The Best Of the Art of Passive Income Podcast – Strategy Focus

Do you want to escape the 9 to 5? Or do you want the freedom to work when you want, where you want and with whom you want? The Art of Passive Income podcast explores opportunities for you to achieve total freedom so you can live life on your own terms. And now here is your host, Mark Podolsky from the Land Geek.

Hey, it's Mark here. And on this week's Best of Art of Passive Income podcast, we're focusing on our best interviews that focus on strategy. So the first conversation is going to be a roundtable discussion with Luke Harris as he discusses how the strategies he used to literally skyrocket his land investing business and his life. We also discussed strategy and the most effective strategies and techniques that you need to make the impossible possible with super entertaining guest Steve Sims. That conversation was incredible. And then finally, another roundtable conversation regarding strategy adjusting your offer pricing strategies to succeed in the current land market. So enjoy this Best of Art of Passive Income podcast and I'll see you on the other side. But we have a special guest today and I love when we have these podcasts with our special guest, Luke Harris. Luke, welcome.

Thank you.

So, Luke, can you kind of rewind the tape, let the listeners know how you found us and your journey through land investing and what you've accomplished so far?

Yeah, gosh.

Because it actually started with a Google search and your name came up on the Google search and your. I think it was like three tips for land investing or something. Or three tips about what to know. I don't remember exactly.

Pre fatal land investing mistakes.

That's what it was. Yeah, it was 2016. I believe it was right around the new year. So like early January, 20s, 15 or 16. I think it was 2016. And so I watched some of your YouTube videos and then I think I started doing it with another educator a little bit later on. Kind of bounced around for a couple of years. And then when did I start the coaching? Was that 2018, 2018? It was like a couple years later and I don't know, I was doing deals. I think I did 40, like my first full year and then some. That would have been 2017. And then, yeah, I think it was 2018, probably around June, July, I started talking to Mike and Scott Bossman and you know, I watched a lot of your stuff. I listened to all your podcasts and ended up just going all in and pulling the trigger on coaching and of course did the, you know, boot camp and stuff before that. So I kind of had a little experience under my belt before I really dived in with all of your training. But so that was 2018. And then I think I started coaching in September, October that year. And like I said, I think I did, yes, 640 deals in 2017. I think I ended up doing, like, 60. Some maybe 70 in 2018. And then, so I started working with tate late in 2018 there, and then right about at the end of the year there, things just really started taking off. With several months of coaching under my belt and working with Tate, and that's really just when things really blew up for me.

And so can you define blow up?

Yeah. So 20. What would that have been? 2019, I think it was, like, 190.

Some deals, if I remember, just under 200.

Was it the. Yeah.

Okay.

And then. And they're mostly small deals. Honestly, I probably should have prioritized the larger deals more and done fewer, bigger deals, but I didn't. And then. So that was 2019, and then 2020. I ended up doing over 500, but they were still the really small deals. And now I'm trying to. Finally trying to do fewer deals and bigger deals. But, yeah, the coaching is really what made things blow up for me.

Wow.

So I know we have a lot of questions that we're gonna have to. We're gonna do, like, the grill the geeks. Eric, do you wanna. You wanna start?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll start us off.

You know, Luke, in your kind of intro there, you said something that I think potentially a lot of our listeners will pick up on and wonder about. And you mentioned that you'd done some other education outside of the Land geek at some point during the journey.

So.

What drew you to the Land geek? Our program versus some of the others or just kind of, how did all that work out?

And.

What advice could you give to somebody that's maybe confused about who to work with?

Yeah, I mean, I think all of the educational programs have value. And I think the reason things really blew up for me when I went with you guys is the coaching and the one on one aspect of it, and that's when. Actually, I think those were the very first live events I went to, too. So I kind of just dove all in. I went to all the boot camps during coaching. I was doing my calls with Tate, and, you know, there's a certain level of accountability that happens there. And just all the questions that came up got answered instantly. There wasn't, like, tons of digging that had to happen and me spending a ton of money before I got them solved. I kind of got the answers straight from the Pros. And, yeah, I think. I mean, you know, obviously we all know the coaching is expensive, but it was totally worth it for me, and I've made it back so many times over, but I think it was just the. That higher level of more intensity is what. What I was looking for and what you guys had and what made it work for me.

Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Taria Harris, what's your question for Luke?

So, Luke, I was wondering. I know sometimes when I get, like, a new coaching client and they want everything to happen overnight, Right. They just. They want it to work. They want it to. Can you talk about what helped you stay motivated during the times where things may not have been moving as quickly as you may have liked?

Yeah. So my situation when I started coaching, trying to remember when Oren was born, my first child. I don't think he was born yet at the beginning of coaching.

No.

Maybe he was. I think he was born right before coaching, wasn't.

He was just a little guy. He was a couple months old, if I recall correctly.

Yeah. So my big. I had a big fire under my butt to basically not have to travel. I was doing timber inventory work just all over the country, tons of traveling. We lived in a little single wide trailer. You know, all that was a great experience and I think character building for me, but I didn't want that for my family and kind of had to come up with a better, you know, way of life where we didn't have to just always be on the road and where I could, you know, make a good income without traveling and also just have a better home to live in as well. So I think that's really what was motivating me early on, is to just, you know, get out of that position that I was in.

Did you have lulls in the business, like, so times where maybe you weren't getting as many responses to your mailers or maybe sales weren't, you know, rolling in the door every day? Did you have those moments when you, you know, throughout the process?

Yeah. Yeah, I feel like I did. Yeah. And, you know, I think a lot of it was. I feel like I've probably heard you guys say on a podcast and stuff, too. But, you know, seeing, you know, Tate, Scott, Eric, all of you guys that had already kind of made it, I knew if you guys could do it, I figured it would work for me, too. So that was something I told myself a lot. But, yeah, I feel like there definitely were lulls and, you know, just end up pushing through and making it happen, I guess.

Nice. Thank You.

Yeah, I love that because that's kind of like what Scott Todd always says. Like, well, if Podolski can do, it can't be that hard, right? And it's true, right? It's. It's a simple model. It's just not easy. There's lots of moving parts to it, but I think at the end of the day, you just have to have grit and just keep going and it. Eventually you get there. Like I always say, like, your success in this business is inevitable. It's just when it happens, we don't know, but if you just keep going, it's inevitable. Tate, big papa, your protege.

Yeah, no, it's. You know, I'm always excited to catch back up with Luke, and fortunately, I've been able to work with him continuously since he's graduated from the co coaching program. So it's. It's been a lot of fun to. To see him grow. And I saw him coming to the business as, you know, this guy who had this burning desire to basically be able to make a living and support his family in a life, in a lifestyle that he wanted. And it's. It's really, truly inspiring to see somebody who not only achieved that, but is truly living the dream. Right. I mean, he's doing it. Man, I'm proud of you. That's incredible. So my hat goes off to you, but there's been a sacrifice, right? You've worked really, really hard and you've stayed focused and you've kept the blinders on. And. And that's one of the biggest thing that kind of gets in the way of other people's success, is they get sidetracked and they don't commit all the way. They don't burn those bridges. And you did that, and now you're reaping the rewards. So my question for you is an easy one. I got two, actually. The first one that I think a lot of people would be curious to know about is you did 500 deals. How many properties do you have in inventory roughly at any given time? What's the magic number for Luke Harris?

Yeah, so I went into the year basically just buying as much as I possibly could. And I guess the short answer is it fluctuated a lot. Um, but I was starting the year, I was just buying a ton wholesale. That's how I think. I only bought 165 or something through mailers, if I remember correctly.

Okay.

And the rest of them I bought wholesale and at. I think I was doing 20, 30amonth at the beginning of the year. And Then Covid hit and that's when things really blew up. I don't know what I'm sure probably the same for you guys, but like doubled my sales and I was positioned perfectly. I think I ended up having 150 properties ish in inventory at that time. So that's what allowed me to have so many sales so quickly is the inventory. But yeah, I think and I kind of changed my model where I'm doing bigger deals and fewer of them. So that number is kind of changing. But yeah, right now I'm at like actually I don't think I only have like 20 or 30 that I actually own. I just have a lot under contract. And then yeah, I think when I was doing the 500, doing that model, like a hundred was about what I was kind of at a lot of the time.

