One Plan Plus One Big Why Equals Raving Success

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm super excited for today's guest because he's a fellow land geek. He started in, I think he started with a toolkit, then with the flight school and then into one on one coaching. I can't wait to hear about his journey. But he also has some really specific tips for us because he's crushing it in one specific area that's that we don't talk enough about. But before we talk to our guests, I'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host, the brain, the professor, Scott Todd from Scott Todd.net landmodo.com automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, posting domination.com thelandgeek learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas. Scott Todd, are you psyched? Are you pumped? Mark?

It's always, it's always fun for me to see the evolution of people, right? Like I get to see them on the front end through flight school, all the way through their progress. I always look forward to these podcasts. So, yeah, I'm excited.

All right, so today's guest is going to be a little anonymous because unfortunately he still has a day job. So we're just gonna say our guest today is Jim L. Jim L. Jim L. How are you? Welcome.

Good. You know, it's so funny, I always listen to this podcast like every single episode and I listen to it on probably faster than two times speed. So the intro where you say I'd be rich if I didn't introduce my co host, you know, you know, it's got, it seems like super, super slow motion, but yeah, I mean, I've been listening to this podcast for years and so it's awesome to be here with you guys.

Well, we are so happy and we're huge fans and I remember our first boot camp together. I don't know if you remember it, but you were in the front row, very inquisitive. But before we talk about all of that, let's just rewind the tape. And how did you even find Land Geek? And what really prompted you to get started in land investing?

Yeah, so it all started with bitcoin and a buddy of mine had introduced me to bitcoin and it turns out there was this little niche where you could make money by helping people buy bitcoin. And so this was back in January of 2017. And in 2017, the price of bitcoin went absolutely bananas. It went from like 500 to 20,000. So I happened to get very lucky and I timed it just right. And so this business that I had, it did really well. And then at the end of the year, there was obviously these, you know, these tax implications. And I realized that even though the business had done well, it wasn't something that was going to be sustainable long term. It was also in a. In somewhat of a legal gray area. So I said, why don't I take what I've earned from this business and roll it into something sustainable and something legitimate? I should also add, during that whole run up of 2017, when I had been doing this business, it really kind of awakened my entrepreneurial spirit. Like, I loved the marketing aspect, the sales aspect, the customer service aspect. I love that it involved some data analysis, risk management, trading. I mean, these are all things that I kind of have a little bit of experience in. And it brought it together in such a way that was really fascinating. And it just brought out the best in me. And I realized that if I have my own business, if I can be entrepreneurial, that would probably be the best fit for me and my personality. And so what I did was after I. After I had kind of decided to exit that bitcoin business, I said, let me find something that's more sustainable, that's more suitable. And so what I did was I went to the side Hustle Nation podcast from Nick Loper and I scrolled through and I literally said, okay, how many are there that really seem like good ideas? Some of them are like retail arbitrage, where you buy sneakers for 40 bucks, sell them for 70. And I wasn't really interested in that. And then I saw this. I think it was Roberto Chavez had been on the side Hustle Nation podcast. And so I literally remember I was like raking leaves in my yard and I was listening to this podcast where he's talking about how, you know, he was doing really, really well with the land business. And it's not something where you have to go out onto the site, check the property, do all this rehab, you don't have to deal with tenants, termites, toilets, all those terrible things that you know how to deal with. And I thought, you know, this might be a really good fit for me. So I did some more research and then I decided, you know, I got to really stress test this thing. So let me go look at the testimonials and I'm going to contact someone, just because you never know online if somebody's posting fake testimonials. And so I went to the website and I saw there was a testimonial from this guy called Scott Bossman. I'm like, that's a pretty unique name. I'm betting I can probably find this guy and make sure he's real. And sure enough, I reached out to him and, you know, I ended up talking with him. He had obviously great things to say. And then my wife and I scheduled a call, and we had a call for over an hour. We asked as many questions as we wanted, and he said, you know, it probably makes sense for you to start out in flight school. And so I joined flight School of March 2018. And, yeah, I've been doing it ever since. And flight school was the first introduction to land investing for me. Wow.

