Silently Crushing It—A Land Business Success Story

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm always excited for this type of podcast when we reach out to a student and we get to hear about their journey. But before we talk to our student, I'd be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host. You know him, you love him. Six Sigma, the brain, the professor. Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, postingdomination.com thelandgeek Scott Todd, how are you, Mark?

I'm great. How are you?

Pulse is still normal. Respiration's fine. I can't complain. So let's talk to Mike Ferreira. Mike, how are you?

Great, Mark. And Scott, how are you?

Good. So the way this podcast occurred was Mike's been crushing it kind of silently. No one knew. And he made a Facebook post, and we're like, holy cow, you got to talk about your journey. So, Mike, let's just rewind the tape and kind of let us know. When did you start with Land Geek, and how did you get started and what your background is?

Sure. Well, before I got into land, I had a business buying gold and silver online. One of those deals where people pack all their silver and gold into a box and mail it to me, and then I pay them. So because of that business, I knew anything was possible because that sounded like an impossible business model to me. But it worked, and it worked great until it didn't work so great anymore. Regulations and a lot of different things all happen at once that made that not quite as fun as it had been. So I decided to look for something else and actually listened to a lot of podcasts and came across your podcast. And at the time, I was spending some of my time in Florida and some of my time up in Vermont, so I would do a lot of driving back and forth. So I would just binge on your podcasts and listen to them, and it sounded like a great idea. So I took the Point plunge back in May 2014 and bought the investors toolkit. And I watched and listened to about half of it and then kept getting pulled back and forth. Should I really focus on my existing business or should I try to do both at the same time? Or should I just do land? What should I do? It was kind of like. Kind of like a bad relationship going back and forth. So it kind of sat. I'd say for almost a year until I really thought about it more, kept listening to the podcast and said, you know what? I need to look at this again. So then I jumped in, I went through the toolkit, and I put my head down and just started working, mailing, marketing, just like you say, and did a lot of it. A lot of it by trial and error, because I didn't do flight school well back then, I don't think there was flight school. I didn't do coaching. So I had to make my mistakes and get my lumps along the way. But I did it and I just stuck with it. And I worked and I worked and I worked it until it was fantastic. Till it got to the point where I never even considered doing my old business anymore. This was much easier, much more fun, and makes more money. And now it's a great income. It's been a huge success. I focus mostly on selling with owner financing. So the passive income is great. And the only thing I would change in my journey that I've had is I would have done coaching or something else, because it has taken me longer to get to where I am than it probably would have. And I was thinking back on that here and came to the conclusion that probably if I had done that or if there was flight school at the time and I had done that, the learning curve to really rock in this business would have been so shortened, I probably would have made a quarter of a million dollars more than I have in that amount of time. So the investment would absolutely have been worth it to me. But I did it the way I did it and still happy. So here I am.

Amazing. Amazing. Scott. Todd, what's your takeaway?

Well, I mean, I think it's a great story. I think, you know, I think Mike's right, you know, Mark, not to make this a promotion for flight school, but the thing about flight school is that, like, I remember you, and I was in Phoenix at the time, and I went to your office and we were talking about, like, man, how do we give people a head start? Like, remember we were talking about, like, a weekend, a weekend event, remember, like, that they would just do stuff we were going to mail. We were going to help them mail out their letters on one weekend. Remember, like, that whole deal. It took us a while, but we finally got to flight school. And I think that my Mike is right about the fact that, you know, there you can probably do. I'm gonna say you could probably do anything on your own, right? Like, you know, you can go do it. I Mean, I don't know, something that you can't do without a guide or without somebody to help you. I think that the difference is, is what Mike said, like, do you want to shortcut it? Do you want to have people that can kind of who have, who have gone through there and kind of showing you the shortcuts, or do you want to figure out yourself? And I just keep thinking about, you know, like a few years ago, about five years ago, my wife and I were privileged that we were able to go on a trip to Italy. And one of the stops there was to the Vatican. And I remember, like this was in, in June, the Vatican was packed. I mean, like, there was just wall to wall people. But the tour that we were on, the group that we were on, they had a, they had a tour guide who had already taken care of all the stuff. We show up to the Vatican, they're like passing out the tickets. They're like, go over here, we're gonna do this. You know, like, they literally helped us shortcut this whole thing. And when I'm there at the Vatican, I was thinking, like, man, this is the way to go forever. If you're ever gonna go to a tourist place, this is the place to. This is how you do it. You get the guide. And I think it's the same way with building a business. If you can get a guide who's been down that path, why would you not? It's shortcutting the entire process. It's going to make you faster, it's going to give you more confidence, you're going to stand up straighter and you're just going to rock it a lot faster than trying to be, well, what if I try this? What if I try that?

