ROUND TABLE—Your Metric Of Success Should Be Only Things You Can Control

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and for this week's roundtable, we've got TeamEric Eric Chopnotpro Petersen. Eric, how are you?

I'm good. Happy to be here.

Mark, I'm really scared that you're here because he listened to the podcast that he wasn't on before boot camp, and there were a couple comments in there that rubbed Eric the wrong way. And we didn't know it until just a few minutes ago. Eric's got a little fang right here, and he doesn't show it a lot, but we're about to see the fang come out. So I'm excited for this podcast. The Facebook whispers on David Benalis. How are you?

I'm wonderful. Great to be back. Great to be back.

It's great to see you and the big papa Tate Litchfield. How's it going, Tate?

I'm doing really well, thanks.

You look too good for this to have, like, a newborn. Like too much sleep. I gotta call Alison, be like, wake up Tate at three in the morning more.

Yeah, that would not. That wouldn't do us any. Well, so let's. Let's stay away from that.

Oh, stay away from that. All right. And then you know him, you love him. Scott. Todd from scotttodd.net. today's podcast is sponsored by landmodo.com which is, by the way, crushing all of the land sites. So if you are listing on landsofamerica.com, land flip.com landandfarm.com save your cash and just go to landmodo.com because it's getting sales. So today's podcast again sponsored by landmoto.com and don't forget about postingdomination.com landgeek. Scott Todd. How about that for a commercial?

I love it, Mark.

Love it.

Thanks. Thanks.

No worries. So let's get into our first pain point. David, Ben. Alice, what's going on?

I had a va. I gave them. So they are my title search va. So I kind of, you know, split up due diligence a little bit. You know, some people have one person for everything. I take two people. So one person does easy stuff like taxes, screenshots of the property. The other person is a specialist for title chains. So they're my go to. Worked with them for about a month and a half going on two months, and I sent them another property and they're like, I cannot do this work, sir. I'm sorry. As soon as I Hear the word can't, that decent explanation. It's time to find somebody else.

Well, I applaud you for being quick to fire, but we should have been slower to hire. So how did this person get the job in the first place?

So I put up an ad on upwork. I like putting up ads early in the day, my time, so that I know they're awake in the middle of the night and that they would work those hours so it's easier to communicate with them. So I hired about two days after the post went up, had about 40 applicants, filtered it down, interviewed about three people. I gave them all a parcel each to do the title search on. And. And he got it back the quickest, so got the job. And then I hear that big C word, which I do not like the word can't. That's enough for me to not want to work with him.

Well, not a lot to, you know, pick apart there. I think you hired beautifully, Eric Peterson. I think this is bad luck. What do you think?

Yeah, I think it's just unfortunate. You know, it definitely happens. You know, you just have to be prepared and have your processes in place to be able to go back and bring someone else in or a group of people to try out and choose the best one.

Right.

Yeah. I'd be curious, Eric, what percentage of your VAs do you train and then find out later, oh, this person, you know, is not doing the job as hired. And I'm just. I gotta rehire someone for that task or job.

You mean like after that initial phase of kind of like a trial period?

Yeah, after the, after the trial period, they just don't work out.

Yeah, I mean, that's, that's rare at that point. If they made it through the trial point with me, usually at that point they know what they're doing and they're doing a good job, which is why I kept them around. What happens more often is like David said, you know, just out of the blue, you get that email saying, you know, my last, you know, week is this week and I can't do anything more or, you know, whatever it might be.

That's.

That's happened to me on a number of different occasions. And oftentimes, you know, it's a VA you really like, and it's disappointing. But if you've got, you know, your system's in place, it's not that hard to go find a replacement.

Yeah, I mean, basically from what David said, it just seems like he's just copy and paste that ad back on upwork and start the process again, which is a wonderful system. Hey, Litchfield, what about you? How often are you working with a VA and they just don't work out? And you got to rehire a new.

Va, you know, if they're not going to work out, I tend to realize that within the first week or two that they're not qualified or that their heart's not in it. Kind of a tough guy in those initial weeks. And then after that, I soften up a little bit. But I want to make sure that they are going to do what they said they are and that they can do it well in a timely manner. And so if they can't deliver in those first, you know, the probationary time period, then unfortunately, we don't have space for them here.

