Testing The Market—The Land Woobie Method

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Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek. Their favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on today's roundtable, this week's roundtable, we've got the guy who's been missing. He's been mia, but he's back. Bear Land. Aaron Williams. Bear Land. How are you, man?

So glad to be back. So glad you.

You've been missed. You have been missed. We've got the technician, Eric Peterson. How are you, Eric?

I'm good.

Good to see you, man. We've got the nightcap OG dude, buddy. Scott Bossman. Scott, how are you?

I'm great, Mark. Thanks. Glad to be here.

Good to see you. We get the Zen master. Breathe in the mailing, read out the marketing. Mike Zaino. Mike, how are you?

As he used to say in my karate class, great and getting better, sir.

Great and getting better, sir. I have to tell you, I could get used to this sir thing. It's very Southern. Eric Peterson. You hear a lot of sir, ma' am in Tennessee.

We do hear more of that here than you hear elsewhere in the country.

Yeah. Yeah. I kind of get that kind of judgmental vibe sometimes with Eric when we're out to eat at boot camp and, you know, he'll say, thank you, sir. Thank you, ma', am, and none of us know what he's doing. And this feels very old fashioned. And at some point, I think he's gonna order grits, but he doesn't. It's an interesting vibe. Anyways, I digress. We've got the most feared woman in the country, Mimi Schmidt. Mimi, how are you?

I'm doing great, Aaron. It's great to have you back. I love that. There's so many of us on the call today. And in Eric's defense, he has a very modern hairdo. He has a very modern haircut with the fade and the spiky on top.

Well, look, if the terrorist hunter has your back, Eric, we're not going to even talk about that hair. And then, last but not least, we've got the Big Papa. I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate Litchfield. Tate, how are you?

Good. I didn't. I mean, Eric, what are you getting a haircut for boot camps? Not for another month.

I know I'll have another one before boot Camp.

I'll make sure you're getting me and Mike all like antsy, like I didn't get a haircut. I wish I had a fresh fade going on. Looking all.

You thought boot camp was about to start next week.

Yeah, I was like, oh geez, am I not? I must have missed that. You look handsome as ever.

Thanks.

Alright, well this podcast is not sponsored by Eric's good looking hair. It's sponsored by flight school and Flight School Live. Learn more. Just go to thelandgeek.com training get on the call with the nightcapmeister Scott Bossman or the zen master Mike Zaino and they will give you the scoop. All right, we've got an interesting topic. Aaron Williams, what is the topic for the roundtable this week?

Well, I received a question from one of our community members and it goes like this. How does one go about test marketing before they own a property? This person has been sending out offers and practicing their due diligence and they want to start learning the marketing side of the business. Though I'm guessing they don't have properties yet, so they want to test market in some areas and are curious about how to go about that without having specific things to advertise.

Right. So essentially you're picking this county, but you're not sure about this county. So you want to put out what we call blind ads stating theoretical property that you don't own that county to gauge demand for those types of properties, which would then give you a little bit more confidence that yeah, this is a county worth going to. Is that really the question, Fairline Aaron?

Yeah, I think so, because that would be, that would be obviously a main reason to do some test marketing. And I guess you could even do some before you've gotten a property in a county you've decided on just to kind of see what the response is as far as maybe the way you'd market it too. So. But it all kind of ends up the same. So. Yeah, I agree with you.

So even, even if you've picked your county, you could start doing this to gauge even how you're going to price.

Yeah, and let's start building our list right away too.

Right, and start building your list right away because when they do respond, you can put them on your buyers list so that when you do actually acquire a real property, you've got a hot buyers list that you already definitively know want that property. So if I'm understanding then is the question do we do this or is the question how do we do this? I'm not sure I understand exactly. I think the.

I think we're looking at a how, like, how do we go about doing this kind of thing?

Okay, let's start with the Zen master, Mike Zano. How do we go about this or how do you go about this?

