The truth about the 5 biggest land investing myths

We're live!

Oh, we are? Look at that, there was no countdown or anything.

No countdown, here we are.

Here we are, unfiltered like the BM Dude Buddy loves.

Yeah, that's right, exactly right. Uh, do people see us? I have zero live viewers though.

Okay.

Oh yeah, oh, there they are now, they're pouring in. Hey everybody, yeah, we're having some technical difficulties here tonight. Our intro video's gone, Mark's gone, we're all a mess. We're going rogue tonight. We don't have a topic. We had a topic. We don't have a topic.

Relax.

Oh, you know, sometimes the magical things come from spontaneity.

Exactly, exactly. So, so tonight, uh, it's the— it's the land investing potpourri.

I love that.

Do you guys do potpourri at Christmas, like that weird smelly stuff?

That's like an '80s thing. I don't— I haven't seen it since the '80s.

You can buy it at Michaels. It's still a thing.

Michaels is a great place.

I'd really like is the one that smells like pine, like the, like the cones. Like, that is that a, is that a potpourri? Like, that's probably the only one because you're gonna add like cherry and stuff in.

Yeah, yeah, I like the fruity ones.

I do the cinnamon pine cones.

Oh, the cinnamon, those are good. This is the cinnamon episode.

Yes, everyone throw in the chat, what's your favorite potpourri aroma?

Uh, and while you're doing that, I was gonna say, Scott, by the way, like, the people on here, like, what it means that we're going a little potpourri here is also that you guys can take over this whole episode, ask some questions right out of the gate, and we'll be forced to answer them and lead, you know. So you come— I always tell people, jump on the show, it's a free resource, you know. Not to give ourselves that proverbial pat on the back, but we've done a crazy amount of land deals individually and collectively, so If you're on here and you have questions and you just want to start ripping them out, go right ahead. If not, we'll go into our potpourri mode.

We're an open book, open book tonight.

Open book.

Uh, we should introduce ourselves though for, for those just tuning in for the first time ever. Uh, so we are members of the Land Geek community. We are land investors. Uh, my name is Scott Bossman. I was able to replace my income, quit my job because of this business. And I'm joined by my brothers from another land, mother. It's another one, I don't know, I think it's, uh, to be determined. I think we need to do some testing. Um, but, uh, yeah, John, John Eight Is Enough, Handsome Rob Burnett, how are you tonight, sir?

I'm doing great. I'm drinking dandelion ginger sparkling botanical tea, which surprisingly doesn't taste a lot of words.

John, that's a lot of words you're drinking.

It's just a lot of words.

That sounds very refreshing and potpourri-ish. How's it smell, John?

It's very, it's very on theme.

So, and, uh, as always, uh, Mike Zaino, the Zen Master. Breathe in the mailing, breathe out the marketing. What's up, buddy?

Nice to be here.

Happy to see you in a different environment tonight.

Yeah, well, The girls are out at a restaurant in Boston, so I get to explore the house and give new— just relax a little bit, you know, take the shoes off and relax a little bit, as you say, you know.

Yeah, you have a fire roaring. You look very comfy over there.

No fire roaring, but you know, I'm getting over a little bit of a— I don't think it was a cold, but a little bit, just a little immune depression. So I'm having some H2O, no extra ingredients this evening. Oh, I did have some wine earlier over my daughter's house. But, uh, followed up with some— no, no, no botanical, no potpourri, no, no cinnamon rainbows, just plain water, just plain H2O.

And I'm— I guess I'm the only, uh, guy drinking here tonight. I got some bourbon and then I got a— I got a Coors Banquet on deck.

I've never heard of a Coors Banquet.

Yeah, Coors Original, Coors Banquet.

Okay.

Oh wow.

Yeah, you know, I'm a big fan lately of the Mick Ultra. Oh yeah, I feel it's just high quality water.

Rick Coltack, uh, he misses your polished Griswold rails in the background.

Yeah, well, if the girls get home, Rick, you might see those real quick. I'll be scooting downstairs.

Nice. Uh, well, let's also introduce to people, or chat for a minute about what we do. Why are we here? What we do? Who's going to take it? I think John did it last time. Mike Zano, you weren't here last week. Good to have you back. Oh yeah, tell the viewers who we are.

Traveling the country last week trying to get home and there was a blizzard here. So, um, but anyway, we are the Land Geek guys. Uh, typically we have Mark J. Podolsky here who is the Land Geek. He basically taught all of us the, the concept of buying land, raw land No improvements needed once we buy it. We just sell it on owner financing, creating a monthly stream of income. Typically the payments are set up so that whatever we pay for the property, we, we get back in our bank account within the first year, and then we have years of payments thereafter. So basically you can say we create a note, and if we do it over and over again, we create a note portfolio. Does that mean we're note portfolioists? Portfolioists, is that the right word?

Sure, I love it. Portfolios.

I think that I challenge that Scrabble word.

That's a tough one. Yeah, but so basically, you know, we do this, we rinse and repeat, as Mark would say, over and over again, and we build up enough passive income where, you know, initially it's, uh, I don't know, you're going out to eat once a month, then you're paying the car bill, the mortgage, then you're looking at, wow, this could actually replace my income, and it just grows, and there's no real capping it. It has the power to continue to grow and, um, you know, be something that's very significant in your life, even be a legacy play at a certain level. And the nice thing about it is that we embrace systems and automation, right? So, uh, we build a true business where we can become the CEOs. We don't work on it, we work in it. So while we're— 3 of us are sitting here, it's safe to say there are things happening in the background: properties being advertised, leads being tended to, properties being intaked. Uh, this is just happening because we have systems. Is that—

I think it would be intaken. I think properties that are being intaken.

