Where to Get a Land Investing Intake Manager - Nite Cap with the Land Geek Guys!

Yo, am I looking in the mirror?

Ah, what a. What a. What a good look, good looking group of guys, huh? First, buddy, by the way, I'm Scott Bossman. That's Mike Zaino. We're the Lane geek guys. Happy 2023, dude.

A glass of wine for 2023. What do you say to that?

Oh, that's pretty sophisticated. I don't know. That might be a little bit above the. The level of the tracksuit.

And this is the common man. That's where we got married, Laura and I. Oh, nice.

Very nice. So, Mike Zano, I hope you had happy holidays.

Happy holidays. Happy holidays.

I haven't seen much of you lately.

I know where you've been hiding. In Wisconsin.

Wisconsin? Yeah. Digging out a lot of Snow over here.

30 degrees, right? Like, you can't even leave the house, can you?

Oh, it hasn't been. It hasn't been that bad the last couple weeks. It's been. Actually, temperatures have been decent the last two weeks and a little bit of snow here and there, but nothing like.

Someone'S opening my garage door. I think my son picked the wrong garage Mahal, as Tate would say, the garage. There he goes. Now he's figured it out. Good job.

Good job, man. That's funny. Got a little blasting cold air, I'm sure.

Technical error on the nightcap.

So everybody, for those of you just tuning in for the first time, we're the Land Geek guys, and we come on ideally every week, maybe every other week, and talk land investing. And I know we got a lot of new people coming in the community, Mike. So this is a great time, a great opportunity for people new to the business to get in here and ask a seasoned land investor like yourself questions.

About the business or like yourself.

Oh, thanks.

You've done a few deals yourself, bossman.

Done a few.

Just a few.

Seven years in. What, you're like eight years in.

I mean, heck, I think together we've done hundreds of deals.

Oh, yeah, more than that. Oh, together, you and I? Yeah, together, you're right.

Yes. I mean, to get. Yes. What I meant to say is you and I as a combined BZ deal. So, I mean, yeah, we've done a few deals.

We've done a few deals. But I'm trying. I'm trying to share this to Facebook. Yeah, I'm trying to share this to. For some reason, doesn't go to the motivation group. So I'm going to post this in there. But for those of you watching, please say hello, tell us where you're from, tell us how you stumbled across Land Geek.

Right.

And we'd love to hear from you.

We certainly would.

And we also, Mike, we have a hotline. So at the. At the bottom of the screen that you're watching, if you would rather stay inconspicuous, I'll pull that up and not post any questions or comments on social media like YouTube Live or Facebook Live. Facebook Group. Text us on the Land Geek outline and tell us what brings you to land investing.

Yeah.

All right. There. Now they're rolling in. Whoo. We got 30 people in here, buddy.

30 people.

Yeah.

Oh, boy. Come up with something. We need to say.

We got. Brock Norton is here, Kara Chase, Kevin Kirkland, Melanie Nelson, Keith Grant. Okay, now, listen, I know some of you guys are in flight school, and you should be on the flight school office hours call right now.

Oh, you dragged them away. Bad timing on our part. We didn't. We didn't. We didn't think it out that clearly. Right. And we.

No, I didn't think about it, really. It kind of completely. I completely spaced out on this.

But they could be doing both. They could be on their phone and on their computer. They could be double dipping.

It's true. They could be double dipping. And nowadays, kids. I don't know about your kids, Mike, but. But my kids can, like, have one screen in front of them and watch TV at the same time. It's like.

And write a college paper all at the same time.

Yeah, it's craziness.

Well, people might be wondering what you're talking about when you say flight school office. Like, what are you referring to?

Office hours hasn't started. Am I supposed to be running it? Okay, so there.

There we go.

An issue.

There may be an issue.

How about. How about you. How about you talk for a minute while I do a little digging?

Yes. I'll entertain the crowd by myself.

You entertain the crowd. Actually, I could double task, just like my kids can. They can watch the phone and the TV at the same time. Okay. And let me just.

That's okay. If so. All of you that are here, let me pull up on the text line. Let's. Let's get some communication on there while Scott's doing that. So I have access to it right here. And give me one second. Pull this up. There it is.

Sorry, folks, but listen, Jeff Storley's here. Happy New Year, Alex Miranda. It is not my turn tonight. It is not my turn on flight school office hours. Bobby Jordan is here. Bobby Rich.

Hi. From Minnesota to Richard Rich in. Minnesota's on.

Nice. Bobby Jordan. Is here a total newbie and he's listening on in the car. So that's kind of cool.

Just don't watch in the car. I'm hoping. My buddy David Yund. I think that's how you pronounce it. I was talking to him today. Yeah, he's here.

Yeah.

David, I want some comments.

He's here. He says watching from Indiana, he read dirt rich and fell in love with the land buying idea. Sean Sadler from Kingman, Arizona. Kingman, Arizona. We like that place. Kevin Kirkland.

Is that what we own like 100 and something properties? I'm just asking.

Yeah, we own a few there. So let me see. I'm still trying to do a little digging here on flight school office hours and that's okay.

That's okay. You do that. You know, this is. Hey, this is. The nightcap is laid back. So I would say in the. For the moment, if you're at home and not at work and not driving, go grab yourself a little beverage and start coming up with some questions. You know, we started this about five years ago and we come on here at night because we're looking to engage the people who are sort of working the business at night again. You can do the business early in the morning, middle of the day, late at night. And this is a way for us to engage and get some, you know, get a little motivation out there.