No, absolutely. And what I think is interesting about Mike's story is that he was already an entrepreneur. So a lot of the things, a lot of the fundamentals were kind of already in place for him, which is that, you know, this is a business. And so to make that sort of shift mentally from, you know, a job to being an entrepreneur is difficult for a lot of people. But, you know, Mike already knew how to run a successful business. And it was a, It's a business that, you know, it's a, it was a commodity, right? Lands a commodity. So in a lot of ways, it was a, it was a kind of a good fit. And what I'd be curious about, Mike, is what were your biggest challenges with getting started? And what would you say were the characteristics that really helped you, you know, be. Be Successful?

Well, I'd say just like in a lot of things, the challenge of getting started was a little bit of fear. Am I going to be able to do this? Is this really going to work some learning curve as far as crunching the data and making the right offers to people? That type of thing?

Really?

Other than that, none. Because I learned a lot of things from my last business. That, number one, competition is irrelevant. When I was at the peak of my gold and silver business, my number one competitor took out an ad in the super bowl and I thought, well, yeah, how am I going to compete with that? But it turned out it just didn't matter. If you just put one foot in front of the other, you treat people right, you're transparent. You do what you say you're going to do. Competition is irrelevant. So I know I've heard up different areas online, people wondering, well, is this business going to get too saturated? And I say, absolutely not. I don't think all the competition in the world will make a difference for who do this business. Right. The other thing that made it easier for me because of my business was just suspending any disbelief about the business model itself. I had a business model previously that I buy an asset from someone for way less than it's worth, then I turn around and sell it for what it was worth. And everybody was happy. Nobody complained. And this business is the same thing. I knew that if someone was going to take thousands of dollars of gold and silver, throw it in a box and send it to me blindly, that someone's going to take a piece of land that they don't want anymore and don't care about, sell it to me, and it works. It's very, very similar. So it was a very easy transition for me.

Wow. So what was your biggest challenge? Oh, you said it was like the fear, but as far as, you know, can we kind of talk about, you know, how many deals you have done and what your ratio is between cash and passive income?

I've done well. It's been few hundred deals. I actually don't keep track of it. My wife, fortunately for me, is a cpa, so she does the accounting. She handles all the people who make payments and such. She takes care of all that stuff. So I just mail and market and deal with people, so I don't keep track of that. But I'd say it's a few hundred deals. For me, the overwhelming majority that I do is owner financing because I, for one thing, it's kind of like a drug because it's so Easy. It's a little bit addictive to me because I know if I put the right down payment and the right monthly payment on something, I'm going to get swamped with people wanting to buy the property. So it's very easy. Now, the downside, which is a challenge to me, is there's a little lack of sustainability, of being able to continually pay cash for properties and then turn around and sell them. With owner financing, at least a lot of the properties that I do, it's difficult for that. So that's why the next. The next transition I'm making in my business is working on ways to sell the contracts that I have to people.

Who.

Want to have a passive income, but they don't have the time or the energy to do all the legwork that I do. So that is hopefully going to overcome that obstacle. And that has been my biggest obstacle.

Right. And you do know about our program, right? Scott want to fill them in? I don't think he knows.

Mike. You can go to this website called tlfolio.com tlfolio.com. you can list your note there. And we actually have investors who, that we've trained, we've groomed them to look for what they, you know, like for the yield and what to look for and everything that they invest in notes that are based on raw land. It's the only platform out there that you can sell your notes on raw land for without having to go and create an investor base. Tlfolio.com and you know what it costs you. This is the best part. Ready? TL Folio is free. You get to negotiate with the investor based on the yield that. That they want and what you want. So go check it out. TL Full.

That's fantastic. That as soon as this interview is done, I am going right on there because I have all the notes anyone could want to buy. They make 16% interest. That's my interest rate. So I'm sure there must be somebody out there who'd be interested.

You know what's interesting about that, Mike?

Say you're charging 16% interest on the notes.

I charge 16% interest of the notes. And I have never once had anyone complain about that interest rate. Not once, man. Yeah.