John, come with me. It's going to be intake.

It can't be intaker. Intook? Intook.

I don't know. Anyway, I mean, what we do, and that— and I guess in a sense that's what we don't do, right? We do all this land investing, but then in the other sense we don't. We just manage it. And, um, You know, it's, it's something that I always tell people, it's simple but, um, not necessarily easy. I think a lot of things in life are, right? We all know how to be in shape, right? Eat right, go to the gym. But how many people necessarily truly follow that, right? It's going to have its ups and downs, it's going to have its bumps and bruises, but if you're looking to build something that can really impact your life, this is something that can certainly do that.

I love the gym analogy for so many things, but, but for land investing too, because, you know, you go to the gym 3 times a week for a couple weeks, you don't see a a difference, even for a month. Go for a month, you don't really see a difference. You might be feeling a little better, but you don't really see a difference. But you know what happens if you go to the gym 3 days a week for a year or 3 years or 5 years, right? And then maybe you cut out the bad things. That's the stuff that makes a difference in the long run. It's a marathon. This whole land investing thing is a marathon, not a sprint, right?

Yeah, I agree with that. That's funny because I always tell Laura, I got them, want to do 10 push-ups. How do I look? Do I look better? She's like, I guess I thought maybe the opposite's got a little bit of working out could have a big effect, but, uh, you just burst that bubble.

I think there's a very short-term— you get your pump on, that's what the kids call it, right? You got to get your pump on. I mean, you could maybe see it in your, in your back for a few minutes, but what do you think?

You do your first deal, it's like getting a quick pump, right? But then you're going to realize to keep pumping out those deals, you got to stay the course and And that's where some, um, I guess you'd need, uh, what's the word you like? Uh, there's a, there's a word here, intuitiveness. This should be like the land— we should have a whole episode in land investing, uh, special words we've created.

Vocabulary.

Yes.

I mean, we've already added a few tonight. Uh, we got, we got intaked, right? Right. And there was the other one. Yeah, we got another one earlier.

I'll bring that one up again.

Yeah, it's, uh Portfolioists.

Portfolioists. Portfolioists.

Yes. That could be real. I'm going to research that while you guys go ahead.

How many other words can we come up with tonight? Hopefully everybody can help us out with that. Well, awesome. John Burnett, any thoughts on that after we rambled a bit?

I concur.

I was waiting for that. I went concur fishing.

I, yeah, and I, I like the gym analogy, you know, and I, I think that too, like, think about the gym or any good thing that you're building, you have to, you have to keep to it, you know. So you're not going to see, you know, it's, it's a marathon, not a sprint, and you gotta, if you stick in the game, you see the results. And if you stop, right, if you take a break from the gym or start pulling away, then, then those, those results can fail.

And in all honesty, every once in a while you need a timeout, right? You need a timeout because something's not going right. So hold on, let's call a timeout. Let's take a breather. Let's regroup. Let's, let's re— let's, let's pivot, right? And try something different. We do that all the time. We take timeouts in land business all the time.

Yeah.

And then we also get injuries, right? So like, uh, that's pretty common as well in life and in business. Uh, I've had a raging case of tennis elbow for two— for 2 weeks because I had— I used my snowblower for, for a week and a half. And I kind of get down about it because I'm like, man, this thing's not going away. Like, it's been 10 days and this tennis elbow isn't going away. Tennis elbow, by the way, as a physical therapist, is one of the worst things to treat because it takes forever to get better. And those are the hardest patients because they come in and they're dejected and they're down and they're depressed because they can't do what they want to do. And they're in a lot of pain. And, you know, we all know how much we use our elbows and our wrists, right? It's, it's tough. Well, we get, you know, we get injuries in the land business too. So we gotta, we gotta back up, take a breather.

What about— so funny, is there such a thing as shovel shoulder?

Shovel shoulder? I mean, tennis elbow? I've definitely seen shovel shoulder.

By the way, I want to say I searched on my, you know, you know, on some reputable sources here. Portfolioist, sometimes written portfolio-ist, is a dictionary word, but it's increasingly used in business and entrepreneurship to describe someone who builds and manages multiple income streams or ventures simultaneously. All right, a portfolioist is someone who intentionally creates a portfolio of assets, businesses, skills, or income sources instead of relying on a single job or company. Assets— we have a portfolio of that. We have portfolioists.

Look at that, that's great.

I'm throwing it on a business card, it's gonna be great. Buying the domain right now, portfolio-ist.com. Uh, All right, awesome. Well, we got some people asking about certain topics which we could definitely touch on. We're good at touching on things for a few minutes and then topic drifting to another thing. So I think we could hit all these things tonight.

Name for the episode: Topic Drifting.

Topic Drifting.

We, yeah, we do that all the time with Scott. I'll call Scott up and literally I'll cover 10 subjects in literally 10 seconds. They'd be like, whoa, I'm sorry.

And sometimes in the same sentence, I'm like, I think you topic drifted there. It's okay, my wife does the same. All right, so we got a few things to talk about. Joe wants to talk, let's talk other people's money. We got a Landarm question. Don's done with respiratory, I hear you. Let's see what else, I saw another one in here. Anyway, well, let's talk other people's money, why not? This is a great business, this is a great other people's money business.

Right.

