ROUND TABLE—Getting The Fundamentals Down—You Have To Learn To Take Off Before You Can Fly

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on today's roundtable, we've got a nice, healthy group. We're gonna start with the big papa himself, Tate Litchfield. Tate, how are you doing? Well, I know you don't. I know you don't love the nickname. We'll give you a better.

It's not bad.

All right?

There could be worse things, for sure.

There could be. There could be. And I just love to, you know, put on my biggie. I love it when you call me Big Papa. Eric. Jot not pro. Peterson is in the hizzle. Hello, Eric. Hi.

How are you?

I don't want to talk about it. Mike the Zen master. Zano, what's going on in the mailing? Breathe out the marketing. Are we ready to be vicious to Eric on this roundtable? Mike, Bring in the old firehouse.

We're not vicious in this. That's not us. If Eric senses that doesn't make us vicious.

That's true. And I haven't had him on the round table, but I'm very excited for Aaron the bling, The Sachnik. This guy's on Facebook. He's flashing the cash, you know, like, pretty soon, he's gonna be, like, showing, like, his last land deal, you know, behind his Maserati and, like, just making it rain.

That's the dream.

There it is. And then, last but not least, you know him, you love him. Six Sigma Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if not all, automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, postingdomination.com TheLange Scott. How are you, Mark?

I'm great. How are you?

I'm great. Let's just get into it. Are you ready?

Let's go.

So do you want to tell everybody what you're doing, Scott? Because it scares the hell out of me.

All right, all right, all right. So, you know, Mark, you know we're teaching flight school, right? You know, like, we're teaching, like, people how to invest in land. And we've got this whole concept of flight school, which is going very well. And it's 10 sessions in a group where we go through the entire business end to end. And I don't know, about a few weeks ago, my son's friend was telling us all about how he was taking real flight lessons at a local airport. I'm like, well, let's go check it out. So my son and I Went out, we jumped in a plane. We went up for about an hour. It was so much fun. So I decided, like, how better could it be if I'm going to teach flight school, to actually go to a real flight school, like learn how to fly a plane. That way I can go look at the land, you know, all that important stuff that we never go do. But I don't know, it's something fun to do. And it's really been kind of an amazing experience. And I've had like two lessons so far. It's really kind of an amazing experience because there's so much that you can take from just that whole experience and how you can put that back into land investing. It's amazing. For example, when you're learning something new, it's really, really difficult to think outside the box sometimes. And you're really putting yourself out there and being on the edge where you haven't been before. So, like, here I am in the front seat of this plane, and we get up in the air and the flight instructor says, okay, you're good to fly the plane. Now just start flying the plane. And like all the days of learning how to drive a car and holding onto the wheel really tight and all of these things and how you steer and how you're sweating bullet. It reminded me a lot about when I started investing in land. Like how your heart got excited, how you got excited about the experience. At the same time you're scared. And then you realize, like, hey, I've talked to other people that actually at one point in time they wanted to learn how to fly, but something stopped them. Like maybe the. Maybe it was the thought of the stalls or teaching them, you know, trying to learn how to do stalls, it scares people away. So, you know, you just have to really power through that learning a new skill, like land investing is very, very similar because, you know, you've got to just step outside your comfort zone and just go through the process. You know, you're in the beginning when you're trying to learn, it's not the right time to try to figure out, like, oh, man, I'm going to fly the plane this way. You better just learn to fly the plane like the instructor tells you to. Just follow the recipe, follow what they say. And I think it's the same thing with the investors toolkit or flight school or whatever. Just follow the process first, and then when you've done it for a while, then go crazy.

Yeah. So Aaron Sochnick, I mean, you, you started with the toolkit, you know, did you just follow and he went to boot camp? I mean, did you follow the instructions step by step, or did you try to.

