Student Spotlight: Scott Elliott

Hey!

I once dined on steak with a candle's soft glow, but the bill left my savings despairingly low.

Now wisdom has taught me, so simple, so grand, Eat baloney, buy land. Oh, eat baloney, buy land. Trade a fork for the deed in your hand. Skip the filling, let the sandwiches stand. Your fortune will grow when you buy your own land.

Just over here.

Yeah, that's great. I never realized that you can, because I have the— I'm the host right now and I can just watch all of you guys in the waiting room. So I see you dancing, I see you doing all this stuff.

That's why I shut my camera off.

Just the host. Shamelessly scream it and sing it at the top of my lungs.

I saw you pull out the guitar. It's great.

I literally do that. That's why I put the camera off, because I figured someone could see me.

Well, how are we doing tonight? Scott Bossman, how are you?

I'm doing well. Sorry to miss you guys last week. I was in Chicago at a Cubs game, so with family, which was fun. So that's, that's what I was doing. Ditched you last minute. Sorry about that.

I mean, we were definitely more fun than a Caps game, so—

Oh, I don't doubt it.

No, I feel like this is our opportunity for all the, the 3 of us in unison to do the George Costanza stuff. Your sorries in a stack, mister.

I like it, I like it. Yeah, you're right, I'm not sorry I wasn't, uh, wasn't here.

Yeah.

I did miss you guys.

We miss you too. Mark, how are you?

I'm great.

I'm, I'm so stoked for the Dirt Rich Summit. Mike and I did a pre-summit call last night, and it was— Mike, what'd you think?

I thought it was excellent, you know. Um, definitely a lot of energy in the room. Definitely gonna be a wonderful group of people. It's my favorite event of the year that we put on.

I love it.

I love it.

It's— yeah, it was great energy. People are really dialed in on their why. I don't, I don't know what my expectation was going into that call, Mike, but it exceeded it.

Yeah, you know, it's— we vibed off the rooms. There's so many great people that you can tell are just really craving to build some passive income, to create some massive change. All have powerful whys, and I think they're gonna have an incredible experience. You know, I learned something every year. I know we all do. You know, we're in a room full of people that are We talked last night, Mark, about like these silent, you know, killers in the room that, you know, you could be sitting next to someone that's, you know, maybe not so much of an extrovert like me, maybe, or Mark. Mark, I'd say you're an extrovert, but more of an introvert that's like just crushing the land business and you don't even know it, right? So just make sure— we were telling people, introduce yourself, get to know everyone. There's so many great people.

Yeah, yeah. I love that.

I concur.

I also concur.

I wish, I wish I'd known about this. I didn't know about this secret event. This sounds like fun.

Oh, I felt like it was a bonding— I had to have my own bonding event. You, Mark, have book club. This is my first real bonding event in a while with Mark. So I see.

Yeah, it was nice.

I'm not gonna lie.

Come on, Scott. You got the book club, whatever other secret clubs you guys have. I don't even know.

Get distracted. All our clubs are we we we we publicly disclaim what groups.

No, you publicly talk about them, but privately I don't get the invite, so I know. All right, fine.

That's fine.

John, how are you?

I'm doing great. Yeah, it's we got like. Tomorrow is our last day of summer weather in northern Idaho, and then we're off to fall. But I'm just wearing flannel early just to celebrate the fact that fall is on the way. So yeah, things are good. I'm pumped about the Dirt Rich Summit. I'm looking forward to that. It's going to be— it's going to be a great time. Last time, I always tell people, I left last time extremely exhilarated and exhausted all at the same time. Yeah.

So I'm expecting to say exhilarated and exhausted.

Yeah, that's great. We could throw that on a t-shirt. Well, should we introduce our guest for today?

We have a guest.

We have a guest. We have a very special guest.

Be our guest. Be our guest. OK, I'm sorry.

All right, so ladies and gentlemen, today we have a legendary guest. They say he once mailed 1,000 blind offers and got 1,100 signed contracts back. County clerks don't put him on hold. They call him to ask if their records are correct. When he sends a letter, sellers don't just sign it. They frame a copy for the living room. Legend has it he once did due diligence so fast the GIS map had to update itself to keep up. His seller finance buyers don't just pay on time. They pay early, throw in a little extra, and include a thank you card. And somewhere out there is a 40-acre parcel that sold itself just because it heard he might be interested. So without further ado, introducing the one, the only, Scott Elliott.

That's the best intro ever.

The best. I want that prompt.

I don't think any of that is true.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, Scott. Never.

Well, how are you, Scott Elliott?

I'm doing really good. Doing really good. I've been in a dip for the past few weeks, but I was like, I gotta get one before this nightcap. And sure enough, I got a sale today.

That's great. Where's my applause button? There it is.

Sounds like—

do I say Nightcap Magic?

Yes, the Nightcap Magic. I love that.

Well, awesome.

Well, great. Do you want to tell us a little details about the sale? What a great way to start. Do you have any, uh, anything?

So this, it's a, uh, just a typical quarter-acre Putnam County lot. It was a JV deal with another land investor that may have been on the Nightcap last week. And, uh, nice.

And, uh, it wasn't me.

So yeah, nothing, nothing big, but definitely, uh, you know, a good yield. It was, uh, you know High 80s yield, so good deal.

Nothing to shake a stick at.

That sounds pretty good for sure. Well, Scott, I, uh, would you mind just telling everybody about yourself? Tell us your background and what brought you to land investing. That's always fun to hear.

