What Are The Biggest Mistakes In Marketing?

Hey, it's Mark Pulski, the Land Geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on this week's Roundtable podcast, we have almost all the usual suspects. We've got the Zen master, Breathe in, the mailing, Breathe out. The marketing, Mike Zano. Mike, how are you doing?

Great. Thank you for asking.

Good to see you. We've got the technician, Eric Peterson, without a big ribbon in his mouth. Eric, good to see you.

Likewise, Mark. Happy to be here.

I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate Litchfield, how are you doing?

Really well, thanks.

Be nice to look over your shoulder. Lots. Go to landgeek.com lots. Check out how Tate works. Last but not least, the brain, the professor, your flight school sherpa, Scott Todd from scotttodd.net, landmoto.com learn anything about anything. Investor ninjas.com Scott Todd. How are you?

Mark, I'm confused again. Well, you see, every time you do a podcast, you say www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm just wondering, like, do you have to do the www or can you just do landgeek.com?

Couldn'T we just Google Land Geek, too?

I mean, isn't there. I mean, shouldn't you just be saying HTTPs://www.thelandgeek.com? i'm great, Mark. How are you?

Okay, so find me on the Internet. How about you just say that?

I do think it is a valid point, and I think this goes back to the power of habit, because it's just a habit now. And I remember thinking, I'm going to change this up. But I think there's something about the consistency of the same intro, pretty close to the same outro that the listeners find comforting, like a warm weighted blanket.

Right?

So I do it that way.

But do, you know, Look, I don't want you to change it, but do you know why I did that? You know I did that, Mark.

Why?

Because we get in. We get into patterns. We get into our patterns and we just. We just do things and we become, like you said, becomes a habit, right? Like, it's just something that we do. And a lot of times I think that, and this is kind of our topic today, I believe, is really, like, we get into these patterns to where we think some way or we think something. Yet we don't necessarily change things in order to try new things. And in marketing, we see this a lot. And, like, I think that's what our topic is today. Like, what are some of the Mistakes that we see in marketing.

Yeah, that is the topic today, and I think it'd be great to just start with the zen master, Mike Zaino. What are the biggest mistakes you see in marketing? I can imagine when you're on a coaching or consulting call, like, you know, I'll just do it in a Boston accent, because I just assume they always try to do that when they talk to you. Mike, My property's not selling. I'm wicked smart. I'm putting it out on land Moto. How come no one's buying it, Mike?

Well.

Oh, my gosh, that was great.

You're getting better.

So.

Well, I'm gonna. Yes, I do run into that in the calls, but I'm gonna go back to something that happens a lot of boot camp. When we would do the pricing, Remember, we would give them a property that they would buy, and then they would work together to sell it. Inevitably, it would be like, okay, the purchase price is like $2,000 or 3,000, but they'd be like, okay, we're gonna get five, $500 down. We're going to have $500 a month. We're gonna have a $500 dog fee. And they get all excited because they look it. You get all our money out in the first payment, the first month, and they get all excited. And what they don't take into account is the reality of what's going on in the market, right? So it's their expectations of what should. What would be a great return, right. What would, you know, what they want versus what will sell. So I think the biggest benefit about, you know, we buy these properties 25 cents on the dollar. That's great. But the real reason they sell is because we give these crazy payments that people can't. They're like, what, a hundred dollars a month? What, $200 a month? That's all. No credit check. That's crazy. And so it's like, how low can you make that but still have a great return or great yield or whatever metric you use? And that's what you got to look at. Not at like, hey, let me just get it all out on the first payment. I mean, that does happen to all of us at times, but it's not the normal thing. I wouldn't say. Right. I think that normally we're just. We're just plug and play. We have simple a model of we buy at one price, we get a nice down payment, we get a nice dog fee, and boom, we roll it. But we don't expect to get it all at once. And I think that that could be something that hinders somebody in the beginning with marketing as they expectations.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I can imagine if you've been listening to the podcast, but you've never gone out and marketed your own property, and you hear my voice saying, you know, 300 to a thousand percent returns and it's not moving well, is anyone. You're gonna get mad if it's 150% return, 200% return, like something has to change to move that. That property. Tate Litchfield, what are some of the biggest mistakes you see in your coaching clients when they're doing their marketing?