Yeah. One of my. My favorite teachers in high school used to say, like. Like, the joke was, you know, if we started school in. In, let's say, September, the. The big joke was, you know, he wouldn't crack a smile until, you know, December. So he really set the tone of that class, was like, I expect this and I expect that and I expect that. And, like, there's, you know, I'm not going to soften until I see, like, these expectations are met, and then I'll crack a smile, like, in December. Speaking of someone who never cracks a smile, Scott Todd, what about your experiences?

I mean, why. Why smile, man? That means you're too soft.

Come on. The compassionate Scott Todd. I know you crack a smile.

I'm smiling right now.

I know.

And look, if anybody goes through flight school, they know I smile all the time. I like to tell little jokes. I like to tell how, like, when I started the business, I had a lot of hair, you know, like, but, you know, now I think, yeah, but.

If they don't mail in flight school. You got the bat. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't. Don't mess with the bat. Don't. Don't mess with saying no. And I don't like my surveys messed with either, so. Hey. So essentially, you know, I think that. I think the thing is, is that you, you know, it's kind of hard to hear the someone tell you no, right? Like, it's hard. It's hard when you're paying someone for them to tell you no. And, you know, I think that that's why, like, for me, what I want to do is I want to make sure I have a team of people that are, like, hungry for that work.

Right?

Like, the way I envision my VA's working is, you know, I take like a piece of steak and I throw it down into the lion's cage. And when they see it, the hungriest of hungry want to like jump on it. And so look, maybe some people aren't hungry sometimes, but then doesn't mean that they're bad. It just means that they're not necessarily hungry. So what I like to do is I have a team there that I can just toss the work to and say, hey, whoever gets it going, gets it going. And I think that's a good way to handle it so that you're not dependent on one individual person, you know, like make them compete against each other all the time. Life's all about competition.

I love it. I love it. You know, I would recommend to David there's a new service out there with trained VAs at the ready. It's just go to vas.thelandgeek.com we are coming out of beta. We're taking 10 new clients, I think in the next week or two. So, David, you might want to check that out and just compare, right? It's just month to month, see if they perform.

I would like to do that just so I can have more information and talk about the program and give it some raving reviews because, you know, if Danielle is the one who head that up, I'm sure it's going to be top notch.

Well, it is. I can tell you that the people in beta are our most difficult and persnickety of coaching clients. So. And they're loving it. So not, you know, not a lot to. To say so, but, you know, you know, taking on a few clients versus 10, let's see how that goes. You know, will the systems break? Will they be able to, you know, communicate effectively? I don't know. But I can tell you that before we started the program, I had no gray hair and now I've got tons. So it does, it does concern me a bit that this is scalable. But we'll see. We'll see. I am optimistic that we can scale it. So, yeah, no worries.

So pretty sure that gray hair came from geek pay. Nothing to do with the VA program.

Now he hit you below the belt mark. Oh, man.

I'll tell you.

Wow. That was the first time Eric punched back the thing.

I mean, Lane came out.

He just like. He like slowly delivered the punch to you and then you felt it. It hit you. And then like 10 seconds later, we all felt it.

You know? You know, I think that punch was so hard, like my whole family felt it. I think so, Right.

Three generations later, we'll feel it.

Three generations. Like, my kids are gonna come home, like. Like, all with, like, raging headaches. Like, yeah, Eric Peterson went there, guys.

Oh, no, Eric.

Eric just, like, went like. It's almost like in Back to the Future when, you know, like, when the starts and Biff is like. You know, Biff is, like, low level. And then, you know, like, the McFly family is higher, but then in the future, it's, like, reversed. He just reversed you, man.

You know, what I'm doing right now is I'm actually going to Boxer and having Danielle Send Eric a GeekPay IO T shirts that he'll have to wear. But, like. But in all fairness, Eric does owe me video testimonial.

I do.

I do.

It is working, Eric.

It is.

It's definitely working.

I just know the stress that you're under.

It is a lot of stress.

That's the point of my comment.

Yeah, no, it's. It's very stressful.

It's.

It's awesome, actually. Great.