Yeah, so I mean, I don't know how far back you want to go, um, but I can go back to when I first read Mark's book which was maybe a year and a half ago on a plane trip to some, some supplier. So I work, uh, with the Air Force. I'm not in the Air Force, but I'm a government employee that I work on a weapon systems program office. And I was flying out to some supplier manufacturer facility, and, uh, I think I had Mark's audiobook if I remember right, and I listened to it, and something about I don't know, Mark's personality or character, something in that Dirt Rich book, I think, that gets all of us like inspired or whatever. And so I read that, and then I think shortly after that I just started watching like the YouTube videos and stuff, um, just going back and just like watching all this stuff. I remember Stephanie Dean's interview really had a big impact on me. And, uh, her story was, was great. I actually got to meet her, um, at the Dirt Rich Summit last year at the, at Atlanta Airport. I seen her there and got to talk to her for a while. But, um, yeah, I mean, so I just got like super inspired and I decided to sign up for flight school. And so it's been about a year, I think. Yeah, so it's been right at about a year since I started flight school and I graduated in December. Of last year.

That's crazy. That's crazy. I still remember like vividly, um, like all of our conversations leading up to that. Um, yeah. And so, so talk about like, what was, what was it like getting started in flight school? Um, like what were the— I don't know, like was it— what was the experience like for you?

Yeah, I mean, I think it was great. I mean, there's just like, I think, whatever it is, 3 or 4 days a week you're calling in for an hour, right? And it kind of keeps you on track during that 16 weeks, right? And it's paced very well. And you always have, if you apply yourself and you go and you do the things, like, everything works, right? And I just, I had a great experience with it. I was a little hesitant at first because it seemed, I don't know, a little bit expensive at the time, but it most definitely will pay for itself pretty quickly if you do the things that Mark and all you guys say to do. It does work. And so yeah, I think it was, I think it was a great, I think it was a great pace. I think there's great information there. I know a lot of people You know, ask about it and they're like, oh, do this. And I'm always just like, yeah, you can't go wrong going through flight school. I mean, I think you got to go through that as a minimum just to get, you know, a solid understanding of the business and how to operate.

And then like you mentioned, like, so you mentioned you were going through a dip over the last few weeks. Like, what were some of the hard things that you went through as you've kind of been through this journey and building up your your business?

Yeah, so I mean, the dips are going to come, right? I think you— like, being in a year, like, I think early on I had some dips, and then all of a sudden, I think it was like tax season of this year where everything just started moving. And I'm like, it was like a light switch turned on. It's like, have you ever been fishing and there's like nothing biting, and then every— like, all of a sudden, like, every cast you're catching a fish? You're like, what happened here? You know, like It feels like that sometimes in the land business where like there's like no movement and then everything happens all at once and you're like, what triggered that? And so, you know, that's like— so like I, I've worked in 2 counties, well maybe 3 actually, Mojave, Apache, and then mainly now I'm in Putnam County, Florida because I live in Florida. And, um, sometimes I get to go to that area and so I've really been focusing on there in that area, but There's also one of the big takeaways over the past few weeks, in the past maybe a couple months, is the seasonality aspect of it, right? I think there's, you know, until the end of the year, experiencing a whole season, I'll have a better kind of feeling of like, how does Florida properties move compared to, say, Arizona properties during different times of the year, you know? And from, from this experience, seems like Florida, maybe through July through Basically right now it's a little bit slower than maybe other parts of the country like Colorado or other areas that aren't cold yet, or Florida is like super hot, like the dog days of summer. And so just kind of understanding that seasonality aspect is something I've kind of picked up on. But most recently, the past few days, it's really starting to get a lot more leads and stuff. So you can start— you kind of feel the tide turning with things starting to move. So.

It's a little bit of a roller coaster sometimes, for sure.

But yeah, I mean, like, emotionally it can kind of get to you. Like, I mean, you definitely, you definitely experience like some of the emotions of it, right? So, but, but again, like you guys talk about that, like the dip, it's all, you know, it's not like you don't know it's coming. So, um, you just got to be like persistent. You know, keep doing what you can do, and and then try not to worry about the things that are out of your control. So if you do the things you're supposed to do, things will work out. You just gotta you just gotta keep keep making progress, and just keep doing doing doing the things that that matter, right?

I'm I'm gonna make an assumption. I could be wrong. But let me know, because you've got a big job being a weapons, uh, guy keeping us safe with the government. So I assume it's a 40-hour-a-week job?

Yeah, it is. It's, um, it's a 40-hour-a-week job. It is a government job, so there's— I mean, In the government, in the defense industry, for example, you can— a lot of people work on the contractor side. Some people work in— and I work on the government side. So the government side actually has a little bit more work-life balance than, say, on the defense contractor side, because they're obviously for-profit companies. They're going to work you harder. When you're a government employee, you have a little more— you get more time off, you get a little more work-life balance stuff. So that kind of helps. So I try to balance. I mean, I can't lie, sometimes I'm at work and I got my laptop on. I'm doing kind of both things, trying to, trying to like, if I get a lead or something and I gotta, I'll try to go step outside for a minute, call the lead and try to talk to them and see if I can. Because we all know like how quickly you gotta follow up with these people. And so yeah, I mean, I'm just making it work. And then my time, you know, my time early in the mornings or in the afternoons or whatever. So it's definitely doable even if you have a job. And you just, you just have to, um, be willing to do the work. And it's not— it is work. It's not like excessive amount of work where it's crazy, but it is work. But, you know, it's also very rewarding when you start developing that passive income and building those notes. And when you see that proof of concept and you start— you get a sale and then you get another sale, like, it's I don't know, I want to say addictive, but it's, it's just, it kind of is really. I mean, you're looking forward to that next, that next land deal. And once you prove it, once you prove a concept, you know, it's just a matter of time before you get the next one.

