What Kind of Business is the Land Investing Business?

Hey, it's Mark Podolski. The Land Geek is your favorite niche real estate website.

The Land.

Com. This week's topic is what business are we really in? And so oftentimes you'll start a business and you'll think, oh, this is my business. And then you realize later, wait, no, there's this constraint. And based on this constraint, this is really the business. We have almost all the usual suspects. For this week's podcast, we've got Kirk. No nickname parrot yet. Kirk, how are you?

I'm good, Mark, how are you doing?

Good to see you. Good to see you again, dude. Buddy, the Nightcap OG Scott. Boston Scott. How are things?

Things are going well, Mark, thank you.

Good to see you. We've got Landon, the aquatic investor. AI Harris. Landon, how are you?

Well, biting off the gray.

Right off the gray. Nice. And last but not least, I love it when you call me Big Papa. Hey, Litchfield Tate, how are things in Sin City? Doing well?

Yeah, things are good. It's hot, man. It's really hot.

All right, well, we've got an interesting topic. What business are we really in? So here's example. Say that you're a law firm, and you start off your law firm and you think, I'm in the business of providing legal services. And then you realize in time, as you start to grow your law firm, like, no, that's not the business I'm in. The real business I'm in is I'm in the business of retaining top legal talent. And the focus is really on recruiting, retaining, creating a structure. That's why most law firms are limited liability partnerships. Because they have partnerships. Because if they don't have. If you're. If your law firm doesn't have equity for these partners, they'll just take clients and they'll go and leave and do their own thing. So the real constraint to growing a law firm is attracting. Retaining legal talent. So for the land business, what is our business? When we first start, we think our business is buying and selling raw land. So we're always talking about the M M's. It's mailing and marketing. But as you grow, you start to learn. Okay, there's a new constraint here. And really, I'm in the business of blank. So, Kirk Pard, what is the real business we're in? What is our constraint as we grow, as we scale?

Yeah, this is a really, really awesome and interesting subject because I've been thinking about this a lot too, actually, and I think about the journey, right? So when I started the land business, I Definitely feel like I was in the acquisition business. It was all about getting the product, couldn't have it, right? So it was, it was acquiring the land. Now a few years later, I really feel like I am in the automation and marketing business. I really am working hard to automate as many systems as possible, and that's automation with people as well. So it's people plus systems so that we can do the thing of telling everybody we got land to sell, put that in front of as many people as possible, and let the machine do the rest of the work.

I love it. I love it. The automation and marketing business. Fantastic. Well, dude, buddy, madcap, OG what, what's. What's your business? What's the constraint?

The constraint? Well, so as we mentioned earlier, I think every business has phases, right? And I look back to when I first started this and I would say my business was about survival. Like trying to survive my day with working 50 hours a week, trying to grow a business, trying to keep food on the table for four boys. And each land deal, man felt like, oh, it's just taking a little bit of pressure off me this month. Maybe a little bit more off this month. Right. And that, that survival phase is what kept me going the first year. Right. And it was my burning desire for keeping going. And it's interesting because I've been doing this almost nine years now and it has definitely transitioned. Right. I look at the, from one extreme, the other, I look at that and now I look at today and it's more like Kirk said, system, right? It's more like, you know, brand, like how to build a better brand. To me, it's more about helping more people now than ever before. Like, how can we help people on the buy side? Because there are a lot of people out there that, that we help, right? And you wouldn't think that, but it's. We're buying land for 25, 30 cents on the dollar. And you wouldn't think you get thank you cards in the, in the mail or positive reviews, but you do. So now it's transitioned over a little bit to less survival for me because we're doing much better and more about growth in those other areas. And the constraint right now, I guess I think the constraint is.

I don't really know.

I think it's. I think it's kind of money because, like, there's so much land I could buy right now. It's crazy. So I got to be always thinking, okay, where I get the money, where I get the money, really get the money. And that's cool too, because that's just completely different thinking than it was nine years ago because I didn't think I could find it anywhere else. And now it's just a matter of finding it.

Yeah.

