaching. Pete, I don't know if you definitely want to add.

I'm sure I think you.

Okay, good.

Let's do.

We talked a little bit about the boot camp experience. So what we often find is that people, when they go through flight school, they go to a boot camp, and at that point, they could become very inspired in terms of coaching. And so talk about the. You know, and I think I have my thoughts as to why that is, but I'd like to, you know, your bootcamp experiences and how that may have affected decisions with the business or gave you more confidence.

Anything.

Just. Yeah, I'd like to hear about that. Cause I think it's interesting.

Sure. So, you know, when you get the toolkit and even when you go to. When you do flight school, there's in a sense, I don't want to say that you're alone because there's the virtual community, but. But you're kind of out here. Your friends don't know what you're doing. They don't understand what you're doing. Even if you explain that. They're like, okay, yeah, but whatever. I mean, it sounds cool, but sure, I bet it'll work. I mean, go at it, buddy. And you're like, well, no, I mean, it makes sense. It's working so far. I mean, and so you don't have that. That sense of community in terms of other people who you can see and touch and say hi to that are doing the same thing that you are. And so when I went to that first boot camp right after flight school, it's like a lot of things just came together in the sense of the education, but more importantly, like, oh, okay, I mean, I'm not crazy doing this flight school thing and trying to flip land. I mean, there's a lot of other people trying to do the same thing. And surprisingly, a lot of the people that you meet at boot camp have the same goals as you do, which is increase your passive income, stop doing whatever it is that you're currently doing, or substitute it, or just they're very aligned, much more than you would think. And so that's an additional kind of inspiration to even if anything, just to keep coming to those boot camps and, and spending time with like minded people. Because I mean, it's hard to put people that have those same types of aspirations in one room in such a geeky way, I guess.

Awesome.

Thank you.

From my perspective, the boot camp was. It was earth shattering because we had done the flight school at that point, but then when we finally went to boot camp, we jumped right in with the VIP room and what a great experience that is because it's not just. It is sharing of ideas, but there's so much help along the way, not just with all the coaches. And that's great. The coaches are phenomenal. But it's dealing with people, some who are further along in their journey than we are and some that are not as far along as we are. So it's great to trade those stories. And to really say, hey, this is what I'm having problems with. And hearing if somebody else is having a problem with that or maybe someone solved that problem. So it's not just the education that we're getting from the coaches. I say it every time I talk about this. The community is phenomenal. I've never had a, I've never been involved in a community that has been more open in discussing. We're all selling land. So there is a competition out there, if you will. But the reality is there's so much to go around that I never feel like I'm competing against somebody. So the boot camp is what brought me first to that realization of all the people that are out there, bringing us all together, having that common mindset and that focus to move forward. So you need to go to boot camp. I mean you can't stop along the way. Coaching is vital, but it is still one on one. The boot camp is where everyone's together and you really, really learn a lot.

And just to add one more piece, I think it's excellent both of you have said, but it also, for nothing else, you get away from your ordinary day to day where you're kind of in a bubble, in a land gig bubble where you can focus on your business. That's the number one thing everyone should be talking about. And even for Pete and I, we're online together every day, six days, seven days a week sometimes. But getting together and saying, hey, you really can move, you can really move the ball when you get together and spend those two, three days together. So it's totally valuable and needed as an impetus.

Yeah, I think Anthony makes a great point. Oh, I was just gonna piggyback on that because it's hard to put aside, I don't know, 8 times 3, 24 hours of the day or of 3 days to just think about the land business when you're kind of on your day to day and so to take that once every four months or however often you go, I mean it's just a time to re energize your business and get new ideas and, and just things that you need to start implementing to just keep moving the business along.

Yeah, with COVID 19, it's going to be really upsetting if we can't do the live one in August or October. But we can certainly get together on zoom virtually like this and we're going to try to keep that community feeling as much as we can and have everybody network and do all that. But I think the one big benefit of virtual Especially for Pete, is he doesn't have to get a hug from me.

It's like the air hug.

So he's feeling the love, but he.

Doesn'T have to be.

Like, this is really awkward. Like, Mark's now making it weird.

Okay, we have pictures.

We have not a big hugger.

I love that ritual. I love the new ending. We're getting so good at it. And then this came. It was a message from the gods, Mark, that that wasn't to be the ending.