I think the longer you're in it, you definitely want to find ways to fund your business that are outside of your own bank account, right? Because we own or finance a lot of land because that creates passive income for us. But you can't own or finance everything, you'll run out of money. So we need, we need strategies to recoup our capital. One of those is wholesaling, one of those is selling notes. Another one is other people's money. I think all three of us have used other people's money on the call. Would you agree? Concur?

Concur.

Concur. Concur. Uh, double concur. I got a double concur. Um, I don't know if that— it's probably not the same thing, but you concur. That's definitely concur fishing. So, uh, so yes, other people's money. Mike, thoughts? How has it leveraged your business?

Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that come to mind when I think about it, because you can use other people's money as sort of a straight debt scenario, which you're probably going to make more money yourself, or you can partner with people and make, uh, less money. But I think where it becomes— where you might want to— why I think some people feel more comfortable taking less of the profit and partnering with somebody else, because typically they'd probably be partnering with another land investor that's perhaps a little bit more seasoned, even if not, if they're the same, um, you get another set of eyes on your deals because that person probably isn't going to fund a deal that they wouldn't do themselves. So, you know, if you feel you're new and you're a little newer or newish— I don't know if that's a word— uh, and you feel like you want validation, then you might look at other people's money in the sense of, hey, I'll give up more of the profit. I might do a 50/50 split in the profit or whatever it might be but I'm going to have the confidence that it's like, hey Scott, would you want to fund this? And I know that you'll say no if you think it's a bad deal, right? So it's kind of like a safety net, as opposed to saying, Scott, can I borrow this money for this deal and I'll give you this much in return? And then I'm taking on the total responsibility, you know, to make sure that that deal is good. So they're both good, and I think they both can work. I think that's just initially, I think that's something to consider. Does that make sense? Like, out of the gate, like how you're going to structure it and why you might structure it that way.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I think, uh, well, John, let's hear from you. What, what, in what ways have you leveraged other people's money, or do you think it's a good idea? Do you think it's necessary?

Yeah, I think it's a good idea, um, and I, I, I, I do genuinely concur with what you said, Scott, earlier. So, um, I do think that it's, uh, it's a really good way to— like, in my mind, it's all about momentum. Right? You want to maintain the momentum in your business. And for me, I reached a point in my business where I was like, wow, I can sell X amount of properties, right? And if you, if you think about selling properties with owner financing, and Mike was talking about recouping capital a year, that's fantastic, right? It's amazing that we can recoup our capital in a year. But if, uh, if let's say, um, well, at some point you, you have to have Uh, you have to be able to buy as many properties as you can sell, right? So for me, I reached this point where I had all this momentum on the sales side, and then I needed to have more— have the inventory to support that. So one of the ways I did that was Land Art, which I kind of think of as other people's money, right? Like somebody else funded this acquisition and then they're giving it to me at a discount, right? Or not at a discount, but on a lower monthly payment at a discount of the, the retail price, right? So I can build up my inventory that way. And I did that, right? I've done that a number of times. I think partnering with people is a good way. Um, straight debt honestly can make sense. You just need to be careful with straight debt, right? Like, so if you're using straight debt, I think you want it to be the kind of a thing that's funding actual property acquisitions. Right? And that's where you want to use the funds. And then, um, and then just, you know, um, make sure that you, you structure it in a wise way. But if you do that right, like, the returns we get on our deals are, are stupid good, right? And so if you get, um, if you, if you do that, it can really be a pretty reasonable, um, plan, I think.

Love it. Love it. So there you have it. We've all done it. We all think it's a great strategy in growing your business. And that's what I love about our community too, because there are people in our community who will be your other people's money, who will be your OPM, right? And they're familiar with the land business, and you can find those folks. So Awesome. Hopefully that helps, Joe. Let's see what else we got here. Oh, here's a good question. And I don't know if I know enough about this. But hey, Mike and team. Yeah. Mike and team now. So this must be a Mike follower.

Oh, Mark.

It's great to see you here. I did not coach him to—

So nice to see you, Mark.

But Appreciate it.

Yeah, usually, uh, usually the guy, um, you know, who's like— he's insinuating you're kind of the team leader. Usually they're on the top and not on the bottom.

I like to think of Scott and I as co-leaders.

Yeah, exactly.

Mike as the team. Yeah.

Oh, right, there you go. I like that. Oh, so, all right, so question for, for, for, uh, for Mike. Yeah, well, the team will weigh in later. How do you feel about Xampla's pricing tool for accuracy, Mike?

Yeah, no, I feel like, like any tool, it's got its merit for sure, 100%. And I just think that, you know, I would never rely on one data point myself. I think I use at least 3 data points in anything in life. Even when you hear, um, you know, uh, my kids are, you know, buying into some crazy things and, you know, hearing this or that, and I say, hey, just get 3 independent resources and then decide what you think, right? Don't just rely on one person's opinion, right? Zamplo is doing a great job. We love them for all the help they get. They've made our life infinitely easier, and I recommend everybody uses them for the list building and all of that. But, um, I think it's one data point, and I would want to cross-reference that with a couple of others, right? So yeah, it's great as one data point. Just, I don't care what other data point it is, I'm never going to rely on just one. I'm going to get multiple data points.

Trust and verify with multiple sources, right?

Great to see you here, Mark, by the way.

Yeah, uh, yeah, good to see you, Mark. Uh, John, any thoughts on, uh— oh, and by the way, for those that don't know, Xamplio is a, is a tool that helps us, um, basically acquire lists for mailing. This used to be very difficult back in the day. Uh, John, did you ever get a CD-ROM in the mail? Did you ever get a CD in the mail from a county?

Oh yeah, I did have one of those stick computers plugged into my TV that was running. I built a scraper that was like—

oh, a scraper!

