The Best of Round Table— How To Bulletproof Your Business With Great VAs

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Hey, it's Mark Podolski, your favorite land geek. We are three days until Christmas, and I just want to wish everybody out there a happy, merry, healthy Christmas. 2020 has been such a wonderful, weird year, and I'm sure Christmas is still going to be weird as we go into 2021 with a vaccine. And we're really looking forward to an August live boot camp in Vegas. Until then, we'll be doing virtual boot camps as we have been. But this roundtable podcast, this best of Roundtable, was one of the most popular ever. And it's really a great one to listen to again. Creating a bulletproof land investing machine. And for the next 48 minutes, we talk about scaling your business and how to create this bulletproof system with your VA team. It also goes along with the theme of the sequel to Dirt Rich. I don't know what I'm going to call it. Maybe dirtier and richer, but how to scale your land investing business. So, without further ado, enjoy this Best of Roundtable podcast. You know, this week's roundtable, we've got the usual suspects. The technician, Eric Peterson. Eric, how are you?

Good.

It's good to see you. We've got Do Buddy, the nightcap og, sober as always. Scott Bossman. Good to see you, Scott.

Good to see you, Mark. Thanks for having me.

It's really nice to have the most feared woman on the planet on the podcast, the terrorist hunter, Mimi Schmidt. Mimi, how are you?

Great. How are you doing today, Mark?

Pulse is still normal. Respiration is fine. I can't complain. Of course, we got the breathe in, the mailing, breathe out, the marketing, the zen master, Mike Zaino. Mike, good to see you.

Great to see everybody.

Fantastic. And then, of course, I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate Litchfield. Tate, how are you feeling?

Relaxed and ready to go.

Awesome. By the way, if you haven't checked out lots yet, just go to landgeek.com lots. Learn something and actually see the amazing life that Tate is living. Because it means looking over Tate's shoulder. It's crazy. And then, last but not least, it's good we've got the brain, the professor Scott Todd.

Scott.

Todd.netlandmoto.com you're automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings. Domination.com thelandgeek and actually posting domination.com landgeek. Learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott Todd, you think this is the first time I'm saying that I'm stumbling over my words?

It's all good, Mark.

This is why I need to get some ginkgo biloba.

How old are you?

You don't want to know. You don't want to know. I'm getting up that mountain though, for sure. So for the roundtable discussion, I think we got a really good one, which is we're always talking about scaling our business. How to scale, why to scale, obviously. Why do we want to scale our business? Because we don't create another job for ourselves. We want to get ourselves out of the business. Work on the business, not in the business. But in order to do that, what do we have to do? We have to create a bulletproof system. So, Eric Peterson, let's just start with you. How do you go about creating a bulletproof system with your virtual assistant team?

I think the first step is knowing how to do the process yourself. So if you can do that in one time or it takes you multiple times, but first understand what you're trying to ask someone to do, know how to do it yourself after that. I like to create for a lot of things, a checklist in Process street. So you know, that will include items to check off along the way for the process, includes directions, potentially embedded, basically whatever that VA needs to know about that project. And I do that. So it's a template so that it can be reused at any time if you want. Depending on what the task might be, it might be property specific. So you could create a new version of that for each property as needed. And you know, once that's all set up, I think the, the next most important thing is being open for feedback. So as you give it to a VA to go ahead and execute, be prepared for them to have questions, to have problems, et cetera, and take responsibility for that. Because it's very likely that you didn't do a good enough job showing how to do that particular part of the process. So be able to go back and make corrections, adjustments as needed and continue to work at that until it's refined and run smoothly.

Yeah, absolutely. I love it. As far as like a litmus test before it will go to the virtual assistant. Will you do anything like that?

I don't typically once that process is created, I'll just hand it off to a VA and see how it goes. You know, I suppose I could ask a friend or my wife or something to go through it. But instead I just, I give it straight to the VA because ultimately they're the one that's, that's going to have the questions and whatnot. So that's how I handle it.

Great, great. And then as far as like, do you have a story of a virtual assistant that was working that system just went MIA on you and you felt so lucky that you had this already in place and he found someone that could really just plug and play and start working that system like very quickly.