So that's incredible. What was it like with the mini bat and Scott Todd school? So, like, what? Like, give us an inside. An inside look. What did you really take away from flight school?

So I was just. First of all, I was so excited to start. I was so excited to soak up as much stuff as I could and, you know, every bit. We had an evening flight school, I think. I'm sure that's what most people do. So, you know, I would be there on the couch, my wife would be there next to me, and, I mean, Scott's just a great presenter. I mean, he knows his stuff forward and back. And what I liked about it, too, is Scott has, like, a really unique sense of humor. You know, he's got kind of a dry sense of humor. He likes to use expressions. He has funny stories. He's just someone that's, you know, he knows his stuff, he's personable. He's had the track record to prove it. He's someone that, you know, you just learn a lot from. And so I soaked up about as much as you could from all those classes. And not only were the classes good as I was going through it, but I remember I was at a boot camp in, I think it was in January of 2019. I said, oh, you know, I need to really brush up on this one thing. And I went back and I looked at flight school videos from, you know, almost 10 months prior. So it's stuff that I've. I've used even well after I've graduated from flight school. The. The material is still useful, it's still relevant. You know, I was trying to get my sales side of the business more finely tuned. I said, let me see how. Let me see what they said about it in flight school. So, you know, when you Go through flight school, you get all the videos you can, you know, obviously watch them at two times speed. You can, you can refer to them when you need to. So that was very helpful. So not only was it good as far as just doing it one time, start to finish, it was also good to refer back to it and have that available whenever I need it.

All right. It's got Todd.

You know, Mark, there's so much, so much there, right? Like, I mean, I didn't know about bitcoin and the whole. I mean, that sounds pretty interesting. I would agree. I don't think that bitcoin is a sustainable business. But, you know, I think that one of the cool things is that kind of what Jim did was he went into it with a plan, right? And he executed on the plan. And you know, we talk all the time about, you know, like, you have to have that burning desire. You have to like, want to move forward order to make this thing work. And I think that's what Jim. Jim did, right? He came, he came, he came to this business with a plan. He just wasn't out looking like, oh, let me go, let me just. Let me, let me go to this thing. It looks pretty cool today. You know, he went to it. It was a purpose, he drove to it. I think that makes a big difference.

Yeah, I mean, it totally does. Sorry to interrupt. I was just gonna say, Scott, you're exactly right. Like, my. Why was like the biggest it's ever been because my wife was pregnant at the time. Now we have a daughter who's, you know, just about 18 months. And so I was super motivated. This was like, you know, I'm going in all chips in. I'm really gonna focus. I'm gonna make this work. And what I would say is not to, not to scare anybody off, but like, this business is so. I mean, there's so many things that can just grind you down. If you have to wear all the hats and you have to do all the accounting, all the mailing, all the marketing, hiring, all the VA's, if you have to do everything yourself, you will eventually get tired of it and drain and it'll be very hard. But if you have a big why, I mean, that's, that's like the greatest gift. It'll help you push through. It'll help you make this a product priority, which I have. And so now it's gotten to a point where, yeah, I mean, it's great for every day there's funds coming in from people paying me for the land. And so it gives me the peace of mind that, okay, I can invest in bas. I can maybe not use a free version of an app or a system. I can get the paid version and not have to worry about it. So, yeah, a big why is probably the biggest. Biggest thing that you can have in your corner that, you know, no matter how many. How many obstacles get put in my way, I can overcome them. I mean, sometimes you'll talk to people for, you know, day after day after day after day, and they're on the fence of buying or they don't know, and you just get so fed up and so having that. Having that why helps you persevere, helps you get through some of those tough moments.

Yeah, absolutely. So after flight school, you went into coaching, and Tate is your coach. What's. What's coaching been like for you?