I don't know.

No, I know. So we've got some questions here. Before we get to that, I feel like Scott Bossman has been very quiet. Scott, you have anything you want to just lap on?

He's muted.

Is he muted?

No.

Yeah, we can't hear you, Scott.

Sorry about that. I'm just soaking it all in. It's just. It's so inspiring to hear these stories week after week. And the fact that, you know, this is like the fourth week in a row we've done the grill, the geeks here. And it's just, you know, to know where you guys were 12 years ago and where you are now, it's just very inspiring, not only for me, but I think for the entire community. So thank you for coming on. And, you know, maybe at some point here during the column, this might be asked, but I think, you know, we have goals of financial freedom and time freedom. But if you could talk a little bit more about your drive behind that, a little bit more specifically about the why that drives you. If there's something that's more specific or more meaningful to you, I'd love to hear that as well.

I'll jump in first, if that's okay. It is time for me. Obviously, security is always nice on the money side, but I think it drives me as the time that I can spend defined, and it's going to be around family. It's going to be more time with my wife, who is retiring in about a year and a half, and making sure maybe I'll be able to spend more of that time with her. I have grandchildren now. I know, I know I look 20. But I do have grandchildren. And just kind of, you know, we've been at it for many years and just again, I still want to work. I still want to be active. And also then volunteering time, also for a couple of causes. And maybe, you know, going instead of working with Pete in Pennsylvania, maybe we'll go fishing or something like that. That would be nice for a change, right? So that would be cool.

Nice yeah, for me, I mean, it's what comes with the financial freedom, not necessarily the money, like Anthony said, but it's the. That open up and the time. I mean, not having to swap time for money, especially as an attorney, I mean, that's the life. You put in an hour and you get paid X amount for that amount of time. And if you don't put in the time, you don't get the money. And here you have an opportunity to build something that, yeah, you're always going to be putting in some time, but what it returns exponential and it will continue to increase and it can become more and more every year. And depending on how you build your business, you can tweak it so that you can work two, three hours a week, if that. And so that's what drives me.

I agree with both of them. That's exactly the drive. I've been blessed to have successful businesses, but they've all come at a serious cost of my time. And, you know, my kids are now grown, but, you know, there was a lot of times where I wasn't around, you know, so those things are the things I want to change going forward. So there's no again starting another business. I could go down that path. But this particular business is the one that really gives us the opportunity to have the right balance in our life.

No, I love it. Scott Bossman, you know, I hate giving you a compliment, but that's a great question.

Oh, well.

Well, thank you. That's so nice to get a compliment for a change.

I know. Look at the Zen master. He's like, really?

It's been a while.

It's been a while.

It's been a minute since I had a compliment.

Yeah. So Jen Ramquist wants to know, so now we're kind of getting the nuts and bolts of Gorilla and the Geeks. What, what marketing platforms would you say give you your best leads? Roberto, would you start with you?

Facebook? Undoubtedly. Facebook is the number one, followed by Craigslist, even though I personally slowed down a little bit on my Craigslist ads. But yeah, I mean, and then from there it's fostering those leads. And I guess the next one would be my buyers list, which. Which I try to market at least once a week. And so, yeah, but the number one lead generating source is Facebook for me, for sure.

Yeah. Same with some of the exact ditto, I could say. Facebook continues to grow and we are accentuating that piece as much as possible. And then our buyers list is growing and the deal of the week is starting to show. Some fruit now. Bear some fruit now. Pete's been working hard on that over the last few months in particular. And then previous buyers coming back and recommending. That's been nice too. Of late we've had a couple of families, you know say, hey, I'll buy two. So that comes with our growth. So looking forward to more of that. But Facebook by far right now is the most successful.

Nice peach, Schmidt. Looking back, is there something you would have done sooner or differently?

Yes. Do you want more than that?

Okay, next question.

Anthony mentions I work so hard on deal of the week. That would have been gone day one, but it really boils down to VA's. We got our Upwork VA for property lists right away, but after that, Anthony and I are doing way. We're doing way too much. Our swim lanes. And we color coded our swim lanes. Again, little geeky there, but it was red for Anthony. Blue. No particular reason, but it was all red and blue. And there was a little color that was the property, but it was like, why are we constantly doing all these things? So now our swim lanes look very different. There's very little blue, very little red. It's all virtual assistants. So you've got to invest in virtual assistants as soon as possible. They are the lifeblood of the business. And if I could have done something different, that would have been it right away.