Sure. So another way that, that I prepare systems, processes, etc. Is you know, sometimes the task might, it might make more sense as literally just a Google Doc of instructions. And I have one example where I have a position that I hire for often and there's a lot of turnover. So having this document prepared and ready to go to the next person in line that's going to do this work makes it really easy and efficient to pass along the information to the next person in line. So in those high turnover roles I'm thinking about specifically like ad writing, it's very beneficial to have that process kind of buttoned up and all those instructions nailed down.

Yeah. And see, that would be my definition of a bulletproof system in the sense that somebody on your team could literally just go away, but the system remains and it's just very seamless as far as getting another person in where it would just be like almost like a death. If you had one key person on your team, all the intelligence, everything that was doing was in their head and then it would just be, you'd be starting from 0 to re to find a new hire. So I think that's fantastic. Scott Bossman, how about you?

So I think, you know, with a bulletproof system you just have to go into the mindset that this is going to take some time and energy. It doesn't happen overnight and there are going to be trials and tribulations as you develop your systems. But you know, to echo on what Eric said, the most important thing is to, is to know your processes in and out and then to map those processes out and to have some type of documentation, whether it's process street, airtable, Google sheets, mind maps, whatever. You need to find what works best for you and keep a library of these things and be able to, you know, pass them off whenever is needed. The longer you're in this, things become more and more fine tuned. Things need tweaking all the time. For me, mind maps are really helpful in that regard. Or swim lanes as well. I know, are helpful for a lot of us, and that's what we do. It's pretty cool because the longer you're in this, you know, you will garner some trusted vascular and as things change, you may be able to recruit them to map out some of the processes. And that's what I'm doing right now with some of my Facebook stuff. I'm having him actually document what he's doing and keep track of that. So that's even off me now as well. And I'm going to be able to use that information for others in the future.

As Mike Zaner would say, that is so wicked smart. Because that's outsourcing. You're outsourcing, right?

Because he's, he's better at it than I am. So I'm, I'm just having him, you know, carefully document and draw out exactly what he's doing and we'll utilize that moving forward.

So Eric uses Process street and Google Docs. What do you, what tech tools are you using to create?

Using systems? I'm using Airtable and Google Sheets Primary or Google Drive primarily. Okay.

And then do you have a story about a system that was you. You had a virtual assistant in there, something happened, and then you were able to quickly find another person?

Yeah, I have a library of videos and things kind of sitting on a, on a flow street, and I was able to replace somebody pretty quickly after they kicked the can for whatever reason. With my, it was a list scrubbing. And that was back in the, you know, back a couple years ago when I was just starting out and I was trying to be consistent with my mailings and I lost the reliable person for my, my list scrubbing. But I was able to find another one real quickly. Having all of that stuff in my, in my back pocket.

That's great. And do you use any type of litmus test before you test your system?

I guess my lipid test, litmus test to begin with was me just seeing if these things worked out. And then for vas, you know, I will probably, when I'm hiring people, I'll give maybe two or three VAs in our task and see which one does the best.

Great. And how do you define best.

Results?

So just real simple. For list scrubbing, how many, how many names can they get me in an hour? How accurate are they? How messy are they? How reliable are they? When. When I'm able to say, you know, I need this by Friday, can you have it done? They get it done. So it's reliability. It's. It's you know, numbers, reliability numbers for me.

Oh, that's fantastic. And you know, as we move to Mimi, I don't know if Mimi is an edge case simply because the virtual assistants might listen to the podcast and be like, well, this is not a person I'm going to mess with. So they're just, you know, out of fear, they just do the task as well as they can and then even go above and beyond. But that might not be the case. So, Mimi, how about you, as far as how do you create your bulletproof system and do all that?