Thank you.

And don't walk that back, Eric. You meant it. Well, he.

I mean, but Eric. Eric's. You know, he knows software. He understands how difficult it is to execute on that.

So.

That's funny. And if anyone told me, like, oh, by the way, a SaaS product is a tremendous, stressful headache that never ends, I might not have done it. So it just shows you what blind enthusiasm can do for you.

But one day, it'll get no note, setup fees.

It's great.

No notes on a. Fees it is. No, no. I mean, look, you know, at least we're not giving up 2% of our business on ACH to another company when.

You'Re doing 2 million a year.

Well, that's. That's just through August, by the way. Mic drop. So let's talk about the aftermath of our squatter issue. Tate Litchfield. All right, so the attorney emails us today and go ahead and tell the story.

Yeah, we get what's been. I'm sure all of our listeners remember the backstory here. Basically, we had a guy who was financing a property from us, and he wanted to use the land for something that he wasn't allowed. The county wouldn't approve his buildings, and he decided to go ahead and build anyways, which caused us a lot of confusion, a lot of headache. Had the neighborhood up in arms. You know, they were marching down the street with their pitchforks, and it wasn't good. But this guy called Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, and, you know, that didn't solve anything either. So eventually, we had to get an attorney involved to get him off the land. And today we got an email from that attorney saying squatters are gone. However, they've left behind a trash pit, and the area wants it cleaned up. So that's kind of where we're at now, Mark.

Yeah. And, you know, and I have no illusions about who's paying for that wall. We're paying for that wall. You know, we could not get someone else to pay for it, unfortunately.

Yeah.

So we're left with this situation. I know a few of the people on here. Eric's dealt with this before. Scott, I'm pretty sure you've had to click clean up trash. Just humor me here, guys. What did it cost you to get somebody to come out there, haul away all that trash, and clean it up?

Eric?

More than I wanted to pay, I was hoping I could get it done for, like, 200 bucks. Honestly, I think I ended up paying 300 or 350.

Okay.

So.

And it was. It was a lot of trash to clean up. So, I mean, I think it was worth it, but.

All right, Scott.

2.1 million. Tate. 2.1 million.

Larry H. Parker.

No, no, it was about a thousand dollars. I paid about $1,000.

We don't have any idea what kind of goodies he left behind us, but.

I mean, who do I even call?

Like, Craigslist, man.

Craigslist gig.

That's what I did.

And, Mark, Facebook buys out group.

Here's what you do. You first, you go on there and you're like, hey, free. Whatever's on the property. Free. And then you get people out there, like, scavenger hunting, right? But you make a rule that says, hey, you can go out there, you can get whatever you want for free. You just have to send me your email address. I know you're going out there. Then, like, a week later, you send them an email saying, how would you like to buy the land?

Oh, yeah, that's good.

Boom.

Boom.

We already are gonna be contacting the neighbors who were so upset about the guy being there in the first place. And I'm sending them a letter that says, hey, unless you want this to happen again, somebody better buy this.

Nice.

Yeah, nice.

That's good.

I love it before.

After the cleanup.

Yeah, I should do it before.

Man, you should go.

Let them clean it up. Yeah, be the hero.

Yeah, yeah, do it before. It's a great idea.

Yeah. Okay. So, David, you haven't had to deal with trash yet.

No, but, like, I've been in construction For a couple decades now. And I know what a big trash truck would require, and I can imagine the mess left behind. Something like that will probably cost about 800. Like you don't realize how much it costs to clean up trash until you have to do it.

All right, so this whole adventure with attorney fees and trash is going to cost about 1,400. Well, I mean, hopefully not that much. Hopefully we get like, not that much trash and we get like 250 for Eric Peterson. But we'll resell the property, we'll get our money back.

But here's the thing. I mean, we bought the property for 1,000 bucks. He put 500 down, lived on. He made payments for, I think, four or five months. So technically we've broken even or right around that price point. So, yeah, it's gonna, you know, it's. No, it's not a cherry. But I mean, there are worst case scenarios for this.

I mean, look, 1400 bucks, that's the.

