Scaling Your Land Investing Business Like A Pro | Land Investing Podcast

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land Geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on this week's Roundtable, we get the usual suspects, minus a few people gone. We've got the Zen master. Breathe in the mailing, Breathe out the marketing, Mike Zano. Mike, how are you feeling?

Very refreshed. Feeling great.

Good to see you. Good to see you. We got the most feared woman in the country, the terrorist hunter, Mimi Schmidt. Mimi, how are you?

I'm doing great. Getting ready for Thanksgiving.

Fantastic. Fantastic. I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate. Litchfield Tate. How are you?

I'm fantastic. How are you, Mark?

I'm great. I'm great. And last but not least, you know him, you love him. Scott. Todd. Scott todd.netlandmodo.com if you're not automating your Craigslist, your Facebook postings, posting domination.com thelandgeek and learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott Todd, welcome to the roundtable. Wait, Scott, you're on mute there.

Thanks, Mark. Sorry, Mark, how's it going?

It's going well. It's going well. So, you know, the next few roundtable podcasts, I really want to kind of go into a deep dive in is, you know, in 30 minutes or less on scaling our businesses. The idea being we're kind of e. My thing, our business. Like, we don't want to work in our business and have this other job for ourselves. We want to work on our business. And for those new people that have the toolkit, maybe even flight school, they're still in it, they're still learning it, they're getting their reps in, but eventually they're going to want to work on it. But I thought it'd be interesting to look at that juxtaposition of what life was like before.

So.

And kind of tell those stories of how you started in the land business, how much time you're working in it, and then piece by piece, what life looks like now that you're working on it. So, Zen Master Mike Zano, the idea being, you know, if today is Tuesday.

Right.

Is there any difference between Tuesday and Saturday for you? Technically speaking?

No. Well, since I'm the only one with the. With the. Still has the job. But that's because I do love what I do. And it's combined with the fact that my schedules are rotating 24 hours at a time, so I never know what day it is there. And with the lamb business, yeah, it really is no difference. And I thought about this the other day because it was like.

I really.

Don'T know most of the time what day it is. I know that I have to be. To work on certain rotations. I show up. And it's kind of funny because I'll say to people when we go on medical calls and, you know, you have to establish that they're, you know, you know, if they're capable of making their own decisions. You know, okay, do you know where you are? What day is it? And then they'll answer, and I'll be like, I don't even know if they're right. Like, I don't even know what day it is. Like, literally, it's kind of embarrassing. I'm like, are they right? Because I have no idea. It is kind of an interesting feeling, Mark. I do feel like that's. It's. It's sort of a. Every day is the same for me. I get up, I, you know, I do a little bit of things. I go to the gym with my wife and work out and then go and do the whole kind of sauna, jacuzzi thing and then go get some breakfast and then come home and just see what's going on with the team in the land business. So I don't know what. The day doesn't really matter to me, you know?

It doesn't.

Yeah. So. But to get to that point, if I'm listening to this.

Yeah.

What was sort of your. Your journey? I mean, how many, how many hours a day were you working right. In the beginning to now, now that you've scaled it?

Oh, a lot more. Because in the beginning, we really didn't have too many systems. You know, there wasn't LG Pass, right. There wasn't Geek paid. All these things didn't exist. So we were very, I think all of us were very functional. Like, we were really good at what we did, but it was hard to scale. And I remember listening to you talk about, like, the LGPass. Mike, this is incredible. We literally collectively saved. And you had some crazy number of hours that you saved, you know, And I was like, what? I need to see this. What is this? This software? What is this? And it's amazing because, yeah, I was basically like a day trader. And I first started, I was at 40 grand debt, paid it off in the first year, but it was like real paper in, paper out. Paper in, paper out. I was like a stamp machine. But it was a lot of work, but it was well worth it. It did what it was supposed to do. But, yeah, that was a lot different back then, Mark. There wasn't all these. We didn't have the ability to scale it like we do now.

No, absolutely. Do you remember your first hire and what that was like?

Yeah, it was probably someone scrubbing a list and it was kind of, you know, I mean, this is what reminds me when you say that. It reminds me of something that I saw Scott Todd do at a boot camp with peanut butter and jelly sandwich exercise. And it was kind of like that. It was kind of hard because you got to describe what you want them to do and you're like. And you overthink it. And then if you under. Oh, it was. Yeah, it was very difficult, you know, in the beginning.

Sure, sure. Mimi Schmidt, how about you?

When I, you know, I used to have this crazy schedule and I used to have. Really have to work to find time for the business and the priorities for what the activities I was doing were very. Putting out the fires or selling land and, you know, the step, oh, I have to sell it. Oh, I have to upload it into sign now, or I have to create the deed. It was always, you know, I was always just putting out fires. Right. And as I got more people working doing the work for me and got up on top of it, I was so much more relaxed and I'm so much more like I can. The first and the 15th. I look at the reporting and it's so insightful where I was chasing my tail and I couldn't tell, you know, it was hard to tell what I was doing wrong because I was so in it. Now that I'm up on top of it and I can look down, it's so much easier to see the things that I need to correct when, you know, now that I have a little time to look at those type of things, work on it instead of in it. And my days of the week. The only reason I know there's a different day of the week is because my daughter goes to school. When she was sick. She had mono last week. It felt like summer vacation because she was home. I had no reason to get up and I said, well, I think I'll just lay here for a little longer. It was wonderful. And now my husband and I go on breakfast dates on Mondays. I went on a coffee date with two girlfriends yesterday at 10 and then met another girlfriend from lunch. I had a great Monday, but it was. It could have been any day of the week. Really.

