Nitecap with Kirk Stewart

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Foreign.

Welcome to Nightcap.

Cheers.

Cheers. How's it going tonight?

Great. Welcome.

So just a little brief intro here to guy intro here tonight, guys. First of all, things are going to go off the rails tonight because our fearless leader Mark Podolski is currently sitting in complete silence and darkness at a darkness retreat. So imagine that. No light, no phone, no. No night cap, no work. Just marking his thoughts in a room for an entire week.

Yeah.

So I'm excited to talk to Mark about that next week. But while he's off the grid finding his inner peace, we're gonna hear, we're gonna be here tonight causing some, some land, I don't know, land chaos maybe. So enjoy. My name Scott. Yeah. Shenanigans. My name is Scott Bossman. I've been a land investor for almost 10 years now. I'm joined by Mike Zano, the land pilgrim. Remember that guy?

Yeah, I was a land pilgrim back in the day.

Zen master Mike Zano. We're also joined by John Handsome Rob. I like to call him Eight is Enough Burnett. Because he's got lots of kids. John, what's going on?

Many kids? Not much. Mostly just all of my kids, so.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then tonight we're doing a little land geek spotlight. We're going to, we're going to chat with Kirk Stewart who began land investing in the fall of 2024. He's gone from zero to 72 properties acquired in just eight months. And it's going to be pretty awesome hearing his story. So, Kirk, welcome to you. Thanks for coming.

Thanks for having me. It's. Yeah, it was interesting to share the different journeys, different perspectives.

For sure. For sure. And. Well, first off, what are you folks, what do you fellas drinking tonight today?

You know, I, it's. I'm wearing a little trip down here in Florida. So I went down to the bar and they may be some sort of anchored, oldfashioned. It's pretty good.

Extra cherries, Extra cherries. Very good, Very good. What about you? What about you, John Burnett?

I got no cherries. This is just, just straight, strong. It's Evan Williams barrel strength, which is the Evan Williams that is worth drinking in my opinion.

So this might be the first night you're having a drink with us.

I know. You know, I, I decided I was going to try. I tried an apple cider vinegar whiskey replacement. It was awesome. And now I can't look at apple cider vinegar. Like, I just can't handle it.

So.

So here I am with my Evan.

Williams, so simple Hendrix gin and Tonic. Not a short one though, like you guys.

That's a tall.

You got a full hour of this, buddy.

That's right.

I got my short one here, but I got a long one next to me. So that's my refill. But. Well, Kirk, again, thanks, thanks very much for joining us tonight. And we like to do this occasionally. We like to, you know, chat with folks who are, who are maybe a little bit newer to the business who are doing well. So, Kirk, let's, let's go back to the beginning. What, what was going on in your life when you discovered land investing and what made you decide to take the leap back last October?