And I regret every moment. No, I. I thought I was smarter than everyone else. I'm like, hey, you know what? I'm just going to go ahead and try my own thing. I changed the letter up, change the approach. I have parcels that I can't even give away because I didn't follow directions. I literally am like, okay, what do I do with these? Now I can't, like, I can't even break even on them. So I should have just said, you know what? Why am I buying here? Because, like, now I look back, I'm like, I should never have bought in this area. It's not the area. It's just. Well, I guess you say. You can say it's the area. The county's great. It's just that part of the county was not a poor life choice. If I followed the directions, I would have, you know, been further along.

How'd you get straightened out? I mean, how. Because at some point you're like, where are you? Like, this sucks.

Yeah, exactly. I was about to give up and, you know, just went back to basics. I'm like, okay, let's just step back and talk to Scott and like, what do I need to do here? And he's like, just go. You know, follow the directions. Do exactly what. This is what I. What I told you to do. I don't know why you weren't listening. Um, but then the moment I did that, honestly, it just. It clicked. And then it's just been a green light that all the way through.

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, Tate, when you're. When you started, you know, like, professionally cycling, right. Did you have a mentor to help you, like, with cycling, or did you. Was it trial banner?

Well, it's. At a certain point, you get to. You get to a stage where you say, I want to give this a real go. And for me, in cycling, I realized that I was doing okay, but I needed some expert help. And so I went and did kind of practice what we preached, and I went and got myself a coach and somebody who could take a look at my numbers, my training and my diet and all of that. And next thing you know, they. They kind of helped me get to the next level. So, yeah, if you want, you know, to have great results, I think you have to follow the method, because you also have to recognize that there's people out there who might know what they're doing better than you. Right. And that's okay, right? That's totally okay. It's funny because right now we got Orlando boot camp coming up, and last year I stayed an extra day, right. And I went fishing. And right now I'm staying and I'm trying to pick out which guide I want to hire for the day to help me catch fish. And it's not that I'm not capable of catching fish on my own. It's just I want to pay somebody whose job it is to put me on fish so I have the best opportunity of catching fish. It's a lot like that with land. You know, coaching or flight school or whatever it may be, you kind of need some help every once in a while.

Right?

Right.

I mean, Scott and I and Mike and I, we were talking about this. There's teaching versus coaching, and we really think flight school is teaching. Right. We're going to teach you how to do what you need to do. And the beauty of flight school is it's going to make you execute in real time. But then once you graduate from that, you got to go like Tate, and you got to get the coach to take what you. Because Tate didn't learn. He didn't hire a coach to teach him how to ride a bike. He hired a coach to teach him how to ride a bike faster and better. Right. And that kind of thing. So, you know, essentially, like, Scott's in flight school to learn how to fly a plane, but once he learns how to fly the plane, then he's going to want somebody to actually teach him, you know, how to really get somewhere he wants to go faster and safer. So, Mike Zaners, does that make sense? The way I'm saying it?

Yeah, it does. It does. I think this all goes back to, like, any. Any discipline you learn. There's initially some sort of form, some sort of structure, and you really don't want to become artistic too soon, because if you don't have the basics down to the fundamentals, land investing, I don't know. I've never flown a plane, but I'm sure there's fundamentals, right. If you don't have those down, you try to be all artist, you know, and you're just jumping around, you know, And Scott starts trying to do, like, circles and flips, it's going to go real bad, real quick. So you got it. You got to get the form down first. So the flight school is the form. It's the fundamental standard that anybody should have if they're going to land invest. This is what you need to know. And from that point, coach can take over and take you on a deeper dive where your personal limitations are, take you to a higher level of development, and then later on you can get artistic about it. But, yeah, this is definitely approach that should be taken. That's exactly what we were talking about. Flight school is that fundamental form. This is how land investing happens. And then you can take a deeper dive with a coach and really get into areas that are pain points for you.

Yeah, I mean, as much as it pains me to give Eric Peterson any kind of compliment, that's really what he did. Right. So, Eric, kind of tell everybody, like, I mean, you. You really had the fundamentals down to a point where most people had been happy. Right. Like six figures your first year.