Cost of like one flooded bathroom, right?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's what I was going to say. Let's put things in perspective. I've been doing this since 2001. This is my first time having to haul trash and deal with a squatter. So, you know, I've got buddies who are in the landlord business. They're dealing with this stuff every weekend. It's just a cost of doing business.

If nothing else, it made for good radio, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's worth the story. Yeah.

So you're welcome, audience.

You're welcome. I feel. Yeah, you're welcome, Landique nation.

If someone's listening to this right now, don't let that be a reason why you don't get into this business, by the way. Oh, my gosh. What's going to happen if there's trash in my property? It doesn't happen. I've never had it happen to me.

Yeah, it's really, really rare. These, these things that, you know, these, these sort of nightmare scenarios are really, really rare.

So Black swan events, they're easy to solve, really. I mean, it doesn't take much to resolve these issues, you know?

Yeah, I mean, it's not like Tate and I have to fly out there and solve ourselves either.

No, we'll just, you know, post a gig on Craigslist. We'll get posting domination to work for us yet again and get like a hundred ads out this afternoon and boom, we're done. How's that for a little bit of a, you know, a little marketing ploy? I love posting Domination. I'll just be the first to say it. I'm waiting for my T shirt.

Scott Todd is smiling right now. Audience. Scott Todd is smiling.

Yeah, Scott, where's the merch? Where's the land Moto merch? Where's this? The posting Domination merch. I've got my team. Tate merch.

He's about to become another meme from that.

Oh, no.

Oh, thanks, Tate. Yeah, the memes. Yeah, Me. Me and my pat.

20 a day.

Keep scout. Maybe I need to show the current flight school that picture and, like, scare them into. Maybe that's what I should do, is.

Like, I think you should send them an email with nothing written, just that attached.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And if you're listening to this and you have no idea what flight school is, go to the landgeek.com forward/training and get on a call with David and Mike. They'll walk you through it. So we're at the end of August now. August is historically our worst month in this business. Every month is good, but August always tends to be slow. I think it's back to school. I'm not sure. It could be just the vacation hangover for people that go away. June and July, and they spend all that money and then they don't spend money in August. Let's go around and hear our August status report. Eric Peterson. August, how was it?

August was pretty decent for me. I mean, July actually turned out to be a slower month for me. So August, I sold six properties.

All right. Enterprise value of those properties.

Close to 60,000.

Okay, we'll take it. That'll pay for, like, you know, one of the T shirts you'll be sending me later. David Benalis, how about your August?

So I think it's in a coffee talk or one of these we did in July. Coming into August, right. I said I would be doubling down both on refining my systems and, you know, going for. Just going for it on sales. So I had seven sales and enterprise value of around, I think it's about 85,000. I gotta check the spreadsheet, but it's in that area. So it was a great month. I love August. I want August every single month.

Yeah, I'll tell you what, it's 111 here and humid. Don't give me August every month.

All right, well, he says parking, it's okay.

Yeah, exactly. So Dave and I have a long standing joke about he's in LA and I'm in Phoenix. And he's always hazing me about the weather. I'm like, well, at Least I could find good parking. Scott. Todd, how about your August?

We've had 10 sales in the month of August so far, and enterprise value? Just over 100,000. So not as bad as last year. Not my best month, but, you know, I think that it was much better than July. July was. July was not as good as August.

Is that funny? Well, but you took. Didn't you take July off?

No. I mean.

I mean, don't you take every day off, work 10 hours?

I'm working less and less, it seems like, you know, like.

Right.

You know, I don't know.

All right, Tate Litchfield. How was our August?

You know, August, it was consistent with every other month. This. This year, looking at the Trend, we did 17 sales, right around $100,000 in enterprise value.

So not bad.

Not bad at all.

So August wasn't so horrible. How's our July compared to August? Was July slower?

July was slower. $25,000 slower.

Wow.

So only 75,000 in July.

Yeah.

Yeah. So year to date, Tate, we're at. We're at about 2 million.

Yep.

All right, Scott, where are you at? Team Scott.

Well, I didn't know we were going by enterprise value this year.

I thought we were going because last year we didn't want the volume. We didn't want to count your little $200 flips.

Amen.

I know.

So enterprise value is just over a million dollars through August.