Well, I think it's important. There's a lot of value in hiring well and getting people that already have experience doing some of these things. And they're pretty easy to find on upwork. And I will say, I see students, they have a tendency to get caught up in the details of how they're going to have the person do the work. Then they don't hire and they put it off because they haven't laid out every detail. Right. 80% solution is fine. I don't even think you need that much. Right. You need generically what the person, you know, large steps, what the person is going to do. And you need to be able to tell these folks where they're going to be able to store documents, store pictures, those type of things. Right. And the particular tools, either teach them, you know, how to use the tools or hire someone that already has that tool experience. And I'm a big fan of not micromanaging them either. They need to become the SME of their area. So I usually let them do their job and then I iterate on evaluating and improving their processes. Okay. I use trello. We have checklists, but when people get good at it, they start to ignore the checklist. I noticed. So we have to evaluate those checklists every three to six months, I'd say. And I think it's very important to cross train. I had our executive director at the Terrorism Analytics. Director. He was prior Army. He had been a teacher too, at the academy for the army on the East Coast. Help me out.

Is it link not no, it's CIA.

It's not the Air Force Academy, it's the Army. I can't even remember what it's called.

Anyway, West Point.

West Point. Thank you. So he used to say, always make sure you have belts and suspenders. So if you have two people doing the same job or you cross train like, my intake manager can help me refine things, do sales documents and notes on the sales side. Same thing with that bee. I Have on sales side, she can order a DD due diligence from partial review. You know what I mean? So cross training or hiring multiples that will help you when they want to go on vacation or if you lose one of them.

And then, you know, you said, you know, a lot of this can be. A lot of the headaches can be avoided by hiring well. But what does that really mean? I mean how are you going to know if you're hiring well or not? Do you have any tips?

Sure. When you're putting your upwork ad together, look for people that already have experience doing what you're doing. Right. If you want someone to post on marketing platforms, search for the people that already know how to do that. We've got a pretty big network so there's a pretty big pool of bas already out there doing this work. And also look for tools if they already know how to use Process street or Trello or how to post ads on Facebook. Right. Then that's going to save you a lot of effort both in training them in documenting. Right. And refining their skills going forward. Saves you a lot of time. It gets spun up a lot more quickly.

Okay, great. Do you interview before you hire?

I don't. I usually hire multiple and take the one that can actually one or two that can do the best, perform the best. I want to see what the work is actually like because you know, people can say things but I think it's just best to see their work.

That's great. You got the suspenders and you got the belt. Two is one, one is none. Zen master Mike Zaino, how about you?

Well, this, geez. Had to follow all these great examples. But I would add that bulletproof or making it really efficient is to me is communication, you know, so like really being able to communicate with your team. So we use a couple of things to communicate. One slack and the other voxer just to have that maintain that line of communication. So I think the first thing I would say is that mark that you need to be able to have clear communication with your team members. That's the first so. And then also I think it's important that they understand why they're doing what they're doing. Like the reasons behind it, you know, I mean, you know you can do. I have a problem creating myself creating checklists because if I do it it's like a never stop stops. It's like, you know, it's like that infinity, you know, half of one is a half and then a quarter I keep this goes on for. Because you could break it down to forever, right? And you could over, you know, I don't know. You can, you can. You can do too much of that, right? So I think it's good to have this organic where, you know, they know their role, but they also kind of have to think at times, or they ask you questions, you know, maybe you don't answer right away because then they rely on you, you to let them develop some ability, the ability to think for themselves within their job description. So I guess to me it's about communication and understanding the flow and being able to, you know, because I'm kind of like that, right?

I'm kind of.

I'm not, you know, Eric is like an expert at these systems. I'm more of like, kind of like a flow. You know what I mean? Kind of. So it's a little different feeling with me. So maybe it's hard if you go to work me, I don't know. But. But I think they know the. Why they're doing what they're doing.

No. So what tech tools do you use when you create your system? And what communication tool are you using?

Technical, really, like, you know, some G Suite stuff.

Right.

You know, like the Google Docs and so on and so forth. But again, just communication and explain to them, letting them know, hey, this is why we're doing this. This is what it's all about. This, you know, when we're doing intake, okay, this is what we need to know. This is why we need to know it. So this is why you have to ask these questions. And so they can, you know, it just doesn't become a question they ask, but there's a reason why they ask and they understand the importance of it. Maybe they won't forget to ask it because of that. So I'm not overly technical in that regard.

Great. I mean, you know, like to Eric's point in the beginning, to do it yourself first and then outline the process. Is there a point in time where you could do too much of it yourself? Like, how do you know when you're competent enough to hand it off? So we want to delegate, not abdicate, not have the blind leading the blind. Is this something that you've ever had a challenge with?