Yeah, I always like saying you can't penny pinch your way to wealth. And that's one of the big pieces where people are so afraid to let go and invest some money in inexpensive virtual assistants. But it's the only way to really grow and build that machine. Roberto, what about you? Anything you would have done differently?

Well, I can't go back in time and Hear your podcast 10 years ago, which would have been really great because that would have put me eight years in the business by now. But assuming I can't do that, I too took a while to start hiring people and I think that could have jumped. Well, maybe it would have saved maybe some headaches and some busy work on my end. But again, I mean, I followed the recipe and maybe what I would have done is not wait three months between flight school and, I mean, yeah, between flight school and one on one coaching, because those were three months lost kind of in the limbo of me trying to figure things out when I could have had Tate's help from the beginning and started implementing some of his tips. So, yeah, I mean, I should have started hiring VA sooner as well. That would be my, my biggest thing.

Yeah, we hear that A lot. Like I remember Philip, Ma was like, why did I wait nine months? So, Anthony, what have been the mental blocks you worked through?

You know, you always want a successful model, and you're always thinking, okay, how am I going to get to here? How am I going to get to the next level? When can I, you know, start implementing the models that we've had in other businesses? And you have to push it away. Follow the recipe. You guys have laid it out. You have the coaching. You have the flight school. Just follow the recipe, grow with it. You want to add a little salt, you want to add a little seasoning, that's okay. But stay true to the recipe. It's there for you. If you do that. And also plug yourself into the community, you know how we grew, we kind of grew ourselves in our own little cocoon, you know, but we've learned that, hey, open up, share offer, ask questions, be a part of it, and you grow faster. So I think those two mental blocks kind of open up. We're not in competition. All great people, quite frankly, haven't had a negative experience yet. So open up and just follow the recipe. You don't have to be the genius behind this business. You have to be, you know, smart. Follow the recipe, put your work in, and by all means, yeah, get those vas. Get those vas early.

Pete, how about you?

Mental blocks. It's really, again, I would say it's mostly about getting out of your own way with the recipe. I could think of a thousand ways that I could air quote, again, do it better. But the reality is, until you prove that the way that's been given you doesn't work, you got to go with it. And even along the way, as you're proving that the recipe does work, sure there are tweaks that you can make to make it your own. And I'm sure that in talking to the community, everyone does things a little bit differently. How do they structure their deals of the week? How do they structure all the terms on everything? That's all fine, but until you're proven, until you prove out the model, so don't go crazy on the changes. Again, it is all about that. So that's definitely mental. You have to really buy in and keep moving forward with it.

Yeah. Roberto, how about you?

I think you touched on it. It's spending money to make life easier that's been probably the biggest mental block. Because you start selling land and making money, the last thing you want to do is go and spend it on some software or some other thing. It's like it cost you a lot of money to make it, but it's hard to notice from the beginning that that expense might be an investment because it's going to make your life a lot easier. And at the end of the day, we're in this business to make life easier, to give us more time, to give us more freedom, and we've got to spend money to get there. But I think I'm a little bit over the hump on that. But at the beginning, it was definitely, it's been my biggest mental block to buy the software, to pay the VAs, to do all those things. It's hard, and I think people will get to it in their own time once they realize they need to do it. If they really want to build a business that they're not going to be working in it 24 7.

Yeah, I feel like the Zen master, like, should just have like a weekly sort of like class on getting centered, you know, getting out of your own way. The inner game of land investing. Mike, are you. Are you down?

I'll take a compliment. Sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit.

Oh, man.

City. That didn't last long.

I thought it was good. I thought it was good, so. No, go ahead, Mike.

I want to ask a question, and maybe it won't get, like, rated as the best question on the call.

But you know what, Mike? It's coming from you. It's the best question on the call.

Well, we look at, you know, Anthony and Pete, you know, you guys have experienced all the business models.

We look at Roberto.

I mean, you're very well educated. You're all educated, you're all experienced. And can anybody do this? Do you feel that you guys had advantages because of all this? I mean, what if someone's out there, maybe they haven't built a business, they haven't maybe gone through, you know, high level education.