So you're ultimately in the money business now. Yeah, you're, you're in the business of constantly raising money and structuring deals to continue to buy land. That's super interesting to me. Yeah, I love it. I think it's, you know, just going on a quick tangent here. I think it's really interesting to bring up the thank you notes when we buy land because I think in different real estate markets, people really don't feel good about what they're doing. You know, let's pick on a wholesaler. You know, they're looking for someone who's desperate to sell their house. And they're not really adding any value in that transaction. They're just the middleman. It's like, okay, I'm gonna send out 10,000 offers, I'm gonna find some desperate people. I'm negotiate a deal, I'm gonna flip it to somebody who's actually going to go in and then add value to that house. And I'm just making money as the middleman. And yeah, I'm sure there's a way to, for them to justify some value in it, but ultimately it probably doesn't feel that great because that person who's selling on that house, they're in a really desperate situation. And it's a house, their house. It's very emotional where when it's raw land, we're helping somebody who's taken an asset that was, now it's a liability for them. We're really helping them. And all along the chain of value, we're helping people because now that person may not even be big in their property taxes. Now we're going to find somebody pays the property taxes, helps that county build schools and roads and hospitals and do all those things. And when you sell it, you're helping somebody get an asset that lasts forever. Nothing, maintain, nothing, protect. And they can enjoy the land, they can improve the land. And the taxes are cheap. It's not going to be a financial burden for them if they don't want the land. So I think it's a good reminder for people when they think about this niche and you know, their big why it just feels good. Like let's, let's reevaluate. Like, why are we doing these things? Why are we in business? Well, it's to add value to people's lives. And, you know, so we're getting really geeky about, well, how can we do it at scale and what's our constraint? But ultimately, I think it's a really good reminder to get back to that fundamental, reasonable, like, why are we even in business? That could be another podcasts roundtable. Why are we in business? What is our real business, Landon? AI Harris, what business are you in?

So, you know, it's interesting. It's an interesting topic. Scott brought up something that was kind of really kind of important because you do go through these phases of, of when you're in this business for a while. And I would probably say if currently we're in the. I, I look at it as notes or managing notes. So we're managing the people that we already have currently signed up, you know, that have already said, hey, I want to buy this land, and we are managing the notes. So we're going through a lot more, some defaults. But, you know, hey, let me give you a call. Let me talk to you. Let me see if we can work this out. And so we try to help folks kind of make, you know, make their payments better, or do we need to bring this down and work this out with you? So that's a little bit more of where we are. But at the same time, when I say notes, we're looking at growth. How, how do we grow bigger, how do we grow more? And so, you know, I have to consider, well, now do I take the notes that I have, sell them off and maybe bring in some more capital to kind of manage the business a little bit better? So I, I put it in terms of notes, but maybe it's just financial. You know, it's, it's a financial manager is what we become. In some respects, you look at how can you make this business grow and be better, but you still don't want to lose what you're true to, what this business really began about. But like I said, I think it's more for us at this current stage about finances and managing your notes and what do you do with them? You know, what do you do with your current clients and what do you do with your current business?

Yeah, that's really interesting. I have a thought about that. But it looks like Kirk has a thought. Kirk, what was your. What are you thinking when Landon was saying all that?

No, I mean, I like that in the sense that you do, when you get a nice portfolio of notes, you do a lot of note management, right? You do the folks, you know, if we're really in this as part of what we're doing here is to help folks, right? We say here that we always have, we have a mission to help everyone who wants to buy land actually buy land. Right? And some of the folks that we, we have as customers aren't the best with managing their money. So I know, you know, just like what Landon was saying, we do a lot as far as trying to get in touch with people if they miss a payment, help restructure stuff for them if they need it in order to help them get to that end goal of actually owning the property. So, yeah, note management is definitely a big piece of what you do. But then I also really like what Scott said and you and I, Mark, even had a bit of a conversation about this. I do think that at some point in time you just, you just gotta start, you get to the point where you just to keep the flow going, gotta go become a person that raises money like. And that for me has been sort of uncomfortable and I'm working to push through that wall because I think it is the key to keep scaling the business. And I mean, it's kind of obvious from our conversations that that's the key for sure.

No, absolutely. Tay, what were your thoughts when Landon was talking about note management?

If somebody were to ask me what I do, I would tell them that I'm in the lending business. You know, that's how I would summarize everything that pretty much all these guys have mentioned is in the note management business. But really, if you boil down to what we're doing, we're in the lending business, I'm going to lend something to you in exchange for USD US Dollars, right? And here's the way that we're going to do this. So my job is as a lender is to figure out what's the best price I can give you on said asset and get the best return on my money. Right? And sometimes it's a home run and sometimes it's not, right. Sometimes we get on first base. But I'm in, I'm in the lending business is what it boils down to. We are managing assets and lending, lending, lending, you know, lending things out in the form of land. That's what we lend and hopefully you get to buy. I'm no different.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

So, Tate, is that your business then? You're, you're a bank essentially, is what you're saying. That's how I. So you're.