Yeah, that.

That is. That is important.

We do talk about that quite a bit. Some things like scrubbing a list, anybody will take a piece of data, put an Excel sheet like five or ten times and go. I think I get the idea here. You copy and you paste. Right. But then with the intake, yeah, you can do it. Too soon. Because intake isn't just about fact finding. It's about personality. It's about communication. It's about connecting with the person who's trying to sell their property. So, yeah, I think that. I think you could hand it off too quick to me. I mean, I like that part. The problem is that the volume that will mail. Right. Can't handle it. I can't. Because I call it land therapy.

Right.

It's true. Like, people want to give away their property, and they will, but they want you to hear the story. And each of those stories could be anywhere from 10, 15, 20 minutes long. And now if you mail it, like we all do at least 100 a week.

Right.

You're going to have a lot of stories. And so you just don't have enough time in the day. I'd love to talk to all these people. Right. But just enough time.

So I don't.

Yeah, you could. But I think that as far as you could definitely handle off too soon, some things you only have to know a little bit. But I guess I'm focusing mostly on intake right now because I think that that, aside from the sales side, is one of the most important things when it comes to. Because that's how we get our properties. Right. And that's. That means someone has to be a great communicator. And so, yeah, you could hand that off too soon because you got to train them. You just can't have somebody who understands a checklist and start talking to people like a robot. Right. That's not going to get you deals.

No, absolutely not. Tate, how about you? What tech tools do you use to train your VA's? And it's kind of the same question that Mike just answers as well.

You know, I use. Similar to what everybody else has used. I will say we use fleek. That's a. That's a tool Scott Todd introduced to us. I don't know, what is it? About a year ago, maybe. Maybe a year and a half ago. We like that a lot. But other than that, the. The other thing that we do when it comes to training new people is depending on the position. I like to include kind of a roadmap so they understand what or how their role fits into the bigger picture. Right. So I like to say, all right, your goal is you're going to get information from this individual who is another va, and you're going to take that information, and once you've completed your task, you're going to send it to this person. These, you know, this person waiting on Your information cannot proceed with the purchase of this property without your data. So I kind of like to have them understand that it's a team. I'm building a team, and they're a key member of that team. And I think once you do that, they understand that they can't just blow you off for two weeks at a time. And you let them know, hey, if you don't show up at least every 24 hours, you won't be on this all star team. And this is something that we teach in our one on one coaching program is let us show you how to make a dream team. Let us show you how to create the all star team of VAs.

Yeah, I love it. And then as far as knowing when in the process to delegate, how many times would you feel like you need to do it yourself before you want to hand it off? Depends on, you know, you've got a strong enough system.

It depends on the task, Mark. I mean, sometimes you need to do it one time. Sometimes you need to go to flight school and see Scott do it one time, and then you're qualified to do it. Right? I say it all the time. You don't have to be an expert in any of this stuff except hiring experts. And Mimi alluded to this already. There's some really highly intelligent and trained people out there who are willing to do this work for us, but your job is to find them. And sometimes the way that I think a job should be done is not necessarily the most efficient way. So when you're hiring somebody, tell them, hey, I'm open for feedback, I'm open for criticism, I'm open for suggestions or other tools or resources for making this better. So some tasks, you need to do it once. When it comes to buying a property, you need to do it a handful of times. But I think most importantly, you need to learn how to spot errors and look for discrepancies in the data that you've seen versus the data that they're providing. And if it doesn't look right to you, well, you've got to step in as the boss and correct or get to the bottom of it.

Yeah, I love it. You know, and speaking of flight school, today's podcast is sponsored by Flight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally change your life, launch you into creating a passive income machine that will literally be feeding you, feeding your family, providing you with those two problems that we can solve. Time and money problems. Learn more. Just go to landgeek.com, get on a call with a strategy call with Scott Bossman or the Zen master, Mike Zeno, and learn more, because we do have room for the next February class. Scott Todd, everybody's been singing your fleek IO praises, so we know what tool you use. But as far as when you create your systems, you kind of have the toughest role now because everybody sort of answered. Is there anything that you would add or you do differently than the rest of the roundtable experts?