So I. I got done with flight school probably, you know, mid April, and I tried doing it on my own from about April until December, and it was okay. I was having some. I was having some success, but it was taking a while. And, you know, I literally said, I remember. It's so funny. I was actually. I was at the Mechanics, and I was talking with Mike Zaino, and I remember this conversation so perfectly, and he was trying to talk to me about coaching. And I really thought about it, and I said, you know what? Let me talk to my wife. So I sat down with Kathryn. I said, look, for 2019, this has to be a focus for me. I need your buy in. It's a financial commitment. It's a time commitment. This is something serious that I want to do to really make a push to get this business off the ground. And it's been fantastic. The best thing is that you just get that instant gratification from having a coach there who can answer all your questions, who can show you pitfalls, and you don't have to just rely on putting a message out there on a. On a message board on Facebook and hoping you get the right answer. You can schedule a quick call. You can get 15 minutes uninterrupted with your coach. They can answer all your questions. You can go through problems that you're having. They have great suggestions, and it just helps speed up the learning curve that much faster. The one thing I would say is that, you know, coaching is a big commitment, and you don't want to be. I wouldn't want to sign up for it unless I was 100% committed and knew this was going to be something that. That you want to do full time. I'd love to do this full time. That's what I'm working toward. And so for me, it made sense.

Yeah, no, amazing. And so let's kind of get a little bit more into the details of from when you started to where you are today. How many VAs do you have? How many hours a week are you working in the business? And talk to us about one of your favorite deals.

Okay, sure. So how many VAs do I have? You know, hiring vas has actually been a problem that I've had in that I didn't hire them enough, soon enough. And now what I've really realized is that you can go on upwork and you can find quality VAs that have a track record of success, that do the job better than you, and you can hire them for, you know, less than $10 an hour. That's what they do full time. You know, I can scrub a list with the best of them, but there's people who do that full time. They can do it better, and it's okay to let go of those tasks. And so that's one of the things that's held me back, is I've been doing too much on my own. I feel like I have to just torture myself and do as much as I can on my own. And it's finally sinking in. Like, it's going to be better for you, for my family, if I just start to get some of this stuff out off my plate and focus on what I. What I really need to be focusing on so that my time is better spent doing the higher dollar per hour work.

Smiling.

I know, Scott.

Well, I mean, I mean, Mark, like, this is one of the things that we teach, and it is the hardest part of this business, right? Like mailing. You get the mailing, the marketing, you get it right. You will adjust. In the beginning, it feels weird because, look, I mean, like, I know for me, every time I used to send out an email, I felt like one of those slimy, sleazy spammers. It's gonna get in someone's email box, right? You get over all that stuff.

What.

What happens, though, is it's so dang hard to build a team, a VA team, because there's. There's a couple thoughts behind it. One, no one, I mean, no one has ever gone to, like, a college class. And they're like, okay, class. This whole term, this whole class is all about making yourselves obsolete to where you can build a VA team. No college class on it. Why? Because that's not what they teach, Right? You don't go like, I've had a very nice career. I never went to a college program or, I'm sorry, work program during my career, where they're like, hey, we're going to teach you how to make yourself obsolete. Like, that's not gonna happen. Like, no way. And now all of a sudden, here, here people are, they're trying to build this business. Guess what we're telling them? Make yourself obsolete. They're like, I can't do that. It's against everything that we've ever been taught. And then we fight it, right? Like, we're like, I can't do what? I call it a control issue. It's not a control issue. Know what it is?

It's.

It's the mere fact that. That we feel like we have to do work. I call it survivor's guilt. Okay? Like, we feel like, oh, I can't. I don't have a real business unless I'm busy. Grant Cardone will tell you, you don't have a real business unless you have a. Unless you have an office somewhere. You're employing people. I disagree. I have a nice business. Is it his business? It's not his business. Okay, but, like, he's doing all this stuff. Me, I'd rather just collect the money. Call me a passive income bum, but that's the thing is you got to get out of your own dang way. And the minute that you do, you will see the business take off because honestly, you're not good at half the stuff that you're trying to do.

Yeah. Jim, walk us through your favorite deal so far.