So.

But what is your constraint then? So, so the real business is the way you look at it, is I'm a, I'm a land bank in, in a sense, like, I'm not, I'm not lending out dollars, I'm lending out land.

Correct. So my constraints would be, you know, capital is going to be a constraint. No matter where you're at in the business. You can always have more money to buy more. You can always have more people knocking on the door to buy land from you. So my constraints are, you know, inventory, that is capital and marketing. And both of those problems are solvable problems. Where I have to weigh them is whether or not I want to do the work to solve those problems. And here's where I think people often forget is like, look, my lifestyle is great. It's awesome. Making an extra blank dollars every single month might not be worth it right now. And so for me, I'm weighing that responsibility of, you know, living up to our shareholders or my quote unquote, fiduciary obligation. Right. While also trying to manage the lifestyle that I built so hard to build to, to live. So I am in the lending business, and my main constraint is, you know.

How much do I want it?

Right. I want it bad right now, I'll be honest. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot because I want it bad. I'm hungry still. Don't let anyone, you know, tell you otherwise. I'm a bulldog, man. I want that.

So I, I, yeah, dude, buddy. What are your thoughts about that? Do you now, now that you've heard all the answers, do you feel like you want to change your answer, like you're in the banking business?

Oh, I mean, I think I, you know, I think I definitely am in the money business. I mean, we're just moving money around in the most efficient way possible. Money and assets, right? I'm an asset manager. I guess maybe that'd be another.

Yeah, yeah. I think, I think we're in the asset management business. I think we're also in the people business in the sense that what Landon was saying and Scott, what you were saying is we want to have good, a good customer experience on the front end when we're buying that piece of property, and on the back end, we're managing that notes. We want to make sure that customer continues paying on that note. And then to Tate's point, like, we're a bank essentially, and what is, what does the bank do? They manage money. And so how do they make money? They got inflows and they got outflows. And our outflow is essentially selling an asset that lasts forever, that people pay on each Month, and we get a yield. And so I was talking to Landon about this the other night. If. If you can make a spread on that yield like a bank, well, that's a really good deal. And for other people, they might be looking at, well, I don't want debt or I don't want to give up equity. And Tate and I talk about this all the time. Like, we think, well, if you don't want debt and you don't want to do an equity deal, it's really easy. Sell a property on easy terms. Sell the note now. You don't have to worry about it.

Right?

And the math is really compelling. So it's, It's. There's all different ways to look at it. But I think that you, dear listener, need to look at your business and really know clearly where you're. Where what phase of the business you're at and what your business is and focus on it. If you're just starting out, your business is really marketing. And marketing. You're marketing through mailing, you're getting a property, and then you're marketing to sell the land. And that's your constraint, is having that skill set of doing that. And then the next rung up is team. How do I do this so I can live like Tate Litchfield and I can go cycling in the morning? And my biggest problem is the existential question of how much is enough, right? And I have team and systems and processes, so I can get to that next rung. And that next rung is asset management. How do I get more properties? How do I help more people to Scott Bossman's Rays and continue doing that? Because at some point, we all run out of money. So you just go through those three runs, and then again, you still have to have the existential question of how much is enough and. And do that. And so at some point, you'll hit that wall and you'll hit that next level of the video game, and it won't be fun for you. So what then? It's a whole different podcast of, like, do I push or do I pivot? We can talk about that another time. All right, I thought this is really good and a good. A good discussion. But we're now at that point in the podcast where we're going to pick on Kirk and ask him for his tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the Auto Passive Income listeners ago. Improve their businesses, improve their lives. But before he gives that tip, I gotta give a shout out to our sponsor, which is Flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Start building that passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations eroding. So do it safely and efficiently with our coaching team guiding you. Learn more. Go to landgeek.com training schedule a call and see if we can help get you to where you are now, to where you want to be with your passive income goals. I know what you're thinking. What about the tuition? It ain't gonna cost you nothing. Guaranteed you're gonna make back that money 180 days or less. Just show us you're doing the work again. Thelandgeek.com forward/training by the way, Kirk, I'm not even reading from a script and just saying this. I just know this stuff now from the top of my head. That's what happens when you 50, 000 podcasts. Kirk, what is your tip of the week?