I think you obviously put up some really perfect initial answers to like what we do it and all that. But I kind of feel like this person might be going rogue, Mark, in the sense of not following our recipe. Like, you know, like in flight school. Recipe number one, go where the other land investors are. If you're not going there, you may start to doubt that the properties you're mailing to will sell. So you might, you might bring in that self doubt because you're, you know, we see people all the time that try to, you know, go away from the recipe. That works.

Right.

They go into an area where they want to buy the land. But maybe that's not an established market. So I guess since I go first, I get to say that maybe they're misinterpreting what we do.

Mark.

Maybe I would advise them to make sure they're not going rogue, that they're following the recipe, which is go where the other land investors are. Because then you can see established comps. You can see that properties are moving by the volume of people doing deals there. Looking at land moto for sold comps. For sale comps, comparing them. So I guess I'll start with that as a starting point. I kind of get the vibe this guy is going a little rogue on the method that we typically teach.

Yeah, I mean, we really do drill down very deeply in the training on how you pick a county, why you pick that county, and how to price the county. So I guess Baron Aaron, he, he wants to know as far as the test marketing, I don't really. I guess I don't. I don't know if he's. Let's assume he's not going rogue, right? Yeah, assume he needs a land would be. I guess he wants, he wants more confidence and more security. Like a wooby like you, you have like, like when you're a little kid, you get like a little blankie that we call a woobie and you feel more secure and you know, you lose it, you start crying.

Right.

So this is like a land woobie is you're putting out these ads to make sure that you are really, really sure. And you know, maybe you're the kind of person that, you know, really is super skeptical and like, yeah, you know, sure. Mark's been doing this 18 years, but maybe he doesn't know what he's doing, right? Or you know, maybe the, who knows, right? There's, there's skeptical people out there. They want to really see it for themselves. I don't know, let's just call it the land will be method. So, Eric Peterson, what's your answer to that?

Well, I interpreted the question as maybe more of a pre marketing type question. So I'm gonna assume that this person has maybe a property under contract, maybe it's in due diligence, they're kind of working through the acquisition process and they want to get out there and maybe market that property before they actually have it available for sale. So I'm gonna take that perspective.

That makes way more sense to me. Okay, that's it. Okay, let's discuss that issue because that's a really good, way better topic than the first one, which would be you're not following the recipe. Okay, this is great. Go ahead, Eric. Sorry.

Okay, so I mean that may or may not be where the person is going, but nonetheless I think that's how I'm going to answer it. And you know, in that scenario I would mark it almost as if you have the property. In other words, we'll call it a five acre parcel. You know, in whatever state, I'm going to go to the same markets that I would market that property in when I actually buy it. So I'm going to say I have five acres available, it's in such and such a location. And you know, this is the pricing. Maybe this is an opportunity for me to play around with the pricing. Maybe I don't know if I can get $99 a month or $150 a month or $20 down or $100 down. So maybe I'm going to use that opportunity to try different price points. But what I'm not going to do is give an exact location. For example, it's on X Street or here's a Google Maps link to it or something like that. Instead, I'm going to be a little more vague. I'm going to talk about the type of property versus the exact property. And as those leads come in, you know, basically you have a couple choices. One is you can just not reply because you don't have anything available. Let's say this is your very first property. That's an option. I don't know if I love it, but it is an option. So you could take the email and then reach out to them once you have something available. Or you could Reply to that person and try to start a conversation, get their phone number, get to understand what their problem is, what type of property they're really looking for. And if what you have coming in is going to be a good fit for them, assuming it is, well, then you can take that a couple directions. If they're ready to go, you could collect a deposit and nothing more until you actually take title for the property. Then you can kind of finish and close the deal. And you can just let the buyer know that's the situation it's in. It's going through closing. When it's closed in a week's time or whatever that time frame is, you'll finish off the transaction. But their deposit allows them to hold that property and basically have first dibs on it. That's kind of some of the process you could take with it.

Yeah, I really like that for sure. I'd like to hear Mimi Schmidt's thoughts on this as well.