Well, there's a lot there that people have said, and all I would say is I think that you have to start with the right position first. Okay. And so you gotta outsource to the right person first. And how do you know what to outsource first? It's the stuff that you hate doing. It's just that simple, right? Like, if you hate doing it, there's someone else that's better than you who can do it better than you, okay? Like, you're not the best at everything. Get rid of it. And then I think that one of the mistakes that people make when they go to outsource is that they try to. They try to get rid of the entire task. One, like move, for example. You know, let's just say that you hired. Just say that you hired a bookkeeper, for example. They go, okay, I hired a bookkeeper. And they like, you know, wipe their hands of it. And they're like, here, go do it. And the bookkeeper is going to be like, okay, well, where do I start? And you're like, I don't know. You're the bookkeeper. That's why I hired you. Because, you know, well, they don't know, right? Like, they don't know where to start either. So the best way I can think about or explain how to work with VAs is to break up the work that you're doing into micro tasks, right? Like, think of it very small pieces. Like, do you want them to do reconciliation from your credit card account? That's one task. Do you want them to code your expenses? That's a task, right? Like everything is a task. And you could do it for ad writing, for example. If you're going to have someone write ads, well, then what you need to do is you need to give them a specific property with a specific area. Let them learn the ropes there first, and just say, I just want you to write me an ad for this one property.

Yeah.

Ultimately you want them to write, you know, 10 ads a day. Well, I think the problem is that people start off with, here, just write me 10 ads a day. It doesn't start that way you gotta break it down into micro transition and it's the way that the world works with everything else. Think about this for a minute. You go to get like your own, like a new job, for example. They just don't toss you the keys and say, you know, here, do the work. What do they do? They sit you down with somebody and they show you one thing. Maybe you work at a retail store. They show you how to work the cash register. Well, does that mean that you're always going to work the cash register? No, it means for the first few weeks you're going to work the cash register. Maybe you work at a restaurant.

What do they have you?

Do they have you cutting lettuce? Does that mean you're going to cut lettuce for the rest of life? No, you're going to cut lettuce and then you're going to make the burritos. Then you're going to work on the cash register. Right? Like you're going to change it around. But if they just said to you on your first day here, let's do all these tasks, you would hit the door and walk out. And that's what, that's a mistake that I think people make when they hire VAs is they try to overload them. One more example. If you ever had a teenage driver who just got their driver's license, there's no way that you tossed them the keys and said, don't wreck the car. Well, what did you do? You're like, okay, you can drive from the driver's license office, I don't know, to our home. But you can't take the interstate, Right? Like we weren't letting the first day drivers take the interstate.

Why?

Because they're going to wreck the thing. Like they don't know. So you give them a small task. And I always like to joke, like I told my kids, here's the keys, back the car up. Great. You learn how to reverse. Now let's pull forward. Today's lessons over. It didn't really work out that way, but that's a great example is you give them a small piece to find work, let them come to speed. And I think that everybody else's task is right on. You don't know it all. There's other ways that people can do it and be open to their suggestions. Hire more than one and train them, invest time in them and be patient with them.

I think this is a really important topic and a really important roundtable. I think all the advice given was phenomenal. But I Do think that we should just quickly revisit what Scott Bossman had said, which was there's nothing wrong with your VA creating that process for you. Also, you don't have to do all of it. So if you want to be, you know, super geeky about it, like Tate and Scott, you could make your, you could, you could do your fleek IO video for your VA showing them all the steps, but then have them actually write out the process, write out all the steps and that way they're learning and doing it at the same time. And then you can actually go back, make those iterations for them as they start doing it, they can make those iterations and just sort of a great way to leverage your time by doing that. So this has been great. But you know, the podcast is not the podcast without Mimi Schmidt giving the tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses and improve their lives. Mimi, what have you got?

In Facebook there is a group called the Zapier User Community. There's also as like a Zapier automation community too. Has about over 2000 members in it. So I'll read. You know, I learned some, some good tips from there. New things I haven't considered from there. But they just started a mentorship program. You can go fill out little form like less than 500 characters and you put what category you specialize in and you can either mentor or receive a mentor. Be a mentor or a mentee. Right. If you're getting stuck with Zapier, that.