So what was— do you remember like the first point at which you felt like it was really working? Like the first win?

Um, I'm trying to remember my first sale. I don't really remember which one it was. Um, I don't remember that. I do remember, you know, the big deal that I had. I had one home run that I'm happy to talk about, which was—

Please do.

Yeah, so this was a property that another land investor had mailed and didn't want. They're like, you can have this lead if you want. And so I called the lead and it was a property that was a commercial property and it was deeded to 4 siblings and then one of them had died in Arizona and I had to go through the process of removing that per— basically cleaning up the title. And in Arizona there's a process of doing it. We don't have to go through probate. And so it took about a month, maybe a month and a half, but The property adjacent to it was owned by a concrete manufacturer right across the street. And so I just called the company and asked them if they wanted to buy it, and they did. So I had paid all in through title like $4,000 and sold it for $35,000 cash.

Wow.

Dang, dang. That'll keep pushing— that'll keep you pushing through the dips when you get a deal like that.

So, so that was my only home run so far. I've had some, a few, you know, handful, whatever. What is it, like 1 in 10 or something will be cash sales? So I've had a handful of those, which are pretty nice. I think I've sold, I don't know, maybe 30 properties since I started. And yeah.

That's a great first year and a half. For sure.

That's better than my first year in it. Well, is it a year and a half or a year? Right?

Because you started— yeah. So it's right out here. Right out of here. Yeah.

Yeah, that's— I mean, that's better than my first year. So there you go.

Yeah, that's a, that's a huge win, Scott. What did that deal for you mentally? Like having that deal go through?

I mean, yeah, it took a while. And it just was a big learning process. And fortunately, I had somebody— I feel like there's like this I don't want to call it luck, but there was a lady that she was like— I don't even know why she helped me. She, she worked near the county recorder's office and she kind of did all this stuff and she didn't even want to get paid. Like, she worked all this stuff for me for free. I ended up paying her because I was like, why would you not charge somebody for everything you're doing? Like, she did all this stuff. She's like, she went and recorded this, she went and did all these things for me. And I just think that there's like I don't know what you call it, but like, um, almost like the universe kind of conspires to help you when you— you know what I mean? Like when you actually put the work in and things like happen like that. Like, so—

I like the way you phrase that. It's conspiring to help you.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like so much—

uh, our, our friend Matt Forbes, uh, and I used to talk about this. There are those folks who believe in the universe bringing you good fortune, right? But, but he and I have kind of a different opinion on that. It's universe action, right? Like, Yeah. You take action and then the universe conspires to bring you results. And I think that's a lot what this business is. Um, so to, to keep taking action during those dips will, will result in, you know, some Some good results. But, um, but Scott, I had another question for you too, because not only are you a busy, uh, working man for the government, right, but you have a family as well, correct?

Yes.

Wife and kids?

Yes, I have a wife. I have a 15-year-old son who is, um, he's a— this past weekend we were up in Atlanta for a basketball showcase. He's a really— he's 6'4, so I'm only 6'1, but he's A very talented basketball player.

Nice.

He might even go in the NBA. He's that good.

Wow.

Whoa! Let's get that NIL deal going now.

Yeah, right?

After after Sam Bosman.

Right.

Yeah.

I don't know if he's.

I don't know if he's called Scott Scott Bosman. He's six foot four, so almost six five.

Wow, that's awesome.

And then my daughter—

he's NBA bound.

He's—

yeah, he's, he's extremely good. Like, he got in the top, top players at that NGS camp. And, um, you can look him up, Preston Elliott basketball. Just kind of probably find him on like Instagram, find all of his highlights and stuff. But he's been playing since he was 8 years old, and that's the only thing he's really It's the only thing he's really done. Like, he's just focused on basketball. So, and then my daughter, she's got the opposite genetics. She's like a little hobbit. So she's like, she's gonna have a birthday in a few weeks, or she'll be 10 years old. So she won't be an NBA player. She'll be something else. I don't know.

So busy dad as well. So, you know, uh, I just, I mean, I just think it's phenomenal that you, you've done 30 deals in a year. And you're working full-time and you're a full-time dad, you know, you really had to carve the time out there for sure. But I think, you know, if you're motivated enough, I think anybody can do it. But I think you're, you know, just— it's a good example, good example for everybody.

Yeah, Mike, I— and Scott, you're on that call last night, you're on that, that pre-event call for the Dirt Rich Summit. We're asking everybody their why. Do you remember what your why was, and has it changed?