My number one thing when I want to go into accounting is to put test ads out. It's so easy, it's so cheap, and it tells you so much about the market. How hard are you going to have to work to get a lead? Right. But then you're actually going to have people respond to those Craigslist ads. I had a woman yell at me once when I actually was honest with her. Hey, I'm just kind of testing the market. So I literally, when people do call me on those Craigslist ads that are general, just like Eric said, I'll say I do sell land and I'm out of it in this area right now. Which is true. Doesn't say that. I don't say I had some originally, but I already have a scarce situation built in because I don't have any land. Don't tell them that. But I'll get a couple in. But even they sell out quickly. Right. And so I'm developing my buyers list and it already has this scarcity built into it because I'm just getting started and I only have a few pieces. So that has really worked in my benefit in the past. Right. You can use it to your benefit, that scarcity. And I do use. Of all the places that I go out to check my pricing, it sounds like this person, they sent out 200 letters, but it didn't actually say they they bought any. Maybe they're not sure of their pricing. The best way for me to check my pricing is land Moto. There's just. That's where so many of us are already. I'M not just saying that because it's got. It's just where I go to check out pricing. Check your pricing on land. Moto re watching if you your responses that you've got to check the pricing on the mailings that you're continuing to do. That's what I do. And I've checked out three counties in the last three counties in the last six months. So. And that it's worked for me going into new counties. So that's my advice.

You muted Merc.

There you go.

Cool.

Sorry. Fantastic. Scott Bossman, what's your take?

Well, I think just to add on to what most everyone has said. I think it's all good advice. I think Mike's advice is good in the sense that you do not want to overanalyze because. Because you can go down rabbit holes in this business and you do want to keep things simple. Keep things simple, follow the recipe, go where other land investors are. But it's very strategic to set blind ads when you're going into maybe a new area or when you're looking to sell to maybe a different group of people. How many more hits are you going to get on Craigslist when you talk about the hunting in the area? You know, how many more hits are going to get on Craigslist when you start talking about tiny homes and you know that tiny homes are accepted in your area. So these are all ways to test the market to see what people want to add to your buyers list and to, you know, basically just feed your county research going forward in this business.

Fantastic. Fantastic. And we'll give the Big Papa the last word on this. Big Papa.

I think it's a great question and I know Scott goes into it quite heavily in flight school and I don't want to steal any of his thunder, but he talks a lot about the demand and it's a simple economic concept. Right. Supply and demand, those are two things that we need to take into consideration when we're, when we're shopping for an area to buy land in. And when it comes to selling land, doesn't do you any good to buy land where there's not a lot of land to be purchased. Right. And you don't want to end up buying land if there's no demand for it. So this is a foolproof way to get out there and determine is this going to sell. And if it is going to sell, then you can go back and get more of it. So I think pre marketing an area, it's absolutely essential to what we do. We we do it on every new property. Well, not every new property. Every time we look at entering into a new marketplace, we want to get a feeler. We want to know, can I get 200 for a month for this? Could I get 250? And the only way we're going to know that is by marketing. Like Mimi said, it's easy, it's cheap, it's effective, and it's honestly a simple process. But you don't want to get carried away or get caught marketing a piece of property that you don't own because people are going to call you out. And the last thing you want to happen is have somebody question your reputation. Because if your reputation goes down the drain in this business, I mean, that's all we have, right? We're buying and selling land on the Internet. So do things the right way. Be a little bit vague. Explain to them that, you know, you might have something coming available in the next little bit or however you want to do it. But, you know, I think this is a great question and it's a concept that if you're going to get serious in this business, you need to look into it.

All right, fantastic. Bear land. Aaron, how do you feel about all those answers?

You know, I feel those answers are terrific. It's really well covered. The only thing I might poll the group on is would you consider Craigslist the only place you really want to pre market? Can you do it Facebook or some land sites or anything like that?

Mimi's shaking your head. Mimi.

No, you know, I'm a huge fan of Facebook. But no, Facebook needs to be more specific to the property itself. And I will say the best information that I've gotten is those folks calling about those general ads. I'll say, hey, yeah, I sold my first few. But if you'll give me some information on what you're looking for, you know, I'll keep a note of it. And I get great information on what those people answering my general ads, what they're actually looking for when I'm going to buy.