That's great, though. Yeah.

And right. At 150 deals so far this year, and September, October, November, December are typically, historically, over the last two years, extremely strong for me.

Yeah. So you'll catch up and we'll still win. I mean, we'll still win, but it's.

Well, it depends on what the measurement is.

It doesn't matter what the measurement is.

How many hours are you working?

Damn.

Okay, like, three.

But the thing is, like, if you're listening to this, like, you know, comparison is a thief of happiness. I think. I really think the metric for success should be how many offers are you making a day? How many ads are you getting out a day? And then at the end of the day, you can feel really proud of that, and you'll get to that level of, you know, what we call success is really not success. It's just the byproduct of the effort that we're putting in. I mean, Eric had a great month, but he's doing this part time. David had a great month, but he's doing this part time. I don't even know what Scott does every day. So you know, I don't even know.

I do any every day.

And Tate's riding his bike. So, you know, when you. When you compare the freedom and flexibility with the effort, you know, we're all a success. And you've got to really pay attention. I think that to what your metric is for success should be only things you can control. We can't control how many sales we're going to get a month, right? Some will, some won't.

So what?

Someone's waiting, right?

That's right.

I really think that's the attitude you should have, because I know when I, you know, I go on, like, other podcasts or I hear other people like, oh, you know, I made 10 million this month. It's like, oh, I didn't make 10 million this month. But maybe their lives are miserable, right? Maybe their spouses never see them. Maybe they're traveling all the time. Maybe their kids hate them, but they did 10 million. Like, is that your metric for success? Right? I don't know, Scott. Todd, am I going on a rant here?

No, I mean, like, I was at the. I took my. My daughter to the dentist the other day, and they were processing the payments, and they had, like, a stack of bills. Not bills, checks. They were like, this big. My daughter's like, man, look at all those checks. It's a lot of money. And I'm like, yeah, it's a lot of money. And she's like. I'm like. But you know what? She's like, what? I'm like, the expenses of this place, this rent alone is huge. It's at the mall, basically, right? Like, it's this place is the mall. Dental equipment, insurance, staff to process these payments. You know, she's sitting there cutting the. Processing these checks. Yeah, it feels good to bring home this much money. But then by the time everything's said and done with, it's probably like this much money. And then the poor dentist is stuck in the office all day. All day.

Like, all day.

I guarantee you she didn't see the clips. I guarantee you she's accounted for every minute of her time during the day. As opposed to, like, me. I'm, like, not quite sure where I ate lunch yesterday. Who cares, right? It wasn't Panera Bread, by the way.

Yeah, it was probably first watch, because they know you. My name.

It was not that either.

It wasn't? What was it?

Yesterday was a place in my neighborhood called Hungry Greek. A Greek restaurant.

Mark, it's not a chain of a thousand, is it?

No, man. It's like the only place can we.

Pause right here and just say, wait a minute, Scott, you ate ethnic food.

Oh, okay.

All right.

I see where we're going, David. I know, between us. But don't worry, don't worry. The gloves are coming off next time. That was your McGregor moment right there.

Oh, no. Oh, no. We gotta go 10 rounds of a boring fight.

Oh, no, that. No, no, no, no. You only did one.

Oh, God.

I'm still reeling from Eric's punch to the head. Yeah, see, I can barely think straight. So it's funny though. I was at a party on Friday night and I'm talking to this guy, he's a periodontist. And I'm asking him about his day, and he's like, I get up at 4 in the morning and I work for two hours. He's like. And he's proudly telling me about how hard he works. So he works. He gets up at 4. He's like, I don't have an assistant. So he works from four to six just on the administrative stuff. And then from six to seven, he like goes to the coffee shop, eats breakfast. He's in the office by 7, and then he starts seeing patients around 8. So then he's doing more administrative stuff from 7 to 8. He's like, My favorite part of the day is actually the patient care. That's my easiest part of my day. He's like, then after that, I got to do more marketing at night. Then I have to take a dentist out for marketing once a week. He's like, on the weekends, I'm so tired that I sleep from 2 in the afternoon to 6 at night. My wife has to wake me up to go to dinner. And he's like, she hates it. And then afterwards, my wife said to me, because this guy does really, really well financially. And so my wife's like, mom, I mean, they've got a lot of money. I'm like, that's great. But he's miserable. I don't know if that trade off is worth it. No, I mean, I don't know if there's any amount of money that would put me on that treadmill of constant work. I don't know. But I digress.