So, favorite deal so far. It's funny, they're actually two of my oldest deals. So the first two deals I did, it took me. I mean, flight school was March. I didn't do my first deal until August, meaning I had bought before, but I didn't sell my first property until August of 2018. And I mean, I bought those for probably $600 right around there. And I sold them for like 4,000. I mean, just like, great. And they're still paying those two. My first two deals have been paying me consistently from the very beginning. And I mean, it's not like I made crazy amounts of money, but just the fact that, you know, one of the ladies sends me a check in the mail every month for $120, which is kind of cool. And then the other guy just PayPal's me$99 every month. And I mean, they're not the biggest, most glamorous deal, but it's those. Those People that reliably pay you every single month. That's just so freaking amazing because, you know, and one of the other things I'd say is once you get over, you know, you know, if you have 20 people who are paying you $100 a month, I mean, that's almost every single day of the week, someone's dropping $100 into your bank account that you can use to hire bas, or you can use for mailing, or you can use marketing. And so it, it's just a really cool business in that regard that, you know, it's literally people, you know, handing you the money every single day. And, you know, not to steal your thunder, but yeah, you can automate it with geek pay, which is awesome. And so that's really cool. And, and yeah, my favorite deals aren't the most glamorous ones, but they're the ones that just quietly, you know, keep that bank account stock.

Yeah. I mean, so knowing what you know now, what sucks about the business, what would you have done differently?

I definitely would have. I definitely would have started hiring better VA's sooner. But you know what, it's just, it's just a learning process. Like you're, you know, you can apply yourself, you can do your best, but, you know, there's gonna be shortfalls, there's gonna be mistakes. And, you know, I'm still learning, you know, and, and I know all the guys that, all the guys and gals that are coaches, they're always still learning, and they're always improving their businesses and tweaking their processes. So, you know, you just got to have the right attitude that I'm gonna be in this for the long haul. I'm gonna constantly keep improving things. And, you know, you need to get help, and you need to get the right people to help you so that you can free up your time. A really well trained VA is, you know, they're worth their weight in gold. You can just kind of give stuff to them and let them do their magic. So everybody's different. For me, it was, I need to get better at hiring VAs that's helped me the most in the past, and that's probably what's gonna help me the most in the future. And I'd say probably the most important VA is probably the bookkeeping one, and that's what I hated the most. And one that knows how to do accounting specifically for land investors.

Phenomenal. Phenomenal. So, Scott, Todd, when's the last time you had a customer so happy about their land investment that they made you A video testimonial.

I get a, I get testimonials like written, but I don't have a video testimonial.

I can't remember the last time I had a video testimonial. But for some reason Jim L has raving fans and I get these boxes of videos. And these people are so happy about this land investment and working with Jim. So the question is, Jim, what are you doing differently than Scott and I that your customers love you so damn much?

Well, I think it's, honestly, it's funny because I think I've done some things really well in that I'm very attentive, I give people great customer service. I'll drop, you know, what I'm doing and helping them.

Wait, now let's just back up. Like when you say great customer service. I think I give great customer service, Scott. Not so much, but I do, I think I do. How do you define that? Like what makes customer service?

I mean, I'll always, always pick up the phone and talk to them. I'll always respond to their emails. I'll send them, you know, video, like a video text, that type of thing. But to be honest, it's kind of a double edged sword because in some, in some ways, you know, you can spend an hour writing a potential customer the perfectly worded email or, you know, buttering them up or giving them all this info and that can actually be a waste of time if they, if they never end up working with you. But at the same time, if you have these customers, you know, you have to take care of them, you have to nurture them if they're a fan of yours. Yeah, I mean, get a video testimonial, get a written testimonial, make sure you're accumulating that. Proof that this is a legitimate, successful, thriving business that you're running with satisfied customers who will go to bat for you. And that really helps. So on one hand, I'm trying to get away from writing these super elaborate emails and wasting too much time on the wrong people. But at the same time, I want to really nurture the people that are great customers and make sure I'm always giving them, you know, a plus treatment. But I, I also know that, you know, that's only scalable to a certain extent. So, yeah, that's one of the things I'd say it's, you know, unique about what I do is I've definitely gotten some of those cooler video testimonials and I just started a my website lands4u.com so I'm trying to give some, give some meat to that website with some of those great testimonials.