Right, right. Yeah, I did have success on my own. It took me longer to get there. There's no question about that. I certainly did a lot of the wrong things. You know, I ignored some of those fundamentals as Mike was talking about, and kind of went my own way and found, you know, the problems that that brings. But, you know, I knew that I wanted to grow the business into something more, build systems and, you know, really make it into something that I could make my living off of. And in order to do that, I knew that, you know, joining the coaching program would enable me to get there. So that is exactly what I did. And it has been very beneficial in leading me down that path.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, speaking of going down that path, Eric Peterson brought up a very interesting topic, VA management. So, Eric, what's going on with your VA management right now? And VA means virtual assistant?

Yeah, there's nothing in particular that I'm struggling with there. I mean, it's just normal stuff. You know, I had a VA tell me she'll be quitting at the end of the month. She's going to pursue some other things. I guess she's working on starting her own business and different things of that nature. And it just. It just kind of got me thinking again about, you know, the good VAs you have. You know, what are you doing to keep them around and how you. How are you making them, you know, want to continue to work for you. I'm doing a few different things in that area. One thing I recently started is I try to have at least a quarterly call, a zoom call with each of my VAs, just to touch base, see how things are going, ask if there's anything I can improve, things that I can do to help make their jobs easier, and, you know, just kind of have some Open communication and get to see each other face to face. Because most of the time we don't, you know, we're just communicating with Slack or different tools like that. So I found that to help just kind of getting to know the VAs.

A little bit more.

As a matter of fact, I had a call with one this morning, and, you know, she was telling me about part of her process that she was doing, and something was taking close to 20 minutes a day for her to do. And I said, you know, that's essentially, I said, you know, that's. That's too long to do that particular task. Let's see if I can find a way to automate that for you. Because it's something that's. That's very simple and she shouldn't have to spend so much time on. So I'll be looking at, you know, building some automation around that particular part of her task to make her job go easier and quicker for her.

I love it. Let's talk about VA management hacks, things that we can do to improve our relationships, our communication with our current vas and future VAs. Tate Litchfield, you're on the hot seat. What are some VA management hacks?

Well, I think to address one of the first things he said, how do you keep the good VAS to stick around? Pay them well, Pay them well. If they're doing a great job and you want them to stay, bump up their pay a little bit. That'll make most people happy. There's not a whole lot of difference if you're paying somebody 450 an hour or 550 an hour. So that's something that we try to do. We also get birthdays and holidays, and we send them a little bit of a thank you gift or something, maybe a little bonus, whatever it might be. But I guess to manage them, how can we help them? Well, you got to know what the problem is first and foremost. So I like meeting with them regularly. We try to meet at least once a month. And I just. I also ask all of our VAs to report, report some sort of weekly report or daily report, depending on what their jobs are. And if I notice that, hey, this is taking way longer than it should, we can dive into it a little further and see about finding a workaround for it. So I don't know if that answers the question at all.

No, I think that was great. That was great. Mike Zaino, the Zen Master.

Well, I think it's important one thing before the hack, one thing is if something goes wrong, we don't blame the VA because it's really, we're the ones training them. So something goes wrong, then there was a miscommunication and communication is so key when you're dealing with people that work for you. So I would say if something goes wrong, I own it and it's my lack of communication towards that va. Now the other thing in terms of hacking, I'm always asking my VA's, hey, identify any repetitive, like what's, what's obviously they're doing. Some of the tasks for us are repetitive, redundant, that's why we have them doing that. But within their tasks are there any things that they're experiencing that are repetitive, beyond belief, redundant and maybe we can put that into a system. So I have them help me identify those pain points for them and if we can make that better or find a way to put it into a system to make their job easier, I think it keeps them happy. And so we're always working together to have that kind of relationship.