That's terrible, doesn't it, Mark?

It does. And, you know, I hope he doesn't listen to this, but you can imagine his health isn't the best either.

I hope he does listen to this. And he gets a toolkit and then goes into flight school, and then one on one coaching, and then he replaces.

An income, but nobody he's proud of it. He's proud that he does everything himself. He's proud of his. Of this, you know, very Midwestern, like, work ethic that, you know, he works this hard for his family. And I'm like, well, okay, but, you know, on your deathbed, are you gonna look back and be like, I wish I spent some more time with my family from 2 to 6 on Saturday. Like, sleeping through life tired. I mean, he's got to go to bed at nine. I mean, I don't know. It's crazy. Sometimes he passes out at 8. Tate's like, laughing. Tate's like, boy, that sounds good.

Yeah. 8 o' clock doesn't sound that bad.

Yeah.

See, depending on your stage of life, it's just.

If I could stay asleep for a full night, that would be the good part.

That doesn't ever happen again. As a parent.

Yeah. You know what else I realized this week? Speaking of that when you watch your own kid, it's not babysitting. Apparently, you can't call it babysitting. I've got a babysit this afternoon, and because Allison's going out, and it's like, she's about ready to rip my head off if I call it babysitting again. Apparently, it's just called being a dad. What do you would know that?

I'm afraid to say anything.

Your wife listens.

She might.

I'm afraid Allison's listening.

She could. I don't think so.

Whatever. You know what? Happy wife, happy life. Whatever she says goes.

Yep.

For those of you that are not watching the video or don't see the video, Tate just looked over his shoulder in fear when he said, she might be listening. Tate, right now. Yo, it's babysitting. Come on, do it. Do it. Come on, man.

Do it.

Oh, man.

No, no, no, no. The hazing is really.

It's babysitting. Put me on speaker. Put me on speaker.

All right, let's get to those tips of the week.

What a beautiful segue there, Tate.

Let's start with Tate. Tate, what's your tip of the week? A website, a resource, a book, something actionable.

All right, so I was thinking about what I wanted to share with everybody this week. And it's actually a website that I use a lot, and it's called United Stateszipcodes.org and it's nothing fancy, but what it is is you can go to this website, you can plug in a city, and it will give you the information regarding its zip code. So if you plug in Las Vegas, Nevada, it's going to tell you what the most populated zip code is. The county, you know, the area code and that kind of thing. And the reason I like it is when I'm using, you know, posting ads on Craigslist, I can find zip codes for where I want to post the property or if you're following, posting domination. And Scott teaches us about getting phone numbers for certain areas. You can really zero in on the most populated areas, which will greatly increase the likelihood of you getting a phone number that's in the correct location. So United States zip codes dot org. Not really exciting, but I love it. It's one of the websites I visit most frequently.

All right, I love it. I love it. Any snarky comments? Eric Peterson?

Nope.

He just booked my kid.

He just bookmarked it. Okay, David Benalis, what's your tip of the week?

I'm going to preface this just like I did last time. If someone is experiencing anxiety from these tips, all you have to be doing is mailing and marketing. This stuff is the bonus. And now for the tip. I finally nailed down my calendar, so my time was the biggest thing I struggled with. And everyone's told it. Mark's told me, Scott told me, Tate's told me. I've probably heard this about 18 times now. It was the 19th time that finally convinced me to really take control of my calendar. You know, schedule in my own me time first, schedule in my power hour, just like Tate does, then let the availability come in after that. So I set up some really cool zaps, not gaps, zaps between acuity and Google Calendar. And I'm in control of my time. I know exactly what I'm doing. Thursday at 2pm I love it. So, yeah, first thing you want to mail and market, set up your calendar. Schedule in your time to write ads, take control of your life. Google Calendar.

I love it. I love it. Google Calendar. Not a lot to rip on there. I mean, I guess I could say.

It'S not a quote.

It lacks creativity.

