ROUND TABLE—Three Deals On The Table—One Huge Dilemma

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and the old gang is here for this week's roundtable, minus one person that we all are sorely going to miss, Eric Peterson. Team Scott. So we got Mike the Zen Master Zano. Mike, how are you doing?

Great.

How are you?

Great, Great. We got.

Shhh.

David Benalis, the Facebook Whisperer. David, how are you?

Hey, Mark. Life is great.

Great, Great. Look, he seems more mature to me. I don't know about you guys. The Big papa. I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate Litchfield.

I'm waiting for that one to go away.

All right.

Just kidding. It's whatever.

Well, we'll come up with a better nickname. And of course, nine. Nine. I'm going to come up with a nickname for you.

We'll come up with something.

All right, and last but not least, you know him. You love them. Landmodo.com scotttodd.net and of course, if you're not automating your exist postings and your Facebook postings, postingdomination.com the Land Geek. Scott, Todd, are you ready for the roundtable?

I'm ready, Mark. Let's do it.

Whoa, my coffee almost spilled. All right, let's see. This is the danger of the treadmill desk. Let's start with Mike Zaino. The topic of best friend buyers, right? They buy the property from you, and next thing you know, they want to be best friends. They want to call you every day, they want to email every day, they want to text, they want to chat. Facebook Messenger. Hey, Mike, heard you on that podcast. Some wise words of wisdom. How you doing today? Yeah, how's the family?

It can be difficult. Especially well, since we're not dealing with the potential buyers anymore or whatnot. It's a lot easier. But I love when I hear someone talking and I hear a story or I hear something that's intriguing, I ask questions. And sometimes that's gotten me into a little bit trouble down the rabbit hole because they'll start talking and I'll ask more questions. So I had one guy that's like being government conspiracy. So next thing you know, I'm just getting emails every day. He's calling me up, you know, tell me the latest. It was just non, stop, non stop. And then we were such good friends. I had like 40 lots in a subdivision. He didn't like that one, so I gave him another one. And then he wanted to switch that. It just. It just snowballed. It was like this best friend of mine ended up basically taking advantage of that friendship, and I had to finally cut him loose. And it was tough for him. But how did you do it?

Did you go over the phone?

Did you over email, just bounce there?

How did you break up with him?

How did you break up now?

I've already talked, by the way. I talked to my bounty hunter. It's not a bouncer, a bounty hunter. He's on the road right now heading to Texas, and I already let him know that we have some work and he's ready to go. I'm gonna send you all a picture of him with his huge wrestling championship belt, and you're gonna know all about. So that's my new friend. Although I'm not gonna make him angry, I won't cut him off because that won't be so good. This other guy I just kind of just stopped talking to, and he got the message eventually. Every so often I get a random message. You know, kind of like that late night drunk text. Hey, Mike, it's like, I don't know you're talking about. I don't know you anymore.

Mark might be a little lost. Mark, we added some while you were on vacation, we added someone to our VA team, a bounty hunter. Mike's got our guy. So that. That fills in the blanks for you, the gap, you know, so that's like.

That's like been verified on steroids.

Oh, it's.

You know, I told him we have some people that may need some work. That's all set. I'm all ready. Mike, when you're ready, I'm ready.

Well, I'll tell you what.

If he's.

If he's big and intimidating, we've got a parcel in Colorado. We've got a squatter. We talked about this last week. We got to get off that property. He says give me about $1,000 in attorney fees, by the way.

Wow. To get them off price, he'll take them away.

There you go. See David Benalis. What do you do with your best friend, Byers?

You know, I've got some. I wouldn't say good friends, but, like, we're very, you know, amicable in the way we relate to each other. You know, when it's time to, you know, for him to buy another property. Cool guy. He likes all my Facebook posts, but he doesn't abuse the relationship. I do have someone that was like that. And to close the deal, if I counted the interactions, it might have been up to 25 phone calls and emails. It was just. It went on and on forever, and it was bad. Like, I would ask questions, because as a salesperson, you're supposed to ask questions. And just like Mike, it got me into a hairy situation where I knew all about his brother's cousin's nephew's leukemia. So bad. Wow. Good thing this was a cash sale. As soon as I got the cash sale, I never answered his calls again. So he wanted to buy more property for me, but wasn't worth my time.

No, no. Tate Litchfield. Want to talk about Dave, your best friend?