Yeah. So you're not sort of tied to a schedule anymore like you used to be?

No, I set my schedule because I want to, but. And I still like to do the business when my family's not around, you know, six, eight hours a day, because I like to do it. But if I want to just not do it one day because I want to go Christmas shopping, then I do it. So once I paid him six bucks a week, you know, I just remind everybody it's very easy to find cheap labor to do so many of these things for you.

Do you remember that feeling of waking up in the morning and having it done?

It's such. You know what I love? I love going into Trello now, and there'll be a blue light for. So for like, mailing, intake, marketing, and sales. I have, like, four sections. There'll be a blue light if there's a VA in there. I love going in there when there's, like, three or four of those lights on, because everybody's working on my business but me.

Yeah, it's amazing, right, to have that experience of, okay, this is no longer a job for myself. That job of scrubbing a list is gone. And now I can use that time, you know, in really more productive ways. But eventually, once you scale it, you're really just working on the business and managing the team, and your biggest really worry is, do I have a date with my husband or do I see the girlfriends?

Right.

It doesn't matter what day it is. Yep.

I try to be a servant leader to the VAS that I have. I try to get to their requests quickly so that I'm not keeping them up. But, yeah, holding them back. But otherwise, yeah.

Yeah, amazing. Amazing. How about you, Tate?

Yeah, I mean, I pretty much echo what these guys say. You know, I recognize certain days of the week based on if I have a podcast obligation or something like that. But the reality is I can do what I want. But it wasn't always that way. Right. It started off as you had to prime the pump. We put a lot of work into it at first, a lot of work into hiring the right people and coming up with strategies and systems that made sense and documenting these processes. And then over time, I started to kind of find myself going down the Reddit hole with Scott Todd and trying to kill time that I was spending normally on the land business because things were getting done. Emails were being sent, people were getting contacted, ads were getting marketed, properties were being sold, and it's like, whoa, I guess I'm just gonna go inside and not do anything in my office today because there's nothing going on. But, you know, I Think it's important to realize that if you say, I'm gonna do this in six months, well, guess what? You're probably gonna be disappointed. I don't think it's fair to put a deadline on yourself to say, I have to accomplish this. I want to be like Mimi in a year. Well, you know, it didn't take Mimi a year. It took her far longer than that. Right. And it took me far longer than that. It took everybody on this call far longer than that to live the life we want to now. But make no mistake, when we do work on our business, it's very focused, it's very strategic, and we're able to do high level work because we have people that understand and share the cane, share a common objective and goal as we do.

Yeah. Do you remember the first. Your first hire and what that was like?

Yeah, I want to say it was somebody to help me with my list. I don't recall what the price was. I know our current list, you know, our list VA makes a couple bucks, I think $3 an hour or something like that. They work, know, an hour a day or something like that for us, you know, and that, that was a big deal when we got that person hired. It was a sense of, you know, expansion, I guess it was like once you have that first VA hired and they start to do things for you without needing to be reminded daily, you all of a sudden realize that time. It's okay to focus on the next objective now, and it's okay to relax a little on that task, but not entirely. Right. And you just keep steamrolling. Right. You get the next person hired and trained, and then you put out a bunch of fires, and then you stress test your systems, and then you start it over and over again. But that first va, it was a pretty glorious experience. I remember feeling just relieved.

Do you remember the hours? Like, no matter how many hours you're working in the business, as opposed to like now, how many hours you're working.

In was a lot. I wouldn't say it was, you know, 10 or 12 hours a day or anything like that, but probably five, six hours a day. Now there's still days where I'll spend four or five hours working on the business. Not because I have to, because I get carried away with some automation or a new tool or a zap or something, something that I want to do. But if I didn't do it, guess what? Doesn't matter.

Right? Right. Yeah. No, absolutely. And I mean, you know, it's so funny because the tim Ferriss sort of four hour workweek. He gets hazed a lot about that title, like, oh, or you know, who works four hours a week. His argument is he's the work that you're working on in those four hours are things that you don't like doing. And he defines that as work. I mean, obviously he is, you know, or most people are working more than four hours a week. But if you define it that way on this, on the things that you just have to do, like, you know, you just don't like doing what you have to do. Like, let's pick on Scott. Tom, like accounting. Most people don't like the accounting aspect of it, but you kind of have to do it in a way or, you know, whatever it is. What would you say is your true. How many hours a week do you work in the business on things that you really don't like to do?

After all said and done, an hour a day.

So five, maybe five hours a week.

I would say that's pretty fair. I mean, there's still some things that I have to do that I sit down, I'm like, I really don't want to do this. And you know, sometimes reading reports, talking to people, those kind of things, I hate doing that now. I guess the other takeaway is that the more vas you get, the more automated your business comes, the more you realize how much you didn't like doing certain things and the thought of having to do them again, you're like, never. I could never. I can't go backwards. So I'd say an hour a day, four or five hours.