Yeah, yeah. So that's my— that is like— that's my like PTSD memory is you built a scraper.

That's fine.

What was the other one? Macro something?

iMacros? Were you an iMacro guy?

I was an iMacro guy. I was Mr. iMacro.

And I loved the CD-ROMs too, because, well, first, you know, you had to download all the data, um, and then the list— they give you the entire county's tax roll, like homes and everything. So then, you know, it'd take you 3 hours to scrub this thing down to a couple hundred records. You could, you you could mail. Yeah, now you just go to XAMPP, you, you kind of click and draw over an area. Mike's got a very famous TikTok video, if you guys want to look it up in the archives, where he uses DataTree, which is another service provider to pull lists the same way.

It was a— but here's the thing that went viral. It did go a little viral. Mark, check that out. It's— we call it Frankensteining lists back in the day. Talk about work. Like, literally, first of all, to get this from the county, typically— this is just to show people how nice it is now— you'd have to call and talk to maybe 3 or 4 people because the first person, I don't know what you're looking for. Well, who do— well, that's probably Bob. Hey Bob. Yeah, yeah, but, uh, well, that's probably Sue. Yeah, Sue. Yeah, you get over Jerry. Jerry's, you know, some guy just, you know, sipping on his coffee, you know. On a computer. He's like, oh, I got it right here, you know. But then he sent it to you, but then you'd get it and it'd be like cryptic. It would be like, what am I looking at? Like, you open it up and you'll be like, you know, Scott Todd used to teach entire sessions in boot camp on Frank trying to listen. And like, we'd be watching, and, and it's like, because you'd have to go and go get the data and cross-reference it against maybe the assessor side and then to the treasurer's side.

We're doing VLOOKUP from one spreadsheet to the other.

Disaster. Then we build formulas, right? Because we'd say, okay, we used to focus strictly on tax delinquent, right? It's another point, right? So we'd say, okay, I'm going to offer $1,500 for every property here, but then I got to configure what they owe in back taxes. So I create a formula on my Excel sheet that would subtract my offer and what they owe. It's like, what? And then finally we came up with this, you know, Mark's like, hey, why don't everybody gets the same offer? We mail everyone typically out of state and then we deal with it. All we're looking for— like, here's the big secret— we just want someone to raise their hand and say, 'I'm interested in selling my property.' That's all we want. That's what all— that's the whole intense intent of mailing, is someone to say, 'I'm interested in selling.' They're motivated, and then we discuss with them. Then we can figure out that— why do we spend all that time on these properties before we know who's going to respond? It was crazy, right? Uh, things have gotten a lot better, a lot more dialed in. Everybody gets the same offer. If they owe money, great, we'll figure it out. We'll factor it into the negotiation.

Yeah, life is just so simple.

You know, Mark said it uphill both ways in the snow and home for lunch and back again.

And I mean, and Mark's, Mark's even, I mean, we're even more spoiled than Mark when, you know, he's like, he was doing pen and paper stuff back then. He was doing, you know, he had a What do you call it? You had the— what's the printer in the corner of the office that had the wheels on it with the— what's the paper called?

Things that you rip off?

Yeah, the paper, like, could put it on the wheel. Somebody on the call knows what it's called, right? Somebody— dots per something or other, whatever, whatever that was.

DPI?

Yeah, something like that. Uh, all right, awesome. Well, we digress, as always. Um, good to see some folks here tonight. What's that?

Didn't the printers used to have this tear-away stuff on the side?

Yeah, yeah, that's how it would be.

Is that how it fed it through the— it fed it, right? Yeah, and then you had to rip that off.

Exactly. Tractor feed paper. Dot matrix, that's what it was, a dot matrix.

Back when the only games you could play online, online were like ping pong and this like weird sort of playing game. I'm a land investor. Oh, let me rip apart my letters. Here we go.

Oh man, awesome. Well, we digress, but, uh, we have more comments coming in. Good to see some folks here. Eric Frey, nice to see you. Uh, talked with Eric the other day. Um, he's a Scott fan. He didn't say it, but he— I know he is. It's fine. Like, Mike has a lot of fans as well. So does John.

Questions? With your name in them, are they really fans?

Uh, from B&K Property Solutions, be consistent, it's all about small wins.

I like that.

It's a journey, not a race. Love it, love it all. Is it Santa Scott or Scott Claus? I— that's a good one. Oh, I mean, I, I have a white beard to rival yours, Don, put it that way. Awesome. Let's see what else we got here. That's funny, Rick. That's funny. Have you guys seen the memes this week about Jim Carrey and about how he looks just drastically different than he did 20 years ago?

So, so, Rick, watching him give that speech in French, that was pretty impressive.

Did anybody see—

okay, I watched it.

I digress again, but did anybody see Harrison Ford's acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the SAG-AFTRA Awards? No.

Is that worth watching?

Yeah, it's worth watching. Go watch it. It's about 3 minutes long. It's amazing. I love Harrison Ford. But, uh, yeah, he got me weeping almost.

Like, uh, get me very much reference or something. Oh, look at—

no, he's just, you know, he's Han Solo, he's, he's Indiana Jones, he's, he's President What's-His-Name who threw the guy out of the airplane at the end. Get off my plane! Remember that?

How does this work? You say that, I open up YouTube, and the first video there is Harrison Ford Life Achievement Award acceptance speech. Like, come on.

Oh, I mean, they're all— they're listening. It's just how it is. They are listening. Oh, look at this. Scott only joined Land Geek because he likes people named Scott.

I love it.