Yeah, it's interesting because that carrying capacity, you know, there is a sweet spot. We talk about it all the time. Like you know, having just one property or two properties or five property, it's. It's hard to really get the results that you want. So that's really cool. And I guess the second question I'd have for you is tell us about one of your more memorable sales that you've had. What, what was one of those sales that just kind of is near and dear to your heart, doesn't have to be your biggest sale, doesn't have to be the best property. But what's one that you remember and why?

Uh huh.

Yeah, that's a tough question. Let me think here because you're probably.

At a point now where like deals are all, you know, like deals happen and they don't really mean as much. Right. Because you got the team in place. But like there's got to be one.

Yeah, no, I can think of a specific one. Sorry there. So it's actually a specific buyer and I won't mention his name. I'd like to even remember if I wanted to. But he actually bought a property from us very early on, probably like 2017 or something. He bought it on terms. I sold it to him way too cheap. It was like a five acre property in Lake County, Oregon. I'm sure some of you know that county. And I sold it for $50 a month. I mean it was back when you can get deals a lot cheaper. And he defaulted on it after like two or three months or something. He just wouldn't pay. He was super flaky. And then he, you know, he defaulted. He was nice about it. I don't remember what the exact Scenario was. And then he popped back up maybe like six months or a year later, and he was like, hey, it's me again. I want to buy property from you. Is that okay? I know I defaulted last time. I was like, sure, whatever. If you don't pay, I'll just foreclose on you. And so he ended up buying two or three more properties from me. And this has been two or three years ago. And he sends me pictures of. He built, like, this little cabin on it. So he bought, like, at least two Humboldt County, Nevada, 40s from me. And he. Every six months or so, I'll get an email or a text message with pictures of his little compound he's building. And he's got, like, a tiny house, and, like, he just loves it out there. And he makes his payments perfectly every single month. So it kind of makes you feel good when you can provide a service for people that really love what you're offering. And he's definitely involved.

I mean, that gives me, like, the warm and fuzzies because often, you know, people will say, you're not selling anything good. And it's like, beauty's in the eye of the beholder, right? And a lot of the people that we work with aren't afraid of a little elbow grease, right? They're not afraid of hard work and. And putting in the time necessary to make a property what they envision it to be. So pretty. Pretty cool to see that not only are you building a business, but you are changing lives and helping people find their dream property. So good stuff, man.

Yeah, that's so cool, Luke. So I've got a question, and I'm sure the listeners are wondering, to do that type of value, how many VAs are you working with, and what are your favorite tools of the trade to manage that kind of volume? And how many hours a week are you working?

Yeah, good question. So in 2020, to do the 500 deals, I was probably working. I did not have a salesperson for any of that. I think I was working 20 to 30 hours a week doing the land business. It was probably closer to 30. It was while I was building our house and everything. So it was kind of in the evenings and whatever. And right now I have like 10 people.

Ish. Maybe a little bit more.

10 or 11. I don't think I had quite that many when I. Last year when I was doing the 500. But I'm. Like I said, I'm doing larger deals and fewer of them now. Yeah, got six local people and then two, four, six VAs right now. So what was the other question?

Favorite software?

Tools.

Software and tools. Yeah, Podio is what? Like it's my CRM. It's my contact. It's like my realtor bank for contacts, my surveyor bank. My. It's got all my contacts in it. A lot of automate, tons of automation I've got set up in there. Of course all the, you know, the old go to is like zapier and I finally just set up like a, you know, a link where people can schedule calls with me with calendly. Gosh, what are all the automated tools I'm using? Ringcentral is my phone system that connects with a bunch of stuff. Trello. I use Trello a ton. Yeah, there's so many of them. Those are kind of the main. Honestly, I use like Google a lot. Like Google sheets, Google Docs for my ads. Google Drive. Yeah.

Any. Any love for Geek Pack?

Oh, yep, yep. Yeah, actually. So yeah, I can put in a little plug for Geek Pay. We actually my. I have a loan servicer that works 20 hours a week now and that's all she does is the loan servicing. And so her quarterly goal earlier this year was to find the best loan servicing platform basically. And we ended up, to make a long story short, we ended up settling with Geek Pay. And I mean we went all out like, yeah, there's a bunch of other ones. But we were simple. Money is one we're using a lot that gets extremely expensive. But for just a simple like go to inexpensive loan servicing platform. That's what we've settled on for all of our notes now. So.

Fantastic. How many, how many notes do you have now, Luke?

400 active ones right now.

400.

Wow.

All right, I'm going to pass it off to Eric here. And then we have one more question for you, Lick. And then, then we're going to have to go to the. Put you on the spot for the tip of the week.

Oh, geez. Anything ahead of that? Come up with something.

All right, so my next question would be. Talk about. We all make mistakes in this business, big or small. But you know, I would say they can always be resolved. So talk to us about maybe a mistake that you made at some point in the land business and how it got resolved and what was the effect and so on.

Gosh, there's so many of them. So, yeah, I mean one I guess that I kind of revisit all the time, I guess is hoa's. My very first deal I lost money on it was in North Carolina and It was in an HOA. I think I paid $800 for the property. I actually closed it through a title company or an attorney and I guess several lessons that I learned and then I ended up selling it. I think I actually sold it for like 1600 or something. But there was like the closing costs and then there's. I think I paid an HOA fee for the year. And I guess what I learned from that is it's hard, typically hard, to sell properties with HOA fees and restrictions, and you gotta watch out for the fees. And I still do HOA deals sometimes, but I basically will only ever offer a flat $200 for them.

But.

I've actually probably lost money on multiple HOA deals, which is kind of stupid for me to do.

But, um.

Yeah.

All right, well, okay, I got one last question before we go to the.

Tip of the week.

How has the land business changed your life?

Well, I. We were able to build our house. So we have a house now. And basically the two big problems that, you know, kept the fire under my butt earlier on are now solved. If I wanted to, I could, I could stick. I could probably downsize the team and work 10 hours or less a week if I wanted to. But I've chosen to grow it. But basically I can, you know, I'm extremely location and time independent if I wanted to be. And we have a great home to live in now, all because of the land business.

Great, great.

I assume your passive income exceeds your fixed expenses.

Yes. The simple answer is yes. Yep, I'm blowing up the business. So, yeah, I have a lot of expenses in the business, but yeah.

All right, fantastic. So let's just get into it. Our guest today is Steve Sims. Now, do you know anyone that's worked with Sir Elton John or Elon Musk? Send people down to see the wreck of the Titanic on the seabed or closed museums in Florence for a private dinner and then had Andrea Bocelli serenade them while they eat their pasta. Well, you do now. Quoted as the real life wizard of Oz by Forbes and Entrepreneur magazine, Steve Sims is a best selling author with Blue Fishing, the Art of Making things happen. Sought after coach and a speaker at a variety of networks, groups, associations, as well as the Pentagon and Harvard. Not once, Scott Todd, but twice. Now do you see why I'm intimidated? Steve Sims, welcome.

It's a pleasure to be here. I would imagine within about three seconds everyone's gonna like, oh, he ain't that. So don't worry about the hype.

So, Steve, let's Just rewind the tape and tell us, how did you become this guy that billionaires would seek to, to get things done?