Yeah, I mean, Mike talked about making it irresistible, Right. You got to make these irresistible. I think the other one that he talked about was the numbers. It's the same reason your mailing doesn't work. Your numbers are wrong. If it's not selling well, your numbers are wrong. The market's telling you that your numbers are wrong. The other thing that prevents people from having good success is just they think that one is going to be enough. Oh, I sent it out to my buyers list one time, and nobody wanted it. What, only once? And how many times did you have to go test drive a vehicle before you pulled the trigger and bought it? I'm guessing more than once. Right. These things are expensive purchases for a lot of people, and most people need time to think on it. They want to talk it over. They want to make sure it's right for them, fits their needs. And so the other reason property doesn't sell is you don't give the buyer sufficient time to make that decision.

Right.

You got to follow up with them. There is a little bit of stocking that goes into the process of sales, and that's a big deal. So marketing can fail on a lot of different levels. But if it's not irresistible and your numbers aren't right, you've just become a land collector.

There you go. There you go. Technician Eric Peterson. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see your clients making on these coaching calls?

I want to talk about the deal of the week for a minute. So we talk about the power of the buyers list and, you know, owning those email addresses. And I think that, you know, the mistakes I see in the deal of the week, first and foremost is your subject line or your headline of that deal. If you're not being creative, if you're not interrupting the email box with something different, it's going to get ignored, you know, and if it gets ignored, that means it's not going to get opened and you've lost the chance to sell that property. So that's, that's the number one part of your deal of the week is having a very strong and powerful subject line after that, you know, I mean, it's, it's all those common things we talk about in marketing.

Right.

It's the urgency. So are you going to put a countdown timer on your deal of the week? I certainly think you should. And you should probably have it on that page more than once. You know, is the offer irresistible as everyone else was already talking about? So, you know, is that because it's a low down payment or you're cutting a doc fee or you're doing something to make it attractive? Are you anchoring it to something else? Whether it's your previous pricing or something else out there on the market so that people can quickly see without having to do a ton of research, hey, this is a great deal. I better take action because that countdown timer is ticking away.

Right.

And another common thing I see is, you know, our students will just, they'll put just a single down payment button in that deal of the week. And I like to see it multiple places. If you think about, you know, a landing page that's maybe selling some kind of product, you're going to see that purchase button like 10 times through the page as you're scrolling through. And I think we need to follow the same model in our deal of the week, especially if we're using landing pages. So those are some of the common things that I see in the deal of the week that can get overlooked.

Yeah, I mean, you really hit like all the salient points that I think all of us see. Far as, you know, what makes marketing effective, what makes it ineffective. You've got to have a really great headline. There needs to be scarcity. And like you said, the deal of the week, that timer there needs to be urgency, first come, first served. But you know, we don't talk enough about that anchor. You know, showing them taking a screenshot of this is what other people are selling that property for, or even just anchoring it from your own discount, you know, crossing a line out of it. They can't unsee it. Two of my favorite words in market here, instant equity. Instant equity. That's how good the deal is. That is that you're getting. So all those points are really good. And the reason I am going on and on about this, Eric, is I literally think that you've left nothing else for Scott Todd to touch upon with mistakes in marketing and the Challenge. Now for Scott to try to formulate something is just gonna be phenomenal for me. Scott. Todd, do you have anything else to add?

Do we have to add anything else? I mean, you know, like, can we just call it.

We could, but. But I, you know, but, you know, in all seriousness, though, like, what you did bring up in the beginning, I think is really, really critical, where you have to be flexible with your marketing. Like, I can't rigidly think just because I say WWW every single time that's going to be effective. Because if I look at my analytics on the podcast and see we're losing listeners, something has to change, the format has to change. Right? And so I do like that point of just flexibility with marketing. So I even took another one of your points. Now, what else do you have to add?