Is a phenomenal tip. I'm joining right now.

Zapier is also having a live demo. It's Thursday though, 10:00am Pacific Standard Time, and this won't air till next Tuesday. So I can put the details out in the Land Geek alum group and in the official group too. But for those of you just getting started with Zapier, if you want a little help.

Very cool. So Zapier user community.

Yeah.

Okay. There's also Zapier automation experts.

Right.

Join both or just the user?

I've joined both. I. Yeah, literally, like there was recently a Zapier to follow up boss demo. Right. So super useful. And then so you know, they have all kinds of good stuff and actually on the Zapier automation group, they actually take feedback on what their next updates to Zapier are going to be. Right. They actually use the comments in there to determine what they're going to program next into Zapier.

That's super geeky. And super cool. Phenomenal. Well, this was a pretty. Pretty meaty roundtable. And dear listener, if you're getting value, the best sort of compliment we can get is if you just do three little things. You gotta subscribe, you gotta rate. You have to review the podcast, Send us a screenshot of that review to supporthelandgeek.com and we're gonna send you the $97 passive income launch kit course for free, and as well as the latest whole tailing course, how to double your money in 30 days or less. All right, so are we ready to do this? 1, 2, 3. Let freedom, freedom ring.

I was muted. I think everybody was muted.

No, we were not.

No, just me.

I was muted, too.

You guys are muted, I see.

Boston.

Yeah, sorry.

I was muted for half.

So I think we were all sidetracked.

By.

This elephant we have in the room here.

Mark, let's. You know, before we talk about the elephant, I do want to just quickly, because Mike gave everybody their spirit animal last week. Tate, unfortunately, wasn't on the podcast to hear his, but.

Yeah.

Scott, you and I did a little bit of digging this morning, and we did find my experience animal. We did? Yes. Mike, do you want to know? Sure. You are the wolf.

That's. That's my name. My real name is Ralph, and it means wolf.

Wow.

Really amazing. How did we not know you.

Wait a second. We didn't know that your real name is Ralph?

Michael. Ralph Zaino means, like Lord of the wolves with a knapsack. Zano's knapsack. Michael. Like the Lord of the wolves.

Ralph.

How'd you know? I'm so impressed.

The power of the wolf brings forth instinct, intelligence, appetite for freedom, and awareness of the importance of social connections. When the wolf shows up in your life, pay attention to what your intuition is telling you. There it is.

Awesome.

So, guys, I'm trying to open up these files in the chat. I can't open them. What is going on in here?

They're dumb. Don't worry.

They are not dumb.

Eric. What? Tell us what. What. What's on this?

I put together a little something for tape.

Are we sharing it?

Okay. All right. So, Scott. Oh, my gosh. These are great.

I mean, these are.

Scott Bossman came out of the gate swinging at how rude it is for people to recline in their airplane seats. Like, Scott Bossman dropped the bomb here.

You know, I feel.

Everybody, let's give everybody the. Some context. We're at breakfast in San Antonio, and we were discussing flight was flying home on Sunday, and then the Topic that got brought up was, do you recline or don't you recline in your airplane seat? And we kind of all went around, and we all have very strong opinions about this. So, Scott Bossman, what was your. What was your answer to this?

I mean, all right, listen, I'm six four, right.

I have.

I have sensitivity to those around me and the space that they require in taking up an airplane seat and having had my knees banged into thousands of times in my life on an airplane, you know, I'm just very sensitive to that and realize that reclining my seat may cause physical pain for the person behind me. So, you know, that and just my up upbringing here in the. In the kind Northern plains where everybody treats everybody with respect, just, you know, I do not recline because it's a sign of respect to others.

Yeah. I mean, Mike Zaino, in a place where, let's face it, is not the most friendly place in the country, what are your thoughts on reclining?

I don't recline specifically because every time someone in front of me reclines, I can't even use my computer now. Had I not upgraded to the surface, I'd be in a dire state. But now that I have the surface, I can disconnect. I can sit back, use it as a tablet. I'm fortunate, but the Mac people out there, they wouldn't be. Their screen would fold down and they'd be useless. So I can't do that to anybody. I don't recline.