I concur. All right, here we go. That I don't think I'm even gonna touch that because I don't even know. Let's see here. How long, here we go. Here's a good question from Bryce McGee. Bryce, good to see you. How long did it take for each of you working on land investing to get in the groove and gain the confidence that you knew you could do this for a living? Was there something specific that happened? I love that question. Oh, well, John, John, you're smiling. I—

well, I'm trying to think of like the moment. Yeah, I mean, there were definitely— there were multiple moments when like, you know, like you get a response back. Like, I remember the first, you know, we sent mailers and then it feeling like forever before we got a response back. And then we got one, and we just like— it was a, it was a counteroffer, and we like almost lost our minds. We were so excited. And we, uh, we called, we like reached out to our coach. We're like, we need to talk to you right now, it's an emergency, call us, call us, call us. And then we, you know, he's like, yeah, I don't, I don't think I would do this deal, it doesn't look bad.

Oh no.

And then, and then later we got one, right? And I bought 5 acres for $600, right? It was my first piece of real estate I'd ever purchased in my entire life. And so that was a moment, right? And then, um, and then you post, right? And, um, and then you're waiting for the sale, right? And And then when that happens, right, and you see the differential between what you purchased and what you sell for, like, that was a moment, right? And I think that the other thing too is just seeing other people succeed is helpful too, right? Because you, you, you have proof in the model. Like, so, so for me, you know, I'm learning alongside all these people, and all of us are kind of just starting to see these little wins crop up. And you might not have this one yet, but that person does, and so you know it's coming. So I think that was— I mean, that was it for me. And then, and then, you know, the— they just started stacking, and then as they started stacking, like, the level of confidence that we had just kind of grew bigger and bigger.

So I don't know. No, I, yeah, I love all that. I mean, what an amazing feeling to just do your first deal, right? And, you know, you're biting your nails a little bit because you're like, oh, I don't know if I'm doing it right, or I hope I'm doing this right. And, you know, you get that first recorded deed from the county. Well, they recorded it, I must have done something right. And you get that first money in your bank account, I must have done something right. Bryce, I think for me, I think where I knew I could do it for a living, because I think initially it was just a side hustle for me, but where I knew I could do it for a living, I think was when my passive income matched my— when my passive income from land matched my physical therapist salary. And that just made me realize that, hey, this is much more than a side hustle. I can, if I did it, if I grew it to that point, I can double it, I could triple it, you know what I mean? So that for me was, and that was about 2 years in, that was about 2 and a half years in, right? 2 and a half years of just being consistent, going to the gym, taking timeouts, dressing whatever injuries I had, and you know, keeping the why in mind. Um, so that, that's what it was for me. What about you, Mike?

Yeah, I think so. There was a point where I realized I could make money doing this, and, and it was very lucrative, and that was quick, right? Because I saw the return on the deals. And then I think it was probably a couple years in, like you said, that all of a sudden I was like, wait a minute, I'm a land investor. It's like kind of like, you know, I felt like maybe— I don't know, I don't know what it was, but I remember there was a moment where I was just like, man, I'm a land investor. I mean, I knew I was already making money. I was paying off my debt and doing all those things. So I knew I could do this in a way that made money. But then feeling like this is a rhythm that I was in that would continue and keep growing and keep going. I think that was a couple of years in to really just feel that seep into my— I feel it in your bones, as they say. Mm-hmm.

I love it. And you guys will all get there. You know, people that are watching on the call, there's people that are very new to this. There's people that have been doing it for a couple months. Scott Elliott, you're probably at 6 months now. Think of the growth that has occurred in 6 months in your land business, but also like professionally, maybe personally. I'm sure you've made great connections in our community 'cause the community is phenomenal. You've made some money in land. You're sitting on a land portfolio. And that's just what it takes. You just, you just got to keep pushing forward and those opportunities will continue to come. So, and that, and I love this community because we just see, you know, person after person after person doing well. So, so, and there's, they're sticking with it.

Um, lots of stick-to-itiveness.

Stick-to-itiveness. I wonder if anyone has ever played that in Scrabble. That's got to be one of the highest scoring words ever. So actually, that'd be very difficult.

Really? A word though? I know you say it, but of course it's a word. I'm gonna look it up.

Not like there's no dash. There's no dash in stick-to-itiveness, by the way. There's one word. No, no dash like portfolio-ist. Stick-to-itiveness, one word.

Be fine.

Really? You're both doubting me? Yes. Came up with this right now.

How do you spell it?

Stick-to-itiveness.

It's the informal American term for relentless perseverance, tenacity, and the steadfast determination to finish a task, project, or goal despite difficulties, boredom, or obstacles.

Look at that.

The habit of— yeah, there it is. Stick-to-itiveness.

Yeah, no, no dash. Oh, I got dashes.

No, I have to ask between the stick, the two, and the—

no, no, no, that's the pronunciation guide. That's the pronunciation guide in the dictionary.

No, Merriam-Webster.

No way.

Merriam-Webster.

I rest my cool about it though. It's a combination of grit and persistence.

I don't— I, I disagree. All right, I, I disconcur.

Dashes in Scrabble? Can you use dashes in Scrabble? I don't know. I don't play the game.

There are dashes in it.

You use an I and then you turn it sideways.

I see it without dashes and with dashes.

So I've used it in Scrabble without the dash. And does that mean you've, you've really not really won those games that you played against Aaron? I mean, this is a major turning point here.