How about you, Mimi?

I say I'm probably still at 10. There's two hours, there's two hour block every day that I don't particularly like.

What is, what is that two hours on? You don't want to say?

No, I don't want to say what it is.

Can you give us a hint?

Yeah, it's working in my CRM. You know, I still work with my sales assistant, but it's like, okay, what am I, you know, coming up with new and creative things to say sometimes is a struggle for me. And that the constant question that I have, how am I going to increase my sales? How am I going to increase my sales? I mean, I think that's always going to be a part of my business. How am I going to increase my sales? Right. And it. I'm not, I don't see myself as a natural salesperson. So that's the part that's difficult for me.

Okay, fair Enough. Zen master, how about you?

So you're asking how long we work in the business? Every day. That really isn't pleasurable.

Yeah.

I don't hate any of it. There are things that, you know, but I'm like, this is a solid hour every day. You know, you have people working for you, they need to be monitored, they need to, you know, you need to have just kind of follow up with them and you know, it's not the most pleasurable. But I don't hate it, you know, if they're doing me a huge service. So, you know, that's a tough word.

Hate.

I don't know. I can't say I hate it.

Dislike.

Dislike.

Rather not do it.

I'd rather be practicing Kung fu. Yes.

Okay, so five hours. So you're like the five hour work week.

Yes.

So we got a five hour workweek, a ten hour work week and a five hour work week.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay.

I mean, no way you define it. Yes, absolutely.

No one is shedding a tear for any of you yet. Scott, Todd, we got to go to just the beginning with you as far as your story of, you know, when you started in the business and then, you know what life worked looks like now for you.

I mean like, you know, Mark, Mark, when I started my business, I had a full time job and like anybody else, I was just struggling to do it all right. You know, like the, the first few months of it is, is. Well, I mean, look, the reality is you're starting a business, okay? So like you are starting a business and a lot of people don't understand what it takes to start a business. It's a big undertaking to start a business. You are going from being a worker at a job where a lot of this stuff gets done for you. I hate to say it, but like as a worker at a, at a company, there are a lot of things that just get, get done. I mean like for example, like let's say that you're in sales. Well, all you do is sell. Well, you don't do the accounting work and you don't do the marketing work and you don't do the back office stuff or the operations piece. Your job is to sell. So when, when we're corporate employees, we, we have a job function and that's what we know and that's what we do. Right. Well now all of a sudden as you start your business, you have to like do it all. Now there's no one that you could just hand off and say, okay, well my job is sales and I'M only going to do the sales and everybody else is going to do everything else. Well, you are everybody else in the beginning, so you got to do this stuff that's not any fun. And when I got going, you know, like, the first thing that I outsourced was my screen scraping because I was building list, so I was screen scraping. I spent 21 days doing it. And, you know, probably the first, I don't know, maybe the first week it was fun. After that, it was no fun anymore, right? Like, it wasn't any fun, but you still did it. So I was trying to get going and then, you know, so I outsourced that. And that was scary because even though I had hired people, one, it was never on my dimension, okay? It was always on the company's dime, the people that I hired. And two, there's no class that you've ever taken in an entire professional career that tells you how to outsource work to someone in another country. Like, it's just weird, right? Like, it just feels weird. And then, you know, you don't know the quality you're going to get. There's a lot of unknowns. And then all of a sudden, you know, you're, you're, you're trying to, you know, do all of these things and it's hard, right?

No, no, absolutely, absolutely. It's not like flipping a switch where you just wake up one day and say, okay, every, every task of this business, I'm going to, you know, hire a great person and they're going to do it and it's just going to be completely headache free. We all wish it were that simple. And it's just not. It's really not. And like any business, like Scott said, there's a lot of moving parts. So Scott, what's life like now that you did go through those steps of outsourcing each piece, automating each piece? How many hours a week are you working now?

Well, I work. I'm embarrassed to even say this. I work about two hours a week in my business. Okay. Like, and that might be a stretch if you go through flight school. I actually detail, like, what I do in my business. And yeah, two hours might be a stretch. I actually worked for about 30 minutes this morning, maybe 40 if I'm really being honest. 30, 40 minutes. And I got some stuff done and I left. And you know, it's weird because every, like the days do blend together, right? Like, you know, it doesn't matter what day of the week it is. It's really, really just A blending. And so the only day that I'm absolutely obligated to do something is Tuesdays. And that's when we do our podcast. Beyond that, every other day of the week is kind of open. And, you know, it's really cool because it allows you freedom that you never once thought that you would have. So, for example, like, I don't know, a week ago I wasn't feeling well. I don't normally get sick, but I wasn't feeling well. Well, you know what I took Friday, Monday, Tuesday, I kind of recovered, you know. No, but I didn't have to call anybody, I didn't tell anybody anything. The money kept coming in and, you know, I'm laying on the couch there just, you know, living life, kind of slacking. But yet the entire operation ran. We still bought properties, we still sold properties, the ads still went out, all of that stuff. I just sat there recuperating. I was talking to my wife the other day and I said, hey, you know, we've always wanted to go see this, this show, this Christmas time show. So I actually got tickets. It's actually on a Thursday in another city. We're just gonna drive over there on a Thursday, right? Like, I have to ask anybody for the day off. I'm just like, let's go. And so she's like, let's go. So we got tickets. The only days we could find the tickets were on that Thursday. So middle of the week we're going to be off having fun. Yesterday, for example, I woke up, hung around the house for a little bit, had lunch with my wife, and then I'm like, hey, you know what, I think I'm going to go out and just go fly a little bit. She's like, have fun. So next thing you know, I'm at the airport, taking off, flying around for, I don't know, about an hour and a half and didn't have to ask anybody, didn't have to take any time off from work, didn't tell anybody where I was going. So you get these freedoms that you just don't even realize that you, you have in life just because of the fact that you, your business, you created a business and the business will survive with or without you.