It could, but you got to go to the basics sometimes it's no quote. It's no quote for sure.

Mike Zaino, we're missing you. Mike Zano, Eric Peterson. Okay, what's your tip of the week?

My tip is LucidChart.com l u c I d chart.com and it's, it's another, you know, mind mapping, flowchart kind of tool. It's web based, but it has, you know, after coming back from boot camp and thinking about swim lanes more, there's actually some swim lane Templates built into the tool itself. So that's kind of cool. Is your. If you want to work on your swim lanes digitally, this makes it really easy. And there's a free version.

Huh. Very cool. Lucidchart.com Scott, Todd, anything you want to say?

No, no. If it was David saying this, I would punish back. But since Eric and Team Scott, I support all the way, man.

Oh, man. I love you, Scott.

I'm too scared to make any snarky comment.

No, man, see, he just McFly you. That's what happened. You've been McFlied.

I. Yeah, I mean, I'm just not gonna even to get up from the mat next. Next week. I'll. I'll be back in shape. Not after that.

He's knocked you down, man. He's knocked you down.

David, any. Any alternatives of LucidChart.com I stick with old school Scalpel. Scalpel.

Yeah. I mean, unless someone else, you know, shows me better, I'm not gonna go searching for another one. But yeah, I mean, I've seen it. I like it. But scalpel's fine for me.

Right. And notice how we're going around the roundtable to just try to rip on Eric's tip of the week, like everyone else's tip of the week. Like, good tip. Like, I'm like egging the roundtable on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, do you like.

I do like draw. I like draw IO. I do like draw IO.

Is it free?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I like.

But I do like lucid too.

I like. I like draw IO and I like scalpel. Those are my two. But I'm. To be honest, I've never seen this one. So I'm definitely. I mean, I'd check it out for sure. Can't really on it too much because you know what I feel like he did is he went to Google and he searched, you know, mind mapping software and then he just found the first.

Wow.

That one's for you, Mark. I got you.

I appreciate it. By the way, again, the Team Tate cup. It tastes so good now.

Tate. Oh, gosh.

That was like a spoonful of sugar. Scott. Todd, what's your tip of the week?

Mark, have you ever lost contact with somebody that, like, you really, really like, want to get back involved with, you know? Well, check out this website, Smirnoff, as a service, Smirnoff as a service dot com. And check it out. They will. They will send to somebody a nice bottle of Smirnoff and they will include a handwritten note, you know, lose someone in the sales, you know, in the sales shuffle, it's like 25, 30 bucks. So the value has to be there. You can't do it for everybody. But what an original idea.

That's pretty cool.

That's a good tip.

I don't know though, but like, I don't know about sending alcohol.

Well, if you developed rapport with someone and you've had a few jokes about drinking, which I like to test the waters and see what they're comfortable with that. So yeah, I mean, send anyone a bottle, like that bottle is gonna stick around for at least a month and they're gonna think of you every single time they see it.

Good tip. I like it. It says sales opportunity on cold ice them.

See, I like it. I think it's cool. I like it.

Yeah, there you go.

And we don't need to go around thinking to everybody else's.

No, we don't need to do that.

No, you know, it's not relevant. It's not relevant. Great tip, Scott. Todd.

Thanks, Mark.

So I thought this roundtable was great, but before I, you know, sign off, I gotta give my tip of the week. So I saw this and I thought kind of. It kind of. It kind of applies what we were talking about. Kind of. It is lazy. A manifesto. So I'll send the link here. It's on YouTube and I think he's got a book. It's from Tim Kreider. Who Tim Ferriss. Liked it so much he actually had Tim Crider on his podcast. But he kind of talks about the merit of not being so busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. Which, you know, it kind of like, hey, let's. Let's get out of this busy trap. Right? So I thought, you know, this could be. This could be good. So check that out. No comments.

Well, I can't.

Well, we have to watch it. Like, come on.

Oh, look at that. What a perfect. It's a link.

YouTube videos.

Yeah, that's it, man.

I got. I will have my YouTube video next week. Eric. Don't worry, man. We have cracked the code.

You can't go wrong with the books either.

This is.