Yeah, so, like, here's a. Here's the thing is, as you're going through your marketing, one of the mistakes I think people make is that they. They think, okay, well, I have to do a deal of the week. Okay, okay. Like, we talk about the deal of the week all the time. There's nothing saying there can't be a deal of the day. Think about that one for a minute, right? Like, we put these artificial time horizons or these expectations, and you might say, well, Scott, that's fantastic, man. The deal of the day. I have one property. How am I supposed to do this? I got two properties. How am I supposed to do this? Well, guess what? You see, the thing is, the reality is, is that you're making assumptions, just like Mark was making is making assumptions that everybody needs the WWW without any evidence of it. So essentially, you're making an assumption that people are reading your email and they're like virtually just hitting delete, delete, and then they're deleting it. And that is not always the case. Right. If you have. It's cool to me. Like, if you have a. An email service provider that allows you to look at the clicks, go back and look at how many times someone clicks on an email.

Okay.

Like, they might click on it five, six, seven, eight, nine times. Okay, so now let's tie in what Tate said. A little bit of stalking there. If you see someone that is clicking on an email 5, 6, 7, 8 plus times, there's something there. They have some sort. It's not a fluke. So now could you email them directly and say, hey, I just wanted to send you a note. If you have questions about this property, call me or text me. Now you're stalking them in a way Using the analytics and you're doing what Tate said, but now you're driving the conversation. Now you're pushing them a little bit. So you're using that piece. Let's also talk about go down the same path to deal the day or deal every other day, whatever it is. Just because you have the same property doesn't mean that you have to. Now give them. We're going to tell Eric's thing with the town. The countdown timer, right? There's nothing saying that the countdown timer has to be multiple days. It can be one day, can be till midnight tonight, and then tomorrow, it's no doc fee. Tomorrow, the next day it could be, name your down payment. The next day it could be, name your total purchase price, name your terms, half doc fee. There's so many variations in there. And again, if you're thinking this through every time you're hitting them with that message, it should change. Okay, now let's go back to the subject line. Eric talked about the subject line. So what should change in the subject line?

Well, who.

Who are you writing this ad to? Remember, there's four reasons why people buy land. Which of the four are you targeting right now? And then change it tomorrow. Change it to the next group. Go after horseback riders the next day. Go after ATV riders the next day. Go after hunters, someone that wants to build their dream property. You can rotate the message through the subject line to get a different deal of the week, a different deal of the day on the exact same property. And my favorite, just kind of clenching this is is Larry Overstreet. Larry Overstreet. He started coaching. He's telling me, I got this one property and I don't know what to do with it. I'm like, have you sent to your. Your list yet? Your buyers list? He's like, well, I got one guy on my buyers list, and, you know, he's already seen the property. He wasn't interested in it. I might send it anyway. He doesn't know he's the only one on the list. So he sends the deal of the week again. Guess what? They buy it. They buy it. So all of a sudden, when you can create urgency or when you kind of admit this deal might not have been there or what Mike said I'm asking too much on the down payment or the total purchase price every day. You can tweak something and you know you can do it in a way that you can change the down payment and still sell it for a good amount of money. Just tweak the down payment a little.

Bit.

If you need to tweak the months, tweak things every day to start tweaking if you want to do a deal today.

How's that work? That was amazing. That was amazing. And the thing I want to bring up as well is you're not the market. And just to Mike's point, just because you might need cash doesn't mean that property is going to sell for cash. You've got to be flexible. You've got to give the market what it wants and take all these things into account with your marketing and then have that Eric Peterson intensity. Think of yourself as like a little mini Geico. They're showing up all the time. 15 minutes can what? We can all finish that sentence because they show up so consistently and so creatively, we don't have to have a billion dollar marketing budget to do the same thing. To Scott Todd's point, you could email them three times a day and when they're ready, you are there. The marketing needs to be consistent. It needs to be irresistible. You've got to be, you know, just showing up. What's that Groucho Marx quote? 80% of success is just showing up. Is that right? You've got to show up, but do it consistently. And if you're gonna show up consistently, take a little bit of time and do it effectively. Have all those elements in your marketing that make it an effective ad, like what Eric talked about. A strong headline, a strong call to action, scarcity, urgency, put in those countdown timers. I know Tate said some very important things too. I just don't remember them because I'm getting old. So, Tate, don't think I'm ignoring your points.