I mean, it's, it's for my family, but it's also for me. Like, I just feel like personally I've kind of followed the script for my life, if that makes sense. Like, I've always just kind of been doing what I think the right thing is to do. Like, I'm an engineer, and I went to school, and I did all these things, but like The idea of being able to kind of live life on your terms is, to me, that's just to know that it's possible if you, if you just do the work for a few years. Like, it's really motivated me to want to, to really just make it, you know, not make any excuses, but just get after it, you know. Um, and we— there's a lot of time in a day, like We waste a lot of time doing things that aren't really what— I don't know, maybe they're towards our goals. But, uh, I think if you, if you really look at your time, you do have time to do— you can't do everything, but, you know, you can, you can market, you can follow up with leads, you know, you can post ads, or you can do the things that matter. And if I can, if I can— I'm not doing everything perfect. Like, I listened to Juliana's call, like, Juliana is doing everything. Right, and I'm doing everything just kind of, um, not right, like, you know. And so, but I'm still making it work. So I think anybody, depending on your circumstance, can, can get success, can have success in the land business.

What, you know, you mentioned the script. When did you realize the script you were following, you know, might actually— might not actually be the life you wanted?

I think it's when you look at people that are above you and you realize, I don't, I don't really want to be like that person, right? Like, you see where they're at and you're like, do I want to be in that position? You know what I mean? Or do I want that? Um, now there's, there's been people, higher-ups where I work, that I do respect— my supervisor and some other people. But you see a lot of people in different jobs where it's just like they're I don't know, they have like one-dimensional lives and they don't actually have real depth.

Right.

They don't have that real joy that like— and like when I came to the Land Summit last year and some of the people, it's just like a— it's a whole different thing, right? Like you can work with people in offices for years and never have the connections that you can have with a few days at the Land Summit or just some of the—

you know what I mean?

Like, I don't know what it is about it, but It just seems like you have deeper connections with people that have—

when you have like like-minded people striving to create a better version of themselves, right? And you're around them. And you know, when you say living life on your own terms, Scott, like what's it actually look like for you? Like if you fast forward to 5 years from now and this keeps going the way it is, like what's changing about your life?

You know, I honestly don't think too much. I mean Like right now, I really focus on, you know, I work out pretty much every day. I spend a lot of time with my kids and probably just more, more ability to probably travel and do things with my, with the family. I got, I live on a pretty good piece of land up here in Northwest Florida. I got 8, 8.5 acres. And I'd like to kind of develop that, maybe put some horses or something on there. Right now I just mow it and I get tired of mowing it. Um, I don't mow all of it. I mow about 3 acres, but even in the summer, that becomes, you know, it's just a lot of maintenance and stuff like that. But, um, so yeah, it's just having more, um, money to kind of do the things that you want to do with your family. I've never been into material things, right? Like, I always joke with my wife, like, I could live in a mobile home, or I could live in like a trailer and just travel. I think, like, I don't think I would really matter If I didn't have a lot of possessions. Like, I almost think that would be a kind of a cool life to live. But when you have a wife and kids, obviously you can't live like that. But, um, I just— yeah, so I just think it's more like relationships and things like that that really matter. So, yeah.

That makes sense. I mean, you're talking about freedom, family, land, traveling, and then you're mentioning more. So it doesn't sound like you mean more stuff, but more of these experiences.

I think so. Experiences. Yeah. I mean, I lost my sister when she was 39, um, of colon cancer. And I had a half-brother who died at 32. It was a freak accident. He got on the side of the highway. And then, you know, a few years ago during COVID I lost my dad and I lost my mom the year after that. So I just—

Geez.

You know, you just realize, like, it was a very, um, like, all of our time is limited, right? Like, And so it's just like, I think as you get older, you start to realize, like, if you want to do something or you want to make something happen, like, you better do it, right? Because there's certain things you can't do as you get older. Um, and it's just, I don't know, I think maybe you just become more focused on the things that matter and just kind of let the things that don't kind of, you know, not bother you and not focus on them as much. So.

Yeah, man, that's a tremendous amount of loss in a short period of time.

Yeah.

Well, oh yeah, so, um, I guess like thinking back on like when— so when you first started doing this, like knowing kind of what you know now, is there anything that you would have done differently compared against what you did?

Oh, that's a good question. Um, I don't, I don't know if I'd have done anything different. I mean, I think you kind of have to go through it to learn it, right? Like, at first you, you kind of have the question of, does it, does it actually work, right? I remember thinking early on, like, why would somebody sell me their land for 25 cents on the dollar? Like, in my mind, I'm like That doesn't make sense. Like, people have brains. They're not gonna— but you very quickly learn that they don't have emotional attachment to this land, or they have other needs that they need to fulfill, or whatever. And so, you know, at first I was like, it's kind of— you kind of think, oh, maybe it's a little slimy or schemey or something, but it really isn't, right? Like, people need money. They don't have connections for the land. They're very happy to sell you the land. Um, because they don't have any use for it, and then— or they don't want it, or they're not connected to it. And then you can go and resell it, and there's no nothing— there's nothing wrong about that or bad about that or anything, you know what I mean? And so it's just, um, it's a good business. It— there's, there's some hiccups, you know. I've had some, uh, issues with some some tenants here and there, and I'm going through one right now where I got to get a guy off my property. Um, but you know, it's not, it's not that big of a deal. Everything's going to work out with it.

And, uh, Mm-hmm.

but you just gotta, again, just kind of like realize that nothing's going to be perfect, right? There's always going to be something, but that's life. There's always— life's always going to have its little things here and there, but if you take action, everything will work out.

You know, you touch upon something I think I hear from people from time to time, you know, this idea of offering, uh, you know, their offer being lower than market value. But was there a particular, maybe, you know, seller, or maybe a conversation you had that changed it for you? Like, you realize, wait, I'm not taking advantage of somebody, I'm actually solving a problem that they want solved?