Scott. Todd, this is, this is a roundtable discussion for sure. Because like Jim said, great, great customer service is, is not scalable. Well, at least not if Jim himself is going to make these sort of, you know, video, you know, text. Hey, just following up, seeing, you know, what you're, you know, if I could answer any more questions about the property or, you know, these long, elaborate, more, let's say, emotional, laborious type of emails that are a little bit more than the standard just follow up emails. On the other hand, he's getting incredible testimonials because people love working with him because no one else is doing what he's doing. He is a purple cow in a field of brown cows. And it's making a huge difference and ultimately will to his bottom line. So where's the, what do you think?

Well, you know, Mark, here, here's the thing. One of the things that Jim's doing and he just kind of mentioned it, he'll talk to people, right? Like, he'll talk to people even after the sale, but he'll get on the phone and talk to people. You would be amazed at how many times I'm laughing as I'm saying this. You would be amazed at how many times I get an email from somebody and they're, they're like, it's one of our, whether it's either our deal of the week for lan Moto or it's kind of an onboarding email where we're like, hey, you know this. We're trying to onboard them through our autoresponder series. They will reply back. I get it. And it says, scott, I've asked this seller for information on the property. They won't get back to me. Like, I get this email, I kid you not, a couple times a day, right? And I'm like, that's insane to me. Like, you're putting a property up there. Someone's going to the website, they're sending you, they're sending you a notification like they were interested. Even if it's sold, tell them that it's sold and put them on your buyers list. What are you doing? Like, I don't know if it's sold, if it's not sold, I don't really know the whole deal. And so sometimes I have to go and I have to like, shake the seller. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It depends if they're platinum customers. I'm like, shake, shake, hey, you got a live one here. Oh, okay.

Thanks.

I'll follow up with them.

What?

So, like, that one thing right there is something that Jim is doing, I think that separates him from all lot of people. I don't know what happens. I don't know why people don't do this, but like, be there, Be there for your customers and you'll be amazed. Like, they will get. I mean, I get a lot of people that refer other people to me. There's a lot of people that want what you're selling. You got to believe it first. And then when you, when you do that, you'll. You'll build a raving fan base too.

Yeah. And I was going to say, I think in the beginning what helped me out was that I would scrap for these deals, deals like crazy. And, you know, it gets easier if, you know, if you can, if you have the money to put out more ads and higher VAs. But in the beginning, I wasn't in the most attractive area either. That's another thing I kind of learned as I've been in this business. And if you're not in an area that's super hot, you are going to have to touch people more times and get them interested and pitch them. And so, you know, fighting for these deals and keeping them engaged and, you know, working them with my list, building up that, you know, that, that ability to communicate with them multiple times, I think that's definitely helped me out.

Fantastic. Well, Jim, before we get to your tip of the week, any final words of advice that you would give someone that is brand new to land investing? Maybe they're looking to just dip their toe in the water and see if it's right for them.

Yeah, I mean, the only thing I would say is it's. It's one of those things. And, and I don't know if this is, you know, gonna turn people off, but you gotta be committed because it's like a business. And, you know, you can't open up a, you know, a taco shop and only say, well, I'm gonna work it when I want. You know, if you're gonna build a thriving business, you gotta be there every day. You gotta have, you know, you got to have people in place that if, you know, somebody asks a question, you can answer it. And so for me, it was all about having that big why and showing up every single day. I mean, I work on this business every single day. I don't take, you know, any days off because I'm building something for the, for the future. And so I want to get it to, you know, earning as much as possible as fast as possible, possible. So this isn't something that's really easy to dabble in. I mean, you can get it to a point where it's on autopilot once you've put in the time and the work and making sure that you have all those systems in place. But it's not something that you can just dabble in a little bit. You got to really commit to the starting of the business, hiring the people, getting those processes nailed down. And, you know, that's going to take a little bit. It's going to take a while. So, you know, before people commit, they should know that it's not. It's not going to be an easy process.