Can.

Do you feel anybody can do this?

I say unequivocally, I've dealt in education all my life. If you're literate and you have common sense and know how to follow a recipe, you can do this. Did some of our education experience help us?

Sure.

Cut some of the corners off or what have you, but you can definitely be as successful as anyone else as long as you follow the recipe, follow the mentoring, join the community, definitely be successful.

I think regardless of your education or what your background is, as long as you have the discipline to stick to it doesn't matter what you've gone through or what your background is. If you've got the discipline to stick to it. You can make it work. I mean, it doesn't matter what it is that your background is. You can make it work.

Yeah, I completely agree with that. The piece I would add to that is that everyone brings their own personal experiences and their personal. Their strengths and their weaknesses to it. Some of the strengths that I've had are great for us, but then I have plenty of weaknesses that even things like owning a business sometimes does pull me a different direction because I'm thinking a different way. So we all just need to bring those things that are our strengths. We need to use those very well. I can't stress enough that again, in talking to the community, there are so many varied people doing this, and everyone has their own flavor to do it. And I don't see that anyone has a specific. Again, the discipline. You do need to have discipline. You're 100% right on that one, because that is what. It doesn't matter your background. It matters your discipline. So, like, eating healthy. We'll all start eating healthy, and a couple weeks later, it starts to slide, and things change. But it's that discipline that keeps you on board. So it's all about that.

Yeah. I mean, that's why I have the rope bossman into doing these Facebook lives, so I can look at him, and it motivates me to eat clean and exercise. Otherwise, I would just let myself go. Right. So, Roberto, we'll start with you. You know, let's just talk a little bit about COVID 19 and your current business. Have you been affected? You know, what's. What's. What's the current state of. Of things right now?

Yeah. So when it first hit. So the way I have my business structured, it's not 100% this way, but I like to have my payments come in either the 1st or the 15th of every month. So I set people up to either get the automatic withdrawal, either the first or the 15th of every month. So I remember March. When March came along on the 15th, I was a little hesitant, and there was no change. April 1st, no change. And up until April 15th, I had. Before the 15th, I had maybe two people call me up and say, hey, are you doing anything with the COVID deal? I mean, banks are extending mortgages or whatever. Are you doing something? And I worked with a couple of people. I said, sure. I mean, last thing I want is for you to lose your land. If you're in a tough spot right now, I have the flexibility to help you out. So happy to work something out. And so we cut his payment by half for the next two months and we just added it to the end of the term. And then I had maybe at the beginning of this month today, some should be hitting it, and I haven't checked geek pay today, but on the 1st of May, maybe one or two more than usual, but not that much, which is surprising. I would have expected some, some more people default than they have, but, but that just hasn't been the case. So I'm, I'm pretty happy with things right now. On the sales side, I was pretty scared because the first half of April I didn't sell not a single piece of property. Like the first two weeks of April I didn't sell anything. But then it picked up and I sold five or six the second half of April. And so it was like, okay, well, then I guess it's not that bad after all. And so this month has been okay too, so far. And so, I mean, it's. I haven't really felt it. I thought it was going to be worse, but maybe it'll come later in the year for our business, I don't know. But right now, no complaints.

We've seen very good on the land sales side, We've seen some great things happening during this time. I don't, can't explain exactly why, but we're seeing a lot of deals going through. On the income side, we had two people who defaulted or they didn't make their payments, but we reached out to them. They were all about. In these two cases, we were able to just say, they said, you know what? How about we need to get out of the deal? So we were like, absolutely. And we sold the land pretty much before it was gone. So they were very, actually very happy that the deal, you know, they weren't going to be held to anything beyond that. So it was very amicable. But there's nobody who's really just not stopped paying for us during this time, where they're just ignoring or anything like that. It's been a lot of communication.

All right, fantastic. Let's see. Justin Landowski's got a question. How many hours do you work on the business weekly, and how does that compare to when you started? Anthony, you want to start with that?

You know, it's kind of funny. I'm still probably putting in 15ish hours a week only because we want to accelerate and we're, we're kind of really redoing processes as we go along. As far as the marketing and this, I'm probably only putting a few hours in a week because we have other people working on that. I sell more, but most of the marketing is being done. But to continue to grow, I'm putting in a few more hours. But if we just wanted to maintain where we were, I'm probably only putting in five hours on maintaining the business. And compared to where we were, yeah, I was always putting in 15 or more hours a week.