Yeah, this one was it was kind of sad, but the lady needed money, I think, to bury her son. When she told me that, I was like, oh man! She had told me what she wanted for the property, and I had I had low I had offered her less, and I was it was a little bit higher than what I wanted to pay, but. When she told me that story, I was like, I bought the property and it sold and I did well with it. But, uh, that was— that one was kind of tough. But, um, there's other ones were medical procedures or whatever. Um, I see— I hear that another one that I did was a guy was taking care of his father who needed medical stuff. So it seems like the medical stuff comes up a lot. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think a lot of people struggle with that, you know, sometimes just making those offers. So just realizing this, is that how you became comfortable, you know, making these offers, realizing that people just actually need to cash out quickly?

Yeah, and I mean, like, you get better with kind of— if you, if you go too low, then you'll get nasty calls. I've had a couple of those where they call and threaten to sue me and cuss me out and You know, whatever. But, um, you know, those will, those will happen too, even if, even if your offers are good. And then, uh, but I've only had a couple of those out of the whole year, so those are pretty rare. Um, most people are pretty kind, and if they don't want to sell you their land, they just don't contact you.

Right, right.

And if they do, you can, you can, you can, you You know, make a deal with them.

So, well, what would you tell someone— there's people out there right now, I guarantee, that are sitting on the sidelines still thinking to themselves, does this really work? Does this really work, Scott?

Yeah, it definitely works. Um, but you also have to work too, right? Like, I mean, I think that's another thing. Um, there's a lot of I don't know if the land deal— I'm assuming, um, we had kind of a chat, a WhatsApp chat, and a lot of those people that we went through flight school with, they kind of, you know, moved away from the business, or you haven't heard from them in a while. And so I think it's like anything, you can get the results. It's like fitness or anything else. It may not be You know, it's simple, but it's not easy, or whatever that saying is, right? Like, you can know what to do, but if you don't do it, it doesn't get you anywhere.

Mm-hmm.

Um, so I, I think that's another thing too. Like, you, you do have to— you do have to do the work and send the mail and talk to the— follow up with the leads and call the people. And it's not like it's not any work at all. There's definitely work. But once you get the deal done, then you got passive for 5 years. It seems like that makes a pretty good Trade-off, right?

You know, I have a—

can I have a follow-up on that, Mike?

Yeah, of course.

Sorry to steal— sorry to steal your mic from you, Mike.

Steal away.

But I have a follow-up to that. And I think the other thing that is hard for people is just making the decision to get started. So not to pick on engineers for a minute, but let's pick on engineers for a minute. Because like engineers, uh, they need to have like all the information right before— they need to have all the data before they can make a decision about moving forward like this. And I, and I think if there's one thing that land investing teaches you, you can't have all the data in front of you first before you take action. And I think that's a mental barrier for a lot of people. So did you ever feel that? And maybe you're, maybe you're not, you know, the stereotypical engineer. And I'm not, I'm not picking, but I'm picking, right? But like, did you ever feel that? And like, was it like, was it difficult to make that decision? And kind of, because it is a little bit of a leap of faith for some people.

Yeah, I mean, yes, I'm an engineer. I don't think I'm a typical, like, engineer, right? Like, that you think about. I think I'm more of a ready, fire, aim type. Yeah.

Gotcha.

I don't need all the information. I need enough. And then I just go for it. But I mean, I think early on it was like that, maybe before I joined flight school. But the more— the longer I'm in the business, the less and less— like, I just— I think the bias towards action has to be there. Like, you have to— if you don't, if you sit there and wait for all the information, you just get— it just messes you up. You just gotta go. You just gotta, you just gotta do the thing. Call the person, send the offers, you know. And, uh, you gotta have faith. The faith is there. Um, because yes, there's gonna be nights where you're worried about, I'm not gonna sell. I mean, the past 3 weeks was kind of tough on me because I'm like, dude, I think it might have been the longest dip I've had. I was like, what is going on here? Like, what am I doing wrong? I'm doing everything the same, nothing's moving, and I'm getting all these Hundreds of tire kickers and nobody's following through. Like, it gets a little frustrating, but then things start to turn around and you get a sale and then you get another sale. And so you just have to, you have to be persistent. Like the grit, you know, you gotta have that. You gotta, you gotta have that grit. Yeah.

Yeah.

This is great. I think this really helped, you know, just hearing these kind of stories can inspire people who are sort of, you know, sort of, you know, on the edge of taking action. Uh, maybe this could be something that could help them, you know, because, you know, we have a lot of people I think that are in research mode when really what they're probably doing is protecting themselves from having to make a decision, because decisions are difficult, right?

I find a lot of people, yeah, even people in the government, right, where I work, don't want to make decisions. And that's, um, you got to make a decision. You got to make a decision. It might be wrong or it might be right, but Make the damn decision, and if you make the decision to join the land business, it's it's going to be the right decision because the community is great. The people are. I think that's the best part of the business too, is because everybody, all you guys, and even the people I've met, it's it really is different than any other really. I'll say relationship or community that I've been a part of. It's, and I think Jeff Duttmer said it when. at the land. Like, it's like you find your tribe or you find your, your group of people. And I don't know, the land community is like that for me. It, it just definitely feels like I found, I found my tribe or I found my group.

So, well, get a lot of love in the, in the comments. But I got one more question. I'm, you know, someone listening is right, right now knows they Knows what they want to do this, but they're waiting to feel completely ready. What would you tell them?