Yeah, I mean I think if we peel back the onion of what you just said, there was some really, there's some great wisdom in there. It's that you take responsibility for everything. Right. Where I think a lot of people, their knee jerk reaction would be this is not a good va. They're doing something wrong. And I love the Scott Todd philosophy of the 1 to 30 rules. Scott, do you want to explain your, your philosophy on training?

Yeah. So, so basically it just means that for, you know, for every minute that you're doing a task that you're like freeing up, you should be prepared to spend 30 times that in order to train and onboard and to tweak and to build systems that help that VA succeed. So you know, you know if you're spending five minutes on a task doesn't mean that you're going to sit down and for the next 150 minutes you're going to train them. It means that over a period of time you should be prepared to spend at least 150 minutes in order to train and onboard them. Because when you do that 30x, what's gonna happen is you're going to get just a massive ROI on your time invested and it also holds you accountable. So it's not like, hey, here's the keys to the kingdom and go have fun. It's like, man, I've got to really invest if I'm going to bring someone on board. Because if they're not succeeding it's probably because you're not giving them good directions. Now if you're giving them the very best directions you can and they're not a fit for you, then you should move on even before the 30x. But you know, you have to figure that out. But you have to, you have to prepare mentally for people to fail before they can succeed.

Yeah, I mean, I mean just like everything, you have to use good judgment. But that being said, I think you taking responsibility and Investing in that VA with that 30 to 1 rule is amazing. And there was something else you said in there, Scott, that was really like you kind of glossed over. It was really important.

Return on time invested.

The return on time invested. There's something else in there though. This is what happens when I only have one cup of coffee. I lose it, I lose it. But I'll come back to it because I'm sure Aaron Vasochnik will, will make me remember.

No.

So for what I do is I actually create training videos. I walk my walk them through step by step on what to do and then they never, obviously they'll never forget how to do it and they're actually coming to me saying hey, you know, if we did it this way, it may be better for you. So based on the training videos they kind of say hey, let's go ahead and try to do it this way. So they're, they're kind of working along with me to make their process better as well. That's pretty much all I've been doing. I only have like 1 or 2 vas. One is really self sufficient.

Aaron, I think your mic is like beeping. We gotta get you a new mic, man.

It's an iPhone, go figure.

All right, but okay, go ahead, say that again.

But so I just have like two vas. One's really self sufficient. I give him the work and he just burns through it real quickly and it's very accurate. The other guy, you know, he wanted more of a hands on approach. So I created training videos for him. The whole process of what I expect and what I needed and I just shoot him those videos and then he's the one coming to me saying hey, I like what you do here. This is perfect. But if we add this in here, you know, carve off this amount of time like okay, well he's kind of training me on how to be more self sufficient.

Alright, so what's your hack as far as training?

What are you using the video? So I use YouTube but then I just unlist them. I know there is the last one of those calls it. Somebody mentioned one of the another tool that we can use to do videos and have send them to people. Can't remember the name of it.

Use Loom. Use.

That's it. Yeah. Right now I use. I use YouTube and shoot them the link. But I was actually going to go into that because I've seen the quality of those videos and what you can do with them is perfect.

So, Scott, Use Limb is better than Zoom.

Well, Use Loom is good because what happens is all of the information is stored on. On their server. Like, I mean, you can do use cloud services for, you know, you can use cloud services for Zoom, but Use Loom is pretty. Pretty cool too, because they will maintain their own stuff.

Okay, I remembered my point that you were making before, Scott. So you said something about, you know, not just giving it to them and then letting them go and letting them run, right? That's abdicating. We're not in the abdication business. We're in the delegation business. And there's a big difference. And I think there's this sort of magical thinking that if you just hand over this task to a va, it's going to get done just the way you want and you never have to look at it again. It's just not. That's just abdicating, and that's not the way it is. And then you're ultimately either going to be super disappointed or you're going to lose all your power as a manager because now they're doing everything and you don't even know what they're doing. That makes sense.