We sold a piece of property to a guy, Dave, and everything started off so well. He had a ton of questions, which we answered promptly. He purchased the property and was always on time with his monthly payments. But then, as the months passed, he slowly started getting more and more and more demanding and wanted to talk to us every single month. And then it turned into once a week, and then on a daily basis, and it was eating up so much time. He was emailing us. He was texting us. I mean, had he had our home phone numbers, he would have been calling us there. It got to the point where it was like, I need to make you go away. So we called him up, and we let him know, basically, hey, man, you're causing way too much work here. It's either you like the property or you don't. I don't think we're the right fit for you. And so we ended up having to let him go. And the funny thing about that is he went on and bought land from another close friend of ours. This guy called me ahead of time, was like, hey, this guy said he used to work with you. He wants to buy a piece of my property. I was like, hey, feel free. Go ahead and sell it to him, but I would encourage you not to do it. Do not do this deal with him. He's like, yeah, but the money's good. You know, blah, blah, blah. He's like, don't do it, man. Do not do it. Long story short, three months later, he had to refund the guy everything and move on. So there are people out there that just aren't worth it, right?

Yeah, you know. You know what? I. His nickname was what About Bob? If you guys ever saw that movie what About Bob? He was our Bob. And so it was like, getting to the point where I'm like, I need lithium just to deal with this guy every day to manage it.

What was his first name?

Dave?

Is that the Facebook whisperer?

That guy's amazing. That was good, Dave. David Hashtag team Mark.

I don't know.

No, man, he's still neutral.

I'm still neutral.

No, no, Mark, he's, he said that he is not Team Mark, Team Scott. He's all about team David.

Hey, I'm like, I'm like the Ralph Nader of the group. I'll never win, but it's fun to be in the race.

All right, well, let's, let's, let's talk to Nine about this. Nine is such a nice guy. I couldn't see nine being like, dude, you're driving me crazy. I'm not selling the property.

No, I've, yeah, everybody I've talked to, I've sold to in that, in that sense. There was one guy, there was one guy who actually asked a lot of reasonable questions and it made me do my own research, but it wasn't too scary. Although he did call an email every week, I guess, I guess it was too new for me. I haven't gotten to that point yet.

Alright, so you guys are still best friends. It's still like that honeymoon phase?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Although.

Yeah.

Well, you can see the writing on the wall.

Well, it is writing on the wall now because it is a cash deal now. He's continue to talk and it's like, can I do these other things? Oh, wait, when does that guarantee end? When does the guarantee period end? And he's, she's trying to like figure out everything he can do. Audit, you know, before the, before the time limit's up.

Right, right. I mean, Scott's got a great sort of way to manage this. Hey, my boss just told me I can't talk anymore. I got to get back to work. I'd love to hear your life story and all about everything that's going on. My boss?

You're telling me I have to demote myself?

Yeah, I'm telling you.

Look, he's gonna fire me if I take your call one more time.

I'm telling you, like, I have to laugh because everybody wants to be the CEO of their land company and everybody wants to be, you know, you know, the founder of the land company. And I think it's the worst position to be in because then they know like you're the man that can make all the decisions. I'm nothing. I got to answer to Mr. Mark. Mr. Mark's not going to be a happy guy, man, if I got to tell him that you're not paying your bill or. Hey, man, Mr. Mark's really on me about making sure I'm being very efficient with My time. So I got to get off the phone now so I don't get in trouble. I got a family support, you know, I got to keep going. They don't know.

Like.

Like, they don't know.

Yeah. I mean, Scott, have you had any best friend buyers?

Oh, man, I had this guy. Literally. This happened this past weekend. Like, he bought a piece of property from us. I don't know, About a month ago, I guess. At the end of June. Yeah, maybe the beginning of June. Beginning of June. He bought a property. He made his payment. And then over the weekend, this past weekend, he's like, calling. He's calling my v. My sales manager. He's calling, calling, calling, calling, calling. And it's Saturday. He can't get her. Okay. And so he then somehow gets my, like, Google voice number. And I don't really know how he did it, but he did. He calls me on a Saturday. I just answered, not paying attention. I'm like, hello? He said, hey, look, I need to make a payment. I'm like, okay. You know, we give you the stuff on how to make a payment, but no problem, I can make it for you. He's like, hey, I was calling your office, but are you closed today? I'm like, well, it is Saturday. You know, like, you know, we answer the phone, but he's like, I want to make a payment.

Okay?