I do love the show, Mike. It's. It's nice because I mean we get, we get people who, who just found us, people who are doing the toolkit, people doing flight school, people are doing coaching. Veterans come in and watch and it's kind of fun. It's kind of like our own little mini. Yeah, like our own little mini hour long boot camp.

I think it's going right now. Scott. I think some people just haven't. They're probably in the waiting room getting waiting to get access. I think that might be what's going on.

Okay.

I have a feeling.

Yeah, I'm just.

Who's over there tonight? Landon.

I'm having a hard time finding it.

That's okay. I can entertain. I can entertain. I can do this.

I know you can.

And does anybody realize that we're wearing the same sweat seatos? So this is. I'm sure no one noticed tracksuit business as we call it. So, you know, these are, you know, we're not, we don't get any kickback from sweatsito, but these are the sweatseedos that we enjoy. The way we have a few different styles and we. And we wear these while we do our land deals and we walk out and get the mail on our slippers and the neighbors think we're a bit off, but that's what we do. No big deal.

All right. Yeah, we got it taken care of. Okay, now we're good.

Okay, so it's going is good.

So, folks, yes, be on the lookout for the flight school office hours to get started here. But in the meantime, since it's not up and running, is there a flight school student out there that has a question?

Yeah, let's hear it. We'd love to have some questions. Let me see if I can dig into the.

Here's one from Kirk Wright. He's in flight school.

All right.

Do you have to issue 1099s to LLCs if you buy more than $600 of property? Mike Zaino, have you ever done that?

Okay, let's break down the question they're asking. If we're. So we buy from somebody, right. We're not selling to them. And if the property costs more than $600, we have to. You know, I have an incredible accountant, and I don't believe that we've ever issued the 1099s, to my recollection, unless he's doing it behind my back, which I doubt.

Yeah, I'll keep it real simple, Kirk. I've also never done that. Yeah, that's a great question for Scott Todd in his Accounting for Land Investor class.

Yeah, I don't think that's the case. I really don't. Again, not an accountant, just my personal experience working with an accountant that works with some of the bigger land investors, and we don't do that. So, yeah, I think there's something where if somebody is your employee and you pay them more than $600, then. But that depends how you pay them as well. That's like if you're using upwork, no need. The upwork handles that as part of their, you know, the way they operate, which is a really great advantage. You know, I've this is a great topic. Do you take an upwork employee and off the platform and hire them outside of that? You know, sometimes that might attract the upwork person because they feel like they're going to make more money. But it does create some logistical stuff that, like I've tried it in the past where people have requests or done that, but I prefer to keep them on upwork now.

Yeah, I do, too, because you could. You pay them through upwork and you don't have to worry about any tax and the accountability.

It does screenshots and shows you what they're doing. Not that you should worry about your. Your va, but it's nice to know that you can look in and see what actually they're doing. It grabs random screenshots and shows you what they're doing. So I think it's a great platform, you know, and for a lot of reasons. And that's a few of them right there.

Yeah, for sure.

How many out there have VAs right now? How many have. Who just hired their first VA? Who hasn't hired a VA yet?

Maybe who doesn't know what a VA is?

What is a VA? Let's talk about VAs.

I've got a good time, Mike. I got a good topic for tonight, too. We can talk about VAs first. We got a lot of questions coming in too. Jason Hempstead. When Jason buys a property, does he have to wait until it's recorded with the county before sending payment to the seller?

Great question. My answer is what we do is yes, we typically do that. Now, there are occasions we use like a mobile notary, and the mobile notary will bring the payment to them. But we typically don't recommend cashiers checks. We do a regular check because it has the capability of being canceled should something go awry. But the most protected way you could do this is to have it recorded first. Right. And for those you are wondering, like, who the heck would allow you to do that? A lot of people. I think it comes down to the clear communication between you and the. And the seller. If you're unsure about it, well, you're going to transfer that uncertainty to them. Right. What do you think, Scott? You know, and in the beginning, you're going to be a little uncertain. It's new. But the more you get comfortable and you people just want to be led down the easy path, don't you think?

Yeah. I mean, it's. It's kind of interesting. Right. Like if you're on the phone with somebody and they're acting nervous, what do you feel?

Yeah, it trans. Yeah.

But if you get on the call and you're calm and establish rapport.

Yeah.

And present to them that you're there to help solve their problem.

Yes. Problem solver.

Right. It's rare that I run into this. That we run into this resistance anymore. Right.

Right.

Now, initially, when you're new to the game, you might. But you know what? That's okay. It's. It's growing pains.

Right. And I, I often tell people, be transparent with the seller, like, don't try to be like, oh, this is how we've done hundreds of deals. Don't people can sniff out a fake, right? Be transparent and be like, you know, honestly, I want to tell you, Scott, this is my first deal and you know, I'm going to kind of fumble through it. But I promise you, I'm going to be authentic and I'm going to communicate with you at every step of the process, during every step of the process. And I'm just going to be ultra transparent and make sure this is very smooth for you.

I love it.

They'll appreciate that. I really do. I think the authenticity. I'm going to zip mine up now. Scott, you got me thinking. I got to get a little, I.