Okay, so this is two for not reclining. Mimi, how about you?

Most of the time, I forget to do it if I'm gonna sleep. I do just slightly so that I have a crevice for my head so that my head isn't rolling all over the place. But that's the only time I do it.

And I know you've no problem with a slight recline.

A slight recline, and I don't take up a lot of space in my seat.

Okay. Eric Peterson.

I'm like Scott, a tall guy, and, you know, it never fails. I get on an airplane, and there's someone in front of me that feels entitled to use their space plus my space by reclining. And it drives me nuts. It hurts my knees when I'm sitting there without the seat reclined. My knees are in the back of the seat already. When they recline, it is painful.

Sounds like you need to sit up straight, Eric. Sounds like you're slouching in that seat.

So now we're at literally three to one of three. No recline. One slight recline. And then. Scott Todd, how about you? What are your thoughts?

I'm just gonna read you what the USA Today printed in an article, and this is quoting an organizational consultant and frequent flyer. And he says, quote, see, reclining is one of the most irritating, inconvenient and self indulging habits, period. And I agree.

I think those are some strong words. And then we have to get obviously the very strong dissenting point of view from our world traveler and also millennial.

Let me just say this. I took our discussion to heart. I actually flew to Hawaii recently, just got back yesterday to do some research on this topic. And while I was flying there, I noticed that about, I don't know, 40% of the cabin was reclined.

No way.

It's true.

I came home and guess what? The same number of people were reclined. In fact, let me show you guys this real quick here. Hold on.

Ages 30 and under.

No, these were. Some of them were really old. Look at this. I took this video mainly for Eric Peterson because I too consider myself a tall guy. Look at all that. That's a full hand.

And a meeting room. Now we're watching him press the button and recline.

So to answer your question, I recline. Does it make me a bad guy? No. Maybe to Scott Todd it does. But I'm also a big fan of comfort guys.

And so I don't think we're saying that it's bad.

I think we're just saying it's inconsiderate of your fellow man woman. That's all we're saying.

Okay, why does the button exist? Riddle me that.

Well, we're talking about this. It's sort of the same, sort of the same dynamic of there's a long line at the yogurt shop. Now, obviously we're all entitled to free samples, but after about two, you pretty much got to order. Just out of consideration. There's just. These are kind of the unwritten rules society.

I don't see that.

Because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it. Scott Todd.

Hey, there are lots of buttons in the world that do not need to be pushed.

Okay.

Like, let's just start off with the biggest button of all, the nuclear button. Just because the president has it doesn't mean she just don't push it. So just because recline doesn't mean you should do it.

Nobody's dying.

Eric Peterson's knees are actually. Yeah, those, those. That's a bruise. Those skin cells are dying.

Yeah, he's gonna have to have A knee implant because of you.

Sounds like an Eric. Scott sounds like an Eric problem.

Well, it's an Eric problem until he strangles you from behind with his shoelaces. Or I can't Wait.

There's that entitlement again.

I don't mind. To Eric's hometown. I'm finding out what plane he's in. I'm gonna pay extra to make sure I get on the plane first. And the whole time, not only am I gonna recline, but I'm also gonna go back forward again, and then I'm gonna recline once he gets his drink and spill it all over his lap.

Hey, Mark, you know, this is interesting because Tate just said, you know, Scott brought up the button, and then nobody dies. But I'm gonna bring up something and this is ironic, called the butterfly effect. Which is the butterfly effect. Remember, with the butterfly, one thing changes, right? One person gets reclined upon, can't do their work, gets home, can't sleep. Perhaps they're extra tired now, they're mean to their kids. It goes on and on and on. You could create, like, pandemonia for one simple recline.

Now, I will add to this. Okay, Mike, I will add to the butterfly effect. Tate says no one's dying, but guess what? In an emergency, there's not enough room for some people to get out of the plane. So it's very inconsiderate. You're gonna be like the fat cat that can get out. But someone may not be able to get out because you're reclining and you're blocking the exit.

Oh, my gosh. By the way, Tate, I think this. This solves the entire debate that somebody actually went to the. To the trouble of making comfyplane.com airplane seat stopper prevent recline for 36 bucks. The knee defender helps you stop reclining airplane seatbacks so your knees won't have to.