So I take his information, I process the payment, and then the next night at. That was Saturday, at 11:30 at night, he texts me and says, hey, I need to make my payment. And I'm like, what? So I text the guy back Sunday night, big mistake. I text him back at 11:30 and said, you just made a payment yesterday. Do you want to make another one today? He's like, oh, no, no. Sorry about that. I'm like, no problem. Two minutes later, he's calling me, and I did something stupid. I answered it Sunday at almost midnight.

Oh, my gosh.

And then he wants to talk to me. Then yesterday morning, he's emailing me. Then he calls me. He says, hey, can you have your acquisition manager call me? Your sales manager call me? Cause I have some questions about the APN number. I said, it's all in your contract. She's not going to call you. Mr. Mark's not going to be happy.

Right, right, right.

So he's like, okay, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Yeah, I mean, when I first started, I came with the greatest technique to get off the phone fast. I think I've talked about this. I always. I'd always foreshadow the end of the conversation, I'd say one more thing before I have to hang up. That's all I would say. That's good. And that would. And that worked like a charm. Right? And that, that way wasn't. It wasn't so abrupt and it wasn't. And I felt better about it. And they kind of knew, oh, he's. He's got to go. And maybe I shouldn't talk about my, you know, dog that's on its last legs and, you know, and the entire life story of how they acquired this land and why they're selling it, all that. So that was good. All right, next. Next thing to talk about. Next. Next subject. Attorney threats.

Right?

How often do you get angry? Like, it's so funny. Like they get the offer and they just feel so angry about it, they're going to threaten you with their attorney if you ever mail them again. This lowball offer. 9. Have you got any attorney threats?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I've gotten calls from attorneys, a few calls from attorneys. Mostly letters and emails though, saying, hey.

What are you thinking?

I'm going to stick my attorney on you. This is totally offensive. And you know, this is totally illegal. I'm gonna have somebody talk to you about this. This is not. It's not cool. I'm totally offended. Alright, well, when I hear from you and there's nothing, there's nothing I can do until they talk to me. And they never talk to me.

There you go. There you go. How are you, Tate?

Same thing. I mean, people will say that all the time. They love to thread it, you know, throw it out there like, I'm coming for you. And then I've never had anybody actually tell me no. And if they do actually tell me no, the simple response is, okay, we won't bother you anymore. Yeah, how's that? But unless you follow through with it, I'm most likely going to remail you.

I mean, David, you must get this all the time. Like with the cabinetry too. Hey, I don't like the way my cabinets. Look, I'm gonna sue you.

Yeah, yeah.

We've had our fair share of, you know, threats, but, you know, with the cabinetry business, you're. They're already a client, so, like, you kind of have to follow through and, you know, back up your word. But for an offer, I get pissed off people all the time and I've never had a threat that they followed through on. I've even. I've remailed some people and I've got the second angry voicemail which is just hilarious now. Like, I just pass it along in the community. But, you know, I've never been taken to court. I don't think I ever will. I mean, what can they do? Because I sent.

That's.

That's so ridiculous.

It's ridiculous. How about you, Zen master?

Well, maybe not attorney, but I may. I have been contacted some by someone whose family may or may not have been loosely similar, similar to the Godfather. So that's probably worse than an attorney.

And that's way worse than attorney.

Good thing is that I'm. I'm pretty good at talking. Right. So the conversation started out with my name happens to be, you know. Oh, you're Italian. Yeah. Then we had long talks. It was like a half hour, 45 minutes later. I was like, so why did you call me anyway? Oh yeah, Then they got into that. So I already kind of broached it. Good people skills are the best self defense. So, yeah, so that was not really much in the way of attorneys. But I did have one kind of dicey call that made me kind of go, huh? Because anyway, it worked out fine. And we may or may not have lunch together later on after that. So it worked out well.

You can neither confirm nor deny that it happened.

Right, Right. I remember I was in an office and I saw this tomato sauce and it was from. It was like, I don't. Guys remember Sonny the Bull Gravano? You guys remember Sonny the Bulla Grano? He's right hand guy and he killed like 18 people. And he was famous, but he was the one that ratted out John Gotti and he went to jail. And you know, he. He eventually like went into witness protection. It comes out to Scottsdale, Arizona with plastic surgery and all this. So I see this tomato sauce, gravano, tomato sauce, and I make some really off color joke about the tomato sauce. And the woman who's taking my order looks at me, she's like, that's Sammy the Bull's son that you just insulted, basically. And like, I'm like, I'm like googling him. He's been to jail. He was running a meth ring out here. But this is like, now he's trying to start his life over again. And I'm like, I like calling my wife. I'm like, look, I'm not gonna make it home. You know, first thing you do is you call the life insurance agent. It was like, you know, Scott Todd has an inside joke with his wife. She's like, if I die, sue hurts. Or you know, like I'm like, sue hurts and do all this anyways. I'm not sure what the whole point of that was, but it's a good story, though. It's a good story.