Have you— that's like an impossible word in Scrabble, number one. And The jury's still out on the dashes. I don't necessarily believe— I'm gonna check this. All right, anyway, let's, let's, uh, let's move on, shall we? I like Rick's question here. And Rick, I'm not sure if you're talking about, um, with sellers or buyers, but let's touch on a couple ways. What are some ways we can build credibility? How do you do that? I think you're the only one that gets to do that.

I think credibility starts with the very first person you interact with in your land business and carries forward from that point, no matter who it is. When you say what you're going to do and you do what you say, you know, whatever, you just follow through. The first person who's going to sell you a property and you talk to them and you tell them how the process is going to go and you just stick to it— not ifness— you stick to it and you follow through, that builds credibility. When the first person buys from you, you explain the process and you stick to that. I think people see that you are someone who does what you say you're going to do or says what you're going— how does that work? Goes both ways, right? Um, I think that's where it comes from, truly. And I think that that's why you can have it out of the gate, because you can tell people, you know, Scott, hey, this is my first property I'm buying or selling, whatever it might be. Um, I, I might make some mistakes for sure, but I'm excited to work with you, and I promise that I will follow through and stay communicated. If I say I'm going to do something, I will do it. And I just hope when it's done that you'll feel like— so, you know, you'll feel that, that you'll be willing to— next time somebody wants to say, hey, have you ever done this before? You have a reference that maybe I could use you, would that be okay? And I think that's very transparent and very honest. And I think that's, that's real.

I love that. Comes from the first interaction with somebody. You're— with honesty and transparency comes credibility. Whoa.

That's what I like. How it comes responsibility. Is that like a Spider-Man thing?

It's like a Spider-Man slash Yoda. Next time I'll Yoda— I'll Yoda— Yoda-ize it. That has a dash in it. Yoda-ize. Yoda-ize.

By the way, do you have any good Star Wars takes, uh, you know, backstories, anything coming out? It's kind of missing out on that. Anything, anything new on the— in the, uh, near future?

I mean, we got a major motion picture coming out in May. The Mandalorian and Grogu is coming out in May. So that's a plus.

Mandalorian, I hope they're not going to change them.

No, it's the same Mandalorian. All right, yeah, that's the next, uh, and also the Darth Maul, uh, cartoons coming out, which should be pretty good.

You like these Star Wars cartoon things?

Yeah, there's some pretty amazing storylines there. There actually are. You have to be a die— that's me— diehard fan, diehard Star Wars fan to watch, uh, the cartoons, but The Clone Wars and Rebels. Pretty good.

Pretty, pretty good. Okay.

Let's go to John though. John, you want to talk a little bit about credibility?

Oh, yes. I wasn't sure if it was Star Wars or credibility. Credibility.

Credibility for 500.

So yeah, I think with credibility, it's important to just be yourself. And like, you don't need to try to be somebody else. Right? Don't put on airs and try to be like this amazing salesperson, and, you know, just be yourself. I, I think that one of the, one of the, uh, tricks that I used a lot, um, that helped a lot with credibility was, um, I would give people a no. And when you are coming out the gate and not just being like, what is it that you want? Whatever it is, this is the perfect property for it, right? And so I would come out with a no, and I'd say like, hey, if you want to do— like, uh, there were these properties I had, and you couldn't, um, couldn't have pigs. Not many people want pigs. But if I was just like, you know, there's some restrictions with regards to animals, you can't do pigs, but you know, you could do, you know, uh, some goats, some chickens, right? You could do— and so you talk about stuff like that, and the fact that you just said a no, right, that you narrowed the scope of the property, not a fit for everybody, um, I think it really helped me build some, build some credibility. And then, yeah, I think just, just when I stopped trying to be Mr. Amazing Saleperson and then I just tried to be myself, you know, I tried really hard, um, it started to work out a lot better for I love all that.

I mean, there's a theme here. There's a theme with what Mike said and what John said. And I think some authenticity, right, with your interactions with people. And we interact with people on when we buy land. And when we sell land, we interact with the counties. You know, I think there are ways to establish credibility also, the longer you've been doing this, Rick. So You know, when you get your first sale, ask for a review, right? Ask for an honest review, uh, and, you know, maybe, maybe think about how you're going to house that review. There's different ways. You can have a Facebook business page and get reviews on there. You can have a Google Reviews page and get reviews there. You get a video testimonial from somebody, uh, you know, Mark had a video testimonial of a guy that I think he still has on his website back from, you know, 2010, something like that. So testimonials are great as well to help with credibility, I think. So awesome. Mike, what are you looking at?

I was just prepping something. I'm ready to watch. I'm ready to watch.

He's watching TV.

We got the Harrison Ford speech. We're on script.

What's that? Anyway, yes, I got—

oh, you got the speech prepped?

I got it prepped.

Okay, you got to watch the whole thing too. It's actually— I, I recommend the Harrison Ford acceptance speech to everyone on the call today, um, especially if you're a Gen Xer. John, what are you? You're kind of on the bridge, aren't you?

I don't know, I'm a millennial.