I mean, it just goes to show you, those of you that don't charge interest and, you know, like using geek pay, it's that. It's just mental. I remember Scott would kind of fight me on, oh, I don't want to. I don't want to charge them a note collection fee. I'm like there's fees in real estate. And then he's just like, oh, okay. So a lot of times, you know, interest rates or, you know, a 499 note set up fee, it's in your head. It's not in the buyer's head. They're just happy to get this piece of property and they don't have to go to a bank. It's easy money for them. They now control an asset that might be worth $20,000 for, you know, maybe $1,000 down payment. And so it's just very, very easy to do. And I think that's, that's really phenomenal that you've set it up that way. Do you charge a note collection fee? A note set up fee?

I charge a DOC fee. $199 DOC fee?

Yeah, that's what I mean, $199 DOC fee. Then do you charge a note collection fee each month?

No, I don't. You know, maybe I should, but I felt so good about the 16%, I just didn't even take it any further than that. So that's something to think about at some point. Right.

And the way TL Folio typically works is you get two bites of the apple. So your first bite is the, is the cash on your note. So you're taking that cash, you're redeploying it to buy more property. The second bite is that after 12 months, that passive income then reverts back to you. So you're only selling a partial note, essentially.

Yeah, yeah. Most of, the, most of the note buyers, they don't want to buy the whole note because if they do that, then they also have to buy the land that's underneath it. Because what happens if the person defaults? They have to own the land. They don't really want to own the land, they just want the passive income. Right. So the great thing is, is that you get to continue to own that land that maybe you sell 12 months, 18, sometimes 18, but really 12 months of the income stream, you get a pop of cash today, after 12 months, the note reverts back to you. And what's happening is you're acting as the middle person. So your buyer pays you the monthly payment, you pass it off to the investor that you're working with. After 12 months, all is done, all is over. And guess what? You get the, you, you still own the land the whole time. And if somebody stops paying you, you get to resell it and get the down payment again. And all the other stuff, you just have to swap out Another note for it makes sense.

That's genius. Believe it. I'm stunned. I love it. I love it.

Big check. How much? I can't wait. I can't wait for you to, like, be a testimonial. So I got this big check. We're going to take out a billboard with you.

Yeah, I love it. Boy, I just can't wait. Are we done? Can I go so I can get on there and do this?

Almost. Almost. I want to get your advice. If you're a newbie listening to this, Mike, what would be your newbie advice to somebody to get started and be successful?

The number one thing, if I had no exposure to this business at all, I would actually buy your new book, Dirt Rich, because I bought it, because I buy everything that I can find. Any book I can find on the business, I buy. Just in case there's one little nugget in it. I can tell you, of all the books, there's so many books out there, especially on Amazon, about the land business. And I read them and I say, oh, my God, if someone new read this book, they would fail. But your book is right on track. Your book was so confirming to me that I'm doing everything right. So, number one, I'd get that book. Number two, as soon as I read that book, I know I would be excited about the business and I would get the toolkit absolutely, 100%. And then I would look into flight school or coaching and just. Just go for it. Go for it. Because a year from now is going to be a year from now, and it's going to be a big difference depending on whether you take action or whether you just keep listening to the podcast and nothing else.

Yeah. So, Mike, I'm going to assume your passive income exceeds your fixed expenses, and you work when you want, where you want, with whom you want.

Is that correct? Yes.

So what do you do with the rest of your time?

I do more deals. I love doing deals. So where a lot of people just want passive income, I kind of like aggressive income or maybe passive aggressive income, because I love doing deals. I love sending out mail. I love getting the offers back. I love selling the properties. I love everything about it. So why stop? Why? I just set higher and higher goals for what I'm gonna make. And I don't. I don't see any reason why I get to a point in this business and just rest on my laurels because I enjoy doing it. So I. You know, the total passive income part for me, at least right now, is that's Just. That's just a secondary for me. I really enjoy doing it. I love it.

It's great. It's great. Scott, Todd, any last questions before we ask Mike for his tip of the week?

No. No, I think we're ready to go.