Great, great. Well, I think this was a really great topic and I think we, we really covered every aspect of it. So that being said, great job, Roundtable. You know, let's. How about a little self congratulations. There you go. Pat this little pat on the back. So it leads us to Mark.

Mark, Mark. We gotta, we gotta thank the listener. Sending in a question too, right? I mean, it's awesome when people are actually listening to our podcast and then submitting their questions or topics for discussion. I mean, I Don't know who this guy is. But, you know, thank you for that because we appreciate it. It's good for everybody and it helps us know how we can better inform the community of the right way to do this.

Yeah, that's a really good point. And I apologize for not truly acknowledging the fact that a lot of the roundtable discussions are coming from our community's questions and, you know, their pain points. And this way we can sort through the most relevant of those questions and attack them head on. So if you don't post that question to us or you don't put it in the Facebook group, the Land Geek Motivation and Wealth Creation Group, or you email, don't email support the landgeek.com One of those things we don't know. And so, Tate, that's a really good point that we need you to continue asking, asking these questions, getting more clarification so that we can create better roundtable podcasts. So I appreciate you bringing that up, but that doesn't put, you know, give, give Mimi a pass on the tip of the.

No, no, no, no. Definitely not.

Like, like, that's just like. No, it's traditional. So, Mimi Schmidt, what is your tip of the week? A website resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

So earlier in the week, and I think it was on the official Land Geek Motivation wealth creation group, you had posted a tip about Butler as a way to automate in Trello. And I wish Scott was here because he's always dogging my Trello and and promoting his expensive pipe drive. Right? So Butler is to Trello what Zapier is to Pipedrive. Except for Pipedrive and Zapier cost money and Butler and Trello do not. So yes, Butler is free and does all the Zapier stuff. If I move a card from due diligence to closing in my intake section of Trello, I can have it email my one of my VA's to get the marketing information ready. I can have it move a new card in marketing to have my ad copywriter start to write the marketing information. So except for that Butler is super easy to use. It's amazing. It has just this pop up where you enter basically what you want to do instead of struggling with Zapier or paying someone 100 bucks a zap. So highly recommend Butler. It's free.

You know what I smell? Mimi, you smell that? No, A new Mimi Schmidt course. I'm telling you, Butler and Trello Automated providing All the automations for your CRM and then you just go into LG Pass and use that in conjunction.

Yeah. PipeDrive is what, $29 a month per person on Trello, I get a $10 discount for every time I add a person. So I' five people on a board.

Right.

I got my mailing board, my intake board, marketing and sales, and I add a VA and I get a discount. I don't have to pay for Trellos literally for like five more years.

Well, let's give Scott Todd a chance to respond. Scott. Well, we really didn't hear anything from Scott, so.

And he's not on mute, not on.

Mute, not on mute. So the. I think he likes it actually.

Eric, are you struggling?

Eric is a big pipe drive guy.

I don't like Trello. I'm like Scott. So, you know, I'm gonna stick with my pipe drive and Zapier and I love it. But there's nothing wrong with someone else using Trello and Butler if that's what they love.

Right.

It's just mine might be better.

Does it have all the same automation and features as Zapier? I'm having a hard time believing that. There's no way. Zapier's got thousands of automation options there.

I don't know enough about Bub does like. It's like it's a process, work, workflow, process app. Right. Well, so is Trello. It's just free and Zapier automates it. But it costs money too. Butler is free.

I think that Trello is Mimi's wooby.

Well, I mean the only thing that bothers me, Mimi, about free is.

Yes.

How are they gonna stay in business? What's the business model?

Well, if you have to upgrade, if you get to a certain point. But I haven't found need to upgrade yet.

Okay. So it's quote unquote free, but Butler.

Is designed to work with Trello. It's not made to work with other apps as well.

Right.

And that's where Zapier Zapier, you can integrate it with everything.

So finally, Mimi Schmidt, a lukewarm tip of the week.

But it could be a good. I mean there's a lot of times when people like are intimidated by Zapier.

Right.

Because it is not the easiest thing sometimes to user friendly.

Yeah.

This could be a good way to kind of cut your teeth on some of that automation. And then you graduate to the big boys league.