Great story.

I digress. Scott. Todd, what do you do with the attorney threats?

I've never really had one on the buy side. I do get, like. I do get. You get crazy ones sometimes with the sellers. And I actually had a guy that we were terminating his agreement because he had failed to make any payments. And so I told him we sent him the termination notice. He basically calls me, yelling at me that he's like, you know what? You're not even giving me a chance.

To pay it off.

And I'm like, well, we've given you many chances to pay it off. You're not doing it. You're not making a single payment. Like, how about you start with a single payment? Like, how about you start with, like, 50 bucks? That's a good strategy. You're not even doing that. He said, well, you're gonna hear from my attorney. And I'm like, okay, that's not a problem. Have him call me, because I'd love to talk to him about your inability to make payment. And then he says, well, you're never gonna get my business again. And I'm like, well, the only way this works is that if you pay, then you're a customer. If you don't pay, you're not a customer. And then that. That, like, made him mad. And then he said, well, you're going to hear from the White House on this one. And I said, well, here, let's just save the time. Why don't I just connect you to Donald Trump and he can work it all out for us right now? And he hung up on me. So I'm still waiting to hear from the White House, the attorney, and losing this guy's business, but if he ever calls me again, I'll just give him Tate's number.

There you go. You know, personally, I would give him.

Eric Peterson's, but no, no, no, no. I like Eric's on Team Scott, so I wouldn't do that to him.

What have I ever done to you, Scott?

Huh?

Well, there was that time.

All right, you know what? We're going to settle this on Friday at boot camp.

Did it involve hand soap?

No. All right, this. This podcast is going off the rails quickly. What about you? Any attorney threats?

Oh, no, no, Nothing.

You make for great radio? No.

Like I said, I've had a few, but they never call.

No. Okay.

Yeah.

What are we gonna say, nine?

I was gonna say I've had. I don't know if it's unusual, but I've had a threat on somebody calling in, like, post on Craigslist. And then somebody calls in and go, hey, there's this picture here. I see this dam here. Is this dam on, you know, or, you know, this water reservoir near the. Near the property? And I go, well, no, that's of the area. I mentioned it in the ad. And then they go, wait, wait, wait. You're showing me a picture of this thing, and this water is not around there? I don't think that's right. Where's the total price? Where's the price? Where's the information? I want to know all this about the property. And they're like, you know, I'm going to flag this post, and I think there's something wrong with what you're doing here. And he kept talking to me for, like five minutes, telling me everything that was wrong with the ad before. I was like, oh, well, do you.

Want to buy it?

I can tell you more. And then he hung up.

That could have been your new ad writer, maybe.

Yeah, actually, I take some tips there, huh? Tells me exactly what's missing. On the other hand, he did call.

Got a call.

Yeah, There you go. There you go. Well, let's pin it to a new subject. Very interesting subject, because sometimes this does happen. We have ethical dilemmas. So, David, talk about your dilemma now. We'll kind of mastermind it like we do in the platinum mastermind group.

Absolutely. So I won't give the ending. So I'll just set it up and then you guys can take it down. I mentioned this. In the official wealth creation group, I created a bidding war. So send out neighbor letters on a Friday. They probably all hit on a Monday. Tuesday, I get my first text from the neighbor Caddy corner to the lot. They start inquiring it, start the conversation. They get to a point where they make a cash offer for $4,000. And what'd you pay for the deal? I bought it for a thousand.

Okay.

So I'm totally willing to do that. That sounds great. I mean, I was shooting for 6 to 7,000 cash. It's premium lot. But I just, you know, money loves speed. I was going to go for whoever bid first, and that's kind of my philosophy. At the same time, someone else reached out. They're talking about terms. So they were the other neighbor interested in the terms price. But at that point, I'm going to take a cash over terms at this stage of my business. So I'm to the point where I'm contacting a local notary to act as a neutral third party for the exchange. I don't have a full signed sales agreement yet. The other neighbor directly next to the property text says, I'll offer you 6,000 cash. What do you do?