You're never gonna feel ready. You know, you're just— there'll always be a reason not to do it. And you just, you just got to start where you're at. And everybody's on a different path. I try to tell that to people. in our little WhatsApp group. Some people are further along than other ones, right? But, um, some people are still showing up and they're in there. You just—

every—

because like not everybody is working full-time. Some, some— not everybody's quitting and going full-on in the land business. But, um, everybody can, everybody can do this no matter your circumstance. It's, it's a very unique business. And you can't go wrong buying land, um, because they all do sell. I mean, some take longer than others, but yeah, what's the worst thing? You got something like, like you guys say, you got, you got land and it just goes up in value anyway.

So, such a good point. You know, I feel like it can meet— this business has the ability to meet people no matter where they're at. If you want to casually start dabbling, if you want to go all in and replace your income, you want to have that drive, I mean, it can— anywhere in between, right? Right? It can, it can, it can fit that if, you know, possibility.

I think another thing for me, like, I've never been in sales, I've never been in that type of role, but it's forced me to talk to people, to call people that I'm not really comfortable doing. But if I get on the phone now with a seller or a buyer, like, I just feel like it's so much easier than when I first started. That was kind of a hard thing for me to do early on. But now it just— it— everything flows. It just seems easier, right? But it's because I've talked to a bunch of people, and eventually you get better at it. But everybody, you have to start somewhere.

And what is it like to talk to someone about selling land? Because a lot of people think they're going to be like, you know, you think of sales, used car sales, but this or that. Like, what's it really like, Scott, when you sell a property to somebody? Like, what's it really feel like? What's the dynamic?

I don't— like, I don't even try to sell. I just try to like give them the information and talk to them and I feel like if the property's right for them, it almost sells itself. And if you're, if you're a kind person and you just communicate effectively and like, it'll sell. And if it's not right, it won't sell. But I think that's— I don't know, I may not be doing it perfectly, but that seems to work.

I think 30 properties in a year, you're doing something right.

Yeah.

Should we go?

I can't wait to get a hold of you because there's certain things you're saying And I'm just like, oh, this next year, Scott, it's gonna go like this because next year you are not gonna be doing the work and you're gonna be scaling your, in your business and you're gonna get out of a lot of the pieces that you're personally doing right now. And I think it's great that you, you know, Flight School's giving you those fundamentals. You've got your proof of concept, you know, 30 deals, you've got nice passive income coming in. And, uh, but now it's time to pull those levers and, uh, and really use, you know, other people's time, the software, AI, and other people's money so that we can, we can really 10x the next, you know, 12 to 36 months. So I can't wait to talk to you about it. You're, you're at that point, brother.

Fantastic.

We've got a lot of Scott Elliott love.

Yeah, even got people want to work for you. Like, what's going on here?

Everybody loves you. So we have Scott Golden, Golden R Plant, Golden RP Land, not Golden R Plant.

That's Juliana.

I think that's Juliana.

It's Golden Ridge Partners. Yeah.

Okay.

Loves—

says Scott loves seeing you crush that. You somehow make doing the work of 5 people look normal. So happy to see all your success. Chris, love to see your success. Scott, I'm proud of you. Scott is in the MBA of land investing, 30 deals. Let's see.

Yeah.

So, um, let's see. Let's see. We got some questions here.

Yeah, there's one here. So how many hours a week Do you put in? And are you willing to hire Jeff-U9B1F as a VA?

Um, I'd say I put in probably a couple hours a day. That's pretty great.

So talk about like those, those 2 hours a day. Because there's something that can happen where you can put in a couple hours a day and you can work on all the wrong things.

Yes, right.

So how do you take a couple hours a day and turn that into 30 sales in a year, right, and avoid all of the distractions?

Because I think that marketing and like getting your properties out there and following up with leads is the most important thing that I've been doing. So I had an issue with Facebook where everything I tried to do, um, all my boosting failed. I couldn't boost on Facebook. So their algorithm changed, and that was my old— I've sold everything I've sold except for one property through Facebook Marketplace. And I was like, I gotta figure this out. So I sat down and And I figured out how to do it. So now I've solved Facebook now. So if anybody can't boost their Facebook ads, I know how to fix them. And you can boost any ad with any ad copy. It doesn't matter. There's no keyword. There are keywords that trigger, but you can do— you can, you can still get that boosted and make it work. So anyway, I was happy about that, but that was kind of like I had to get those, those ads out there and make sure that they're out there. And so that's really what I try to do the most of is, is follow up with leads and, and market and get those properties, um, active on Facebook. That's— so that's been the primary focus of mine, like the whatever the triangle I think Scott Todd talks about, like the bottom row. Like, that's, that's my, like, um, that's, that's, that's where I've been over the past year.

So, you know, I, I don't know why I always have music songs come to my mind, but it reminds me, I think it That song, and Bosman can help me out here, although it might be country, and I don't think he's a big fan. But when marketing goes wrong, it's like looking for love in all the wrong places, love in too many faces. Isn't that marketing gone wrong, Mark? I don't know. What do you think?

Absolutely. I yeah. Yeah. It's it's funny that your your mind went there.

But I don't think Scott Blossom knows that song.

I think it might be on the on the on the verge of country, and I don't think that.

That's his—

I, I think— I know this, like, year.

Who doesn't know that song though? I mean, that's like, uh, that's either late '70s or early '80s.