Yeah, it's so true. And to me, that is the true definition of real wealth. So we all want to have our money problem solved, but ultimately you want your time problem solved so that you have complete control of how you spend your time in your life. And if Monday or Tuesday is the same day as Saturday or Sunday, Or Friday. That's an amazing feeling. And I do remember that first time I got sick after I quit my investment banking job. And this amazing, just sense of relief that there was no one to call, there's no stress. I didn't have to deal with a manager, you know, or anything like that. It was just, I could just be sick. And there's so many little things now throughout the day that I can just check off and appreciate. No more traffic jams, you know, I mean, Mimi, you know, like, how much the commute is gone.

I spend 10 hours commuting at least longer movies, probably more like 15 hours commuting a week.

15 hours?

Yeah. That's why I listen to all these podcasts.

Yeah. Yeah. Scott. Todd, what was your commute?

Mine wasn't too bad. Well, okay, so my. Now, mine wasn't too bad. Probably like 10, 15 minutes, something like that. It wasn't that bad at all. I was living in a smaller town and everything, so. Right.

But could you just be sick?

No.

You know, the Sunday was the worst. Right? Like, Sunday afternoon, preparing for Monday. Like, you cannot enjoy your weekend when, you know, you only have, like, two days. Sunday is not enjoyable. It's a lot. Like, the way I always put it is like, you know, do you remember the feeling of, like, summer vacation coming to an end for school and you having to go back to school and you really didn't want to go, and you're like, okay, I'll do it, but I'd rather just be off on summer vacation. It was that type of feeling every Sunday. Like, Sunday it was, like, miserable.

Yep. So Saturday you ran errands to catch up, dry cleaning the groceries. And then Sunday, you dreaded going back.

Yeah.

I mean, you live like that.

Like. Yeah, I mean, we all do. We all did. But, like, I mean, the thought of that is like. I'll tell you, Mark, the other. The other thing, too is I was watching a TV show the other day, and the main character was, like, jockeying for a new job, right? Like, she was trying to get promoted. She was worried about her next career step. She was worried about relocating. The career pressure was on her mind. And the show ended. And I looked at my wife and I'm like, man, I do not miss the days of, like, always worrying about, like, how long before I get promoted? Am I ever going to be promoted again? Is this the end? Is this as high as I go in my career? Like, that whole structure thing is ridiculous. And it's so much better not even having to deal with that.

Oh, Yeah, I remember talking to my brother in law and he would, he would, he was with a big bank and he was always like, are we going to survive this round of layoffs? Like, he literally had to worry about this once a year. Would he survive the layoff? Mike, what were you going to say?

Yeah, I was just going to bring up just because these stories are so awesome. And I just think that people need to understand, also reiterate the fact that the deep work that got us to this point. So it's not like you always say, it's simple, but it's not easy. You're gonna get kicked in the teeth in this business. It takes a lot of deep work and a lot of mistakes and recoveries and commitment because a lot of people get stopped in this business. And I think that it comes down to just, it can be sort of an excuse when something strong comes up that blocks you and you don't push through it. And, you know, you have to not allow that to become an excuse. I don't want to belittle anybody's issues, that they would rise, they would come up in the business. But we all have these things that happen, right? And we've all pushed through them. So we're here now because we pushed through that. So it's important to realize, if you're out there listening, you're struggling, that we've done that. Right. And it's only reason we're having good results now is because we pushed through it. And you can too. So that's like the other side of it. I think that's all.

You gotta climb that wall, man.

Yeah, you gotta climb it. Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Tate.

Well, I was gonna say, if, you know, Mike and I can do it, I mean, anyone else can too, right? I mean, this is not rocket science.

No, it's determination. It's like I always tell you, Mike, a blue collar scrub firefighter shouldn't be doing so well. I'm in awe, but I just stuck to the program. I stuck to the recipe. When you were gonna say, and I think you're gonna ask me something, Scott.

No, I was just gonna say, like, isn't. Isn't that ultimately, like, the thing is that the people that, like, people are gonna do well at their own pace. Right. Like, how I define success is not necessarily how Mimi defines success.

Right.

You know, we're not on this. There is no success spectrum that says, oh, well, he did it in this amount of time, well, then that makes him successful. Well, how do you define success? If you define success by building a passive income and getting the heck out of your day job. Well, what does it matter how long it takes, right? Like, it does not matter and should not matter. And unfortunately, I think that a lot of times people put artificial time horizons on their success, and they go, well, okay, I'm going to try this for six months. Well, I can tell you in six months, you won't be successful.

Okay.