Got the 80s collar going, the butterfly collar. Hey, no, yeah, totally. Like, you know, establish a relationship with those people. Talk to them about, you know, when you're first starting, right. It's, it's okay to get in a little bit longer conversation with them just to get, you know, get your reps underneath you.

I think that, you know what makes a really good intake manager, by the way, what an intake manager is, for those who may not know, is somebody who basically responds to all of the seller correspondence. So think about this. Send out 100 letters a week or 150 letters a week. You start to generate consistent responses by email, fax, phone, text, all of mail. Right. All of that. And somebody has to interface with those people. We show you in the beginning when we go through flight school with you, that you do about 100 a week because it's manageable. You're not going to be overwhelmed with phone calls and all that. That's just going to be overwhelming. You do it in a way that allows you to build the system, build the structure, and then from there you actually can put a person in that place as an intake manager. You know what I like to think of, Scott? It's like we'll talk about the other side, but on the left side, the buy side, they're like a shield. Like, you know, I feel like you're a superhero if you are starting your own business. Like, I feel like underneath there you should have like the Superman sign because you're taking a brave step. You're starting your own business. That's a bit nerve wracking. And a shield that you could put up like, like a Captain America shield is the intake manager and that prevents all that noise. It's like boom. Shielded. And what comes through that shield, Scott? Deals, good deals. They'll say, hey, Scott, I Got this person wants to sell. Do you like this deal? Yes. No renegotiate, let it go. Whatever it might be. They're the shield, you're the superhero, and they're one of your shields.

I love it, man. The wine is talking tonight, buddy.

Hey, it's the sweat Seedo. What can I say?

And speaking of wine, I need a refill. And I am about ready to tap this boy right here, this bad boy. Some guy. Some guy got something in the mail.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

From another guy. And I'm very excited.

It's a little strong.

The Calumet Farm, 16 year old Kentucky straight bourbon. Whiskey. Yeah. Did you know at Calumet Farm, Mike, they've had two Triple Crown winners? And this whiskey is in honor of the second Triple Crown winner.

I'd love to say I knew that, but I really do know is I went to the guy that I buy all my, my liquor from and I was like, I need something good for my dude buddy. And he picked that out. So that's really why it came that way.

Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'm excited to dig in here.

Please do.

I've been cutting down on my bourbon. It's a. It's a 20, 23. What do you call those things?

New Year's resolution.

Resolution. Thank you.

But I'm only having fruit, vegetables.

Oh, yeah.

And beans. But this is fruit, by the way. So I broken the diet 15 days.

Right, 15 days or 18 days. Fruit, vegetables and beans. And that's it?

Yeah.

No meat.

No. Day 19 is Lara's birthday and we'll go out to eat. So we're doing 18 days of cleaning, cleansing, and re vitalizing and reinvigorating all of that.

Okay. I like it. I like it. All right, we got comments coming in. Mike, you had asked about vas. Who has vas? How many do you have? What is a va? So VA is a virtual assistant. And they help us in our business. And sometimes they help us at a very affordable rate, like $5 an hour. You can find people in the Philippines, Bahamas that work for $5 an hour. Larry Merle. Guess how many VAs Larry Merle has.

Mike, first of all, I'm glad you're here, Larry. Second of all, I don't know what to guess. Tell me.

Larry's got six vas.

Nice.

That. You know what? Larry's been doing this a little over a year. That guy's hustled this year, man.

The fact that he's in.

Go ahead.

Good. I was gonna say he's Embracing what I call the gge.

Oh, boy. What's that?

Global Gig Economy.

The gge. I think he's embracing. And I bet he's read the book who not how by Benjamin Hardy.

Yeah, I think you turned me on to that book. Benjamin Hardy. I think you have, like, a crush on Benjamin Hardy.

I do a little bit, yeah.

He actually came out with favorite authors, isn't he?

He is. And he actually came out with a new book, but I haven't ordered it yet. Because you know what? I was going to show you this for Christmas. For Christmas. I got a whole. I got. Look at all these. That I got for Christmas.

Oh, boy. Oh, my goodness.

Look at all those. They're all fiction. But listen, this one. Oh, this one I got from my. My son.

Yeah, I see it.

How to Drink. A Classical Guide to the Art of Imbibing. So this is adding class to my.

What did he learn so far? I haven't cracked it yet. Oh, I thought I saw a bookmark in there.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So that's my reading list right now.

But anyway, learned from fiction.

I love fiction. Oh, actually, this one's not fiction. YouTube is my favorite band. And Bono wrote a book about. He goes through and he talks about all of his songs, which is kind of cool. I'm excited about that. But anyway, I digress.

We digress.

Talking about Benjamin Hardy, who, not how.

Yeah, that's a great question to ask yourself. Is like. And this is what he teaches in that book, right? It's like, you need to get something done. You're like, how can I do it? How can I do it? How can I do it? When the real question is what?

Who can. Who can do it?

Who can do it for you? And in this GGE global gig economy, there's. There's a number of people out there at a very affordable rate that can do this for you. They can be your Captain America shield, or, hey, Wonder Woman has a shield, too. Either one, right?

Boom, boom, boom. Here's another book. Here's another book. Another SHIELD Book. You ready? So we got.

Ready.

We got. It's all VAs. Tonight we're talking VAs. We're talking who not how by Benjamin Hardy. Here's another great book that talks about outsourcing and working on your business set of in your business. And it's by Mike McCallowicz, if that's how you pronounce it.