Yeah, it does. You know, it's funny is I had a boss once that he was a V.P. i was not. And I remember he gave me this assignment and he just vaguely gave me what he wanted, right? He's just like, this is what I want. And I'm like, okay. And I walk away and I go. I go out and I create this thing and I bring it to him and I'm like, really, really proud to work. And he looks at it, and the look on his face was like, this is ridiculous.

Right?

And, like, immediately I started like, oh, man. I just let him down because I did not want to let him down, Right? Like, you just don't want to naturally let people down. You want to. You want. You want people to look at you and go, he doesn't let me down. And so he looked at it, he's like, okay, this is a good starting point. Do this, this, this, you know, let's bring this stuff in. And he's like, this is what I'm looking For. And then I'm like, okay, I'm sorry about that. He's like, no, no, no. He's like, look, if I just gave you an assignment and I expected you to succeed, then that makes me just a terrible manager. He's like, the way that I teach you is for you to go do it. Let me see what your thought process is, because, look, maybe it's better than mine. And then you'll start to understand the way I think and what I want. So by the fact that he was expecting me to fail, and that's the way he operated, he literally expected, when he gave people assignments, he expected them to fail. And he didn't give the timeline, like, okay, well this is due. I gotta turn this in by 5 o', clock. So you have to give it to me by 5 o'. Clock. What he said was, okay, I got to turn this in by 5 o', clock. So I need to look at this by noon so that we can come together, make adjustments, and then we can, we can tweak it from there. So he expected me to fail. And that's the, that's where I got that logic, is I expect everybody that's doing work with me to fail. And then I can help them, I can, I can mold them, and I can build them to be what I want them to be.

Right? Right. One of my hacks is also to download all the holidays of, let's say, the Philippines. I mainly have Filipino vas, so I know, oh, I'm thinking of you. Right. I'll send them like a little cute card for, you know, a keynote day or whatever day it is. Like, I don't even know what it is or if they want to take holiday, I can give them that day off because I know it's a national holiday. And then my expectations of that day's productivity are realistic. Right. Like, if it's the other way around, they wouldn't expect me to work during Christmas.

Right.

You know what's crazy, Mark? Is like in the Philippines, a lot of people may not know that. And you're right, it's about knowing the customs of the area. But like in the Philippines, it is customary, it's called the 13th month. Right. So like, it is customary to pay your Filipino vas, basically, like the average monthly salary that you've paid them as a 13 month as a token of appreciation. And you know, like, if you're, if you know that custom because you've researched it and understood what it takes, you know, like what, what the Philippines culture is and Then you award them with a 13 month. And let's say that I do that, but old Tate doesn't. Natay would do it. Mike Zaino, he probably wouldn't do that.

Definitely would do it.

That guy's cheap.

Right? Because he's not. He's not really compassionate when it comes to.

I don't think.

But that said, that said.

That said.

You know, the VA, if I give him the 13th month, he's gonna be like, man, Scott's a very compassionate guy.

And then what's he gonna do?

He's gonna put my work ahead of, you know, Mike and yours, Mark and Tate's. I'm gonna move to the top because I'm compassionate and loving.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's a great tip. A 13th month. So knowing the holidays in the 13th month and loom is a great tip. The Daily Report. Eric Peterson's questions. You know what? What? How can I make your job easier? Fantastic. And again, Eric, take that compliment with a grain of salt. So let's go on to another topic. Recovering from a scammer. So it's really hard to scam us, but if you don't follow our directions, you can get scammed. So, Scott, you want to tell the story?