Well, Zyno convinced me, really. You know, I, I, I came across the Land Geek dirt rich book, I think in maybe winter of 2023. And you know, I was, I was just one of those guys that was looking for different passive alternatives, right. And investigated a few passively, ironically. But when I read the book from Mark, you know, it resonated with me. It made sense. Mark came off as genuine and geeky in his own right, and it resonated for me. So, you know, I put the book on the shelf in parallel to that. You know, some things were going on with work and I had been in the Same industry for 33 years spread over three companies. So, you know, I've, I've had very good success in my, my professional life. I've been very blessed. Had the opportunity to make a lot of money, which are great things. But, you know, I started to have different stressors with different management and, you know, just a lot of stuff in the corporate side of things. So fast forward to the fall of 2024. There were some changes that affected me and I kind of saw them coming in, you know, in advance, so I was kind of prepared. But we parted ways in October and it was a great day. It was a wonderful day. I smiled ear to ear for the next week and, you know, it was great for a few different reasons. You know, I was glad to be leaving that particular employer at that particular time in my career and a lot of nice bonuses. I had a nice severance check behind me. So that put me in a situation where I basically picked up the phone to Mike Zion and said, hey, let's do this. I now have the time to be able to do this full time. And that was always a concern of mine. And I think for anybody listening that is new or considering getting into this, you do have to put the time in, and anybody can put the time in. But there's Going to have to be some sacrifices made. I didn't have to put the sacrifices of my time in. And it's been a real nice thing with my wife. You know, she says that I've been far more calm and cool. My work life balance has been great since this happened, you know, and now we're on a nice trajectory to get this thing up and running. So I had the time and, you know, I had a little piggy bank of money in regards to capital that I was able to use and deploy pretty rapidly to be able to launch this thing as I envisioned and as I did so pull the trigger with Mike in October and in November, I guess that would have been four weeks into flight school. You know, I started pulling on those levers, and everybody speaks about pulling on all the levers early and often. And for me, that meant buying a couple wholesale and a couple on land arp, you know, just to understand the process. And I'll test out a couple counties that I wanted to work in. So that was really helpful just to understand from a buyer's perspective what the process was like. And it also gave me inventory. Once you have inventory now, you can start selling. So beginning the steps, beginning to put all the pieces together for the recipe of success. You know, I started in November, really started to accumulate more properties in December. And it's December I made my first sale, which was ironically also my first wholesale purchase. So I think it was about 40 days in inventory. But logically, first one you buy is first one you sell. Great. Continued through flight school, continued to buy like hell in January, but it was a little bit of a slow month from sales side. I actually didn't get any orders in January, and starting to scratch my head hard. You can see I still have damage from that. But then February, things started to happen. And I think one of the most biggest things that happened for me in February, leading to beginning to get sales, was what I started doing in January. And that's marketing consistently, you know, you have to be so consistent so many aspects of this business to be successful. You have to be consistent in acquiring properties, you know, primarily. You know, that's coming through mailers. But, you know, there are different tricks here and there to increase your inventory, but you have to be consistent. You have to be strategic about how you're doing it. And then on the marketing side, you know, I just was doing this relatively haphazardly and not strategically. So I just started doing it. Two Facebook ads every day from this account, then the next account, then the next account and just forced myself into that consistency and started tracking my numbers. So that was a KPI for mine. And then also became much more diligent in collecting my leads. And February started selling a little bit. But March was a big breakout month for me. I think I had 16 sales in March and then 14 in April and, and so far here in May. I was at 8 this morning and now I'm at 18. I had put a land arm and wholesale list out there and a couple of crazy guys decided to pull the trigger and buy all of them. So you know, it was a nice, nice way to get my revenue up. So, you know, right now I'm past the $4,000 per month looking forward into June and we still have 10 days left in May to make that go a little bit higher. So hopefully by the end of the year my target is to be, you know, that 10, $11,000 per month going forward. And you know what I'd say now the business model just is so clear, you know, adding that revenue every month again, provided you're doing the right things to continue to acquire properties, continue to do marketing consistently and do all the right things on the sales side.

It works well. That's amazing progress. And I mean, I mean you talk about something we talk about all the time and that's just consistency. And you know, this, this business is not altogether really difficult. Right. There's a lot of moving parts and you have to be consistent with those moving parts. You have to. If you consistently mail, you will buy property. If you consistently market, you will sell property. Right. So and sometimes you, in the beginning stage of the business, and I know Mike and John can, can relate to this, you have to kind of find the discipline to be consistent, to sit down to do those things that you don't necessarily like to do. But you know, they're only going to take. How long does it take to set a Facebook ad, Kirk, for you know.

A property and 10 minutes.

10 minutes, right. Like we can all be in a little bit of short term pain to market consistently while we get these things set up for, you know, automation or delegation later. So.

Well, and I would say that was something else that helped with the time and I wasn't really crunched for time but you know, there were things that I didn't like to do, you know, and outsourcing that due diligence, you know, straight away, outsourcing title search, having somebody make at least a third of my Facebook ads, having one of my other VAs manage my third, third party land sites for Me, it all helps now and also having somebody else just doing the menial tasks that take time but not a lot of thought per se. It just lets you work on the business, not necessarily in it. Not that I do that perfectly, but you know, every little bit, Every little bit helps.

Right? Awesome. Mike and John, do you guys have a question for Kirk?

Mike.

Oh, Mike, you're mute.

Thank you. A lot to unpack there. You know, you said, you know, this resonated with you, but also I'm wondering in the beginning, what hesitations did you have? You know, this is something maybe a lot of people find this online, right, Kirk? They see it like, is this another Internet thing? So I'm curious what hesitations you had and you know, just talk a little about that, the beginning, you know, just taking that first couple steps along this path.

So I think it was both, both a personality issue for me plus a, a realistic limitation for me. So, you know, I was a C level individual at my company and I had a breadth of responsibility. I think of 48 people and I traveled, I don't know, 40% of my time and I just had a lot of admin work and it was common for me to be, you know, in the office, which fortunately is only 10 minutes away, you know, on a Saturday or Sunday. And with the travel and all that, I had a lot of time commitments. Right. So that was a very practical reality. And my personality, I can't compromise, right. So I'm not going to compromise to my employer because I have obligations there. But likewise didn't want to compromise to myself if I was going to take this bite of the apple with flight school. So I was a little bit self reserved and not wanting to cheat myself of what I knew the program could bring. But I also had obligations, you know, in the office that I didn't want to compromise either.