9. Let's start with you.

And this all happened in the span of, like, a day? A couple days, yeah.

It happened from Monday to What's today? Yeah, Monday to last Thursday.

Wow.

Yeah. Whoever gives me the money first.

Yeah. I mean, let me ask you a question. Did you tell the first person that on the offer of four, we're going to move forward?

Yeah, because I had already set up the meeting between them and the notary.

Now, Nain, what do you do? The ball's already rolling. Your first buyer thinks that they've got this deal.

Oh, man.

Well, you know, I would just go with that one first, mainly because I've already committed myself and I've already gotten the notary going. If I hadn't. Or they hadn't. Yeah, but usually it's whoever takes action first. Like, did you give me cash? Do you give me a check? Did you sign something? That's who I would go with. But if you've already. If you've already committed, that means something to me. So, I mean.

It's a tough pill to swallow. It's a $2,000 pill to swallow.

Yeah, but there's going to be more properties. There's going to be more out there. It just means that, David, you commit very, very quickly. You got to watch out for that.

Yeah.

Tate, what would you do in this situation?

So I guess you haven't been paid yet, right, David?

So, okay, let's leave the ending out of it, because I did make an. Make a decision, and I moved forward and I got paid. I won't tell you who it's from until you go, I'll give your opinion.

All right, okay.

But based on the information we have, though, you're telling the first person you're gonna close. Right. But then you get another higher offer hours later, minutes later. How much later?

It was a day later. So that one came in on. On Wednesday. On Tuesday, we kind of, like, unofficially locked things up. He didn't have an actual email address for me to send an agreement where they can electronically sign an agreement, so it was all on verbal at that point.

So here's what I'm doing. I'm calling up the guy who made the $4,000 cash offer. And I say I would tell him, hey, listen, I need to have this deal closed within 24 hours. If you don't, you know, meet with the notary, sign the documents, or do whatever we're going to do within 24 hours, I'm going to my next buyer who's arraigned, who's offered a higher price than you. But, you know, you spoke up first. So I'm going to give you first right of refusal with a timeline on it. Because I'm like, nine. You did tell them. Yes. Right. You got to stick to your word. That means something to me.

All right. Mike Zaino.

Yeah. You know, once you agree to something, that's it. You know, I don't really have the property sold till they give you some money. But you made the agreement. But I'd say doing it differently, I would have said, hey, you know, put some money down first. But you said that. You said that you were going to sell it to them. So you have to put a time frame on. The only thing left to do is put a time frame on it like Tate said. But the other thing is the other person, you know, they say one thing. Are they going to produce? Are they going to ant. Yeah. You could be out $0 and need the neighbor buying it by you saying, well, you know, make up a reason, whatever it is, be unethical. And by. If you make up a reason. Right. That why you can't sell it and then try to sell it to the neighbor, and then the neighbor flakes, and now you get nothing. Get the goose egg because you already upset both of them.

So Tate's got something he wants to say.

Yeah, exactly what Mike's saying. When I bought from guys on the call Mike or Scott's purchased for me or whatever it may be. If Scott tells me, tate, I'm taking those four lots, that's it. Deals done. He might not have paid me yet, but he said he wanted them. I trust Scott. Scott's always been upfront with me. And if I tell Mike, hey, Mike, I'm taking those.

Okay.

He takes them off the market. Right. So I think there has to be a little bit of trust in it, too, obviously.

Yeah, yeah. But I think what Mike is saying is important because you don't. It's not a deal until you get paid.

True potential. Potentially, it's potential to get zero.

Yeah, zero. So you don't burn that first bridge, so to speak. Right, right.

You don't know what happened. The neighbor could have gone over and said, hey, I'm Buying that land. The other guy's like, oh, yeah, I'm not the office of 6,000. Knowing that you'll back out, knowing you're going to irritate that guy. Maybe he won't buy.

Who knows?

Who knows? You don't know the intention. You know, you got to go with your word. Go with your word. And then you know what? We don't make or break ourselves in one deal. Never. Never.

I have a feeling Scott Todd has an ethical algorithm already programmed where it's like, if this, then that. But let's just ask Scott.

He's got no compassion.

He doesn't.

Look at him.

Wow.

No compassion.

You said that in the other podcast. I didn't say that.

You guys are gonna see each other on Friday. Was I alone?

Was I alone in that roundtable?

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Okay. So here's what I would do, is I would.

Too far, Mike.

Too far.