Who wrote the guy from Profit First.

He wrote Profit first, but he also wrote Clockwork. And Clockwork is in the same vein as who, not how.

Now, I don't know anything about it, but it sounds like when people say your business runs like clockwork, I mean, it sounds like you got click, click, click, click, click. Like things are falling in place. Like the gears.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah.

I think those two books, I mean, they're right up land investing alley. They really are.

I feel like you, you know, you could take one book and almost dive into that for at least a quarter of the year, half of the year, maybe a whole year, and really implement what they're talking about. Right. As a. You know, you could go and read a whole bunch of them, but you might just take one and seriously implement. Right. The strategies and the concepts.

You, you know, that kind of segues into my topic for tonight, but we should go. We should. We got a lot of comments coming in.

Let me see if I have any comments on the.

Andy and I. I wonder who that is. They just fired. They just fired their VAs. LOL. Starting over. I mean, it happens.

Yeah. Yeah. What's the saying that, you know, you can hire slower and fire fast.

Yeah, yeah. And you're gonna fire VAS in this business until you find the right one. Sean Sadler has an intake manager.

He's got a shield.

Yeah. Let's see here. David Yund has a question.

All right, David, I know it takes.

Several deals before you actually feel comfortable with the system. How long did it take for the business to feel natural for you guys? Natural? That's a great question. It's all about reps. I think you're right.

And I think I've said before that, you know, I came to this business looking for a side hustle to pay off debt, not to be a quote unquote, Lane investor. But honestly, David, I don't know when that transition happened. All of a sudden I was just like, wait a minute, I'm a Lane investor. Like, and I think it's. It would go back probably similar to going to the gym. And like, when do you actually become, you know, like that type of person who goes and spit and all that? I think it just happens that gradually over time with that commitment. In fact, that's a word I've been using quite a bit, a lot lately, the. The word commitment, because to work this business or any business, but we're talking about this one, and you have some goals you want to accomplish, you have to make a commitment, just like getting fit. Right. And if you make that commitment, I think there will be eventually that shift into that naturalness of it. Right?

Yeah.

Where you. You really, just embrace it. And it's. I always, like we say, it's like brushing your teeth, combing your hair, buying and selling land. It's just what you do, you know?

You know, Mike, I think about, honestly, any other profession. So as a physical therapist. Right. My first year as a pt, yeah, I was, like, biting my nails a lot, wondering if I was doing the right thing. Right, right. But as you see 15 patients a day and you keep doing it and the repetition occurs. Right, right. And you as a firefighter, I bet you in your first year as a firefighter.

Yeah.

You probably weren't as confident as you are now.

No, no, no. And you realize that, like, nothing is ever perfect, nothing goes the. You know, but you're always just constantly adapting. If you're in the moment, you're adjusting, and you're getting the job done no matter what it is. And I think it's the same thing with land. Constantly moving your feet, constantly progressing and growing. Like, Keith's out there, my buddy Keith Grant, we were talking about, like, 1% growth a week or just a small percent. And you're going to keep moving forward and making some big changes.

Yeah. You know, and I. I think the land business is the same. Like, year one, I didn't feel like I knew what I was doing half the time. Year two, you're gaining some confidence. Year three, you're like, okay, you know what? I think. I think I know what I'm doing here. Right. Year four and five, well, then, like, you put in how many hours? Right. Then you're right. You're becoming more. I don't want to say I'm in. I'm just saying you're becoming maybe more of an expert in your field as the time goes on there. Right, Right. So I think if you as a land investor, like, if you just keep showing up and you keep learning and you keep immersing yourself in this, like you do anything else that you've done in three to five years, you're going to be very confident.

Right. And if you have a powerful reason, a powerful why, that there's something that's driving you to this, to. To do this business, and you combine that with a commitment, you're going to succeed. All it takes is, as my buddy bossman would say, stick to itiveness.

Stick to itiveness. Yes.

And I don't think you can use that in Scrabble, although I'm sure you tried.

That would be a hell of a Scrabble word for sure. Keith Hufford. Keith, nice to See you. Hopefully Debbie's sitting there next to you with a glass of wine. We have a couple vas we are finally getting to stride where we know which tasks each of them handle. Well, one has really increased our sales leads via Facebook and Craigslist. Awesome. That is amazing. That's really cool too, Mike. When. So let's say, I mean, it's cool to see results on your own, right?

Right.

So it's cool to maybe convert a lead. You know, actually, we talk micro macro wins. Like, initially, when you start putting email addresses in your. In your buyers list platform, that's kind of exciting. Like, oh, Look, I got five email addresses today. I got 10 email addresses. I got 50 email addresses this week. They're all going in my buyers list. Right, right. And then you convert somebody and you get a sale, and that's exciting. But what's even more exciting is when someone on your team does that for you.

Right.

And your hands have been off of it.

Yeah. All you do is you see all of a sudden in your email, you get a notification for an E signature on a land agreement that it was sold by your team, and you're like, okay.

Nice, right?

Yes. Yes.

There can't be a better feeling than that. That's awesome.