Okay, so I don't know if this is a tip so much, but just talking about where my interests and attention are and I think it's where a lot of things are happening right now. There's definitely, I feel like, I mean there's just a lot happening in artificial intelligence right now. So I've been severely geeking out on all of the keynotes. So the keynotes from Nvidia, the keynote from Apple. There's so much coming to the market with AI. So I feel like it's just good to get as much information as possible, let it settle, and then we see where we go. But definitely don't want to be left behind. Some of the things that are coming out right now, like the conveniences that are going to be created with AI are just going to be out of this world.

Right.

And I think the application to our business to be able to even make things 3% more more efficient, 5% more efficient, 10% more efficient with zero effort just because we know what's coming. I think that there's definitely, definitely great opportunity there. So that's where I've been spending the last week or so. I literally just sat down in front of YouTube and watched the CEO of Nvidia for three hours. I'm about to dive into. I watched the synopsis of Apple's release. They're wwdc. And also I have a background in software engineering, so this stuff just naturally interests me as well. But yeah, you know, I think to be able to do things like create images just by typing some text into a, into a prompt and hey, give me these images for my land so I can put them in the marketing, advertisement, those kinds of things. There's a lot that is coming.

Yeah, I'm, I'm super excited about it. I think it's just, you know, it's gonna get better. But right now, in my workflow, it's a really good intern. Like, it's a really great start, and it gets me 75% of the way there. But I, There's. I'm still not ready to ship any of the work that it's, it's giving me at all. But I can imagine a day where it will be ready to ship. And then it gets really interesting as far as. Well, if you're not an entrepreneur, what job are you going to have? And then it gets, you know, a little bit scary. I mean, you know, does Nvidia and Apple and Google and Amazon. I mean, we do like, universal basic income because nobody really has a job anymore. And then it's like, okay, there's people that are creating value, then there's people who are just living, like, Tate. I don't know. I mean, you know, it's, It's, It'll be interesting. But I do think that as.

Does everybody become an artist, right?

Like, yeah, this is a new renaissance. Yeah, it's a new, A new renaissance time. We all become artists and poets and. But that's the thing is if AI is doing it better and even in the art world, I don't know, it's. It's, It's. It's fun to speculate. I think. You know what it is. I've been reading A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and I read we. I'm remembering these dystopian novels, so I'm like, in this, like, bad headspace. I, I have a feeling, though, that I'll be completely wrong about this. And in, in artificial intelligence could be the greatest thing for humanity. And, you know, our, our kids and grandkids will look back at what have we suffered through the ages of what we had to do and, and how amazing their lives are and all that. So. Yeah, all right.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty cool, right? Like, either way, we're at an apex inflection point, and there's going to be interesting things that come from it. It's just kind of cool to see it happen, even if you're just not looking to use it in your business. But you can see that changes are coming and it's going to be really interesting.

No, for sure. I even like, just the, the email AI piece in, like, Apple's going to bake that in just. Just for writing better. Because I can't tell you how many times hate boxing with me. I'm like, bro, I know you didn't lose. You didn't use Grammarly on this. And now it's just gonna be baked in because that's, like, an extra step. So it's fantastic.

Yeah.

And you know what? And every. Everyone who says that and thinks that right now it will be.

Yeah.

And no one will know.

But that's how you know you got the real Tate Litchfield.

Mark.

That's right.

That's how you Avatar.

Yeah.

Whoa.

Tate sent me this. He misspelled there and there. He didn't know which one to use.

Yeah.

Why would we have two words that are both spelled almost identically, but mean different things in different instances? And when you use them, how does that. How does that make sense?

Yeah.

No, I mean, my. When I write my weekly, like, thoughts, I use aiprm.

I have.

I have my prompt already written out. I give. Do a couple prompts. It gives me a really good first draft. I take that first draft, I edit in Grammarly, and it's. You know, what used to take maybe an hour to write now takes maybe 20 minutes. It's. It's pretty incredible, actually. So imagine a day where it only takes me five minutes. Imagine they just. Just writes my tone and style because I've trained it. It's coming. It's here, but. All right. Well, Kirk, are we good?

Absolutely. Mark.

Dude. Buddy.

Great.

Landon.

We're good.

Big papa.

You guys on the other side.

All right, I want to thank the listeners, remind you the only way we're going to be able to continue to get Kurt to come up with these great tips of the weeks. Tips of the week. You do three things. Three things. Follow rate. Review the podcast, Send a screenshot of that review. Supportlank.com I'm gonna send you for free a signed copy of Dirt Rich. All right, we ready to do this? 1, 2, 3, left.