It was easy is not the answer you want to hear, but it always starts with, you know, a goal, a need, maybe a desperation. And growing up in East London, the son of a bricklayer, my father was a bricklayer at the time. I was poor and it sucks. And anyone out there that's poor knows exactly what I'm talking about. So I had this urge, this lunge to go and find people that were rich, to just be able to innocently point them and go, hey, why are you rich and I'm not? I need to know as a bricklayer. I was getting up at 4:30 in the morning, working on a wet building site, cutting myself up, banging myself, and then going home at 8:30 at night and then going to bed because I was exhausted. So I wasn't worried about the hard work. But the money wasn't coming, so I was obviously missing something. I went on a journey to change the room I was in and to explain that I remember being in London one day, a very pivotal night. And I'm a biker, I ride motorcycles, have done all my life. And I'm in this bar with my buddies, all these old crappy little motorcycles outside that would start if they wanted to. And we're nursing our one or two beers because we couldn't afford any more than that. And I thought to myself, this entire room is full of broke ass bikers and I'm one of them. So maybe if I change the room and the room's full of billionaires, maybe I'll be one of those. So that innocence, that was it. So I had to go and find a way of getting in that room. I applied for jobs as security guards, limo drivers, doormen, stockbrokers, insurance sales, financial analysts. I learned a ton of jobs that I was ill qualified to do until finally, at my lowest point, I was the doorman of a nightclub whose job description is to slap people. You know, that's what a doorman does. You know, I thought, this is, I've gone from bricklaying to, which is a noble trade, which is a skilled profession. And now I'm a doorman because I'm just big and ugly, you know, And I just thought I've gone downward. But the funny thing was this gave me a pedestal to watch how rich people acted to each other. You know, when you would, to give you an example, when the fancy car would pull up outside the club, is the car driving you or Are you driving the car? And to explain the guy gets out of the car or the girl gets out of the car, and the ones that are kind of like, love the car for them, they get out of the car, they don't care if you're noticing. They speak to the valet boy, maybe slip him an extra 20 to just look after a bit. And they go in, but the one that the car has driven them gets out and almost puts the jacket on in slow motion. So you've seen, hey, they turned up in a Ferrari. You know, it's amazing how many people buy watches, cars, suits. They do all of these things for you. Not for them, for you. And so I started noticing just these little differences within those people that were trying to be rich and those people that are rich. And let's be blunt, look at Jeff Bozos, look at Elon Musk, look at Mark Zuckerberg, you know, look at Steve Jobs. Some of these people, you would think were on welfare, the way they walk around, you know, but they own. They could buy things like countries. So there is a difference. And I had to find a way to get into that group. And you know, the one thing that I found that was common with all people of high profile, high net worth, high power, shall we say. They were actually embarrassed of using that position to get into things. Oh, you know, I want to go to that party. But, you know, they would go. Let me explain. A Hollywood, you know, movie star doesn't want to go to the latest nightclub as himself because he will be used as the marketing strategy for tomorrow. Hey, we were so cool. We had Brad Pitt here last night. Worse, Brad doesn't want to. And I'm using him as an example, doesn't want to be turned away because then it's a case of our club so exclusive, we even turned Brad Pitt away. So you suddenly become used. So they would come to me and I would arrange things. Now, it started off small. You know, can you do this? Don't mention my name, but can you get me into this event? Absolutely. I went from throwing little private parties in Hong Kong, because that's where I was living at the time, to suddenly working for companies like naris, the New York Fashion Week, Chicago Art Fair, Formula One and so on. John's Oscar party. So I just went to see how far I could take it because I got into the minds of how billionaires and millionaires think, what work and act. And that's what I do now.

All right, this is fascinating. I have so many questions, but I'll throw it to Scott. Todd.

Go ahead, Mark. Let's see where you go.

Well.

The first thing is it's just such a wild sort of notion to think that billionaires have a problem that need to be solved. And, and you know, if Scott and I are talking about, let's say, you know, someone like Brad Pitt, my immediate assumption would be these guys have a sense of entitlement. They can just make a phone call or whatever it is. They wouldn't be embarrassed of using their celebrity or status to get access to anything. And yet I'm completely wrong.

Everyone's got a problem. Everyone gets a headache after drinking too much whiskey. Everyone gets overweight every now and then. Everyone has a problem. The biggest problem, and I'm going to pick on you a little bit here, Mark, is the one that you have, okay? Because straight away you turned around and gone. I could never work with those people. They have everything. They don't need me.

See? Right.

No matter what business you're in. And I will lead with this. My superpower is stupidity. I never overthought any of this. I just went out to find out. So I didn't have that, oh my God, I can't talk to that billionaire. Oh my God, I can't talk to that soup stuff. Quite the opposite. If I want to learn about finances, if I want to learn about real estate, if I want to learn about anything, joining the smartest person to go to someone that knows about it and is credible. So I, as a, as a child mentality, my wife says I'm a 55 year old, 5 year old. I still go to people and go, look, I want to learn how to drive a car really fast. I'm going to go and speak to a Formula one driver. I want to know how to do, you know, artwork. I'm going to go and speak to Banksy. You know, I find the person of pinnacle that can help me. The second you think it can't be done, you're right. But the daft thing is, and I can go back to the names I gave you, even Brad Pitt. Were any of the people that I mentioned, the Elon Musk's, the Mark Zuckerbergs, the Brad Pitt that we brought into this conversation, did any of those people come from money?

No.

So they know what it's like to be poor. They know what it's like to be hustling. But now they're in a position where people laugh at their jokes even though they're not funny. They kind of, they put them on a pedestal and Straight away they go, oh, they could never get that. Did you know the funny thing that these people miss being normal people? They miss the having a normal conversation. And so with me, because I never had any heirs and graces, I would turn up a motorbike and I go, look, what's your problem? And they'd be like, hey, I need to go to this, but I don't want to show up as Brad Pitt, you know, I just want to go to the damn thing. You know, we would make it happen. The other bad thing is, and you're correct, they can get into these things, okay? The famous people can bear in mind two thirds of my clients were the richest people in the planet that you've never heard of, you know, that own more shopping malls in, say, Russia than anybody else, or own a particular length of pipeline for oil, you know, in the Middle east. And that just paid the licensing of that billions of dollars a year. There's a lot of famous. There's a lot of rich people that you don't know. So the famous ones now worried about using their influence and their face to get something in case it comes back, and they go, oh, we let you come in here. I hear you've got a movie. Can my niece get on your movie? You know, they don't want those kind of tit for tat with me. They pay me very well to get things done without utilizing or using up that notoriety.

Fascinating. Scott Todd, what are your thoughts?

I mean, I think that there's some key points in there. Everybody has a problem, okay? Like everybody has a problem. And I always talk about Mark in flight school. I talk about the only reason that people even buy anything is because they have a problem, either real or perceived. That's like, that's my go to line. And when you think about everything that you ever do in your life, it's always to either avoid pain or seek pleasure. And just like Steve said, you know, the billionaires, the celebrities will. What are they doing? Well, they're either seeking pleasure by going to the event or they're avoiding pain by getting turned away. It's the pleasure and the pain thing all. It's continuous. And everybody has that problem. And I mean, to me, it's pretty interesting because one of the things. And this would be me, right, Steve, like, this would be here in my mind. And no, not reality. It's a perceived. What I'm about to say is going to be a perception. But see, the thing is, is that I could not go up to an Elon Musk and say, hey, tell me about this, because I would be too intimidated. Now, Steve even said, the minute that you think you can't, you're right, you can't. So the mere fact that I said I couldn't walk up to him and do it, it's here. It's mentally in my own piece. And maybe the key lesson here is stop. You're being stupid by saying you can't do it. Just freaking go do it and be done with it. And then go talk to Elon Musk.

I got a story for you that'll make you giggle. I had a client of mine that wanted to meet Richard Branson, and this guy is a billionaire, okay? So certainly financially, I'd even go as far as to say he's probably worth more than Richard, okay? And he's from the Middle east, and he comes over and he desperately wants to meet Sir Richard Branson. That's his thing that he wants. So I'd worked for his mum for quite a while, so I'd worked with Richard on a various few occasions. And I said to Richard this night, oh, I've got someone I'm going to introduce you to at the end of the night. So I'm stood there with my client, and my client's a big stocky guy, bigger than me, okay, Powerful Middle Eastern guy. And Richard's doing his walk out. He's leaving. I know he's leaving. He's notified me he's leaving. He's going to come over to me. But Richard does the two step. It's like, step one, shake hands. Take a selfie. Step two, shake hands. It takes forever for these people to actually leave a room because everyone jumps on him at that time. And he's getting closer to me, and he's going to meet my client. Now, as he gets closer to me, my client is so in awe of meeting Sir Richard Branson. And you'll notice this a lot. He starts to bow. When you meet someone that's either really famous, really powerful, really in your eyes, someone is amazing, you go, oh, it's a pleasure. You do dip your head. You watch that. The next time you see people, they do it. Especially when fans meet, you know, people on the red carpet and stuff like that, they dip. Dip their head. How can you speak to someone on a level playing field if the first thing you do is put them on a pedestal away from you? Okay? It makes no sense. So my client starts to bow. I only had a few milliseconds to correct his posture, so I went back to Scratch the back. My back. Smacked him on the back of the head. Now, my client's a big, rough guy, and in front of his idol, he hadn't seen us yet. I've just smacked him on the back of his head. Now, I haven't got a lot of hair, nor did he. So there was a resounding schlap. He stood upright, looked at me like he wanted to kill me, just as Richard got in front of me. And I said, so, Richard, I'd like to introduce you. And I. Now, because my client was upright, he immediately turned around and went, pleasure to meet you. He was straight away upright in his own had. His presence, didn't have fear, because he wanted to munch me and just looked at Sir Richard and was like, how you do? And then they got into a conversation because they are locked as equals, okay? And that was a bit. Now, afterwards, he went, you did that? And I said, you started bowing. I didn't have any time. And he was like, thank you. Thank you. But so many people, you watch it when you see shows or when you see, like, a premiere and the superstars walking down the red carpet and they walk over to see the fans, the fans bow. There is something in our psychology, in our human nature, that we bow to greatness, and that's the dumbest thing you can be doing.