Like in the story, if that's your time horizon, I don't know. I don't know what you're going to be successful in for six months. But it's not this. But if you're willing to continue to chisel away slowly and methodically at building the business that you want, well, then you can do it. It's just.

You have to do it.

That's the difference. And, like, you have to just understand it's going to suck for a while. Mark used to have a saying that some people turn some people off. But, like, that saying was true.

Embrace the suck, right? It's gonna suck from the seals. That's from the, like, that's the military thing.

It's gonna suck for a while.

Yeah.

But then it's gonna get better.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that if you haven't watched Shawshank Redemption in a while and you're struggling in some way in this business and you've got a job, watch Shawshank Redemption. Because I feel like we're all Tim Robbins in the sense of we've got our rockhammer, and our rock hammer is the systems and the blueprint and all the education we provide. And then we just start chipping away at it every day a little bit. We go out in the yard and we let go of our pieces every day. It's just time and pressure, time and pressure. And next thing you know, you say enough is enough and you're free and you. You're. You quit your job, like, but it doesn't take. I think it took him 19 years or something before you escape prison. Like, you know, for me, it took, I want to say, five years. Mimi, did take you, what, Three years. Take three years. Scott, how long did it take for you? Like, really free? For me?

No, I would say, you know, that's the thing is, like, what I did was I got out of my day job, but I had built a team up there to do it. And then what I did was when I first had all this time, like, wow, I'm free. Well, then all I did was I started chiseling away at more and More of it, faster. So I used my newfound, I don't know, 50, 60 hours to like just knock it all down and then all of a sudden that will go a lot faster. Right. Like it's a lot like pushing a boulder down, down the mountain. At first it's slow because you got to go up the mountain, but then once it starts building, man, like you're not going to stop it. It's just going to keep going. And so I would say probably like less than two years. And like I was, I really haven't worked in probably, I don't know, almost two years.

Wow. Yeah, I'm at a two hour workweek. Mike Zaino, how about you? How long do you think it took before you're like just completely free of the business?

Well, yeah, I'd say if you. Because remember, I paid the debt off in the first year, but I wasn't free. I had to now figure out how not to go back into debt, how to keep this rolling. So, I mean, it was a process. But after a couple years of that and then really embracing all the systems, then things change dramatically in terms of just my everyday life and how it's experienced. So. Yeah, but there was that, there was that struggle, right? That two year at least. Maybe not. Maybe even a little longer. I mean, late bloomer, I guess. But you know what, it's worth it. You know, it's. It goes back to the story we love about tai chi. I asked my tai chi teacher, right? I always love this. How, how long to get good at Tai Chi? 10 years. I'm like, forget it. 10 years. Well, 10 years is coming either way. He said, either you're good at tai chi or you're not. I know we say that all the time, but it's this business. Like Scott Todd said, you know, if it takes you two years, if it takes you five years, well, when that comes, it's going to be so gratifying and so worth it. So you just can't stop. You have to push through.

Yeah, that pot of gold at the end of this is really, it's hard to, I think, convey into words. You almost have to experience that, that, that first day where, you know, like Mimi, like that first morning date with your spouse. And it's not vacation, you know, you didn't have to plan it out. It was just, I have this time now because I put in all this effort up front and now I can work when I want, where I want, with whom I want, and it's latte time, baby. And you know I'll get to this when I want to, and it's amazing. How about you, Tate? How long do you think it took.

To get everything? I don't know. I mean, my expenses were really low at first, so I could get by living on, you know, crumbs. And then as my family grew, my expenses increased. But two years, two and a half years, I guess. I mean, going pretty conservative there. I mean, two and a half years to where I thought, okay, now we're not just paying the bills, we're actually making money and saving money and growing and net worth increasing and everything else like that. I guess that would be pretty fair. But, I mean, it never was about, like a deadline, right? I looked at this business model from the moment I met you, Mark, and I said, I get. Makes sense to me. This is not too complicated to where I'm going to need a lot of credibility to get started. You know, I was just a young kid, and you and I, we connected and, you know, went for it. Right? We went for broke, and it worked. But I think more than anything, it comes down to your ambition and your drive and whether you're working an hour a day on this business. I spoke with a couple the other day, and they said to me, how much time do I need to really dedicate to this business? We want to succeed. And I said, well, it depends on your definition of success, what your timeline is. I go, but if you realistically commit an hour and a half to two hours a day on this, you can do this business. And I think that's one thing that we're really good at helping people with, is maximizing the time they spend on their business. We're really good with helping them learn a task, outsource it, and never do it again.

Yeah, absolutely. So if you are looking at 2020 and you want to set up yourself and your family for this real wealth of time and money freedom, then you have an ethical obligation to learn more, because today's podcast is sponsored by flight school. Just go to landgeek.com training, schedule a call with the Zen master, Mike Zano, the Nightcap OG DO buddy Scott Bossman, and set up a strategic plan, starting now, on how you're going to systematically become completely free and, you know, utilize this business as a vehicle to live your best life, be your best self. All right, well, I thought this roundtable was very enlightening, and we're going to continue on this theme, I think, for the next few weeks as we head into 2020, because I do think it's one of those great topics, unless someone comes up with a topic that they want to talk about. But I do think just systematically looking at a way of scaling your business to have this total freedom is going to be important over the next few months, step by step, as we discuss it and make it sort of, you know, really, you know, through our stories, more of something that's not just this abstract concept, but something that's. That's tangible that you can really visualize for yourself. All right, so today's tip of the Week. Mimi Schmidt, did you see what happened last week? No.