Well, Mike, I thought your mentorship. This podcast was incredible. And I think for the listeners, it really sort of validates that if you take action and you focus, you can do it. And I think it's interesting that Mike's like, you know, it is for outsiders, like a crazy model, right? But he already was doing a crazy model. He already knew that people are willing to, you know, sell an asset 25, 3 cents the dollar, because it's no longer an asset to them. It becomes a liability, and there's a value all along the line, along the chain. So, you know, mentally, he was able to get over that hurdle where, you know, if he was at, let's say, a big company and talking at the water cooler and someone said, oh, yeah, you know, I'm interested in flipping land. I heard this podcast. He was like, flipping land? It's illiquid. Are you crazy? You should flip houses. You're in Florida, right? Like, you know, I've got a friend, they follow the DIY network and they flip houses. They're killing it, right? So, you know, it's just one of those things that I think that it really helps this kind of podcast for people to listen to. And, okay, you know, if Mike can do it, I can do it. And it's just, you know, like what Scott Todd likes to say. Loves. I love the quote. Scott Todd, just follow the recipe. Just follow the recipe. And so, Mike, what would you say is your tip of the week? A website, a resource, a book, something actionable where the art of passive income listeners can go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

Actually, I have two, because I use them together. And together they're more powerful than either one of them is alone. And hopefully you haven't had either one of these before, but one is simpletexting.com that's SMS texting, where people will punch in a. Send a short code to a number and they get an automatic response. And also, I can do a blast, just like an email blast, but to everybody's phones for text messages. And the open rate of a text message is way, way superior to email. I do email, too, but on my signup form, on my website, I have name, email address, and cell phone number. So I've got all their information. I use that also in Conjunction with something else called maprite.com which is a mapping program. It's interactive maps. So you can put interactive satellite maps on your website, but you can also send people links to the interactive map. And when you send somebody a link to the interactive map, they can open that link on their phone and download a free app which has the parcel outline of the property they're looking at. It works in conjunction with the GPS on their phone. So if they want to find their property, if they're out somewhere in the wild looking for their property, they can actually walk the boundaries of their property by looking on their phone. They can walk right along the outline of their parcel. So I use those together because when I do an ad on Craigslist or Land Moto, which I'm on now, part of what I put in it. If you would like more information, as well as an interactive map sent directly to your phone, please text. And then I have a keyword that signifies that property, Main street, say whatever to 555888. And they'll immediately get that. They'll get a link to the page on my website that has the property where they can check out if they want. But they also get the map link so they can use their phone to find their property or even get directions to their property. So those two things together work great.

I love it. I love it. I'm gonna start doing this.

It's great. Good website too, to have an interactive map.

Phenomenal. Scott, Todd, do you know about these?

I did not know about these, but I love it.

I love it. We're jumping on this today.

Yeah. Oh, one little thing with that, with the simple texting. If you put an ad on some places where they do not want you to put your phone number or your website, they do not catch or seem to care about the short code. So there's a way from all those ads that you can directly capture customers phone number and therefore have them on your list without. Without getting flagged for putting personal information in the ad.

Wow, that's a phenomenal tip. Wow. Scott Todd, I mean, do you want to follow that? I don't.

I don't want to follow it. So should we just take a pass?

We're gonna pass. Our tip of the week is gonna be simpletexting.com and mapwrite.com use it in conjunction with. Listen to what Mike just said again. And this is such a good tip. We're going to add this to the toolkit in our resources page as well and maybe give a snippet of what you just said on how you use it. This is really powerful.

If anyone wants a little leg up on how to use that combination, they can contact me. I'm on your Facebook group. Or they could reach me through my website@mikesellsland.com Mike sells land.com help anybody out who wants to understand that better or anything or just.

I love it. I love it. Well, today's podcast is sponsored by flight school. So if you want to learn more about flight school, please go to thelandgeek.com training. Get on a call with Scott Dude Buddy Bossman, or Mike the Zen Master Zano, and they will talk to you about all the flight school goodness. Because I know, you know, like Scott was alluding to before, when I get sort of a do it yourself home study course, I get overwhelmed very easily. We can't be like Mike Ferreira.

Right?

And I like, you know, like, just even go to the gym. I want a personal trainer, and I want somebody to tell me, this is what you do. This is. This is how you do it. This is your form. And then I do it. I don't want to think too hard about it and then not have the confidence I'm doing it right. And flight school kind of fills in that gap, almost like a. Like a group personal training class, if you will. Except your teacher is, you know, completely ripped and like Scott Todd, right?

I wouldn't say that, but. Okay.

Well, but in the sense of land investing.

Right.

Okay.

You're not gonna have a better Sherpa taking you up that mountain, so please do that. Also, the only way we're gonna get the quality of guests like a Mike Ferreira to even come on the podcast, do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, get a rate. You got to review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to support the landgeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit course. So please do that. It really, really helps. Anyways, want to thank all the listeners and let freedom ring.

There you go.

Freedom ring. Should we all do. Should we try to do it together? All right, ready? One, two, three. Let freedom ring. All right, Mike, we'll go meet you on T o Folio now.