I always think about. The thing is, I have a computer over there where I have. I like to call them team members. She's a va, but she's a great team member doing all the Facebook leads. And I just come down and like, I'm doing my thing throughout the day. I look over there and the computer says, all stops happening. It's like, man, that would have been me years ago. Right. Doing all that. And I wouldn't be able to do all the other things that I wanted to do during the day. But it's happening. It's on its own. But you know what? You need to build that. You have to invest in them. You can't just expect them to be up and running right away. How many hours has got. Todd typically talk about in flight school, it takes to, like, a number that he references. I don't know if it's 30 hours or to. To really bring someone into that. Their spot.

Oh, to hide, like, hire a VA.

And really implement them and have them naturally doing the job.

Yeah. I don't know why. I don't know what the number is.

But for some reason, 30 hours is sticking out.

It's like 50. 30 hours or 50 hours or something like that, Right? Yeah.

But then it's the. It's on its own. It's on autopilot, right?

Yeah, it's awesome. Keith does have a question. We're transitioning from a pass through sole proprietorship to an llc. Are we able to sell property in our names and have the buyers pay the llc? Oh, Keith, we can't give legal advice, especially on the open air of the Internet, because.

Especially while we're drinking alcohol. That's a great question, but it's a little bit into the legal side or the accounting or the. Yeah, so I hesitate to answer that one, but I'm sure it's a simple answer.

It may be beyond the scope of the nightcap call with drinks.

Yes. But let me see if I have.

A text line every once in a while. Mike, as you're growing your business, you come across these things, right? You come across, okay, what if I restructure something? Or would it be better to do it this way? Or what accounting technique do I employ here? Or what bookkeeping technique or that type of thing. And what I would say, and I think what Mark would say also is like, we are the educators of land investing, where we're going to teach you step by step by step how to do a land deal. Right. Some of that other stuff, you maybe need to branch out a little bit and get advice from someone else in, you know, real estate attorney business. Attorney, accountant, that type of thing.

Well, sometimes people ask too, like, oh, what sort of entity should I have? Well, there's different reasons why you might have an LLC versus an S Corp or something, Right. And so for us to sort of recommend that would be bad, right? Do you need to have somebody who is intimately looking at your. All the data around your finances and your situation and they can make the proper recommendation to you. So I have a question from Rich. He says, do mobile notaries work with self close. I was told by one they will only sign off the DK from a title company. Here's the thing, there's a lot of mobile notaries out there and some of them will say, oh, you can't do that, or I don't want to do that. But there are plenty that will. So that's why, you know, we use them quite frequently over the years. We've used them quite frequently, I should say. And, and I've had some of them, you know, we'd reach out and they'd be like, oh no, we don't do that or whatever. But that's okay. Just call the next one and somebody who'll do it.

Yeah, exactly. Go notary shopping.

Notary shopping, yeah.

No, Issues there. John Davis has a question or maybe a comment. Let's see. Question. Hey everyone, I have my first seller finance set up and we will both be signing on Monday. Nice. My question is do I have to have signings and notarization on the same sheet? Meaning get mine. Meaning get mine Done. Sent it to him, have him sign and notarize it, send it back or can be done on separate pages.

Also, is he buying a property?

No, first seller finance setup. So I think he's selling a property on terms. I could be wrong.

Note notary needed.

And his question is also, is it necessary to also have a promissory note along with the land contract? So John, we teach when you're selling on terms, promissory note, land contract, purchase sale agreement, notarization by Xato.

No. And those are all embedded in the software that we use. You know, that's a nice advantage of, you know, this LG Pass the Land Geek proprietary automated software service or system. Is that all these forms, these documents from the offer letter to the deeds when you buy property, deeds when you sell to sell a financing documents, the three you just referenced, they're all embedded in there. I like to say they're baked into the software and there's no guesswork. It just they produce what you need when you need it.

Right, right. And no notarization needed. Yeah. So congrats, John Davis. I would be interested to know the numbers on that deal. So tell us you don't mind sharing. You don't have to. What'd you buy it for? Would you sell it for on terms? It's always fun to hear the numbers. Right?

See the numbers? Yes.

Oh, Larry. Merle, that's a good one. What is your favorite way to raise capital to grow your business?

Okay. Well, what I've done in the past is I've worked with when I needed it years.

It was.

It's been a while since I've needed it. But when I did need it, I would work with an investor where we it was a 50, 50 split on the deal. So that's a very simple way. I mean, here's the thing. You can take straight debt, but sometimes people get a little anxious about that because they have a payment they have to make and they haven't maybe sold the property yet. Right. So that makes it sort of. I mean you'll get a better. You'll make more money in the long run in my opinion, because you're going to get that money at a cheaper rate. But there might be a little added pressure because you have payments you need to make and you may not have sold the property. Whereas if I partner with someone on a deal, their understanding that when the property sells is when they get paid. If the property has a default and I have to resell it, there's no money coming in, therefore they're not getting paid either. But you give up more of it. But it is sort of mentally, it's more mental ease, if that's even a way to say it. So typically what it would be is if it's a 50, 50. There's many ways to do this, but.

Ways I've 60, 40, 50, 50.

Right. It was a 50, 50 split on the. On the profit, which might equal 60, 40 on the cash flow, 60 to the investor, because if you play it out over the long haul, it equals about a 50, 50 split on the profit. So I think for a lot of people, that might be more comfortable because it takes away that pressure of like, oh, oh, man, I got to make this payment, but I haven't sold the property yet, as opposed to when the property sells, I'll make payments.

Yeah. I mean, that being said, you can get a lump sum from somebody too, and pay them back interest. Right.