I would call Mr. 4000. I would tell them, listen, here's the deal. The deal is you raised your hand first. Therefore, I want to continue with the transaction. However, I have to tell you, another neighbor has asked to buy the property, and they've asked at a. They basically have offered at a much higher price. Now, if you would like to see the offer, I'm willing to show it to you so that you can see that you're really getting a value here. But I need to get this thing done because it cannot drag out. So we need to get this thing done within 48 hours. Meanwhile, I'm calling Mr. 6000, and I'm telling him, hey, Mr. 6000. Unfortunately, one of your neighbors raised their hand first on this property, and I'm, you know, I am kind of obligated him, even though it's not in writing and a done deal. Look, I'm just an honest guy that has much compassion for, you know, doing the right thing, even though Mike Zeno doesn't think I do. Anyway, I am a legit guy, so I got to go through with that one first. However, if for some reason it would fail, you know, and not get done, then I will come to you, and you will not have to pay the full 6,000 that you offered. I will give you a better deal than what you offered, and I would leave it at that. So I keep him on the hook because I don't want to be greedy, right? Like, I've already accepted 4,000. So if I were to get, let's say, 5,000 from the other guy, it's $1,000 found to me, right? Otherwise, I go through with the first guy and do what I say I'm going to do. If he fails, I'm going to give the other guy a little bit of a better deal to execute.

All right, ready? Let's take a vote. What did I do? Did I go forward to the 4000 guy? Did I get a goose egg, or did I somehow maneuver my way into a $6,000 deal?

Well, you're either gonna have done the right thing, or you're gonna sound like a real jerk.

Based on all of our answers, we're all for the $4,000 guy, but. But let's hear what happened.

So I ended up going. Moving forward with the deal for the $4,000 guy. I did what Scott said when the other person reached out, I said, look, I'm already in negotiations for a deal with the other neighbor. If for some reason that doesn't work out, you're going to be the first person I call. What I also did was get their email address, because they're going to go see another property I have next week. Boom. So I got the $4,000 deal, and I have a lead for another property.

I love it. Yeah. And just knowing David, like, he's a vegan, of course he's gonna.

You know, I'm not a vegan.

Are you not vegan anymore?

I mean, 300 days a year. So I don't know if you can classify yourself as anything if you're, like, 80% something. Yeah, I'll be having my share of seafood at boot camp.

Yeah. And David's ruined my whole family because, like, like, he came to Scott, so he got, like, this whole vegan pastry thing.

I'm doing that again, though.

Don't, because, like, now, like, don't. Like, my kids are, like, addicted to the vegan pastry. Like, dad, when are you going to Whole Foods for those vegan donuts?

Oh, no way. I've increased your food budget by $200 a month. Sorry.

Yeah, seriously. And then when you go to Whole Foods, that's the whole rabbit hole right there.

Whole paycheck.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Whole paycheck.

So.

All right, well, I thought this was a good mastermind call. Let's go around and give our tip of the week. And we don't have Eric here to sort of pick on, so I guess we'll kind of keep it civil. So let's start with Mike Zano. What's your tip of the week?

No. Compassion. Mike Zaino.

And the second dart has been thrown.

And so it begins.

Ouch.

And so it begins.

I'm hurt by that, by the way.

I feel like I'm not gonna get a hug at boot camp now. I feel like the hug's gone.

You got a hug hand soap moment.

But that's no handshake for you.

All right, so I have a quote. No surprise, maybe, but you know, I've reached. I've had people reach out to me recently of several people and say, continue with the quotes. We love them. So I just said that.

Many people.

Too many people.

His dad.

Several can mean two people, by the way.

All those people out there listening. Thank you very much.

I appreciate it. Several Zainos have commented they love what he's doing.

So his one is very, very kind of connected to today's topic, especially the last one. So here we go. It says, honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. That's from the Buddha. Now I had that picked out prior to this whole. I guess maybe I'm just connected with this Zen thing. But I think it's true, though. Transparency in our business is huge. People can smell a fake. It's very easy to ruin all your credibility over a couple of dollars, and it's not worth it. Everybody I talk to about the business that we're in, all of us here, is that we all love making money, but we all do it ethically. We're all transparent, and we all enjoy doing it as well. So I really believe in that. So even though we joke about it, and I know Scott has got a little bit of compassion and I know that he's also very honest.

So.

That's from a prior podcast. Scott said it himself. It was a self revelation. I didn't say it, I just repeated it. But anyway, honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. And that's it all I got.