Interesting. Interesting. Well, let's say that, you know, Scott and I want to close down.

The.

Biggest museum in Florence, and we want to have lunch in Florence. I can imagine that conversation. I call up the museum and say, oh, yeah, I want to close down the museum for, you know, a couple hours and have lunch. They would immediately dismiss me. How do you get these instant institutions to do things that normal people would not like? They would laugh at us.

Jesus, fella, I'm a kid that got kicked out of school at the age of 15. If there's no one more normal than me, then, you know, how can there possibly be? So here's a couple of things you do first up, and you made one mistake, okay? But let's play a game, all right? This weekend, I'm having a barbecue, and you two are in Los Angeles, and I invite you to come to my barbecue. Okay? What's the first question you ask me?

Where's the barbecue?

Where's what time?

What time?

What's another question?

Can I bring a friend?

Great. Great question. Another question.

He's gonna be there.

Who's gonna be there? Brilliant. Another question.

What should we wear?

Okay, another question.

Who are you gonna introduce me to?

Who am I gonna introduce. Okay, you two are never getting invited to my barbecues. Okay.

What you want me to bring? I'm not doing that.

Why didn't you ask that question first?

What can I bring?

You see, here's the. Here's the problem with every piece of communication today is that every question that you just asked, I graciously, with all of my credibility, you know, you've got a book in your hand that's got the testimonial by Surreal. And John, you know, I know people. One of your questions satisfied your. Your idea and your mind as to whether or not you should come to the party. Okay.

I didn't want to bow down to you. No.

How was it bowing down? By saying, hey, thanks a lot, Steve. What did I bring?

Because I'm afraid you're gonna put me to work. Hey, you can bring all the beer and serve it too. I'm like, hey, yes, man, I fit in with these people.

Here's the daft thing, and I hate to this. Hopefully this isn't being sexist, but if a lady on this kind of zoom. And I asked the question, the ladies are always the first one. Now, first question before time, dress code, any of that is. That's great. What can I bring?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Now here's the thing. If you show up at anything, anything, any celebrity, any event, any museum that you want to close down and you show up for the selfish reason of your benefit, they're going to make you go, bye, bye. Okay. But if you enter into every single conversation, every single relationship with the concept, what can I bring to the party? What can I bring to this conversation? What can I bring to this relationship? It changes the dynamic of how you appear. Now, I wanted to take over this museum in Florence. I don't speak Italian. I have problems speaking English. You know, I didn't know anyone that was part of the museum. I knew nobody. It's in a different country that I have nothing to to do with. But there's this wonderful thing that got invented a few weeks ago called a computer. And it's got this thing called the Internet and you can use it to Google things. I discovered that later on that year, that museum was going to have a gala raising money to repair its roof. Got me now. So I did a little bit of research because is I don't think there's any such thing as a lucky relationship. They're always targeted. So I contacted them and I went, hey, how you doing? I've got something that I want to discuss with you that's going to help my clients. But before we get into that, I noticed you've got a gala going on later on this year to protect the roof repairs. How much are you looking to raise? They gave me the number and I said, well, have you done any of the flyers or anything yet for that garden? No, we have not. How would you like, before you've even printed one flyer, to have actually gained 25 of the goal you need to be able to do the effective roof repairs. Would that be of interest to you? Absolutely. Great. Then let's get into what I wanted to talk to you about. I showed up with something of value to you. You know, whenever I've worked for an event, I've gone, hey, I love the event you put on. It's really good, I love what it stands for. But do you know with a few tweaks, you could brand it to a higher paying client. I started with Sorel and John's Oscar party. When I first started, it was three and a half grand a ticket to be able to go to his party. And I said stop doing that because it's easy credit card payment. Anyone can afford three and a half grand. But not everyone should be in that room, okay? Because it's the wrong people. You get when the level of entry is too low.

Right?

Five and a half grand for back seats and went up to 18 grand through us communicating on better pricing. Okay? They got less people. People turn up, they made about 2/3 more money and they got a better stand of people and they got more repeats come to the event. So the bottom line of it is whenever you show up to any relationship, any project, anything you're going for, stop looking at it selfishly as well. I need this because this is what I want out of it. Show up with a solution and act. As you were saying, Scott, when you show up as a solution and you're solving someone's problem, someone's pain, they no longer care what you look like. Sound like how you shot. If you can solve someone's problem, they don't care about all of the pretty branding, the sexy website. Are you wearing a tailor made suit? No. You can get a thug like me turning up on a motorcycle, tattoos and piercings. But if I'm solving your problem, you're going to invite me in to play with the kids.

Mark.

And this goes exactly what we talk about in flight school. You see, when, when you solve someone's problem, they don't care if you have some magical brand, some logo, some polished company name, they don't care about that stuff. What they care about is that their problem is solved. And also, Steve, when you asked me to the barbecue, I thought. I thought that you wanted me because I was, like, gonna solve someone else's problem. That's why I didn't ask you. I thought I was the thing that I was bringing. So, sorry. Next time I'll ask what I can bring.

There you go. I would have said a bottle of whiskey and good jokes, but there you go.

There you go.

Bottle, whiskey and drinks. Yeah. So, Steve, I can definitely bring that for the next party.

So I. I'll have to consider whether or not I invite you guys. But, you know, let me. I'll put you on the wait list.

Yeah, so. So my buddy Bruce.

Next party.

Yeah.

But speaking of parties, my buddy Bruce, who introduced me to Steve, goes to an event called a speakeasy. Steve, can you kind of talk a little bit about that? And is. What is Bruce. Bruce bringing? I'm curious. I want to go.

So we. We had this. It was a. I wanted to challenge my credibility. You know, that's the long and short of it. Three years ago, the book came out. I was starting to coach people. I was speaking on a lot more stages, but the old saying that everyone's in until they have to pay, you know? So I thought to myself, I wonder what my credibility is? So I literally said, look, I'm going to throw an event. It's going to be. And the first one was in Carlsbad, which is in Southern California. I said, it's going to be on these two days, $2,000. Who wants to go now? I didn't tell you the location. I told you the city. Okay? I told you the days, and I told you nothing else. Funny enough, I had a whole bunch of people suddenly starting to sign up. And I remember I phoned up one of my friends who, you know, knows me and the kind. So I knew that he was. And I phoned him up, and I went, you just paid $2,000, and you have no idea what's going on, who's gonna be there, what you're gonna learn. You don't even know where it is. And jokingly, and I was being sarcastic, I said to him, what's your problem? Like, are you crazy? But I asked him that question. I said, what's your problem? And he turned around, he said, great question, Steve. This is what I'm having trouble with at the moment. And he started to tell me, and I thought, hang on a minute. How many events do we go to where we show up because this person's talking or this person's on stage or there's a cocktail party and they give you a schedule and they tell you it starts at 9 o' clock and it's a tea break at 10:30. And I thought to myself, I want to reverse Mastermind. Find this. So now what I do, and we've been doing this for three years now. Our next one is in San Diego and it's sold out, so there's no pitching on it. And what we do is we literally go, san Diego. These two dates, you'll know the location one week away, but this is the hotel that we're staying at. So you can buy your flights and your hotel and stuff. But then everybody that signs up, we contact them and we go, hey, Scott, thanks for registering. What's your problem? You know, what are you having trouble with at the moment? And then when we get that information, I can look in my Rolodex and I can actually bring people in that's actually going to answer and solve your problems and then spit you out of the event with more impact. So when people come to me, it's now a reverse mastermind, which, funnily enough, I think should be the way all masterminds are done, where we actually want to know what are the problems? And we cap it off at a maximum of 40 people. They are creative disruptors, all willing to be challenged, all comfortable with being uncomfortable. We stick them in a room. We get to increase our support system because of the people that we're with. But more importantly, I bring people up and the amount of people that forget the conversations they have with me and then come up and go, oh, my God, I can't believe he was here. And of course, like, I don't have amateurs turn up. I have. When I say, you know, rocket scientists. I've had rocket scientists. But, you know, I bring people in and they go, oh, I can't believe. Do you know I've got that problem? And he just answered it. And I'm thinking, well, yeah, because you told me you had it. And I brought him in, but that's how we run a speakeasy. And I didn't know what to call it at first. And so it was just this underground mastermind. And one of the attendees turned around and said, this is like a speakeasy. You know, you don't even know where it is, and there's a password, and you don't know who's going to be there. But, you know, that's where the cool People are going to be. And I went, yeah, that's right. So we ended up calling it a speakeasy ever since.