It's all right. It's okay.

Hey, Mark, it's www.geico.com.

Anyways, I think it was a really good topic. And so now we're at that point where we're going to ask Eric for the tip of the week. But before we get that tip of the week, I just want to let the listeners know that today's podcast is sponsored by Flight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally transform your life. Go up that mountain of land, investing with someone who's done it thousands of times with Scott Todd. Go up there quickly, safely, efficiently. Because once your passive income exceeds your fixed expenses, you're working because you want to, not because you have to. Solve not just your money problems in life. Solve your money and your time problems. Live intentionally, live mindfully. Do the things you really want to do in life purposefully, and let us help you do that and create that vehicle so you can move up Maslow's hierarchy of needs into self actualization. The first, most important step in doing this is just get on a call, go to thelandgeek.com training thelandgeek.com training and as I like to say, the tuition isn't going to cost you anything for flight school. You're going to make it back 180 days less in cash or term sales, guaranteed. Just show us your work. That's it. All right, Eric Peterson, what is your tip of the week mark?

I think you're gonna like this one. Now, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with land. However, I think that we have a nice holiday weekend coming up here, and it's likely that people might have some downtime. So with that in mind, on Audible today, Ready Player two was released. So go grab it, take a listen. If you haven't listened to Ready Player one, you got to start there. But yeah, there you go.

That might be one of the best tips of the week of all time. I gotta give Scott Todd some credit. I think he's the one that introduced us to Ready Player one, which at that time was like the best book I had read in a long, long time. This is really exciting. What are the reviews, Eric?

I don't know.

Looks like there's only 34 ratings. Four and a half out of five stars.

Okay, that's solid.

I started listening this morning. So how is kind of picks up right where it left off?

No way.

Yeah.

Wow. All right. That is a great tip of the week. I'm excited. Let's talk about gratitude, right? So grateful, you know? Amazing. What a time to live, too. We can just listen to a podcast and like in a tap, download a book and listen to it. Have somebody professionally even read it to you. It's amazing. What an amazing time to be alive. Anyways, I want to thank the listeners, remind them that the only way that Mike Zano is going to continue coming on this podcast with his fake box Boston accent is if you do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, you got to rate. Review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to support thelandgeek.com going to send you the $97 wholetailing course, how to double your money 30 days or less for free. Please do it. Plus, Mike can always use the ego boost as well. So it helps us. It just does. Right, Mike?

Not gonna disagree.

All right, let's do this. One, two, three. Let freedom ring. And don't overeat on Thanksgiving? No, Thanksgiving is already. By the time this comes out, we've already had our Thanksgivings.

True.

So, man, I don't know what I have to do to get Tate to send me some fried turkey, but whatever it takes.

Deep fried turkey.

Deep fried turkey, man.

Maybe you could just write it down to him, Tate.

Gonna be good weather down there, but I don't know, is Arizona all gross and infected right now? Aren't you guys surging?

We're surging. We're definitely surging.

So are we. But if you ask nicely, I'll still.

Bring you some loose slang word.

You're surgeon. Oh, man.

Wouldn't know what that meant a year ago.

So, Mike, are you solid now on your computer purchase?

Yeah, well, sorta. So now my options are I go for the monitor and plug in my portable surface, which I love, or I go for the new. Where is it?

I have an M1.

The M1 chip, which sounds kind of cool. I got some credible feedback prior to the recording and it was some good therapy on tech purchases. I liked it.

I was really surprised to hear Scott endorse the M1 chips so highly. I mean, when he came out and said, it's a no brainer, you need to buy that computer, honestly, I was a little shocked. But hey, he's tired of throwing good money after bad. I'm sure he is back in the fold.

I never said that. I never said what you're claiming. What is your name? Tate Giuliani. No way. Okay, no, no, stop, stop. All right? No way, no way.