It's gonna be an awkward moment on Friday when these two see each other. I can't wait to be in the room.

Arizona, is that allowed?

I'm gonna capture it on Facebook live.

It's like McGregor Mayweather. All right, David Vanallis, what's your tip of the week? A website, a resource, anything?

All right, a little email marketing tip. Do you know about the second subject line? Mark Scott, the second subject line is oftentimes the very first line of your email. So in Gmail, what you'll do is they'll see the subject line in bold and then they'll see the beginning of your email. So in other words, you have a very extended subject line. So the first line of your emails, your deals of the Week that should also be selling. The Click there is my tip.

That's a great tip, actually. I love that. I love that. Tate Big Papa Litchfield.

Alrighty. This one is a Chrome plugin and it's pretty cool. I've been using it recently because I'm having. I've been hanging out with Mark too much and you know, you get kind of that 2 second goldfish focus going on and so guilty is charged. Yeah, yeah. He didn't even deny it. So there's a plugin, it's called Stay Focused. Basically what you can do is you put, you know, you download it, put it in Chrome and you basically tell it the websites that you want to be able to see. And you know, for example, if you're somebody who's addicted to Facebook or Twitter or whatever it may be, you put in these websites in there and you hit go. And for X amount of time it will prevent you from visiting these websites. So if you're the kind of guy that, like me, who's addicted to his email, always checking his email, always refreshing, always refreshing, I can actually put Google or Gmail in there and tell it, you know, don't disturb me for two hours. That way I can focus on more important tasks that need to be happening right now or, you know, whatever it may be. So it's a pretty cool tool. Stay Focused. It's a Google Chrome plugin. Super easy. Yeah. And I like it.

Great tip.

I don't app that pairs that because my go to would be Go to my phone.

Yeah, I think there is. I mean, I always put my phone on sleep mode and just, you know, if I have something I need to crunch out real quick. Stay off Instagram, same websites. And that's kind of what I have to do to get the same thing done. But I'm sure there's something out there for an iPhone.

Not sure about Android.

We got to keep you off those fishing websites, man.

Yeah, no kidding.

Yeah, I mean, I've got, I've fallen off the wagon. Like I'm going back to my second phone. And so when I'm done with the day and I'm like with the family, I'm keeping my iPhone in my office. So, you know, I'm not going to go back and start, you know, sneaking off like a drug addict. I get an email and do all that. So that's what I'm gonna do. Or there's actually a safe you can buy that you can put a timer on it and you can't open it until like 2 hours. Later and you block your iPhone in it. This is the world we live in today.

That's pretty drastic.

You lock your phone up for the.

Next couple of days. I mean, there's also like a $600 phone called Light phone that's coming out that it's just. You port your phone number, but it has no email and it's just a phone and text. Like just for communicating. Like a normal analog $600.

Like a flip phone.

Yeah, like a flip phone, but not a separate phone number. Like your same phone number. Why don't you just.

You could also just set up, like, if you have the iPhone, which. No, like do not disturb on your iPhone, you can set parameters.

So.

But after 6pm, unless you're on my favorites list, I won't get your message.

No, I do all that too. I don't get notifications. I have do not disturb, but I'm still checking email all the time. I can't have it near me if I want to be like Zaino and just totally present.

Why don't you just delete the email?

Because then you still read that second subject line.

What are you, a communist? What are you talking about?

Delete the email.

Then he'll log into Chrome and delete your email from your phone. That way you have to, like, go to the computer.

No, my wife suggested that too, but that feels so harsh. What if I'm on the road?

Let's just carry another phone with us.

Fine, I'll do that.

If your left eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.

You know what? That's a good. I'm gonna write that quote down. That's really good. All right, nine. What's your tip of the week? I'm going to delete my email right now.

Well, when you do check your email, you can read my video message. My tip is bonjoro.com b o n j o r o dot com. It's this really cool tool and it comes with an app on the mobile phone. So when you get a response or you want to give a response to somebody, you want to personalize a little bit, then you can record a quick message and it'll sit. And then you can send a video, personalized video message back to somebody. So then you can talk to them, show them that you're real, answer all their questions right up there and give them that extra push so that you can make a sale.

All right, so, bung. What is it?

Bonjoro.com.

I like that one.

Oh, Bonjoro. How much is this?

This is Free. They have extra features. I think the free version is up to like 60 seconds.

Just a quick. Just a quick hello.