Excellent. Thank you.

John, you're on the spot.

Yeah.

Kirk, I'm curious, like, I don't know, I find that people come into this business from a variety of different places. You know, some people have we managerial experience, some people are techies, some people are just, you know, people have a variety of different skill sets and I find that those tend to flavor their businesses. I'm curious what the skill sets that you had that you brought to the table in your business that you felt like were kind of helped you reach.

The point where you did so way back when my, my family lived in Kentucky for three years. My dad was going to seminary to become a Methodist preacher. And to be clear, I'm the. I'm the black sheep, and my sister, she's the angel. But, you know, I was like, in third or fourth grade, and I don't remember. Probably everybody did this at some point during elementary school. Yeah, you sold stuff. And we were selling candy bars, right. For fundraising, for whatever. I don't know. And I remember enjoying that. And I remember that my mom raved that I did such a great job at sales. Fast forward to 2004 is when I entered into technical sales for my last company, but one before that, and started my sales career. So starting out very much a technical sales role, you know, had a mechanical engineering degree and toiled about in regional sales, and in 2012, became sales manager, sales director, VP of sales, CSO. But I sold, and I sold. I would like to think well, and that, you know, put me in a position to have those opportunities and selling in that industry, you know, we're talking multimillion dollar deals. You know, $50 million order to General Motors, a $75 million deal to Caterpillar. And coming into this, I really believed and moderated my expectations that those sales skills would translate into selling what I viewed as rather transactional engagements with both buyers and sellers. You know, when you're selling from somebody, you're effectively selling them on the idea of giving your land. Right. But, you know, I've. I've brought that skill set in. And that's the thing that, you know, my wife, when she's hearing this in the background, and she's like, you know, you're just great with people. And I think that's the skill that I've brought in. And it's. It's on both sides, the acquisition intake side, as well as links, the selling. So that's really three of the four elements. You know, nothing to do with mailings and nothing to do with marketing, but really just getting on the phone with people and talking and getting to know what their interests are and putting them at ease, that's the skill set I think I've brought in. That's. It's translating. And I didn't think it would.

Well, that's amazing. Yeah, that's awesome. Mike Zano's like the king of that. He can get on the phone with somebody and, you know, they get on the phone angry with him. They're like, I'm never gonna sell you my land. And then five minutes later, they're best buds, and Mike's buying from them at 25 cents on the dollar. He's the land whisperer.

Yeah, I tried.

Oh, man.

So are you gonna keep, you know, you're good at that. So that, that, that begs the question, you know, as you grow this business, will you, will you desire to keep that role? Or how are you going to find someone that does that as effectively as you?

So it's, it's a fair question. And you know, I, the, the light at the end of the tunnel where, you know, the, the incomes are, you know, satisfactory to the lifestyle, you know, and that is in line with the last penny in the pig bank. Piggy bank. You know, it's a good question because the head of hunters are calling and boy, they, they got some sweet money. They really do. So, you know, if I decide to take that fork in the road where I do go back into corporate, then that next step of letting go and having a sales manager is key. And letting go and having an intake manager. And, and, and one of the things I think so many people have repeated is that everybody runs their business differently. Right. And there's no right or wrong way. So if I take the other fork in the road, I'm not sure that I'm going to give it up because I like it and I seem to be good at it. And going back to the statement that my wife feels that my work life balance is just fine. Why, why increase a cost if the output is good here? So we just got to figure out if we're going to go left or right.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so she said, and it seems that you've become more relaxed and into this new role. It's, it's sort of soothing to you, is it? You know, is it just really you're enjoying it that much and just gelling with it?

You know, it's fun, you know, and I just, I do enjoy speaking with the people and I enjoy the stories.

Yeah.

You know, I just, I just had one. I, I had an agreement from a seller to sell. Okay, great. And it just got dragged on forever, right, Benny? I, I had to get this deed to Benny and I sent it to an address that I had mailed him at and I didn't reconfirm that that was his address. So called him up after two weeks, I was like, oh, I don't have that address anymore. I'm here. Okay, UPS some new documents. Great, get back to him. It's like, oh, but I forgot to tell you, I've got my, my, my wife Frida, she's my. Now my ex wife, so you have to change the name. So another round of documents. Okay, thanks. Well, it turns out Benny and Frida are not exactly good talking terms. And he could not get a hold of her, convince her to sign this document, whatever. So I'm like, all right, just give me your phone number, give me your address. You know, I tried calling her. I didn't get through and work my magic, whatever. But I went to Walmart. I got myself a $30 gift card, sent it in the mail with the reself return envelope. UPS and crossed the fingers, and I.