He was actually just being authentic. He was looking up on me. I could have went out and bought the service, but he was saying that, Mike, you should get. You know, they're probably gonna have a new one soon. You're probably gonna wait for that one. So I thought he was just being authentic. Myself.

Yeah.

And what I said was that I did like. And I do like The. The. The MacBook Air and Pro. I like those. I like the chip. I like the reviews I've seen. However, what I said, I didn't say it was a no brainer. Never said that.

I remember it.

No, I have it on recording, Mark. I record everything. Tate, don't make me do that. Okay.

Whatever helps you sleep at night. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Okay. All right. I'm going to let you off the hook. Kindler, gentler. Scott. But see, then what I said was, if your use case, you need a Mac, great. Use it for me. The Mac does not work for what I need.

It.

The Surface Studio is perfect. And I will continue down that even though I tried, I tried to figure it out, just because I'm always about the best technology. And let me just say something. This Surface Studio that I use has been rock solid for two years. And when the Surface Studio 3 comes out, I will get it, and I will take this beautiful device and move it over there and force my wife to use it where she works today on a MacBook Pro. Bro.

Does she want to use it?

I mean, because she likes to touch the screen.

Yeah.

That is cool.

It's all about the right tool for the job.

That's true. That's all right. He's got a. He's got a point tape. We'll give it to him.

Yeah, that's fine. I mean, Thanksgiving.

That's why I was saying especially Thanksgiving, because everybody just sort of calmed down and gelled together. I said, yeah. All agree. You hear that? That was pretty cool.

I don't think. I don't think Eric's agreeing.

But wait a minute now. Wait a second. Hold on. Now that I'm thinking about this. Now that I'm thinking about this. One week later. Scott Bossman's not on this call, but he was supposed to send me a picture of Mike Zano mocking me. Mocking me.

How does this even come up right now?

On. What is it? Oh.

Oh, the Halloween night cap.

That. Wasn't that the highest form of praise when you impersonate somebody?

I need to go back and watch this.

I think it's been deleted from the archives by accident.

Oh, it has not been deleted. I think we actually pushed that thing up.

I will. I will. I will go search that, and I will make my computer recommendation to Mike Zano shortly.

But what happened to kind of the gentle Scott? You just said that five minutes ago.

Yeah, until I. Until, like, until I remembered what Boston said.

Oh, I'm always catching the wrath.

Blame Boston, by the way. Such he loves stirring that pot.

Mark called him out on it, too.

I did.

Calling you stirring the pot.

Exactly. Exactly. All right, well, you guys have a great rest of your day. And by the time I see you next week, I personally am hoping that I'm unrecognizable, looking like Elvis right before he died. I'm gonna get, like, one of those big belt buckles. You know what I mean? I mean, just Tate's deep fried turkey. You know, I'm gonna try to eat, like, two racks of ribs. Get a little Eric Peterson in there. You know, some. Some Thanksgiving kibbe for Zano. Something cheesy for bossman and for Scott, Todd, you know, a Diet Coke or a donut. Simple. Okay. It's that easy.

I see what we're doing here.

Are you still doing that, by the way, Scott? Are you still doing the donut in the morning? Or is it more off to another treat or.

No, no. Every morning, man. Every morning I get my. My donut.

Don't you want to, you know, switch it up like the www? Don't you want to, like, have a cookie?

No.

It's always the same donut.

This is why Scott's successful. He's a man of routine.

Routine, right.

It's, like, consistent. He's gonna mail every day. Doesn't matter what day of the week it is.

Mark, there's not no better feeling in the morning. Like, at night, going to bed when you know that the. The next morning you're going to be treated with a donut.

Okay?

Like, there's no better feeling than that.

Well, that. That. That is true. So we had a little pause there, because Eric was kind enough to send Scott a screenshot of what that night cap.

How. Like, what is this, Eric Peterson?

And now we better end.

We better.

We better end before it gets ugly and. And the children can't listen to the podcast anymore. Thanks, everybody.

I had to go look at it. I hadn't seen it.