Like, I don't know, great marketing song. I'm gonna call that the marketing song.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but I think it's all marketing, right? Because when you're sending out mailers, you're marketing to get land. When you're—

yeah, we used to say mailing and marketing, but you said this many times, Mark, it's really marketing and marketing, right? We do the same thing on both sides. We create a lot of, um, noise, so to speak, and then people start responding to that noise and we engage them. We either buy property or we sell property.

Yeah, I think that's really the main thing. Like, yes, there's other parts of the business you can work on, but me, at least me, I, I just try to focus on sales, like getting the properties and selling them in the most quickest way. And so there's definitely aspects of my business that need work, probably all of it, but that's kind of been my focus.

Um, Brad Kelly wants to know how many mails you're sending out a week, a month. Do you have a— you have an average?

I was, I was sending out 20 a day, and then I actually stopped recently because I've got a pretty hefty load of properties in Putnam. And I want to start moving some of these. So, and I've also— once you— and I'm sure you guys get this too— once you, once you start getting kind of known for an area, people will just like send you deals. And I had some— I don't even know how the guy got my number, but he texted me a deal and asked me if I wanted to. It was an assignment contract. So, um, an assignment contract is where another land investor gets it under contract and then they flip it to you before closing. And this deal was really good. It was actually equivalent to a mailer offer on some properties. And so I bought it through title, and that's the one I actually— no, I didn't sell that one today. I almost sold another one today. But, um, yeah, so I think you'll start to— you'll start to see that too, where you'll, you'll have other ways of acquiring land other than mailing, because people know who you are. So they'll—

It's only year 1, Scott. You're already the Putnam guy. Imagine 10 years in. All the deals you're gonna have at your company.

Just be the king of Putnam at that point.

King of Putnam. Yeah, mayor of Kingstown, mayor of Putnam.

Speaking of that, I think we should touch on something real quick if you don't mind. Uh, but we have a comment from Chris Pollidor who— she's coming for you, Scott. She actually lives in Putnam County and she's, uh, she's getting ready for flight school. But I think that brings up a point here. What I love about this business is the market is so big, but people have a hard time, I think, grasping that. So can you talk a little bit about that? Like, talk about competition. How can— what can you, what can you tell people about how competitive this market is for, for buying particularly?

Yeah, I think initially you think that it's, I don't know, maybe like the housing market or something, but Like me and Juliana and even other people mail to the same areas and we all get deals. Like, there's plenty of it out there. And so I really— and you hear that from you guys, there's plenty of land to go around. And I'm not going to hide where I mail or do deals at because there's just so many opportunities out there. So I don't know, I wouldn't be— if there's, there's There's just so much opportunity out there that I don't— I don't think it's a concern. You shouldn't be concerned with it really at all.

Yeah, that is an abundant mindset, Mark.

Yeah, because I'll go on podcasts and the hosts always say, you know, because I kind of walk them through the model, like, what did I ask you that I should ask you? Like, well, you know, let's talk to the skeptical listener here. Like, If it's so great, Mark, why on earth would you teach it? And it's a fair question. And the reason is that it is a massive market. It is inefficient. You, me, a million people could be in this niche, and there will never be a million people in this niche because it's so boring and it's so unsexy, right? Before pictures were all in, after pictures were all in, like Right. It's boring, but we'll all run out of money before we run out of deal flow. And I've been saying this for years and years and years, and it's so cool for, you know, our newbies like Scott to like experience it. He's like, I'll even tell you where I— what counties I'm in. I don't care, there's plenty for everybody. There is. We, we give you the secret county list. It's not even a secret, you know, just go to where the other land investors are and, and fish there.

The thing about it is too, is like before this or reading your book, I was oblivious. Like I knew there was land and I knew, but like this model and like it's like opens up a whole new— like you just see the— you see it, a whole new world of opportunity that you didn't even know existed before.

I feel like we're fixing to have, uh, Scott be the Chuck Norris of land investing with the quotes we have. He has Scott— it says Scott It's so good he could sell me Top Ramen after ramen after I'm full. Is that good? He could sell sunscreen to a vampire. The man is a sales machine. It's like we got the Chuck Norris of land investing here.

That's so good.

Well, we're cranking through. I can't believe it's like already nine to the hour. Some great questions. Anybody else? If you want to ask something, it's your chance. Get them in. Scott's crushing this business. You want to ask him something? Now's the time, Chris.

There's plenty of deals for you. Plenty of deals for you in Scott Elliott's county. Don't be nervous.

Okay.

Scott Norris, Brad Kelly says.

Oh, I like Scott Norris.

There you go.

Oh God, so good, so good. Do you only market on— I think you said most of your sales are on Facebook Marketplace. Are you advertising anywhere else at this time, or are you just keeping it simple there?

Um, I do have a Land Century account, and I'll get a lead every now and then, and that's where I did sell one off of Land Century, right? But it hasn't been— I don't know how or why. I think maybe flight school teaches us to do Facebook first, and that's why I just stuck with Facebook. And, um, I know a lot of people use land.com, and I heard that one's really good too, but it's also expensive. But, you know, Facebook can be expensive too if you're boosting a lot of ads, right? But, um, I do boost a lot of ads, but I, I get the leads, so to me it makes sense to do it. And, um, but I think from my understanding, they all work if you know how to use them.

Um, so Well, Scott, I, I'm saying I'm, I'm thinking about starting this. I'm a little nervous. What can you tell me? What's the secret sauce? What's the secret sauce to success here? Like, tell me something. I'm on the sideline. I'm tired of working my 9 to 5. I want to build a pathway towards passive income, time freedom. This land investing sounds pretty good, but what's the secret sauce, Scott? Start Just like Chuck Norris, just start.