Pain.

That was abysmal. That was completely abysmal.

The last word but ring.

Yeah. By the way, speaking of AI, So I started writing Dirt Rich, too. How to scale your land business. Like, the plot thickens. How to scale your land business without skipping a beat. And I'm just, like, now almost ready to publish it. And I'm going through it. I'm like. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I had to write chapter after chapter about artificial intelligence and how. Because I wanted to stay evergreen. And just thinking about how much has changed. Is incredible with these things. Is really interesting, but. All right. We were just talking about top shows for the summer.

Get it?

If you had to just, you know, give one show recommendation that you've been watching for someone to watch this summer, what would you. What would be. Kirk?

Well, no, I talked about Dark Matter earlier, which is cool, but I. My wife and I, we had just started watching this series on Netflix. I think it's Netflix. Killing Eve.

Oh, I've seen Killing you. That was a. Was that. Yeah, it's good.

It's good. It's. We still. We were like, oh, we just want to watch something just to see it, you know, Just to have something to watch. There's four seasons. We'll watch it whenever we are we. In two days. We blasted through the first season and we're on to halfway through the second season. So we got sucked in.

It's pretty good. Pretty good. Nice. Nice, dude. Buddy.

Well, I don't watch a lot of shows, but my son is home for the summer and he and I enjoy Curb you Enthusiasm. So we sell and watched all the seasons. We're on season eight right now. Season. So a few more seasons to go. We're hoping to get them all in all this summer. I don't forget. And then, of course, I gotta take in any Star wars show that's on, you know. Right.

Pretty. Pretty. Pretty good.

Pretty good.

Landon.

So we're stuck on. And this is kind of. I guess it's kind of old. Your honor on Netflix.

Oh, yeah.

I think it's.

Oh, yeah.

It wasn't Showtime, but yeah, we're just. We're locked into this thing. I mean, we're binge watching it. It's.

It's.

It's pretty deep and it's pretty good and just keeps switching up on you all the time and that.

We love that.

So.

So, you know there's a lamb geek that stars in your honor.

Remember?

He had a.

That's what Mark was telling me.

And I had an idea. I went back. No way.

Yeah. First episode. He's. He's Brian Cranston. Yeah.

Yeah.

Pretty cool. So, yeah, I went back and left him. I was like, no way. There he is. So pretty sweet. Pretty sweet. And then I'm starting to watch. Just kind of peaked at it.

I like.

I like Western. I don't know.

I'm just like. It's called like A Million Ways to Die in the West. It's a.

Wow.

I. I just started. So I don't even really know if it's that Good, but won a few Emmys, so it can't be that bad.

So.

Wow. A million ways to die in the West. Okay, cool. Yeah, see.

Well, I, I haven't started it, but today the Netflix documentary on the Tour de France was released and I watched a trailer on it recently and so that's going to be awesome. So it's called, I think Unchained, something like that.

So as soon as you said Tour de France, I started to drool, like I was falling asleep. You know how like you go into a deep sleep and you're like drooling? That's fair enough.

Fair enough. I got no rebate, no rebuttal, but this is mini bite size, so it's only like you'll get a mini nap out of it 20 to 30 minutes at a time, but supposed to be really good and really exciting. We also started Fallout, which has been.

By the way, do they, do they test you? Do they test your blood after you watch that Netflix documentary?

You can only hope that you got those gains just from watching tv. Yeah. So that fallout. And I haven't started it, but I will watch the Tour de France documentary series.

So that's what I'm awesome. What show am I watching? I. I've been watching a lot of NBA, so. Yeah, the, the finals are now. Yeah. So if I got into any shows, you know what I watch, I just like the. Just mind mindlessly lick through trailers. I recommend the trailers. I know. And then I try to think, ah, is this really going to be worth my time? And then I've been watching a lot of YouTube, just videos on AI and, and that's been a lot of fun because there's just, there's, it's just endless. Just endless. So. And of course reading dystopian novels. So as far as the show to be continued, I'm. I, I have to find one and it's different from one of yours, but trying to think, what have I watched lately that. Oh, I know, on hbo Ax. I really enjoyed hacks. Have you guys seen that? Yeah, it's on Max. It's about an older woman who is a stand up comedian and she hires. I don't know if she's a millennial or Gen Z. She's young, way younger and woke and working for this, this woman in Vegas and she doesn't want to be there. And you see their dynamic. It is fantastic writing. I recommend Max. All right, well, this is fun. See you guys.

Yeah.

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