Yeah, you're a millennial for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, awesome. Very cool. Well, this is— so we got another great question, uh, and, and to me, um, yeah, let's just talk about this because, because I think it's very important. Mailing, uh, from Westman Tooth: mailing is 93 cents a pop. Do we just swallow the cost, or do we try to strategically build our list, or just mail to everyone in the area from our sample list? So let's talk mailing for a few minutes. Let's talk, you know, mailing's a little more expensive than it used to be, but to me there's a mailing mindset, and I think that we need to look at it. And Mark said this to me early on, it just kind of struck a chord: we make money when we mail, right? So have that mindset. And when we get to know an area we should be buying one property for every 200 mailers. Sometimes it's better than that. So if I send out 1,000 mailers, I should be able to buy 5 properties, right? At worst. A lot of times it's better than that. So if I can buy 5 properties, and when I turn around and sell those properties, maybe I wholesale one. If I wholesale one, that's going to cover all my mailing costs. If I get a retail cash deal, the mailing costs are wiped away. If I sell a couple of them on owner financing, really the mailing costs are wiped away, right? So I think it's a mindset thing with mailing. I understand when I hear people say mailing is expensive, but that's where the deals occur. So that's why we always recommend to people, don't stop mailing, right? Don't stop mailing, especially if You know, Mike, you're right. Yeah, especially, especially—

why are you picking on me?

I don't know, I don't— I feel like you're not hearing me tonight.

Yeah, you're wholesaling, get your money back on a mailer. I'm right with you.

Talk to me, talk to me about mailing.

I'm right with you, Scott. No, I think that consistent mailing brings deal flow. So yeah, you know, yeah, I think it's not But matter of— to me, swallowing the cost is embracing the, uh, the investment to get deals. You know, that's what it is. And, uh, the reality is, though, a lot of these areas we mail, we might uncover one owner that has— you know, this happens several times a year— 5 properties, 3 properties, 10, 20. It depends where you're mailing, right? So that's the X factor we don't talk about. But you're not going to get there unless you're consistently out, you know, reaching out to the people.

Yeah, I think also, John, I think when you think of it like, okay, this is just an operating expense of my business, right? That's, that's another mindset hack, I think, with mailing. In any business you have costs, and this is one of them. But what are your thoughts?

I think that, um, I think, yeah, absolutely, like you do need to just consider it one of your business costs. The moment you stop kneeling, it's like, I guess we go, I don't know, going back to the working out metaphor. It's like, I don't know, you stop some very important workout. And then I don't know, I don't know how to carry this metaphor. I'm not— don't do it.

You stop going to the gym, you literally stop going to the gym. And You know, Jim, you know, there's a membership fee, and there's a, there's a fee for your, there's a cost of your time and your efforts. And maybe there's a cost for, you know, eating a bit healthier. But all of this stuff does end up with the result you're looking for if you stick to it.

Yeah. But I do think that, like Wes has, there's another question kind of built into this, which is, how much do we fine-tune our list? And I do think that that's worth doing, right? Like, because if you think about it, if you're spending 93 cents a letter and there's an area that you really want property, right? And then you don't like— so if you think about a county, right? And, you know, like one of the core counties I work, tens of thousands of properties I'm interested in buying, but there are also tens of thousands of properties I have no interest in buying, right? And so for me to go in and, and Zillow allows you to do this, you can draw a little map or a little, uh, circle or polygon, polygon around the area that you want properties, and you can filter within that area. And what that does is it saves you money because you're not sending mailers to those properties that you don't want. So I think it's important to take action, so you don't need to overthink it too much. But at the same time, like, if you can fine-tune your list and get it to just those people that you really want to work, I do think it's a worthwhile endeavor.

I concur.

Concur. I didn't even fish for it. And even in mailing, we need injury timeouts, right? Common, common theme of tonight's call. We need to take timeouts every now and then because—

and it's elbow and mailing.

You can get tennis elbow mailing. Why? Because, you know, if you send out 1,000 and you get no bites, that hurts.

Yeah.

So, so for the next mailing, we, we got to take a timeout. We got to reassess what we're doing here. We got to change our ergonomics, right?

Uh, just imagine you're like throwing mail into your post box like this. Uh, yes.

I actually do it, I do it this way. Ouch. I guess I don't, I don't do it that way. Um, all right, awesome. So hopefully that's helpful. Uh, well, and here's another thing, like maybe you're feeling the squeeze in the bank account, you know, maybe, maybe, I don't know, maybe you have a little bit less this month to mail than you want. Try not to stop mailing. I think if you have to decrease the number of mailings, maybe do that. But another way of acquiring property without the mailing costs and a way to acquire property really quickly is a Landarb property, right?

Yeah.

So consider Landarb to boost your inventory as well.

So thinking about our working out metaphor, I want to string this out as far as it can possibly go.

Work it out, work it out, work out the workout metaphor.

So let's say that you had an injury. And you had been— let's say you were running, running, running, running every single day. Right? And then you got an injury. And you're like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna sit, I'm gonna sit down for 2 months. Right? It's a lot worse than if you were walking. Am I right, Mr. Physical Therapist?

You are correct. Well, I mean, you first alluded to the fact that you have an overuse injury. That happens in businesses. You're doing something, you're doing too much of one thing and, you know, kind of not changing it up and you might have an overuse injury and then you need to take a timeout, reassess. What are we going to do to get better here? But you're exactly right, John. People with back pain, for instance, the old way of dealing with back pain was bed rest. What we, what we are, what we found down the line was that bed rest is one of the worst things you can do for back pain. You need relative rest, right? So you need to avoid the things that hurt, but you still need to be active. So don't be on bed rest. Just take short walks here and there. Do a little bit of this, a little bit of this, a little bit of this. Don't do one, one thing for too long. And that's, that's also true in the land business. You need to take, you know, you need relative rest. So, so back off doing one thing and do a little bit more of another thing to get better. And that's what I love about this business, there's different ways you can pivot, right? So if the mailing funds are down, consider buying Land Bird, right? But yeah, good point. That was a good analogy.

Very good. Yes. Listen, for a potpourri session, I think we did pretty good here.