Pete.

I am putting in a lot of hours, but it's all about making sure I'm training the VA's. It's not been about a lot of the business stuff. So every single time I do something, I record it and I send it to my VA so that they can do it next time. There is a lot of upfront costs. I know that Scott Todd talks about that during flight school. It's so important to take that time even if I'm just about to do something. Every time I am about to do something again for the fifth time, I'm like, why am I doing this? Record it now and record it in small chunks so that I can put it in my Airtable support page and get it out there. So it's really. So if I'm putting in 15 hours a week, it's because of those pieces trying to get away from that. So it's something that's going to pay off in major dividends as we go forward. So that's really investment.

Yeah, same with me. Yeah, it's the investment time.

All right. Roberto, last time we were boot camp we were hazing you about this.

Well, so it's funny you say this because this morning I'm listening to an audiobook, Robin Sharma's the Greatness Guide. I don't know if you've heard it or read it, but it's really good. And one of the things he says that I thought was really applicable to that question is he trains NASA and leadership in NASA. And he was talking about his experience in NASA and how for a shuttle to take off it, it uses up more fuel than it takes for the shuttle to go around the orbit of the Earth. And to me that really resonated and it's a great analogy to this business because at the beginning of the business I had another 40 hour a week job. I mean, that's just the reality. I was working after work putting in a lot more hours than I am today. I'm not saying I'm just orbiting around and not doing anything. But now it is a little bit more like what Pete was saying, which is training VA's doing videos doing template emails, doing things that are not necessarily focused on the gritty and the small things of buying and selling land, but really what's going to help and put the business in the next level, which is making it run on its own or with little supervision or, you know, just how. However much or however little you want to put into it. But at the beginning, it was much, much more than what it is today. Today, probably in a week, I'll spend 10 to 15 hours during the pandemic, I'll probably spending a little bit more time just because I have the time, but I've been using a lot of that time for more reading and just leisure time, just kind of enjoying the fruits of it a little bit.

That's great, Mike. Scott, any final questions before we go to our giveaway?

I'm good.

I thought it was some great content here. I thank you for coming on. I say this every week. We do grow the geeks. It's true, though. Someone out there is listening. Somebody out there is contemplating making the step, and you may very well have inspired them and literally changed your life by telling your story. So thank you.

Welcome.

It's a pleasure.

And to echo on that a little further. I mean, I think, you know, Pete and Anthony, you guys made a great impression at the last boot camp. You got up there and told your story, and a lot of people were affected by that. And a couple people mentioned in the chat today that, Roberto, they heard the podcast with you on side Hustle Nation, and that was one of the things that propelled them into this business. And I just think that's so cool because now you're passing on your stories to others and it's propelling them to action. And I think you guys need to feel good about that because it's.

When it.

When it's. When that happens, it's not only about your journey. It's more about the pebble in the pond thing, like Mark always talks about at boot camp, which it's just really powerful to think about that because, you know, Mark might have been the original pebble in the pond, but then we're all doing it to some degree and it's helped.

I don't know.

It's a pretty cool cyclical thing that happens in this community. So thank you, guys. And it was fun.

No, it's so true, Scott. I started maybe being the pebble and pound, but now we got a meteor shower. Yeah. Yeah, it's. It's really cool to watch. So, Roberto, with this little bit of extra time we have, Pete and Anthony are at some point going to graduate from one on one coaching. And then the ultimate question is now what? Because between you and me, we all know they don't want to really leave it. But then again, you know, the investment they're making, they want that to stop for sure. So the question is, the next piece of that puzzle of their growth is a new program called Boardroom. Can you explain to them what Boardroom is and what your experience of it was like or has been so far?