Yeah, it's funny because, you know, Bruce and I were just talking about that. He said it's the exact opposite of what you would think in this room. He's like the exact opposite of a. Of a country club. No one was pretentious. Everyone was.

There was.

Was creative, high achieving, but wanted to help other people. So in some way, Steve, like what you were telling us that, you know, what are you going to bring to the party? Everyone was bringing something to that party. Besides, they weren't just there to take from the guests that they had no idea. These special guest speakers, they had no idea who was going to be there. And Bruce said his guest speaker was amazing. But I do want to talk a little bit about the book because I just opened it and I thought Scott Tao would get a big kick out of chapter nine, Ugly works. Can you elaborate on that?

Yeah. And I think this resonates from basically the interaction. It's been short, but the statements that Scott's been making, we're in a world at the moment where far too many people are focusing on what they look like rather than what they solve. And when you solve something, as both myself and Scott agreed, all the rest of the stuff goes out the window. So while everyone's emailing and going, oh, I'm not getting a response, I would write on, like a bar mat, or sometimes I would actually do it on the back of a bar tab. And I would write on the back of my bar tab, I really want to have a conversation with you. And I had a couple of these whiskeys while thinking about. About how best to do it. So I thought I'd just prove I had those few whiskeys. When can we chat, Steve? And like, my email put it into an envelope and send it to someone. So I would send, like a handwritten letter. They would open it, and inside is a bar tab. And then on the back of it, me telling them that I had two whiskies while thinking about how best to contact them. And here's the proof. I was having those whiskeys while thinking about it, and it was just something so silly that they would be like, and I'll get things like, that's the stupidest way of contacting someone I've ever heard. But, you know, they always contacted me or if I knew a client was going to. And I travel a lot, so whenever I go to hotels and I've got a ton of it, you know, in the, in this room here, I collect hotel stationery. And then what I do is I actually write letters to clients via hotel stationery. So they get a letter from the Waldorf in London, they go, who do I know at the Waldorf? Now here's a little tip. The secretaries think it must be someone personal because it's from a high end hotel and it's handwritten. They don't open it, so it gets through past the gatekeepers, which. Okay, so there's a little tip for you. And inside it'll be like a street map. Because all hotels have like the local street maps, don't they? You know, a guide to London, a guide to Florence, a guide to, you know, Pakistan. And you just slot it in there and go, hey, I wanted to contact you, but if you've ever thought of going to Pakistan, here's a little street guide for you. And it's just silly little things. And one of the things that I've become, I actually became such a kind of known for this that I got a shout out from SkyMall. Do you remember that? That magazine?

Yeah, of course.

Yeah. They don't do it anymore. But what I used to do, because this was a time when planes didn't have Internet, was I used to jump on the plane with me stack of envelopes from the hotel that I just left and I would go through a SkyMall and quite often I'd have to ask, which I'm sure no one ever did, the hostesses for extra copies of SkyMall, because I would run through it and they sold the biggest line of crap you could ever find anywhere based on the assumption that you'd been drinking the free whiskey so much at altitude that you think a manatee post box would look perfect on your apartment. And so I would actually rip out these pages of the whiskey worst crap and then with a Sharpie go, hey, John, I know you bought a new house. I just thought this skull garden piece would look wonderful in your new mantle and would just fold it, stick it in the envelope. And then when I got off the plane, I would just have them all posted out. But people would contact. And even Skymore actually gave a shout out to me once about the creative use of a SkyMall. But I would do that all the time. And no one ever said thank you. They always contacted me going, that is the stupidest sound I've ever got. You know, why send me this rubbish? But they missed the point. Not one of them did not contact me. I always Got through. They always contacted me. They always went, this was original. This was silly. I couldn't work out why you sent me this. When should we chat? You know, because people want creative disruptors in their life. And the downside is by ripping something out. Sharpieing handwriting. Yet perfection couldn't have been further away from this if you had tried. And I. One of my little go to sayings is that perfection is a blue unicorn with three testicles. It doesn't exist. So make it ugly, make it stand out, make it impactful.

Scott, are you glad I asked the question?

Yeah.

I have two follow up questions, Mark, go ahead. One, Steve, does the Motel 6 have stationary?

I've stayed in the Motel 6 once in my life and I never wanted to tell anyone that.

And two, what problem do you have that I can solve for you?

Oh, well, for a start, you got to know your target. And I am. I live vicariously through my clients. And so I've got into rooms I never thought I would have got in. So any of my childhood, oh, I wish I could do this, or I wish I could meet him, or I wish I could do this. You know, they. They all kind of, you know, left the room 10, 15 years ago. So now do you really know what problem I got? I'm trying to get my grass really green, and I'm trying to get my bushes to grow really fast. So I am a avid gardener and I just like being left alone. So that's what I'm up to.

We can get your grass growing really green.

Yeah, we're gonna. You know, Scott will send you a new motorcycle. We know you like motorcycles. That'll get him into the next speakeasy, so.

Notice what he said, though. I just want to be left alone.

I want to be left alone. So, Steve, I got to ask. Who was the toughest person to get a hold of? How much persistence did it take?

Oh, right, okay. Yeah, as soon as you use the word persistence. And I'm in pain now, as I think about it, but it's this guy you may know called the Pope.

Yeah, we've heard of him.

Yeah, he gets around a bit. He's big in Italy. If you want to kind of. Now, I've worked in the Pentagon and I've worked in Harvard and there was red tape, especially in the Pentagon. Okay. As you can imagine.

Sure.

You've never met bureaucracy like you've met when you're actually dealing with the Vatican.

And.

And I will tell you the story that I had to. And I can't tell You. The whole thing that I did there. But I had to get permission stamps on this letter. And for a start, they would only allow me to do it. So I would be here in LA and they would go, we can have it signed on Thursday. And I'd be like, that's great. Can I send someone over? No, it has to be you. So I would have to fly all the way to Rome, get it signed, and then fly back to Los Angeles. And one time they actually said that I had to get it countersigned because it had been approved. And I was like, okay, can I get someone to. And all I had to do was not get it signed. I had to get the letter picked up and taken to a different department. Okay. I didn't have to wait around or anything like that, just get it transferred. And they wouldn't do it internally. So I said, can I not get someone to pick it up that works for me and transfer it to the new department? No, has to be you. So I turned up again, fly over to Rome, pick it up. Came to this desk, picked it up. And I said to her, and you're not going to believe this bullshit. I said to her, where do I take it? She looked two desks away from her and she went to Sister Mary. Two desks away, and I'm inside. I am thinking to myself, well, I'm gonna go to hell if I rip her head off, but are you telling me I've just flown 12 hours to go from here? So for shits and giggles, sorry, pardon my French, for a laugh, I held my breath to see if I could hold my breath from. And in their words, to go from one department to another just to give her the letter. And I went, shall I wait for this? And they said, no, we'll call you when it's done. And then I went back to L. A. I had held my breath from one department to another because that's the bureaucracy you're dealing with over there. Wow. Yeah. That was one of those events that, yes, I made a nice piece of pocket change on that, but you could promise me a thousand times more than what I made and I still wouldn't touch that deal. It was painful. It lost six months of my life, and I seem to spend most days there in a constant state of aggravation. So, you know, I wouldn't take that deal again.