I cannot wait to sit behind Tate on a flight. I will disable his ability to recline.

That might be the best six bucks ever spent.

Fair enough.

Sit behind them. I'm doing it. Where are you flying? Next to Tate. I'm doing it.

Coming to your house.

Are these on? I'm ordering now, Mimi, like, do you think if you ask permission first, that sort of mitigates the inconsideration?

No, because no one's gonna say no. Don't do that. Because then it just creates animosity.

Then Eric would. Scott Bossman would.

I thought they said they were raised in an area where they're super polite. And if Somebody said to him, hey, Scott, I'm gonna, you're gonna say, no.

My legs are super long. I'd really appreciate if you wouldn't.

And then you know what I'd say? First class is at the front of the plane.

Yeah.

So buy yourself a seat and get up there.

Exactly, that's what I'd tell you.

That's what you can do. Then you can recline all you want.

Listen, I'm not saying that I think that reclining is bad because I think, you know what, the button's there. If it helps you sleep, it helps you get there better, so be it. I do think that, you know, you can be considerate. Unless it's Eric Peterson, then you should full on recline multiple times on him. But like I flew to LA recently and I simply, like Mimi, I forgot to recline.

Why?

Because I wasn't trying to take a nap. I wasn't trying to sleep. It's a 45 minute flight, but if I'm going anywhere, cross country, across the world, you better believe I'm getting nice and comfy. Putting on my eye mask. I'm taking a sleeping pill and I'm going to sleep. Getting nice and comfy.

So you be careful because you're gonna drop with some, some drawings. You're gonna wake up with some drawings on your face.

Well, I do think that the international issue is different than domestic because I was actually at a sports bar on Sunday and of course this is not my favorite subject to bring up with a group and without, I mean, nobody even hesitated. They're like abs. I mean they were even offended. I would even ask, like, of course you don't recline. But they said, they said now on an international flight, that's different. But never. The exact quote was, never on a domestic flight.

What if it's a six hour domestic flight? What if you're flying to Hawaii?

First class ticket would solve that issue.

First class. First class is different than coach. I agree.

I don't think problem.

It's you guys with the problem. It's a, you're expecting a first class seat experience for the cheap seat price.

A sense of community.

It sounds like.

And you guys are taking that sense of community and just saying, no, no, no, I'm going to do whatever I want to do because my sleep, my comfort trumps the community of airplane travelers.

No, no, no.

Coming from the Midwest, man, does that offend me.

It sounds like a classic case of champagne taste on a beer budget.

Now we're watching. How do you deal with a rude passenger when they recline. It's frustrating when a passenger climbs. Receive. This is on YouTube.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So conflict can usually be avoided with a delicate approach.

Yeah, it's just. It's just wrong.

Right?

Like, it's just wrong now, Tate, stop it.

Uh. Oh. I mean, Ted, at some point, like, you've just got to say, okay, it's inconsiderate and I just don't care. Okay.

I don't care.

I mean, you can't. How can you make the argument. It's not inconsiderate.

Well, how can I make the argument that I should have to be uncomfortable? And you could. You don't have to be uncomfortable either. Right. Like, we can all be comfortable.

We're all uncomfortable on an airplane. That's the bottom line. There's no being comfortable unless you get a first class seat. So why make it worse for someone else?

I guess I just.

You know. To be continued, I do want to just quickly congratulate our fellow pilot, our only pilot, really, Scott Todd, for getting his instrument license. Look at me. Look at that.

Yep, I did on Friday, so that's great. I'm gonna go fly through the clouds.

Yeah. Nighttime.

And I'm gonna be. I'll be reclining the whole way through.

This device.

Pilot's good to do that.

You think this is a legal device to prevent them from reclining?

I'm wondering.

It caused a fight a few years ago, and it's legal until you get no fight.

Then.

Then you started it.

Oh, no, I got you.

But the FAA has no problem with this.

All right, Mark.

All right, well, thanks, everybody. To be continued. We'll have to put a poll in the Facebook group and hopefully there will be someone that will come to Tate's defense. Thanks, everybody.

Yeah, yeah.

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