There's so many ways to shake this. Right?

Yeah. I mean, you can, you know, grandma or dad or uncle, Uncle Bobby, they might be willing to give you, you know, 20 grand and sit on it and, you know, they're expecting to pay out a year from now, making 10% of the money. Right. You know, there are, there are other options as well. I mean, there. There are small business loans. Right. You could, when you get into this, maybe three, couple of years in, when you're making some money and that type of thing, like you could get a loan. Yeah, I don't know if I would right now with the interest rates, but a couple years ago, the interest rates were really good. Right, Right. So that's an opportunity.

I've seen people do things as well where there's a tiered sort of return to the investor depending on how long the property sits. So if it's sold right away, they'll take less, and as the timeline goes on, they might want more of the profit. So that incentivizes you as the investor to move it quickly.

Yeah. There are services out there like fund and grow. You heard of that, Mike? Or you.

Yeah, I think we talked about them. I haven't used them, but I've heard people talk about them. I think you and I maybe talked about that a few years back.

Yeah. So they basically Set it up so you. For you, they get you a bunch of credit cards and you can. You can actually buy land on a credit card and then pay it back over time. So that's a way, like if you're needing money for a bulk deal or something like that, you're going to wholesale them. What else?

Some people use home equity, line of credit.

Oh, what about cure. What about loaning yourself money from a qualified retirement plan or a whole life insurance policy?

Yeah. Two great and very unique options. Right. Where you can fund your own deals through some very creative methods.

Yeah. What about growing your business with a buddy?

A dude buddy.

A dude buddy. I mean, seriously. Okay, so there have been times I. I was never on Mike Zano's level, so I, you know, here's Mike Zano. I'm kind of down here, right? So.

This is such a joke when you say it like that, by the way. That's so natural. I think in many ways, Scott, you've surpassed me, but.

No, no, no, no. But like, here's the cool. Here's the cool thing about our community is you make connections with people and you can do deals together that you would not have been able to do on your own. Yes, right. And in the long term, that will grow your business more quickly, right?

Yeah, for sure.

For sure. So that's something you can do as well.

And sometimes people, when they're newer, might enjoy bringing a partner in because it's another set of eyes on the deal and it gives you that sort of reassurance that. Oh, yeah, you see what I'm seeing? Yeah, I see what you're seeing. Yeah, that's a great deal. Whoa, wait, did you see this? And so there's that other added benefit.

Right. Kelsey, Elizabeth is here. Kelsey, what is going on? She is a friend, a friend of ours. Do you recommend buying with cash if you can, or do you get loans to start? Well, so, okay, so what I'll say is this. When you are starting in this business, you don't need a lot of money. And you can buy land even still in. In this country for 500 bucks or less. Or less. We like to buy the land with cash, put it in our asset column and control it and then sell it. We can sell land in four ways, Mike.

Oh, okay.

Sell it for retail cash. We can sell it on terms. We can sell it wholesale and we can sell the note.

You could also land on it.

You could land orbit. So five ways. But so what I would say is that in the Landee community, we are typically buying all of our land, putting it in our asset column and then turning around and selling it. The good news is, if you have $1,000, you can start. If you have five to ten to $20,000, you can start. You don't need 40, 50 grand like you would on a down payment on a. On a home. If you're gonna do some flipping or whatever. You don't need 80 to 100k if you're gonna do a franchise.

Right. Really what you need is to just make the commitment that you want to do this. And if you get deals under agreement, you can always find the funding. I'm very, very, like, adamant about that. Like, it's so true. Number one, find the deal, get it under agreement. Number two, seek the funding, whether it's your own or somebody else's. You control a deal that's 25 cents on the dollar, you are going to have people that are willing to work with you.

Yeah. That's such a mindset thing, isn't it, Mike? Like, all right. And this happened to me, and maybe, I don't know, when you and I got into this seven, eight years ago, maybe it just wasn't talked about as much or that type of thing, but, like, I felt limited because of the dollars in my bank account. If I had to do it all over again, I would not stop mailing like I did back in 2016, because the numbers were going down in my bank account. I would keep mailing because when I get assigned purchase agreements from someone, like you said, I control the deal.

Yes.

And I could literally find a buyer the next day. In the Facebook group, if I'm buying it at 25 cents on the dollar. I find Mike Zanel in the Facebook group. I sell it to him. 50 cents on the dollar. I don't necessarily need money in my bank account to do that.

Right. And it's because I may have buyers waiting, and I'm willing to pay a little bit of a premium because I didn't have to mail for that property. I know I'm going to flip it quickly, and so I would take advantage of that opportunity.

Right. Awesome.

You got some property for me? That's what I'm thinking. Is that what you're saying?

I always have property for you. Mike Zaino, Patrick Clark. Do you have a recommendation for a CPA firm that is good at the land business? Patrick? I do not. I have a. I have a. I have a lady actually in town. She. She doesn't want much more work, so I don't have a firm, but I Bet if you went to the Facebook group and posted something in there, you'd get people chiming in. Oh, you know what? Lloyd Ippolito, Mike.

Yes.

Lloyd Ippolito is a bookkeeper and a cpa. Or he's a CPA and he's a land geek. I'd recommend Lloyd.

Yeah. There's a number of people out there, right? It's great to go in the Facebook group and see. I use a guy named Craig Cody. He's pretty amazing, but there's all kinds of people out there. What's. How's that taste, dude?