Unbelievable. I have to ask, in your dealings with billionaires and accessing these very, very difficult venues and getting things done, what's some of the worst advice you see or hear given in this area of expertise of, let's just call it exclusivity.

Oh, easy. Never lead with money. Never. You know, I was stood next to Elton John once, and a guy came up to him and said, hey, I want you to sing at my barbecue. How much would it cost me to have you came in, come in and sing at my barbecue? And he said, I'm sorry, I'm busy. Then I walked off. Now, if you notice, he didn't know the day. It could have been five years time. But the second that you try to prostitute someone by coming up with a price tag, making them a can of beans, no one wants to touch it. So the common mistake I see is people walking go, hey, how much would it cost me? You know, if I had walked up to the museum in Florence and gone, hey, how much would it cost me to take over the museum and throw a dinner party at the feet of Michelangelo's David at 9 o' clock at night? How much? They would have hung up the phone. So I led. It was the same amount of money, but I led. Was solving a problem. Now, okay, so too many people show up and go, how much would it. Never do that. You know, the second you do that, you've already lost.

Scott. Todd.

Genius.

Genius.

This is a podcast I don't want to end, but at the same time, I'm now upset, Mark, that you have this magic book and you have a head start on me and I gotta catch up.

Scott, I've had this for years. I didn't, I. I had no idea who Stevenson was.

You've held back. Hey, there's a. There's a couple of copies on Amazon, so don't feel as though you left out. You know, there's. I'm sure there'd be one or two.

I'm just upset that Mark's had a head start on me. That's what I'm upset.

Scott, if you want, I can, I can, I can read the Blue fishing playbook to you right now.

No, no.

Throw away the that can never be me mentality. Instead, ask, why couldn't it? Yeah, no one ever drowned from falling in the water. They drowned from staying there. Don't be afraid to jump, Blue Fisher. Be afraid of standing still.

See? Great advice there.

This is great. This is. The book is fantastic. So, Steve, what do you think is normal or cool and other people think is absolutely insane?

I think people often ask me now, how did you get to meet him? How did you chat with them? And I find it normal because again, I'm that five year old. I will go up to people and go, how did you do that and what were you feeling then? For start, I try to find a question that is not too boring, you know, so you don't want to go up to someone to go, how did you do that? You know, you could twist it by going, that was amazing. How did you feel afterwards? You know, it's the same question, but you're not bringing in a different emotional context to it. But I find that today we're moving out of the ability of two random strangers being able to contact. If you want to get arrested, okay, let me tell you how to do it really easily for which you feel is just ridiculous. And I've actually done this, I actually did it for one of my speakeasies as a little test. Go into a coffee shop, order your coffee and then when everyone steps over to the counter, what's the first thing they do? Because God forbid they could stand alone quietly for a minute while they wait for that frappalappa. They get the bloody phone out and they start going through the phone, don't they? That's terrified. Okay, have you noticed that when people hold a phone in a public place, it's usually with two hands in front of them, which is the same as a boxing guard. It's a very defensive body position. And when you get into a defensive body position, your mind becomes defensive. You are in that coffee shop, try and strike up a conversation with someone that's next to you and they will look at you like you are a nutter, like you're an ultimate alien with three heads. Because people don't do it anymore. So when you do walk up to someone, you go, hey. And try and think of something that's kind of completely abstract. I really love your shoes. You know, guy or female just go, yeah, I really love your shoes. I went to get those because I want to get a pair. Just people will be the first thing you. If you say to someone, oh, I really like your shoes. Do you know the first thing they do?

But they look down.

Yeah, they look down as though they can't remember what bloody shoes they put on that morning. It's the most ridiculous. But it's a knee jerk reaction. They go, oh, thank you very much. I'm thinking it's like 10 o' clock in the morning, you can't remember. But it's funny that people have a knee jerk reaction. But people don't like having random conversations. But when they have them and they are good, they really enjoy them and they don't want them to end. So I'm always very careful. And I told you, I never have, you know, potluck relationships. I target every single person. And a lot of my people are kind of like, how did you manage to have that conversation? How were you in that room? And I was in there, not by luck, but I planned what I was going to ask, I planned what I was going to say. And I find out something by googling that they're into cooking, gardening. Like, you now know I like gardening. So if someone came up to me and said, oh, you know, you've worked with Elon Musk. Oh, what was that like? Or someone came up to me and said, oh, I hear you like gardening. What parts? Which conversation am I going to want to lean to?

The gardening.

Bingo. Because someone's done a little bit of research, they paid attention to what I like, and that's the conversation I'm going to jump into. So I think a lot of people look at what I get up to as amazing. I think it's pretty simple stuff because it's basic art of communication and having this weird thing called a conversation.

Scott Todd, you look like you got something on your mind.

I mean, no, I'm just thinking. I'm just thinking, you know, like, that's, that's the thing is like, for example, Mark, we do boot camp, right? And people come up and they start talking about land. And I like talking about land. That's not a problem. But I will tell you that when someone, like, people will come up to me and they'll say, hey, you know, you know, you know, I want to do a deal with you, well, right there I might put off, right? Like I. Right there I'm like, I don't need anybody to do a deal with me.

I got it.

I got it. But then if they come up to me and they go, I mean, I just think about some of the best conversations I've had at boot camp. It had nothing to do with the land. It had to do with, hey, I fly too. Oh, cool, let's talk about that. Or, you know, gardening, for example, in Steve's case. And I think that those, those moments, you. You kind of get that better connection with somebody. And I think that, I think Steve, I mean, I mean, it sounds stupid simple. And that's how you started with this whole thing. It's stupid simple, but really, it's. It's not about you. It's about somebody else. I learned my lesson, Steve. When you invite me to that party, I'm gonna Ask you what I can bring or what problem I can solve for you. What do you need, man? What do you need? I'll bring anything. I'll even bring Mark Podolski if you wanted me to. Or I'll fix it.

Yeah, you want to get in the party, Scott? Don't bring me.

I want to get in Steve's parties. They sound pretty cool.

Yeah, I do, too. So, Steve, this is. This has been phenomenal. I want to be respectful of your time and. Yeah, let's talk about the expensive world we're living in. Right. How do we get here? Should we do an Economics 101 lesson?

Well, let's see.

When you print countless dollars. Okay, wait. Maybe no one wants to hear that.

Should we go into supply, demand.

Break out economics 101 and all the other stuff? Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, so we'll just kind of make it simple. We're in an inflationary environment, which means asset prices are increasing at ridiculously high levels. If you are doubting us, put your house up for sale. It's crazy. It's crazy. You know, it's crazy when you look at your own house values, you're like, I wouldn't buy my own house for that. And yet people are buying houses for that. It's insane. So what's happening then in our land market? Well, Scott Bossman, we got a good topic. Let's talk about making offers and the response rate and how to solve that problem. You got a problem, I'll solve it. Ice, Ice. Bossman.

Yeah. You know, there's a lot of talk lately in the Facebook group, in the Mighty Networks group, among the coaching clients and the Facebook students. That response rate on the whole is low right now with our direct mailers. And I would agree we've seen a downtick in our accepted offers. We've seen more counteroffers than in the past, and people are a little bit more aggressive with their counteroffers. So I think the question is, how do we get around this in the land business? And I guess for me, a few things come to mind. You just the first thing, the most important thing is you just cannot stop mailing, and you constantly need to tweak your prices, and you have to do a really, really thorough analysis of the pricing in that area within the last couple months. And maybe you don't divide by four right now. Maybe you divide by three right now, but you need to keep. You need to dig into that area and not stop mailing that area and track your responses and tweak the prices accordingly. And just realize that mailing today may not result in, you know, a purchase two weeks down the road. It might be a little bit longer because you're constantly having to tweak the numbers and that type of thing. So I think people are just, they're a little bit more aware of the fact they're sitting on something of value than maybe they were a couple of years ago. I mean, every night on the news, we're talking about the real estate market. And like Scott Todd said, I mean, everything is expensive, right? So that's going to trickle down to our business eventually, which I think it has this year. So I guess my advice is just don't stop mailing. You're probably going to have to mail more than you think. Your response rate, we used to have a 3 to 5% response rate. Now our response rate is maybe 1 to 2% and our purchase rate is maybe 0.5% as opposed to what it used to be. So just be persistent and don't quit mailing.