Got that letter today. That was just awesome. The best thing.

I love that. Yeah. You know, a little sugar goes a long way. I remember back in the day with certain counties, I would deal with a lot and you know, the county workers typically don't get a lot of praise or, or, or just people just being nice to them. And I'll tell you what, a few, a few gourmet muffins and coffee, when I called up, whatever I wanted was on the double, you know, so it definitely, that's a great tactic. Goes a long way.

I always did fairy tale brownies. That was my, my sweetener of choice.

No, brownies. Yeah, fairy tales.

Yeah.

Love brownies. I had a title company. I sent them brownies about every three months. They gave me so much advice. It was great. Well worth the $45 every quarter.

Yeah. The county workers are your friends. The title company, the bank. I bring donors to the bank once a month because I'm in there so much notarizing stuff.

I notarized 12 documents today.

12.

I am getting the. Yeah, I'm taking care of that so I don't have to that anymore.

But they must know you by name, right, John? You come in and they do. Yeah, they just check me in. They're like, hey, Scott, have a seat. Somebody right with you. Okay, thanks.

I like going to the bank. I feel like that's one of my enjoyable things. I go in, you know, it's kind of like a hometown bank. They all know you. You go in. Yeah, I mean, I, I, My max speed is like, you know, a half, you know, just. I'm so slow. I'm just like enjoying every step. And I come in, I sit down, drive in the truck going. It's just like, I mean, I just love it. I love that slow motion. I love. But yeah, some things we love, we don't have to give them up.

That's awesome. Well, Kirk, I have a question for you. I mean, so you, you had maybe a little bit more time, a little bit more money than, than most of us when we start. I didn't have a Lot of, of either of those things. If you were, you know, let's say somebody is on the fence about this and they don't have a lot of time and Maybe they have 5,000 or $10,000 to start. If, if someone could, you know, get started with that, number one, do you think, you know, would, would it be, is it doable and is it worth it? And like, if you could get, like, if you only did one deal a month or every couple months, the last or, or one deal a month or every, you know, two or three deals a month, the last few months, would it still be worth it, do you think?

You know, it, it's, it's tough to answer because I think everybody's situation is unique, right? And what I want to get out of this is different than you, is different than Mike, it's different than John, right? So I think it is possible. But you know, people also need to be thinking about, you know, that next round of getting a little bit more money. But you know, what I've learned and understood, you know, I've got two key takeaways. One, the business model works, right? You are going to make money and it may not be as quick as you want, it may not be as much as you envision, but that will grow and that will be linear and while not perpetual, probably 36 or 48 months into the future. So it goes back to consistency. You have to be consistent, all facets to continue this linear growth. And part of that is getting money. But getting money once you're established. And this is really point number two, you can get that money, you know, other investors that see that you are having success, that you are dedicated to the process. You know, there are other land investors that will fork over cash because it's good money for them as well, you know, and I don't know, it's just, it's really interesting to talk about money. At first I thought this was going to be a barrier to get that next round of funding, whatnot, but it's there, right? And even if it's friends and family, if you have a track record and you can show them your numbers and you can talk about these deals where you're getting 4x5x and just explain it to them. People have money, you know, maybe not everybody has all the money in the world, but there's money out there. So I guess for that newbie on the, the fence, so to speak, don't be afraid to get in, find out what works for you, but don't lose sight of the Fact that you are going to need some more money somehow, some way, but it's not hard to get, right?

That's a great point. You know, you could often just go up to somebody and say, hey, you know, I'm, I'm looking for someone who might be happy with this type of return. Do you know anybody? Rather than say directly to them and next thing you know, oh, you know what? I'd love that, you know. Oh, really? Oh, and you never. It's a great point, Kirk. There's so many people in our lives that we don't realize have capital that they would love to deploy, just don't know where to deploy it. And until you have those conversations, you don't even cover it.

Well, you know what, I'm 50 years old, right? And I've been toiling around, same as a lot of my peers, you know, and I talk about what I'm doing, I explain it, I get all excited. Like, you know what? I think I got some money. I think, I think I'll give you some money. Right? So again, it's not hard, but you got to have confidence and you got to have a little bit of a track record.