This is kind of like a. This is kind of like a lazy tip of the week, I think, until.

You watch it and it might be like the next airtable tip.

It could be. You know what? Thank you, David. Yeah. As the person that found airtable, I think I've. I've got like, you know, a tremendous amount of goodwill built up just on airtable alone.

Well, I think, I think for us to do this justice. We need to, like, pause the podcast right now. The problem is we need to take 13 minutes.

Yeah.

And then we'll come back and, you know, evaluate it.

Look, if you have the book Tools of Titans, Tim Kreider is in there, so I think you guys are gonna like it. Anyways.

All right, I'm gonna watch it.

I want to thank all the geeky listeners for spending time with us on our very fun, jovial roundtable podcasts. And just thank you. And if you're enjoying the podcast, the biggest and best compliment you can give us is just doing three little things. You're gonna subscribe, you got a rate, you got to review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of your review to supportlantic.com we're gonna send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit, and if you want, maybe even a Team Eric shirt with a K E R I K. Just kidding. Would never do that, by the way. Wow, Eric, I'm back up, man.

All right, all right.

So, you know, I kid because I love. But I want to. I want to thank, you know, all the roundtable people, David Benallis, Scott Todd Tate Litchfield, and of course, Eric Shot Not Pro Peterson for being on. And thank the listeners. And should we do it, Scott? You want to leave us?

Let's go.

One, one, two, three. Let freedom ring.

Who's dragging it out so long? It should be quick. It should just be let freedom ring.

Let freedom ring.

Yeah.

I had a maple donut yesterday, Scott. It was good.

Did you really? So speaking of vegan donuts, I got, like, another thing of vegan donuts at Whole Foods. By the way, Whole Foods prices have gone down. I'm super excited. There's, like, one, like, a block from my house. But you know what? The second go around wasn't as good as the first. And I think that just goes to show, like, the law of diminishing returns. Like, that first experience of vegan donuts, Amazing. The second one, not so great.

Never as good as the first time.

It's never as good as the first time. But the anticipation of getting the vegan donuts again was even as good as the first time. Like, oh, I can't wait to get these donuts. Because, like, the second time I went, they weren't there. And then I had to go back, and then they were there. It's like, oh, they're here. I win. And then I started eating them, and then I started beating myself up and fat shaming myself. Why are you eating vegan donuts and then I started voxing David Benalis and cursing him through voxer. Why are you doing this to me? I'm 46. My age should not be eating a full box of vegan donuts, but whatever.

I love how this podcast evolves so quickly. So quickly.

Tate, would you rather eat a bowl of mosquitoes or a bag or a box of vegan donuts?

Yeah, you know, hey, he's got Ronald's.

Donuts in Vegas, so he's not gonna hate.

Yeah, I'm gonna go with the mosquitoes on.

So healthy. Eric Peterson's like, they can't even deep fry the food enough here. Eric's eating all his pastries from carnivals. He's like having a bacon wrapped fried donut.

That sounds good to me. That sounds good.

That's the way they do it here.

That's right.

Listen, man, deep fried vegan is just fried dirt. That's all it is.

Oh.

The torture, the torture.

When I see David and I bring him his vegan donuts, it's just gonna be like a bag of potting.

So I'll be like, oh, man, Scott, when you come out here, I'm gonna take you to Mavericks, which is like my favorite coffee place. Honest to God, they have the best vegan chocolate chip cookies. They're amazing. I tell you, I'm all in on the vegan bakeries. It's not dirt, man.

ASPA maple maple donuts. So good.

I think even Eric Peterson would be like, you know, based on your. Your food choices of, like, chain restaurants, you've lost a lot of credibility.

What are you talking about?

See?

Hey, let's just see who gets to go to Columbia. Pretty much.

Say it.

No.

Let'S see who gets to go to the Columbia restaurant in October and who doesn't.

I'm going.

I'm sorry, there's. Oh, Mark, you're going. But I'm sorry, there's not enough seats for everybody.

I'm going.

Can I rsvp?

They don't serve vegan there. Oh, don't worry, okay?

I do seafood at boot camps. It's all good seafood too.

Okay, ready? One, two, three. Let freedom ring. I think we're done.

Thank you, guys.