I think that's phenomenal advice. This was a great podcast. I want to thank the listeners. Oh, wait, let's go around and just make sure that there's nothing else.

There's a lot more to say.

Let's talk to the technician, Eric Peterson.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with what Scott had to say. I think that probably now more than ever, it's really important to have current comps for the area that you're mailing. If you had your VA pull comps six months ago when you mailed this area last, you cannot rely on those numbers because not only are the purchase prices going up when we're buying land, but we're reflecting that on the sale side. When we're selling this land, we're increasing the price in conjunction to, to what we're buying it for. So it's really important to know those numbers before you start mailing. But then, like Scott said, you've got to adjust on the fly or be willing to adjust on the fly if you're not getting the accepted offers you need. I think, you know, in our business, we're, we're sending way more mail in today's environment than we were probably 12 months ago. We've continued to increase the amount we're mailing, and that's because we want to buy land. And it's. It takes more mail right now to buy land. It takes higher purchase prices to buy land. It takes, unfortunately, sometimes more effort in hand holding with the sellers to get some of those deals done. We're more willing to. To maybe do some deals that require a little bit more work, whether that be some kind of title issue or maybe even closing through title or accommodating some need of the seller, because we want that land and we know that it's hard to get. So sometimes as our environment changes, we have to adjust. And, you know, like Scott said, our margins might not be, you know, we divide by four, we might have to divide by three, but we've still got a huge margin in there. So this model allows you so much flexibility in what you can do, because we have that huge margin, whether it's 300% or 200%, there's a lot of room there. So, you know, we'll pay a premium, and often we're going to get a premium when we sell it. But if we can't, we know we still have the room to come down in price, right?

And if we're playing devil's advocate, Eric. So I'm listening to this and say, well, are these guys saying I should overpay for property? I sell it in 60 days, the market turns on me, or that note, buyer defaults, and now I'm going to lose money on a land deal. I thought Mark said he never lost money on a land deal. What gives? How do you protect yourself should the market turn against you?

Well, I mean, I think there's a couple of factors. If we sell the property quickly, we're already reducing the cost of that land. So every monthly payment we get reduces our cost. So if the market does turn and our buyer defaults, hopefully by then we've got six payments or five payments or whatever that number is. And now, therefore, we're reducing the amount of that, of capital we have invested in that property. Taking larger down payments is a little bit easier right now. Like, people are more willing to do it so we can get more money up front and get to that capital coming back to us faster because we can ask for these larger down payments and even larger monthly payments, too. So those can all have a, an effect on that and reducing the cost of that land. If the market were to turn, maybe the price reduces by 20%, maybe it reduces by 50%. But again, if we're buying right, we should still have room to rework those numbers and resell the property.

Yeah, that's a great answer. And the fact that we can be flexible like a yogi, with our pricing gives us a tremendous, tremendous advantage in the marketplace should it turn on us. So maybe, you know, let's just say we we bought a piece of property for $5,000, and all of a sudden it loses 50% of its value one day. And, you know, we. We bought it for five. This is a property used to sell. We used to buy for 2,500. We sold it for, you know, 17. They, you know, we got our cost basis down now to 4,000 because they've made $1,000 worth of payments. They default. But now, okay, so we'll sell it for 16. And maybe instead of $1,000 down like we were getting today, or $1,500 down, we'll do $249,000 down. $249,000 a month. It might just take us a little bit longer to get our capital out. So what. Where else do you want to put your money than this asset? I mean, I just really don't want it in the bank. Right. I mean, Scott, Todd, am I crazy here? Am I forgetting something?

No, I mean, I think that as a whole, assets in general are costing more. I mean, it's just the price. I mean, people are holding onto their assets. I read a story the other day. Used car guy had a used car. He owned it for about a year, and the dealership caught him up and said, hey, we'll buy back that car. And he sold the car. So he bought the car new. He sold the car used for $6,000 more than what he paid for it new. Have you ever heard of that story? This guy is in the Wall Street Journal talking about just that I recently purchased a new asset. I mean, it's expensive. And everybody, if you follow, like, any forums into any specialized assets, assets, people are complaining about how. How expensive the world is and how the assets are costing more. That's just the way that it is. I mean, people are holding onto their assets. But here's the thing. Think about the guy that was out there with his used car. He. He said he had no desire to sell his car until they told him, hey, we'll give you $6,000 more than what you paid for. And then he's out, like, here, take the car. I'm not really using it like I. Like I would. Right? He pocketed $6,000. He drove the car for a year and made $6,000. So the lesson here to me is that there's a price for everything. Now, you don't want to go and say, oh, well, I'm buying this land for. For $20,000. I'm going to go and offer $10,000 or, you know, $15,000. No, you got to Keep your margin of safety there. But if the market will bear 20 today, well, then up your price. And that's what's happening to me. And it's a struggle because we want to buy it for the lowest price possible. But it's a market. It's ever changing. And, you know, I have the same conversation with people. I mean, I used to sell some properties. I mean, I would buy these properties in this one area, and I would pay, like, I don't know, I pay about $3,000 for them. Today, they're costing me six to $8,000. That's hard to put your brain around. Okay, like, just last year, I'm paying three. Now I'm paying six to eight. But guess what? I used to sell those things for 10. Today, I'm selling them for 18 to 20. You see, the price has gone up, and it's just the way that it is now. Let's just say. Let's just say tomorrow or next month, the market turns, and let's just say I can only get, you know, 10,000 for it. Okay, well, then I have a decision to make. I can either hold onto it because any. Any market fluctuation will be temporary and the price will go back up there. But ask yourself this question. With housing prices and the lumber prices, the lumber's going through the roof. So with all of this stuff and inflation is driving everything up, that is why we buy land, because land is the greatest hedge against inflation that there is on the earth. It really is. Because as all the other assets go up, so does land. Land follows the inflation. In fact, it beats the inflation. So if inflation goes up 3%, land typically goes up higher than that, and it will stay that way. It will stay up higher. So the prices that you're seeing today, I don't think that they will come down. They might in an economic recession to where people want to unload it. But ultimately, guess what? The prices that you're seeing right now, my gut tells me these are the new prices. Welcome to the new world 2021.

It's a new world. But, Tate, you're a tough negotiator, and you're getting deals. So how come you're getting deals and maybe other people aren't?

Look, at the end of the day, money loves speed. And I can be tough. But I have got the experience and the knowledge to know that. Listen, Tom, I've got really one choice in this market, and that's either move with the market or get left behind completely. This is not a game for me. Right this is. This is how I make my living. This is what I do every single day. And like Scott said, it's hard to pay more for properties, but I do it because I know that, hey, look, even if the market verts back to 2018 pricing, I'm still not losing money on this. And I buy it at today's pricing.

Why?

Because what I can do is I can still sell them at the price that I want. I can get a lower down payment, I can get a lower monthly. It might not be ideal, but these properties are not going to become less desirable just because there's an economic correction. They're not making any more of this. It's where I want to have my money. In fact, I'm buying as much as I can at today's price, as much as I possibly can, can. Because all the signs point to upward growth. And like, you know, like we've kind of hinted to today already, real estate tends to go one direction, right? Everybody knows what direction that is. Go look at your. Any price, any asset 10 years ago and compare it to today, five years ago, and compare it today, six months ago, and compare it to today 25 years ago, and compare it to, you know, five years after that. Like, real estate goes in one direction. If you have to weather a storm for a year or two, so be it. But, you know, at the end of the day, I'm buying land. And there's ways for you to buy land to mitigate your risk, right? If you're saying, oh, my mailing costs are getting too expensive, you should be buying wholesale, right? Go ahead. Not a problem with that. Look at land arbitrage. Look at, look at these other opportunities to control assets for pennies on the dollar. Lots of options out there for you.

I love it.

Eric Peterson.