Right.

And you start using Zapier.

Come on. And I think really good as you're gonna really learn all that down and create all those integrations and then be.

Like, okay, now minor leagues Mark, if that's what you want. I mean, but anyone who's listening this podcast is.

Put together a class thinking smaller being in the minor leagues.

Like the same thing with your razor. Scott. Todd, I use a five dollar Bic and you use $160 razor. You guys use your expensive pipe drive.

And Zach, I guess, I guess that's what it comes down to.

I mean, you like your hoity Toity tools. I'm just gonna save money.

Yeah, I get it. I get it, like for sure. I mean, you know, you know what's so funny about this is that at boot camp we know this is completely antithesis to like the real Mimi Schmidt. Like we're at, you know, at dinner and she's ordering like a fine wine. She knows, like, okay, she's not like $5 chuck. Good enough.

You got me there. I can't defend that.

No, but I think it's a, I think it's a cool tool, actually. I mean, I'm reading about it right.

Now and it's, it's more user friendly than zapier. I'll say.

It seems pretty, pretty simple. And I know a lot of coaching clients love trello and by all means, this is a cool tool if you're using that. They all do this.

Is this a preference issue like Pearl Jam over Nirvana or vice versa?

That's not a preference, that's just good taste right there.

I've tried other free tools like HubSpot Free, but it was very limited in its capacity. Right. It was a beginner thing and it only lasted so long. It only had five free templates. I mean, come on, how long can you go with that? But this one I've been using for free for two years now and the functionality just keeps getting better.

All right, I think we should upgrade this tip from lukewarm to like fantastic. I'm now seeing the light on this.

You know, I think we all, we all need these, those kind of tips or those kind of tools too, because it's not really any different than if you're choosing, like, especially if somebody's starting off, you know, Mailchimp compared to ConvertKit or one of the paid systems or Google voice compared to RingCentral. RingCentral. Yeah. You know, it gives you a really powerful solution to get pretty far in the business before you need to. If you choose to go to a hoity toity paid tool, say on my.

Sales, I have a hoity toity tool that's more expensive than pipedrive. It's like $70 a month, not 29.

Right.

On my sales side, but for my intake side, this works great. And Mark, how can you say it's lukewarm? It was your tip.

Wow.

Moving on. I want to thank the listeners. And if you're getting value and you're enjoying the podcast, you know, do us a favor. Share it with a friend, put it up on the interwebs, certainly share, you know, in the social medias. But then subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. We, you know, send us a screenshot of that review to support@thelandgeek.com we're gonna send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. And if you support with I want the Trello Butler, Mimi Schmidt or Terrace Hunter system with integrations, we will literally bully Mimi into making that course until she says, I can't deal with you geeky guys anymore, and I'll just do it and it's done, and we'll all be appreciative. So we have a title for this podcast. It's called the Land Woobie versus the Troll. Woobie. And I thought was great. So I want to thank everybody. You guys ready? 1, 2, 3, let. Pretty good. I love that Zano's, like, just enamored with the word woobi.

I've heard binky before. I haven't heard wubby binky.

I don't know. I'm pretty sure woobi's from the Michael Keaton movie.

I agree.

This is an 80s term.

Great movie.

Yeah.

Yeah, that explains a lot.

The little boy is like, okay, you ready to give up your whoopi? It's. It's a real term in.

In there is a culture. There's a site for woobie addicts online I just found. So whoopee addicts.

Are you getting a gateway that says must be 18 or over?

No, no, not at all.

Okay, good.

Are you confusing that with a wookie?

No. Have you ever met people who they have a binky or a woobi and they keep. Those are furries. And years and years and years and years. Yes, I have met people who still sleep with their binky.

Yeah. Scott's called iPhone.

That's true. That's what they tapped into. The iPhone is tapped into the wooby.