No.

Well, we asked everybody to go on the Facebook group and beg you and Eric, but I found the site. I'm gonna give you a break this week I thought was really interesting. It's tentor.com and I'll put it in the chat here. Www.tenter.com. has everybody seen this site?

Yes, I have. It's pretty cool.

How would you describe it, Tate?

It's kind of like. It's almost like a land rental site, but I guess almost a mix of Airbnb. Like, you put your property up there, somebody comes, they can camp on it, and then this company provides everything you need or they need to have an enjoyable getaway on it. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. It's like. It's like Airbnb, but with tents on your land. And you can. You can share your land and you can become a camp keeper and earn annual income by hosting guests on your land. And they provide the tent.

Wow.

You don't need to go out on your land and put a tent up. So Tenter Signature lets you camp in style with no equipment required, while Tenter Backcountry offers a classic camping experience. If you do prefer to pitch your own tent with Tenter Partners, we offer curated glamping sites, and state park sites offer unique sites on state land. This is really cool.

Yeah.

What do you think, Scott Todd?

I think it's pretty good. You just got to make sure that you know their laws about camping on your land. Otherwise you're going to get a visitor from the code enforcement officer. And that's not always a nice visit.

Yeah, absolutely. All right. Mike Zaino, you like this?

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. This place is up near me. I'm go to a roundtable from my tent.

There you go. Mimi, how about you?

I think it's super cool. And there's a lot of places where we sell land that are here, that are posted here. It's cool.

Yeah. Yeah. I Mean, there's New Mexico, there's Arizona, there's Texas.

Colorado. Yeah.

Nevada. Florida. Huh. Pretty cool. Yeah, it kind of opens up your. Just your mind, like, what other things you can do with your land besides just, you know, sell it, you know, and this is, you know, perfect for terms because while that person's paying off their note, you still own it. And you can add another, you know, revenue stream with, I guess, that person's permission to provide that camping outlet.

Cool.

It's not bad. I don't know.

Picture the guy from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre offering up his site for free camping. Come on over. Got a great tent.

Okay, now you just ruined the whole thing. Oh, no.

I guess safety, it's so wonderful, honey, isn't it?

Oh, you hear chainsaw safety would be an issue. But that's an issue anywhere, anytime you camp, isn't it?

Yeah, I was gonna say that's not like a new issue. I mean, every time you go out into the wilderness, you have to worry about the crazies and the wildlife. I mean, not a concern for me.

Yeah, there's a great bit on YouTube where Jim Gaff. You guys should, like, do a YouTube search. Jim Gaffigan camping. He does like a five minute bit on it. He's like, I. What you would call indoorsy. And he's like. He's like, I never went camping with my parents because they. They loved me. And it just kind of goes on and on and on about camping. What's interesting, though, is like, they have, like a study done on the most happy families. They all have these different characteristics, but the one thing all these happy families had in common were camping. Yeah, camped. Isn't that interesting? So there you go. There's your tip of the week. Well, I want to thank the listeners and hopefully you're getting value from these podcasts and these roundtables and give us some love. Subscribe, rate, review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to supportlandgeek.com we are going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit course and as well as the latest and greatest wholetailing course, how to flip your land 30 days or less and double your money. All right, are we ready to do this? All right, one, two, three. Let freedom ring. Not. Not too bad. So, Mimi, did you finish that Jack Ryan Netflix show?

Yeah, two nights. We were done in two nights. You did? You did too, Tate.

Oh, it was so good. It was the only thing good about having, like, you know, a bum leg at the time.

Was.

I could binge watch that and just truly enjoy it. It was so good.

Yeah.

I had no idea about Venezuela and their. Their rich mineral history.

Yeah, no idea.

No idea.

Feel bad for the people to be so rich.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was all just mismanagement. I mean, literally government mismanagement. I think starting in. Was it the 80s or 90s? It wasn't the current. I mean, he's not doing them any favors either, but. Yeah, there's like a whole long history of just. They really just got rid of the. All the executives of their oil team, and it just went down from there.

It's a TV show because I'm depressed. I can't find a new TV show and nothing's grabbing my attention. Is this what you're talking about?

Yeah.

Jack Ryan came out.

Jack Ryan on Amazon.

Yeah.

You're talking about that. The show with the guy from the office.

Yes, yes.

Sorry. That's worth getting into.

Yes, definitely.

Oh, it's start season one.

Start with season one.

Yes. Well, just think. I mean, you've got cities like Dubai who have taken that oil wealth and they had the greatest income per capita in the world. Just think, Venezuela could be like that, too. But they've just managed it so poorly. I feel bad for the people.

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's terrible.

Terrible.

Yeah, I. You know, speaking of gratitude, I was watching, like, the Today show yesterday with my wife, and they were showing, like. Like child labor doing mineral excavation in Madagascar, and they get paid like a dollar a day, and it's back breaking work. And, you know, I'm thinking about my family and, you know, it's literally just luck that we weren't born into this.

Yeah.