Yeah, I was just thinking, I wanted to add that in today's environment where we're seeing this inflation and the cost of assets going up, I'm so much more comfortable having my dollars invested in an asset like land than sitting in a bank account not doing anything. Because what's going to happen to those dollars in your bank account? They're going to get worse, worth less and less money as time goes on and this, this trend continues. So if that means we're paying more for land, that's. That kind of helps me swallow that, right? Because I know that it's a much better investment to put those dollars into a piece of property and have that asset on the books as opposed to that $5,000 or whatever it is sitting In a bank account?

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I'm really risk averse. You know, every day I think about, well, how can this all go bad? And not to be a negative Nelly, but I think that way because I like the game and I never want to put myself in a position where I could be out of the game. So the in. You know, Scott and I, we always talk about shiny object syndrome. You know, I was talking to a guy today, he's in four syndication deals and these deals are going to take him to 2025 before he gets his capital out. Well, he has no idea what's going to happen in 2025, but he's concerned because it's a good possibility that he's going to. He's going to be in the middle of a storm by that time in real estate and won't have the time to weather it. Plus, so what we have here is an asset that lasts forever. We're not using leverage, so we're going to stay out of trouble with any kind of debt. And then it doesn't go to zero. It's not like a stock that could go to zero or the cryptocurrency du jour that could go to zero. I think as long as you are still buying at the right ratio. So even if you had to pay 100% more than you were a year ago, but you're marking up 100% more, like Eric said, it doesn't matter because our hold periods aren't long. We're talking 30 days or less if you're marketing correctly. Even if you're not marketing correctly, it's maybe 60 days. If it's taking you more than 60 days, go to flight school and learn how to get this stuff out of your inventory effectively. So get someone to help you and do this so you're really going to be covered. It's hard to imagine a scenario where you will actually lose money because I've lived through it. I've lived through the Great Recession doing this business. I lost 50% of my note portfolio. I still ended up very profitable in the business because I didn't have debt. And I just reconfigured my land portfolio. It just took a little longer to get the money out and I just had to make the pricing right to adjust. But the assets I bought in 2006 were very different price than 2008, but I still had two years of those people paying until they defaulted in lowering my cost basis.

Tate Mark, wouldn't you kill to buy assets at 2006? Pricing today?

Yeah, I would, actually.

Right.

But that's what I'm saying is like, when we buy These process at 2021 pricing, we think that often we're going to sell these properties and that's the price we're going to get. And there is defaults that they occur in our business. And every time that happens, it's kind of like this little home run. Like, I've seen your portfolio. You've got properties that you've sold eight times that you purchased in 2006.

Right.

And that's the other variable that's really hard to, you know, count on, or it's hard to explain. But you do have defaults in this business. And defaults aren't necessarily a bad thing. They're okay. They're part of running a land business.

He brings up a very good point, Mark, and that's this. There is an X factor in this business that we. You don't teach it because you can't rely on it. But the X factor here is the defaults. And like, I purchased a property, one of the first properties I purchased on Arizona property, I looked at the comps. Now, this. Remember, these comps were based on 2015 prices, okay? So I purchased this property. The comps at the time were $2,000. I did the magic number. I ended up with 650. I offered 650. Guy comes to me and says, I'll take it. You can have it for 700. I said, okay, 700. Well, we sold the property for $2,000 on terms. And I sold that property three times. But every time I sold that property, the price went up because the pricing was moving up. So when we're looking at the comps and we're thinking through our math, that is a set point in time, but the pricing continues to change up or down. We haven't seen it go down lately, but it could go up or down. Okay, but the thing is, is I sold that property three times on terms. And the down payments alone, and not even including the DOC fees, the down payments alone and the. And the payments, man, when you add up all the money that I sold this property for, I more than made my money back on the terms deals that went bad. But then I had somebody come into my world and they wanted to buy at 20, 21 prices at $4,000. So we sold that property for $4,000. It's a property that I had in my inventory for 700, but I let it age up. I sold it out. And when you look at all of the cash collected on that deal. It's over $6,000 is what I collected on that deal from the time I got it on a $700 investment. Now, could I plan for that?

No.

Could I financially forecast that? Absolutely not. But it happens. And it happens enough that you're just like, let it roll. And that's what helps to take the sting out of this whole thing.

Exactly.

Exactly. Scott Bossman, any final thoughts?

No. I think I love defaults now. I think when you're first in the business, you get those defaults, they sting.

Right.

But that is a definite benefit to this business. You control that asset for the life of the loan. And we've had more defaults lately. And I love what Scott. I mean, I love the fact that I'm able to take an asset that I purchased in 2016 and now price it at 2021 prices. There's something really powerful in that.

Absolutely. Tate.

Buy land, people. Buy land.

Eric, get rid of those dollars. Buy land.

Cash is trash.

Yeah.

Scott Todd, my thing is this. If you mail out a handful of offers, it could be a hundred, it could be a thousand offers. You're like, oh, nobody accepted it. That means you haven't found the right price point. Keep mailing, people mailing every day. And if you're not mailing every day and you're complaining about your response rate, guess what? Your response rate's gonna be zero when you stop mailing. That's all I have to say.

Yeah. You know what I learned from Scott Todd at boot camp? Don't be a chick fil a without a chicken.

That's it.

So don't be in the lamb business without land.

30 is the new 20 when it comes to mail.

Yeah. 30 a day, not 20 a day. That's not a bad new metric either. And it's all automated. I mean, Scott's how we don't talk about LG Pass probably enough publicly, but there's been so many improvements.

Now, LG Pass is. I mean, it's. It's kind of. For me, it's really kind of cool to see how LG Pass was there because like anything back in the day, it was a little rough, and it was a little rough, and we keep tweaking it. And, you know, the Japanese have a term for that, continuous improvement. It's also called kaizen. We continuously improve it. We continually look for ways that things that don't flow right don't work right. We continue to look at our own businesses and add functionality in there based on our own businesses. So, yeah, I Mean, LG pass is a different animal. And one of the. One of my favorite pieces in there is the drip function. You upload a list, and you just let it go to town and work for you.

There you go. Yeah.

Funny story, guys. As Eric Post in the. In the chat. Don't better fit. Don't be Wawa without a doughnut. Let me tell you what happened is I had a regular routine for a very long time. I'd go to Wawa and get my donut, and then I went there, and they didn't have any donuts. And I'm like, this is the beginning of COVID And I'm like, oh, my gosh. My world's been turned upside down. I'm out. So I go down the street, I go to another. I go to a Krispy Kreme. They have donuts. And I go there for almost a year daily. I'm a dedicated person. I mean, they could put my plaque on the wall. Hold me a donut, I'm walking in the door. I go there one day, there's no donuts. I'm like, what happened to the donuts? I said, oh, the guy didn't show up. I'm like, the guy didn't show up. What am I supposed to do now? So I found myself down at the grocery store, Publix, and they have a bakery. I'm like, gonna go there. So animal. Animal of habit. I started going there every day. Going there. Well, guess what? I went there last week. They had no dang donuts. I'm like, what gives, man? Four days in a row, no donuts. I'm going back. I'm like, the book who moved my cheese? They moved the donuts. I'm like, what happened to it? They go, oh, well, the supplier is not making our ingredients now. And I'm like, there's only one donut supplier in America. What gives? I don't understand. Makes no sense. So they don't have the donuts. So what happens? Change the habit. I go somewhere else. And I think that the analogy stands. If you're trying to buy land or sell land and you don't have any land to buy or to sell, then you have no business, right? Like, so you've got to keep hustling, looking for land at all cost, and don't stop at all.

And then I'm just so glad that donut story didn't take a dark turn, like a. Like a bad bread, you know, Breaking bad episode where Scott Todd can't get his fix. And next thing you know. You know he's building a super lab.

We don't know if that's going to happen though.

We don't. You don't know.

You can't. That's the X factor. That's the Scott X factor. Like he already has a hanger. Just saying.

Yeah.

Preparing for, in preparing for boot camp, guess what I told him.

Hold my donut.

I won't be here. You guys don't have to make it. I won't be here for a few days. So just don't even, don't even waste your money making it because I'm not going to be here. Eat it.

There you go. Well, I thought this is a really great topic.

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