This is really good. Really, really good. Pretty, pretty, pretty good. Pretty good. Larry Burrow, the dude, buddy. Gge. I love it. John Davis. But okay, so we asked him the numbers, right? He bought two adjoining lots at tax sale. Oh, my gosh. Mike, you ready for this?

I'm ready.

He bought two adjoining lots at tax sale for $50 each. Had to hire an attorney to foreclose, which cost him $1,100. So he's $1,200 into these properties. He's selling both for $7,000 to the neighbor with $500 down and $100 a month for eight years.

That's a pretty sick return.

$100 a month for eight years. That's 9,600 plus 500. That's $10,100. And you're $1,200 into the deal. What are you doing?

Checking the text line.

John Davis. Cheers to you, buddy, for an amazing deal. Those are the numbers we love right there.

That's really good. Those are really good numbers.

Really, really good numbers. It's not quite as good as that deal we had, Mike.

No, that was. I feel like. I feel bad even talking about that one. It's crazy.

Jasmine Salinas. What's up, Jasmine? Who has experience on subdividing, on subdividing in a hundred acre property? That's a good question. I would post that in the Facebook group. I bet you get people chiming in.

Yeah, yeah.

Have you done much subdividing, Mike?

No, not a lot of subdividing. You know, I often tell people our model is very simple. We're like an inch wide and a mile deep. We buy the property and we cash flow it. There are other places turn and burn. There are other moves, other plays where you can do subdividing and whatnot, but you can keep it simple as well. But that sounds like a great opportunity, and I hope that we stay. We get some updates on that on future nightcaps.

Future nightcaps.

Future nightcaps.

Another question from Kelsey Elizabeth. Mike Zano, you're in Massachusetts. Have you physically been to the, all the, to all the properties you bought?

No, never. I've only visited one location because we were buying like an incredible amount of land there and the seller wanted us to visit it. So we did visit. That. That was one time. That's the only time I've ever been to any of the properties.

I've been to two properties, they happen to be within a couple hours of where I live. But I would say that's. They, they comprise 1% of the deals I've ever done less than that.

So, yeah, it's funny because really, to most of us probably properties are two page documents. The pieces.

I know, they're just deeds, right? And now they're electronic.

Interesting.

Electronic deeds.

Yeah.

Awesome. Oh, we got lots of comments coming in. We got five minutes left. Mike said he's getting tired. He worked at fire station yesterday, by the way. He doesn't have to work anymore. He wants to work. I don't know what's up with this guy.

Well, I'm working with my son. He's going to be on the truck soon, I believe, and we're going to do a little work together and then I'll probably hang up the helmet.

Oh, that'll be something.

Yeah.

You can have like a big retirement ceremony and like they retire your, your number.

No, but every fall we do have a nice retirement dinner for all the people who retire within that year. And we take all the trucks out of the truck bay, we set up tables, and some of the guys cook an incredible meal. And the new, the brand new guys, they serve the meal. All the old retirees come. It's a great, great night. One of my favorite nights of the year.

Do family and friends come? No, just the guys.

Just. I've seen a couple people maybe over the years bring a female, but by and large, I'd have to say 99% of the time. It's just, just for the guys.

That's awesome. I want a brotherhood like that. I'm gonna like form a firehouse without the firefighting.

We can have a land fraternity.

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna form a frat.

Oh, landfraternity.com. is it available? Let's go.

You better check. Let's see here. Jason Mendoza's here. What's up, buddy? Funders are the no brainer option for me. Funders are awesome. Larry Merle says Lloyd is awesome. He is. Larry's bookkeeper, Sean Sadler. I'm thinking of mailing and buying in Texas, but if a default occurs, term sale in Texas, it seems, requires you to go to court to regain possession. How do you guys handle defaults in Texas? Sean? If you have the toolkit, I believe there's a workaround in the toolkit for.

That whole chapter in there on that. Yeah.

Jason Mendoza. You can even lock up the deal and have them do the work and get 40% of the profits. That's true. Ann Anderson is asking Jasmine where the hundred acres is. Let's see. Mark Beckerra. Hey there, team. Good evening. Does anyone use a realtor in their process? I have used a realtor. Probably less than the fingers I have on this hand. Less than the. Less times than the fingers I have.

Geez, say that fast.

Yeah, boy, this whiskey is strong, dude.

However, I'm gonna get through four more minutes. You got this.

I think in the appropriate market, I think it's a good, good strategy.

I've used them in certain instances just because, you know, when I go to an area, I want to dominate the area. I, I talk to all the players there, I'll talk to realtors, and if I find out they have someone interested in a property, they can move it quickly, then I have no problem handing off to them. But, but that's not, that's just so. Yes, I've done that. It can happen.

Area. Area. Do you know how you used to say area? The word area? A R E A. You used to say it. You used to say it. Area. Area. Area.

Area. Area.

Oh, it's still there. It's still there. Yeah.

How do you say it in Wisconsin?

It's area.

You're so, like, on point with your pronunciation. Look at that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Come on, join this dialect. Come over to the New England dialect. You'll have.

Join the dialect. I do it.

It's like shorthand for speaking.

Yeah, that's. That's for sure shorthand for something. Let's see here. Keith Grant tells you to retire. Steelbook is here.

Thank.