You know, luck. It's amazing. It's, like, mind blowing to think about. So if you're having a bad day. Well, it's not that bad. You and your kids aren't working the mines in Madagascar for a buck a day.

And it makes you feel better about those foreign vas. You're. You're hiring, that you're paying?

Oh, absolutely. They're living.

You really love it.

You're improving all over the world.

I mean, unbelievable. Yeah, we'll start talking about that and how much we pay and where and all that good stuff. For sure. All right, Well, I can see on Tate's face, it's. It's like lunchtime for him. He gets that. He kind of gets that.

That.

That hangry look, like.

Yeah, it is lunchtime. It's 12:01. Time to eat.

We're the 5:00 clock shadow at 12:01.

I know.

See, that's the problem. Like when you don't have anything really going on, you're like, ah, shaving's painful. I'm not doing that today.

Uh oh.

Oh, shaving. Mark Tate's not shaving.

That's a problem.

Not Rose.

I'm shaving.

I'm not impressed by that razor, by the way.

Oh, no, you just supply razor. I'm not either.

Mike.

I got it sits up there in its magnet holder and does nothing because it doesn't give me a close shave.

I don't. Okay, you guys are not doing it right. You've got to put it on angle. Mike, let's schedule a call. Get on my calendar. We're gonna go through a shaving tutorial. I promise you it is so nobody's.

Complaining about the shaving cream now.

That stuff's the best. I put it on for no reason at all, just to hold it, watch tv.

Mark, I have to agree that like that I've tried it every direction, every way possible and I have gotten a shave. But you know what? It like, it's not consistent and it like nicks me. And I just went back to my double edged safety razor. So if you want my razor, you can have it.

I get better shave off a cheap disposable.

Oh, my God. You know, they were just on Shark Tank. They did a deal with Robert.

Yeah, well, it's not that great. Robert got hosed.

I'm gonna broadcast in the Facebook group and shave with it and we'll see what happens.

You know what, I'm gonna do one too, and I'm gonna show you the difference. You've gotta put it on an angle first of all. Yeah, you're pressing too hard. You're in like you're out of Gilletteville. You gotta get out of Gilletteville. Think about your grandfather and how he shaved.

I have a safety razor, a double sided safety razor. You know, the old school safety razor. And you have to hold it the same thing and you just have to let it drip. And I do that and it's fine. This supply one. Not a fan.

Maybe. Maybe your razor's bad. The actual cartridge.

Maybe I need. Does anybody use a hot chip? Do you have like a towel heater? Does anybody do that?

Maybe that would help.

I don't do that, but that sounds good.

That sounds really good.

Sounds good.

Do you put that. Do you put the shaving cream in a bowl and mix it or you just put it into the, into the.

Back of the Hand.

I use it in my hand.

Yeah, I just, I just, I just kind of put it in my little thing and just. Yeah.

Ah, you put in your hand.

Yeah.

Shaving cream is great. It's the razor that's the problem.

Problem.

There's a new scent out.

What is the scent?

I gotta, I can't. I gotta look it up real quick. I gotta go to Amazon, see what it was.

It goes a long way. A little dab of that stuff goes a long way. That's the problem.

I mean, for anyone listening to this bonus material, this is what happens when you have like an extraordinarily extraordinary amount of time on your hands. You think you get to try different razors and scents.

Is it too much shaving cream, Mark? Is that the problem?

No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's. I think it's the angle, the pressure and the expectation that, oh, it's gonna be like my Gillette that has five blades.

I press something harder.

You go real easy. You gotta do it an angle and then you wipe your face. You gotta do it twice. Can't just do one pass with my other razor.

I shave twice too. I'm telling you, there's something wrong with. It's not that great, man. I gotta give you a cheaper razor, alright?

Send it back, get your money back. I can't, I can't.

I'm past the hundred days or whatever.

I'll tell you, it's impressive in its little magnetic holder, but people are impressed by it. Hey, look at that. Yeah, it's nice.

Oh, it looks sharp as can be, man. Like, it looks great.

I love the weight of it, the feel of it.

It's just shave.

Cheap, flimsy. Oh my gosh. I can't believe it. Did I look like I had a bad shave at boot camp?

No.

Yeah. Thank you. No, no. Very well.

Did you bring it on your travel? Can you travel with that safely?

No, you can't.

Why can't you check your bag?

Well, okay, so if you check your bags, you check the blades in the bag, but if you don't check your bag, you're. You got to figure out a blade situation.

You don't want to have a blade situation. No bueno.

I did that in Vegas. I had a blade situation. I actually had to go buy blades and I'm like, ah, man, so scary.

When you say that, Scott. A blade situation.

Nobody wants a blade situation.

I know that.

But Mike, I'll tell you what though. Here's the secret though. Here's the secret. You get your blades and you mail them to the hotel in advance. Yeah. You're mailing your blades across the country. Okay. So that when you check in, you feel good that you have a package there. Or hopefully you have a package there. Right. Because you're not spending. You're not spending like FedEx money to get it there because the blades are only a couple bucks anyway. 10 bucks. So you're not spending 20 bucks to get it there. So if you lose it, you lose it. But then you actually mail it back to yourself too. You just put it in the little slot, you send yourself a stamp.

You bring the old fashioned device with no blades. And you can check that on the carry.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, you can.