Yeah. So what happened was we actually have somebody in our community that they really didn't follow the directions. It's okay, though. It's okay. And what happened was they talked to the seller. The seller gave them the nice warm and fuzzies, and then basically they decided, okay, I'm going to send just a portion of the payment. And then they get the check. The seller gets the check, I guess, cashes the check and kind of vanishes. All of a sudden they have to pick up and move quickly to another state. And oh, by the way, the deal has now changed. It's going to cost more money. So clearly this is a scammer. And look, I had a situation like that, I don't know, last year, and it just pulls your heart out because you put a little bit of faith into somebody and then they stomp on you, right? And sometimes it's a decision, sometimes it's a business call. It's an intuition thing. And look, we can always be wrong, but it's not like it's lost, right? Because there's something that we. There's a number of things that we can do to try to recover this, and some of them may be easier than others. But, you know, my favorite. My favorite would be. Well, one, we have an agreement. I've Sent you a check. I have a clear check that you have stolen from me. Essentially, I can take it to small claims in my county because there's literally three counties that you can choose. You can choose your own county where you do business, the county where the land is located or the county where the seller is. So I can choose to sue them. Small claims in my own county. And when they do, they're going to have to appear in my county. And when they don't, and I get the judgment for, for that property, well, then what I can do is I can take that judgment to the county in which the property is located, record it with that clerk so it puts a, you know, kind of a stain or a cloud on the title, and then I can ask the sheriff, okay, this is recorded in your county. It's a judgment from, you know, Pasco County, Florida, for assets to this person. This person owns real estate, non homestead exempted real estate in your county. I wish for you to seize it and sell it at a sheriff sale. So I may not end up with the land and I may end up with some of my money, not all of it, but I could end up with it all back. But it might take me six months to a year to get it.

Yeah, it's a hassle. Tate, Litchfield, any other ways to recover?

You know.

You can always put a lien on it. I don't know if Scott mentioned that that's an option for you. Like I said, I don't have this problem because going back to the first thing we discussed today, I follow the outlined rules. So, I mean, I don't really have a good way to handle this. I mean, I always call Mike Zano and have his bounty hunter buddy come take care of the problem for me.

Yeah, I was thinking the Mike Zano bounty hunter would be the solution.

That's probably the easiest solution.

It's the quickest, it's the, the most probably effective, and that'll make things happen. Mike, you want to talk about your bounty hunter?

Well, I did just talk to him the other day and he's on the road now, this truck. And he is in the Midwest and he does travel. And I got his prices, they're affordable. So, yeah, he's out there.

You're going to set up a tip line for him or a work line for him.

But the reality is, like Tate said, this is a horrible thing to have it happen. Right. But unfortunately, it did happen. And we don't make or break ourselves on one deal in this business ever. This is all about one deal is never going to move the needle, right? This is a continuous process of multiple deals. It kind of reminds me of the story from the Bronx table when the kids run after the guy for the five bucks, he's going to beat him up and he's like, what are you doing? He stole five bucks for me. He's like, listen, you learned that guy wasn't truthful over five bucks. So I mean, yeah, it might be a lot of more money than $5 involved here, but it's a lesson learned how we do what we do and why we do it. So just move on to the next deal. It's unfortunate, but there's a lot of money be made out there. Don't let that sour you. Don't let that ruin your thoughts upon our business because stick to the game plan, stick to the fundamentals and you know, just make more money. Make a whole bunch more money and just use that guy as, use that manure as fertilizer and just move yourself forward.

I love it. I love it. Eric Peterson, what about you? How would you exact your revenge? His lightsaber?

Yeah, I guess I would probably in that situation, I don't know that I would ever put out more money that I would feel comfortable losing. So if I was ever in a situation where for whatever reason I did not want to use a mobile notary and the seller was requesting money up front, if it was more than an amount I was comfortable with, I think, you know, I would go to a mobile notary or find some other way to close the deal. I just, I wouldn't take that risk myself, so. And I guess, you know, that's just knowing the fundamentals and just, you know, following the process and knowing that, you know, people don't always do what they say. Right?

So yeah, yeah. Aaron Versace, how about you?

I would actually ask my coach, so. But this actually did happen to me last week. I actually did recover from it. But first like, first thing I did is I know I knew it was going on. I sent out the deed with the check the beginning of last month and the guy disappeared. Cash a check. And I was like, okay, they're not returning my calls or anything. I was like, alright. So I, when I finally got a hold of them, I got their cell phone number.

I don't know.