Yeah, I mean, you know, as far as real estate is concerned, it's very simple model, but it's not easy. And I would argue anything worth doing is not easy, because if we're easy, we'd all be doing it.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And psychologically. Yeah, psychologically, that's one of the things that kept me going is every time there's a frustration, I say, okay, well, this is gonna happen to someone else. Someone else is gonna have to call the county or figure this out or deal with this or set this process up. So, you know, if you can. If you can keep marching forward while people around you are dropping out, you know, you're gonna be doing well.

All right, fantastic. Well, Jim, thank you so much for taking the time to share your journey with the listeners. We're just going to ask you for one more tip. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. Jim, what do you got?

Okay, so I'll take a shameless plug here, lands4u.com, that's my land website. And then tip of the week, Boy, I would have to say, definitely. If you're interested in land investing, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, there's lots of programs out there. But Land Geek is just fantastic because every single coach, every single one of them I've talked to one on one. They've given me wonderful advice. They've given me both time, attention, respect, and they're very open about sharing what works for them. And this isn't a business about trade secrets. It's about execution. And if you're serious about it, you're going to need that top quality execution. And the coaches at the Land Geek will definitely help you get there.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, before we get to Scott's tip of the week, if you want to be like Jim, you want to go up that, that mountain of land investing with Scott Todd Sherpa, you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your family, you owe it to your future. Learn more. Go to landgeek.com training. Get on a call with Scott and Mike and see how this would work for you. Get that free strategy call thelandgeek.com training Scott Todd, what's your tip of the week?

Okay, Mark, do you have the new iPhone, like the iPhone 11?

Of course I do. I only have because you got it first and I had to get it.

I haven't.

I haven't gotten it yet.

Oh, no. Eric Peterson got it. Erica. Okay.

Because there's one. I've been holding on like there's no reason for me to go get it. But guess what? There is now a reason that I need to go get it. And I'm gonna help you take better advantage of your new iPhone. Check out the app called Double Take. Okay. And what's cool about Double Take? And I'll put it in the chat for you. Also, what's cool about Double Take? I mean, this app is single handedly gonna make me go buy an iPhone 11. And the reason is because with this app, the Double Take is a video recording app and it will basically allow you to record on all of your cameras at the exact same time.

Okay.

So you can record on your selfie camera, you can record on all the other lenses and bring them all in together to create an incredible video, all with different lens lengths or different views.

All right, I'm getting it right now. Double Take. My. My tip of the week is really. I haven't really thought about it because I usually take the guest tip of the week, which is lands 4 you calm. Buy some land from Jim. Scott Todd is laughing. He's like, ha. Look, I'll tell you what though. I always have a book in my back pocket. Scott Todd. Okay, so there you go. I rarely read fiction, but I'm reading a fiction book now because sometimes it's nice to take a break from all the nonfiction that I'm constantly reading. And right now I'm reading a book called American Dirt. And if you are not grateful that you live in the United States, holy cow. You will read American Dirt and you will be filled with gratitude. It is a story of a mother and her 8 year old son becoming migrants fleeing the cartel from Acapulco, Mexico. And what they have to get to to get to the Estados Unidos el Norte. It's an amazing story. American Dirt. It's my tip of the week. JIM L. Are we good?

We're good.

Scott. Todd, are we good? We're good. Mark. All right. I want to thank the listeners. Remind them please subscribe, rate, review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to supportlandelangic.com we're gonna send you for free the $97 passive income launch Kit course as well as the whole tailing course, how to double youe money. 30 days or less. Jim, it's always great seeing you. Hope to see you at a bootcamp soon. We're gonna do this together. You guys ready? 1, 2, 3.

Let's freedom ring. I'm so used to hearing this on like 2 times speed, so I'm like, let freedom ring.

It's great. Thanks, Jim.

Thank you. Thanks so much.