You can take the device by itself. No blades on the plane.

No blade situation.

Your luggage.

Interesting.

Like it.

Oh, you're. You're mailing yourself a little treat.

I'm mailing my blades to San Antonio.

Yeah, me too.

Oh, yeah. We've got to talk about San Antonio. We need to talk about that next week. Boot camp. It's coming up faster than we know. January 10th through 12th, landgeek.com Boot Camp.

That guy started with my drink order. He was so awesome in the bar. That old bar with the leather seats to walk in to get my whiskey.

Boom.

He's so good. That's the best place.

The St. Anthony is so good. In the river. The river walking.

Feel productive in that bar. You just feel productive. Like there's a deal happening right now, right here.

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. You know, like there's like apps now that simulate like, you know, background noise. Like coffee. Like a coffee shop. Like for Mike, it's like a bar. It's like a Boston bar. And just, you know, like in the background you hear like a fight, you know? Oh, that's some.

Have you ever been, you guys? I don't know if they have these and I don't know. We ever go to the dump. You guys have a dump? You can go. If you want to have therapy and throw stuff away. Like if you want to throw a couch away or this away, you can drive to the dump. Do you guys have one of those out there?

I mean, we have dumps, but I don't think people. I think usually it's not like a recreational.

Yeah.

I wouldn't call it therapy.

No, it is because you show up there and they. And there's all these contractors. They're all mean looking. The people that run place are rude to you. They're Yelling at you, swearing. You're just trying to back up and put you. And then you get there, you take all your junk and you throw it in the big pile. It's therapy. You guys don't have that.

That's just unique.

I do enjoy that, Mike, because, like, where I go, you pull up and, like, you're. You're on top, and the dumpsters are down below you, and you're, like, chunking it.

Therapy.

It feels great, man. It does feel great. Especially if you have, like, some electronics or something.

You're like, smash.

Slam it down there. Which I don't know if you can do that, but, like, wood or even a mattress. Old furniture, man. My. My son had some, like, an old dresser. I take it out there. I'm like, taking the drawers, and I'm like, smashing it first, and it's, like, breaking and then sliding down into the dumpster. Oh, it's good, man. It's good. I still have that, like, one of those angry rooms.

Yeah, I think we need to do, like, a third room. So we got the main room, we got the VIP room, and then we're gonna have the angry room, and we'll just all donate our stuff and we'll just videotape Scott with, like, the safety glasses and a sledgehammer.

Well, if we're having that third room, we gotta have the fourth room. Be between two Ferns.

Oh, don't get me started. Oh, we should do the roundtable between two ferns.

Can we do, like, the episode Before Christmas? Can we do a Between Two Ferns episode for fun Christmas?

Yes. Oh, my gosh.

Imagine that's the first episode someone ever listens of us. They'll be like, these guys are jerks.

Yeah, it's so funny.

We just have to determine who's gonna be the guest.

All right, all right. We just lost Tate.

Tate's done.

Yeah, I'm done. I'm out. I'm out.

We'll see.

I gotta go to the dump.

All right, I gotta. I gotta start writing up questions for between two ferns. It says here, Tate, that you just turned 16.

Oh.

It'Ll be great.

Does your wife make you wear bubble wrap now?

Me? No. Only when we leave the house.

Are you relegated to the peloton? Only now?

No, I just not allowed to leave the house anymore. So.

Yeah, I've got a go in for myself. So, Mark, I understand that you've sold a thousand audiobooks of dirt Rich. Hear that? Hear that sound of silence? No one cares.

It's perfect.

We're just practicing here.

Yeah, yeah. Little teaser for the. The podcast.

Exactly. All right, well, thanks, everybody. Take. Go enjoy your Indian or Thai or whatever exotic food you'll be.

Lava Taco.

See you guys.

All right, Mike. Enjoy the dump. See you guys. Mimi, thanks for making us safer. Scott Todd. I guess you're probably on Zapier right now, creating a new automation that isn't even Scott Todd.

That's not even Scott Todd.

I know. It's just a hologram, so it's so efficient.

I'll know what you said.

My holographic Scott.

These are not the geeks you're looking for.

By the way, is it wrong to do any Star wars reference without bossman here? Yeah, that bromance is gonna have a little only for recording.

Make him jealous.

Yeah, absolutely should have come. He's like the only one over 20 that's getting Disney Plus.

I got Disney plus, man.

I got Disney Plus.

I got.

Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no, no.

For which. Which show?

Well, I did like the Imagineering one and the Jeff Goldblum one, Lion King, and I also got it for free. That's the other thing too, is I.

Got it for free. That doesn't count if it's free.

But I would pay $70 a year, man, for all that content. I would pay.

Yeah, we bought it. It's.

I mean, I mean, it is a.

No brainer to buy it.

You've got.

You got little kids tape.

I know, but that's what I mean, Mark. I was buying at least a DVD a month, right? Digital dvd. So this is.

How many movies do I buy or rent a month? Yeah, $70 is cheap.

Yeah, the no brainer.

I wonder if Aileen d' Agostine would do like a. A song of like, based on Disney songs, you know, but Lang. Geek related. Can you feel the mail tonight?

Okay, Mark, stop this thing, man. This has gone on too long. The pain's too much.

Bye, guys.