It is. They're like, yeah, it's. It's whoopee culture. It's pretty good. All right, so I gotta run and I'll just tell you guys a quick story. About two weeks ago, our dishwasher broke, and so we bought a new dishwasher, and they're like, you know, we can't get out there to install it because I clearly don't know how to do anything. And for, like, you know, 10 days. So for 10 days, my wife put, like, scotch tape on all the drawers saying, no, like, don't open the drawers. Don't use any silverware or any plates. The dishwasher is broken, and we've been using paper and plastic silverware for 10 days, and I can't wait to use real plates and real silverware again. Like, the amount of gratitude and appreciation. I love when things break because, like, you get used to things. So, like, I'm gonna have, like.

Yeah.

Do you have a sink and dish soap and, like, a rag?

Yeah, I do. I. We put on the gloves. It's very emasculating. I put on these gloves, put on scalding hot water, and I do it right. But come on. I don't want to be doing. I mean, we got three kids. It's a lot of dishes. I mean, I'll do it. What I have to do, but I want to spend an hour scrubbing dishes because, you know, you guys know how I feel about my time.

Well, you gave the answer right there.

Three kids.

Oh, come on, man. They're back to school. We got homework to do. I don't want scrubbing dishes. Yeah, yeah. I got. Come on. I agree. In manual labor, but not when they're in high school. I mean, I do on the weekends, but not like. Like, come on. Yeah, they gotta study. We're putting that as a priority.

There is Zen in the out of dishwashing. You know, you can get into the. Into it and use it as a way to get peaceful. So you could actually gain from washing dishes manually.

Well, you can do that with anything.

True.

So motorcycle maintenance.

So, I mean, let me ask you. Do you guys not have dishwashers? I'm feeling.

I installed mine myself, of course.

Nice.

Because you're a real man, Scott Bossman. I can't install mine.

I did reprogram my garage door recently.

Huh.

Yeah.

There it is.

That's about it, though. Unless it's got two wheels and you have to pedal it, I'm pretty much useless.

All right, well, Mimi, you got a high schooler. Mike, you got high schoolers. Scott, you got high schoolers. Are you making those kids do a lot of chores after dinner and then their homework? Scott's a yes. Mimi's a no. Mike, M.D. errands. He's got Teenagers. Yeah. You're a. Yes. All right, fine. I'm gonna reevaluate.

Amber's coming down in the Podolski household.

Like, no more podcasts for dad.

He's getting all these bad ideas.

Who's a. Scott Bossman of beer land? Aaron, why are you listening to them?

Bad influences.

That's right. I'll tell you what. That's that Midwest work ethic. We don't have that out here. I grew up with that. You know, like, it's nice every day.

It's different here. It's all about the college.

Builds character being around here.

Yeah, I see. Yeah, I'm on team Uni. That's right. It's all about, you know, making education the priority. And out here, it's. It's really difficult because our school systems, like, one level above Alabama. It's true. Look at. Look up.

The Alabama boot camp.

What is. What is Arizona, Mark? What is Arizona?

Like, 49?

No, 44.

I think Alabama or Mississippi is like, 50 in the country.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah.

Vegas is. We're like, 44 or something.

Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. You'll be super stoked, Tate. When she's literate like my kids, it's a huge win. She's gonna be just a star in school.

See, education ranking by state.

South Dakota's way at the bottom, too. That's where I grew up.

And look at you. Your success. Those rankings don't matter.

They don't matter because it's all about parenting. Scott Bossman, Right?

Yeah.

Of course.

Zaino is gonna be number one. I mean, his kids are destined for greatness.

Mass is one. Yeah. But you know what, Tate? Most. Most unfriendly city in the country. Why? Bunch of intellectual snobs.

And sports snobs go hand in hand.

Sports snobs.

Big sports guy.

That's right. Do you go to Harvard or mit?

Oh, Boston College. Yeah.

Boston.

Emerson.

No, I was better than you. Nice to meet you.

It's worse than I thought.

The accent. Yeah, right. That's right. You went to Boston College. Go park my car. Okay. No. Eric Peterson's afraid to say anything, so. Nice. All right, thanks, everybody. By the way, the whole point of this is I have to go. All right.

See you later.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. Start your journey at www.thelandgate.com and www.scotttod.net. rate and review the podcast and email support at the Land Gate. Your screenshot for a free passive income launch kit.