Yeah, yeah. You know, you mentioned that consistency a few times, and we all know that's key for someone who's new. I mean, I think that's one of the one thing that defines, you know, it's gonna either make or break somebody, right, that consistency. What, what tips, tricks, tactics. I mean, other than just grinding it out or maybe that is the answer. Or what would you say to someone who's new to, to maintain that consistency?

Well, you know, our, our, our group likes to recommend books and whatnot. And you know, there's, there's a lot of similarly themed books that would, you know, preach consistency in different forms or way. And this was a book that I had read before coming to the group called the M. Hal Elrod, I believe. And you know, basically the message was, you know, do these five things in the morning before you do anything else, you know, and, and you know, there's aspects of having your silence, of having, you know, self affirmations and visualizing what you're going to do. Your exercise, your, your, your journaling for the day. And I think just establishing some habits, and habits don't come easy. You can start anything very easily, but until you force yourself into the consistency of doing those things that you want to do, it's difficult to create those habits. So, you know, I challenge anybody just to establish a habit based on consistent action.

Nice Nice.

Yeah, I like that. That just goes hand in hand with what you were saying earlier. Having the discipline to, to sit down to. To do those consistent things. John, you were going to say something.

Oh, yeah. You know, I had a question too, Kirk. You know, you mentioned on the delegation side of things right now, you're really happy with your work life balance. And so, you know, there's certain pieces of the business that you're maintaining, but there's also pieces that you've delegated as well.

Right.

So posting on Facebook, posting on some land sites, I'm curious, kind of what, what your, I guess, reasoning has been or like, what. What's the, the switch that flips where you're like, it's time for me to delegate this particular task.

You know, I mean, you can't deny that there is an aspect of time. You know, some things just took more time that I was willing to put in. And some of those things were low value tasks. You know, the $5 activities. Why, why am I doing a $5 activity? And I know my time could be spent better by strategizing the next change or tweak that I'm going to make in my business. Why would I not put time into that strategic chunk of time that I have during the day versus, you know, doing spreadsheet work, this and that and the other. Right. So pure time value of that time. And there are some things I just didn't like doing. Right. And that's the nice thing about this business. You can kind of pick and choose what you like to do and get rid of the stuff that you don't like to do or do the stuff, you know, do you do well and get rid of and farm out the stuff that you don't do well. So a lot of different variables on what I've chosen to push out so far. That's great.

Awesome. So, well, we got to ask this question because we asked it of everybody. So we want to know, Kirk, what's your favorite deal to date? Tell us, tell us the details. What'd you buy it for, what you sell it for, or what? What? Just made it a lot of fun.

So my funnest purchase was from a gentleman out in Kennebunkport, Maine. And Charles, you know, it's the first question I ask anybody. I ask them where they're, where they're at. And usually I already know, but it's a conversation starter. And, you know, how did you come into this land? Right. And you get all kinds of different stories, but the most comical one was From a guy in Kenny Bunkport, Maine. And he's like, well, it was 4 o' clock in the morning. I was on ebay and I was drunk.

That's awesome.

So he bought it and I sold it. He made 50 bucks. He's happy, I'm happy, you know, and I, I, I sold that one in the end off of a neighbor letter, you know, which is investment and, you know, just easy peasy. But my most interesting deal, I, I bought a parcel from a couple in St. Petersburg for a parcel in Arkansas. And they're like, you know, we got this, we got these other half acre. We got a half acre somewhere else. Interested? I'm like, yeah, not really. I don't do business in that county. And let me look into a little bit. I looked into it. I'm like, you know, there's no buying and selling. And that's kind of one of the rules in our strategic choosing of counties, you know, other land investor traction. And there's none of it. I'm like, I don't know, make. I'm not interested, but make me a stupid offer and I'll take it off your hands so you don't have to worry about paying taxes ever again. They made me a stupid offer. I took it. So. So I paid 200 bucks for this half acre, and I sold on terms for 5,300.

Not bad. That's almost good. That's almost as good as that one deal we had, though.

No, but I like the way Kirk positioned that. That's very unique because a lot of similar deals. Correct. But I would always say, hey, you know, I'm not really interested, but, you know, you know, if you want me to take you off your hands for a couple hundred bucks, I'll do that. But I like how you positioned it by saying, you make me a stupid offer, you really. Little mental trick there, I think. Nice takeaway.

Well, you know, in. You guys probably heard the stories as well. You know, whether the family inherits a property that they've never been to, that they don't have any interest in, that they're not, not geographically close to. I've had several people say that they won or like in a, you know, a raffle at county fairs, they won some property. And it's like, for whatever reason, you know, people have this land.