There's actually integrations. So what was really cool when I signed up is they gave me a quick message specific to my name. I don't know if they do it anymore because depending all the different names out there, but you can kind of read the message and say, hey, Scott, or Mark. And then they give you a generic. They can give you a generic message with that integration. But for me, obviously, they give me a. Specialists say, hey, nine, that's a cool name.

Wait, how does that. You know, I've seen that where people are like, hey, Nine, thanks for signing up. Like, that doesn't scale. But is there a way that they do that?

Yeah, obviously, if you like, if you have a name that can be pronounced in different ways, then, I mean, they read the text. When you sign up, you put in your name or something, but then you can automate it from there, assuming that the pronunciation. You can assume the pronunciation, then record a whole bunch of different messages. But that's one way of doing it, huh?

Very cool. I like it. Scott, you have anything you want to rip on?

I don't want to rip on that. No, I don't want to rip on it either.

That's really good. What about your tip of the week?

I have two of them actually, if that's okay. My first one.

My first.

My first one is a quote.

Okay.

And here it is. It's wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universal recognized moral qualities of men. Confucius says that. So that's just something to think about. And then my second one is a little website. I know none of you need this. Okay, well, maybe Mike does. Brandmark IO.

Check it out.

You know how many times we hear people talk about, oh, I need a logo. What's my logo look like? And that's the one thing that drives me incredibly insane, even though I do have compassion around that. I understand everybody wants to look good, but brand, brandmark IO, it's kind of artificial intelligence for your logo. And what happens is you can, like, click on, like, build your logo, and, you know, you put in your company name and you put in, you know, like what you do, and it comes up with some logo ideas, and you can walk through it, change the fonts.

Out a little bit.

You could have a kind of create your own logo in just a few minutes, like 20 bucks. Okay.

Like, pretty cool.

Very cool. Very cool. All right, well, my tip of the week is. Okay, so nine, you Know, came up with a video one. Well, this is the. Have you guys seen like, like my orthodontist was holding up like a poster for my son. Welcome to, you know, the straight teeth club. Noah. It says his name, right? Well, it turns out that that is automated. You know, that text. And it can be automated with like an autoresponder series. But let's say, for example, that you sell a piece of land and you can just have like a little poster showing, hey, nine, thanks for your land investment. Look forward to working with you. And it's just one of these little extra things and it's picksnippets.com picksnippets.com so check that out. Kind of cool. It's not free. It's like 20 bucks a month for five snippets. But you could see where it's just a little extra that you can automate doing those things that kind of give that little extra engagement. I don't know. What do you guys think? Is that. Am I going down another rabbit hole? I don't know. I remember David sent me something. It was like Bonjoro. And, you know, you might be able to combine this with video as well, which I think would be cool.

I think it's, it's excellent for customer retention. You know, right after you get that sale, a quick video, you hold it up, a sign, you know, thank you, nine, for your, you know, purchasing this land. I was glad to help you. I mean, it's something small, it takes a few minutes, but if it helps you get through that 90 day refund period, I think this is a great tip.

All right, Scott, what do you think?

I like it. All good.

Eric Peterson, what do you think?

I love it.

It's great.

Team Mark. Go. Thank you, Eric. Pete, what do you think?

It's good. I like it. Seems like another thing to have to do if you were to put it into practice that way. But yeah, I think it could work.

All right. Okay. Mike. Nothing. No snarky comment.

It's no jot knot, but it sounds good.

See, I lobbed that to him. I hope Eric listens to this. Nine, what do you think? Bonjoro or pick snippets? They're both kind of the same price.

Yeah, well, I mean, hey, if somebody calls and says, hey, I'm going to stick my attorney on you, you can give them a video message saying, bring it on.

Right, Right. That's true. All right. I love it. Well, I thought this was a great roundtable. I do want to remind everybody when you're listening to this. Boot camp will have already been completed. The next flight school is starting August 22nd.

22Nd.

And it is filling up very, very fast. So if we have any spots left for August, do apply, go to landgeek.com training, get on a call, talk about it, and get in there for August. My guess is it won't be available probably until September.

But schedule a call anyway.

Schedule a call anyway and see and do that now. So.

Yeah.

Are we going to do the Let Freedom Ring thing? Scott and I aren't doing any more for the podcast. It's getting too hokey for us with the guest.

I think here. It's good.

All right, let's do this.

Ready?

One, two, three. Let freedom ring. All right, guys, I'll see everybody Friday. Thank you.

Yeah.

All right. Bye.