Sure. So at the end of February, we got together in Tampa with another set of land investors. There were five of us, if I remember correctly. And basically we're all each other's board of directors. And so we sit down for a weekend and we talk about each other's businesses, what we're doing, what we think we're doing. Right, what we want to do next. And we lay it all out and we criticize each other. I mean, in a good way. We give positive feedback. We say, hey, maybe you should be doing this or did you think about this? Or maybe you should consider doing this or that or the other. And it's people that have been through one on one coaching, they know the business they're following, if not the exact same recipe, some form of fashion of it. So putting five people who are running a very similar business to yours in a room and getting their feedback on it, I mean, it's priceless. And for me, on top of that, it continues to be the accountability factor, which is we're having a call every six weeks and you want to show up and say that you did what you promised you said you would do six weeks before and share what you've been doing and help out the other guys, see where they're struggling. And maybe you have a, I don't know, you've been through the same problem and you already found a solution or you have a va, or you have a software, or you have whatever it is that helped you jump that hurdle. And I mean, it's just great. And again, it's kind of the same feeling of the bootcamp where it's a whole weekend where you're just talking and thinking about land and what to do next and how to grow your business. Can't really put a price on that if you're truly vested in growing your business.

Yeah. I mean, even just that one insight that you implement could make a huge, huge difference. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in time. And I think it's, you know, there's a difference between five of you getting together on your own and trying to do it on an ad hoc basis versus being with your. The coach who's facilitating it and, you know, asking the questions that maybe someone wouldn't want to ask or, you know, providing a little bit of feedback here and there that. That couldn't be provided without that. That knowledge. So, you know, just. Just want to plant that seed, guys. That. Because it used to be like, after coaching was like, like now what? And, and so now we have that and.

Right.

So just.

Yeah, and I forgot. I mean, the, the having the coach there guide the conversations is much easier because, I mean, if. If you guys and I and maybe another two or three line investors sat down, maybe we wouldn't know where to. Where to begin or where to start analyzing and to have the structure and the skeleton of. Of what you're going to be talking about. I mean, you. You get a chance to talk about every face of the business and how you're going to improve every face of the business and feed off of everyone in the room, including the coaches.

Yeah.

Great.

Yeah. Thanks, Romeo. So I want to thank you guys so much for taking time out of your. Your valuable Fridays and sharing your wisdom, sharing your insights, sharing your journey, your experience with everybody. You know, the three of you are so inspiring and, you know, if I could just reach out through that zoom.

Pete.

Come on.

You know, but no, no, in all seriousness, though, like, so appreciative, I really think, like, you know, these, these stories are priceless for everybody because it's. It's one thing for, you know, me to talk about what I did. You know, I'm not even relatable anymore. I've been doing this for so long and even, like, you know, Bossman and Zaynor OGs. But to hear what you guys have done, just, you know, a year, two and a half years, and how it's moved the needle in your life, how it's going to continue to move is amazing. So thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, so. And then everybody who's on, thank you guys so much, but we're not done. We're not done, is we? The whole week we've been doing these Facebook lives. We've been going straight. So, Scott, are we Ready for the $1,997 giveaway?

We are ready, and I'm excited about this one. You ready?

It is Jason Mendoza. Wow. He's. You know what? Jason Mendoza, he has been consistent on these lives. Congrats.

Yeah, he's on the lives a lot he asked a lot. He asked a lot of great questions. He's. He's been through flight school, and I know he has coaching on his mind, so that's. That's cool.

That's really cool. Wow.

Congrats. This is a random generator.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Yeah. So the Land Arb Queen is on from Hawaii. She says, mahalo. Thank you for your time and openness to sharing. Bill Dickens says congratulations. Jason Andy Chen. Thank you for sharing. Lance ellis. Thanks, everyone. Dr. Lance Ellis. Good to see you, buddy. Bill Dickens has great grill. The geeks. Thank you so much for sharing today. See? Oh, Racine, the machine. The land deal machine is on. Hi, Racine. Aloha. But thanks, everybody. And are we. Are we all gonna do this together? Sure, let's do this. One, two, three, let's. And of course, wash your hands. Be safe out there. For sure. All right, guys. Well, thanks again, and thank you, guys. You know, this is. Yeah, Pete and Anthony, we're gonna get you guys on the podcast. Roberto, we have to. We have to do, like, the Century Club podcast with.

You.

Do all that. So.

Great.

I love it. Haven't been on the podcast, so that'd be cool.

Yeah.

So this is a see you soon.

Not beautiful.

All right.

All right, guys.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Nice to meet you guys. We'll see you, Scott, Mark, we'll see you guys.