We did pretty good for potpourri session, yes. We got 3 minutes left. Let's see what other questions we have real quick. Mike, well, that's a great comment. Mike Caviey got a counteroffer for $80,000 from a $900 offer. That happens.

Did you say yes?

I would call him.

I could call him.

Okay, so just double-check, you're looking for $80,000?

Oh, this is a great, okay, great question from Corey Melton. Corey Melton, let's end it on this. And I know we got other questions we didn't get to, but this is pretty good. I mean, at what point do I stop buying land? I have one week left of flight school and I currently own 26 properties with no sales in 4 months. All right, so Corey, you've built a really amazing land portfolio. Now, what I would encourage you to remember is that if you bought these at a good price, 25, 30 cents on the dollar, you're sitting on a very valuable portfolio. But Mike Zaino, what would you do? We gotta move some of these things, right?

Yeah, I'd be looking at, while you're advertising them to sell retail, I would look at wholesale. I think in the beginning, to me, moving the property any way you can is a win, just to build momentum. So, you know, uh, I guarantee you can move a lot of those. And I know that might not be the ultimate goal that you have, and, and I think it also would— I would factor in how much capital you have left. If you're running out of capital, then I would look at wholesale to get that moving. But if you still have a lot of capital and you're buying these at a good discount, then I would keep buying because you are building a solid portfolio and they are all going to sell.

And I would, I would maybe ask a question. So if you have 26 properties, uh, Corey, what's the marketing look like? Okay, um, I just, I think of our business and we've actually had a string of sales here the last couple weeks. And, uh, don't forget that, you know, you got to mail everybody, you got to mail every day, but you got to market every day. Right? So are you casting the net far and wide enough with your marketing? Are you on multiple platforms— Facebook, Craigslist, maybe a land selling website? Are you hitting your buyers list every week? You may only have 10 people on your buyers list, it doesn't matter, right? Um, are you hitting the Facebook group enough? You might go in there one time and say, I have properties for wholesale, and wait a few weeks. Go in there again.

Right.

Mike's got his hot dog cart analogy. Mike, you should share that. Let's share it. Let's stop it. Let's, after you share your hot dog cart analogy, we'll call it a night. We're talking about marketing.

Well, it wasn't really just a hot dog cart. So basically, we have a, we have a parade here every year. It's a Santa parade, which is Santa Claus, Scott Claus parade. And, you know, maybe it's several miles long, 3 miles long. And we have these people, maybe you've all seen these, John, have you seen them in your town? They push the cart inside the cart,— they— it's a cart they probably stole from the local grocery store. They have all these stale popcorn bags, balloons, things that make awful noises, stale pretzels that they have fire up with a torch, you know. And they're like, popcorns, pretzels, and like, you know, people trying to shield their kids from them. You know, I don't want to buy. But if they were to walk like 100 yards down, they'd sell very little. But what they do is they walk all the way down to one side of the parade and then all the way back, and they just slowly wear the people down where the people like, fine, get the kid the pretzel, get them the stale popcorn. And they sell all this stuff because of their, their grit, their stick-to-itiveness. They walk that route back and forth and back and forth, and it's right there in everybody's face, and they sell them all. So I think that's what marketing needs to be. It needs to be something that you walk that— the nice thing about the land investing is you don't have to push the cart. You'd have somebody else— if it was land investing, somebody else would be pushing the cart if somebody else would be doing all of that, right? But the reality is you need to have that sort of consistency to get it done.

I love it, man. Thank you. I love that analogy. And let's end on a win, shall we?

Yes.

Aaron Prescott got a win. Let's turn it into some land acquisition here. But they got an email for an accepted offer and the guy just happens to have 6 parcels. What were you talking about, Mike, just a minute ago?

That's it. It's like, it's like, here's what I think is a good analogy. You might laugh at this, but it's like my wife and I like to play Mario Kart. You'll play Mario Kart?

Yeah.

So you go around, you know, and then what happens is you're racing, but every so often you get like this, I don't know, what is those little boxes, and you get something. All of a sudden you go hyper speed and you're like passing everybody. That's what happens when you get somebody who has multiple properties. You get that momentum in your business, like a momentum boost. But there are times too where something comes at you, like when Laura shoots those little things at me and hits my car and rolls it like this by me. And haha, you know, there she goes. But that's, that's gonna happen. Those are the dips, right? But you get right back on and you drive. And either way, the nice thing is you're not trying to beat somebody else. You're going to finish this course, right, which is building your land business. But there's going to be moments where you get on an oil slick. There's going to be moments where, uh, you know, but you get momentum build because you hit multiple deals. But, you know, you're going to finish as long as you don't just put the controller down and walk away. You're going to finish this. So I think it's just, you know, sometimes we get these boosts and they're really awesome, like these 6 properties.

Only Mike Zaino can equate land investing to Mario Kart. I love it. It's a great analogy.

Great.

It's not a good analogy, it's a great analogy. All right guys, well, this was fun. The Land Investing Potpourri covered a lot of topics tonight. Um, we'll be back next week, maybe with a topic, maybe not. I mean, it went so well tonight, maybe we just, you know, we do the potpourri every time.

Good night. Topic: drift.

The topic is drift. Yes. All right, everybody, well, we'll see if we have an outro. We didn't have an intro, apologize for that. Uh, we had some technical difficulties. I saw a few comments in the chat, these guys are running late, we're sorry, we'll try not to be late next week, but we were having technical difficulties, so— but we showed up.

Yeah, right.

All right, guys, have a good night.

Nice seeing you guys.

Thanks for joining. Talk to you soon.

Bye-bye.