I know Steel Buck is wondering about flight school. Steel Buck, drop a line in the, in the hotline. On the hotline and we can talk about flight school for beginners. Mike, we have two journeys and they're completely different journeys, completely separate journeys. You got the toolkit. Do it yourself. You got the flight school. We do it with you. So it just depends on what journey you want to take.

Yeah, yeah, it's true. You know, there's a guided journey and there's a Do it yourself journey. I have. Oh, my buddy Dennis BlackBerry Black. I always say blacker. Be recently bought over 20 lots in Luna County. Marketing in progress. He says relax, don't get worked up when things don't move fast. Dennis, that is so true. I'm glad to hear that from you as well. What a great guy.

That's awesome. That was nice meeting him at the, at the boot camp.

Yeah. Speaking about boot camp is like a couple weeks away.

We got a virtual boot camp coming up. Virtual boot camp coming up last weekend in January. So if you want to spend Friday, Saturday, Sunday in your sweatsito because this is a tracksuit business, especially virtually and you want to learn all about land. Eight hours Friday, eight hours Saturday, three hours Sunday. Your price of admission is the investor toolkit. Come to boot camp. There's going to be 150, 200 of us there hanging out for the weekend. And even the virtual ones, Mike, are a great experience.

Yeah, it's very laid back. You know, I love the in person better because of the networking and hanging out. But I'll tell you, for just ease of access to great information, the virtual ones you can't beat.

Yeah, yeah, the virtual ones are awesome and you can, you know, like I said, come in your track tracksuit. A couple more comments. Patrick Clark. That's funny. Patrick never realized there was an on Alaska in Wisconsin. He heard it on the podcast and wondered what the heck I'd be doing in Dutch Harbor. Alaska. That's funny. Yeah. On Alaska. Cold.

It is. They have the word Alaska in it.

See? All right, Jasmine. Jasmine is getting all sorts of questions about her 100 acre. The 100 acre deal in Texas.

There you go. More whiskey.

Let's see. Atlanta was awesome. It was. Atlanta was awesome. Mike, do you remember not only was the boot camp awesome, I showed up way late though. I, I felt left out because.

No, we still had a great time.

We still had a great time. But do you remember the, the pool on the roof?

Yeah.

At the hotel. It was beautiful weather.

Yes.

We had a cigar.

We had everything going on. Yeah, it's fun hanging out with awesome great people. You know, at first the room was kind of tight, but it all worked out, you know, because we have a separate room for the VIPs. Those who are in coaching go to a separate room and. But it was really an interactive crowd, really great people.

Yeah, it was a ton of fun. So I think we should end on this. So we, so we got the virtual boot camp coming up in January. We do have a live Boot camp in Las Vegas in April.

Yes.

And that's a. That. That, in my opinion, is a magical event. I love that event. So we'd love to see you in Las Vegas in April.

Better than last time. Was like August and we were dripping sweat.

Yeah, it's going to be much better. And remember last time, it was like, at the height of COVID we had masks. It was just craziness. So, yeah, Las Vegas in April. We'd love to see you all there. It's so awesome to be in a room full of 150 land investors for a weekend. And, you know, it's also really cool is that people keep coming back. You see them over and over again because they love the event so much.

Because, you know, you see it from where you're at. If you're new, you're going to focus on something that's, you know, in the beginning of the process. But as you go on, you know, and you've learned that and you sort of really got comfortable with it, you're going to be seeing something else. So, you know, you can truly learn over and over at these events.

Yeah, for sure. People are wondering where to sign up for boot camp. Go to. Go to www.thelandgeek Bootcamp. And if you have the investor toolkit or if you have flight school, you get unlimited tickets to the virtual boot camp and you get two live tickets. I don't. I don't think the registration is open yet for Las Vegas, but the registration is open for the virtual, so. Www.thelandgeek.com Bootcamp. Mike, I can't even believe you haven't even mentioned.

I. Where'd you get that?

Haven't even mentioned.

Is that a hologram?

No, it's not a hologram, but it's a very cool Star Wars.

One of the kids get you that?

Yeah, the kids got me this. And there's different things you can put in here. I'll put a new one in next week. Different than R2D2.

All right. Very cool.

Pretty cool stuff, huh? And you can like. Yeah, here, check this out.

What's the next big TV show we gotta watch on style on like in the old Star wars was universe?

What's coming Mandalorian is coming out in Mandalorian March 3rd. Something like that. I loved andor wasn't it and or amazing. Yeah, look at that.

Look at that.

Look at that. All right, this is what you do as a land investor. You play with your Star wars toys all day. All right, thanks, everybody. We're gonna save my topic till next week. Such a good topic. I was so looking forward to it. And then you, you hijacked the. Hijacked it with the VA topic. Mike Z. We got 40 viewers tonight. I think this is the time slot. 9pm Eastern. It's got to be the time slot.

All right, let's do it.

We're coming back next week.

Of course we are. Next week will be Wednesday night, though.

Wednesday night. Next week it's church night, Larry. But please come. Thank you, guys. Have a good night. We'll talk soon. Jeff Storley, thank you. Hopefully to see you in Vegas. Thank you. Ann Anderson. Thank you. Patrick Clark, Larry Merle, as always. We'll be talking to you later. Oh, we didn't even talk about the T shirts, Mike. We're going to talk about the T shirts next week. Okay. So many things to talk about. Night, everybody. Yasmin said this was amazing. That's so nice. Good night.