You gotta start and then show up, like, ah, you know what I mean? Like showing up or just, I don't know, sitting down at your computer and writing an ad or posting an ad or calling a lead or messaging somebody. Like, I mean, I, I probably messaged or answered 300 is this available messages in the past week, right? And I get to the point where I'm like, I don't wanna answer this person cuz it's a— they're not gonna buy.

Right.

But then the one person does. And so you, you have to be willing to just do the thing, right? Like, kinda like going to the gym. Like, if you don't, sometimes you don't wake up and wanna go to the gym, but if you go to the gym, when you get outta the gym, you feel much better. So same thing with the land business. Like, um, if you post the ad, if you follow up with the lead and you get the sale, like, it— you never know for sure, but you know that eventually, if you keep doing the right things, you're going to get the results. Yeah, just a matter of time.

I, I know you go to the gym. I saw you post a picture that day and it shamed me. I was going to skip my workout and I'm like, ah, there's Scott Elliott all jacked. Yeah, I gotta jump in.

Scott Elliott doesn't go to the gym, the gym goes to Scott Elliott.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm nervous to see all you guys because I've lost all my muscle. I've had tennis elbow for 6 months. I can't lift anymore. You guys are gonna be like, Bosman, what happened? No way.

Well, I gained 150 pounds of muscle. So I'm looking forward to seeing all of you. It's gonna be great.

Yeah, yeah, just so you know, like, I'm literally just bringing tubs and tubs of protein powder to the summit, and that's what I'm just—

No water, just powder, powder, powder, powder, powder, powder. And, uh, Scott, you're in charge of the Wednesday night get-together. I heard from last night everybody said that you're the one to, uh, meet, meet up with on Wednesday.

I don't, I don't really have any plans. I just know a lot of people are getting there Wednesday, and it'd be great to go somewhere.

So, well, the lobby has got a great little get-together area, the little bar down there. So I'll be looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday, Scott.

Yeah, for sure. We'll have to meet up. Um, I just want to thank, like, Mark. Like, seriously, I know you guys have said this before, but Mark, like, you've basically created this whole thing and inspired a lot of people and You know, it just thank you. That's all I want to say for what you what you've done for the community.

So I I concur.

I concur.

Like a Pavlovian response.

That's true. You know, we owe a lot to the fact that Mark was willing to share and actually recognized. The abundance, right? That there was no shortage of land deals. Um, so yeah, we definitely all concur with that. Pretty awesome. Thanks for coming tonight. This is amazing. Someone asked how cold— it's not that cold here. I just like to look a little stylish, you know, uh, dressed up a little bit. But I will definitely, uh, I'm definitely looking to come back down to Florida. I'll be there in, uh, uh, November.

Yeah, yeah, thank you, Scott. And really, just, it's so gratifying for me. Like, I feel just so fulfilled when I see you and others like you solving not just their money problems but also their time problems, so they can spend more time with their family, they can travel more, they can do the things they want to do and really live their best lives. And And that's really, you know, all of our, our mission. And so, you know, you took the leap, you did the work, and, you know, we get to feel the gratitude. So thank you.

Yeah, I just say to anybody on the fence, just, just, just do it. You won't regret it. I mean, it's It'll be worth it if you're— if you join the community, and it's, it's going to be a great investment in your future.

Awesome. Well said, Scott Elliott.

Thanks, Jeff.

He also wants to be your VA, by the way. That's Jeff U9B1F. That's right.

It's Elliott with 2 Ts. You guys got it right.

I was about to text you. I was trying to get AI to throw 3 Ts in there.

And then I was just—

Wait, it's not Scott with 2 Ts, is it?

No, it's Scott with 2 Ts and Elliott with 2 Ts.

Wow.

So 2 Ts, 2 Ls, and 2 Ts.

Look, there's a lot of redundancy, but you know. But you know what's funny is my son has 3 basketball jerseys with 1 T on the last name. So they always mess it up.

The old joke with AI was it didn't know how many Rs were in strawberry. Oh yeah, now it knows.

Finally figured it out. That's the singularity, is figuring out how many Ts are in strawberry.

Or Scott Elliott.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, there you go.

Well, Scott, thank you so much. This has been great. And this is— I mean, no, I guess we'll be around next week. But are we going to be here next week? Because we have the summit next week.

That's gonna be cutting it close. We leave?

Yeah, I don't know.

Because I might have an early Wednesday morning.

I don't know.

You tell me. Mark, you're in charge.

Mark, you're in charge.

You're in charge.

I'm not making a decision right now.

We will get back to our faithful viewers.

We might throw a rerun up.

There we go.

Well, cheers to all of you viewers. Thank you so much, Scott. This has been awesome.

Yeah, thank you very much, Scott.

Nice, Scott.

Question, Bossman, can we go live in the Facebook group at the event? Have you figured that out? I know you were looking into that. Could we go and do some live—

Uh, we can't— we can on a phone.

We can't— we can on a phone?

Yeah, we can.

So maybe we'll do some—

maybe, you know what, maybe there's no Nightcap next week, but maybe you will see us live in the Facebook group with some, you know, hellos from the Dirt Rich Summit.

That'd be fun.

That would be fun. All right, well, cheers.

Cheers, everybody.